And when I talk about a to-do list, I mean a plain old list on a piece of paper. Forget digital calendars, forget Blackberries. You need a piece of paper that you can keep in your pocket. Digital reminders and organizational aids are useless. You forget to check them, and they don’t feel tangible enough.

Get a small notebook, or a pocket agenda or anything that suits you that you can scribble on.

Then, every workday, write down the things you want to do or have to do. Once you have your chores written down, go through the list and underline the ones that have to be done the next day. Things like payments, deadlines, calls, whatever needs to be done very soon. Also, underline the tasks you consider important. The tasks that if were the only ones done that day, you would be satisfied with a good day’s work.

Try to remember this: a to-do list is not a long-term organizational chart. If it is not in the next few days, then it doesn’t belong on the list.

Then comes the next step. Go through the list once again, and find which jobs can be assigned to others. It will seem hard at first, because it is hard to let go of the control and give important tasks to others, but you will see the benefit very fast. Don’t be afraid to assign tasks to your friends and family. Beg them, hire them, blackmail them, whatever it takes. Maybe your brother can add that bank transaction to his daily chores, or maybe that nephew can do the javascript job. Once you train yourself to think that way, you will find that you will have more and more people to outsource to. And I bet you will be shocked with how many things you can do in a single day once you have a proper network of friends and colleagues.

Then, go out and start doing the tasks in your to-do list.

When the to-do list becomes a rag, write a new one, while moving over the unfinished business from the old one.

Let’s recap.

• Grab a piece of paper.
• Write your to-do list.
• Underline the important stuff.
• Outsource as much as you can.
• Do the tasks, strike them out as you complete them.
• Write a new to-do list the next day.

I know some people will laugh at this, that this advice is too simple, too plain, too banal. But I have seen how this mindframe improves my productivity, so here it is for you. No one said that important stuff should be complicated.

Now go get a piece of paper.

Now, unless you really are smart, don’t do that. Learn to speak simple, to communicate clearly to everyone. If you ask an actual smart person how they communicate with others, they will tell you that they have to get on the same level with the other person. Yes, communication requires common ground, so a smart person has to reduce himself to the level of his listener.

Think of your target group. If it is teenagers, then you need to learn the new slang. If it is men who compare their PhD’s instead of their dicks, you need to talk like one of them. If it is soccer moms learn how soccer moms talk.

But always, always make sure you get your point straight. Ask them if they got it right, and make them comfortable enough to say so. Ask for questions. “Is everything clear?” should become a reflex for you.

Talking simple and making others understand what you want is an essential skill for the elegant business. Outsourcing and employees are an essential part of the elegant business, and you need to talk to them. You need to order them. You need to explain the specifications of the job you want done.

Most of the times you will ask businessmen about employees and freelancers, and they will tell you that they are a pain in the ass. Actually, in the majority of the situations the problem is located in miscommunication. And a good percentage of that blame falls on the man hiring, yes, the businessman who says freelancers are a pain in the ass.

I know how difficult it is to give exact specifications, because I have hired enough people in my life. At first, my specs were vague, because a: I did not have a clear image of what I wanted and b: I thought people would make something that I was pleased with. Once I realised that I needed exact specifications and actually took the time to give them to the freelancer, their work suddenly became amazing.

No matter how skilled the freelancer/employee is, you have to give them clear instructions when you want them to do something for you. If the orders are not clear, it is your fault, not theirs. And if they the message is still unclear, it is up to you to make it clear. Only if the order is clear, and you took the time to correct any misunderstandings, then it is the receiver’s fault. Not before.

If you constantly tell people, “no, you don’t get what I mean” then you are a poor communicator. You. Instead of talking fancy, start talking simple.

Also, take into consideration the other person’s mind when you give them orders. A cleaning lady needs different instructions than a designer. The cleaning lady needs to be told what to clean, how to clean it, and what nasty corners to take care of. The designer needs exact specifications, image dimensions, file types, exact colors, dpi, style, etc. That is what reducing yourself to another person’s level means. Get in their head, talk the way they talk and give them crystal clear orders.

If the orders are not clear, it is your fault. Learn that.

Also, an other useful habit is to ask for a recap. Give your crystal clear orders, and then ask the person what he understood. Most people will nag about it, “I’m not an idiot, I got it the first time”.

Actually, he is an idiot. Ask politely for a recap. Insist on it. Not only does it make the assigned jobs smoother by eliminating miscommunication, but it also allows you to understand the person better. What he says when he recaps, the way he says it, in what order. Significant things are told first. If his significant points of the specs are different than those you intended them to be, say it. Also, people not paying attention only remember the last bits. Make sure he is paying attention, or else no matter how clear your orders are they will get distorted.

Another critical aspect of giving clear orders are backup plans. If-then situations. It is common sense, but people always neglect them. It could be as simple as ordering food or assigning supplier orders. If-then. Simple. “I want a chocolate donut. If they don’t have any, get me a bag of chips”. “Order 1000 pieces, but if he is low on stock, make sure you get me at least 300 so we can be stocked this week”.

Don’t go overboard with backup plans of course. There is no need for a flow chart. Just think of the most common and possible problems the employee might face and give them enough orders to deal with them.

Another common situation are employees sitting around. Employees get paid whether they work or not, and by definition, employees do not take initiative. Give them crystal clear orders on what you want them to do while on duty. Ask them for a recap. Write the orders down. Give If-then scenarios. “I want you to answer the phone and take orders. Recap the client’s order before you hang up. If there are no calls, I want you to recheck the orders you wrote down for any errors. If the client asks for something you don’t know, check the company policy manual for what to do next. If an order is delayed for any reason, call the client and inform them of the delay”.

The above written orders coupled with a clear manual will eliminate a ton of problems with your employees, and will make your business run smoother. It will also prevent everyone from calling you everytime they come up against a problem. That last part is the biggest gear in what I call owning the business, rather than running the business.

Teach yourself how to be clear, how to give orders, and how to command people. It is an essential skill for the Elegant business.

Break the boredom bubble. Bring them out of their boring lives.

One reason that people like stories is because it brings them out of their boring lives and into a fantasy world. That is why people read books, and why people like movies. It enables them for a short time to get out of their misery and into a hero’s exciting life. Mystery, intrigue, murder, passion, failure, epic lives. In ancient Greece, attending the theatre was obligatory for the common folk. The elite of that time believed that people watching tragedies in the theatre were actually educated by it. Since their lives were boring and simple, watching epic love stories and epic war stories expanded their mind and taught them life lessons.

Successful marketers understand that, and they create advertisements that tap into that basic human need to get out of misery. Buy our car, it will make you look like a rock star. Buy our shampoo, girls will want to caress your hair. Buy our gadget, your friends will want to play with you. It goes on and on with every successful product. Just look at the latest coca cola ads, they show an impossible exciting life and then BAM, coca cola zero. This is called anchoring in hypnotist terms, meaning that they abuse the way the mind works.

The mind links information to mental constructs called anchors. It just works like that, and honestly as a marketer/businessman you don’t really need to worry how and why it does that. You just need to abuse that fact. When your brain gains a new piece of information, it links that information to an anchor. Just think of your favourite old songs. Whenever you listen to them, they remind you of someone special, or someplace special, or an event in your life. This happens because your mind has linked that blues song to the memory of the first time you danced with a girl, or a rock song to the memory when you first drove at high speed.

The most memorable memories (pun intended) are the exciting ones. The “I will never forget that in my whole life” experiences. But the truth is, that most people are pathetic. Studies and percentages are usually trash info, but I will write this one down: An average person actually lives only 2 minutes per year. That means that out of every year of life, his exciting moments average 2 minutes.

Want to see it in math? A year has 525600 minutes, and the average person has an adrenaline rush in just 2 of those.

That is one shitty percentage.

If you understand this fact, it will redefine how you design products and advertisements and businesses. It is simple yet complicated, in the way that there is no clear how-to in making people un-bored.

Let me say this again. You are boring. People are boring. Their lives are boring. Their stuff is boring.

Make them think that by buying your product they become cool and successful and rich looking and sexy, and they will buy your product. It doesn’t matter that the product actually does not make all those things happen, it only matters that the customer believes that it does.

Because people want to believe it. They want a way to lose weight in 4 weeks without dieting or working out, they want a device that grows their dick because they think women will like them more, they want fashion clothes that make them feel like celebrities, they want overpriced 5 star suites that make them feel like kings.

Make your business different, so that it stands out of the rest. Make your products different, so that they appear exciting. Find a way to bring people out of their misery for a few seconds, and they will happily pay you for those seconds.

• The purpose of any business is to make profit. The purpose of the elegant business is to profit just enough for her owner for him to live nicely.
• The goal of any business is to grow, either nationwide or worldwide. The goal of the elegant business is to dominate a niche market and to provide cashflow.
• The structure of any business requires more and more employees as it grows. The structure of the elegant business eliminates the human factor as it reaches perfection.
• The products of any business are varied, follow trends and come in numerous shapes and sizes to accommodate every customer need. The products of the elegant business are designed for maximum profitability and sustainability and provide value only to select but worthwhile customers.

I hope that the above provide a glimpse of what the elegant business is. I know that some may have already created such a business, but I am sure that most people haven’t.  It is a contrarian mindset, one that abides the rules and creates new paths. Most will call bullshit and move on.

It is understandable.

These pages are not for them.

Buying stuff for an affiliate can be real hard. Here is a small list of ideas for presents towards affiliates:

• An iPhone, with the background pic saying: “I won this at those internet contest thingies”.
• John Chow and Shoemoney memorabilia. The more breakable the merrier.
• The Nicky Cakes Viking horns. He will wear them all day.
• A fleshlight, with a little card saying: “the ads said it feels like the real thing”.
• An acai bottle with a message “Use after you eat your ass out during holidays”. As soon as he opens it show him a smaller colon cleanser bottle.
• A teeth whitener and a handmirror.
• A t-shirt from cafepress (order through his aff link) that reads: “I am the one sending you all that spam”.
• A poster with a gym guy’s 6 pack, with  ”this could be you in just 8 weeks” written over them.
• A cease and desist letter. It doesn’t matter what it really says, the affiliate will scream dramatically and enter a catatonic state at the mere sight of it.
• The I-didnt-know-what-to-buy-you-so-I-got-this-for-you.info domain. He should appreciate the gesture.
• A ringtone. Steal his cell when he goes into the bathroom, submit his number on an IQ test and confirm the SMS.
• This tshirt. Trust me.
• A link. An expensive, high keyword value link.
• A comment on his flog.
• A hired Indian to linkbuild for him for 6 months.

All that is true.

But, an advanced affiliate must use every single tool in his arsenal, and honestly, it is dumb to neglect Adsense. You should never rely on a single method of monetizing your sites, and you should definitely not rely on Adsense alone to make money.

You should be multidimensional when monetizing your sites. Find all the tools online that can make revenue, try them all, master them all, and apply them to the appropriate circumstances. Sometimes, a site works well with paid links, like Text-link-ads. Or maybe the classic banner space. Affiliate links for the products you review. Whatever.

This post is not to discuss alternate monetizing methods, but to use a proven set-it-and-forget-it method. Many people (even me) have turned away from Adsense due to their ridiculous terms, the bans, the crappy payouts. But it is still a monetizing tool that fits the vast majority of sites.

I am not telling you to slap Adsense on every site you own, quite the contrary. Use it only on your sites that don’t perform well with other methods (no-one buys your links, or never converting banners etc). Every affiliate has some “dead weight” sites in his arsenal, that get little traffic and they wield no revenue by other means.

Anyway, here is an example of how I used Adsense. The site is Greek but you don’t need to read anything, this is just a screenshot to show you the layout.

This is a Thesis theme, 2 column setting. The sidebar on the right is thin, just enough to fit in the useful stuff. Under the image rotator on the top right, I put up an Adsense ad, which is the only monetization method used on the site. Yes, a single ad, no more. It is placed near the picture, but under a “sponsor” text to be TOS compliant. It is clearly above the fold.

This example is not a money site, so I did not want to create the classic adsense minefield. But here is what I noticed:

Having a single ad in a good ctr place has benefits. This setup has very good click through rates, averaging 2% but with spikes of even 5%. Also, the average cost per click is maxed out. Since there is only adspace for one ad, only the top bidding advertiser gets shown. By truncating all the low-bidding ads I got a great performance from this set-up.

I am not saying that this method rocks, or that it will increase revenue. I am just sharing what I stumbled on, and I suggest you try it out. Or at least, take this post as an excuse to try out things out of the norm.

I say that is wrong.

There is a good reason for that. Lets see what happens:

1. You hide the affiliate link.
2. Your reader does not instantly realise that he got through your referral link.
3. If he signs up, you get credit.
4. You end up with more signups.

Now, lets see what happens when you don’t hide your affiliate links:

1. You show the technique, and link to the offer/service with your affiliate link in plain sight.
2. Your reader sees it is a referral, but voluntarily clicks on it.
3. He signs up at the service, uses it following your instructions, and sees that the technique works.
4. The reader is satisfied, and his trust in you is increased.
5. The next time you refer him to something, he will jump on the wagon with no hesitation.
6. You end up with more signups.

I prefer the second scenario. There are downsides of course. You will get a ton of emails saying “I signed up under you, now tell me this and that and the next”. Some will make legitimate questions, which you should answer. Others will paraphrase the demand “gimme your credit card info”, and thus you can ignore them.

The point here is simple:

If you don’t suggest shitty products, your readers will be more than happy to sign up under your link.

This is a fact, and I know it by experience. I have used every single one of the products or services that I have referred, and I have gained a degree of return from every one of them.

How do you like that for a make-money-blogging secret?

Then signup at my mailing list for tips and tricks of the trade.

No?

Then I bribe you with a free copy of Twitter Sniper for you to play with, hosted on my server.

It depends on your site/product/service of course, but social media can push serious traffic towards you.

Facebook.

By hitting the 300 million milestone, Facebook is now a huge platform. Have you ever dreamt as a marketer “what if I could reach out a whole country? That would be awesome.”

Well, now you can. Facebook has the biggest userbase in the world. What used to be a fad, is now a must. The smart thing that facebook did was the notifications. A friend of yours signs up on Facebook? You get notified, because it parsed his email list. Someone added you as a friend? You get emailed. Someone tagged you on a photograph? The same. Someone replied on that comment on a photograph? Spam, spam spam. And the funny thing is, that it is never treated as spam. Facebook just lets you know that other people are doing stuff on your account. And since those people are your friends, you never get offended if they keep spamming you with sheep and mafia guns. Facebook is just the messenger.

Twitter.

Twitter must be the biggest fad of them all. Many have fought it and then fell in love with it. Even I did. In fact, it is so great, that its traffic must be the most valuable of them all. Twitter traffic comments on your posts, subscribes on your RSS and email list, blogs about you, retweets your tweets etc. You might not be able to directly sell something on twitter, but you are bound to get some exposure. And if your promo is worth it, that exposure will convert indirectly.

I think that twitter nailed it with the 140 word limit. People get spammed all day, every day, around the world. Ads, radio, phone calls, SMS, emails, billboards, leaflets, a whole blizzard of little spammy messages are fighting each other for your attention. And researches show that the average attention span of a person has been reduced significantly the last few years. Twitter fits that lifestyle perfectly. The way I see it, it is even better than RSS feeds. I used to go through my subscribed RSS blogs every few days, and had to read to whole posts etc. Now, I just have a twitter account, follow those people who interest me, and receive manageable chunks of info from them every day. It is a mashup of little shouts, and they stay non-intrusive because I chose to receive them!

Myspace.

Don’t neglect Myspace. Yea, its old. Yea, it sucks. But there are a lot of people on it. And the best part is, a lot of stupid people. People to whom you can sell stuff.

Ok then, how can we leverage these 3 social sites easily and effectively?

There is a little piece of software that does all that. It is called tweetdeck, and it rocks. It started out as a more useful GUI for multiple twitter accounts, but the newest version bridges Myspace and Facebook as well. I believe it is a marketer’s wet dream.

Once you set it up, you can manage each of your site’s social exposure on 3 social networks from the same interface. Lets say you have your personal blog, so you make accounts for it at Myspace, Facebook and twitter. You pass everything into tweetdeck, and voila, you can post and manage them from one location. Want to promote your service? 3 more accounts, set them up in Tweetdeck, and you can go back and forth between them all day inside tweetdeck.

Of course, setting up the accounts is an important step. Different social sites need different approaches to succeed in getting lots of victi… cough, sorry, friends.

Honestly, for Myspace I have no idea what to do to make an account popular. Google it, someone will know.

For facebook, I found this useful article on Mashable amongst the enormous pile of crap on that domain.

For twitter, a lot has been said, but it is all bloated bullshit. What you need to know is this: link periodically to interesting stuff in your niche. That is all, honestly. Either do it manually or automate it. An easy way to do this is to fire up tweetdeck (I told you it rocks!) and open a search tab. As a keyword put something in your niche, for example #php or #wordpress or #lol. Spend exactly 40 seconds every day, check that tab on tweetdeck, and retweet something that looks even remotely interesting, you don’t even have to click the bit.ly

Of course it is not as easy as it sounds. Creating a following through social media takes time, and there is no secret recipe for it. What is certain is that it does help your site, and it does help get exposure.

Now, what should you promote? Not everything works when you promote to the social crowd. Think about building/promoting:

• Viral content
• Video
• Interaction/Flash promo
• Polls
• Contests
• Interesting articles

How can you twist the above into sales? Well, that is for you to find out! It is different for every product, but there is always an angle of approach you can take to twist linkbait/socialbait into buying.  Use your imagination, and keep an eye open for what other marketers are doing on the same platforms.

Signup on my mailing list if you want juicier stuff than this.