Business Depends on Good Information

Often things are not what they appear, and making decisions that affect your company cannot be done by the seat of your pants.  You might say your product is the best, but what do your customers say?  The scientific method is often used to determine the truth, at least in as much as the truth is knowable.  Customer research is gathering data from the real world, and conclusions are made from this data.  We try to eliminate bias, we try not to make evaluation mistakes, we try to come up with solid data and solid conclusions.  Many times this leads to changes: Product packaging, advertisements, marketing methods, and or formulations.

Without critical thinking or the scientific method, you can only make a guess as to what is wrong.  With the right information, you can quickly make the right changes that seem almost magical.

Why We Need Science: Is Science a Religion?

Many people get bent out of shape when science seems to contradict religion.  But all science is trying to do is to explain things.  Science makes hypothesis, theory, and conclusion based on the data they can come up with.  All the data can point in a single direction but that direction could be wrong.  Science has been wrong.  But that doesn’t mean that we should ignore science when it certainly beats guessing.

Some people believe the Bible says the Earth is flat.  Is it?  No the Earth is a sphere (actually a oblate spheroid as my son says).  How do we know?  There is plenty of circumstantial evidence that the earth is a sphere, but we know that the earth is a sphere, for sure, because of the following:

• April 12, 1961: Soviets Orbit Gargarin, First Human In Space
  No, the United States was not the first in space, the Soviets were. Why would we admit this if it were not true?
• February 20, 1962: John Glenn Orbits the Earth in Friendship 7
  A second orbit of the Earth by the United States
• First Man on Moon – Neil Armstrong – Apollo 11, July 20, 1969
  The Wikipedia article has a picture of the Earth from the Moon.
• Russians Admitted They Lost Race To Moon – NYT 1989
  Published by the New York Times, the Russians admitted that they lost the race to the Moon because of failures in their own program. They would have denied we went if we didn’t.

We know the Earth is a sphere (or the like) because of seeing it from space.  There is no doubt.  It is no longer speculation.  So is the Bible wrong?  The Bible actually talks about the four corners of the Earth, which in my opinion is more poetic language than literal language.  Check the link out for more information.

Now Genesis can be calculated out so that the Earth and the Universe has only been in existence for around 6,000 years.  But science says that the universe has been in existence 13.8 billion years.  How do you resolve this disagreement?  Perhaps you don’t.  How important is it for you to know how old the Earth is?  Would you feel better if they agreed?

Why We Need Science: The Future of the Earth

Now this is where the rubber meets the road.  Global warming is a hot issue right now.  Literally.  This issue is specifically why we need science.  Could global warming be a hoax?  Could it be not the result of human activity?  Is there anything we an really do about it?

Global warming is happening.  How do we know?  Because we gather surface temperatures from all over the world and aggregate them.  This is factual data.  Average global temperatures are increasing from year to year.  A particular place on Earth may not be.  You may have had a cooler summer or colder winter than normal.  But overall, average global temperatures have increased.

Human activity is the main driver of extreme global warming.  How do we know?  Studies have been done using the best information possible of past global warming periods.  Usually they happen over longer periods than we are witnessing now.  This is information that is debatable, but you certainly cannot say you have proof that humans have no impact on global warming.

Scientists have also been doing CO2 measurements in the atmosphere, and CO2 has proven to be a driver of warming.

There is something we can do about global warming.  We can stop putting CO2 in the air.  That could actually mean all kinds of things, from moving towards electric rather than gasoline, to pumping CO2 into the ground rather than releasing it into the air.

Why We Need Science: We Ignore Science at Our Own Peril

Whether we are in business, in government, or work at the Quickmart, we ignore science at our own peril.  You have a different opinion that makes sense?  Speak out.  But make sure your point of view is backed with data and not just an unguided perception.  We have plenty of uneducated opinions about even the things we can prove beyond a reasonable doubt.  We don’t need more.

Further reading:

• The Science of Why We Don’t Believe Science – Mother Jones
• Why We Don’t Believe In Science – The New Yorker
• Why aren’t people listening to scientists? – L.A. Times
• Earth Images From The International Space Station – NASA

The post Why We Need Science appeared first on THE SPLASHPLAN BLOG.

1. Watch a Professional Baseball Game on Television

Or better yet, go to the baseball game with family members or friends.  Major League Baseball in the U.S. tends to be a shared experience, especially if you have an MLB team in your local area.  If you are lacking in knowledge about baseball, make sure to read the news or search for more information.  Learn the players, the team stats, the likelihood of reaching the playoffs, and or the manager’s name.  Who owns your local professional team?  When is the next home game, against whom?

2. Play a Round of Golf

If you are really interesting in mixing business with leisure, make sure to invite a client or prospect out for a round of golf.  Make sure to spend the majority of your time in the moment: recognize the weather, make shot recommendations, congratulate when a nice putt is made, and or talk about non-business subjects.  If you really need to talk business, make it chat rather than a sales pitch.  There will be time later for selling.

3. Things To Do: I Like To Hike

It is a little warm in Arizona right now, but when the weather is cooler I like to hike.  We have a mountain range close with trails, so my wife and I will hike the trails to the peak of the mountains.  Granted the peaks are only around 2300 feet, but it is still strenuous enough to consider a workout.  We also usually go 2 – 3 hours when we go out.

If you go out to hike, make sure to take plenty of water.  Don’t go out if the temperature is above 100, even in dry climates, unless you carry a gallon of water or more.

4. Do a Flat Walk

Hiking is one of these things to do, but if you can’t make it much beyond the house, you might want to consider a strenuous flat walk.  I will walk outside on our wash trails and stay close to home.  If it is too hot, I might just putter walk around the house.  You could walk by yourself, or include your spouse or friends.  You could walk for 5 minutes or 3 hours, it is really up to you.  Just make sure to get yourself out of selling mode for a bit.

5. Spend Dedicated Time With Your Children

If you are not spending enough time with your family, maybe it is time to purposefully spend time with them.  Be in the moment with the ones you love.  When I think of things to do besides selling, this is very near the top of my list. Yes, you can go to their activities but you are probably already doing this already.  Perhaps you can just play a game with them or do something they like to do.

6. Things To Do: Have a Glass of Wine

I am to the point in my life where a glass of wine will just about do it.  Overdoing it on sweet wine is probably not a good idea.  But one glass relaxes me.  One glass lets me override my judgement on a flight.  It is good to have a glass of wine with dinner, or just a glass and a chat with my wife or with friends.

Things to do: Join a wine club and try different premium wines.  Why not really get into it?

7. Explore By Doing a Drive

One of our things to do, that we haven’t done yet, is to explore more of our new state.  You see, last year we moved from Illinois to Arizona and we have been so busy that we have neglected to explore.  If you can, get in the car and drive.  You don’t have to “travel” by staying overnight somewhere, perhaps there is someplace close that you haven’t experienced yet.

My wife Chris is continually coming up with things to do that I am a little uncomfortable with, as I am trying to get my hours in.  But I know that I need the breaks and the experience so that I can relate with other people.

8. Do Something Totally Unexpected

What have you really wanted to do that is just too crazy to do?  Have you wanted to sky dive?  I have personally decided this is something I don’t need to do.  But that doesn’t mean you can’t.  Would you like to climb a big mountain?  Why not.  Do at least one thing that everyone has discouraged you from.

9. Things To Do: Make Your Bucket List

What things do you want to experience in your life?  What do you want to do before you get much older?  Make a list!  While doing your bucket list may be something else altogether, making your list focuses on those things to do that are really important to you.  Prioritize your list and see if maybe there is at least one of those things to do on your list that you can actually accomplish.

10. Call Your Mom (Last of the Things To Do)

This is your mom.  Call me.  Just kidding, but you know you hear that voice in your mind.  As one of your things to do that you have been neglecting, make sure to call your mom this week.  Hopefully you still have your mom, some do not.  And that’s why you need to call her.

Did you forget about selling at least for a bit?  Let us know in the comments.

Further reading:

• Taking a Break from Blogging without Losing Your Audience – Goins, Writer
• Taking a Break: 8 Reasons Why It’s More Effective Than a Band Aid – Huffpost
• 5 Reasons Science Says You Seriously Need to Take a Break – Entrepreneur

The post 10 Things To Do Today Besides Selling appeared first on THE SPLASHPLAN BLOG.

Do I Have A Thought Life?

If you are a human, you have a thought life.  Whether or not you intend it, you think about things.  A lot of younger people think about how their life will be better when: they move out, they get married, they get a better job, they have a baby, or they buy a house.  A lot of things they think relate to how they are unhappy but it will be better when the next event happens.

Older people often think of their past more than their future.  We live in glory days, conquests, regrets, and or grief.  The past often seems more desirable than the future.  Or maybe you still think like a younger person, and look forward to retirement.  I prefer to be happy in the moment, but I still do have thoughts about the future.

What Thought Life Hurts And What Helps?

When you do an audit of your thought life, i.e. what things you think about, what keeps coming up?  What feeling does that give you?  If you feel pain, frustration, regret, grief, or depressed, those are negative feelings.  Often, being practical now, these negative feelings will be reinforced with negative in your life.  You are attracting the negative.

On the other hand, if your thoughts produce positive feelings, such as love, happiness, thankfulness, or joy, those feelings will attract positive things in your life.

How Do I Turn My Thought Life Around?

You could replace negative feelings with positive, just by changing what you think about.  For instance, if you lost your grandmother, rather than think about the negative loss, think about how she made Thanksgiving wonderful with her homemade sweet pickles and stuffing.  Think about your long talks about how she grew up during the great depression.  Most of the time you can change how you think about something to make it positive rather than negative, but other times you need to replace thoughts with completely different thoughts purposefully.

Reinforce Your Goals With Your Thought Life

Would you like to be a better Christian?  Ok, I said I wasn’t going to preach but here I go… Really, you could take any kind of goal and incorporate it.  I think being a better Christian or being closer to God is a great goal.  If this is your goal, write it down.  Then think about some thoughts that reinforce your goal.  Practice your thoughts daily, maybe just for a few minutes, or for an hour or more if you have the time.

Love of money is the root of all evil.  But money isn’t evil.  As Bob Proctor says, “We use money and love people, not the other way around.”  So if your goal is to have more money, I think that is great.  Money is not easy to incorporate into your thoughts.  What would you like to do with that money?  Travel?  Buy a new car?  Buy a house in cash?  I think that each of these is a nice picture we can incorporate into our thoughts.  So put down your goal along with thoughts that make you feel good about your goal, and practice your thoughts on a daily basis.

What will your positive thoughts about your goals do?  Being practical rather than spiritual, it focuses your energies on your goals rather than being scattered to the wind.  You tend to work out how you will get there and you set out on the journey.

What Do You Think In Your Thought Life?

If you would like to share, feel free to comment below.

Further reading:

• Law of Attraction – My True Life Story – Donna Merrill Tribe
• Law of Attraction: What Can I Do To Control My Thoughts – Live Life Made To Order
• 15 Ways to Change Your Thoughts and Transform Your Life – Purpose Fairy

The post Getting Control of Your Thought Life appeared first on THE SPLASHPLAN BLOG.

Selling To Your Blog Readers: Make Sure You Have Traffic

You may be just starting out and wondering how you can make money on your blog.  Well first you need traffic.  You need traffic before you start selling to your blog readers, otherwise you will spend too much time in the spin of seeing if your links are working. They won’t be.  Because only a few people are visiting your blog today, and only a subset will be interested in what you are selling.  If you wait until you have at least 100 new visitors a day before you start trying to sell, you can concentrate on producing great content.

Selling To Your Blog Readers: Use Links Within Your Blog Posts

You might be tempted to put advertising or product widgets on your blog that show up on each page, but most people are reading your blog posts.  If something interests them in your writing and you include a link, they might just click on it.  In addition, your blog posts go out to Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, Pinterest, and email, so if you include a link in your post, a reader on those platforms may also click it, even if they never see your blog.

Selling To Your Blog Readers: Make It Relevant

When you include an advertising link, make it relevant to what you are talking about in your post.  Don’t just force in an ad for Amazon’s website, unless your ad is about Amazon specifically.  Worry about the content first, then see if it makes sense to link out to an affiliate link within the post.

Selling To Your Blog Readers: Where To Find Affiliate Programs

If you want to sell books or other products, you may want to start out with Amazon’s affiliate program.  Look towards the bottom of Amazon.com for Affiliates.  If you want to promote online services, often the individual websites will have instructions for becoming an affiliate.

You may also place advertisements on your blog with Google Adsense.  I think selling products or services is a better idea, but placing an ad in your widgets is easy enough. Just don’t go overboard.

How Are You Selling To Your Blog Readers?

Let us know by commenting below.

Further reading:

• Biz Ladies: How To Sell Your Products On Your Blog – Design Sponge
• How To Write Review Blog Posts That Make Money – Entrepreneur’s Journey
• How To Earn Bundles From Your Blog Without Ever Selling Anything – Tuts Plus

The post Selling To Your Blog Readers appeared first on THE SPLASHPLAN BLOG.

What Is Evergreen Content?

Evergreen content is relevant into the future, but what does this mean?  Think about a book written in the 1920s.  It is likely evergreen otherwise it would have lost its relevance and you wouldn’t know about it.  Evergreen content is usually in the form of “how to” but could be an article describing something, such as describing evergreen content.

Why Is Evergreen Content Important?

You could write an article (or create a video) about an event, such as Hurricane Harvey, but the event becomes a think of the past fairly quickly.  Then fewer people are interested in reading your article because it has lost its relevance.  Of course getting that initial bump of traffic because people are interested in Hurricane Harvey is nice, but most of the time we are more interested in long-term traffic.

Evergreen Content and Business Writing

If you write to promote a business, evergreen content is the way to go.  Often you will be telling your customers how to solve particular problems.  For instance, if you sell drills, you could write an article on how to create holes. But you probably wouldn’t write about Jennifer Aniston’s current relationship or about the president’s failings.  In fact, you generally should avoid anything that would be controversial to some groups of people unless you really want the negative attention.

Other Types Of Content

Besides evergreen content, other types of content include entertainment, persuasive, and current events.  Perhaps you want to write something that would strictly entertain your audience.  Maybe you like fiction, history, or documentaries and want to share your vision with others.

Angry about something?  You may want to write something that persuades people to take action.  This could also be called opinion.  Often this links into current events, which is news reporting.

What Do You Think?

Do you usually write evergreen content or do you write other kinds of content?  Let us know in the comments below.

Further reading:

• 15 Types of Content That Will Drive You More Traffic – QuickSprout
• The Content Marketing Funnel: When to Use Different Types of Content – SingleGrain 
• 5 Different Content Types That Will Help You Save Time Blogging – CoSchedule

The post The Life and Times of Evergreen Content appeared first on THE SPLASHPLAN BLOG.

Your World Goes Dark: It Will Happen

Not every day is a perfect day in this world.  Your sun will get blotted out unexpectedly.  You will have loss.  You will be between jobs or businesses.  Things that were really good will go really bad.  But understand with all of this when the sun goes away, it will return.  Solar eclipses do not last forever and neither do rough times.

Your Attitude Is Everything

It is hard not to feel sad or depressed when you lose a close friend or you lose a job you have had for 20 years.  However, there is a difference between being blue and acting like these things always happen to you.  We do not want a bad stretch to turn into a self fulfilling prophesy.  Make sure to recognize the good things in your life and count your blessings daily.  Recognize a friend who is helping you through.  Pray for healing.

Don’t Just Sit There

I have had two winters in three years where business was slow.  So slow that we ate through our savings and accumulated debt.  The one thing I didn’t do is take it lying down.  I worked weekly if not daily to find a new client.  I came up with new ideas.  I spent what time I could building up other business avenues.  I couldn’t just sit there, I had to do something, even if it was not perfectly fruitful.  In doing all this, I was off for fewer months than some friends who do what I do.

What Do You Do When Your World Goes Dark?

Make sure to leave us a comment on what you do when your world goes dark.  We would love to hear from you!

Further reading:

• Staying Strong When Things Go Bad – Culture Japan
• When Things Go Wrong – Seth’s Blog
• 9 Ways To Cope When Bad Things Happen – Tiny Buddha

The post What To Do When Your World Goes Dark appeared first on THE SPLASHPLAN BLOG.

More Time: Audit How You Use Your Time

Your 8 hours at work are important.  But there are 24 hours in a day.  Yes, sleep is important too, so that’s 16.  That leaves you 8 hours.  Oh, so you commute an hour each way?  Down to 6 hours.  But that is still 6 hours.  If you have 3 days a week of 6 hours, that’s 18 hours a week!  On average, more than 2 hours per day.  Honestly, I only think you need an hour or two per day for a network marketing business, especially if it is online.

How Much Blah Time Per Day?

I can easily pick on the television.  Yes, I know you can’t miss your Big Brother.  Rather than miss your favorite show or favorite 10 shows, why don’t we just DVR them and watch them all together without commercials?  Or maybe we should narrow the TV time down to one or two shows?

Anything that takes a lot of time put in the same category.  Including the internet, computer games, etc.

What Is Important?

Not everything gets tossed out the window though.  I mean, we are only trying to free up about an hour a day.  The workout is important.  Your son’s baseball game is important.  In fact, those things that have a social aspect are not only important, they are imperative.  Why?  People need something besides business to talk about.  And no, not everyone is into Big Brother…

Your health is also very important so don’t skip the workout (yes I did previously say that, just making sure you/I heard it).

What Can You Do With Your Time?

The things you can add have to do with setting up your email autoresponder, capture page, and training, then promoting your capture page.  You really, really do not need to spend more than an hour a day promoting your capture page.

No Money And No Time: Free Up A Little Money

I know you said you have no time and no money, but we have shown that only an hour a day is necessary to run a network marketing distributorship.  How about money?  It does cost to sign up and have products shipped to you.  If you are doing it right though, you are not spending any more than you normally would for the products.  The sign up fee can be expensive, yes, but not like a franchise or anything.  Perhaps as little as $25.

One other expense you may want to budget for are your autoresponder.  A popular one charges $19 a month.  Most everything else can be done for free.

So all in all, we are talking around a $20 bill per month for ongoing business expenses.  Can you sacrifice 4 lattes?

I understand you may have to dig deep to get signed up, but it is a one time cost.

What Business Opportunity?

What business opportunity should you join, assuming you have a little money and a little time?  There are plenty of good network marketing opportunities.  I’m sure you can find one that works for you.

Still Have No Time And No Money?

(Shaking head)  Make sure to comment below if you still feel you have no money and no time.

Further reading:

• Solve the No Time, No Money MLM Objections for Good – Paula McKinney
• Handling Objections in Network Marketing, Direct Sales, and MLM – Sarah Robbins
• How to Create a Network Marketing Planner That Keeps You on Track – Jason Lee HQ

The post Network Marketing With No Money And No Time appeared first on THE SPLASHPLAN BLOG.

Instructions On How To Do Facebook Live

When I am on my laptop, I start Facebook.  At the top of the screen is my status update box, the one that says “Create a Post” right above it.  Next to the Create a Post text is “Live Video”.  Click that.  Don’t worry, you won’t be live right away.

That will take you to a screen where you will see yourself on the left (from your camera), and on the right will be a place to “Say something about this live video”.  You will want to put what the video will be about.

Next, click the button at the bottom right that says “Go Live”.  The video will show a countdown and then you will be live.

Depending on when you do Facebook Live, you will get people who join and you will see them and their comments so you can talk to them directly.  This makes it easy to customize your presentation to their questions.

Here is a little video on Youtube on How To Do Facebook Live that I put together:

Your Thoughts On How To Do Facebook Live

Have you ever tried Facebook Live?  What did you think of it?  Is it useful to your or your business?  Let us know in the comments below.

Further reading:

• How To Use Facebook Live: A Bookmarkable Guide – HubSpot
• 13 Facebook Live Tips from Hootsuite’s Social Media Team
• The Startup’s Guide to Facebook Live Video – Autopilot

The post How To Do Facebook Live appeared first on THE SPLASHPLAN BLOG.

Create Training As A Solution To A Problem

The first thing you do to get free network marketing leads is to create training as a solution to a problem your target market is having.  For network marketers, some problems could be: How do I make a sale?, how do I get people interested in my business opportunity?,  what approaches can I take that won’t alienate people?  I am sure you can think of some more.

Write your training as a video, a PDF ebook, or an email course, or perhaps some other format.

Collect Names and Emails From Your Free Network Marketing Leads

At the bare minimum, collect first names and emails from those that want to view your training.  It would be best if it was through a auto responder, such as Aweber, so that you are keeping things legal.  Your free network marketing leads should be followed up with regularly.

Provide Your Training

Provide your training to your lead only once they have confirmed their email address.  But provide it automatically, say on the first email from your autoresponder.

Continue To Follow Up With Your Leads Every Few Days

You want your leads to get to know you and see that you have valuable information to provide to them, so follow up by email every few days with more little tidbits about yourself and more valuable content.  Your free network marketing leads will stick around for a long time if you do, and may become curious about your business opportunity.

Further reading:

• 6 Ways to Generate the Best MLM Leads – The Balance
• How to Get FREE Targeted MLM Leads – Yoobly
• 7 Ways Your Blog Will Grow Your Network Marketing Business – Alice Nicholls

The post Free Network Marketing Leads appeared first on THE SPLASHPLAN BLOG.

First: What The Heck Is SEO?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization.  It is a way to tell the search engine what your page or site is about and how important your site is.  Google goes out and reads all the web pages in the world (to a point) and scrapes information from your web site’s code (i.e. HTML).  It will store your title and description, then read your page to determine what keywords it contains, or what it is about.  It comes back every so often and updates your page, so if you’re worried that you can’t improve your page for Google, think again.

How To Change Your Page For Google

Ok, so you have a page that gets no Google traffic.  How do you change your page to improve how it looks to Google?  Easy enough, you need to find a keyword to rank for.  These days most people recommend long tail keywords.  A long tail keyword is a longer search string that has some traffic but very little competition.  So you find your long tail keyword with Google Keyword Planner at https://adwords.google.com/home/tools/keyword-planner/ and you use it in your page.  You should use it in the following places:

1. In your title
2. In a heading
3. Three or four times in the body of your page
4. If you have an image, in the alt of the image

It is seriously important to make all of this look natural or you will be penalized.

What The Heck Is SEO Relating To Ranking?

Ranking is another way you get position on Google.  The more links you have to your page or website, the better… as long as the websites that link to you also have ranking.  A website that links to you that does not have a good ranking may actually bring down your ranking!

If you have several links from a “good” website, or you have one link on a page that’s linked to from several places, your ranking will improve.

So the object of the game is to get inbound links into your web site from well ranked web sites.

How Do You Get Inbound Links?

You can do one or more of the following activities to get inbound links:

1. Ask somebody for a link to your website
2. Create great content that gets linked to
3. Participate on blogs that will link to your website
4. Create online classified ads with links
5. Participate on one or more forums

I would say exchange links but you really want people to link to you but not necessarily link back to them.

I am sure you can think of other ways to generate inbound links to your website.

Are There Other SEO Tactics To Be Used?

Sure and I am sure you can learn more about SEO on Google.  Just Google search seo tactics.

What The Heck Is SEO To You?

Feel free to comment on this story in the comments section.  You can also include a link to your website.

Further reading:

• 21 Actionable SEO Techniques You Can Use Right Now – BackLinkO
• 19 Advanced SEO Techniques That’ll Double Your Search Traffic – Neil Patel
• 7 Simple SEO Tricks & Tips That Still Bring Improvements in 2017 – SEO Nick

The post What The Heck Is SEO? appeared first on THE SPLASHPLAN BLOG.