Today I have a great guest post courtesy of Ryan Renfrew. For those of you who’ve read my posts in the last few weeks, Ryan is the “apprentice” I picked for my case study to improve traffic to a blog. The main reason I selected Ryan was because he has LOTS of passion for his niche. As you’ll see in the following article…
What uuuup? Ryan Renfrew here, hope you’re having an awesome day!
I’ve been researching the hell out of how to run a successful Internet business and how to rock the ultimate Internet lifestyle. After devouring and dissecting hundreds – if not thousands -of blog posts and modeling the best success stories out there, I have uncovered 7 core principles that all the great success’ of the industry have in common.
These 7 tips are the essential elements needed for building a better, reliable and financially stable Internet business. And If I may, I would like to share them with you awesome readers.
These are the core foundations that work for 99.999% of the top Internet heroes out there who truly live the ultimate Internet lifestyle.
#1- Work from to do lists every single day.
NEVER EVER turn on the computer and think to yourself “What should I do now?” Make a habit of writing a list of every task that needs to be completed that day, putting the hardest task first or the task you like to do least at the top. Then work your way down until everything has been checked off. Ideally you should make your daily checklist the night before – just before you go to bed. This will allow your brain to subconsciously make a head start and get to work as you sleep.
#2- Identify your “Critical Few”.
There are a ton of things that need to be done every day to keep your internet business running smoothly. Having said that only 5% of those things are the “Critical Few” – things that will drive your business forward. The rest are tasks that just have to be done as a matter of routine and can be outsourced to free up more time to focus on the Critical Few.
#3- Ruthlessly guard your time.
Manage the hell out of your time!! Crummy time management is a major cause of Internet business failure. Be mean with your time, keep a close eye over how you spend your time, the Internet can be a time vortex. Create a working schedule for your self, and stick rigidly to it.
#4- Automate and systemise.
You’ve got to automate and systemise every aspect of your business. If you working on a whim STOP! You have to create systems. You run the systems and in turn the systems run the business. I use systems for everything I can, systems for commenting on blogs, for building relationships online, managing my social media, writing a blog post etc. Find a way to systemise every aspect of your business.
#5 -Carry out a marketing review.
Put all your ads and promotions up on trial. Fire all the duds that aren’t working and costing you money. Ramp up and improve the campaigns and ads that pull in leads, subscribers and customers.
#6- Develop a Jedi mind set.
Design the Internet lifestyle you want and live your life in it. Sack all the drones, zombies and life sucking vampires that are in your life. Surround yourself with doers and achievers, learn from the best and develop a strong support network.
***Do this exercise right now. Make a list of all the haters and negative people that are in your life, online and offline. Strike a line through those you can cut out immediately and put an X beside those you can’t cut out just yet but want to reduce contact with. You get the picture…right?
#7- Make a list and check it twice.
You may have heard this before, ‘the money is in the list’, if you haven’t you’re no doubt going to hear it a lot. There really is no quicker way to grow your Internet business than making lists of leads, prospects, clients, subscribers, commentators and people you want to build relationships with. And once you’re done stay in contact- email, tweet, send information packed newsletters and Facebook updates. You get the picture, right?
And there you have it. The core foundations that you can implement immediately to create the Internet lifestyle of your dreams. If you would like to add any to the list or tell us what works well for you please drop a comment below.
Steve’s Notes: All seven tips are great ways you can get started on building your own Internet lifestyle. Anyway you can lot more about this topic by checking out Ryan’s lifestyle design blog.
Take Action. Get Results.
Great post Steve! When I saw Tristan’s tweet and a rockin’ title, I had to click the link. I’m big on to do lists and have several on paper (for blog, my children, appointments, etc.) and I keep one big list on my phone so I can just add/delete as necessary. And if it’s not on the to do list, it doesn’t get done. Anywho, I like how you talked about removing all the negative influences on and offline, which is very important. If you surround yourself with deadbeats, you’re not going to be motivated that’s why all of us need to surround ourselves with successful, hard-working people.
Steve – I wish you plenty of success and good luck!
Oops…That was good luck to Ryan! (And of course, continued success to you too Steve)
Hi Ryan,
This post is quite inline with my way of thinking. Unless your Internet connection is down, there are too many things that will keep you from getting stuff done.
And, if you are not getting stuff done, then in my mind, you are wasting your time. Since time is one thing you can never get back, I would say that is a bad thing.
I use lists for everything mostly because they help me to stay focused. It keeps me from thinking about what I have to do as well, which can make you feel overwhelmed (one of the more common reasons that people become unproductive, in my experience).
Also, I had to laugh about the Jedi mind trick. The first thing I thought was “I wonder if there is enough paper in here” then I considered doing that via computer. Perhaps a better way, for people like me, would be to write them all in the spreadsheet and then to close it without saving. Just a suggestion. 😉
Have a great day!
Hey Mark,
Yeh I know what you mean buddy, I play about sometimes with mind maps and vision boards in stead of lists. After a while lists become very unappealing to look at and hard to remember. It is easy to remember the look of a mind map or vision board, its a lot more creative as well- sometimes I get awesome insight when trying to convey a concept through images instead of using words, kinda spins some gears in the brain that aren’t normally used.
Hello Ryan.
Wonderful post with great advice. For sure, you can get nowhere fast without a to-do list. I learned this the hard way. There are just too many distractions in life and particularly on the internet.
As you’ve mentioned, we have to guard out time like there is no tomorrow. That means that decisions to pass on or ignore many of life’s other happenings will simply have to be made. We have to do what’s most important for building our businesses into something that will support the lifestyle we envision.
Nice one!
Right on Jimi,
Time is our most precious commodity, if we are smart with our time our lives will become richer and more fulfilling.
I like to think that over the years I’ve worked out quite a few of these, but the marketing review is something which I really need. After a lot of expert views failed utterly over the Christmas period I’ve decided to look at them as a test of what not to do, and try some ideas of my own, so thanks Ryan for the reminder.
Hey Lesly.
Its so important to remain detached from marketing reviews and be as objective as possible. Sometimes what we think oughta work doesn’t and we remained convinced that it will. An objective review will show exactly what is worth repeating and expanding and what isnt.
Lists, lists, lists,….I just love lists, both reading them and making them. 8) There’s nothing more satisfying than crossing items off a ‘to do’ list, especially if as you suggested, the worst thing is at the top. 😆
Actually one list I’m missing is #7, the one where the money is. 😮 I’m working on that though, and hope to put that right in the New Year.
Congratulations Ryan on being Steve’s apprentice, I’m sure he’ll be a better mentor than Alan Sugar or Donald Trump.
John
I agree, theres nothing more satisfying than crossing of an item on a list and writing VICTORY next to it. Makes it all worth while.
Ryan – Great tips on succeeding in the ever growing internet world. I particularly liked your number 2 “Identify Your Critical Few”. In the internet business there are a lot of mundane tasks that need to be done but don’t directly bring you closer to your goals online.
However, identifying those critical few will take some time and experience. I know for me, it took me at least a year to finally realize what were the less important things I should focus less of my time so I can spend more time on things that would help my online business grow faster.
Your number 6 is also true, but if I were to do that I would be completely isolated. But then again, I guess you do need to be isolated a little when you’re focused on reaching a certain goal.
Hey Kerry,
Its all about balance.
you could of course work 24/7 like a robot and sack every single distraction in your life. But we also need rest and relaxation, by doing the things we enjoy with the people we love. We need to set ourselves limits and boundaries and stick to them.
The clock on my computer is the most used clock i have. I’ve been doing a fair bit of time management for months now and it is so helpful, for once i can find the time to do things – and work to deadlines!
Thank for the post 🙂
I completely agree with “Identify your Critical Few” and “Ruthlessly Guard Your Time”. In my previous job I instituted a ‘work revolution’ adhering to these principles and others based on the 80/20 Principle with great success.
The one thing that I found though is that you need to be careful of dismissing things too early which you don’t believe are part of your ‘Critical Few’. Often what can seem unimportant at the moment can become critical in the future. For me the trick is regular re-evaluation and reflection on your decisions and principles within your time management paradigm.
Brenton,
I agree with you 100% reevaluation should certainly be part of the process. It is very hard to say far in advance what changes will affect the outcome of make what used to be nonessential become more essential.
Great post Ryan!
These are great pointers to follow and I’ll certainly use some if not all of them.
#5 & #7 are a part of my critical few for early 2011 as I start to monetize my blog and build my list.
I’ve always worked by lists, I have a daily and weekly list. I keep a notebook handy and as things pop up that need to be attended to I jot them down. Then at the end of the day once my daily to-do list is completed I spend time looking at the other things I wrote down and prioritize them according to importance and slot each one in either the following days list or the weekly list.
Happy 2011!
happy 2011 you to Gabi!
you make a good point, people change in your life changes I know I would’ve found important 10 years ago doesn’t have near the importance today. Like you say constant reevaluation is very important because of this fact.
Thanks for the awesome comment!!
Hi Ryan & Steve
All essential tips for a successful online presence and hopefully successful online business 🙂
Working at home unsupervised and alone; discipline and time-management are crucial if I want to achieve my goals in 2011. Love your list and here’s to your success too.
Patricia Perth Australia
I love the idea of the critical few. I think I need to adjust my few.