When you need a product or service, what are the ways you choose where to shop? For example purposes lets say you need a roofer after a storm. Do you pick up the phone book? Or search online? Well, I hate to break it to you, but the phone book is dead and not coming back. If you are like most people, you Google it! It’s simple, fast and effective. You can find exactly what you need, read reviews and get the contact information in a matter of seconds.
Research has proven that people are searching for local businesses online at an alarming rate. Here’s some stats for you from Google:
DID YOU KNOW?
o 97% of people with online access will research products and services online before they make a purchase. 74% of these searches are local searches.
o 55% of all local searches are done with an intent to buy. o Of all local searches, 8 out of 10 call or visit a store and 60% of those result in a purchase of some kind.
o Google controls 87% of all searches daily. 1/3 of all google searches are local.
What does all this mean? That the vast majority of people are searching for local businesses online and YOU HAVE TO BE THERE. It’s no longer something you can wait on. You either have to be there or you can expect less customers. That simple. I’m putting ALL of my current clients and my other personal businesses on it because of the power behind it. Wouldn’t it be great for when people search for your product or service online, you pop up on the first page of results? You’d get more business and credibility.
I have a small exercise for you… See where you are. Type your industry type and then your area. For example you might type, “Dentist Louisville” or “Italian Restaurant Kentucky.” See where your business pops up. See where your competitors pop up.
So how do you get there? If you want to get to the top of Google in local search, you have to know SEO or Search Engine Optimization which can be a grueling and painful process. For local search, Google uses an algorithm to determine who gets to the top. It’s based on a number of things together, reviews from other websites, citations, links, etc. If you get it right, you can get to the top within a matter of a few months.
Or if you want to hit the easy button, you can go through a map listing company that knows exactly how to do it already like www.getmaptraffic.com.
Either way, the bottom line is you have to get on there. Whatever you do don’t wait on it. Do it now.
If you want to get where you want to go, you have to Dump Your Duds. Your duds are clients, people and friends that are going to hinder your success or keep you from moving forward. They might be close friends, family members or even your old fraternity or sorority members. It’s anyone that does not encourage you to become more. This was something I have had to learn the hard way. I held on to for a long time to my duds thinking they were my friends. Truth be told they really weren’t. They were encouraging me not to do something worthwhile and it took me along time to realize it. 
Time is one of our most precious assets. It’s a limited resource that no matter what we do, you can never get lost time back. Once a minute has passed, it’s gone forever. Time is what can determine your success or failure. Just about everyone I know claims they don’t have enough time in the day. Yet how is it that high achievers with ten thousand times more stress and responsibilities are able to get more accomplished in a single hour with the same amount of time as a homeless person with no responsibility? We all have the same amount of time. We each get 24 hours in a day. No more. No less. Your results in life are dependent on what you do with your time. Do you spend your time watching countless hours of television? Or do you read a book that can better yourself? Do you spend all of your time going out on the town and being hungover the next day, or do you put in the time to accomplish a step towards your dreams? One of my mentors, Dan Kennedy has a great quote: 
It seems a lot of people are looking for the easy button for their lives. They want to hit a button and have their lives instantly fulfilled overnight. I hate to break it to you but there is no easy button to achieve greatness in anything. To get where you want to go it’s going to take work. Serious hard work. I think Americans see musicians and actors all of the sudden pop up out of nowhere and become famous and wealthy. They think that it can be done instantly. What we don’t see is the years of hard work that got them to that tipping point that they broke over. All achievers put in hard work into getting there. There was some magical chant or potion that made them that way, they simply put in the time to get where they wanted to go. 
People do things based on their hierarchy of their values. You never have time/money for things lowest on your values, but you always have them for the things highest on your values. It’s interesting to me that some people will say they want something, but won’t do what it takes to get there. Recently, I spoke with a lady that told me that she wanted to get started in a business for herself to make more money. She was excited about starting, but didn’t have the startup money yet. Week after week she told me she was almost ready but it just kept dragging out longer and longer. It was always something new going on. Every week she would say she would have it by next Saturday, then when Saturday would come, it was back to next Saturday. Before long a few months had passed and she was no better off than she was before. The business really wasn’t on her list of priorities. It wasn’t high on her hierarchy of values. A few days ago she came back to me said, “I’m sorry I really want to get started, but I just don’t have time or the money.” She always seemed to have money to go out on the town, see great movies, buy cool stuff and spend time partying, but never had the time/money to actually do something worthwhile for her future like building a business for herself. Her priorities were screwed up. Here she was telling me how much she needed a change in her life, but she wasn’t willing to do what it took to get there. If you want to do something great, it has to be high on your hierarchy of values and become a priority. Otherwise, you’ll never get there. Found the audio clip below on this subject and thought you might find it interesting. Enjoy!
Heard an interesting fact about crabs the other day by my buddy Brian Bellville. Apparently, its hard to catch a speedy crab but easy to keep track of them once you have them because of their instinct to “pull each other down.” Once you have at least two crabs, you just put them in a box. A crab by itself could easily just climb out, but if there is another crab there, he will reach up with his claw and pull the first crab back down before he can get over the edge. They don’t help each other in their frantic escape to regain their freedom. They do the complete opposite. It’s as if they can’t tolerate another crab escaping or rising above their level without them. So these crabs keep pulling each other down and none of them escape their captivity and get where they want to go. 
If you want to achieve something great, it is going to take a whole lot more than just a dream. It takes hard work. It takes an unshakable determination to succeed. I believe you must start with a dream, but most importantly, you must have action to move towards your dream. You cannot wait around for your dreams to somehow materialize. Hate to break it to you, but they never will without action from you. Without it, they are simply thoughts and pipe dreams. You must be willing to step up and put in the work that it is going to take to actually get there. I think that is why so few actually get where they want to go. They wait around for something to happen to them as if someone is just going to one day pop out of nowhere by and say: “Here you go!” then hand them their dream on a silver platter. It doesn’t work that way, yet that is the plan of so many. Average people dream of great accomplishments. Extraordinary people stay awake and do them. Dreams of bettering your world are just the beginning to your adventure. You have to learn to make progress and TAKE ACTION to accomplish your dreams. 
