Archive for October, 2007

Erik Stafford here. The late, great, Gary Halbert (one of the true pioneers of direct response advertising) used to pose this question to people:

Say you were opening up a Hamburger Stand, and you were allowed to pick one major advantage that you could have to set you apart from your competitors. What one advantage would you want to have?

A great location? Awesome burgers? Great signs?

The answer, of course, is a starving crowd. If you have a starving crowd then the rest will take care of itself… but without a hungry audience your business will fail no matter how good your burgers are.

The Internet works the same exact way. I don’t care how awesome your website is, or how affordable your product is… without visitors your business will never succeed.

Luckily, I have a good friend (my best friend, actually) who can show you some simple, proven ways to create and grow streams of steady, targeted visitors. He has spent several months testing and researching, and putting every ounce of his effort into what I am about to show you.

This hasn’t been released anywhere else:

http://www.thefasterwebmaster.com/floods

Good job Pam, Peter, Phil, Jono, Larry, and the rest of you who answered correctly:)

To your success,

Erik Stafford

Erik Stafford here, and as a visionary, work-from-home type of person, I find that all my days are pretty much the same… I wake up, grab a coffee, and then spend my entire day dealing with whatever my voicemail or email throws at me.

I work too many hours. I work everyday, since my office is always right here, beckoning me.

I mentioned the Entrepreneurial Time System in my email yesterday. It was the core part of the Strategic Coach training I received last week in Phoenix, and it’s already making a huge impact on my energy and productivity… So I wanted to share it with you.

Basically, the Entrepreneurial Time System breaks the work week down into the following types of days:

Free Days: Free Days are not mandatory, they are required. Free Days are 24 hours, from midnight to midnight… completely unplugged. No email, no work, no phone. I am not even supposed to read books that relate to work!

Buffer Days: These are days where I plan, delegate, and generally complete any work that I have to get done. This includes podcast recording, blogging, myspace and social bookmarking stuff, customer support emails, etc. etc.

Focus Days: Focus Days are days where I spend almost all of my time doing “focus” activities, which are basically activities that center around my unique abilities, and directly affect my bottom line and the growth of my business. For me this means working on The Faster Webmaster II, and setting up partnerships and joint venture opportunities.

For me, I am going to start taking one “Free” day every week, and two “focus” days. This leaves four general “buffer” work days.

So what does this mean to you?

Well, even if you are not in a position where you can split up your time based on entire days (perhaps you have a full-time job, for example) then you can at least start by turning one weekend day into a “buffer” day (perhaps you work on side projects, or clean the house and run errands, or work on your internet business) and one weekend day into a “free” day: go ahead and unplug for an entire 24 hour period.

Read a book. Take the family somewhere. Go golfing, or go for a long walk.

In your work days, go ahead and carve out “focus” time and “buffer” time. Perhaps you check and answer emails and voicemail’s first thing in the morning, and then you turn everything off and just work on “focus” stuff until lunch.

I am taking my first full “free” day tomorrow. Wish me luck! I am taking the kids to the park, and then probably going to settle into my hammock with a good book. Maybe I will go golfing. Who knows?

Anyways, I hope you find this information as powerful as I have, and have a great weekend!

To your success,

Erik Stafford