Jacob S Paulsen's Blog, page 18

Wealth Warrior by Steve Chandler

Wealth Warrior is the most unique book I’ve read in a long time. I saw a friend who described it in their review as a written speech and not really a traditional book. That isn’t far off. The chapters are short and sweet and they flow together as one long story. The content was very motivational and I found that reading this book in the morning before leaving for the day was the best way to leverage the content to make me better. While the ideas are not new to anyone who has read other “how to really get wealthy” books, I do think there were some fresh ways of describing those principles.

If you read this book you will create a bond with Steve Chandler. His voice shines through load and clear. His sincere purpose is to help the reader grow. Among my favorite of his principles was the strong focus on service. Since every dollar we make comes from someone else, the only way to make more is to serve more people more. Focusing on serving others will lead to wealth.

Google Reader Shutting Down on July 1st – How Else Can You Subscribe

Google Reader has announced they will be shutting down on July 1st. Google Reader is the most popular RSS reader tool on the internet but for whatever reason Google has decided to discontinue this free product.

Based on the reporting it appears that there are a large number of our blog subscribers that currently are subscribed via Google Reader. It is time to make a change. Let me make the following suggestions:

Other Ways to Follow Our Blog Other Than RSS:

Subscribe to receive each blog post via email. This ensures you won’t miss a thing and makes it easier for you to find what you are looking for and easier to share with people you feel may benefit.

Subscribe to the Blog Via Your Amazon Kindle. Our blog publishes with Amazon Kindle. There is a very small fee associated with this subscription but if you love your Kindle this might be the best solution.

If You Really Like RSS And Need A New Reader:

Personally I’ve moved on to Feedly. Feedly seems to be a strong RSS feeder that offers a no cost solution and has a multi-platform approach to their technology. So far so good. I’ve also heard good things about TheOldReader.com, NetVibes, and Pulse.

Do You Have The Data You Need To Achieve Your Goals?

You have heard the cliche, what can be measured can be improved. I remember a meeting with a manager early in my career in which he asked me why we hadn’t hit our revenue goals for the first quarter of that year. I think I mumbled some random answers. He asked me for the reports. Reports? What Reports? This manager (the best person I have ever worked for) taught me an important lesson that day. While it takes time and energy to make and read reports there is no substitute for real hard data. I have taken that to heart and have found that I’ve more recently become obsessive compulsive about tracking everything. Here are some core principles of getting the data needed to make decisions.

Don’t Reinvent the Wheel

Do you know anyone who you work with that feels the need to take the report or information they get and redo the report into a format they prefer? Sometimes you can save time and energy by learning and adapting yourself to take and learn from the data in the format you receive it.

Consider the Tools Wisely and Know Them Well

Use the right tools for the task. I’m a raving fan of Microsoft Excel but it isn’t the best tool for everything. In many cases there are specific tools for what you may be doing. I use very category specific tools to track my car gas mileage and maintenance, my weight, my exercise, my health, my shopping list, my website traffic, my finances and budget, my reading, and more. Whatever the tool you choose make sure you are fully proficient with it. Excel is an amazing option for many types of reporting because of the ability to create various reports from a single data set but without a great understanding of how to use it, it really can’t do you much good.

Don’t Forget the Natural Feedback

Sometimes the information you need is right in front of you. Life has a way of providing a lot of natural feedback. Look at your environment, your results, and the people who surround you. Is the answer to your question staring you in the face? If not how can you get it? Some of the best information I’ve had has come from people who were sincere and caring enough to give me feedback. Develop relationships of trust with people around you so that when you need some helpful feedback you will be ready to ask for it and receive it to heart. I recently heard the quote; “When performance is measured it is improved. When performance is reported the rate of improvement increases.”

Implement Call Tracking to Monitor Your ROI and Operation

You may or may not already be familiar with Call Tracking technology. The general idea is that you pay a company to provide you with a unique phone number (local or toll free) that you place on advertising or printed collateral such as business cards. Incoming phone calls are forwarded to your office phone or other phone of choice. The service provider gives you access to reporting.

The Applications for Call Tracking

Generally Call Tracking tools are used to measure a return on investment from a specific advertising source or medium. In addition Call Tracking can help you monitor the effectiveness of your business; or at least that part of your business that receives phone calls.

Various Common Call Tracking Features

Features to look for when shopping providers:

How long of a history do they keep of your call logs?
Do they reference the caller’s name (where available) in addition to the origination number?
Do they provide integration with Google Analytics and / or Google Adwords? If so can you track actual keywords?
Do they allow whisper messages? This is a short audio message that the receiver hears before the call is connected. It tell you where the call is coming from before you are connected with the caller.
Call ID Options. Can you select if you want the tracking number or origination phone number to display on your caller id? This can be helpful to help you know which calls are coming from where before you even pick it up.
Do they report new callers vs returning callers?
Do they provide individual call details such as call duration?
Do they provide phone support?
Can you select from local numbers or toll free numbers? Extra costs?
Can you setup multiple user accounts to allow employees and business partners to login and access some or all of your reporting?
Can you get email notifications?
Is the data truly Real-Time?
Do they provide Call Recording?

Call Tracking Pricing Models

Beware of various methods by which these providers charge your account. Costs can be tied to:

How many minutes are used.

Are minutes under a certain duration not counted?
Do repeat calls count?


Toll Free numbers vs Local Numbers
The total number of tracking numbers you need
Call Recording often has an associated unique cost.

Suggested Call Tracking Provider

After doing my research I have decided to work with CallRail. CallRail seemed to have the best pricing that included all the features I wanted. For only $30 per month you can get up to 10 unique tracking numbers and use up to 500 minutes. The other thing I like about CallRail is their free trial. You can get a free trial WITHOUT giving them your credit card and within about 2-3 minutes you will have your account up and running. If you like it just get your billing info plugged in before the trial runs out. The reporting has been flawless and the recording has been a huge asset to my business.

–>Start Your Free Trial Today

Your Best Just Got Better By Jason Womack

I recently completed reading “Your Best Just Got Better” by Jason Womack. This book is full of golden nuggets of productivity and personal growth. When the author says, Work Smarter, Think Bigger, and Make More; it means that with all seriousness. The book flows together to help readers move through a progressive education designed to take you from the beginning to the end. At the same time each section stands alone to give you actionable insights to make you better at what you do.

Also, Jason’s sincerity comes right through the pages. You can tell that he cares about his clients and he cares about helping the reader grow. I’ve been reading personal development books for a very long time but there are still new ideas in this book and lots of good reminders.

One of my favorite insights is the idea of writing down ideal days. Jason suggests that you envision what a perfect day for you would look like. Write it down. I’ve heard this before but never taken the time to do that. Jason mentioned in the book that he has written down 100s of ideal days and lived many of them. This may sound a little silly but in context of what the book teaches it makes perfect sense.

I also love Jason’s suggestion of pondering and creating an inventory of “I’m At My Best When.” When you truly understand what factors lead you to be at your best you can start to manufacture greater productivity.

Read this book and you will learn these and 100 other great ideas to make you better than you are now.

Goodreads For Authors: How to Take Your Book Social

As the director of the largest online business book group; I have the opportunity to speak with a lot of authors. If you are an author, and haven’t heard about Goodreads.com you need to fire your coach, publisher, or PR company. Goodreads.com is a fast growing social network for readers of all genres. Like most social networks you setup your own profile, connect with friends, and send private messages. It is different in that everything you do to interact within the site is based around books.

Activities include:

Adding a book to one of your bookshelves (Defaults include: Read, To-Read, and Currently Reading)
Reviewing a book
Updating your status on a book you are currently reading
Commenting on a friend’s review or status
Joining book groups
Creating or commenting on existing book discussions in groups

So, as an author of a book you can see how this would present a fantastic opportunity.

The Three Things Authors Should Do On Goodreads.com

Complete Your Profile. You probably already have an author profile and just don’t know it. Now you need to setup an account and claim your author profile. This is done by searching and finding your author profile, and then scrolling to the bottom where you will see a link that reads: “Is this you? Let us know.” Click on that link and follow the steps to connect/merge your account with your author profile. Once this is done add some pictures, videos, all the bio information and connect your blog feed and Twitter profile.
Join in the discussion. If you expect others to read your books and review them you need to show that you also know how to read and review a book. Go back the last 3-5 years and find all the books you have read. Write short reviews and publish them. Search for book groups of readers that would be interested in your writing. Join these groups and become an active participant in the discussions. Remember that all forms of social media boil down to your ability to connect with people. Respond to reviews about your writing; especially the negative ones. It is ok to listen to what others say about you and respond professionally.
Consider buying advertising. Goodreads has a fantastic advertising dashboard. You can target Goodreads users based on what books or author they like making it easy to put your new book in front of the people most likely to enjoy it. Advertising doesn’t have to be expensive. Start here: http://www.goodreads.com/advertisers/...

The Three Things Authors Should NOT Do On Goodreads.com

Add mass numbers of friends. Similar to Facebook or Twitter, searching for and sending friend requests to thousands of Goodreads users is unlikely to actually do you any good. Produce valuable content and contribute to conversations and people will send you the friend requests. Those are valuable connections.
Be Self-Promotional in your discussion. The worst thing you could do is start a new discussion topic in the biggest group of your genre and tell everyone to check out your book, or tour, or promotion. Advertising is not only against the rules but its also annoying. Again, if you contribute to discussion then people will naturally follow your name/link to your author profile where they will learn more about you and your writing. Let that happen naturally. It is OK to share links to articles you have written or blog entries that are relevant to the discussion at hand.
Ignore the feedback and comments. You should be grateful for all the reviews, comments, and feedback you can get. It will only help you refine your work and better target your promotional efforts. Pay attention and respond!

Hopefully this gives you some context that will make it easier to get started but in the end we all learn by doing!

Likeable Business by Dave Kerpen

This week I finished reading “Likeable Business” by Dave Kerpen. When I found out I would be reading this book in 2013 as part of my book group I decided to first read “Likeable Social Media,” fearing that I might be reading a sequel without reading the first book. That wasn’t the case.

I’m glad I decided to read Likable Social Media first because the book was awesome. It was the best hands on “how-to” book on social media for business that I’ve ever read and I’ve read quite a few.

Likeable Business is it’s own book. It specifically addresses how any person or organization can become more… well likeable. Since likeability is a critical value in our growing transparent society, I think this material could really apply to anyone in any industry or personal pursuit.

Dave Kerpen outlines 11 principles of Likeable businesses. Each principle makes up it’s own chapter. I love books that are laid out like that. It makes it easier to read in chunks and it tends to make a lot more sense to me.

Without spoiling the book let me say that Kerpen hit it on it’s head. We all need to practice and develop these principles. One of these for example is Gratitude. Kerpen believes in showing gratitude and he is able to relate how this critical asset affects the bottom lines of business on and offline.

Another principle in the book is Authenticity. A lack of authenticity is not only foolish on the part of any individual or organization but Kerpen also shows that it is toxic and deceiving.

Before finishing this book I gave a copy to a business colleague  A few weeks later when we spoke on the phone he thanked me profusely. So, I give you my own endorsement and that of another internet marketing professional!

Listen to More Books With Audible

I’ve written in the past about my techniques to read more books than most people. One of the “tricks” I employ is to listen to audiobooks during down time and driving time. In the past I used to always visit the local library to find the audiobooks I wanted to listen to but it was time consuming. In addition to the trip to the library I also had to load each CD into the computer and then transfer the files to my phone.

More recently I have discovered Audible.com (an Amazon company). Audible makes it easy to browse the largest online selection of audiobooks and quickly download and start listening to them within minutes. This has saved me a lot of time and prevented me from having to put the best books on hold at the library.

Some of the things I love most about Audible are:

Audible provides applications for your phone and computer making it easy to listen to books anywhere you are.
Audible’s audiobook library is the most complete in the world. They even have a large selection of audiobooks that are not available for sale ANYWHERE else.
Audible allows customers to buy individual titles on demand or to purchase memberships that come with monthly credits to download any books.
Audible’s desktop software allows you to download books and burn them to audio CDs to play in your car if you choose.

Audible will give anyone a free 30 day trial that includes a free book (that you don’t ever have to return). Check it out today.

Click here to get started!

When Was The Last Time You Unplugged

Recently I went on a week long vacation with my family. I turned off the sync on my email, RSS reader, and social media profiles.

Why Is That Important On Occasion?

You need to channel focus and energy in order to be truly productive. If you have built up a life of distractions around you, you can hardly expect to find yourself in consistent modes of high level effectiveness. I’m not just referring to vacations. Unplug the desk phone, silent your cell, and close your door on occasion. Think of how you can build a lifestyle of time blocks of no distractions and you will find yourself in high production.

Can It Really Be Done?

If your answer to this question is no then you need to reconsider your life. Either you are mistaken or you have led your life into a black hole of low productivity. Run a few tests. Try three hours. Don’t think that you can learn anything by unplugging for 30 minutes or an hour. You need a real time block in order to truly understand the lack of drama that will come into your life from turning it all off.

Share. Use the comments below to share your experiences, past or present, of unplugging.

Reputation Mangement: Quick Look at Google Alerts

We all have a brand. You have your personal brand which is the group of perceived values and principles you live by. You may also have something to do with the brand of an organization or company. In this digital age it has become more difficult to monitor what is being said about your brand. There are a large number of reputation management tools that perform various forms of online searches for your brand’s name or keywords. Today I am going to introduce Google Alerts.

Google Alerts is a no cost service that searches the ongoing Google index of the web for a preset list of your designated keywords or phrases. This is particularly effective at searching on blogs and news sites. The service is not perfect and the more remote the site where your keywords or phrases are used the less likely Google is to index it as part of your alert.

It is a simple enough service to use. Just visit http://www.google.com/alerts and put in your criteria. You can enter keywords or phrases. You can select different content types such as blogs, news, videos, etc. You can determine how often you want the alerts sent to you and to what email address.

According to your preferences you will begin to receive emails with an index of all the new web pages during the specified period of time that include your keyword or phrase. To change, delete, or otherwise manage your alerts return to the same URL and click on the “Manage Your Alerts” link below.

It isn’t a perfect option but it is a no-cost option for small to medium size brands who want to begin to explore brand and reputation management.