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clipped from thirstyfishinfo.amplify.com While this year’s Super Bowl advertisers demonstrated a knack for humor and entertainment, they also set a money-wasting example for struggling small business owners trying to make their own cash registers ring, a study found. California-based advertising consultant Drew Eric Whitman—author of CA$HVERTISING (Career Press)—said nearly all of this year’s Super Bowl commercials ignored all three of the foundational principles of creating effective advertising: 1) highlighting the product’s benefits, 2) distinguishing it from the competition, and 3) driving people to act. small businesses owners often take their cues from what the ‘big boys’ are doing. It’s a disastrous recipe to follow. Whitman explained that the classic advertising-success formula, “AIDA”—get Attention… stimulate Interest… build Desire… and ask for Action was largely ignored by Super Bowl advertisers with the recession mercilessly battering businesses in most every industry, ads need to focus on sales, not entertainment.

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clipped from blog.hubspot.com Do you find yourself overwhelmed by the enormous volume of information on the Web and the daunting task of organizing it all? If you answered “yes,” don’t worry! There are a slew of free tools to help monitor your brand on the Web, and learning how to use them will save you time and alleviate stress. Check out this video for a comprehensive introduction to some of the most widely used and effective brand-monitoring tools, and start monitoring your brand today! Watch Video 1.  The speed by which online comments travel multiplies their impact. 2.  The collection of individual comments gives you a more objective overview of prospects’ and customers’ perception of your products, and may help you improve them. 3.  These tools also help you stay up-to-date with new trends that you can integrate into your product design or marketing strategies for your existing products. new challenges such as staying focused in the midst of information overflow.

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The 80/20 Rule is one of the most helpful of all concepts of time and life management. It is also called the Pareto Principle after its founder, the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, who first wrote about it in 1895. Pareto noticed that people in his society seemed to divide naturally into what he called the “vital few,” the top 20% in terms of money and influence, and the “trivial many,” the bottom 80%.

The Great Discovery
He later discovered that virtually all economic activity was subject to this Pareto Principle as well.

For example, this rule says that 20% of your activities will account for 80% of your results. 20% of your customers will account for 80% of your sales. 20% of your products or services will account for 80% of your profits. 20% of your tasks will account for 80% of the value of what you do, and so on.

This means that if you have a list of ten items to do, two of those items will turn out to be worth as much or more than the other eight items put together.

The Greatest Payoff
Here is an interesting discovery. Each of these tasks may take the same amount of time to accomplish. But one or two of those tasks will contribute five or ten times the value as any of the others.

Often, one item on a list of ten things that you have to do can be worth more than all the other nine items put together. This task is invariably the one that you should do first.

The Most Valuable Tasks
The most valuable tasks you can do each day are often the hardest and most complex. But the payoff and rewards for completing these tasks efficiently can be tremendous. For this reason, you must adamantly refuse to work on tasks in the bottom 80% while you still have tasks in the top 20% left to be done.

Before you begin work, always ask yourself, “Is this task in the top 20% of my activities or in the bottom 80%?”

Getting Started
The hardest part of any important task is getting started on it in the first place. Once you actually begin work on a valuable task, you seem to be naturally motivated to continue. There is a part of your mind that loves to be busy working on significant tasks that can really make a difference. Your job is to feed this part of your mind continually.

Managing Your Life
Time management is really life management, personal management. It is really taking control over the sequence of events. Time management is control over what you do next. And you are always free to choose the task that you will do next. Your ability to choose between the important and the unimportant is the key determinant of your success in life and work.

Effective, productive people discipline themselves to start on the most important task that is before them. They force themselves to eat that frog, whatever it is. As a result, they accomplish vastly more than the average person and are much happier as a result. This should be your way of working as well.

Action Exercises
Make a list of all the key goals, activities, projects and responsibilities in your life today. Which of them are, or could be, in the top 10% or 20% of tasks that represent, or could represent, 80% or 90% of your results?

Resolve today that you are going to spend more and more of your time working in those few areas that can really make a difference in your life and career, and less and less time on lower value activities.

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Let’s take a closer look at these negative issues and develop an action plan to help you find more creativity, meaning and pleasure in life:

Overwhelm
The most common feeling for people today is that there is just too much – too much to do, too much information, too much email and too much to keep track of. There is an underlying sense that we are missing something important but we don’t know what it is. Our typical cultural response is to try harder – to “hunker in” and find a way to get it all done. We have a subtle feeling that because we can’t get everything done, we don’t deserve to rest, relax and rejuvenate.

Life Action Plan – Take a moment to reflect on this word “over-whelm.” How can you help yourself be “under-whelmed?” Imagine a time and place where you felt at complete peace. Let that memory surface and be experienced from head to toe. Take 5 deep breaths before moving on…

Isolation
As we attempt to work harder to keep up with it all, we spend less time connecting to the important people in our lives – our families, our friends and our close colleagues. There is a sense that even though we are more connected, we are more alone. There is less time for the fun and just being with other people with no agenda. There is a subtle feeling that because we can’t keep up, we are not worthy of the good feelings from connections to others. This has a counter productive effect because the truth is that we get our best results through our connections with other people. This leads to the final stage of the downward cycle.

Life Action Plan – Challenge this idea that you are not worthy because you can’t keep up. Make a list of all the things you have done today, this week, this month. Realize that you have done many things already. You have done enough. There is no value judgment tied to the number of things accomplished.
Your value lies in who you are, not what you do. Reach out to someone who respects that belief and values being with you. Spend time with them…

Frustration
In the face of escalating expectations – with all this technology we should be able to do more! – Combined with our increasing overwhelm and isolation it becomes almost impossible to get the results we desire; even harder to get the results demanded of us from others. The feeling of frustration among people is palpable and intense. There is a subtle sense of cynicism that nothing will really make a difference because we have believed that information was the savior and now we know that it is not. But we don’t know what is.

Life Action Plan – State 7 self-affirmations. Do not minimize them. Do not disqualify them. Embrace them and use these “strengths” to tackle the hard things in life. Move away from learning new things. Take time to do something physical. Move into nature and notice the little things. Play outside with your children. See how your children accept you unconditionally. Take meaning from that experience.

Has this helped you? Does this energize your daily life, your marketing efforts or your relationships? If so, share your story with us by clicking the comment link…

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