Sharon’s Daily Updates
Sharon sends out daily updates via email so you can stay on top of her latest news, blog posts and more. What follows is one of her daily updates. Extra content is typically included for subscribers only.
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Tuesday, June 5, 2012 Daily Update
Yesterday was a bit of a rocky day for me. I didn’t get enough sleep Sunday night and it was a day of dealing with fires. I called it a day early. Sometimes it’s better to throw in the towel than to work through a rough day. I’m feeling loads better today after taking the night off and getting some extra sleep.
I had a bit of a fun discovery. I’ve written/recorded a lot of materials over the years. One of them was an e-book I published 8 years ago about marketing online and had sold several thousand copies of. It’s not some fluffy e-book – it’s 175 full pages of a normal size font. I had completely forgotten about the book and it came to mind yesterday during a conversation with a friend. I stopped publishing it because I had moved away from consulting. It had been a nice lead generator for me.
Skimming the book, the concepts in the book haven’t changed a whole lot. I still believe in the same things. But the writing style and organization of it sucked. At the time I wrote this, I was used to writing copy for web pages, emails, and articles on the business side. This had been my longest single piece at the time that was business-related.
I’m considering re-writing it from top to bottom sometime later this year. Stay tuned!
Work The System by Sam Carpenter
I read a lot of books. Typically a handful of books a week with most of them being non-fiction.
A couple of months ago, I bought several books at Barnes and Noble. One of them was “Work The System – The Simple Mechanics of Making More and Working Less” by Sam Carpenter.
In a nutshell, WTS is where “The E-Myth” by Michael Gerber and “The Four Hour Work Week” by Tim Ferris left off.
Carpenter was an entrepreneur who worked 100 hours a week. He knew there had to be a better way. He spent time figuring out how to systematize his business so that it was no longer dependent on him. The end result? He was able to grow his business substantially while reducing his own working time to 2 hours a week.
It’s a pretty important book that hasn’t gotten the attention that I think it should. The writing isn’t very good. The flow and structure make it a difficult read. Carpenter actually lays out specifically what needs to get done – which make no mistake – requires work. It’s not a magic pill, but it’s pretty damn close.
I wish I wrote this book. (Albeit a version that was easier to read.) Seriously.
There is absolutely nothing new in this book for me as far as concepts go. But this is the first time I’ve seen concepts of systems and processes for a business laid out as well as this. Coming from an actual business owner versus a writer who researched a topic makes a huge difference. If you want to reduce the time you spend working, if you want to improve your productivity and you don’t know where to start – WTS can help you put the pieces together.
As I roll out different products and training programs at my upcoming site “Earn More Doing Less,” I’ll be tackling the creation and application of systems and processes for online businesses. But it will be a while before everything is ready and WTS is an excellent book I’d recommend to read from cover to cover in the meantime.
I bought the hardcover version of the book myself. It’s available through most major booksellers. But the author has made the e-book and audio versions available for free download at his site if you subscribe to his newsletter. (p.s. I get absolutely zero compensation for this.)
If you’ve read it or do read it, I’d love to know what you think. Leave a comment below.
Video production day for us today so I’m getting to it!
Have a fabulous day friends!
xoxo
Sharon
