How to Balance Your Life and Your Job

It can be difficult to not bring home your work with you. You may have a demanding job or you may hate your job and you bring this home with you. Just how can you balance your personal life and your job without letting the other suffer?

While it is easy to say the minute you swipe out or get into your car to drive home, stop thinking about work. This is not always so easy to accomplish. If your job is demanding you may be tempted to bring work home with you. On the other hand if you dislike your job you feel like going home and ranting about it. Neither one is a good option.

When you bring work home it can interfere with the time you have to spend with your family. You may only intend to spend 30 minutes proof reading but instead this turns into a couple of hours. By the time you are done your kids are in bed and you wonder why they don't interact with you as much as they used to. 

If you do nothing but scream and yell when you get home, this also has a negative effect on those around you. As much as they want you home they can start to dread that time. 

To balance this out you need to take a good look at both situations. If your work load is too much is there a way to reduce it? Can you delegate some of your tasks to a junior member? Does your boss know that you are bringing homework? 

Don't try and be a superhero and get everything done alone. It just isn't possible and your personal life, as well as your health, could suffer. Learn to prioritize what has to be done before you leave work each evening. This way in the morning you can look after the most important items first.

If you hate your job and do nothing but shout at your spouse or partner then maybe it is time to start looking for a new one. Research has shown that going to a job you detest each day can put you into a severe depression. 

Even driving to work can become dangerous. You are dreading arriving at work and may not be paying enough attention to the road. 

One day you just may not arrive at work or at home either. Is your job worth it?

Top Tips for Balancing Life and Work

Just about everyone these days has to figure out a way to balance life and work. Use the following tips to help you achieve just this. 


1. Defining and Setting Your Priorities - regardless of how much you would like to get accomplished each day, you only have 24 hours. For this reason, you must learn to set your priorities. 
Take a look at all the things you want to get done including:

• Being successful at work
• Exercising more often
• Spending more time with your children
• Taking an evening class
• Now you must determine which items are most important to you. If you want to spend more time with your children, then schedule certain time periods for this.  

While you may want to take an evening class, how important is this to you? Are you trying to improve your education to get a better paying job? Or is it for pleasure - define and set your priorities. 


2. Planning in Advance - there is no doubt that from Monday to Friday you are extremely busy. If preparing meals is difficult and you tend to resort to fast food, start planning and preparing meals on the weekend. You could cook up a large roast or chicken on Sunday. Use the leftovers for Monday's meal. Make up a large batch of soup or spaghetti and freeze some for during the week. With a little advance planning and preparing you can feed healthy meals to your family and reduce your eating out budget. 


3. Share Responsibilities - this applies to both your job and your home life. If you are feeling overwhelmed at work is it possible to delegate certain projects to a co-worker? Talk to your boss about this, they may not even realize how overwhelmed you are feeling. 
At home you don't have to be the super parent, there is nothing wrong with asking for help. Delegate chores to your children, even young children can help tidying up and vacuum. 

If you and your spouse need a break ask another family member if they could watch your kids for the evening or weekend. When was the last time they stayed over at their grandparents? 

This can be a great way to free up some time to spend together and both your kids and the grandparents will love spending time together. 

Use these top tips to add a sense of stability and balance back into your life. There is no need to feel overwhelmed at home or at work. Asking for help can bring you rewards you never dreamed of. 

10 Simple But Powerful Off-Line Advertising Strategies

What!? Marketing that involves actually putting your phone/tablet down and doing something in the physical world. Yes, I know it is out there but even in 2017 there are still ways you can drum up new business by switching off the technology and talking/interacting with real breathing humans and here are the top ten best ways to market your business offline.



There are several ways to advertise and get the word out about your business online and the best of them include free search engines, pay per click search engines, writing articles, utilizing press releases, doing joint ventures/ad co-ops, and posting to message boards and forums related to your target market.

But one advertising method that's neglected by most online marketers is off-line advertising.
There are several low/no cost ways to advertise off-line and I want to share 3 of them with you.

1) Business Cards

If you are serious about your business you must have business cards. They are cheap and are a great way to attract potential prospects or customers. Simply hand them out to people who you feel may be interested in your business.

Also, whenever I visit a restaurant, bar, or club, I'll leave my business cards in all of the bathroom stalls. (Just make sure nobody is in there of course... lol!)

And don't laugh at this! It really works. When I visit the bathroom an hour or two later, I'll find that all of my business cards are gone and I'll have a fresh new set of sales the very next day.

2) Flyers

With today's technology, flyers are very easy to make. You can simply design a flyer online and just print it out and make copies. Then you can post them in area businesses where you feel your potential customers may hang out. (Just make sure you ask permission from the business owner.)
Or simply hand out your flyers to people you meet on the street. Many bars and clubs don't have a problem with posting flyers in their establishments either, especially if you are a patron.
And don't forget about supermarkets! Many have bulletin boards, at least here in New Jersey where I live, and you can post your flyer there. There are hundreds of people walking into supermarkets everyday and they are in a buying mentality. Take advantage of it and post your flyers often.

3) Automobile Advertising
What... ? Yes you read that right! Your car is not only a driving vehicle but a great advertising vehicle as well. You can stick magnetic signs or plates on your car with your company name and/or domain name for all to see.
Your business can be exposed to hundreds, if not thousands of people every day whether your car is parked, you are driving, or even when you are stuck in traffic. It's fairly inexpensive and a great way to "drive" home your message.
10 Classic E-zine Advertising Tips
1. Target your advertising.

The more targeted the e-zine is for your offer, the greater your response will be for your proven ad.

2. Track your ads.

Don't leave your ad campaigns to guesswork. Use ad tracking to show you exactly which e-zines and ads are most profitable.

3. Run your ad for multiple issues.

You'll get a better response, and possibly save money as many publishers offer special deals on bulk advertising.

4. Spend lots of time writing your headline.

An effective headline will successfully grab your reader's attention and target your audience.

Your winning headline will also get people to read the rest of your ad, leading to more traffic and sales.


5. Don't try to sell your product from your ad.

Write your ads to create interest and get people to visit your site.

From here, your powerful sales page will do the selling for you, and you'll be able to get people to join your e-zine or mailing list for successful follow up.

6. Don't use all caps in your headline.

You'll appear like your yelling at your reader, and your ad will come off as amateurish.

7. Include a "call to action."

At the end of your e-zine ads, include a call to action that tells your reader what you want them to do next (i.e., visit your site or subscribe to your e-zine).

8. Don't be cute or funny with your ad.

You might put your reader in a good mood, but don't count on that translating into more visits to your site or more sales.

9. Offer something for free.

Provide an incentive for visiting your site such as a free eBook, sample chapter, or trial.

10. Subscribe to or view the archives of the
e-zines you would like to advertise in.

You'll be able to see the quality of the content provided, how many ads are published in each issue, and you'll get a good idea of the products those readers are interested in by the ads being run.

...

You’re A Salesperson in Your Life!

Strange as it may seem, our life is made up of a series of “sales presentations”.  Sales may not be your gig, but if you’re the boss you’re making presentations every day.  Be it a pitch to your Board, announcing a policy change to employees, selling an idea to your spouse, or just trying to win others over to your point of view – you need to punch up your people skills for winning pitches.

Human nature is such that people support solutions that they help create, so involve them by allowing your audience to participate with questions or ideas. It goes without saying that to not involve key people is risky, because messages can be misunderstood.   Your plans may be derailed before they begin if sufficient “buy-in” is lacking.  Use lots of open-ended questions in your presentation to draw out the silent type.

Preparation is a key to success.  Prepare your listeners to what’s coming during or before your presentation.  Try these pre-meeting tactics:

• Assign task-related pre-work. This could be pre-reading or study of a problem, and the preparations of possible solutions.  An example could be, “go and visit three kinds of accounts before the meeting.”
• Make pre-meeting contacts with those invited by email, phone, or in person.  You might want to try an informal survey to get people’s position on the issues at hand.

Remember support on key or controversial matters can be established ahead of time by lobbying, if you know where to lobby.

Do your research!  People who make it look easy and are effective presenters have a hidden arsenal.  This is an arsenal of up-to-date, organized material that can be accessed quickly in ready-to-use form when needed.  They have the stats to back up their ideas, and they have a mental arsenal of stories, examples, jokes, and ice-breakers to use when needed.

Your physical presentation could include tangible items relating to the issue such as recent articles clipped from newspapers or magazines, photographs, reports, and demonstration property.  To become masterful in this art learn to maintain resources you can access for just the right thing at the right time.

The next thing you must do is to explain “why?” The single most powerful thing you can do to convince your audience of something is to provide a convincing reason why they should do what you suggest or believe what you say.  People want and need a clear “WIIFM” – “what’s in it for me?” – to be able to react positively to what you want them to do.  

It’s extremely important that you deliver a vision of benefits.  Hearing the “why” won’t automatically generate a “yes” to your proposition, but it’ll open the door for receptivity to your idea.

Knowing and accepting the “why” satisfies a basic need that we all have – to understand the purpose of our actions.  Use the words “because” or “so that” in your presentation and then finish the phrase.  When your subject matter is controversial or likely to generate emotions, it is essential that your “why’s” be tested in advance.  Ask some people you trust or that are on your “team” to play devil’s advocate to help you with your logic and arguments.

These are just the first four points for making successful presentations.  There are eight of them in total, and we’ll look at the other four in my column next week.  For now, let me leave you with this thought.

Life is a sales job from beginning to end. From the moment that we discern how to get approval as children, winning friends at school, getting our first beau, getting our first (and subsequent) job, getting engaged and married, achieving our goals, and anything else you can think of in between – we’re selling ourselves or our ideas all along the way.  Who said you weren’t a salesperson?

WRITE PROFITABLE CLASSIFIED ADS

                                                                                      

           

            Everybody wants to make more money.  In fact, most people would like to hit upon something that makes them fabulously rich!  And seemingly, one of the easiest roads to the fulfillment of these dreams of wealth is mail order or within the professional circles of the business, direct mail selling.

            The only thing is, hardly anyone gives much real thought to the basic ingredient of selling by mail - the writing of profitable classified ads.  If your mail order business is to succeed, then you must acquire the expertise of writing classified ads that sell your product or services!

            So what makes a classified ad good or bad?  First of all, it must appeal to the reader, and as such, it must say exactly what you want it to say.  Secondly, it has to say what it says in the least possible number of words in order to keep your operating costs within your budget.  And thirdly, it has to produce the desired results whether inquiries or sales.

            Grabbing the reader's attention is your first objective.  You must assume the reader is "scanning" the page on which your ad appears in the company of two or three hundred classified ads.  Therefore, there has to be something about your ad that causes him to stop scanning and look at yours!  So, the first two or three words of your ad are of the utmost importance and deserve your careful consideration.  Most surveys show that words or phrases that quickly involve the reader, tend to be the best attention-grabbers.  Such words as:  FREE...  WIN...  MAKE BIG MONEY...

            Whatever words you use as attention-grabbers, to start your ads, you should bear in mind that they'll be competing with similar attention-grabbers of the other ads on the same page.  Therefore, in addition to your lead words, your ad must quickly go on to promise or state further benefits to the reader.  In other words, your ad might read something like this:  MAKE BIG MONEY!  Easy & Simple.  We show you how!

            In the language of professional copywriters, you've grabbed the attention of your prospect, and interested him with something that even he can do.

            The next rule of good classified copywriting has to do with the arousal of the reader's desire to get in on your offer.  In a great many instances, this rule is by-passed, and it appears, this is the real reason that an ad doesn't pull according to the expectations of the advertiser.

            Think about it - you've got your reader's attention; you've told him it's easy and simple; and you're about to ask him to do something.  Unless you take the time to further "want your offer," your ad is going to only half turn him on.  He'll compare your ad with the others that have grabbed his attention and finally decide upon the one that interests him the most.

            What is being said is that here is the place for you to insert that magic word "guaranteed" or some other such word or phrase.  So now, we've got an ad that reads:  MAKE BIG MONEY!  Easy & Simple.  Guaranteed!

            Now the reader is turned on, and in his mind, he can't lose.  You're ready to ask for his money.  This is the "demand for action" part of your ad.  This is the part where you want to use such words as:  Limited offer - Act now! Write today!  Only and/or just...

            Putting it all together, then your ad might read something like this:  MAKE BIG MONEY!  Easy & Simple.  Guaranteed!  Limited offer.  Send $l to:

            These are the ingredients of any good classified ad - Attention - Interest - Desire - Action...  Without these four ingredients skillfully integrated into your ad, chances are your ad will just "lie there" and not do anything but cost you money.  What we've just shown you is a basic classified ad.  Although such an ad could be placed in any leading publication and would pull a good response, it's known as a "blind ad" and would pull inquiries and responses from a whole spectrum of people reading the publication in which it appeared.  In other words, from as many "time-wasters" as from bona fide buyers.

            So let's try to give you an example of the kind of classified ad you might want to use, say to sell a report such as this one...  Using all the rules of basic advertising copywriting, and stating exactly what our product is, our ad reads thusly:

            MONEY-MAKER'S SECRETS!  How To Write winning classified

            ads.  Simple & easy to learn -should double or triple your

            responses.  Rush $1 to BC Sales, 10 Main Anytown, TX 75001.

            The point we're making is that:  l) You've got to grab the reader's attention...  2) You've got to "interest him" with something that appeals to him...  3) You've got to "further stimulate" him with something (catch-phrase) that makes him "desire" the product or service.  4) Demand that he act immediately...

            There's no point in being tricky or clever.  Just adhere to the basics and your profits will increase accordingly.  One of the best ways of learning to write good classified ads is to study the classifieds - try to figure out exactly what they're attempting to sell - and then practice rewriting them according to the rules we've just given you.  Whenever you sit down to write a classified, always write it all out - write down everything you want to say - and then go back over it, crossing out words, and refining your phraseology.