Archive for the ‘My Thoughts’ Category

It’s frustrating that I forgot one of my best habit that I”ve had in my teenage years.

I had a habit of writing a journal which help me be accountable to the things I did. It was like a mirror which always showed me the truth.

I don’t know when I stopped writing into my journal but I know from experience that it was not in my best interest.

One of the things I had to learn while learning internet marketing (and building business) is to be accountable to my own success.

While writing down, I wrote my success, my failures and my learnings which all helped me gain much knowledge along with new experience to forge through in the world of business.

So far I’ve used journal successfully when

1. I wanted to lose weight and needed to write down what I was eating and what kind of workout I was following.

2. I wanted to know which of my blog were successful and which were failure

3. I wanted to know which of my advertising campaigns were doing good.

4. I wanted to make a commitment to learn a new skill like copywriting or Hypnosis.

5. I wanted to be accountable for my own success and failures.

Someone once said, “Own yourself, you own the world”. It can be understood in many ways. And this is one of the way you can start understanding yourself.

I have been working online since 2004 and I had my shares of up and downs when it came to internet marketing. One of the biggest headache or pain in the ass while starting online is putting together a website.

I don’t mean in technical terms. You can hire anyone to get a website in a week or less. No I meant in terms of Marketing, Producing, it’s like giving a birth to website.

1. What’s Your Goal?  – When I am starting out, I ask myself a very simple question. What’s my goal? Now of course, your goal can be, saving the world, making money, just plain old vanilla putting your business offline.

But in this phase, you have to find out how you are going to achieve your end goal.

For example, this website http://www.varunpratap.com/ went through many phases (from a personal website to fitness blog to again a personal website to professional website to phew… tooo many). I ended up scraping all of these earlier versions just because I wasn’t satisfied.

I am a creative person and I need an outlet where I can speak, shout, rant or just be darn creative.

Currently my slogan “Desire. Commit. Succeed” is something I want others to experience. And to me, there’s nothing better using a blog to share your experience. With my experience in many diverse fields, I know I’ll end up talking about tons of different things on this blog.

So you have to decide what’s your ultimate goal? And how you are going to achieve it?

2. How are you going to create a connection? – Websites do not exists in solitude. In fact nothing exists in solitude. So when you are going to make a website, you have to find a way to create a connection with people who are going to visit your website.

There’s no other way. You cannot avoid this. No matter who you are. No matter what business you are in. No matter what your race is or where you live.

Your website cannot live without visitors and there has to be a way to connect with them.

2 Easiest way to connect with them are

1. Blog Like this one.
2. Newsletter
3. Forum (I am adding this one but it takes lots of efforts to maintain a forum).

You also have to understand about the media (Audio and Video). Because they ultimately create a connection. You have to check whether you can use it or not.

3. Potential to monetize or not – Third thing I think about potential to monetize a website. It’s very simple, If you are already making an effort to build and maintain a website, then why not monetize it?

There are many ways to monetize. The easiest to implement are :-

1. Sell advertisement space.
2. You can create a list and sell advertisement.
3. Create a product/s and sell it.
4. Promote affiliate products.
5. Sell your services.

Now this is how I start even before I order a website design to be done. I worry about my prospects. I prepare about how I am going to connect. I prepare about how to market. I prepare about how to sell.

Like I said, any one can put a website online. These days even toddlers and their pets have one. But all of this underestimates the real though that goes behind putting a website together.

It’s not that complicated. In fact it’s easiest the moment you decide “What’s my Ultimate goal with this website?”.

This is first of my 3 part formula “Decide. Commit. Succeed”. The moment you decide and decide to commit, things changes. Everything will work in your favor depending on your will. And Succeeding is just next step.

Notice, there’s no where I talked about SEO (search engine optimization) or any other new internet technologies. Because we don’t have to worry about them.

First build a website in mind, then on paper and only then come online.

Best Regards,

Varun Pratap
Desire. Commit. Succeed.

Last week, I got quite a few emails on gratitude and what not. People, Marketers were throwing this term around.

It made me think about quite a few moments of my life and made me realize very simple things.

We, as a human have deep rooted desire to be appreciated. And we know instinctively when someone really appreciates it or whenever someone does it because their sales manual says so.

Appreciation.

If you remember one of my old post about “Just a Thank You”. How the day-to-day boring and monotone situation changed immediately just because my “Thank You” was really heart felt.

I also remember the name of one of the Fast food chain attendant who just gave me paper napkins and said a few things which connected with me.

I also remember when I once helped a friend and he was really grateful. How his simple thanks stood out and I understood it.

And then there was situation where one of my friends jaw dropped when she saw me after a few months. I had lost over 45 pounds and gotten stronger. I still remember her comments.

Appreciation.

It’s  just a simple term, but we don’t get it enough. And we don’t give others enough.

Life is so darn simple. Look around you and appreciate the things in your life. Just like how a 2 letter words “thank you” can be so powerful, I realize how this simple concept of appreciate can brighten your day, change your outlook and create your character.

Remember, the more you give, the more you get.

What do you appreciate about yourself today?

Varun Pratap

Decide. Commit. Succeed.

If you are in business or in a leading role, then I can bet you are spending (rather wasting) tons of your time which can be used far more efficiently. These time management tips I am sharing here will help you a lot.

1. Close your Email Client – First thing you should do is Close your email client. I have noticed this trend in offices, employees (and their bosses) have their email client open 24/7.

Call me rude, but in the office you get paid for doing the work, not check your emails.

I know many people might get angry and protest saying that “our clients are open so that we can get business related emails”.

And my counter argument against it is very simple. Every time You get email, you get distracted from whatever you are doing. Whenever you’ll get distracted, it’ll take you at least few minutes to be able to concentrate on your work. By then, you’ll receive another email and again the process goes on and on and on.

Why I am telling you this? Because I’ve seen one of my friend in the office. His email clients goes off “Ding” every 5 minutes and I checked few of his so called “Office” emails and they are nothing but useless stuff (I am not calling it junk just for the respect of my buddy).

So, now you know, you are wasting tons of time with these distractions. You can close off the client and then get more productive.

2. Improving efficiency by creating better workload – Another big issue people do is they do not organize their work load for the day. If you organize what you are going to do for the day the moment you sit on your desk, you’ll save lots of time, improve efficiency and work better.

Again, one of the hidden problem organizing is “distraction”. If you just club up same kind of work in a huge chunk and finish it, you’ll be far more efficient and you don’t have to re-new your concentration.

So if you are going to call up few people during the day, Find a time slot when you can call all of them and do it in one go. Your concentration will be 100%. You’ll be more focussed on the task at hand (there’s no “Oh Shit I had to call Mr John at 3:00pm”).

Now I suggest try these out for few days and take notice of the changes around you. You’ll notice How efficient you’re after doing this?