The rule of 72 is a quick equation used to determine the doubling time of investments. IN other words, if you had a savings account at 5% interest, how many years would it take to double your money?

Divide 72 by 5(%) to get 14…14 years to double your investment at 5% interest.

The rule can be manipulated several ways. I have not checked the math on this, but recently learned how to apply this to marketing to double your income in a year from your current projects.

First determine the number of different factors that lead to your income. In my case, I used this list for my Build a Niche Store sites:

Number of sites
Number of unique articles on each site
Numbef of backlinks from article directories
Number of backlinks from blogs

So that’s 4 factors, and some of them are interrelated, but all of them are needed in order to continue getting traffic and profits.

Now you take 72 and divide it by 4 to get 18%. If I make an 18% improvement in each area, I should double my profits in the next year.

I currently have 7 sites making money on Build a Niche Store…18% is less than 2 sites. So in the next year (probably next month), I plan to put up 2 additional Build a Niche Store sites

I went through each site adn determined how many unique articles I had posted ON the site. Guess what? Only about 3 per site! I tend to get bored and move on to the next one. So…18% of 3 is way less than 1, so just 1 new article per site will get me toward my goal…that’s pretty easy.

Same story with backlinks and blogs…just calculate 18% (or whatever %age you came up with) of your current efforts adn make a plan to implement those changes.

Can I make those changes in 1 month instead of over 1 year? Sure can!

I’m not a financial math wizard, but hopefully you can see from tehse examples that it’s not too hard to DOUBLE your business by planning ahead and making small improvements across your marketing efforts.

So today I took some success focused action, posted 2 articles to ezines, put a new page of unique content on one of my sites, created a “store” page with that kewywrd and interlinked them all. EZines doesn’t seem to have a problem sending traffic to a BANS content page, only to a thin bans front page or store page.

You can apply these prinicipals to ANY model of affiliate income…

So what are YOU planning to do?

The word passion derives from the Latin root “passio” meaning “suffering” or “being acted upon”. A more commonly used context is “an overmastering feeling or conviction.”

What does suffering have to do with your dreams? Hopefully nothing. But the idea that you are being acted upon by your passion, that you have an overmastering conviction to pursue your ideas or dreams is vital to success in achievement.

In the last article, “How Important Is this Dream?” we discussed whether or not your dream was important to you. Let’s assume you have established that it is. The next question is…

Are you passionate about your dream?

Perhaps it’s important for you to get a master’s degree, or even to land your first job as a summer intern. The importance may stem from outside influences such as your parents or your academic advisor. But unless you have a passion for the achievement, your actions will most likely stagnate. Following through to completion will be painful for you at best.

“Until you find the passion that drives you, your work will be tedious and unrewarding.”

An idea for which you have passion…for which you have an inexplicable conviction to pursue…is bound to succeed, since you will not let anything deter you on your path. What seem like obstacles to your onlookers are barely even perceived as bumps in the road to you. Rather you meet challanges along the way with enthusiasm, learning from each small adventure.

The cumulative success of each obstacle you overcome simply fuels your passion even more, until you are on an unstoppable path to accomplishing your dream.

Take some time and think about what you are passionate about…for what causes will you have an unflagging desire to pursue?

Action Step:

Review the idea lists that we have generated. For each idea that you have identified as being important, take a few moments to consider how passionate you are about them. See if you can highlight the top 1-3 ideas for which you have true passion, the ideas which you will have an unflagging desire to pursue despite naysayers.

Other articles in this series:

Part 1: How to turn your Great Ideas into Reality.
Part 2: “How Important Is this Dream?”

As you daydream about your latest idea, let your mind flow around the possibilities. What if you see this idea through to completion? What if you write your novel? What if you graduate with an advanced degree? What if you complete a triathlon?

What will those accomplishments mean for you?

Maybe it’s not about the end goal, but the process instead. Maybe in writing your auto-biography, it’s not about the finished product, but rather about exploring your own history, becoming an archeologist of your own life.

What if your dream is to be a doctor for Indonesian Tribes? What if you KNOW without a DOUBT that that is your calling in life?

What if your doctor has told you that you need to lose weight, lower your cholesterol and get into better shape? Maybe Finishing a triathlon isn’t your main objective, but you know that the training you do in the meantime will help you achieve ALL of those goals.

If your idea has no intrinsic value, you will know it as you let your mind explore the possibilities.

But not all ideas and dreams need to be quite so lofty. The point is that you need to be convinced that your dream is important before spending the first bit of time pursuing the dream.

You will never get past square one if you are not convinced of the importance of reaching your dream.

Action Step:

Take out the sheet of paper from last time on which you wrote your brainstormed your dreams. As you read it again, you will recognize that many of these dreams really are somewhat far-fetched. But a few of these dreams will hit home. They are dreams that you KNOW you need to accomplish.

Rate each dream on a scale from 1 to 5 with 1 being “Not very important” to accomplish within the next few years to 5 being “Very important” to accomplish in the next few years.

I use the timeframe of a few years since many dreams will require multiple steps to accomplish…getting a degree, training for a marathon or ironman, starting a business and becoming profitable, etc.

Save this sheet in a drawer for the next time.

This is the second in a multipart article on Turning Your Great Ideas into Reality. If you like it, please forward it to a friend and subscribe to my RSS feed.  The next article in the Series will appear this Thursday, October 4th.

Her Father Likes to Brag

I have a friend whose father likes to brag about her to his co-workers. Many times they will ask him how is three daughters are doing? He replies, “I’ve only got one.” Quizzically, they ask about the daughter who worked as a wilderness instructor. “Yes, that’s my daughter” Then they’ll ask about the daughter who is a computer programmer, “Yes, that’s her.” Then they’ll ask about the daughter who does volunteer work with the local homeless organization. “Yes, that’s her as well.” And what about the daughter who became a doctor. “Yes, that’s my daughter.” But Steve, they reply, you’ve only got one daughter, right? “Of course,” her father says.

Her Dad’s friends are amazed. But when she tells me about these reactions, she’s just embarassed. Isn’t it natural to follow through on actions and ideas that are important to you? Doesn’t everyone want a job in a field in which they take great interest?

What do you have in common with my friend?
If you are at all like my friend, you’ve got a hundred and one great ideas, or more, in your head all at the same time. Maybe you’ve actually written down notes on a few of them, discussed others with friends, and possibly…just possibly you’ve taken some type of action on two or three of them.

Some of us are idea people, and some of us are follow through people. I am great at the former, but suck at the latter. My friend is good at both.

How can we make our great ideas come to life?

Before an idea becomes a reality you need to ask yourself many questions…

• How important is this to me?
• Am I passionate about the idea?
• Where does this idea fit in the bigger picture?
• Do I have the skills to follow through with the idea?
• Do I need to get more education before starting to act on the idea?
• Once I’ve decided the idea NEEDS to happen, how do I make time for it?

Action Step:
Brainstorm a list of all the dreams you can think of right now. Don’t be judgmental, simply list each one on it’s own line, starting with a blank sheet of paper. As you write, one dream may remind you of another that you had forgotten. Write them all down. Use two sheets if you need to. Put this sheet (or sheets) of paper in a safe place, like your top desk drawer and let it sit for a day or two. You will use it again in a few days.This is the first in a series of articles on how to turn your dreams into reality. If you like it, please forward it to a friend and subscribe to my RSS feed!

The next part in this series will be published on Monday, October 1st, so be sure to stop back!