Domination Habit #1: Generate One Idea Per Day.
Great ideas are the name of the game in the direct response industry.
My colleague James Altucher believes being an “Idea Machine” is the #1 key to being successful in life and business.
He recommends forcing yourself to write down ideas every single day.
Altucher himself writes 10 ideas per day!
That’s is tough… I’ve tried and failed many times.
But writing down one idea per day is a good place to start.
So, here’s the challenge:
***Can you write one idea down every day, starting tomorrow?
***Everyday includes one idea for Saturday & Sunday.
This might be easy at the start…
But the real challenge will be sticking with it… day in, day out…
Question: Where Do You Put Your Idea Every Day?
Answer: On an idea sheet.
Create one with google sheets through the google drive I asked you to set up the other day. <—You should bookmark it.
The process is simple…
Step 1: Put the date down in the first column.
Step 2: Put your idea down in a ~5 word sentence in the second column. (Add a link to it if it’s based on an example or an article you read.)
Then you’re done. It’s that simple.
It could be a big idea for a new product… or a new blog… or a promotional idea…
It could be an idea to build a system of doing something better…
Or a new traffic source or test.
That means you should have at least 365 ideas per year...
These ideas could fuel fulfillment for a product you create… a blockbuster sales webinar... better conversions…more new customers... faster turnaround time... or making more money with the customers you have.
The idea sheet also gives you a repository to draw on if you’re in a dry-spell.
Most importantly, when you force yourself to write an idea every day you’ll exercise the most important muscle you need in the direct response industry: Your brain.
Any goal you set is attainable… we just need to use our heads to find ideas to get it done.
An idea per day will make you better at your job and open up new opportunities for you
No matter what your skill level…
Everybody has ideas they can generate. Including you.
And everyone can and should come up with new ideas everyday. Including you.
It’s a process that takes work. You need to think and be on the hunt for new ideas.
And by the way, even though you should put an idea down for Saturday and Sunday... you don’t necessarily need to do anything on the weekends.
You can come up with three ideas on Friday and schedule one for Friday, one for Saturday and one for Sunday.
Generating an idea per day is not easy to do.
But nothing worthwhile is easy.
Push yourself to do it.
Where do you get ideas?
A Technique for Producing Ideas
There’s an awesome (and really short) book called, A Technique for Producing Ideas.
It’s by James Webb Young.
I recommend you read it on your own time and think about it.
He explains how anyone can generate ideas.
Here’s a free pdf of the book online that someone posted.
The spark notes version is…
All new ideas are novel combinations of two or more old ideas.
So, the key to being an Idea Machine is to have boatload of existing ideas in your head.
That way, your subconscious can combine ideas you already know about into new ideas when the conditions are right.
Webb goes into a lot more detail in the book. Like I said, it’s worth reading it on your own time.
But the key takeaway is that if you want to be an idea machine… you need to fill your head with lots of inputs.
That means reading a lot of articles about your trade… reading about different ideas outside your normal routine… reading the news… reading books… listening to audiobooks… listening to podcasts… watching Ted Talks… watching YouTube videos… even watching movies and TV shows on interesting topics.
Read, watch and list to topics in your wheelhouse...
And on topics outside of your wheelhouse.
You should also sign up for and read your competitors work…
In fact, one of the best things you can do, is our second domination habit…
Domination Habit #2: Read a Promotion Per Day.
A promo just means a sales piece for a product or service. Not a traditional TV commercial.
It needs to be a direct response piece. So, it could be something your physically mailed but throw out…
It could be a sales message online prompting you to subscribe to or buy something…
This also goes for anyone — no matter what your job or interests.
First off, you’ll get great ideas from promos.
You’ll get format ideas, design ideas, headline ideas, topic ideas, offer ideas, upsell ideas…
You’ll also get a feel for the sales voice and structure of persuasive writing.
That’s a superpower in and of itself in anything you do: Writing emails… talking to family members… or whatever.
If you're a master persuader, you’ll get more of what you want in life.
It takes a lot of time to actively read or take notes on a promotional piece.
Treat it and generating an idea per day like a workout.
If you go to the gym regularly, you carve out an hour in the morning or at night. You exert yourself. There are more fun things you could be doing, like binging a Netflix series. But you’re putting in the time and effort now do you’ll be in shape, feel good and get stronger.
Reading a promotion per day is no different… except you’re working out your brain.
That leaves the third and last domination habit…
Domination Habit #3: Always Think About How You’ll Be Number One Today
Here’s an awesome Vince Lombardi quote I found online that sums up our third habit:
“Winning is not a sometime thing; it's an all the time thing. You don't win once in a while, you don't do things right once in a while, you do them right all the time. Winning is habit.”
Every year has 365 days…
Every day has 24 hours…
Every hour 60 minutes…
And every minute, 60 seconds.
It’s so obvious… yet 99.9% of people waste their time.
You can only do one thing with each of your seconds. Choose wisely.
In fact, I recommend you read two books to drill this point into your head:
No BS Time Management for Entrepreneurs by Dan Kennedy: Dan will help you first realized your time is worth a lot of money. Then, he’ll help you assign a specific $ amount to an hour of your time. The system from there is pretty simple: Any activity that’s going to generate less than your number gets delegated or outsourced. Anything that’ll generate more than your number, you do.
The One Thing, by Gary Keller: Now that you know what your time is worth. You need help prioritizing the #1 thing you should be doing. He gives you a great method for narrowing that down. Find that one thing that makes everything else unnecessary or obsolete and do it today!
Every single one of your seconds on this earth is an opportunity to move your highest value project closer to completion.
Yeah, yeah… you need to make sure to plan… and to have a pipeline of ideas and projects for the future.
But you also need to make sure you’re taking care of business today.
On any given day, you need to ask yourself what can I do to drive more revenue (or whatever your success metric) today.
If you only ever look ahead 90-days… a year… 3 years… or ten years… you’ll waste the day that’s in front of you right now.
Domination requires diligence and hard work every single day.
Get after it!