Brian Tracy, an author and speaker has been around for a long time. He once said, “You are the architect of your own destiny; you are the master of your own fate; you are behind the steering wheel of your life. There are no limitations to what you can do, have or be—except the limitations you place on yourself by your own thinking.”

These words, spoken in different ways by others throughout history, unlock the shackles many of us place on ourselves by thinking we can’t do, have or be whatever we want. This belief springboards our success the moment we decide to take that great idea we have and turn it into something wonderful.

Somewhere deep inside, entrepreneurs already harbor this understanding. Whether it’s a product, a service or an invention, our belief in limitless possibility is what has prompted many of us to leave jobs—even jobs with secure futures—to allow our dreams to take flight. This belief is what moves us forward as we climb, and carries us through the rough spots of our entrepreneurial journeys.

The last few years have brought with them a perplexing economy. Entrepreneurs are experiencing challenges we may never have expected as the world continues to change. Things are different than they’ve ever been and we’re learning how to position our businesses for survival.

Here are a few survival skills that if you cultivate will help smooth out the jagged edges of economic shifts and help keep your business afloat in trying times:

• Always have a plan—a business plan, a marketing plan and a budget.
• Be willing to change your plan if you learn something new.
• Learn the difference between making conservative decisions and acting from a place of fear.
• Keep getting educated. Learn the tools that will help you stay current in our new economy and global marketplace.
• Know which tasks are necessary for income generation and which can be delegated or outsourced.
• Stay positive and optimistic and avoid negative people and conversations.
• Be willing to stop throwing good money after bad.

The last item on that list is probably the most challenging. I’ll talk more about each of these in future blogs. For now, if you haven’t already done so, start thinking about your plan. It is and will always be the foundation of your succesor failure.

Daven Michaels is a New York Times Best Selling Author and CEO of premiere global outsourcing company, 123Employee, http://www.123Employee. The company employs hundreds of young bright individuals on three continents. His International event, B.comeyond Business Live! http://www.BeyondBusinessLive.com inspires entrepreneurs to meet challenges head-on in with revolutionary new theories and systems allowing them to design the business and personal lifestyles of their dreams.

Are you just starting out in business or have you been around awhile and are ready for a change? Pay attention to these important steps no matter where you are on the road to success:
• Know your goals and objectives (What do you want?)
• Write a business plan and modify as necessary (It’s okay to change your mind)
• Design a system for qualifying new ideas (Don’t chase every bright, shiny object)

Advances in technology have transformed our lives forever. They’ve also changed the way we do business. New world trends have introduced us to a global marketplace and placed all kinds of prospects at our virtual doorsteps.

There is, however, one thing that hasn’t changed: businesses still need the foundation of a solid business plan and marketing plan. Neglect this and your business may crumble to the ground, taking all of your great ideas with it.

Most of today’s entrepreneurs find themselves overwhelmed just keeping their businesses afloat. Why? Because they try to do everything themselves. They don’t know how to delegate and instead of doing things that will move their businesses forward, they get caught in a mire of tasks that pulls them back down.

In the attached video, entrepreneur Tracy Walker describes how a 123Employee VA performs tasks that free her time so she can focus on doing the things that help her business grow. Like many, at first she had no idea how to work with a 123 Employee VA, but soon discovered how valuable this would become.

We all have items on our to-do lists that can be delegated to others, such as social media, email marketing, maintaining our data bases and more. A VA (virtual assistant) works remotely to perform the tasks delegated by business people. Until we assess our task lists and duties we often don’t realize how many things can be outsourced to a trusted virtual assistant.

Try this exercise: take out a blank piece of paper and draw a line down the middle. Title the section on the left, IGAs (Income Generating Activities). This refers to tasks that have a direct impact on generating profits in your business. Example might be, meeting with prospects, attend networking events, create online products for sale.

At the head of the column on the right side, write the word Tasks. Now think about your business and what it takes to run it. Think of the things you do day to day. Most people have several tasks listed under the Tasks heading. These are duties that by outsourcing you can free yourself to spend more time on the IGAs and increase profits.

Watch the video and see what Tracy has to say. You too can learn how working with a VA will help you grow your business and increase profits. Please contact us at http://www.123Employee.com

Daven Michaels is a New York Times Best Selling Author and CEO of premiere global outsourcing company, 123Employee, http://www.123Employee.com. The company employs hundreds of young bright individuals on three continents. His International event, Beyond Business Live! http://www.BeyondBusinessLive.com. inspires entrepreneurs to meet challenges head-on in with revolutionary new theories and systems allowing them to design the business and personal lifestyles of their dreams.

As an entrepreneur, do you have a hard time completing tasks and getting the job done? You’re not alone. Technological innovation that was supposed to make life easier has complicated things. The major culprit is something I don’t know how we ever lived without: the Internet.

Times have never been better for entrepreneurship. The Internet has made wealth and success attainable to all of us by unlocking the door to a global marketplace. However, with innovation often comes challenge. Along with more opportunity, there’s more work to do and many entrepreneurs are overwhelmed.

The solution? Outsourcing.

Once looked upon unfavorably, heads are turning as outsourcing is being credited not only for saving businesses from failure, but also for helping them grow by meeting the challenges brought about by our ever-changing world.

In this valuable Google Hangout video, I introduce myself, CEO of 123 Employee with our company’s Vice President, Beejal Parmar as we outline six steps that will give you a clear understanding of how to use outsourcing in your business. Learn what to delegate and how to be most successful with the process.

Everyone can benefit from delegating tasks that free us to focus our time and energy on income generation. If after watching this video you discover ways outsourcing will directly benefit your business, please contact us at http://www.123Employee.com

Daven Michaels is a New York Times Best Selling Author and CEO of premiere global outsourcing company , 123Employee, http://www.123Employee.com. The company employs hundreds of young bright individuals on three continents. His International event, Beyond Business Live! http://www.BeyondBusinessLive.com inspires entrepreneurs to meet challenges head-on in with revolutionary new theories and systems allowing them to design the business and personal lifestyles of their dreams.

Hey guys. This is Tracy Walker with keepallthecash.com and before getting plugged into 123Employee, I was probably like a lot of entrepreneurs where I had so many different ideas and so many different things going on in my business that I just couldn’t implement them all.

So I decided to take a chance, get started with 123Employee, get my own VA and what she does for me is she does all of my marketing. If I say to her listen, I need you to post a blog post for me, she’ll post it. If I ask her to do any keyword research for me, she does that. She does a lot of my syndication, meaning that she posts on Facebook for me, she posts on Pinterest for me, she does my Instagram work for me. She does my articles and doing back-linking and all these wonderful things and she uploads my videos to my YouTube channel.

So if you’re ready to outsource your business and actually get to back to living your life and having fun in your business, I highly recommend you get plugged into 123Employee, Daven will take are of you.

Hey there, it’s Daven Michaels and it is about 6:30 AM. I’m coming to you from Cyprus in the Mediterranean and I’m up early to actually share a pretty amazing strategy with you.

Now, I think a tremendous way to grow your business is using events. So maybe you’re currently throwing events for your business or you’re thinking about it. I want you to know I highly, highly, highly suggest you do this.

We started doing events just less than two years ago and it’s been massive for our business in a lot of ways. It’s built the business but it’s also built an incredible brand and reputation for us and it’s allowed us to educate our market. We know that a more educated client is a more successful client. And so that is why we started doing it.

Now our goal at these events is to have an event where everybody walks away, every single person, with an amazing experience. That’s always our goal. Usually doesn’t turn out that 100% of the people have a great time but it’s high. So anyway, what we do each day to make sure this happens and to keep tweaking throughout the event we do what’s called an exit survey.

We ask about five questions at the end of each day. Who was your favorite speaker? Please rate all the speakers. What do you like the worst? What do you like the best? What can we do to make it a better experience for you?

And, when we just wrapped up this event in London last weekend we found that we had 100% success, which was amazing. Now, what was so cool is not only did we have an amazing experience but now we have about 150 forms that are filled out with people talking about what an amazing event we have.

Now we are taking these exit surveys, we are scanning them and then we are posting them on the page for the event on the event page online. So that next time around we will see over 100 amazing reviews of the event. What a tremendous way to markets.

So the tip for today is: events to grow your business and then when you do these events have exit surveys and then use them as a marketing tool to show social proof. So that’s the tip today. Use this one and you will grow your business exponentially.

Until next time, this is Daven Michaels. And I hope you’re living your true life adventure. Bye for now.

In this new year, business as usual will not be the name of the game. Saving money
will be the ticket to making money. Doubling productivity while cutting costs will
not only bring your company back to solvency, but will also be a critical plan to
keeping products and services flowing and giving your customers the service they have
come to expect. If you think this plan of action sounds to hard to accomplish, it
really has never been easier.

Any business, no matter how large or small, can benefit from the services of
outsourcing. Increasing efficiency in your operation will increase profits and
create the ideal business plan. For as little as $5.00 an hour, your company can
have a dedicated virtual assistant to tackle all of the tasks that you are probably
overpaying for now. If your business was lucky enough to have survived the worst
of this weak economy, the lessons learned will be critical to your survival in the
future.

An Internet savvy outsourced rep can help your business grow it’s profits in ways
you may not even be aware of. Tasks such as article and video marketing have emerged
to be powerful tools in creating a worldwide presence and beating your competition.
Increased exposure to a global audience will increase business and profits. If
you have priced how much American labor costs for Internet talented workers, you’ll
see that your competition is struggling to stay ahead of the game. Don’t do that.

You need a partner that will help your business expand. And not in the ways you
are used to. Expansion no longer means renting a bigger office, buying new desks
and computers or even hiring additional local labor. This all can be done now
virtually with an overseas team of highly trained reps. This is the wave of the
future. A few years ago, the Internet was slow in building exposure for businesses.
But now, everything has changed.

Outsourcing tasks can include administrative, call center management and billing.
It can include desktop publishing, social networking and even research and
inventory control. In fact, there are so many things your rep can do for you that
you should take a look at what you’re spending now, and quickly realize how much
you can save. Saving money is making money. See how your profits can soar from
making outsourcing a part of your new business plan.

I was bad at disco, I was really bad at rap…here’s your chance to see me be a total doofus in this video where I attempt to be ‘gangnam.’

(Hint: I’m the one in the hat).

if you must know, here’s how it all went down….

My VP, Beejal, came to me while I was in a stupor and said he wanted to do a Gangnam Style video featuring yours truly and the 123Employee staff. In my glazed and dazed fog, I said, “sure, whatever.”

I then proceeded to forget about.

Well…guess who quickly remembered?

A few days later when I landed in the Philippines, jet lagged and ripe, I walked into my office, and Beejal says, “Hey, bud, it’s all set. The entire staff’s onboard and we shoot the video in 5 hours!”

The Mountain Dew I was drinking shot out of my nose.

If you want to pee your pants, take pot shots at me, make fun of me behind my back (and who doesn’t?), then clickety click here…

Now, because you’re privy to one of the ‘unmentionable’ moments in my life, do me a big one. After you watch the video, show some love and leave a comment. (I’m know I’m opening up a can of worms here).

Enjoy.

Daven “PSY” Michaels

PS: Parental Warning Advisory. Keep children at a safe distance when viewing this video. And please don’t try this at home. I’m a trained professional.

As we’ve discussed before, marketing online is a tricky endeavor. It’s extremely difficult to gage the perceptivity and desires of your potential customer base when first starting out. How do you know what truly interests them? Or what’s attractive to them? Where exactly is the best place to start?

All are great questions, and in complete honesty, the only way to truly know is to dive in and try. Sure, you can conduct market research, but the catch is – the market is always changing, and peoples’ preferences are in constant fluctuation. Something that is popular now, won’t be six months from now. So, it’s near impossible to develop a fool-proof plan when first entering the realm of online marketing.

So what can you, the first time online entrepreneur, do to ensure some sort of initial Internet success? The answer is very simple; follow the Rule of Reciprocation.

The Rule of Reciprocation

The fundamentals behind the Rule of Reciprocation are straight-forward and easy to follow. In a nutshell, the rule represents the ideal of giving. By giving you in turn receive. And in this model, by giving a piece of yourself and your business, you in turn receive support and build popularity. In a sense, you are creating a scale of market equilibrium and symbiosis, which requires both sides to provide valued assets. You contribute a part of your character and a piece of your business, and customers give their encouragement as well as their money.

So now the questions becomes – what exactly can you and should you give? Well, the options are boundless because it truly depends on what your business is all about. In the end, what you give will be completely unique, just like the company you built. But there are always a few good places to start.

Most importantly, you can give your knowledge, which is the one thing you can be certain people want. After all, that’s why you created your business; to provide a service you understand through and through to the masses. By being literate and competent in your product you attract curious clients, and by sharing what you know you reel them in and keep them interested. So share your knowledge, and use any and all avenues possible to get customers amped on your business.

In other words, get imaginative and don’t be stingy. If you wrote a book, give it out. Develop unique videos and audio’s and share them with all interested parties. Create pod casts and blast them all over the web. Do everything and anything to stir attention and garner support, but be sure to include a personalized touch. Remember, you want to stand out, not just your product or service. You are the key item that makes your business different than the hundreds of competitors out there providing the same amenity. So make yourself known to the public. Set up an open attendance webinar to introduce your business and get people excited for your product or service. The only way to become a known fixture is to put yourself out there – put yourself on the Web and in time you will hook a substantial customer base.

Never Procrastinate

And now that you know what to do, it’s time to get to it. Don’t waste precious moments over analyzing the if’s, and’s and but’s; jump right in. The time is now. Take the first step, whatever it may be, to get your business personalized and running. Whether it’s a baby step or a huge leap into the seemingly unknown, just do it. Set up your first webinar, write the first paragraph to your book, create your first podcast, and get the ball rolling. The time is now. And remember—the more you give, the more you get.

So you see; reciprocity is a beautiful thing and a fundamental beginning to any marketing venture. When you give something to the people, people will eventually give you something you desire, whether it’s their knowledge, a business relationship or a purchasing partnership. In the end it all balances out, and you’ll find yourself at the start of a flourishing online business presence. Get out there and enjoy

Daven Michaels is an award-winning outsourcer and author of the book, ‘Outsource This!’ Daven has been honored more than any other individual or outsourcing organization. You can get more information on outsourcing by visiting www.123Employee.com

The breadth of digital interaction is expansive, taking effect on all avenues of communication; its tendrils of technology grabbing hold in telephone calls, video chat, and much, much more. Any mode used to communicate information is essentially tied to the digital world. Even when speaking face to face, notes are recorded on laptops and phone numbers are exchanged on cell phones. It’s a force behind any great company, breathing life into websites and handling customer inquiries on a near 24/7 basis. Without the technology of digital communication many business would founder in the cut throat competition of the Internet realm, succumbing to flasher and better organized websites.

You see, image can be everything. And visuals are just has attention grabbing and effective as a person yelling at you. So, creating a visually enticing website— one that communicates excitement and a sense of purpose – is vital to the development and growth of any company, but especially for those entering into the chaos for the first time.

Graphic Design Outsourcing

When first entering the daunting realm of the World Wide Web as a new, fledgling business, it’s important to make an impression right off the bat, and solidify your presence as much as possible. How is this done, you ask? Well, there are hundreds of protocols to undertake, like link-building, search engine optimization, content writing…etc., but the number 1 item that must be primed to perfection is the overall visual appearance of your website, as that is the first thing people see.

In all honesty, your website is the face of your business. It’s the one place people can go to find everything and anything concerning your services, without having to leave their home or call in an inquiry. In a sense it is the first impression of your company and therefore, it must be inviting, informative, innovative, and intriguing. Like a good book that draws a reader in with a catchy hook, your website must captivate visitors by being interactive yet informative. And this can be accomplished with effectively placed graphics and visual aesthetics.

Unfortunately, creating, developing and implementing graphic designs that complement your business and attract noteworthy attention, can be very difficult, time-consuming and technical. It’s not about putting some pretty pictures together and making a visually exciting website; it’s about creating a brand that transcends the web and validates your business values. And for smaller businesses looking to make a mark on the world, hiring a graphic design team is a favorable option.

Some of you might be thinking that hiring a team is a waste of money; that you can do it yourself or hire some brilliant student off Craigslist to develop your web design. Although these may be valid options, more often than not the end result is crippled by your limited knowledge and that of your hired student. And in reality, there are many places you can turn to when your budget is limited. All around the world are prestigious, outsourcing graphic design businesses you can hire and expect great designs at low prices; and more importantly, you can expect a complete design program that boosts your business image.

As mentioned before, posting pretty graphics is not going to validate your website. You must look at the big picture, and develop a visual program that boosts your company image. Highly qualified design teams offer such quality and extensive design services. By outsourcing your graphic design needs, you will receive aid from the beginning to the end; from the concept and birth of your business, to the design, and through the production and printing process. Everything will be accounted for, from your logo or banner, to something as simple as a letterhead; and all of it will flow naturally from the computer screen to potential clients. Professional design teams understand the point of user-friendly websites, and can ensure that your pretty pictures will jump off the screen and expertly guide visitors through your website. You will receive a total design solution that can morph off the Internet to your business cards and even transform into efficient online advertisements.

By outsourcing your graphic design needs, you essentially find the perfect spokesmen for your website, as they will create a usable design that entices customers and effectively navigates them through all your business has to offer. And such service is vital when breaking out into the World Wide Web and trying to generate online popularity.

Daven Michaels is an award-winning outsourcer and author of the book, ‘Outsource This!’ Daven has been honored more than any other individual or outsourcing organization. You can get more information on outsourcing by visiting www.123Employee.com