It’s another Expert Briefs, where I ask really smart business owners to answer your burning questions.

As you may know, I just returned from my annual off-the-grid time this summer.

So, I'll ask all of the Experts this question.

“If you could only work an hour every day and needed to continue to make the most money possible, what would your schedule look like?”

I think you will like their answers.

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Connie Ragen Green of Affiliate Marketing Case Studies says:

If I only had an hour available to work each day, it would be spent on writing a blog post and an email message to my list. I actually do this for several weeks each summer while I am visiting family in Finland. They want me to spend every minute with them, so I get up an hour early and work on a new blog post and send out an email.

This strategy works extremely well for me, at least for three or four weeks at a time. It motivates me to be as productive as possible during my hour each day, and it also forces me to step away from my business to rethink everything I am doing. When I return to a full time schedule, which is three to four hours each day, I am refreshed and have more ideas than ever.

Connie knows Affiliate Marketing!

click here to learn her secrets
(use coupon SECRET) for 100% discount on this product that normally sells for $27

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Karon Thackston of Step-by-Step Copywriting Course says:

With only one hour per day to make money, I would rotate between consulting clients and hosting webinars for two reasons.

First, it makes me a lot of money fast.

Second, I *really* love doing both!

I get a big kick out of consulting with companies and watching the results after they've implemented a plan of action we've created together. Whether it's working out the details of landing page campaigns, strategizing copywriting for a website or email blast, or coming up with new online marketing ideas that can help companies get the word out… it's all a blast!

Teaching is a big passion so, naturally, webinars fall right in line with that. I love making complicated things simple and showing people how to breakthrough on processes. And, when working with the right JV partner, webinars can produce a bunch ‘o bucks fast with great residual income, too.

When you think Copywriting, you think of Karon.
Check out her Step-by-Step Copywriting Course if you want to ramp up your skills.

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Kevin Riley of Maximize Your E-Mail Marketing Profits In 2013  says:

I like to go for long holidays – often in Europe. This autumn, Rieko and I will be spending 3 weeks in a chalet in my hometown in Switzerland, 2 nights in Geneva, and 4 nights in Helsinki.

Now, when at the chalet (or even in a hotel) I'll often work for an hour. What I do is, I get up early in the morning, make myself a good cup of coffee, and then sit at the table in the chalet (which has a wonderful view up the valley and you can see the sun hitting the peaks and then slowly coming down the mountain to the valley – priceless beauty that I enjoy while working). For about an hour (I never set a rigid schedule on holidays) I have a quiet time to do some work – usually writing content for a new product or website.

How would I roll this over into everyday life, if I could only work 1 hour all the time? I'd make sure that the 1 hour was 100% uninterrupted – no Facebook, etc. I'd spend the first 10 minutes taking care of any customer service needs (I get only a few e-mails requiring an answer or a solution, as I sell info products and they need minimal tech support). Then, I'd do only productive, move-my-business-forward work (see next paragraph).

To ensure my remaining 50 minutes are pure productivity, I'd sit down for a few minutes the night before (I do this anyways) and make a ToDo list of 5 important tasks to do the next day. Having a ToDo list that you created the night before makes sure you don't waste a minute of time thinking “Now, what is it I need to get done?” or wasting your time on non-essential work. Every task on this list must be something that moves your business forward – product creation, marketing, etc.

You can learn about email marketing from
Kevin here ->  Maximum E-Mail Marketing Profits In 2013

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Terry Dean of Monthly Mentor Club says:

While I normally take off several days a week right now, I’m going to assume I’m allowed 7 one hour days for the challenge.

First of all, I get to cheat a little.

The absolute essential for bringing in the most money possible is email. It has the highest return-on-investment.

Since I’ve written emails for over a decade, I’d spend the first 7 hours going through all my old emails and collecting them together in a long set-and-forget autoresponder sequence.

That’s priority #1. If you have a list and you’ve been sending any type of regular emails, you can also take advantage of this. Have you been going back through your mailings and reloading your successful emails as autoresponders?

Once the autoresponder sequence is together, I can invest the rest of my time in driving traffic to my list. With limited time, I’d stick to paid advertising.

This would vary by the market you’re in, but for me right now this likely means Facebook ads and Pay-Per-View ads. Six hours a week would go to setting up, optimizing, and tracking the ads.

Here’s the most basic formula for Internet Lifestyle Freedom:

Step 1: Target buying traffic.
Step 2: Get them on a list.
Step 3: Send offers.

The autoresponder takes care of the offers. Step 1 and 2 would be tapping into paid advertising and getting them on a list. The ads would be going directly to my squeeze page where visitors enter their email address to join the list.

Everything else such as customer support and anything technical would be outsourced. Even new products would have to be 100% outsourced. The final hour would be on checking on all the outsourced tasks.

Very simple system for a limited time frame.

You may not have the advantage of all those emails to load on autoresponder.

In that situation, I’d invest almost half my time or 3 hours a week in creating emails.

The next 3 hours would be spent optimizing and tracking just ONE paid traffic source. No way there’s enough time to work with more than one on that limited schedule.

The final hour still goes to checking on the outsourced activities.

This question forces you to focus on the 80/20 of your business. What’s absolutely essential? And where is your greatest return on investment?

Click here to Check out Terry’s Mentoring Club

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Barb Ling of Social Curation Ignition says:

Grow my email marketing for both my affiliates and my own products as well. Plan out a month-long membership/continuity product and work my earlobes off getting that off the ground; recurring payments are key.

So…I'd give myself 10 minutes to socially network, 20 minutes to schedule email marketing and 30 for new product every day.

Barb thinks differently than anyone I've ever met.

You can peek inside her brain in her Social Curation Ignition course (click for details).

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Nicole Dean of .. here! .. says:

Well, you know that I have an answer here, since this is what I have been up to lately.  🙂

Like my friends, I focused on money-making activities – and I outsourced anything humanly possible to hire out.

That left me to do just a few things.

1. Check in with my Project Manager regularly.

2. Write my mailings.

3. Release some offers that I had ready.

4. Announce a few blog posts that were scheduled after they posted.

BUT — The important thing to note is that every day, in every way possible, I focus on building my recurring and passive income streams. So, my funnels are all built around long-term growth, not just spikes. That means that my income does not dip very much at all if I choose not to work for a few weeks. The base income stays pretty steady – so I don't have to sweat it as much as some might.

So what about you?

If you only had an  hour a day to work, what would you focus your time on?

Talk so me.

Best of luck.
Nicole

PS. Be sure to check out my friends so I can keep them contributing.

• Connie Green
• Karon Thackston
• Kevin Riley
• Terry Dean
• Barb Ling