May 20, 2010May 24, 2016 Linky

2010 FIFA World Cup Projects in Cape Town

Some of the biggest projects that were launched in preparation for the 2010 FIFA World Cup were the projects in Cape Town.

2010 Cape Town Soccer Stadium

Cape Town, the city with a vista of mountains, the ocean and scenic beauty, is committed and excited to be one of the host cities for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. As Cape Town prepares for the 2010 Soccer World Cup, large infrastructure projects within the city included:

demolition and reconstruction of the Green Point Stadium,
expenditures on roads and other transport infrastructure such as rail and airport services.

With the official FIFA slogan in mind: “Using Football to Touch the World”, a business plan was drawn up in preparation for a number of projects. The business plan is based on three strategic pillars:

compliance with FIFA requirements for hosting the games;
optimizing the developmental impact and leaving a legacy, and
maximizing the promotional and positioning opportunities: leverage what the Western Cape has to offer, visually, and in terms of history, arts, culture, music, cuisine, entertainment and activities.

Project: The Green Point Soccer Stadium

Construction of the breathtaking new Cape Town Stadium, located on the Green Point Common between the twin icons of Table Mountain and Robben Island, began in March 2007.

In just 33 months, joint contractors Murray and Roberts and WBHO completed the massive project at a cost of R4.4-billion or approximately US$600-million. The project architects were an association between GMP Architects of Germany and two local firms, Louis Karol and Associates and Point Architects.

Some quick facts about this project:

96,000 cubic metres of concrete were used
The roof has a total weight of 4,700 tons
Some 9,000 glass panels were used to cover 37,000 square metres of roof
500 toilets and 360 urinals
115 entry turnstiles
16 lifts
More than 2,500 workers were employed on site during construction, and almost 1,200 artisans received training from the contractors

All systems of the 68 000-seater have been tested and the brand new stadium is now ready to welcome the world to “the greatest show on earth”.

Project: Western Cape’s Public Transport System

As part of preparations for 2010, a plan has been implemented for a fully integrated transport solution for Cape Town and the Provincial Government of the Western Cape. The multimillion dollar restructuring will integrate rail, bus and minibus taxi transport. The project involves an intelligent transport system (ITS) encompassing route monitoring, fleet management and passenger information and an integrated fare management system, including an integrated ticketing system.

Cape Town International Airport

Approximately $186 million was invested in the facelift of Cape Town International Airport by 2009. Upgrades included a new terminal, an elevated road, a plaza for public transport, air bridges and a multi-story parking structure.

Project: Tourism

The 2010 FIFA World Cup presented a number of good tourism development opportunities in Cape Town and the surrounding area. These included: A $2.7 million destination tourism marketing strategy, which aims to market Cape Town and the Western Cape as the preferred destination for 2010 Soccer World Cup spectators and participating teams. A $1.4 million Film Strategic Plan involving media workshops and the development of visual archives and information, and development of Cape Town & Western Cape Film Festival. There will also be Customer Service Training for front-office staff, with the development of a Call Centre for information management and customer relations.

If you are also excited by the soccer World Cup 2010, please visit Total Soccer Fitness for a step-by-step guide to creating your own custom made, soccer conditioning program.

The next article is about the Green Project for the City of Cape Town. Not to miss any future posts about the 2010 FIFA World Cup projects, please subscribe and read with Google Reader.

About the author: Linky van der Merwe is a Microsoft Project Management Consultant and an IT Project Manager with more than 11 years Project Management experience.

She consults with business owners and service professionals about project management and project processes, best practices and successful delivery through projects. She can be reached at linky@virtualprojectconsulting.com

May 13, 2010June 17, 2024 Linky

2010 FIFA World Cup Soccer

The 2010 FIFA World Cup will be the 19^th soccer World Cup. It is scheduled to take place between 11 June and 11 July 2010 in South Africa. This will be the first time that the tournament is hosted by an African nation.

When the soccer bid was awarded to South Africa on 15 May 2004, it triggered a whole range of projects and programs in preparation for the World Cup 2010. This is the 1st of a series of articles about the projects leading up to the big event, but first some background.

The 30-day count-down to the start of one of the biggest sport events in the world, the 2010 FIFA World Cup has officially started!

Participating Teams

Source: Wikipedia

The following 32 teams qualified for the final tournament.

AFC (4)

CAF (6)

CONCACAF (3)

CONMEBOL (5)

OFC (1)

New Zealand

UEFA (13)

Soccer Venues

Source: Wikipedia

There are 10 venues to be used for the World Cup, but 9 host cities, namely:

Cape Town
Durban
Bloemfontein
Nelspruit
Port Elizabeth
Pretoria
Johannesburg
Rustenberg
Polokwane

World Cup 2010 Stadiums

The final 10 World Cup 2010 Stadiums to be used for the World Cup are:

Green Point Stadium, Cape Town
Moses Mabhida Stadium, Durban
Free State Stadium, Bloemfontein
Mbombela Stadium, Nelspruit
Nelson Mandela Stadium, Port Elizabeth
Loftus Versfeld Stadium, Pretoria
Ellis Park Stadium, Johannesburg
Soccer City, Johannesburg
Royal Bafokeng Stadium, Rustenburg
Peter Mokaba Stadium, Polokwane

About the World Cup 2010 Stadiums

Cape Town Stadium: Cape Town is one of the most beautiful cities in the world.: A 70.000 seater soccer stadium in Greenpoint.
Durban 2010 Stadium: In Durban, South Africa’s busiest port, the temperatures seldom drop below 16 degrees Celsius. Moses Mabhiba Stadium, a 60 000 seater soccer stadium
2010 Stadium Johannesburg (‘Joburg’): The capital of the Gauteng province is the economical heart of the region and of South Africa. Johannesburg will also be the epicentre of the World Cup Soccer, home to Soccer City, a 94.000 + seater stadium will host the opening and the final of the World Cup Soccer in 2010.
Johannesburg also boasts the 60.000 seater stadium of Ellis Park, renovated for the event.
2010 Stadium in Bloemfontein: Bloemfontein is situated in the Free State province of South Africa, and is home to the constitutional court. The Free State Stadium 40 000 seater for soccer fans.
Nelspruit: Nelspruit is the capital city of South Africa’s Mpumalanga province. From Nelspruit, the Kruger National Park is a stone throw away. A new stadium, the Mbombela Stadium – 40.000 seater
2010 Stadium Polokwane: Polokwane, the capital city of South Africa’s Limpopo province. Peter Mokaba Stadium.
2010 Stadium Port Elizabeth (‘PE’):Port Elizabeth, surrounded by nature and beautiful coastlines, has a lot to offer, from Addo Elephant Park and several game reserves. Brand new soccer stadium is the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium.
2010 Stadium Pretoria: Pretoria is situated 60 kilometres outside of Johannesburg, and is South Africa’s administrative capital. The 50.000 seater Loftus Versveld stadium is in the heart of the city of Tshwane.
2010 Stadium Rustenburg: Host City Rustenburg lies 100 km north west from Johannesburg, on the foot of the Magaliesberg. The Royal Bafokeng Sports Palace has space for 40.000 soccer fans.

If you are also inspired by the soccer World Cup 2010, please visit Total Soccer Fitness for a step-by-step guide to creating your own custom made, soccer conditioning program.

April 30, 2010October 11, 2017 Linky

Change Management Strategies – Stakeholder Analysis and Mapping

3 Key Questions to Ask

During a Change Management initiative, an important aspect of Programme Management is Stakeholder Analysis and Mapping. This is all about: “Who is this change going to affect and how are they going to react, and what do we have to do to support them?”.

How well you listen to and respond to ALL of your stakeholders’ issues is a significant measure of the effectiveness of your management of these relationships. As a project/programme manager of change, it is important to be seen doing stakeholder relationship management.

Leadership skills make a big difference to successfully managing stakeholder relationships. This is where the management of expectations matters. Here are 3 key questions to address in managing expectations in a change management initiative, and specifically in relation to your employees.

1. Do your people really know what is expected of them?

Do your people know how to translate the high level vision and strategy into actionable steps? People are very different in the ways they process information, interpret life, and in the ways they are motivated. Many (probably most) of them are not able to make the leap from hearing and understanding your vision and strategy to translating that into purposeful productive action. This does not mean that they don’t understand it, or agree with it, but it does simply mean that the leap is too great for most people to make – without your practical assistance.

2. Do they know what they can expect from you?

It is extremely important to that they know that you will work with them in “grinding out” in practical, manageable detail what the high level strategy, vision, values things actually mean for them as the “troops” in action.

3. Do they know what is expected of each other?

They also need to know what these actionable steps mean for them in terms of what they can and should expect from each other.

In the end it boils down to effective communications management, as well as following stakeholder management best practices.

Not to miss any of these Change Management and how it relates to Project Management articles, please subscribe to Virtual Project Consulting’s RSS feed.

Source: Strategies for managing change by Stephen Warrilow

If you want to work with Stephen Warrilow, take advantage of his 7 FREE “How to Do It” downloads that will take you through all of the key stages of “How to manage change” – and show you how to manage change successfully.

April 25, 2010October 11, 2017 Linky

5 Principles Of A Good Change Management Communication Strategy

Communication Strategy- Say what you mean and mean what you say

When change is initiated through projects, a good Communication Strategy is at the heart of any successful change management process. It is important that an effective communication strategy is defined about the reasons, the benefits, the plans and proposed effects of that change. This Communication Strategy should be maintained throughout the duration of the change management programme.

Your communication strategy needs to address the key questions:

What are the objectives?
What are the key messages?
Who are you trying to reach?
What information will be communicated?
When will information be disseminated, and what are the relevant timings?
How much information will be provided, and to what level of detail?
What mechanisms will be used to disseminate information?
How will feedback be encouraged?
What will be done as a result of feedback?

Your communication strategy needs to address the key EMOTIONAL questions

William Bridges focuses on the emotional and psychological impact and aspect of the change through these 3 simple questions:

(1) What is changing? Bridges offers the following guidance – the change leader’s communication statement must:

Clearly express the change leader’s understanding and intention
Link the change to the drivers that make it necessary
Sell the problem before you try to sell the solution
Not use jargon

(2) What will actually be different because of the change? Bridges says: “I go into organizations where a change initiative is well underway, and I ask what will be different when the change is done-and no one can answer the question… a change may seem very important and very real to the leader, but to the people who have to make it work it seems quite abstract and vague until actual differences that it will make begin to become clear. It should be priority to get those differences clear”

(3) Who’s going to lose what? Bridges maintains that the situational changes are not as difficult for companies to make as the psychological transitions of the people impacted by the change. Transition management is all about seeing the situation through the eyes of the other guy. It is a perspective based on empathy. It is a management and communication process that recognizes and affirms people’s realities and works with them to bring them through the transition. Failure to do this, on the part of change leaders, and a denial of the losses and “lettings go” that people are faced with, sows the seeds of mistrust.

5 guiding principles of a good change management communication strategy

So, in summary the 5 guiding principles of a good change management communication strategy are as follows:

Clarity of message – to ensure relevance and recognition
Resonance of message – the emotional tone and delivery of the message
Accurate targeting – to reach the right people with the right message
Timing schedule – to achieve timely targeting of messages
Feedback process – to ensure genuine two way communication

Not to miss any of these Change Management and how it relates to Project Management articles, please subscribe to Virtual Project Consulting’s RSS feed.

Source: Strategies for managing change by Stephen Warrilow

If you want to work with Stephen Warrilow, please visit www.strategies-for-managing-change to learn how to manage change successfully.

April 16, 2010September 11, 2018 Linky

10 Key Elements To Writing a Project Proposal

How to write a project proposal

Writing a project proposal is certainly one of the key competent areas for a service professional. The project proposal is your sales piece that will ultimately “sell” your services to the prospective client.

How to write a killer project proposal — Gibbon

To be successful, your project proposal should perform the following:

show that you understand what the client is looking for
prove that you are the best person for the tasks at hand
convince the prospect that either they can afford you or they cannot afford not to hire you

To accomplish all this, your project proposal should have the following key elements:

1. Client’s Requirements and Goals

The summary of the client’s requirements and goals is a critical part of your project proposal. Take the time to really understand what your prospect is looking for to ensure a better outcome. Furthermore, by showing how well you’ve paid attention to your prospect’s needs, you’ll set yourself apart from your competitors.

2. Tasks Involved and Your Fee for Each

List down the main tasks you’re going to do, along with the fee you will charge for each. Provide enough detail that anybody will be able to say when you have delivered or completed the task.

For example, if I’m going to write a sales page for a client, I’ll say that it will be at least 1,000 words long, will include graphics, and will be submitted in a HTML file.

3. Breakdown of Each Task with Costs

It’s not enough to simply say what big tasks you will do. Break them down so your prospect appreciates how much work and skill it takes to complete each one.

In my sales page example above, I could specify that writing the sales page includes:

doing market research to better understand my client’s target market and what his competitors are doing
choosing appropriate photographs
design and layout of the sales page into a HTML file

4. Delivery Schedule

Make it clear how long it will take you to complete each task and how milestones should be approved by the client.

5. Work Process

Describe how you usually work with clients. Will you have a meeting after the client approves your proposal? Describe how you will to track all client communication. Be specific now so you and your client won’t be in for surprises later on.

6. Mode of Payment

In this part, specify how you want to get paid. Do you require a deposit or full payment before starting on a project? Describe means of payment for example, electronic bank transfer.

7. Samples or Proof That You Can Do the Job

Make it easy for prospects to decide that you’re suitable for this project. Attach samples of work, or links to samples that show how you’ve completed similar projects in the past.

8. Clear Indication of the Next Steps

Tell your prospect clearly what he should do if he either wants to proceed with the project, or if he has further questions before he can make a decision.

Say something like, “If you need clarification on my proposal, please email your questions to me.”

9. Invoice for First Payment

Obviously, you should include this only if you require a deposit before you start a project.

10. Contact Information

Make sure your project proposals include your name and contact details–including your email address even if you are emailing your proposal. Don’t assume your prospect will simply hit the “reply” button, or take the time to find your contact information if he doesn’t see it right away.

Always ensure that your project will deliver as per client requirements and outline that clearly in your project proposal.

These beautiful photos were taken at Monkey Land in Plettenberg Bay, about 450km from Cape Town, South Africa.

By Linky Van Der Merwe

Click below to download a basic project template and tips for Writing a Winning Project Proposal

March 30, 2010September 27, 2013 Linky

5 Personal Goals For Every Project Manager

Want to know how to become a 5-star project manager?

By Jason Westland

A Project Manager needs to manage people, budget, suppliers, equipment—the list is never ending. The trick is to be focused. Set yourself 5 personal goals to achieve. If you can meet these simple goals for each project, then you will achieve total success. So read on, to learn…

The 5 Goals of a Project Manager

These goals are generic to all industries and all types of projects. Regardless of your level of experience in project management, set these 5 goals for every project you manage.

Goal 1: To finish on time

This is the oldest but trickiest goal in the book. It’s the most difficult because the requirements often change during the project and the schedule was probably optimistic in the first place.

To succeed, you need to manage your scope very carefully. Implement a change control process so that any changes to the scope are properly managed.

Always keep your plan up to date, recording actual vs. planned progress. Identify any deviations from plan and fix them quickly.

Goal 2: To finish under budget

To make sure that your project costs don’t spiral, you need to set a project budget at the start to compare against. Include in this budget, all of the types of project costs that will accrue, whether they are to do with people, equipment, suppliers or materials. Then work out how much each task in your plan is going to cost to complete and track any deviations from this plan.

Make sure that if you over-spend on some tasks, that you under-spend on others. In this way, you can control your spend and deliver under budget.

Goal 3: To meet the requirements

The goal here is to meet the requirements that were set for the project at the start. Whether the requirements were to install a new IT system, build a bridge or implement new processes, your project needs to produce solutions which meet these requirements 100%.

Ensure that you have a detailed enough set of requirements at the beginning. If they are ambiguous in any way, then what was initially seen as a small piece of work could become huge, taking up valuable time and resources to complete.

Goal 4: To keep customers happy

You could finish your project on time, under budget and have met 100% of the requirements—but still have unhappy customers. This is usually because their expectations have changed since the project started and have not been properly managed.

To ensure that your project sponsor, customer and other stakeholders are happy at the end of your project, you need to manage their expectations carefully. Make sure you always keep them properly informed of progress. “Keep it real” by giving them a crystal clear view of progress to date. Let them voice their concerns or ideas regularly. Tell them upfront when you can’t deliver on time, or when a change needs to be made. Openness and honesty are always the best tools for setting customer expectations.

Goal 5: To ensure a happy team

If you can do all of this with a happy team, then you’ll be more than willing to do it all again for the next project. And that’s how your staff will feel also. Staff satisfaction is critical to your project’s success.

So keep your team happy by rewarding and recognizing them for their successes. Assign them work that complements their strengths and conduct team building exercises to boost morale. With a happy motivated team, you can achieve anything!

And there you have it. The 5 goals you need to set yourself for every project and you will become a 5-star professional project manager.

Jason Westland has 15 years experience in the project management industry. From his experience he has created software to help speed up the management process. If you would like to find out more information about Jason’s online project management software visit ProjectManager.com.

March 24, 2010September 27, 2013 Linky

7 Key Leadership Actions for Project Managers

Fulfilling the role of project manager for any length of time will call upon your leadership skills. Especially in today’s complex world, the project management function is no longer a controlling function, but rather a function of leadership and facilitation.

Project Leadership Skills

It has been said that the true measure as to whether someone is a leader is whether they have followers. Building a following as a leader is a vital component in your success and getting the results that you want. For a project manager your leadership reach is usually the project/program teams that you work with. This means that you don’t have the luxury of earning respect as a leader over time, but you need to establish your credibility as a leader up front at the beginning of project.

So what are the 7 KEY leadership actions you can take to establish credibility as a leader?

Action 1: Demonstrate Competence

As the leader, people need to have confidence that you are a competent project manager. Being competent is not about being the expert in every area but having enough skill and experience to make effective decisions.

Action 2: Show Your Commitment

Project managers move between different organisational departments, different functional teams and sometimes they move between different companies (like contractors). While working with a particular organisation and functional team, it is of vital importance to demonstrate you commitment by working hard on a day to day basis. This will also set an example of the commitment you expect from your project team members.

Action 3: Be Consistent and Only Promise What You Can Deliver

Consistency is by far one of the key actions to establish yourself as a respected leader to be trusted. Consistent leadership requires you to be consistent with how you treat all people. Closely related to this is to only promise what you can deliver (agreed scope) and then to deliver as per requirements (satisfied stakeholders).

Action 4: Be an Active Listener

Most leaders are excellent at getting their points across verbally and in writing. Exceptional leaders are also exceptional listeners. Leadership requires you to pay attention to active listening.

Action 5: Prepare For Meetings and Presentations

You might have heard the statement, “Failing to plan is planning to fail”. Running a meeting or making the presentation is the easy bit. The key action is to always be prepared and have specific objectives or an agenda for every meeting.

Action 6: Take Responsibility

You get the rewards of being a leader and at the same time it comes with responsibility. When issues arise (as they always do), make a point of taking responsibility. You are ultimately accountable for the success of the project.

Action 7: Act with Integrity

A golden rule for all project managers in leadership positions is to make sure your behaviours or actions will be authentic and based on integrity.

Leadership is key

Leadership competence is not an optional project management skill, but a key part of being a successful, professional and efficient project manager. Make these 7 leadership actions part of your regular project manager make-up. Credibility will come naturally as a result of applying these actions in your day-to-day management of projects. Your leadership skills will continue to grow stronger with experience; remember to enjoy the ride….

For future project management articles, please subscribe here, as well as to the blog (to the right).

About the author: Linky van der Merwe is a Microsoft Project Management Consultant and an IT Project Manager with more than 11 years Project Management experience.

She consults with business owners and service professionals about project management and project processes, best practices and successful delivery through projects. She is most experienced in corporate infrastructure projects (upgrades, migration, deployment etc) and process optimisation. She can be reached at linky@virtualprojectconsulting.com

March 19, 2010March 19, 2010 Linky

4 Social Bookmarking Tips To Make Social Media Work For You

Social Bookmarking as a Social Media Tool

Considering all the social media tools available today, social bookmarking has probably been around the longest. Initially I only had preference for one social bookmarking tool and I mostly used it to bookmark websites of special interest to me, to help me to find them easily, as well as to share good information.

Benefits of Social Bookmarking

My perception of social bookmarking has now changed completely. I have learned that social bookmarking can give amazing backlinks back to my products and services. It will also increase the number of visitors to my blog. HOW? By submitting all your own blog posts and product sales pages to several social bookmarking sites. Let me share with you 4 social bookmarking tips.

1. Make Social Bookmarking part of your strategy

In order to use social bookmarking as an effective social media tool, you need to make it part of your social media strategy. If you don’t have a social media strategy, click here for a free strategy template.

2. Make Social Bookmarking a system

Next you need to develop your own social bookmarking system that you use consistently to produce favorable long term results.

3. Do Social Bookmarking with Only Wire

Not only can you develop a system for social bookmarking, but you can also automate the whole process with Onlywire. Onlywire is an automated content and bookmark distribution tool. With Onlywire you can auto-submit any information to over 30 social networking sites (including your favorite social bookmarking sites) at once. I am a member who pays $2.99 per month for this service. Now that it has become part of my social bookmarking system, I cannot imagine being without this tool again.

4. Automate Social Bookmarking

Now that you know what automation tool to use, it is time to get started. Here are the steps to follow:

Open Mozilla Firefox (works better with Firefox than with Internet Explorer, although you may use IE as well)
Go to www. Onlywire.com
Signup at Onlywire (the following actions are explained within Onlywire as well)
Install Onlywire addon for Firefox browser
Setup accounts with each website (social networking services) you wish to utilise
Enter username and password for all social bookmarking/ social networking websites you want to utilize
Once logins are stored with Onlywire you can begin submitting content.
Add the Bookmark & Share Button to your website. If you have a self-hosted WordPress blog with plugin support, download the OnlyWire plugin from WordPress.org. Alternatively install it from your WordPress Dashboard. At the end of each blog post, the Bookmark & Share Button will appear. For older blog posts, use this button on your own website to distribute the content automatically to multiple social networking sites.
For new blog posts, you will see a tick box appear in the new post Dashboard view, that you need to select before you publish. When the blog post is published, it will automatically be published by the Onlywire plugin to all the social networking sites that you have selected to utilize.
It is good practice to visit your Onlywire account after submission to verify the success or failure of submissions to social bookmarking sites. Some social networks require a final step, called Finalization, before the content is published.

Outsource Social Bookmarking

I am the first one to admit that setting up a Social Bookmarking system and then automating it can be a very lengthy process. However the benefits will outweigh the time and effort spent by far!

If you are a business owner or service professional who wants to put a social bookmarking system in place, I recommend that you implement these 4 tips. Next you follow the 10 steps to automate social bookmarking and make it work for your business. Alternatively, you can outsource the effort to put the automated system in place. Then you continue on your own by bookmarking all your new blog posts.

Click on the Bookmark & Share button below to see Onlywire in action. And bookmark this article to your favorite social networking sites for future reference.

Please don’t hesitate to contact us for any assistance at: linky@virtualprojectconsulting.com

March 18, 2010February 15, 2018 Linky

The Easiest Way To Outsell Other Affiliates

By Jimmy D. Brown

Attention all Affiliate Marketers

If you’re an affiliate marketer, then you’re always looking over your shoulder to see if the competition – your fellow affiliates – are catching up to you. The easiest way to outsell other affiliates is this…

Turn your AFFILIATE offer into a UNIQUE offer!

You see, most affiliates try to sell the product as is. If your prospects are shopping around, they’re going to skip all the “buy from me” offers. Instead, they’re going to focus on those offers that give them an incentive to buy. And that means you can outsell the other affiliates simply by offering a bonus product to anyone who buys through your affiliate link.

I’ve been teaching this concept since 2001 and, all things being equal, those affiliates who put this into practice will outsell those who don’t virtually 100% of the time. It’s a very simple strategy. Let’s break it down into three steps…

Step 1: CHOOSE Your Incentive

Your goal is to make your offer stand out from the crowd by offering an incentive to buy from your link, thereby boosting your conversion rate. And that means you need to offer a bonus that enhances or otherwise complements the affiliate product. Did you catch that? Your bonus should “enhance” or “complement” the product you are promoting as an affiliate. That’s what makes for the best incentive.

Affiliate Case Study

Let me give you a “real” case study (not made up … actually done by one of my customers). A customer – who is also one of my affiliates – recently purchased my Multiple Streams Theme wordpress blog theme. He loaded it to his site. Then, he invested a little time writing a small report that teaches how to customize and tweak the theme. He offered this small report, filled with insider shortcuts and tips for enhancing the theme, as an incentive to anyone who ordered the Multiple Streams Theme through his affiliate link. Brilliant. I’m just guessing, but I bet the report didn’t take him half an hour to write. He just logged his own personal experiences. And yet it has high value to anyone who has plans to order the theme. That’s how you outsell other affiliates. You turn your AFFILIATE offer into a UNIQUE OFFER.

Affiliate Ideas

One way to do this is by reading the sales letter for the product and choosing one particularly enticing bullet point. Example #1: If the sales letter tells prospects they can learn how to get traffic from social media sites, then you can create a report called “27 Ways to Use Social Media to Drive Traffic to Any Website!”

Example #2: If the sales page for a diet book promises a month of low calorie recipes to customers, you can create a supplementary low calorie recipe book and give it away to those who buy from your link.

Example #3: If you’re promoting a dog training book and you see a bullet point about eliminating bad behaviors such as jumping, incessant barking, digging in the gardening, etc. You can create a report or even a video called, “The Secrets of Training the Perfect Dog: How to Keep Your Dog’s Paws Off Your Guests, Off Your Counters and Out of Your Garden!”

The point is, your freebie should be directly related to the affiliate offer. You want your prospects to buy through your link just because the incentive is so enticing. What kind of incentive? You can do videos, software, coaching, advertising, installations, services, etc. But, “pound for pound”, the best and easiest incentive to create is a small report.

Step 2: CREATE Your Incentive

Once you decide on the topic, your next step is to create the bonus product. If you’re creating a short report or video, you can probably finish it in one day. Otherwise, you can hire a trusted freelancer to do it, which frees your time to focus on marketing the offer! Tip: You find ghostwriters on sites like WarriorForum.com, Elance.com, and GetAFreelancer.com. You can also ask for recommendations from your colleagues via your social networks or on business forums.

Step 3: CIRCULATE Your Incentive

Finally, your last step is to promote your offer by letting prospects know that anyone who buys the affiliate product using your link will get the bonus product. Let your list know. Tell your blog readers. Tweet about it. Purchase advertising. Distribute free marketing materials such as ezine articles. Mention it in sig files at forums. You know the drill.

Now, there are a few ways to deliver the product: 1. On the download page. If you’ve developed a relationship with the product vendor, he may agree to set up a special sales page that promotes the bonus plus a special download page so that customers can download it instantly after purchasing. 2. Manually. You can have customers forward their receipts and then you send them the link to the bonus. 3. Automatically. You can also set up a special email address with an auto-responder, so that anyone who sends you a receipt gets the download link automatically. (Naturally, some people will try to “cheat” this system.)

There you have it – the simple three-step strategy you can use to outsell your competitors and put more money in your pocket. It’s so easy you could be making more money by tomorrow… if you get started today! Speaking of “making more money”. If you have a blog, how would you like to have ten “built-in” ways to increase your affiliate commissions from your blog?

Visit Infoprofitshare to learn more.

NOTE: The offer mentioned at the website will no longer be available after Friday, March 19, 2010 at 10PM. Jimmy is “retiring” it then and discontinuing all sales.

March 14, 2010November 9, 2019 Linky

Small Business and Social Media Adoption

Social Media adoption by U.S. small businesses has doubled from 12% to 24% in the last year. If you are a small business owner or service professional this is a must read. These are the results from a study that was done by University of Maryland’s Smith School of Business by conducting a telephone survey of 500 small business owners in December 2009.

How Small Business is using Social Media

Small businesses are increasingly investing in social media applications including blogs, Facebook® and LinkedIn® profiles.

Small business owner, Dr. Alan Glazier, CEO and founder of Shady Grove Eye and Vision Care, was forced to consider alternative options to keep his business visible during the tough economic conditions last year.

He said: “With a very small investment in social media marketing, I was able to generate new business opportunities. Our Google® ranking is consistently number one for many of the phrases people use to search for eye doctors in and around my city and our new visitors to the site have increased. My blog has been picked up by different news sources and led to media interviews. I am now recognized as a thought leader in social networking within my profession and lastly but most importantly, my marketing budget has been reduced by more than 80%.”

Social Media popular sites

Facebook and LinkedIn were the most popular social media sites. In fact, 45% of surveyed respondents even believe their social media initiatives will pay off financially in 12 months or less.

Another interesting notion is that small business owners now believe social media can help them on the lead generation front, and that is the primary motivating factor for engaging in these new customer service channels. So while half of surveyed respondents found the time it takes to use social media sites more daunting than expected, 61% are still putting in the hours and making active efforts to identify new customers.

Clearly social media has become a valuable tool for small businesses. While we expect more small businesses to use Twitter as a customer service channel in the year ahead, as it stands, Facebook and LinkedIn have become the predominant platforms for small business owners.

Social Media sources and usage

As the graphic below details, the small business owners who are using social media are primarily engaging in social media through company pages (75%) and status updates (69%) on Facebook or LinkedIn. What’s especially intriguing is that a much smaller percentage of respondents — just 16% — are using Twitter.

Conclusion

Social media has become a valuable tool for small businesses. Small business owners mainly use social media to identify and attract new customers. As validated by this Small Business Success Index, social media can be the best friend for small business owners who constantly seek new ways to maximize productivity while keeping costs low.

If you are a small business owner interested in finding out how your business can start using social media marketing, use our Social Media Starter Project kit to become social media active and to maintain your online presence for return on investment within a few months.

About Robert H. Smith School of Business:

The Robert H. Smith School of Business is an internationally recognized leader in management education and research. A detailed copy of the report can be found at www.growsmartbusiness.com

March 7, 2010 Linky

Find Your Passion and Purpose in Life

Passion from vision

Good leaders have passion. Passion is derived from a leader’s vision and the passion will power and sustain you on your vision quest. True or not?

As human beings we all look for meaning in our life. We conjure up dynamic visions for our life and hope that the vision will stir up our passion, adding meaning and purpose to our existence. In fact, vision has been described as “a picture of the future that produces passion in you”.

However, if this is how you hope to identify or stir up your passion, then your passion will eventually die out. You see, when passion is created from the outside-in, it can cause a momentary flash of emotion, but it won’t be enough to move you very far or for very long. As soon as things get tough along your journey, you’ll slow down, back up or walk away and look for something else. The embers of passion stirred by your vision won’t draw out the tenacity, mental toughness and resiliency you need to bring your vision to fruition.

Vision comes from passion

This is why a leader can’t cast a vision and count on it to create the passion necessary to be successful. Rather, your vision must be birthed from your passion! Did you get that? In order to be effective, vision must come from your passion rather than hoping your passion will come from a vision. This fact begs the obvious question: where does one discover this inner passion that so many people never find or tap into?

Find your inner passion

Where does inner passion come from? It comes from where all true passion comes from; it comes from anguish. Leaders like Martin Luther King Jr., Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela and Nehemiah of the Bible all had bold visions that were birthed from their passion. And their passion was rooted in their anguish.

Anguish is defined as an agonizing mental pain or torment brought about by conditions in or around you. What torments you? What keeps you awake at night? What moves you? What burns inside of you? What thoughts, purposes or dreams consume you? What do you agonize over? What brings you before God in tears? That’s where you’ll find your passion and that passion will birth your vision.

Leaders don’t miss the following fact: it’s not enough to be concerned. You must anguish! Concern creates interest, whereas anguish creates movement, resolve and makes you unstoppable. Stop ignoring your pain and start celebrating your torment and you’ll zero in on the passion that can become a channel to your vision, your purpose, and eventually, your legacy.

Inspiration for this article was found from Dave Anderson, President of Learn to Lead and Author of How to Run Your Business by THE BOOK. Find his blog at www.learntolead.com

If you want to read more about my PASSION, I am sharing it in About Project Management Passion.

March 4, 2010April 6, 2010 Linky

How To Use Myers Briggs Personality Types As a Project Manager Tool

Following from the previous post on using Myers Briggs Personality Type Indicator as a project manager tool, this article will give even more clarity on how you can use the Myers Briggs Personality Types as an effective project management tool.

1. Recognize the components of the Jungian Indicator types

As a project manager you need to recognize the 8 components of the Myers Briggs Personality Types. Based on Jung’s observations, the starting point is that when people’s minds are active they are involved in one of two mental activities:

Perceiving: Taking information in
Judging: Processing information to reach to conclusions

He identified two ways in which people take in information, based on:

Sensing: Real time tangible data
Intuition: Holistic,”big picture”, pattern/connection data

He identified two ways in which people process information, based on:

Thinking: Analytical logical, objective, “tough” evaluation
Feeling: Empathic, subjective, “tender” assessment

Jung also observed that people tend to be energised by one of two orientations:

Extraversion (extroverts): People, experience, activity, external focus
Introversion (introverts): Ideas, memories, emotions, inner focus

Finally, Jung observed that people use these different functions in a form of hierarchy of preference, described by Jung as functions, namely: Dominant, Auxiliary, Tertiary and Inferior. The Myers Briggs model brings these components together into 16 very different personality types.

2. Accept that fewer than 1 in 50 people think like you do

The practical ramifications of all this are considerable, and especially in a project management situation. Given that the typical Myers Briggs type of a business leader, ENTJ (it is short for Extrovert; Intuition; Thinking; Judging) is only shared by approximately 1.8% of the population, then chances are that less than 1 in 50 of your team members will think in the same way you do. Yet as a project manager, you face the difficult challenge of getting your project team to deliver the project objectives and achieve the business benefits that you anticipate.

But the reality is that people process information in very different ways. They also interpret life in different ways and are motivated by different things. Although they will hear what you say when you outline your vision and strategy, and will probably agree with you, most of them are not able to translate all that into productive purposeful action.

3. Communicate your project vision and goals into actionable steps

This means that during the early stages of a project, the project team needs detailed management in the attempt to improve their commitment and working towards the same goal and objectives. As the project manager it is your responsibility to make no assumptions, and to communicate those actionable steps.

By taking account of team member’s individual differences, you need to spell out the actionable steps you wish them to take. By doing this you will stand a far higher chance of building a strong committed team who is motivated to achieve the project goal.

4. Achieve Leadership Success

An integral aspect of successful leadership in project management lies in understanding:

The drivers of human motivation
The difference in individual motivational drivers
Individual differences in mental processing functions

And also, in realizing that not only are their motivational drivers different to yours – their thought processes are different as well. Subscribe to my RSS and blog (to the right) not to miss future project management articles and tips!

If you are based in South Africa, and you would like to have your team assessed with the MBTI instrument, please contact Willem Conradie & Associates – Assessment, Learning and Development Consultants, for a professional service at willem@willemconradie.co.za.

Thanks to Stephen Warrilow for permission to use information from his Meyers Briggs article. Stephen, based in Bristol, England, works with companies across the UK providing specialist support to directors delivery significant change initiatives. Take advantage of his 7 FREE “How to Do It” downloads that will take you through all of the key stages of “How to manage change” – and show you how to manage change successfully.