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"He's just a natural." How many times have you heard someone say that in order to explain somebody else's greatness? This "explanation" derives from the commonplace belief that certain individuals have an innate gift that the rest of us didn't get and never will.  There's just a slight problem with this belief: it's wrong!

A recent article in the Harvard Business Review by some noted researchers totally debunks the myth of "the natural."* Studies by more than 100 scientists consistently and overwhelmingly proved this astonishing truth: experts are always made, not born.

Moreover, the studies show that the greats in any field do something that the average ones don't: they achieve their greatness through hours, days, and years of always practicing deliberately. Golfing great Ben Hogan once said, "While I am practicing I am also trying to develop my powers of concentration. I never just walk up and hit the ball."**

These researchers say that when most people practice, they just focus on the things they already know how to do. That's why, for example, an average salesperson makes the same easy calls over and over—and still calls it "selling." But a great salesperson, on the other hand, deliberately works at what he or she currently can't do well. And the research shows that this continual, deliberate effort is the distinguishing factor between the good and the great.

So, what does it take to become adept at deliberate practice? We think it's not only having the right tools or techniques, it's also having the right mindset in the first place. You have to have your mind focused in order to apply the techniques you've learned.

If you find that you are:

1. Not practicing your skills regularly (like you tell yourself you are going to do)

2. Not able to perform "live" as you do when you are practicing.

3. Fearful (not your full self while prospecting).

4. Not stretching and constantly improving.

Then it is likely that you are experiencing subconscious blocks.   These subconscious blocks can fight your conscious efforts every step of the way.

This is common, and probably the main reason why most beginning sales professionals and network marketers fail.  However, there are things you can do.

Through extensive experience, we have found that the safest, fastest, and most effective way to overcome these blocks is through hypnosis. Now, we're not talking about that fakery you've seen in B-movies. Clinical hypnosis is a proven technique that has been approved by both the American Medical Association and the British Medical Association since the 1950s.

Hypnosis helps you uninstall those blocks and install a mindset that facilitates—not blocks—your desire to become the performer you know you can be.  When you achieve this type of alignment, you find that deliberate practice becomes just something that you do, and you get better and better every day.

This of course means a direct and tangible benefit to your income, your financial freedom, and your options in life.

Finding a qualified psychologist who understands how to use hypnosis to help you in your sales or network marketing career can be difficult and extremely expensive.  A great option is use a home study audio hypnosis program created by a known commodity.  

We believe the cream of the crop is a program created by Dr. Peter Lambrou, one of the country's best-known sales psychologists (and a former successful salesperson himself).  Dr. Lambrou is also the Chair of Psychology at Scripps Memorial Hospital (a major research facility).

 The program is published by The Hypnosis Network, a company that works only with licensed mental-health professionals like Dr. Lambrou.  And this company is so sure of the effectiveness of its programs that it gives you a one-year money-back guarantee. Check it out at http://www.hypnosisnetwork.com/hypnosis/sales_prospecting.php

* The Making of an Expert, Harvard Business Review, July—August 2007, authors K. Anders Ericsson, Michael J. Prietula, and Edward T. Cokely.

**Golf Digest, November 2006.

by Angela Wickenberg

By giving away food we get more strength. By bestowing clothing on others we
gain more beauty. By donating abodes of purity and truth, we acquire great
treasures. –Buddha

Put seeds and cover them. Blades will sprout where you do your work. –Rumi

New seed is faithful. Its roots deepest in the places that are most empty.
–Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Have you ever heard the saying: “thoughts are things”?  It is a simple statement
and seemingly widely accepted and well known that everything achieved is first
mentally conceived.

Take a look around you.  All of the things that we live in and use, houses,
cars, food in supermarkets, space stations, the Internet, are all things and
were first ideas in the minds of people who dared to think outside of what was
the normally accepted boundaries for what was possible.

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Dear Friends,

I'm delighted that they decided to share this with us.  So without further ado, here is the second video in the banner traffic series.

Dear Friends,

I once heard someone say:  Make it a regular practice to offer to help people out without expecting immediate compensation.  If you do this every week, you'll soon find yourself wealthy with appreciative genuine friends that want to help you. 

One of the best ways you can not only make yourself feel good, but benefit yourself in the future is to offer to help other people out with no immediate expectation of compensation.

Every human society has a value system that includes reciprocity.  That is, a system where one party does something for another and then the favor is returned at a future date. 

Reciprocity is one of the critical elements that has allowed humans to prosper.  So, it's a very powerful ingrained force in people.  Think about it.  When someone does something to help you out, don't you feel a strong urge to return the favor?

And this goes the other way.  Because in today's cut-throat world there seems to be less and less people willing to help others out without immediate compensation, when you do offer to help someone out, it's highly appreciated.

So, you not only get to do a good deed where you can feel a glow inside because you did something nice, but it's quite likely that someday that favor will be returned.  Quite often, it's returned with much more interest than you ever expected the favor deposit to earn.

Naturally, you need to use common sense.  You don't loan someone you hardly know your life savings since they had a tough day.  But, you might offer to give someone a ride when their car is in the shop, or help your elderly neighbor fix something in their house.  Other ideas are to be a father to the fatherless child, bring along a less fortunate child to the movies or to your weekly family dinner at the restaurant, help someone without a car and sufficient funds buy groceries, sit and watch tv with a lonely old person.  One day you will be old too.

Remember however, it may not always be the person you gave the favor to that will return the favor.  I believe that somehow "the universe" returns the favor or favors in big and/or small ways, but not from the exact same kind of situation or person.

Last night, I received three emails with the same content. Stephen Pierce has taken the initiative to raise enough money to feed one million children.  Armand Morin and John Reese were the other two to send messages, as well.

Here's the message.  It's about feeding 1,000,000 starving children in the world.

Please read this IMPORTANT MESSAGE.
http://www.ForAGreaterCause.org

Feeling hungry?

My guess is yes. Chances are, you'll be running to the
snack machine to grab a candy bar soon. Or hitting the
drive through for a combo meal. Or possibly sitting
down to a nice dinner at home with the family.

Whatever it is, you have the capacity to quiet your
hunger pains with very little effort, correct?

Great. Now hang on to that thought for a moment…

Because right now, there's more than 850 million people
hungry in the world. Right now. This very second.

850 million That's 100 times the population of New York
City, folks.

And I don't mean "Boy I sure got the munchies" hungry.
This is "I haven't eaten one bite of food in days"
hungry. The type you and I have never, ever
experienced.

Not even CLOSE.

Think that's shocking? What 'til you hear this…

Before morning, 16,000 kids around the world will drop
dead from starvation.

Newborns. Babies. Toddlers. Grade schoolers. Teenagers.
All fresh, young faces looking for a chance to make
their mark in the world.

But they won't. Because after weeks of pain, weakness,
and suffering, they'll finally succumb to the slow,
horrible death of starvation.

And here's the worst part–that's just TODAY.

Tomorrow, there will be another 16,000 dead children to
take their place.

And the next day.

And the next day.

And the next.

Am I getting through to you yet?

http://www.ForAGreaterCause.org

From now until Tuesday, May 29, my goal is to put food
in the bellies of 1,000,000 children around the world.

Don't worry–I'm not going to go all Sally Struthers on
you here. I'm not asking for anything except a few
seconds of your time.

In fact, I'm going to give YOU something fre, just for
helping out. Here's how it works:

Step 1: Go to http://www.ForAGreaterCause.org
Step 2: Download my fre success report called The
Power Of The Third Influence
Step 3: I'll donate a plate of food to Feed The
Children on your behalf.

That's it. You download. I donate. Simple as that.
And with your few seconds of effort, a little child
will go to bed with a full stomach.

How can you pass that up?

http://www.ForAGreaterCause.org

Inside this success report you'll discover…

    * How Stephen went from having 2-cents to my name to
    earning millions of dollars online.


    * How to turn around your life with a simple shift
    of association.


    * How to double your productivity and get more of
    the right things done.

And much more.

It's all yours–fr*e for the taking. Just go to the
website, download it, and I put another plate of food
in front of a hungry little face.

All because of you.

http://www.ForAGreaterCause.org

4 days. 1 million kids fed. We can do it–but you gotta
help me.

This is your chance to really make a difference. As a
parent…a grandparent…a brother…a sister…a
friend.

All I'm asking is for one simple download, and I'll do
the rest. In fact, I don't even care if you read my
report.

Will The Power Of The Third Influence inspire you?
Sure.

Will it make you think? Absolutely.

Will you be closer to achieving personal success after
reading it? I believe so.

But the real power behind this report is not in what it
will do for you, but what it will do for a million
hungry kids.

All I'm asking is that you take 10 seconds to download
it. 10 seconds and a hungry child gets to eat.

Isn't that worth 10 seconds of your time?

http://www.ForAGreaterCause.org

Right this minute, there's 16,000 kids that won't live
to see tomorrow morning…unless something changes.

We might not be able to save them all. But with God's
help–and yours–we'll save a bunch of them.

Can I count on you? Or more to the point…

Can they?

Now it’s your turn. Visit:

www.foragreatercause.org

and Stephen will donate a plate of food for a starving child on your behalf.

Stephen is giving away a free report that will teach you about building wealth. (Stephen has gone from having 2 cents to his name to making millions of dollars online.)

This report is yours free.

Pick up your free report and help a starving child.

Go to www.foragreatercause.org

Take care,

Angela Wickenberg

As Web 2.0 becomes less of just a buzzword and more of a
reality, the types of sites webmasters need to publish will
increasingly become more important. In other words,
mini-sites are slowly dying and cookie-cutter article sites
are on the way out as well. Web surfers will become more
value-focused and web companies will become larger.

Over the next few years expect larger conglomerates to be
buying up profitable websites in their chosen markets.
Expect smaller sites to either be bought or driven out of
business. My intention is not to scare you, but this
outcome is inevitable.

Large businesses have always taken two approaches to their
desired markets. They either buy their competition or they
push them out of business. You want to be prepared when
this trend begins on the Internet.

Being a webmaster and online marketer, you should be
preparing for one of two scenarios. To position yourself
for a buyout to a larger company or to become the larger
company that dominates your chosen market.

Whichever route you choose is entirely up to you, but I
would suggest that it would be in your best interest to
begin focusing on authority sites. You can either start
building them or turning your current sites into them.
Whatever your approach may be, I assure you it will help
you sleep better at night.

What Is the Definition of an Authority Site?

A fairly comprehensible authority site definition was put
forward by Jason Dowdell of Global Promoter. Jason defined
it this way: …quot;Authority sites are sites that have
been linked to and referenced on other web sites covering
the same subject matter and they also will have hundreds if
not thousands of pages covering that subject matter and
nearly every facet of it….quot;

That definition is one man’s opinion, albeit a good one,
but let us go directly to the source. Many search engine
optimization and search engine marketing experts believe
Google has derived their primary algorithm from a document
titled, "Hilltop: A Search Engine based on Expert
Documents."

The PageRank formula as we know it today was derived from
this paper, and the authors, Bharat and Mihaila, define an
authority site in the text below:

"We believe a page is an authority on the query topic if
and only if some of the best experts on the query topic
point to it. Of course in practice some expert pages may be
experts on a broader or related topic. If so, only a subset
of the hyperlinks on the expert page may be relevant."

"In such cases the links being considered have to be
carefully chosen to ensure that their qualifying text
matches the query. By combining relevant out-links from
many experts on the query topic we can find the pages that
are most highly regarded by the community of pages related
to the query topic. This is the basis of the high relevance
that our algorithm delivers."

What we have reprinted above is the foundation of the
PageRank system and the determination for deciding which
sites will be authorities. I highly recommend you read and
re-read the full document until you understand every aspect
of it.

What Are the Components of an Authority Site?

Allow me to present you with a diagram at:
http://www.contentdesk.com/authoritymap that dissects your
typical authority site. As you can tell from the diagram, a
considerable number of components and systems must be in
place for the authority site to function profitably and
reap the benefits of the "Authority Site Formula."

The Authority Site Formula = Visitor Optimization (VO) +
Content Optimization (CO) * Creative Marketing (CM)

A simple question must be asked. What do 99.9% of authority
sites provide? In a sentence, an incredible amount of
original content and a superb visitor experience. The
search engines want you to succeed and they want you to
make money, but you have to play by their rules. In the
future, focus your efforts on visitor optimization and
content optimization instead of search engine optimization.

What Is the Anatomy of an Authority Site?

About.com is the definition and was the original authority
site. Their site has a generic domain name and hundreds of
subdomains on different topics.

Your authority site should take the same approach, but not
on such a general level. If you launch an authority site,
it should be geared towards a well-defined and large
market. After you launch the site and generate some
traffic, you should create subdomains that cover specific
areas inside that larger market.

For example, Diabetic-Resources.Com is not an active site;
but if it were, then a typical authority site setup would
be something like:

* http://supplies.diabetic-resoures.com *
http://diet.diabetic-resources.com *
http://insurance.diabetic-resources.com *
http://symptoms.diabetic-resources.com *
http://treatment.diabetic-resources.com

Using this approach, you are able to target your general
market while generating more targeted traffic pertaining to
related sub-markets.

As a rule of thumb, the index pages on your domains and
subdomains should be more focused on content, but the
article and commentary pages should be more focused on
advertising. Just do not ever lose sight of the most
important aspect of your site, which is visitor experience
otherwise known as visitor optimization.

What Does It Take to Create an Authority Site?

You want to create a site that generates thousands of
visitors a day mainly through the major search engines, and
would ultimately be the one-stop source for information in
that particular market.

Your site must employ three traits to become an authority
site. Let’s discuss all three necessary aspects:

Dynamic: You should have as many RSS feeds as you can
muster to incorporate throughout your site. Your visitors
need to be able to receive RSS feeds for any keyword,
category or archive as well as create their own. One feed
is no longer enough to satisfy your visitors.

Interactive: You should be engaging the minds of your
visitors at all times using surveys, commenting and
feedback. Make these features easy for your visitors and
your site will grow exponentially. Why? Because they feel
like you actually care about them. Interaction is a
powerful tool and creates a sense of community on your site.

Consistent: You should post to your blog often, and you
should always provide quality and original content. That
doesn't mean you need to produce 800-word articles three
times a week. Your goal should be to become a news master.
You need to be an …quot;authority…quot; on the news
happening in your niche.

If you follow the steps and guidelines listed above, then
you will be on your way to being the owner of an authority
site.

This blog and site will be transferred to the Authority Site Center within the next few days.
After that, I will be able to write about the developments in traffic and unique visitors.
I expect to make a great deal of changes to this site during that time.  More to come on that later.

In the meantime, here is the link to check out what the Authority Site Center has to offer:

Click here to download the Authority Black Book, a $97 value.  In fact, it has more value
than many courses that cost a lot more than this, but it's free:

contentdesk.com/cmd.php

And here is the link to the Authority Site Center:

http://contentdesk.com/cmd.php?af=615874

Best,

Angela

In that spirit, Business 2.0 magazine sent senior writer Paul Kaihla and a team of reporters on a quest to find some of the best "best practices" in business today. The companies they interviewed have stumbled upon their own unique methods for doing everything from running meetings and generating product ideas to troubleshooting M&A deals and keeping board directors on their toes.

Following are 25 ideas that are truly gems, broken down into five categories: finance, HR, management, marketing, and R&D.

They're methods that help keep some of the best-run companies, like Procter & Gamble (Research), Google (Research), Southwest Airlines (Research), Microsoft (Research), Intel (Research), and Coke (Research), at the top of their game. You've probably never heard of most of these practices — but you might want to start implementing them tomorrow. 

HEWLETT-PACKARD CEO Mark Hurd loves numbers–and insists that his managers learn to love them too. Since Hurd came onboard last March, one of the key tools he's used to keep pace with rivals is his extreme form of industry benchmarking. Instead of comparing HP's sales and profits with Dell's or IBM's, the company now tracks itself against rivals by every conceivable measure. "We want to make sure we break down every unit and business function," explains Marius Haas, senior strategy officer at HP, "so we can become best in class in each one."

Here's how it works: Imagine a matrix with various business units running down the side (printing, servers, storage, IT services, etc.) and business functions across the top (finance, HR, marketing, R&D, etc.). Now create benchmarks for each of the 72 resulting cells and you have a good idea of how Hurd is managing the $87 billion company. The benchmarks are the best guess of where HP's rivals are going to be in 2007, based on more than a dozen variables, from real estate cost per square foot to operating expenses as a percentage of gross margin.

Before Hurd took over, HP measured itself primarily against IBM, using one very blunt tool: costs as a percentage of revenues. That ignored IBM's higher gross margins and the fact that it has more gross profit to spread around. Hurd's new benchmarking method formed the basis of HP's reorganization effort announced last July, through which HP has promised to save $3 billion by 2008. Already there is key evidence of success: Operating expenses as a percentage of gross margin dropped 2 percent in 2005, helping to fatten profits by $385 million. — E.S.

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