Proof in the pudding that Jesus is out there… if you’ve got five bucks.

I never thought I’d see the day where praying could be outsourced to an Indian call center for five bucks, but that day appears to be drawing ever closer.

“5 dollar make Him holler, honey boo boo…”

What’s next? I’ll tell you what.

I, Finch, will erase your sins for a pint of bitter and a packet of crisps.

Call me for bulk order discounts. Really fucked up shit will require that you order twice.

Offer must end soon. No time wasters.

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Crunch is an accounting solution, exclusive to the UK, for freelancers and small businesses. I’ve been using the software for over a year, and I’ve endorsed it to many other Internet Marketers with similar business models.

It’s a sleek, easy-to-use and very potent weapon in the battle to stay on top of my company’s finances, and by that virtue my own sanity.

Before Crunch, I was a disorganized slacktopus of number stained notepads, overflowing ‘in-baskets’ and accounts that only sometimes made sense. The resulting mess had my titties in a twist on more than one occasion. I spent much of my time in Thailand wondering if HMRC would be there to collect me – whip in hand – when I re-entered the UK.

“What have I missed? What have I done wrong?” Those thoughts kept me awake at night, or at least until I wisened up to the fact that keeping track of my accounts ‘the good old fashioned way’ wasn’t exactly working out.

Crunch got my company accounts in order. And despite the fact they still haven’t integrated support for foreign currency transactions, I’m very satisfied with the service.

Last week I spoke to Darren Fell, founder and Managing Director of Crunch, and he had some news that may tempt those of you who didn’t bite my initial positive review of the service.

It’s no secret that Crunch has been growing at a rapid rate. The software seems to boast new bells and whistles every time I login, which is either a testament to their proactive reinvestment, or a damning indictment of how often I actually log in. Probably a bit of both.

Either way, the latest development is more than just a software upgrade.

Crunch is being set free.

Well, kinda…

Crunch has unveiled a stripped down ‘Solo’ package for those who want to use their software free of charge. It’s not the whole shebang – some key features, like your bank feeds, remain upgrade-only – but it’s an impressive raft of features for anybody who wants to track, create and manage their invoices and expenses.

Perhaps more importantly, it’s a workable platform for startups and those on small budgets who need to get their accounts in order, but don’t have the flexibility to commit to a monthly plan of £70-or-so after VAT. You can join for free, track your company’s financial activity, and then upgrade seamlessly when the time comes (hopefully!) that you need a more complete solution.

I think it’s a deadly smart move from Crunch. Their software already boasts the holy grail of a simple interface matched to powerful functionality. It’s an impressive package, particularly when you stack it up against the competitors out there – many of which are overpriced, not to mention complete bastards in the user-friendliness stakes.

By offering an entry-level package, I would expect a lot of trial users to convert in to paid customers from the software advantages alone. Another wave will convert after the first whiff of taxation stress. I include my girlfriend and her newly launched limited company in that bracket. She signed up for a peek this week, much to my relief. Her previous outlook to taxes was “Well, you can help me with them, can’t you?”

“Those sweet words,” my dogs would bark, knowing damn well they’re about to be charged out the front door on ‘walkies duty’ in my bid to escape.

The second part of Crunch’s product rejiggery involves a new service called ‘Max’.

Max is designed for small businesses who need just a little bit more, as Darren put it. Priced at £89.50 per month, Max users can support up to four directors and ten employees on the payroll. It’s a premium service, designed to satisfy those customers with slightly more complex needs than a rogue Internet Marketing cowboy such as myself.

As part of the Max service, you will receive your own dedicated senior accountant, and a much more hands-on ‘We’re in this together‘ approach to your dealings. That includes a twice-yearly accounting health-check with your advisor. Sounds pretty cute and whimsical to me, but I’m sure there’ll be takers.

These new product launches, the first since Crunch started in 2009, should position the company to capture an even greater share of small businesses and freelancers in the UK.

I recommend you take a look at the Solo package if you were on the fence about trying them before. Take a nose around the software and see if it ticks the right boxes for your business.

Crunch are good peoples. Good peoples with a good product. I think they will continue to grow, and you’ll definitely be hearing a lot more about them.

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Criticism, haters and trolls.

The first in that list, criticism, is perhaps the hardest to swallow.

I believe one of the reasons why so many blogs die is because their owners find it tough to deal with the raft of criticism when their writing reaches a wider audience.

When you stick your neck on the line and make your opinions heard, it can take a while for the first criticism to appear. Many times, bloggers will get used to a small crowd of praise and positivity towards their posts. Followers congregate much sooner than haters, and it’s only when a brand verges on the realms of notability that the haters are likely to come out of the woodwork. It’s at this point that many bloggers, in my opinion, get trigger-shy.

They realise that with a growing readership, there are so many more toes to stamp on than there were before. The provocative, truthful and energizing posts get thrown out of the window, replaced by non-offensive and fence-sitting gibberish. They are less keen to offend, or risk a great backlash. They would rather satisfy every eyeball to the point where their voice becomes weak and mixed, or they will abandon the blog altogether.

It’s a great shame. Some of my favourite bloggers, through no coincidence, attract more than their fair share of haters and trolls.

Haters and trolls are irritating. But they are not the end of the world. What really can frustrate is the justified criticism. There are two forms of justified criticism: a difference in opinions, which is unavoidable and not a bad thing. Or a hole in your argument, usually the result of lazy posting or ill-considered comments.

A few months ago I wrote a supercharged negative review of Rich Dad Poor Dad. I wrote it in about 40 minutes after devouring the book in all of its gory mediocrity. Now I’ll admit, I got carried away with some of my criticism. But I wasn’t expecting it to reach the Top 5 on Hacker News and send thousands upon thousands of Rich Dad junkies my way.

In retrospect, I have now adopted a ‘no post goes live on the day of writing‘ policy. The cooling off period allows me to read the post with fresh eyes and detect any unnecessary exaggeration, or to add extra reasoning where needed. I believe I was also guilty of ‘small blogger syndrome’.

I wrote the post expecting it to appeal to my usual motley crew of readers, which it did, but I got lazy – and perhaps defeatist – in not considering what would happen if the post actually ventured outside my usual readership. The result was tens of thousands of new readers either loving or hating (depending on their take on the book) my preaching to the choir.

That lesson has taught me a lot about best practices for those running highly opinionated blogs.

Firstly, keep your usual readership in mind, but don’t fall in to the trap of preaching to the choir. Always aim to challenge and win over new readers. Avoid simply ‘phoning in’ posts. A lot of bloggers never venture beyond cult hit status because they’re too paralyzed with fear to overcome the criticism they might receive from existing readers for growing as a brand.

This can backfire spectacularly if your writing becomes so niched-in that your arguments are dripping with in-group bias. The outside reader sees only a very closed mind, even if your followers love you.

Secondly, if you are going to make a controversial statement, prepare to be challenged by those who stumble upon your views with their own fully fleshed arguments to the contrary. In essence, prepare for criticism before it arrives. You can’t slag off people, concepts and arguments and expect your blog to be a widespread success without very sound reasoning to back up your points.

Nothing intimidates haters and trolls like a confident voice in charge of his views and muse.

Objectively, however, criticism and mixed opinions are unavoidable. If you get lazy with your argument, and that argument goes viral to be seen and rebuked by thousands of readers – many ruffled by your obnoxious 24 year old entrepreneur posturing – you’ve only got yourself to blame. A cooling off period is essential.

Re-read your work and play Devil’s Advocate. What are the weak points? What statements are poorly backed up? It’s easy to miss these vital factors when you hit the Publish button while your cheeks are still flushed with writer’s venom.

I’m slowly learning that the best time to publish new material is when I’m in a neutral mood. Not angry, not sad, not overwhelmed with joy (psst, last spotted in 1997). Tilted emotions typically lead to skewed views on the world. You will attract rightful criticism, and rightful criticism is always the most demoralizing to your work if not learnt from rapidly.

It’s fine to write material when you’re in those moods. But when you are the editor of your own content, it’s important to separate the ego from the neutral observer. You can’t do this by publishing 5 minutes after writing.

And what about those haters and trolls? They can surely only be a good thing. They are the evidence that your brand is sticking, and moving in the right direction. The best way to deal with such urchins is to carry on as you were. Embrace the disagreements, and those occasionally hateful voices. At least it means you’re being heard.

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Jack thought a little peace and quiet would be nice. What better way to finish his writing than to migrate to a remote hotel with nothing but time and his rocking shadow to fill the void? Unfortunately, that particular ‘home’ turned out to be harbouring some sinister spirits.

Believe it or not, Internet Marketers and Jack Torrance have something in common. No, not haunted mansions. But rather, we have to deal with the psychological effect of isolation. We have to win the battle that goes on inside our heads.

Disconnecting from the world and working from home is some people’s idea of paradise. Well, if you’re not careful, it could turn in to your idea of Hell. And before you know it…

Well shit, Sherlock. I guess that 9-5 doesn’t look so bad, after all.

We Are All Creatures of Habit

From the age of about 5, we are indoctrinated with a system of routines. A system that – for many people – lasts all the way through to retirement.

There are 8760 hours in a year, and not many people have the power and responsibility to decide how they spend every last one of them.

I’ve spoken to many Internet Marketers like myself, and a recurring theme is the difficulty in striking a work-life-play balance.

Even though I had less freedom, I look back on my stint working for a London agency as one of the easiest times of my life. The days and weeks were laid out for me. You turn up at 9am, leave the office at 6pm, and whatever hours left in the day are yours to spunk however you see fit. There was a beautiful simplicity to life, albeit a restricting schedule that often left me chewing a large Mocha to get through the mornings.

I won’t lie. Working from home will always be my preferred arrangement. But it comes at the price of isolation. Do you ever feel that the rest of the world is racing on by without you?

The effect was magnified during my 8 months living in Thailand. There were periods of mild depression where I felt so isolated from other 24 year olds that I lost complete direction and control over my life. I came back to London thinking it would reignite me somehow. I was excited just to be able to communicate in English with whoever was serving me coffee. It was a luxury. But now having settled back in to the suburbs, the same restlessness has returned with a vengeance.

I come from the small town of Ruislip in North West London. It’s a nice town, but it rarely sets my pulse racing. The last time I got excited was when Boris Johnson rolled up outside Budgens seeking London Mayoral votes. You know you’ve got problems when the presence of Boris makes your day.

Despite being just 40 minutes from the hub of Central London, life here is slow. It’s really slow. There are times where I forget that human life exists outside my window, until I hear the trundle of a granny mowing down the street on her scooter. Then I realise, Jesus Christ, if she doesn’t slow down, some poor sod is about to get his arse extinguished by her four wheeled killing machine. That’s when I feel alive.

From my home office window, on a particularly exciting day, I may glimpse next-door’s cat getting in to a fight with a pigeon. But that’s about it. There are times where for all of the freedom and comfort that comes from working at home, I do question my future sanity. I’m 24 years old and most of my conversation throughout the day comes from two extremely lively dogs barking at me for food. Is this really all there is to Internet Marketing?

I think a lot of want-to-be-work-at-homers underestimate how quickly total freedom can spiral in to a blur of inactivity. There are times where ‘rudderless ship’ has summed me up perfectly.

Working from home creates a huge vacancy of time. Pretending that such a void can be filled with work, television and coffee is quite possibly one of the biggest lifestyle fuck-ups you can make.

Everybody needs to feel alive socially, and much of the natural gravitation behind that pursuit is stripped away when you decide to work from home. You have to make the effort, on a personal level, to ensure that your sense of camaraderie and belonging doesn’t dissipate from the moment you leave the office for the final time. Working at home is not the answer to anybody’s true sense of paradise. It’s just a contributing factor.

When you have more hours at your disposal than everybody else, you need to find more ways to pass the idle time. You need hobbies and social routines. Activities that snap you away from your screen and inject purpose beyond making money from so-and-so.

A day built around wealth generation is completely wasted when you think about it. Why aren’t you enjoying what you already have? I’ve had to answer that question many times for myself and it represents my biggest struggle of the last 3 years.

We are all creatures of habit. For most of us, those habits are defined through systems that are implemented from childhood. But when you step outside the system, isolation and poor planning can unleash a truly ugly creature.

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If nothing else, it’s certainly a step up from E-Junkie.

Volusion: The Basics

Volusion simplifies the process of running an online store. It’s branded as the definitive all-in-one ecommerce solution, boasting 24/7 support, and over 35,000 active websites currently using the software.

Volusion looks mighty fine in the presentation stakes. It’s sleek and professional. The product listings, checkout process and homepage are distinctly un-Clickbank, which is always a good thing in my book.

You can choose to install one of the many existing design templates, or hack it together yourself. I got lucky with one of the ready-made templates being a perfect match for what I was looking to achieve.

There are a number of payment gateways available; including PayPal, Google Checkout, wire transfers, electronic cheques, money orders and straight up cash (seriously, how many online stores accept a fistful of dollars these days?).

You can also apply for a merchant account to handle credit and debit card transactions in-house. While I do like the idea of a one-page checkout, I don’t hate Paypal enough to want to go through the ball ache of setting up a merchant account. Horses for courses, right?

Why I’m a Fan

Before using Volusion, I had been selling my products via a rather primitive ‘Add to Cart‘ button on your typical WordPress page. There are three features I wanted that required ugly hacks to mesh with the E-Junkie shopping cart: coupon codes, Facebook integration and an efficient affiliate program.

Coupon codes are easy to setup with Volusion. You can set as many codes as you want, and they look far less jarring than they did with E-Junkie. Previously I would be forced to ask the customer for their coupon code in a dirty text field before clicking any checkout button. This led to many customers bailing on a purchase because they couldn’t find a coupon code and didn’t want to miss out on a deal. Not a problem with Volusion.

The Volusion affiliate program is a must-have for anybody like myself who relies on word-of-mouth buzz to promote his products. Affiliates can sign up and receive a fixed % commission, or a specific payout set at the product level. If you have ‘super affiliates’, you can reward them Amazon-stylio by ramping up their commission for extra sales delivered. Very nice, very sleek and very easy to manage.

Volusion is also nicely prepared to jump on future trends. There is complete integration with Facebook, the ability to set ‘Daily Deals’, and even the option to run your own rewards scheme. Some of the more visual features, like bestselling lists and featured products, can be added in the space of about 5 seconds using the many fully customisable widgets.

I haven’t immersed myself in these features yet as I’m only selling 4 products, but they look like excellent tools for increasing sales. Arguably Volusion’s greatest selling point is how effectively it presents your products, and how easily it lets you promote them.

If you have a great idea, there’s every chance you can execute it within the hour thanks to the huge array of features Volusion packs in; many of which are likely to sit dormant for months until a sudden brainfart alerts you to their potential.

The Packages

Behold:

Click to enlarge.

Problems I’ve Encountered

I expect I will get to grip with the following grievances as the software becomes more familiar. But that leaves a question mark hanging over the learning curve. How long does it take to get to grip with Volusion? I think you’ll need at least a week to learn this thing inside out. Even then, you’ll still be finding new functionality hidden four menus deep.

Some problems I’ve noted:

Shipping has been behaving randomly.

Perhaps the biggest problem – one that I’m still in conversation with support over – is the tendency for some shipping emails to get lost in the shuffle. I’ve had to send several customers their purchases manually. It would be mighty foolish to expect all orders to come in through 9-5 BST, especially with customers scattered all around the world, so I’d like this to be automated and foolproof ASAP.

I’m told that the issue is now fixed. Fingers and bollocks crossed.

Too many options?

I understand the need for flexibility on an ecommerce platform, and I’m admittedly biased from the viewpoint of a guy who only wants to sling his digital products. However, the number of options to get your head around in the configuration process may prove slightly overwhelming if you’re not a numbers man.

Just to add a product to the store, there are no less than 121 fields begging for your attention. Do they all merit the inclusion? It depends what you’re selling, but I’ve left a good 80% of my options empty.

If you’re buying Volusion with the sole intention of selling digital products, there’s a lot of information to digest that will never be relevant to your business, and yet you will still need to comb over it in case you miss something important.

Volusion could perhaps benefit from a modular approach. “Will I be shipping physical products?” If the answer is no, disable these four million extra options and Finch will stop drowning his neighbour’s kittens in dismay.

So, Volusion: Worth The Investment?

I shudder to imagine how many sales I lost with E-Junkie’s clunky interface and lack of marketing features. Volusion is exactly the opposite, and I’m optimistic that it’ll make a positive impact on my bottom line.

All things considered, the price is outstanding. I’ve started on the Bronze Package which is paid for with a single sale of my Premium Posts.

You can take a 14 day trial to setup your entire store on a demo server. Throughout the process, I’ve found the support team to be highly responsive and well worth their salt with the “We’re here 24/7” claims. I’ve had answers to my questions usually within 30 minutes of submitting a ticket. And I’ve been submitting a lot of tickets.

If you like what you see, upgrading to a paid package and putting the site live is relatively pain-free. It took me 5 days to go from a completed demo site to the public launch. A little longer than I expected, but worth it in the end.

I recommend taking Volusion for a trial spin if you’re in the market for a good shopping cart. It’s surpassed my expectations so far.

Recommended This Week:

• Need a new shopping cart? Like flogging products online? Sign up for a 14 day peek at Volusion here.

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In 2007, Getting Things Done was touted by Time Magazine as the ‘ultimate self-help business book of its time‘. Strong words, no doubt, and I agree with them 100%.

If you have ever used Omnifocus, Things or Remember The Milk, you will be familiar with David Allen’s methodology – even if you’ve never read the book.

The latest application to digitalise the Getting Things Done system is Nirvana, and thankfully for any Mr. Shallow Pockets among us, it’s completely free to use.

What is The Nirvana System?

Nirvana follows the same blueprint touted by David Allen in Getting Things Done. Allen’s system relies on two core principles – perspective and control. Any task that occupies our mind, whether it be doing the laundry or launching a high profile website, needs to be recorded and removed as a distraction to free up valuable ‘thinking power’.

Allen argues that our minds are comparable to the RAM in your computer. A complex library of thoughts, reminders, things to do, and things to act on. He believes that we create ‘mental blocks’ by attempting to carry so much information in our short-term memories, and that we can make immediate progress by using a workflow system based around 5 stages.

1. Collect things that command our attention.
2. Process what they mean and what to do about them.
3. Organise the results.
4. Review as options for what to do next.
5. Do it.

So, how do these steps result in improved productivity with Nirvana?

An example, not my real account!

The interface is segmented in to 4 key areas.

Inbox – Where you record tasks and to-do items as they enter your mind.

Actions – Once a task has been entered in to the system, it can fall in to four focus areas.

• Next means it is the next required action to move a project along.
• Waiting means that the task cannot be completed until a certain requirement is met (e.g. your colleague sends you the files you need to work with).
• Scheduled means this is a task that you have planned to do on a certain date.
• Someday is for all those arbitrary tasks that would be nice to complete, but can’t be worked on in the present. It’s an incubation folder for all the tasks that you might do on a lazy Sunday afternoon in the future.

Focus – Once you’ve decided what tasks to work on for the day, you can star them. It’s essentially your to-do list. If you have scheduled tasks for the future, they will appear here once their ‘doing day’ has arrived.

Projects – Here you create projects for every conceivable group of tasks that you might want to work on in the future.

Launching FinchPremiums.com was a project with about 60 tasks that I slowly chipped away at, focusing on 6-7 every day.

Similarly, planning a trip to America is a ‘project’ in the sense that several processes have to happen before you can tick it off as done and dusted. Buying tickets, choosing hotels, finding a dog carer and etc.

To get maximum value out of Nirvana, you should first add a project for every single “I want/need to do this” that enters your mind. Most people will have at least 50 projects that they’re working on at any given time, from arduous 3 year work projects to preparing a fancy dress outfit for the weekend.

You can assign the projects to the same subsets of Next, Waiting, Scheduled or Someday. Maybe you don’t want to plan a trip to America, but you do want to travel round the world by the time you’re 40. One is a next action, the other is for someday.

The key to freeing up your mental RAM is to get the thoughts documented and contained within Nirvana so you don’t have to carry them in your short-term memory. The ultimate goal is to free your mind so that you can focus only on the task at hand.

The GTD system is a very effective framework, and Nirvana makes it easy to follow. But to do so successfully, you’re probably going to need to spend an entire weekend getting your projects added to the application. Not only that, but you will need to define the next actions for each and every project.

It’s no good saying “I’d really love to do this project“. Your projects must have next action steps so you don’t have to waste valuable mental energy thinking about what you need to do next when you come back to them. You just do it.

Tasks can also be set with contexts and priority ranking. You can group tasks based on where they need to be done (at home, in the office, at the store), or even how much energy they require.

So if, like me, you find yourself sagging on a Friday afternoon with only an hour to go before you’re done, you can filter for tasks that match the requirements of ‘in the office’ and ‘low energy required’. This is one of my favourite ways of getting the most out of my least productive time.

There’s nothing worse than sagging at the end of the day and feeling overwhelmed by the lofty ambitions of what you hope to achieve in the bigger picture. Setting low energy tasks gives you small victories to keep you moving forward.

Nirvana vs. The Competition

How does Nirvana stack up against the rest of the apps based around David Allen’s system?

Arguably the biggest player in the GTD marketplace is OmniFocus, an excellent and comprehensive application that has the added advantage of being compatible with iPads and iPhones. Sounds great, and it is great… if you’re an Apple fan.

My phone is a Samsung S2, and I have no desire to get an iPad…so no benefit there.

The desktop version of OmniFocus only works on Macs. While I do have a Mac, I also spend a lot of time on my laptop which is Windows-based. Needless to say, there’s very little point in having a life management tool if you have to be in front of an iProduct to use it.

Nirvana has an advantage here. It’s accessible on both Windows and Mac. There doesn’t seem to be a smartphone application for it yet, but you can email tasks to your Nirvana address and they will show up in the system.

I’ve never used Remember The Milk, and I’m not a big fan of Things. You’ll have to let me know if I’m missing out.

Whereas most of these applications are not 100% free, Nirvana is, and it’s lightning fast to get started with (5 fields and you’re in). For anybody who wants to try the GTD system, but doesn’t want to spend $80, I highly recommend checking it out.

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To the naked eye, it looks like I have some serious hoarding issues.

Who collects dating site logos, I mean, seriously?

I have a bunch of text files filled with nothing but numbers – future projections of traffic stats, conversion rates and earnings. They meant something at the time. But two weeks later, I’ll be damned if I can remember what my calculator was smoking.

Call it poor organization, call it a cluttered desktop, call it whatever the hell you want. I prefer to blame the perils of my worst enemy – the little voice in my head that says “Oh, nice. I’ll save that for later.”

How are your bookmarks doing?

If I had a dollar for every bookmark I’ve saved for future reference and never touched again, I’d probably sell this blog on Flippa, migrate to the Caribbean and never speak to any of you ever again. It’s insanity.

Just forraging through my links today, I found some genuinely very useful articles that could help my business moving forward… if it only it were 2009.

If I were to teleport in to your office and glance to the side of your keyboard and mouse, what would I find? If you’re like me, I’d find a notebook tainted by coffee stains. After picking it up and scanning through the pages, I’d find the 101 ‘light bulb moments’ that you scribbled down in excitement, only to bury under new pages never to be referenced again.

Let’s be real. ‘Saving it for later’ means you’re probably not going to see that shit ever again.

And that’s a shame, because it’s retaining the occasional light bulb moment that separates the creative minds from those who are equally creative but hopelessly inept at proving it outside their own heads.

How Can We Get Organised?

It’s quite simple.

If you are the kind of person who stores snippets of a thousand bright ideas, make sure you’re storing them somewhere that you’re going to reference, and act on from time to time.

Unless you set aside a specific time to venture in to your bookmarks, re-read what you’ve saved, and decide whether you want to act on it – the whole gesture is futile, a bloody stupid waste of time. Worthy of a slap in the tits.

The same applies to the notepad on your desk.

I am distancing myself from notepads altogether. They are a nice organization tool in theory – “Mhm, moleskin, I bet this changes my life!” – but in practice, as soon as you’ve turned the page, the scribbles might as well have jumped through the fire exit of your mind.

Instead of using a notepad, I’ve started to record my brainfarts on to post-it notes. This may come across as vapid, or slightly psychopathic, but it’s also very effective.

As soon as I’ve splurged the idea on to my post-it, I’ll drop it in a transparent box next to my Mac.

At the end of every day, or sporadically during the week when I’m having a downtime, I will empty the box and decide whether I want to save the idea for a future project (in which case it gets filed under Maybe Projects), or burn it while fisting myself in the bollocks for even contemplating the lunacy.

You could argue that replacing a notebook with post-it notes is a tiny change, and it is. But the principle has nothing to do with how you document your brainfarts. It has everything to do with remembering to set aside time to trace back and act on them.

Too many light bulb moments get lost in the back of notebooks that serve no purpose other than to make you feel organized. ‘Saving it for later’ only makes sense when your collection tool is not interchangeable with the trash can.

It’s something to remember as you click and drag your entire desktop contents in to a new ‘To Sort’ folder!

If your ‘To Sort’ folder runs six directories deep, your sorting skills probably extend only so far as fiddling with your balls on a sunny Wednesday afternoon. No shame in that, but it’s not particularly smart.

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If a task is too daunting, or your goals too distant, search for the bright spots and focus on what’s already working.

This is a simple but powerful concept of great significance to Internet Marketers. We are notorious multi-taskers. Our greatest fault is traditionally that we spread ourselves too thin and don’t see projects through to their conclusions.

Think of an SEO project as an example. In your head, you have a starting point – it might be the Google Keyword planner, or an exciting new niche you’ve heard about. And similarly, you have a final destination – typically a highly trafficked, super profitable web property that earns money while you sleep.

The hard part is travelling the road that connects those two destinations. More specifically, it’s the feeling of “What in the hell am I supposed to do now that I’ve launched this shit and I’m sick to death of it?”

Somewhere between defining our vision, and reaping the rewards of its fruition, we face problems; twists and turns that deter us from completing the project. The middle part – the long open road – is always the hardest.

To use the SEO project example, our open road might involve endless backlink building, content creation and keyword tracking. Much of this is laced with dead-ends and hours spent unproductively. The only way to finish these projects, to realise our vision, is to keep searching for the bright spots.

Ask yourself, “What is working? How can I build on it?”

Maybe one of the pages on your site is whoring the majority of the traffic. In which case, can you isolate the variables that are fuelling its popularity? Is it being shared socially? Why is it being shared socially? How can you create more content that ticks the same boxes?

This flexible mindset of learning on the road is vital if you’re going to connect your launch foundations with the end vision of a prosperous money machine.

A fixed mindset rarely ever works in business, and certainly not where SEO is concerned. We are much more successful when we pinpoint the areas that are bringing us the most success, and adapt our work going forward.

This is a fault that has troubled me no end in the past. I have a habit of being too concrete with my processes, and not allowing user feedback or valuable data to manifest itself and shape a more productive strategy going forward. I’m a pretty stubborn bastard, and it’s probably cost me a lot of money.

Switch certainly struck a chord with my stubborn side. I’ve started to re-evaluate my career objectives and match them up to the bright spots of my current business model. It’s resulted in me culling two entire dedicated servers and dropping about 20 domains, but I’m pretty sure I’ve made the right decision going forward.

If you feel like your wheels are spinning in the tracks, and you can’t seem to inch closer to your defining vision, the easiest and most damaging attitude is to focus at what you’re doing wrong. It’s much more productive to find the bright spots and use them as a guiding light. Hinge your business around what’s already working. Focus on your strengths.

I really enjoyed the first half of Switch. It packs in a lot of useful actionable advice that I haven’t read in any other change bible (and I’ve read my fair share). The book loses its focus around the halfway point and descends in to more of a tribute towards the authors’ favourite social psychologists, which might go unnoticed and appreciated by some, but for others will feel like a Robert Cialdini overdose. Still, a recommended read.

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If you’ve ever dabbled with the idea of launching your own blog, here are 7 unexpected benefits that might tip you towards your first post.

1. A Good Blog Makes Money

Okay, that’s get it out of the way, shall we? There’s no denying that one of the greatest benefits of running a successful blog is the money that it brings.

There are many ways to generate money. You can sell banner space, sling affiliate products, or use them as battlegrounds to take over the blogosphere with your own shady product creations. Many writers use their online reputations to pick up consulting gigs.

The money should never be your number one reason for starting a blog. But I also don’t buy the overused line that “I write to help others“. That’s bullshit. Every blogger has his own agenda, and it is usually either commercial or ego related. In my case, it’s a bit of both.

2. Free Shit is Nice

My girlfriend and I are both writers. She is a fashion, beauty and lifestyle blogger. I’m an affiliate marketing blogger. Guess who gets the better free shit? I’ll give you a clue. If you think it’s me, you need your head examined.

Over the last 18 months, my girlfriend has blagged an absolutely huge raid of freebies. She gets sent products every week. We’ve also enjoyed free holidays, free hotels, free Michelin starred dinners and a whole lot more.

My favourite freebie was an expenses-paid trip to an absolutely luscious hotel called The Library in Koh Samui. Imagine waking up to this in the morning…

…and knowing that you got it because you splurged some opinions on a WordPress once upon a time.

So what freebies do I receive as a blogger in the Internet Marketing space? Well, other than the occasional trip to visit a network, and the ‘thank you’ Christmas presents, the biggest perks are the free access to paid services and products.

It’s not five star hotel material, but I’ve saved thousands of pounds with free copies of products that have come in very useful for my business. Popular forums like Stack That Money and Aff Playbook have unleashed a wealth of information that has been both profitable and practical to my business. And of course, it tastes even sweeter when it’s free.

I regularly get blitzed with software and tools before they go public. Not that I end up reviewing many products, but I simply wouldn’t receive them if I hadn’t established a blog.

I’ve learnt that free shit is good, which is why my next blog will probably be called FinchTravels.

3. Preferential Treatment

In affiliate marketing, having a blog isn’t just the trademark of a huge ego. It’s a valuable device for getting preferential treatment, and for deterring shady companies from screwing you over.

Many affiliate networks will have no problem in stiffing a loud-mouthed publisher who doesn’t follow their guidelines to a tee. But if you have an influential blog, those same networks will always think twice before messing with you.

I’ve heard many horror stories of new affiliates getting rough treatment that simply wouldn’t happen if they had a platform to voice their grievances. It’s deterrence, and no more. I’ve never directed a complaint at a company over my blog, and that’s probably because they bend over backwards to make sure I don’t have a reason to.

The downside to having an influential blog is the enormous amount of sucking up that comes your way. Internet Marketing harbours a lot of fake individuals, and if you have a platform where they can promote their message, you’ll find the urchins congregating around your inbox like flies to a turd.

4. Stay Social in an Unsocial World

My industry is not the sort where your day ends at 5pm, and you can hit the town to wash away your weekly sins with seven pints and a Jägerbomb.

The opportunity to wade through London’s bars and clubs doesn’t present itself very often now that I work at home in the suburbs. Since I quit the day job, my social life has become something that requires effort. It demands jumping on a train and heading in the opposite direction to the hoards commuting home wearing disconsolate frowns.

So how does blogging come in to this? Well, firstly, I wouldn’t call blogging a form of socialising. As I look around me, I’m accompanied by a Maltipom and a bunch of sausage roll wrappers.

Social, my arse…

But what blogging does offer is an opportunity to express yourself explicitly.

When I blog, it’s like a tsunami outpouring of whatever is frustrating me on a given day. Occasionally, people will leave comments telling me I’m a closet genius, although more often they’ll compare me to a complete dumbarse. Hey, whatever, that’s okay.

Simply expressing myself and reading the comments has a therapeutic appeal. It opens the walls of my home office and assures me that there are other people out there facing the same challenges.

If you’re working a lonely job – like Internet Marketing, or coding, or anything that happens to be remote – running a blog can help you connect to your peers. It takes away the illusion of isolation.

If Jack Nicholson had a blog in The Shining, maybe he’d have kept his shit together.

5. Lend Authority to Other Projects

Assuming you’re building a blog that is just as focused on you as the brand, as it is on the subject matter, there’s enormous potential to use it to lend authority to other projects you may be working on.

Launching a new website from scratch is a tiresome struggle on many fronts. There’s the SEO, the initial word of mouth, the seeding of fan pages. Christ, the process can suck the giblets out of even the most patient of souls.

Having a blog to lend authority to your new projects is an excellent headstart. It’s like a piggyback over the first few weeks of trauma, tantrums and ball-ache.

I actively cross-promote my projects, and if I ever want to give a new site a boost, I can generally drop a link to lend some authority. This works both in the eyes of interested readers, and the Google juggernaut.

Blogging gets a bad name for relying too heavily on mindless self-promotion, which is probably justified. But mindless self-promotion rocks when you can get away with it. Why the hell not? Nobody has to read your drivel. Most just choose to anyway.

6. Getting a Job is Much Easier

How many people spend 20 years traipsing through education only to find ‘the dream job’ is still out of reach once they’ve graduated?

I posted several months ago that the blog is becoming the new degree.

Anybody can write a résumé, but the résumé shines only a tiny spotlight on an individual’s talent. It doesn’t reveal much, and it will always be weighted relatively against the next submission in the pile, which is often as thick as a J.K Rowling brainfart.

I advocate blogs as a great starting point for expanding your career opportunities. They reveal far more about your understanding of a subject than an introspective résumé ever could.

That’s not to say you shouldn’t list your qualifications and achievements somewhere on the site. If you have them, anyway. I’m a high school dropout, and school is something I try not to talk about.

The beauty of a blog is that you will be judged by the thoughts, arguments and knowledge you put forward. Every comment, every subscriber and every reader is a testament of your influence – even if they don’t agree with you.

Blogging is a way of proving your worth that doesn’t cost a penny.

Unfortunately, if your dream job involves rising through the football ranks or becoming a world renowned brain surgeon, you should probably look elsewhere. If somebody is operating on my skull, I want to know that they’ve been to university and paid their dues, not that they’ve dabbled with some WordPress widgets in their basement.

7. I Would Explode if I Didn’t Have One

Writing is a creative outlet. It’s a scientifically accepted mood improver.

Ever since I was 16, I’ve kept some form of journal or blog to document my various moments of insanity over the last eight years.

The vast majority of those outpourings I cannot look back on with anything other than disgust and a beetroot face. I find it impossible to read my own writing, even on subjects as notoriously heartless and cold as affiliate marketing.

Regardless, writing has a therapeutic quality to me. Just by putting in to words whatever I’m feeling; professional, personally, even politically; I can isolate the mood swings and stay focused on my actual goals.

It’s a tough process to explain to anybody who doesn’t share the feeling. I’m sure many readers will treat the idea of therapeutic writing with looks of disdain. Writing is certainly not a universal passion.

Nonetheless, I would explode if I didn’t blog. It’s probably the biggest benefit of them all. Making money, expressing myself, and not exploding. The only incentives I need.

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He’s the star of An Idiot Abroad, which has to be one of the best comedy documentaries in a very long time.

If you haven’t seen it, go and hunt down a copy. The world needs more realists like Karl.

Season trailer:

Episode 1 highlights:

Awesome Karl Pilkington quotes:

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