One Magic Number to Increase Productivity

 

Hey everyone,

I’m going to throw something out there. Tell me if you identify with any of these questions:

Where do I start?

Which method of driving traffic should I use?

What should I write about?

What sort of product should I create?

What do I need to do to build my mailing list?

How do you install WordPress?

What domain name should I pick?

How can I monetise my blog?

How can I get regular, recurring income?

Where is the best place to outsource?

What’s the most effective way of advertising?

How can you start on a budget?

I could go on and list many, many more questions. But out of all those, I bet you’ve asked at least one of them at some point. But I bet that more than likely you’ve asked more than one at once, am I right?

For a newbie who wants to start an online business they could indeed find all those questions and more flying through their head. This in itself can be overwhelming and, in turn, crippling.

Even those who have made a start can find themselves confronted with many of these questions and more that confuse them, frighten them or overwhelm. All this can be so crippling that they end up quitting.

Sound at all familiar?

I’ve been there myself, I know what it’s like. It’s questions like these that stopped me taking the necessary action for many years. So how can you get past these kind of stumbling blocks?

With the help of my magic number!

The number is: 141.

This is just a little mnemonic I use to help drive home the point of a very, very simple principle. Now, it’s not anything profound and it’s something that I’ve heard many marketers talk about. Yet we can still end up forgetting or even ignoring it. I like to call it the “One for One Principle”. Hence the mnemonic, 141.

Just what is the One for One Principle?

The One for One Principle

 

The One for One Principle is very closely related to another popular principle. You may have come across the acronym, “K.I.S.S”.

No, no, no! Not THAT kind of kiss!

“K.I.S.S.” – “Keep It Simple, Stupid”.

What does that mean, exactly?

Basically, it just means that, whatever it is you’re doing, you need to keep it simple. Don’t overcomplicate things and make things harder for yourself than they perhaps already are or need to be.

Now, the One for One Principle helps us to apply K.I.S.S. by keeping us focused on one thing at a time. This is a hugely important strategy in whatever we do. So, let’s consider a couple of examples.

How to K.I.S.S. With 141

 

Let’s imagine that you want to create a product. Remember those questions we raised at the beginning? One of those was, “What sort of product should I create?”. Another of the questions was, “What should I write about?” Do you see how already we have two questions that we could be dealing with at once? Depending on what it is we’re dealing with, those two questions could easily turn into four, five, ten and so on.

When it comes to creating products, whether they be for a marketplace or for our subscribers, there’s a piece of advice that I hear a lot from many of the top marketers: “One problem, one solution.” Simple, right?

All too often we can sabotage ourselves by making things far more complicated than they need be when in reality all that’s needed is one solution for one problem at a time. More often than not people neither need nor want a vast amount of information that covers a whole ream of subjects. All they want is a solution to the particular problem that they’d like addressing at any one time.

So then, for example, if you see that there’s a need in the market for WordPress security training, then why would you spend time agonising about how to teach them about driving traffic, list-building and product creation?

You can apply the same principle to what you work on yourself. For example, let’s say that you’re a complete newbie with no background and no experience of Internet marketing at all. Why would you worry about how to drive traffic if you haven’t so much as even learned how to set up a WordPress site, let alone actually have something of value to drive the traffic to?

Do you get the point?

One solution for one problem.

Once you have tackled one issue then you can move onto the next. Likewise with content or product creation, once you have focused on one subject you can think about creating a product based on another need. Not only does it help you to keep focused on the subject at hand, but it also helps you to create real, targeted value around that one subject rather than spreading yourself too thinly and perhaps covering many subjects but none of them in sufficient detail.

Also, by applying the One for One Principle you are enabling your subscriber/customer to be able to focus on the one thing and not feel overwhelmed by a load of information, some of which they may not even need.

I have to admit that even now I sometimes slip into the trap of worrying over too many issues at once instead of just concentrating on one thing at a time. But learning to apply the One for One Principle is one of the key factors that got me started. If I hadn’t just gone for it I’m pretty sure I’d never have got to the stage I am now.

I used to be a person who wanted to get everything in place first. So rather than taking what I knew and running with it, or learning one new thing at a time, applying it and then moving on to the next, I’d end up doing nothing because I’d sit and think things like: “Well, I have this to do… and this… and that and then that… and that….” – the result? I’d end up not even getting the first thing on the list done because I had too much information rolling around in my head and couldn’t work out what to do.

Then there are the self-sabotaging obstacles. You know the sort, those doubts and ‘what ifs’ that creep in our mind and find a comfortable little corner to sit and breed. I had those in abundance for sure! But more often than not, the imagined ‘what ifs’ are far worse than anything we end up experiencing by just taking action and getting things going.

So, always keep things simple. Remember, whether you’re creating content for your subscribers/customers or whether you’re addressing a part of your business, always remember 141 – the One for One Principle – one problem, one solution. This has helped me enormously and I’m sure that it will help you too.

I really hope that you enjoyed this post and found it useful. I’d love to hear your experiences with what I’ve talked about here. Have you struggled with trying to do to many things at once in the past? What helped you to overcome this? Are struggling with this now? How do you think 141 will help you?

Please leave a comment below and don’t forget to give Albert a click!

Glenn