Hey there from my very seasonal sitting room!
Today we decorated our tree (once I’d spent the traditional three hours hunting for the fairy lights) and I am now typing this out for you with a glass of my homemade mulled elderberry cordial to hand.
Yup – can’t get more traditional or folksy than that and it’s just the way I like it. Amidst all the mayhem of the holiday season, we’re getting to that fallow period of the year I absolutely love when there is time to reflect back and look forward…
Which is the perfect opportunity to spend some time going through all these free resources and training I supply here and see where you can apply them in your business this coming year!
Last week I promised some great information on how to sell more by doing less and here it is – in fact, the very first post is entitled exactly that.
I have previously posted links to Mixergy and you may remember that I recommend you observe the way they smoothly upsell the reader into their paid offering.
As I’ve said before, the free content is more than enough and there is plenty of it so do browse the site but keep in mind their effective business model as it also helps them sell more by doing less:
http://mixergy.com/sell-more-by-doing-less/
Next up is this piece from Forbes which is particularly useful for offliners:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrymyler/2013/11/07/how-to-sell-more-a-lot-more/
Then there is this by D Bnonn Tennant, someone I rate highly, who covers both in person and email selling and how to effectively use both to sell more:
http://blog.kissmetrics.com/sell-more-this-year/
Finally, for our section on selling, this succinct video masterclass from not one but two superstars in the sphere – Marie Forleo and Ramit Sethi – which is particularly pertinent if you’re wondering why you’re not selling more of your products:
http://www.marieforleo.com/2013/05/sell-more/
OK, on to the kind of freebie that comes under the ‘useful tool’ category and this is something which may not at first glance seem all that sexy but is actually vital if you have any sites you care about.
GTMetrix measures your website speed and then provides recommendations to help you optimize it. Why is this important?
Because if your site loads slowly then visitors may well click away before they have a chance to take in your fabulous offer or all that amazing information you laboured so lovingly over…
Plus Google loves sites that load fast and use speed as part of their ranking algorithm.
Convinced? You should be. Plus it’s no-cost – check it out here:
Just for fun, I used it to check the load speed of the Warrior Forum. You might want to try that one out for yourself…
On to your Kindle freebie recommendation and this week I have two for you. The first is an excellent guide on how to be rich…or rather, on how to manage your money so you lead the kind of life some marketers like to dangle in front of you with cheesy pics of fast cars and pina coladas.
It’s aimed at couples but there’s good advice in there for everyone:
http://www.amazon.com/How-Rich-Couples-Without-Worrying-ebook/dp/B005TNM9NO/
The second Kindle freebie I have for you is the succinct (49 pages) but highly informative Big Profits From A Small List:
http://www.amazon.com/BIG-Profits-small-list-Maximize-ebook/dp/B00H0J0VG2/
For my random site freebie, while reading a magazine for authors I came across a site called Moodscope which promises to help those suffering from the sense of isolation that sometimes affects those working at home – writers, internet marketers et al.
The lite version is entirely free and comes heartily recommended by many writers – check it out here:
Finally, no Weekend Takeaways would be truly complete without a TED talk and this week’s is a fascinating lecture on how the Internet might actually be fostering communication and intimacy rather than destroying it as so many people fear:
