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HOW TO GET THE MOST OUT OF SOCIAL MEDIA AUTOMATION

Work Smart Show daily blog.

Now please don’t think I am scared of or anti-technology, in fact it both amazes and frustrates me. I am far from a Luddite taking to a computer with a hammer, well sometimes, but there are some parts of technology that I could do without. I am talking specifically about the auto likes, auto followers and auto DM’s on Twitter.

Almost every time I post an article or daily blog I will receive a notification a second later telling me that someone has liked, retweeted or commented on this. Now please don’t think I am bragging in fact it is quite the opposite; this will be a company targeting a keyword that I have used such as ‘entrepreneur’ or ‘business’. At first I would follow the account because of their like but very quickly stopped when I understood their tactic. They are trying to illicit a human response, a like or follow, with a system set to auto-pilot.

The other example of is auto DM’s when you follow someone. I have read the auto DM’s of three people. Only three of the 1,810 people that I currently follow. When I receive a DM stating “XX person sent you a link” I don’t even open the message. To have people open and respond to your DM’s you need to respect them, their time, needs and wants. Almost no one on twitter wants a link to your site, training course or sure fire way of earning an income at home. Also if you have set up your profile correctly the follower would have already seen this information and links in your bio.

Now let me tell you about the three that I did open and respond to even though I knew they were auto DM’s. The first was when I followed @begosite and received the message “Are you the DIY type of person, or would you rather someone else do things for you?” There was no link, no promotional material even though this is an account for a DIY website builder. This lead to a very interesting DM conversation about outsourcing and what work as an entrepreneur or business you could or would outsource. It also lead me to follow all of the accounts linked to this; @bruceandeddy and @butchewing and receive a similar auto DM; “Would you rather see us as giant corporation or small business?”

Now aside from being another interesting topic for a blog post some other day these accounts went to the time of posing an interesting auto DM question, then taking time to converse in depth once I answered instead of spamming me with promotional material that I would resent.

I have said on the Work Smart Show podcast that I don’t mind advertising if it is interesting and relevant to me and in the same way I don’t mind auto DM’s as long as they are engaging and not self-promoting.

So I give you this challenge; do you have a auto DM? Is it engaging or simply more of your site and contact details? Take time today to work this into an engaging question and then answer the responses. What have you got to lose? After all have you honestly ever made a sale, gained a listener or fan through an auto DM?

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FEATURE: DOING THE RESEARCH This is a feature guest blog by Jason Bordeaux of BusinessWithBordeaux.com and the Business With Bordeaux Podcast. ​ There are certain steps that individuals must take before starting a business. Often some steps are focused on more than others. There is one part of business that many people do not pay attention to when getting started. That is because this area is not the most fun. It requires looking at data, numbers, and statistics. You may have guessed it by now. That area of business is research. This is a key step in any business plan in order to maximize profit and efficiency. When we decide to launch a business, we need to research the market, the competitors, and possible future environmental factors that may interfere with business. There also needs to be research on demographics, locations for physical stores and that local market, and the political issues that may effect that business short and long term. It is important to look and make sure your product or anything associated with it isn't infringing on any copyright or patented material/product. Studying others who have succeeded and failed in your line of business is very helpful. It is important to learn from others successes and failures. The length of time of research varies depending on the type of business. You are looking at years for any kind of medical or children products typically. It is also important to make sure you have accurate data. Making decisions off of unreliable data is not a good practice. Stay away from making assumptions. We often make assumptions about businesses and they are not always right. A lot of business owners make big decisions before researching the relevant information needed. Do not be lazy with your research either. Like anything else in your business, be diligent with it. If this area is not an area that you feel you can handle on your own then you need to find someone who can assist you. That would be much better than not doing it or research information incorrectly. Just make sure you are making the best informed decisions possible. It will be better for you and your business as you look to get started or expand.

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JOURNEY DOWN THE BLACK HOLE OF... TWITTER! A few days back, Jeremiah and I recorded two episodes of the Work Smart Show outlining our experiences with and advice for certain social media platforms. It really got me thinking because we both use, almost entirely, different platforms with Facebook being the only crossover. He uses Snapchat, Instagram and Reddit where as I use Twitter, Tumblr and Minds. It really got me thinking about where people actually spend their time and the way that certain platforms trend, eg. Tumblr and Pinterest’s overwhelming female user ship. So I wanted to share some of my experiences on each platform so follow me as today I journey down the black hole of… Twitter. I first found Twitter several years ago as a way to follow several of my favourite CHH rappers and was amazed to find that many of them would talk with and to me directly. There is nothing like the feeling, as a kid in New Zealand, of talking to Trae the Truth in a different time zone, hemisphere and so much more. If I was to go his show I would have to pay hundreds, if not thousands for a backstage, VIP meeting with him and that wouldn't be a conversation but a quick meeting. Twitter provides an amazing resource to quickly and easily talk to your followers in a way that can be really memorable. There are many issues with Twitter, including what Gary Vee call’s the “firehose” effect. This is the concept that if you follow 100 people you will see every single one of their posts in your feed meaning it can be all consuming. To contrast this Facebook only shows you curated content that the algorithm thinks you will enjoy. However if you get too far behind with your Twitter feed the ‘New Posts’ button becomes available and skips you up to the most recent posts. This means you can easily miss huge swaths of what you would have otherwise seen. This necessitates really serious users, marketers or anyone looking for followers to be posting almost constantly. There is a lot of useful tools for Twitter to automate tweets and to create a content library, manage your follow-backs and such and they are all very useful. However I have found, when first starting out, that building a follower base was largely due to connecting personally with people. Genuinely thanking them for their follow and often referencing something in their bio or recent posts. This is not simply a self serving task as it allows you to see what sort of people are following you and you will find some great articles and posts. However it will also build your numbers as the person will often reply of retweet your comment, especially if it is complimentary of their work, to their thousands of followers. You will notice that if someone with over 50 thousand followers retweets your post then it is good for at least 10-15 followers of your own or further retweets and it’s not that hard. Now let’s address another aspect of Twitter, DM’s - where it all goes down. Now there is only a few people I have actually talked to through DM as normally you would do so directly and openly on Twitter. The other nuisance is that most people you follow send auto DM's with offsite links, which I have never - NEVER - not even once clicked​. Even for people that I like! I don't even open the DM tab on my phone or laptop. There must be a hit rate for DM’s but it will be very low as most people simply ignore them. I have written previously about one, just one, I opened and engaged with the person as they didn't promote anything but simply asked something interesting like “I struggled with automation at first, do you think it is needed or can you get around it by manual work?” Try that approach, just because this is an automated message doesn't mean that a robot wrote it. I am happy receiving a DM sent by a robot so long as it does not also read like the said robot wrote it themselves. I have never understood the relatively new story function for individual users but it can be great for looking at many different users posts on a particular topic or issue. Similarly the ability to put followers into ‘Lists’ is something that I underutilise but has amazing potential for marketing and feeding varied information to specific groups of people. In short you can gain a lot of great benefits from Twitter; such as organic website traffic, well targeted advertising, fascinating interactions with or between mega stars - or even presidents! It is not something to be neglected and if you want to know more read Gary Vee’s Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook! and check out this really fascinating article about Twitter stats and the best ways to use it. Have your say on Twitter, Facebook, Anchor, Tumblr, Minds or Medium! Listen and download our Work Smart Show Podcast hosted by Access Manawatu!

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DON’T IGNORE YOUR BIGGEST ASSET; YOUR COMMUNITY. So often when we are on the internet it can be very easy to ignore the real world and this is also so when using the internet for business. For example the internet is the obvious place to turn when promoting things, like our podcast and website, but it is not the only place.

I have been trying for a while to get our show involved in the community in a meaningful way. This is why we are part of a community station rather than recording and producing our show on our own backs. Similarly it means I am always looking for people to work with within our community and ways we can engage them. This is a work in progress but there is some things in the works to help our community.

If your product, business or show is trying to meet a need as ours is, to encourage entrepreneurs and people wanting to excel in their careers, then you will have obviously identified the need. You will most likely have identified it personally, as it is no surprise that the Work Smart Show have online businesses and are constantly upskilling to push their own careers. So if you have the particular need there is likely others in your immediate community, not just overseas online, with the same need. Say what you will about the internet but talking to another real person who shares your interests, experiences or needs is always more interesting and satisfying than any blog or podcast.

With this is mind do not neglect your community as they are an open and normally free resource to you as well as being more likely to be supportive. I have talked before about the home advantage and the home team; we love the home team because they represent some aspect of us and this is also true for business, artists and much more. In New Zealand especially we are fiercely proud of our successes; people like Lorde, Tiaki Wiatiti, Peter Jackson, Savage, PNC and anyone that makes it big overseas.

If you are an online business or venture only there will still be some way to engage your community and maybe meet their needs more effectively. Personally, I would love to set up at a local job fair and record a few episodes of our show on the floor talking to job hunters, students and employers. We could then work to encourage excellence, help make lasting connections for them and maybe even encourage entrepreneurship. In short you can ignore your community and the resources within but do so at your own peril.

Have your say on Twitter, Facebook, Anchor, Tumblr, Minds or Medium! Listen and download our Work Smart Show Podcast hosted by Access Manawatu!

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ARE YOU LEARNING ANYTHING? Recently I have been reading a book called 64 Things You Need to Know Now for Then: How to Face the Digital Age Without Fear by Ben Hammersley. It explains, in its opening chapters, a brief view of how several aspects of the internet works; such the Amazon’s Mechanical Turk and how material gets from me to you. For example did you know when completing a reCAPTCHA you are actually transferring a picture of text into a digital file? By reading and typing the letters you are, one of many people, helping to translate a physical document into computer text. Likely you helped to translate turn the physical archives from The New York Times into a digital copy if you used the internet between 2009 and 2011.

I certainly didn’t know that, and many other things, about the basics of how the internet works. Something that I use daily and think little about, unless it doesn’t work, but consider learning a little just a little about anything and it will drastically change your perception. Now every time that I log on, see a reCAPTCHA or click from Data to Wi-Fi am much more appreciative for this technology which I can only ever hope to understand a very small part of.

This is the same of almost any field as the book I accidentally picked up on the Persian empires several months ago has still got my mind spinning. It really changed the way that I thought about ancient and modern politics, the impact of religion and culture on society and the time frame. I was amazed by the level of detail in the government and bureaucracy of the time sitting over several of the largest empires in the known world at the time.

Obviously some of these things have more practical applications than others but I have learnt so much from starting the Work Smart Show and reading material around this area. If you have a project or not I encourage you to pick up a book, watch a documentary or the like and get into learning something. Learning is not just for school otherwise you could never hope to accomplish anything more impressive that a high schooler. And don’t be afraid to learn something that may not have a practical application as it may adjust and alter your perspective.

Have your say on Twitter, Facebook, Anchor, Tumblr, Minds or Medium! Listen and download our Work Smart Show Podcast hosted by Access Manawatu!

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‘HOW TO BE A LAWYER’ FOR DUMMIES When I started out to create a podcast I never thought I would need to even consider any legal details. But was I wrong.

As our show is aired on local radio we need to meet the New Zealand Radio Broadcasting regulations and we can only use music and material that has been properly cleared. Several of our hosts work for large entities and we do have to watch what we say, to ensure we are not putting ourselves in an awkward position or negatively reflecting on the entity. This means I have had to craft statements for our website to distance our comments from any entity, other hosts or guests. Similarly, now that I have started using content from other bloggers, I have had to ensure proper credit was given and it was clear that express permission was obtained from the author.

Never did I think I would need to contemplate any of this but legal issues seem to come up all over the place. All of the issues have been relatively simple to solve but if you are starting out it can pay to have this in the back of your mind at all times. Legalities shouldn’t hold you back but may mean that you need to readjust or just put enough information out publically to protect yourself.

Now I’m not saying that you need a law degree but I am saying that you need to be careful to think with a legal mind-set especially online. It can be so easy to take something, say something or post something you shouldn’t so protect yourself. Set personal guidelines that you will adhere to that will ensure you avoid any issues. I only use one site for images, which I share online, as I have put in my research and know that this site only provides images that are available for any personal and commercial use.

Most issues you can get around by simply putting in the time to find good license free images, music and video – all of which are out there. It can be time consuming but not impossible and you will be setting yourself up well for when your venture grows.

Have your say on Twitter, Facebook, Anchor, Tumblr, Minds or Medium! Listen and download our Work Smart Show Podcast hosted by Access Manawatu!

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‘HOW TO BE A LAWYER’ FOR DUMMIES When I started out to create a podcast I never thought I would need to even consider any legal details. But was I wrong.

As our show is aired on local radio we need to meet the New Zealand Radio Broadcasting regulations and we can only use music and material that has been properly cleared. Several of our hosts work for large entities and we do have to watch what we say, to ensure we are not putting ourselves in an awkward position or negatively reflecting on the entity. This means I have had to craft statements for our website to distance our comments from any entity, other hosts or guests. Similarly, now that I have started using content from other bloggers, I have had to ensure proper credit was given and it was clear that express permission was obtained from the author.

Never did I think I would need to contemplate any of this but legal issues seem to come up all over the place. All of the issues have been relatively simple to solve but if you are starting out it can pay to have this in the back of your mind at all times. Legalities shouldn’t hold you back but may mean that you need to readjust or just put enough information out publically to protect yourself.

Now I’m not saying that you need a law degree but I am saying that you need to be careful to think with a legal mind-set especially online. It can be so easy to take something, say something or post something you shouldn’t so protect yourself. Set personal guidelines that you will adhere to that will ensure you avoid any issues. I only use one site for images, which I share online, as I have put in my research and know that this site only provides images that are available for any personal and commercial use.

Most issues you can get around by simply putting in the time to find good license free images, music and video – all of which are out there. It can be time consuming but not impossible and you will be setting yourself up well for when your venture grows.

Have your say on Twitter, Facebook, Anchor, Tumblr, Minds or Medium! Listen and download our Work Smart Show Podcast hosted by Access Manawatu!

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CAN COMPETITION BENEFIT BOTH SIDES? Whenever I write about an idea I am quick to sight the source, normally giving a backlink to the original person. Recently I have started featuring business blogs by Jason Bordeaux of the Business With Bordeaux podcast on our site to support his work. Even though we both have podcasts and blog in the similar vein we are also very different and I am happy to support him. He is an American, with a business degree; interviewing people starting faith based businesses and heavily features hip hop artists and people in the music business. We are a team of New Zealanders, focusing on the experience we have and mistakes we make to provide this to our listeners. We endeavour to support entrepreneurs to make the jump to starting out and those in 9-5’s to excel in their careers. Although we have many crossovers and similarities we have different target audiences and many other differences. Why is it that people in business, entrepreneurship, and sometimes in life in general, seem to think that helping others will somehow harm their own interests. I support Jason because he provides something different than we do and these resources are useful and impactful for us and our followers. This is also to introduce him to people that may not already be aware of his work as happens in most podcast circles. Social media, podcasting, blogging and many other things work on a cross pollination style system. No doubt you heard of many of your favourite artists or podcasts based on finding them elsewhere. I can follow the long train, directly, from listening to Da T.R.U.T.H’s It’s Complicated album on Spotify, through Soundcloud podcasts, to finding Roaming Millennial’s channel on YouTube. We are no longer restricted to the single lanes we used to run in such as radio stations or TV channels. We follow people, through interviews on other shows, blogs and the like to find more and more creators and content. With this in mind the outdated view of keeping to yourself, just doing your own thing, will not be that effective. You should definitely create exactly what and how you want but don’t be afraid to interact with others. As I’ve discussed before, one of the reasons for a daily blog is to act as a form of advertising and if you think this way you should be interacting with every creator that you can. The problem here is in their private life people discover new content from friends and in the ways mentioned above but when they sit down to create or market said content they seem to forget this. Interaction with others should be seen as just that, interaction. People in your circle and line of business no doubt have ways to improve your product, work or business even though they may also be seen as ‘competition’. I also have never wanted to run the Work Smart Show as way to climb up on or over others. If we were to do that any success would not be worth it, but we want to provide as much quality and useful content to our followers as possible. So why would I not support and share content from other creators to that end. Have your say on Twitter, Facebook, Anchor, Tumblr, Minds or Medium! Listen and download our Work Smart Show Podcast hosted by Access Manawatu!

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FEATURE: INVESTMENT AND DEBT This is a feature guest blog by Jason Bordeaux of BusinessWithBordeaux.com and the Business With Bordeaux Podcast. ​As we hear about start up companies in today's world of tech, we know of so many companies raising funds and trying to eventually become net positive within 'years.' I don't know about you, but that doesn't sound too appealing to me. Once that money runs out, they raise more funds. It is a repeating cycle for so many companies. When there are no more funds to raise, debt becomes the next go to. It is so common for folks to go into so much debt to start a company and it can become dangerous. This is the way most people think you have to start a business in today's world. I submit to you to think of a better way. First, I want to address the investor aspect of this. When people are raising funds they are selling a portion of their company. The more money they raise, the less of the company they own. Eventually, the owner could end up loosing controlling interest of the company. This means that the other owners could kick the current owner out of the company. Usually they can't take their equity away, but they can take them out of a position of control and change the company all around. This isn't a fun experience for business owners. Debt is another big issue for companies. Business owners usually take out debt that they are personally responsible for when starting out. This is a super stressful thing for business owners to go through. There is a term that is used in small businesses called bootstrapping. This is where you put up some kind of money to start a business, then use the profits to run the company and grow slowly. This is an old school approach before there were angel investors or big banks for loans. This is the way I recommend any small business owner to try to grow and operate. Owning a business is like maintaining a household. The more debt that is accumulated, the more day-to-day stress will be seen. It is just overall a bad situation. Some people will try to rebuttal with the company's growth rate being higher than the interest rate of borrowing money, but that doesn't take into the rate of risk and environmental factors. I may dive into this topic a little more at a later time, but for now, I hope this has been somewhat helpful.

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FAIL TO PLAN... YOU KNOW HOW IT GOES. How often do you set out to do something productive and get distracted by, well, almost anything. This is especially easy when starting out on your project, business or venture because there is no clear plan of things you need to do. A few nights ago I sat down to update our website and after an hour I had changed the font, text colour and a few other completely irrelevant things. I had set out to ahh…. once again I hadn’t really set out to do anything. And so I succeeded. Now whenever I sit down to work I firstly write a clear list of 4 to 5 things that I want to get done. It means that it’s much harder to get off track and if I do I can easily re-direct myself. Since I have started doing this I have noticed a marked increase in the real work that I am able to complete. I don’t turn the computer off and wonder what I just did with the last few hours. Now I am able to say “In the last few hours I wrote two blogs, uploaded the latest podcast, and added a signup page to the website.” We’ve all heard the quote “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail” but, as I’ve said before, we hear this so often because it happens to be true. I always thought of this phrase in a large scale context, as in your life or business goals, but it is just as true in a very small scale context, as in how will you spend the next three hours. The beauty of this is that if you plan in the short term, with small things and small amounts of time, then it also builds towards and grows your large scale goals. Have your say on Twitter, Facebook, Anchor, Tumblr, Minds or Medium! Listen and download our Work Smart Show Podcast hosted by Access Manawatu!

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MUSIC IS GOOD FOR BUSINESS One of my favorite things about my current job is that, as I have a desk job, I can have my headphones on most of the day, listening to podcasts or music. I find that if I have a pile of work to get through I go straight to one of my playlists and turn the volume up loud. A combination of having music blasting and no office noise means I can almost double my output.

When we look at business and entrepreneurship, weirdly enough, music - and especially hiphop - is a close associate. Just watch a Daily Vee episode to prove my point. I think it may be because a lot of musicians, rappers and producers these days also have to be entrepreneurs and businessmen as demonstrated by Tech N9ne, Logic and Ja Rule.

It also has a close association due to the relatability of someone really grinding, hustling and working towards their goal, whether that be getting out of the hood or getting your business running. Lastly and possibly most obviously because of the way that hiphop music gives you energy and enthusiasm in the way that not much else can.

Listening to Bugsy Malone, KB, Trae the Truth and Canon can give me the drive to work for two hours on a Thursday night when nothing else could. There is an importance to knowing your motivation, the “why”, that drives you but that is a different issue. My motivation, my “why”, was enough to get me to sit down at the computer with the aim to do 15 minutes of work. Music is what takes this from being a chore and resulted in me getting through a massive amount of work.

Do you have something you know that you need to do and maybe you can even see the advantages? Then make sure you put in the effort to at least start, put on your headphones, turn up the volume and run a playlist. The time will fall away and yes, I did just find an excuse to write a whole blog post just on my music favorites.

Have your say on Twitter, Facebook, Anchor, Tumblr, Minds or Medium! Listen and download our Work Smart Show Podcast hosted by Access Manawatu!

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ENSURE YOU HAVE VARIED ROLE MODELS At the moment I am a big fan of Steven Crowder, Ben Shapiro and their respective podcasts. Before this I had an almost cult like following of Dennis Prager, Dave Ramsey, Vince Reed, Ruslan, Beleaf and Gary Vaynerchuk. Obviously I wouldn’t have joined a cult but I became very enthused with each of their message, teaching and lessons and I’m sure my wife was sick of hearing about them all. Over time the enthusiasm waned and I started to honestly and critically think about each person, something I have now learned to do initially. This is something that I noticed within myself that I can become very passionate about one person at the expense of others. Since realizing this, early in my marriage oddly enough, I started to be very intentional about who I listen to and what i watch as I know I have this proclivity. Also whenever I watch or read something I will often go a search out the opposite opinion and weigh up the arguments. This ensures that I can trust myself to make decisions based on other peoples teachings. It also shows after a while who provides consistently reliable information and advice, as I believe every person in my list above does. This idea though is important in life and business as there are so many business coaches and free e-books from every other person with a different ethos. When looking at these you must ask, why does this person think or advise that and what is the opposite opinion? Take Bitcoin for example; I have seen several people advocate investing in bitcoin, especially given the recent swell the value experienced. Dave Ramsey particularly stated that he would not personally invest in something that had no intrinsic value, that is it is not a physical item that can hold value. I’ll note here that obviously a stock is not a physical item either but it is contract with the company for a share of a entity made up of physical and HR assets. The drastic increase in bitcoin value was short lived, in fact it didn’t last the rest of the week, and people found out exactly who they should have listened to. The reason I follow all of these people is because they have massive amounts of experience in things that I do not and they are all willing to share their knowledge and lessons. In saying that none of them are infallible and this is where the importance of having a broad church of opinions in your influencers comes to the fore. Also if every other sentence starts out with “well Gary Vee says” you will very quickly find that people who not respect his view’s will lose interest. Other people's opinions and advice should influence, inform and illuminate your own, rather than simply parroting someone else. In the same way your actions should only be directed by people that you have verified are trustworthy and have experience that you trust and can externally verify. This may sound paranoid but if you are basing any of your actions, thoughts or opinions on their advice or actions it is the least you can do. Take this view with you next time you open YouTube or your podcast catcher and run them through this filter. I guarantee it will leave you with a new appreciation for your favorites or some questions that you need answers too. Have your say on Twitter, Facebook, Anchor, Tumblr, Minds or Medium! ​Listen and download our Work Smart Show Podcast hosted by Access Manawatu!

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EVER PUNCHED A LAPTOP? Have you ever hit your computer screen? No? Then it’s likely you have never used a computer for more than 20 minutes. Last night after a two hour mental wrestling match with my laptop, after the kids misplaced the connection for my Bluetooth keyboard and mouse, I had had it. I was so frustrated but no amount of um... persuasive language, made the computer agree with me. Although you probably laugh we’ve all reached this point with the internet, an app, a video, buffering, the loading circle of death or worst - the completely dead black screen. Obviously when starting the Work Smart Show podcast, blog, website and social media profiles I would have to interact with technology and normally this isn’t an issue. It reminds me of my co-host, Jared, spending most of the night working on his site to find he had missed one small step in his coding. Sometimes it’s you, sometime it’s the technology but the result is equally frustrating and it’s enough to make you want to quit. And in both of these circumstances Jared and I could. We could both quit, give up with no real consequences, but here we are still plugging away. Are we gluttons for punishment? Possibly but more importantly we have goals that override the temporary frustration. We have all spent moments frustrated by our work, decisions, progress, or lack thereof but this is where we have the choice to determine our end result. The most exceptionally frustrating thing was that, even in the heat of the moment, I still knew that I would have to try again tomorrow because I wasn’t going to let myself give up that easily. So take a moment now to look at your end goal, ensure it is current and in your sights, and then it’s much easier to deal with frustration as, once you��ve cooled down, you still need to find a new way to work towards that central goal. Hopefully this blog didn’t trigger any frustration with your own technology but if it did, take this opportunity to re-address your goal in the moment. Have your say on Twitter, Facebook, Anchor, Tumblr, Minds or Medium! Listen and download our Work Smart Show Podcast hosted by Access Manawatu!

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HAVE YOU KEPT YOUR NEW YEARS RESOLUTIONS SO FAR? Here we are almost two weeks into the new year which means, according to studies, almost a third of people have already given up or failed in their new year’ resolutions. For those that make it past two weeks only 9.2% of people feel that they are successful in achieving their resolution or resolutions. Even just the title of this blog was likely enough to make some people squirm. For those of you reading who have managed to keep the progress going, great work! You definitely deserve it as we all know that the first few days and weeks of any change are by far the hardest. This blog is less about new year and more about goal setting in general. Goals are massively important and this is outlined and supported in Habit 2 of Stephen R Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Successful People. Previously I have written about reading being a way to statistically increase your income and chances of success, and this is another method. If you are serious about improving your life, developing your potential and achieving your life goals you need to be taking advantage of these free ways of doing so. If for any reason you missed new years take this as an opportunity to set or adjust your goals to make them more achievable. We know that goals have to be realistic, specific and measurable. If you say that “I’d like to lose weight, get a six pack and eat healthier” you are leaving a lot of wiggle room. Try instead “I’d like to lose 10kg’s, go to the gym at least twice a week and eat takeaways no more than once a fortnight.” This means that you can get to the end of the year and actually measure your results. The other advantage of this adjustment is that you can personally check of your progress as you go. You could have a chart on the fridge, maybe not the fridge as weight loss is our example, to mark of your gym visit’s each week. The act of ticking something off your list, marking it done, will help with the positive affirmation, be a visual representation of your achievement and a reminder to stare you in the face when you slack off. Lastly setting a huge amount of goals can be counterproductive as you can overwhelm yourself before you have really started. With this in mind, set some goals or readjust your current ones to ensure they are specific, realistic and measurable and I will see you next year to check on your progress. Have your say on Twitter, Facebook, Anchor, Tumblr, Minds or Medium! Listen and download our Work Smart Show Podcast hosted by Access Manawatu!

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USE YOUR ANALYTICS, NUMBERS DON’T LIE. When working online numbers can be very deceptive, with followers, views and the like, but your perceptions can be even more so. When working through a site, blog, podcast, YouTube channel or social media profile it can be really difficult to gauge your impact. We all know that followers can be bought, or earned through sneaky tricks and workarounds or they could be validly and hard-earned fans. The problem is that only you as the creator will honestly ever know. With this in mind if you’re going to survive in the social media world you need to adopt this basic rule to grow in a healthy way. Ignore the numbers of other people and sites and focus entirely on your own numbers and responses. Nothing can be gained by measuring yourself against others, especially to begin with, but setting goals based on your own numbers and analytics can produce real growth. You can, and should, compare your product to that provided by others as this can help you innovate and improve, but not the numbers. The other thing to do is to determine your limit with numbers eg. I need to reach this many people or my time is not worth the investment. For example if my blogs were not read by at least 100 individual site visitors per week I will not invest the time. This number may be lower for you but once you have the number, and it can be just one, then you will find it easier to stay focused. At any time you can say “this was a hard week and we lost viewers but I still reached at least one person.” Also you will find once you start delving into the analytics, available for free on almost every social media profiles and website, that you can pin-point what your audience likes. I can tell you that my audience like and share my blogs more on Tumblr when I address branding and the music business, more on Twitter when I address career development or economics and get more traffic to the site when I put out daily blogs as opposed to less often. These allow me to cater more specifically to what people want and grow our following. Take one of your social media profiles today, go to the settings and look at the analytics. Twitter’s are especially good and see what does well, what gets the most views, likes, comments and shares. I guarantee the post with the most interaction will surprise you and maybe change the way you use the platform. Have your say on Twitter, Facebook, Anchor, Tumblr, Minds or Medium! Listen and download our Work Smart Show Podcast hosted by Access Manawatu!

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FEATURE: WHAT IS YOUR UNFAIR ADVANTAGE? This is a feature guest blog by Jason Bordeaux of BusinessWithBordeaux.com and the Business With Bordeaux Podcast. ​One of the most important questions when starting and growing a business is what is your unfair advantage. Unfair advantages are those abilities and distinctive competencies that give you the edge over your current and potential competition. This can exist in many different forms and work differently for people. One example of an unfair advantage is a wealthy family. Having an investment from a family member to help you get the start up materials can be an unfair advantage over others who may not have family members who are able to do the same. The same can go from receiving an inheritance from a loved one that can help you start your business in some way. ​ Another unfair advantage could be a person's work schedule. Most small businesses start as a side hustle for those who have full time jobs to pay bills. For example, I currently have a job where I work overnight for a week then get a week off. This allows for opportunities that I may not get with a traditional 9-5 schedule. Some people work 4 10-hour workdays and get a three day weekend. This is also a great way to spend a few days a week working on that side job. In some cases growing up poor is an unfair advantage. I know it sounds a little crazy, but those who had to work harder for what they received, usually appreciates the rewards much more. They also are usually the most hungry for success. Every little small win give them a boost of confidence. Even though it may not seem like it, growing up poor can actually help with the drive more that growing up wealthy. I would say one last unfair advantage would be having a supportive circle of friends and family. Everyone doesn't have both parents or siblings to be there for emotional support. It is helpful to have a loving spouse, parents, children, or great friends to be there when times are hard and you start doubting yourself. This isn't something you can necessarily create, so that would be an unfair advantage over those starting this journey by themselves. The whole purpose of this post is to show that these "unfair advantages" are not a bad thing to have. Everyone has a different kind of advantage over their competition just like in sports. Football players shouldn't feel bad because they are naturally fast runners. Basketball players shouldn't feel bad for being a foot taller than their teammates. They use these things to their advantage to help the team and build their career. Don't let anyone make you feel ashamed for having a certain advantage over others. Just don't use it in a negative way. The purpose of any business should be to serve others with what they need in the best way possible. Using all of your resources to do that and making a profit is a good thing. So go and find your unfair advantage and use it to the best of your ability.