But that’s what I love about this business, we can change it to whatever we want and if it works, great. If it doesn’t, then we can change it again to make it work.

For 2011, I hired a business coach for the entire year. I believe this will help me a lot with my focus, trying new things (January we have to create a video and omg I am really putting it off), leveraging, and streamlining.

Susanne, I did the laptop-on-the-coach for a couple of months and everything started hurting from sitting all slouchy so I moved back to the office too 🙂

For quite awhile I was just kind of floating along, day to day, trying to get basic tasks taken care of. In turn that made me realize that it would have been a good idea to have a better outsourcing structure in place ahead of time, so that on the days I was not at my desk making the dollars I could have had a team working for me without having any frustrations.

The actual “bad” part of 2010 was that I didn’t meet my overall annual goals for growth or for income, but even that leads to the “good” part of re-evaluating what those were so that I can do better in 2011. Starting it all off by attending NAMS this month and in August and writing up an outline for two affiliate sites to add some passive style income to my portfolio.

WOW! I haven’t done any video sales letters because I never watch them, I prefer to read the text versions personally, but those numbers are really hard to ignore. Making a note to check that out a little more in depth in the new year 😉

Hi Kim,

just had to reply… you made some really excellent points here and your figures on video sales letters are very interesting. It’s definitely going on my “to-do” list for this year.

I’m with you on stepping out of the comfort zone and taking action, even if it seems a little scary at first. Every single time I’ve done this my business has gone through a major growth spurt. This year, I’m jumping out of that zone 🙂

Susanne

My second biggest is, sometimes you have to let go of a pet project in order to concentrate on the fields that are bringing in a harvest. I launched my writing at Examiner.com and though I have enjoyed it, the revenues were not there. As I develop my own blog and introduce a new one very soon, I have to take paid positions or assignments that will drive traffic to my site. So, my first venture had to go by the wayside.

I love your Expert Briefs 🙂

I’ve been going through the archives and reading all of those as well.

But I especially love today’s topic!

Some of my biggest breakthrough’s this year have included:

Video Sales Letters – Video sales letters have increased my conversion rate from 2-3% to 8-10%.

As you can probably imagine – this makes a HUGE difference in your business when you can quickly create a high-converting sales process.

The best part is that you don’t have to be a world-class copywriter to create killer video sales letters. In fact, I pretty much stink at traditional sales letters. But, I have found a very effective formula for creating highly-converting video sales letters. And I use the same formula every time I create a new one.

Plus, their super quick to create. I can whip out a video sales letter in a couple of days where a traditional sales letter would take weeks.

So you can instantly start bringing your products to market much faster.

Speed of Implemention is another key that has transformed my business in 2010.

In business, especially online, speed of implementation is the name of the game.

It’s so easy to read and read and read and learn and learn and learn but if you
don’t implement and take massive action – nothing happens.

Even the wrong actions are better than taking no action 😉

Because you learn insanely valuable lessons simply by taking action.

No one is going to give you a perfect business plan or the exact steps that you need to take. This is not like a job where someone tells you exactly what you need to do each day.

You are in charge of your own success.

No one else was going to make it happen for me so I was going to do whatever
it took to make things work.

And that often means doing things BEFORE you’re comfortable doing them.

Whether it be doing your first webinar, your first live video, approaching your first joint venture partner, etc…

It’s gonna be scary at first 😉

But the more you do it – the more comfortable you become.

As I often tell my subscribers – ‘The biggest growth in your business lies OUTSIDE of your comfort zone.’

Another big key I learned in 2010 was to focus exclusively on the high-leverage activities in my business.

This is kind of like the 80/20 rule.

And for me, the high-leverage tasks in my business include:

Creating Killer Content
Writing Emails to my subscribers, customers, and affiliates.
Recruiting Affiliates
Integration Marketing
Forum Marketing / Free WSO’s
Warrior Forum Banner Ads
Interviews / Webinars
Testing for Maximum Conversion

These are the sort of activities that are going to have the MOST impact on my business.

But as we all know, it’s very easy to get tied up in the minutia of business.

It takes a lot of work and laser-focus to stay zoned in on the high-leverage
activities.

And the other big breakthrough for me has been creating a 100% Instant
Commission Affiliate Program.

We released a product about 3 weeks ago and we’ve already had 853 affiliates
sign up to promote.

But the surprising thing is that I’ve done VERY little active recruiting on my side.

Most of it has been incredibly organic – which surprised even me.

But…

There were certainly a few key ingredients that played into that.

First, the affiliate program was seamlessly integrated into the sales process so that customers we’re invited to join the affiliate program as soon as they purchased.

This alone has 40% of our customers signing up as affiliates.

Plus, in addition to that we’re giving 100% instant commissions – paid straight
to their PayPal – which is a HUGE benefit to affiliates.

Lots of people get confused and they think you’re giving away the farm.

But nothing could be further from the truth!

As long as you’re building a proper sales funnel, 100% commissions is one of the most powerful things you can do for your business.

I wish I’d done it a LOT sooner.

The front-end product acts as a lead generator.

So now you have affiliates sending you massive amounts of traffic and building your list for you.

And if you set it up correctly – affiliates will send you all the traffic you could ever want.

Wow!

This got crazy long.

2010 has been an exciting year…

But I must say – I’m hungry for more and can’t wait for 2011!

Thanks so much for all that you do Nicole.

Cheers,

Kim

What each of the other accomplished ladies shared are gems I will hold onto and keep close to me throughout this coming year. It will be good to post again at this same time on your blog next year – a future testimonial: Do what’s suggested…Claim the results…

Best for now,
Mary

2011 is all about keeping my focus 🙂