What would happen if you improved on everything you did by a factor of 10?

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a ten times iimprovementLet me give you an example.

Let’s say you’re a freelance writer, focusing on Business-to-Business clients, and want to create a free report to offer your website visitors when they sign up for your newsletter.

We’ll call your report, “The 7 Secrets to Converting Prospects into Clients”.

You create a short outline. You do some research. Maybe you download a few reports from your competitors’ websites to see how they did it.

You then write the report. Let’s say it’s 14 pages long. You get a cover designed. You’re good to go.

That’s the “factor of 1” version.

Now let’s look at what a “factor of 10” version might look like.

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Optimizing a web page doesn’t mean it has to be all new.

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Start from a blank pageClients like to feel they are getting their money’s worth when they pay you to improve on an existing web page.

This is true whether you are writing an online sales page, subscription page or some kind of content page.

In my experience, clients not only want you to completely rewrite the current control, but they also want you to base the new page on a totally new idea.

If you give them a variation on the current page or, heaven forbid, just make some tweaks to what they already have, they become very disappointed and will likely throw your draft back in your face.

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Without segmentation, email marketing just ticks people off.

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email list segmentationWhen it comes to buying gifts for my wife, I’m pretty useless.

So I fall back on jewelry almost every time.

And I often buy her jewelry at a particular online store. I like their stuff, and so does she.

After over 5 years buying from them, I would consider myself a fairly valuable customer.

Which is how they fooled me, just for a moment, when they sent me an email recently.

Here’s the subject line:

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Take total responsibility for your freelance career.

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No excuses for freelancers.The life of a freelancer isn’t always easy.

We have our ups and downs.

Maybe we lose a big client. Or that big prospect we thought was in the bag slips out of our grasp at the last moment.

Meanwhile we’re complaining about all the new freelancers entering the market, and pushing prices down.

Or we’re moaning about how the companies we’d really like to work with don’t seem to be hiring freelancers.

And then there’s that client who wants to renegotiate our fees, downwards.

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Follow your own dreams, not someone else’s. (And be sure it’s an amazing dream.)

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Follow your dreams.I have written about this before, but as it’s early in the year I wanted to tackle the subject again.

As the New Year gathers steam, we feel inspired to set new goals, maybe move forward in new directions, and take on fresh and interesting projects.

That’s all good.

But there is a caveat.

Don’t be lured into taking on someone else’s goals, directions and projects. They may be a perfect fit for that person, but not so much for you.

Let me explain.

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3 Ways to put an extra $12,000 in your pocket every year.

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Dog and coffeeAs the end of each year approaches, and the holiday season looms, most of us come up a little short.

We wish we had a little extra money in our pockets. More to save. More to spend on our families over the holidays. And more of a cash cushion so we can sleep better at night.

An extra $12,000 – one thousand more each month – would certainly make a big difference. In fact, for many of us, that extra thousand dollars a month would change our lives.

So how can we do that? Really, there are only three ways.

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