Niche Site Duel – Let the Games Begin

Niche Site Duel – Let the Games Begin

There has been lots of buzz on the web about Pat Flynn and Tyrone Shum’s Niche Site Duel – where they are basically going through the process of building a niche site and documenting the whole process. As someone who is looking into this space and currently running a couple of niche sites, I thought I would join along in the fun. A niche site is a small website targeted around a certain ‘niche’ or small topic which is designed to bring in revenue. The revenue will either come from advertising, affiliate marketing (selling someone else’s product), building your own product and selling it or selling services off the site. Pat and Tyrone are already more than a month into their challenge and are doing really well. Patt has already made $20! So if you are interested in this kind of thing, I definitely recommend checking them out. ### My Niche Site I already have a couple of niche sites up and running that are starting to gain some traction in the search engines and I will continue to work on them. But this niche site is going to have a slightly different flavour to the ones that Patt and Tyrone are working on (I thought it would be worth contributing something a little different than just rehashing what has already been said). They are building sites that they want to rank well in the search engines and are driving traffic by building micro sites and writing articles to build back links and drive traffic to the sites. This is the same technique that I use on some of my other sites. But for the purpose of this experiment, I will be trying something a little different. ### Here’s what I plan to do. 1. Find a niche that pays 2. Register a domain and build an email opt-in sales letter 3. Make 50 videos and post them up on the internet 4. Build an auto posting network to market my videos and potentially further market the site in the future 5. Try to build a list of 300-500 people 6. Either build a product to sell to the list or push an affiliate product in a launch manner 7. Continue to market affiliate products to the list I have already done points 1, 2, 3 (20 of 50 videos) and 4. I will write them up over the coming weeks and report on my progress. The main reason I have chosen this route is to experiment with video marketing. There are a few benefits of taking this route. Firstly, after some research and testing, making content for videos is lots quicker than writing content (in my case anyway). Secondly, video is a less competitive space. There is just less content out there, especially for weird, obscure niches. Thirdly, and this is a big-un, you can use PLR (Private Label Rights) content and it is not picked up as duplicate content because it is video marketed. This is huge if you are trying to create content for a niche you have no interest or prior knowledge in. There are also some downsides, such as not having control over the sites that push traffic to you (such as Youtube etc) meaning it can be a bit more hit or miss on how well you rank and how much traffic you receive. Either way, this is more of an experiment than anything else so we will see how it goes. Let the games begin! If niche is relevant to what you're working on, this is worth reading next: Designing a Squeeze Page – Niche Site Duel 03.

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My $1195 Blog Comment

My $1195 Blog Comment

Last week Mashable had a competition to promote their up coming event Blog World Expo in Las Vegas. The competition was to leave a comment in response to the question **"What is the future of blogging?"** and they picked 5 winners from their favourite responses. So I entered my comment, as you do, and what do you know - I was selected as a winner. Yay! Below is my winning comment: > The future of blogging will be a continual movement away from the one sided, board of director selected, opinion led information flow. A continual pressure against traditional media outlets as bloggers become the main sources of influence across all mediums including written, audio and video. Media moguls will no longer influence elections and wars, bloggers will. Bloggers will replace newspapers, radio and TV stations as truly enlightened individuals have two way conversations with their readers and deliver exactly the kind of content that they want. > Blogging will continue to remove the barriers to entry in becoming a global influential force, allowing people from all around the world - including third world countries - to step up and be heard by everyone. Something that was almost impossible in the world of media control. > I believe blogging will help create an equal distribution of information, where the people who are heard are the people who deserve to be heard because they have the strongest message. This in turn will help to enlighten the global population and eventually increase the equality of living across the world. Now I've just got to get to Vegas... For another perspective on blog, read Blog Moving to Abstract-Living.com.

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Bobby Chang from Incase on Socially Responsible Businesses

Bobby Chang from Incase on Socially Responsible Businesses

I got a chance to work with the guys from PathPacific.com in Dublin a while back. We were shooting a video for a product launching in Asia (weird I know). Path Pacific had recently recorded the Dublin Web Summit where Bobby Chang was among one of the many impressive speakers attending. I had never heard of Bobby before, but he is one of the founders of Incase, the company that makes the official cases for Apple products. He did a great speech on the background of his business, collaboration and building socially responsible businesses. Check it out: One more post that complements this topic is Discovery vs Debate – A Tale of Two Conversationalists, especially around people.

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The Importance of Decisions (How a Single Decision Changed my Life)

The Importance of Decisions (How a Single Decision Changed my Life)

> "Each indecision brings its own delays and days are lost lamenting over lost days...what you can do or think you can do, begin it. For boldness has magic, power, and genius in it." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Firstly, apologies for the latent posts... Too busy having fun! A bit of an update, I’ve just landed back in Vancouver where I will be staying for the foreseeable future. I’ve had an amazing time (the best time of my life...) travelling through South East Asia, North America and Europe but I was moving very quickly and found it difficult to find my zone. When travelling, there are so many new and exciting things to see and people to meet, I didn’t want to be spending my time working, or writing about what I was doing. Heck, I even felt that planning my next destination and accommodation was a waste of the valuable time I had in a place. So I’ve decided to settle down in Vancouver and get some work done. It is interesting the journey that has brought me here. It all started with one key decision: Quitting my day job. I had a very comfortable life - six figure job, nice apartment all that good stuff. But looking back over the last 9 months, and the opportunities I’ve discovered, the people I’ve met and the places I’ve been, I’m very happy I made the decision. Since setting off on my journey, I’ve built a network of online businesses that are netting me a small profit; I’ve become a partner in another business and am at the initial stages of setting up a third business. There is lots of work cut out for me in the future, but I’m excited and think know it’s all going to pay off. What’s interesting about all of this is that none of it was planned before I made the decision to quit my job. And if these opportunities had arisen before I made the decision (which they wouldn’t have), I may have looked at them negatively or not even given them thought. The initial decision is what sparked the momentum. So if there is something you’ve been thinking about doing, whether it be starting a new project, asking your girlfriend to marry you or completely changing your life, make a decision and stick to it. Because > “In any moment of decision the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.” -Theodore Roosevelt You can compare this approach with 99 Abstract Life Hacks - Make your Life Easier Today! for more on life.

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The Luggage Conundrum (or How I Chose a Travel Bag)

The Luggage Conundrum (or How I Chose a Travel Bag)

For a traveler, a bag is like the hermit crab's shell. It’s the last line of defense for your most valuable assets (besides body parts). Many people will give you advice when choosing a travel bag. People, who know lots, people who know little. The salesman, the taxi driver, colleagues at work and your mother. People who have travelled the world, people who have travelled the mall and people who think a backpack is what their kids use to carry their lunch to school. And now me! I’m not an expert on bags by any means, but I had to quickly upgrade my skillz as my bag was going to be my new home for the next 12 months and I didn’t want to regret my purchase. Below is the breakdown of how I made my decision. **Your bag choice is dependent on 3 key factors.** 1. Where you’re going 2. What you’re doing 3. Your body type In my situation, I am going on a diverse trip that will include cities and mountains, formal and informal. This means that I wanted a bag that would cover a variety circumstances. I am also 182cm (6 foot), meaning I can handle most types and sizes of bag. This is different to someone going on hiking or on a business trip. **Below is what I looked for in a pack:** 1. Easy to pack and access stuff 2. Easy to maneuver – on average, across all terrain 3. Durable 4. Lockable 5. Designed to suit both formal and non-formal occasions ## The Options: ### Trekking Backpack These are your standard, top loading, mountain climbing backpacks. They give you the most back support, the best waste strap and weight distribution of all backpacks, which is obviously helpful if you are climbing a mountain. They are also very durable. Unfortunately most of them are top loaders, which I found from my last trip was incredibly annoying. If you wanted to access something in the middle of the bag, you need to pull everything out. I can imagine this would be more annoying on the side of a frozen mountain, but maybe less annoying than a sore back... they are also not lockable, mostly come in bright colours and generally look pretty sporty. ### Travel Backpack Travel packs are fast becoming the preferred choice for post-adolescent vagabonders. Basically they are trekking packs but with a different ‘access structure?’. Instead of top loading the bag, they have zips that go around the bag opening 1/3 – 2/3rds of the bag. This makes it much easier to access things inside, it also makes them lockable. The downside to the change in shape of the pack is less support and weight distribution. But unless you are going on 10+ day treks, you won’t be able to tell the difference. Travel packs also come in tamer designs, sections to pack away the back straps and generally look more presentable. ### Wheeled Backpack The tool of the flashpacker. Wheeled backpacks are relatively new, especially the models that work well. A decent wheeled backpack will come with wheels and a handle that pops out to move across flat surfaces plus shoulder and waste straps. They will open almost as well as a suitcase 60-80% giving excellent access. They come in formal designs that allow you to pack up the straps and wheel it around to look important like. On the negative side, they are the worst backpack you can get. But again, you probably won’t notice this unless you are going on long treks or you over-pack. They have a frame like a suitcase to keep the shape and they are built for optimal weight distribution while wheeling, not trekking. ### Duffle Bag/Wheeled Duffle Bag Ahh the duffle bag, usually sported by athletes (I think they get them for free?), mobsters (AKs and cash of course) and private school kids in Sydney’s North Shore (no idea why – and they’re all from a store called Country Road). Duffle bags open well - about 2/3’s of the bag - making packing and accessing your stuff a breeze. They have a single shoulder strap and some have wheels making them good for inner and inter-city gallivanting. However, a single shoulder strap can become very uncomfortable and is ergonomic suicide for your back if you’re carrying over 10kgs and walk for more than 30 min. They either look sporty or dodgy and no frame means that smart clothes can lose their shape. ### Suitcase I am not going to explain what a suitcase is. If you don’t know what one is, you’re an idiot and should stop reading my blog. Suitcases are good because they open up 100% of the way and have a strong frame. This means packing, unpacking, and accessing your stuff is great and they also keep delicate clothes and other items intact. They will come with wheels, making them good for city movement but try and get on a crowded bus or walk down a pebble airstrip with one and you suddenly find yourself in a world of pain. ## My Verdict: The wheeled backpack. As mentioned above, I was looking for 5 criteria in my selection. The only pack that matched all of these was the Wheeled Backpack. I am not going to be hiking for the next 12 months, I will mostly be in cities and towns. I may have to walk for long distances, but most of the time I will be on a road where I can wheel. It was a close decision between the travel backpack and the wheeled - the argument was “wheeled backpacks are gay and you will look like a geek not like a cool hipster backpacker” - but in the end, I chose functionality over fashion. Function over fashion is key when moving towards a minimalistic lifestyle. Plus I can always open it into a backpack before I walk into hostels so I look cool. ### The Pack: The best rated wheeled pack I found was the Victorinox Trek Pack plus. This thing has more patients than you can throw a stick at. Plus Victorinox is known for its quality luggage, lifetime guarantee and perfect wheels. Unfortunately, they don’t sell these in Australia anymore… I don’t know why something about being discontinued or upgraded something… and ordering stuff from the US to Australia is a freekin nightmare. So I went with the Caribee Fast Track 75 pack. The Fast Track is a good option. For starters, its 1/3 the price of the Victorinox. It has a good access structure, with a main section and bottom section for breaking up your stuff. Both of these open well giving about 80% access. Both sections are also lockable. It has strong, big, treaded wheels that can go over rough terrain, has wheel covers to protect my precious clothes from the dirt plus is built with a durable, waterproof material (although water can still get in from the zips). The waste strap is good, holding most of the weight of the bag when using as a backpack and it looks fairly professional (black colour) when all the straps are packed. All in all, I’m quite happy with my purchase. I have not tested it in harsh climates or over razor blades but if it performs particularly well or poorly in a given situation, I will update this post. **UPDATE:** After using this bag for 6 months, I am extremely happy with my purchase. There has been literally no damage to the pack anywhere. The wheels are seriously a god send when you’re tired and not having to constantly take your bag on and off while moving around trains and busses is great. I ditched the day bag that it came with for a bigger computer backpack. So not having to carry a bag on both my front and back also makes everything much easier. In 6 months, I have used it as a backpack less than 10 times. This has only been for long walks on rough ground everywhere else I wheel it around. The compressor straps are great, making packing neater and easier. And the internal pockets and compartments are wonderful for keeping things organised. So yes, very the happy. What kind of bag do you use? For another perspective on travel, read How to Sleep Anywhere Anytime - Travel Sleep Hacks.

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My Abstract Timeline

My Abstract Timeline

#### Below is a little about my abstract life to date: **At age 0 I...** - Was born in Sydney, Australia **At age 6 I...** - Went to a boarding school in India at the base of the Himalayas **At age 12 I...** - Was taken around the world by my parents (thanks!) giving me the travel bug. Visited: USA, Canada, England, Scotland, France, Portugal, Singapore, Switzerland, Austria, Italy and India **At age 13 I...** - Got my first job (pamphlet delivery) - Started my first business (buying bulk candy from the supermarket in the morning and re-selling it at school) **At age 14 I...** - Was ‘recommended’ by my principal that I should leave school, half way through year 9 due to constant mischief and rebellious acts against authority - Got a job at the Pizza Hut Call Centre (I was too young to legally work but lied about my age) **At age 15 I...** - Went to TAFE (a community college of sorts) and completed my year 10 in 4 months - Worked in Data Entry, Desktop Support and whatever else I could find **At age 16 I...** - Became the youngest Australian to get their CCNA (Cisco Certified Network Associate) - Also became a Microsoft Certified Professional - Got my first real job in IT - Travelled to Hong Kong and Japan **At age 17 I...** - Returned to TAFE to complete my High School Certificate (HSC) **At age 18 I:** - Lost my job in IT as my company closed down - Worked in a bar, cafe and restaurant - Executed my first stock trade **At age 19 I...** - Graduated from TAFE with my HSC and a mark of 94.95 - Was accepted into a Bachelor of Commerce at Sydney University (top business degree in Australia) - Got a job as an Undergraduate Accountant in a Finance Company - Got a job as a part-time Mortgage Broker - Got a job as a part-time High School Tutor **At age 21 I...** - Quit my 3 part-time jobs - Got a full-time job as an IT Recruitment Consultant in a Public Firm, youngest consultant ever employed. - Switched to part-time Uni **At age 23 I...** - Made $140,000 for the financial year - Purchased my first property - Dropped out of University - Travelled to Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam **At age 24 I...** - Quit my job as a Recruitment Consultant - Set off to travel the world: Asia, North America, Europe and counting... - Started an e-commerce business - Started affiliate marketing - Started this blog **At age 25 I...** - Continued to travel... Mostly Canada and USA - Learned to Snowboard - Attended numerous conferences in the Internet Marketing Space - Grew my Internet Marketing Company - Sold my E-commerce Store **At age 26 I...** - Lived in the Dominican Republic for 8 months, learned to surf - Built my internet marketing company significantly revenues, profit, staff - Started Vitoto - Also traveled to the US, Thailand and Australia **At age 27 I...** - Moved to San Francisco to work on Vitoto where I currently am Well, that's all so far... Feel free to contact me regarding anything I have done or if you are doing something similar and want to network. I am always open! For another perspective on abstract, read Abstract Education: The Khan Academy.

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What Drives People? Money? Passion? Purpose?

What Drives People? Money? Passion? Purpose?

Great speech from Dan Pink on what drives people. Click here if you cant see the video. ## Dan Pink - Drive ## Takeaways: \- Money is a great driver for repetitive quantifiable activities - Money is not the best driver for creativity - People are more inclined to do things because of purpose, mastery and a sense of contribution It’s interesting to see how many of the successful companies like Google have integrated this work philosophy into their cultures. A useful follow-up on people is The Definitive Guide to LinkedIn Recommendations.

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How to Move (migrate) your Wordpress Blog to a New Doman and Host

How to Move (migrate) your Wordpress Blog to a New Doman and Host

A blog is becoming a pretty standard tool for those looking to do…. anything really. There are so many stories of product launches, networking, new jobs, new businesses any many other opportunities spawning off the success of bogs. A perfect tool in the building of an abstract lifestyle. And even if its not a massive success, a blog is still useful for personal branding so there really is no loss. This isn’t really a tech blog but I recently moved my Wordpress account to a new host and domain and thought I would share the process. I had to look through a few different posts to figure it out so I thought I would combine them into one. And because blogs may be of interest to many lifestyle designs I thought I would chuck in this post. ### Moving to a New Host ##### Backing Up your Blog First thing you should do is backup your blog. The easiest way to do this is FTP into your blog and copy the whole folder down onto your computer. Hopefully you wont need to touch this but its just in case. I use FileZilla, a free FTP program. Once you have FileZilla, connect useing your ip address, username and password. Settings may differ depending on your host so check out their website if you are having troubles. ##### Install Wordpress on your New Host with your New Domain Depending on your host, will depend on how you do this. Godaddy is very simple, you just select a wordpress hosting plan and it will walk you through the setup of your new account. I use godaddy.com hosting to manage my blog. I was using a dedicated server but it ended up being more expensive and more work with no really reward so I switched. I was changing domains anyways so I thought it was a good time. Using a hosing service like godaddy, Blue Host or Host Gator will give you easy one click Wordpress install. Perfect for the non-technical. Remember to use the new domain you are choosing for the setup. At this point you should have a new basic install of Wordpress attached to your new domain. I am assuming you have done this before if you are migrating a blog. ##### Export and Import your Posts, Pages and Comments The export / import process is VERY simple thanks to Wordpress integrating this into the platform. Simply select export from the tools menu as below. To import, just select the import option from the tools menu and select the file you downloaded. And that’s it, all posts, pages and comments will have moved over. ##### Install and run Search and Replace Install the Search and Replace plugin. This plugin will allow you to search for all content in your blog and replace it with new content. To do this you should search for your old blog, so for me it was “wordplaywithvinay” and replace it with “abstract-living”. This will fix all the links to other posts within your blog and tie up any other loose ends. ##### Copy your Theme and Plugins To copy your theme and plugins, you will need to copy the wp-content folder from your old host to your new one. You can find this one directly in from the folder you have your blog installed in. You can replace the files that exist in the new directory because you only have a base install so far. Unfortunately this method will not copy over the configuration of your old theme or plugins and you will need to manually go through each of them and reconfigure them. ##### Copy Widgets The easiest way to copy over your widgets will be to open the wordpress dashboard of both of your blogs, go to the widgets tab and copy over the contents of each widget individually. You will need to change any URLs or RSS links. ##### Change your Permalinks Make sure you change your permalinks to the same structure to what they were before. To do this, check the settings in your old blog under Settings –> Permalinks and copy the same settings over. ### Migrate your Feedburner Feed To migrate your Feedburner feed, the easiest solution is to change the name and address of your existing feed to the new one without changing the extension so your existing subscribers don’t see a change. You can create a second feed for new subscribers or just continue using the old feed, its up to you. ### **Redirecting your Old Blog** After you’ve tested everything twice (three or four times) its time to move over your domain, the final step. To do this you will create a 301 redirect from your old blog to your new one. This step is important for two reasons. 1. It will redirect any old links that exist to your blog from external sites, including individual post links. 2. It will move all the link value from your old blog to your new one. Very important to keep your ranking in Google. To do this you will have to modify your .htaccess file. You will find this file in the root directory where wordpress is installed. You want to edit the .htaccess file in your OLD blog. To do this, you will need to download it, make a backup, then open it in notepad. Replace everything inside with the following lines (changing out the respective domains): RewriteEngine On RewriteBase / RewriteCond %{HTTP\_HOST} ^(www\\.)?wordplaywithvinay\\.com RewriteRule (.\*) /$1 \[R=301,L\] Upload the new .htaccess to your old host and your set to go. This scrip will redirect your homepage, plus individual posts and pages. I hope you have a smooth transition, let me know if you have any questions. Related reading on new: Looking for a Co-Founder for New Startup - UI/UX.

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Working while Travelling: Distractions and the Zone

Working while Travelling: Distractions and the Zone

I’m on the train out of Edinburgh, a very impressive city to say the least. The medieval town is blessed with exceptional geography making it the perfect location for a castle and line of defence. The history is deep and the streets so charming you can wander for hours and not get bored. I leave this historical town after an interesting morning, very relevant to my personality type which according to the Myers Briggs Type Indicator is ENTP. For those that don’t know, Myers Briggs is the oldest and most used personality type classification index available today. It was developed in WW2 and is used by the military, banks and universities to help determine if people are the right fit for certain tasks and positions. ENTP is the strategist personality type. One interesting characteristic of my personality type is we are innately disorganised. It’s not that we can’t be organised when needed, it’s just we tend to not be bothered. Instead of spending time organising stuff, we’d prefer to spend it doing stuff. We also have the ability to ignore mess. If something is messy but not directly affecting the task we’re trying to achieve, it won’t affect us emotionally. We don’t notice messy papers lying around our desk but if someone were to come with a bucket of tar and throw it all over our desk and chair that would affect us. When some travel, they travel on a strict itinerary – every stop booked, every sight planned and guide book in hand as they power through their destination of choice. I kinda do the opposite. Take today for example. I checked out of my hostel at 10am, spent two hours deciding where to go then jumped on a train at 13:06. I missed the bus to London due to a Windows 7 update so decided on Whitby – the home of Captain James Cook (the guy who found Australia). I felt like going somewhere that wasn’t so commercial and a little off the beaten path. I also wanted somewhere I could get some work done. Working while travelling is seriously hard, it’s hard for a number of reasons but I find the most difficult part is switching your mind between work and play. Everyone is having a good time talking about their adventures it’s difficult to get into the mindset of work. I think you’d be hard pressed to find a ‘digital nomad’ who is just as efficient on the move as when stationary. One of the downfalls of my ENTP personality type is I tend to get wrapped up in having fun. This leads to lots of fun and good times for all but also means some stupid shit happening from time to time, a pushing aside of other responsibilities and inevitable spending a little more cash. Like yesterday I was supposed to go on a highlands tour at 8am to see the Lochness and Scottish Highlands. I had my alarm set for 7am like a good boy, but after finding myself on a pub crawl, ending with me crawling back into bed at 5am, it didn’t happen... I had an awesome night probably more fun than I would have had on the tour but I lost my deposit and missed out on the experience of the highlands. This comes back to the working while travelling. It’s not that it’s hard to find a cafe and do some work. It’s hard to get into the mindset of “ok, its work time”. When travelling you find yourself with a few hours here or there. Yes you could pump out the work needed in those little breaks, but with constant interferences getting in the headspace to work is hard. There is a lot of talk going around the productivity blogsphere about single tasking, removing interferences and total immersion. These topics focus on how you are more efficient when focused on a single task without disruptions. The concept is if you are working on something, say writing and you get distracted from your task, it takes your mind about 15 minutes to get back into that state of focus. This is why multi-tasking is not advised. This happens if your wife knocks on the door and asks you what you want for dinner, an email pops up which you decide to reply to or you go on a pub crawl. Travel is full of distractions like this making it much harder to get into a zone of work. Even if you find yourself with a few hours free here or there. This is where I am jealous of the J’s (the polarity to P on the Myers Briggs). They have everything so ordered and planned. They will plan when things are going to happen and will be mentally prepared to execute them when the time comes. They may miss out on 5am Edinburgh benders and trip changes due to Windows 7 updates, but they probably get more work done and save money in the process. One of the key elements for me being productive is controlling my environment. Your environment can help to influence emotional state. And creating a productive, single task minded state (let’s call it a zone) will result in high levels of productivity. It also helps you to eliminate distractions and focus on a single task. There are 3 elements important to creating a productive zone: **Physical Location:** Put yourself in a location that is conducive to productivity. If you work in sales, working in a sales office with energy around you will help. Internet marketers: A quiet room with access to your computers. Fiction writer: maybe a writer’s cottage in Greece or the Elephant Cafe in Edinburgh (Harry Potter fans?). **Physical Distractions:** Set yourself a work schedule and let your distractions know about it. Tell the people in your life that this is your work time and you need it free and free means free. Let them know that a 2 minute disturbance equals more than that in lost productivity. Turn off your internet (or at least disable email if you need the net) for periods of creativity. **Emotional Distractions:** These are harder to control. If you could control these on tap, you wouldn’t need the other two above. A simple method to help control emotional distractions is to schedule them for later. Having a fight with a loved one? Got bills you need to sort through? Annoying neighbour keeps throwing rubbish in your yard? Make an entry into your calendar for things like this you need to do. Even an entry that says “emotional distractions” is enough. This helps if you find yourself thinking about them while trying to work. Instead you can say – its fine, I will think about it tomorrow at 10am in my allotted time. These are some basic tips to help keep you in a zone of productivity and manage any distractions that life my throw at you. I’m on my way to create myself a little zone for a few days. I hope you find yours. If you're digging into travelling, you'll probably also enjoy A Simple Tip for Socialising while Travelling Solo (or How to Have Mind Blowing Nights Out when you’re on your Own).

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Vinay Patankar

Vinay Patankar

Vinay Patankar is the founder of Process Street, and the author of Abstract Living. You can find out more about Process Street by visiting You can connect with Vinay Patankar on: Twitter or LinkedIn You can compare this approach with My Abstract Timeline for more on people.

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Emailing Awesomely – The Definitive Guide to Email Structure

Emailing Awesomely – The Definitive Guide to Email Structure

Email is, and has been for some time an important form of communication. There are lots of tips out there on how to write emails for achieving specific outcomes. There was a great post recently on how to contact market leaders and there are many blogs on how to use email as an effective sales tool. But what about for those circumstances that are too ad-hoc, that you may not see direct value from or just don't seem important? How do you construct your emails then? Do you have a set format you follow? Do you even need to worry about how you construct them? I think yes. I feel every single piece of communication I have with anyone is important. Unless they are friends of more than a few years you really should be following a ‘standard’ email format for EVERY email. This is not just with business either, but with every contact you make. Whether you are talking to your accountant, looking to rent an apartment or buying a fish you should follow your standard format. Your standard email format will vary depending on who you are, what you do and what kind of first impression you’re trying to give off, in other words, your identity. There are a few reasons I recommend having a structure to how you write your emails. - It gives you a fall back format if you’re unsure how to handle that particular kind of email - It makes your email writing quicker as once you get the hang of it, you wont have to think about how to structure your email before you start - And most importantly: It gives the reader an idea of what kind of person you are Letting people know your identity, what you do and how you can help is super important. You NEVER know when someone you speak with could open up a new opportunity for you. The guy selling the fish could be your next client or boss. You are definitely going to write many more emails (or waves) in your life, so its fair to say that writing a good email is a necessary skill and one you should take care of – if you haven't already. > **You may also be interested in this: Top Chrome Extensions for Email Optimization** ### What is a Good Email? In my day I’ve had many an email discussion with people from all walks of life. Working as a recruiter, and now as an Entrepreneur means I’ve made first contact with people from the strange to the successful. I’ve had conversations with students, scholars and salesmen with clerks, caterers and CEOs and with bankers, builders and beauticians. Out of all the types of people I’ve had email conversations with, there are few that project a professional, educated and articulate image in their writing. It’s not because they’re uneducated or can’t articulate their thoughts, it’s because they don’t put in the effort or don’t think it’s important. As a high level rule, bankers and salesmen are the best email writers. And they should be, they get trained on how to write an email. CEOs are fairly hit or miss, as are most senior managers in large non-white collar industries. Everyone else, well, they usually suck. This is good news for you tho because it makes it easy to stand out from the pack. A good email has many variables including your identity, who you’re contacting and why you’re contacting them. But there is a constant that flows with all well written emails and that is **structure**. How you structure an email says lots about your personality and thus should be taken into consideration with EVERY email you write. Not just first contact. ### How to structure a good email? Below is the general structure for a well written email. I will explain in detail below. - Greeting - Pleasantry - How you got their details, call back and reason for email - Body Topic 1 - Situation - Benefits - Call to Action - Body Topic 2 - Situation - Benefits - Call to Action - Body Topic n - Situation - Benefits - Call to Action - Closing line - Signature ### Greeting The greeting is simple. If you know their name “Hi NAME,” or “Dear NAME,” will suffice. If you don’t know their name (in the instance of contacting some businesses or a seller on craigslist open with a simple “Hello,” ### Pleasantry You should ALWAYS follow with a pleasantry after your greeting. EVERYTIME without fail. Ingrain this into your fingers so that you naturally spit it out with each email you write. There is no reason ever why your email shouldn't have a pleasantry. Even if you are criticising someone (which you shouldn't do over email anyways) you should still have a pleasantry to give them the sandwich effect. You will never have anything to lose by adding in a pleasantry, you will make people more inclined to read the rest of your email, you will soften criticism, and will hit the positive emotions of a few. Most will simply ignore it, but for two seconds if your time, its definitely worth it. **Pleasantries can include the following:** - I hope you’re well - I hope all is well - I hope the day/week is treating you well - I hope all is well since we last spoke **Once a conversation has started:** - Thanks for that - Thanks for getting back to me - Thanks for your response - Thanks for your quick response This is also the line where you can start to display some of your personality and identity. You can add in your super-awesome-fun-exclamation-mark-loving personality or your polished articulate self. - I’m super excited you got back to me, thanks!!! or - Thank you kindly for your prompt response, it is most appreciated. ### How You Got their Contact Details, Call Back and Reason for the Email This portion of the email will vary depending on the purpose of the email and how you know the person. Use your common sense to determine what to put here but here are a few points that should cover most circumstances. **How you got their contact details** This is only necessary at the start of a conversation. But adding in a line such as “I found your details on xyz website or social media platform” gives the reader a sense of where you are coming from – this is important for first contact. **Call Back Content** If you got their contact details at a networking event, party or some other scenario where you had an interaction of some sort, built some rapport and made plans to stay in contact – this is a great place to add in what I call **call back content**. If you spoke about a sporting event, a ski trip, kids, whatever – add a few lines in this portion of the email. This will firstly help them to remember who you are and further built rapport. It will also give them some content to bounce off making it easier and more enjoyable for them to respond. **Reason for Email** A reason for the email should be included in every new conversation, even if you’ve spoken to the person before. - I wanted your opinion on xyz - I have a proposition/opportunity I think you may be interested in - I have a few things I think we should catch up about - I have an update on xyz project or report - I have some news I think you should hear This should be brief as you will explain it further, but should give the reader an idea about what they’re in for. This is important when contacting busy people. Also, if the email has multiple topics (discussed below) outline them here. “I wanted to give you an updated on xyz project and see if you were available to catch up with George on Tuesday”. > **You may also be interested in this: Process Street the Ultimate Business Productivity Tool** ### Body The body should be broken into three parts. - Situation - Benefits - Call to Action You need to repeat these three parts for every topic in your email. **Situation** This is what is happening, the reason for the email in more detail and what needs to be done (basically what most people write in a normal email). “I’ve just received the report back from John and we need you to look over it. It shouldn’t take too long, just need you to check the final figures and make sure the portions that relate to your team are worded correctly. We need it back by lunch tomorrow” **Benefits** The father of self help Dale Carnegie in his book How to Win Friends and Influence People states the only way to make someone do something is to make them **want** to do it. Unless we are communicating with friends, chances are we want something out of every email we send. The way you make people want to do something, is by explaining the benefits. You can always find a benefit for why someone should do something. In the above example “I’m sorry for the short timeframe, but _BOSS MAN_ is coming down hard on me to get this finished and your section is the last one we need.” – The benefit here is that he will either avoid getting in trouble by BOSS MAN if he does this on time, or he will get emotional gratification for getting you out of trouble with the boss. Most interactions will have some kind of mutual benefit. If you’re trying to get a job, buy, sell or share something, chances are you have some type of value to offer. If you’re really stuck for a benefit you can always “owe them one” or “buy them a beer”. Don’t forget to highlight the benefit. **Call to Action** Once you’ve told them what needs to be done, and what they’re getting out of it, you need to put in a specific call to action or next step. In the above example: “Please confirm via email that you will be able to complete this for me by lunch tomorrow. If I haven’t heard from you by 4pm today, I will give you a call.” Here are some other examples: - Please contact John on this number at this time - Please send this report here on this date - I will call you at 4pm on Monday to come see the fish - Please start this as soon as possible, I will call you on Tuesday at Lunch to see how things are progressing This step assigns accountability, adds a timeframe and a specific follow up action to get things moving straight away without additional emails back and forth. **Remember:** rinse and repeat these three steps for each topic in your email. ### Closing Line This is a simple line, almost a second pleasantry. Something like: - Feel free to contact me if you have any questions or issues - I will follow up shortly to check your thoughts - Thanks so much for helping me out with this - I look forward to your response ### Signature Finish off with your signature. This will include some kind of a: - Regards - Kind Regards - Thanks - Cheers Plus your name and additional contact information such as phone number, website, social media profile etc. Check out Wisestamp – an awesome free Firefox Plug-in that adds HTML signatures to any web email client such as Gmail. It includes integration and cool little icons for blogs and social media profiles. Adding this information is important because if you’ve made a good impression in your email and sparked some curiosity it allows people to go off and find out more about you. ### Conclusion This may seem like lots to integrate into every email you write, but as I mentioned, having a structure for your emails will actually increase the speed you write them once the structure is internalised. Having this kind of structure will also give people a strong first impression. Not only that you are kind, formal, structured, put in effort and courteous – but the body will be a relief for people who deal with large volumes of emails as it is telling them exactly what needs to be done. There is nothing more annoying than receiving an email that you need to respond to asking for more information before you can action it. I hope this helps you build an email structure - personalised to your own identity - that will lead to rewards in the future. Remember, some people will not remember when you write an email well, but they will certainly remember when you write on badly. So make it a habit to write awesome emails! If definitive is relevant to what you're working on, this is worth reading next: The Definitive Guide to LinkedIn Recommendations.

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The Currency of Social Value

The Currency of Social Value

When we say the word **currency** most think of money, foreign exchange, ice grills or the $ sign in Ke$ha’s name. But currency is simply a medium of exchange. Coins, notes and plastic are just one form. Time, mobility and authority are a few other forms of currency. But today I want to talk about a currency called social value. Social value is an interesting concept – most people know it exists but few have quantified or qualified it. Social value is what gets you into a night club, it’s what lets you dodge a ticket with the police, it’s what attracts a large crowd to your party and it’s what gets you the girl. Social value is not only useful in social situations it also helps greatly in the world of business. ### What is Social Value? Social value can come in many forms and different people will value different forms. Below are a few: #### Offering Positive Emotions by Being: - Fun - Interesting - Engaging - Exciting - A good listener - Empathetic #### Offering Physical Stimulation by Having: - Contacts - Knowledge of interesting places - Knowledge of interesting activities #### Offering Vicarious Status Through: - Fame - Power - Education - Good looks - Belonging to a certain ‘class’ By now you probably agree that at least a few of these can bring influence at some level. But notice none of them are material? No yachts, platinum credit cards or diamond rings – things associated with the currency of money. ### So what do you do with social value? Social value can be traded like any other currency. It can be traded for different forms of social value, for time, money, authority etc... #### Examples: If you have certain contacts that can get you into a cool party, you could ‘trade’ access to that party for the time of someone who brings interest and humour to the night. Or if you have fame or power, you could trade that for time by having others complete menial tasks in exchange for ‘being in your presence’. ### How does that Help in Business? Social value is too big of a topic to break down in a single post but here are two examples of business use. #### Situation 1: You want someone’s time If you want someone’s time (a form of currency), you will need some form of currency to trade. Of course you could forcefully ‘take’ someone’s time by cornering them in a meeting room and chewing their ear off, but more than likely this won’t end productively. Money will work if you want to buy something and they are providing a good or service. Authority will also work but only with people who report into to you. But what if you are trying to sell something, gain advice or want free media exposure? Offering social value may be your only option. If you can display to the person you will be funny, interesting and a good listener who will implement the advice given - chances of booking that meeting are higher. #### Situation 2: You want someone’s money I want you to think like a middle manager in a Fortune 500 company. You have a $1 million pa budget, small change for a fortune 500. With your budget you need to purchase goods, say software and office supplies. Both software and office supplies can be obtained through many resellers, all selling the exact same product for very similar if not identical prices. So why would you choose one supplier over another? You’re not even spending your own money. The answer is: whoever gives the most social value The salesman who takes you out for drinks and shows you a good time. Who brings you to events and introduces you to new, useful contacts. The salesman who makes you laugh or always has the latest on your favourite sports team. That’s who you’ll buy from. ### So what do I do Now? Social value is something you should always have in mind. Are you taking more from an interaction than you’re giving? If so, you may be pissing someone off. If you call someone to ask for help understand you’re taking a currency off them (time) and be sure to try and give some form of currency back, either now or in the future. This will ensure a healthy relationship. ### What about Friends? Glad you asked. The currency ‘exchange’ changes greatly with close friends. Through spending time with someone and building shared experiences the exchange starts happening over longer periods of time, years instead of minutes. This is a good thing don’t worry. Please don’t stop doing favours for your friends because it’s not a fair trade. That being said, it’s still something to keep in mind. Large inequalities in currency exchange have been the downfall of many relationships. ### Pay it Forward I learned this term the other day from reading Colin Wrights book: Networking Awesomely. Paying it forward is offering value without seeking value in return. If you’re always out giving any form of value (including social), chances are you will receive some back somehow somewhere. Colin goes into depth on this subject talking about how to give value without seeking return but at the same time not being taken advantage of. This was a brief overview of social value. Social value is used in every relationship from romantic, family, friends & business. It’s used everyday by everybody. It’s not something that one should try and manipulate but understating its value (!) and being aware of how you interact with the world may come in useful down the line. Have you experienced the value of social value? ### Share! A useful follow-up on social is The Changing Social Fabric.

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