As a dad to two boys – one of which is just reaching the two month milestone while the other is becoming more independent as a newly minted six year old – I’ve quickly become adept at productive time management.  

Okay, so I don’t always manage my time as well as I’d like – I’m usually running a couple minutes behind from one thing to the next – however, the reason is because I’m trying to take full advantage of every minute I have available.  With kids, a spouse, work, etc. there are a lot of forces vying for one’s time.

I’ve found as a busy adult one of my best weapons against, “not enough time,” is utilizing my smartphone to capitalize on every 15 minute wait in the doctor’s office waiting room, every 10 minute lunch/coffee shop line wait and more.

In doing this I’m not trying to stress about working more as much as I’m trying to stitch together 10, 15 or 20 minute time chunks into something productive.  These are time chunks that might be otherwise wasted.

This is how my blogs get written, this is how I consume articles, this how I get tweets out, this is how I email others, this is how I increase my networking via phone (on that last one, I actually mean live conversation on a phone with a new contact vs. meeting for lunch or coffee – I just can’t fit it in right now, but I don’t have to miss out).

That’s what I really wanted to share…you don’t have to miss out because you’re busy.  If you want something, you’ll make time for it.
  That won’t likely be easy to do, and there will certainly be compromises along the way, but a positive end result is definitely possible.

The old saying is that if you want something done give it to a busy person.  The reason, busy people are skilled at prioritizing and reprioritizing their time and effort, uncovering and utilizing every scrap of available time for positive productivity.

Posted by Nick Venturella

Sign up on the NickVenturell.com email list

Sometimes I get asked, “ So, you do content marketing...what do you mean by content?”

It’s usually coming from someone genuinely curious and new to the idea.  I welcome the opportunity to share.

Content can really be all forms of communication:

• written - copywriting, blog writing, email marketing, written webinar content
  
• audio - think music, podcasts, audio from webinars, audio form videos, audio books a live keynote speaker at a conference or even a live music concert is a form of content marketing
  
• visual - logos, photos, web graphics, visuals from webinars, cartoons, video
  

Content marketing is using a strategy to produce content about specific topics that a targeted audience will find valuable, or useful.  
The idea here is to build a relationship over time with a targeted group of people that you (the content creator) are providing regular, valuable content to on topics they care about.

As you build a relationship over time with this targeted audience you can periodically offer your products/services or provide calls-to-action in your content to learn more about your products/services, and turn those content followers of yours into customers.

Keep in mind, for content marketing to work for you, you really have to find topics that a targeted audience deems useful and valuable otherwise this may not work so well for you.

Part of how you’re trying to build a relationship with those who consume your content is to get them to sign up on your email list.  This is so you can deepen the online relationship you’re building with your audience.  It will also allow you more direct access to connect with them when you decide to offer your products/services to them.

Posted by Nick Venturella

Join the NickVenturella.com email list

Join the NickVenturella.com email list

I recently read the Millionaire Fastlane by MJ DeMarco, and while I originally thought with a title like that the book was going to be fairly lame and full of get-rich-quick schemes.

That was not the case.

This is a very practical book about creating wealth as a producer -- someone who creates something that fills a need for others.

While this book talks about getting rich quickly, it's a reasonable 'quickly,' in 3, 5 or even 7 years of dedicated work building something useful that positively affects many people either in scale or magnitude.

That last part (scale or magnitude) I really liked.  It just seemed to make a lot of sense to me.  The idea in the book is that if you want to make a million dollars (or more) you need to positively affect a million people with your business either in scale or magnitude.

What DeMarco means by scale is simply reaching a million people and positively fulfilling a need they have.  You have a widget that solves a specific problem and it only costs $1 and you reach and sell that widget to a million people, you're a millionaire (technically).

The idea of magnitude is a bit different.  With this idea DeMarco uses the example of real estate.  If you own rental properties you can earn significantly more money from renters than the $1 widget from our previous example.  With that rent you're providing someone, maybe an entire family, a place to live -- that's a bigger positive impact on others than selling a $1 widget.  In both cases a need may be fulfilled, but their is more 'weight' with the real estate example, and that's what DeMarco means by magnitude -- you're selling something that has a bigger impact and thus yields more money per sale.

So if you own 100 rental units that you charge $900 in rent per month, over the course of 12 months you're a millionaire.

Definitely, an interesting read that I would recommend to others.

Posted by Nick Venturella