Review on https://www.beaconcom.sg/ July 4, 2018 bizadmin I was surfing the website for some work when I came across https://www.beaconcom.sg/ which is a Singapore website that does inbound sales, lead nurturing, lead generation and lead conversion. According to its website, inbound sales are as the following: The ABCs Of Inbound Sales How exactly does “Inbound Sales” work? Let’s start with the ABCs – Attract, Build and Close. Attract Visitors – Learn Lead Generation This step is all about getting visitors to your site. Adding new leads to your sales funnel. Build Leads – Learn Lead Conversion Now that you have quality traffic, you need to manage them properly. Converting visitors into customers. and more. Close Sales – Learn Lead Nurturing Not every lead immediately turns to a sale. For this, an effective lead nurturing plan is crucial. It’s about building relationship. With so many e-commerce sites using WooCommerce, Shopify, Easystore by Exabytes which is much cheaper, free platforms like Open Cart, etc, many would-be entrepreneurs jump onto the bandwagon without knowing what is in store for them and the huge amount of time and sacrifice it takes to build a store slowly and gradually like blogging about it, Facebook marketing which is now double its price, etc. But with https://www.beaconcom.sg/, where you can click on the link above or copy and paste the URL into your browser, you will find that marketing and advertisement are already done for you, leaving you with more time to do the important things in your life. Hence, you cannot discount the factors of ABC of Inbound Sales and Marketing. The SEO or Search Engine Optimisation is already prepared by the professionals and all you have to do is to give this site a visit and perhaps try out their services as promised. Just my 2 cents.
6 Things Successful People Do before Bed June 17, 2018 bizadmin This infographic from Pinterest highlights the 6 things successful people do before bed. First of all, a good night’s sleep equals a productive following day. There are certain bedtime habits you can adopt to help you on the road to success. To inspire you, let’s look at successful people’s bedtimes and before bed habits. First of all, Bill Gates sleeps 7 hours a day, Richard Branson sleeps 5 hours, Ellen deGeneres 8 hours and our favourite President Donald Trump, a mere 3 hours (Disclaimer: we do not recommend you try this at home). 1) For Bill Gates, the first thing before bed is he reads a book for 6 minutes, which reduces stress by 68%. 2) Billionaire Oprah Winfrey meditates twice a day, one before bed and the other during the day. She even released her own meditation app. Just go to Apple iTunes to download it. (I’m not sure if this is a free app or otherwise). 3) Arianna Huffington, of the famous Huffington posts, is an advocate for a pre-bedtime bath, filled with Epsom salt and lavendar oil to destress. Accordingly, these are the best sleep inducing bath ingredients. 4) Gwyneth Paltrow recommends a head or foot massage by recruiting your partner or get a trusty massage pillow that is battery operated. 5) Mariah Carrey has several humidifiers in her room. According to her, if you or your partner snores, a humidifier may help it as it clears your sinuses. 6) Eminem, supposedly goes as far as wrapping up tin foil around his windows to keep the light at bay! Exposure to light supposedly stimulates a nerve pathway from the retina in the eye to an area in the brain called the Hypothalamus. This consequently wakes us up. So, there you have it! The 6 methods successful people like celebrities and billionaires’ sleeping habits and sleep hours.
67 Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for Ecommerce April 16, 2018 bizadmin Performance should inform business decisions, and KPIs should drive actions. Key performance indicators (KPIs) are like milestones on the road to online retail success. Monitoring them will help ecommerce entrepreneurs identify progress toward sales, marketing, and customer service goals. KPIs should be chosen and monitored depending on your unique business goals. Certain KPIs support some goals while they’re irrelevant for others. With the idea that KPIs should differ based on the goal being measured, it’s possible to consider a set of common performance indicators for ecommerce. Table of Contents 1) What is a performance indicator? 2) What is a key performance indicator? 3) Why are key performance indicators important? 4) What is the difference between a SLA and a KPI? 5) Types of key performance indicators 6) 67 key performance indicator examples for ecommerce 7) How do I create a KPI? Here is the definition of key performance indicators, types of key performance indicators, and 67 examples of ecommerce key performance indicators. What is a performance indicator? A performance indicator is a quantifiable measurement or data point used to gauge performance relative to some goal. As an example, some online retailers may have a goal to increase site traffic 50% in the next year. Relative to this goal, a performance indicator might be the number of unique visitors the site receives daily or which traffic sources send visitors (paid advertising, search engine optimization, brand or display advertising, a YouTube video, etc.) What is a key performance indicator? For most goals there could be many performance indicators — often too many — so often people narrow it down to just two or three impactful data points known as key performance indicators. KPIs are those measurements that most accurately and succinctly show whether or not a business in progressing toward its goal. Why are key performance indicators important? KPIs are important just like strategy and goal setting are important. Without KPIs, it’s difficult to gauge progress over time. You’d be making decisions based on gut instinct, personal preference or belief, or other unfounded hypotheses. KPIs tell you more information about your business and your customers, so you can make informed and strategic decisions. But KPIs aren’t important on their own. The real value lies in the actionable insights you take away from analyzing the data. You’ll be able to more accurately devise strategies to drive more online sales, as well as understand where there may problems in your business. Plus, the data related to KPIs can be distributed to the larger team. This can be used to educate your employees and come together for critical problem-solving. What is the difference between a SLA and a KPI? SLA stands for service level agreement, while a KPI is a key performance indicator. A service level agreement in ecommerce establishes the scope for the working relationship between an online retailer and a vendor. For example, you might have a SLA with your manufacturer or digital marketing agency. A KPI, as we know, is a metric or data point related to some business operation. These are often quantifiable, but KPIs may also be qualitative. Types of key performance indicators There are many types of key performance indicators. They may be qualitative, quantitative, predictive of the future, or revealing of the past. KPIs also touch on various business operations. When it comes to ecommerce, KPIs generally fall into one of the following five categories: Sales Marketing Customer service Manufacturing Project management 67 key performance indicator examples for ecommerce Note: The performance indicators listed below are in no way an exhaustive list. There are an almost infinite number of KPIs to consider for your ecommerce business. What are key performance indicators for sales? What are key performance indicators for marketing? What are key performance indicators for customer service? What are key performance indicators for manufacturing? What are key performance indicators for project management? What are key performance indicators for sales? Sales key performance indicators are measures that tell you how your business is doing in terms of conversions and revenue. You can look at sales KPIs related to a specific channel, time period, team, employee, etc. to inform business decisions. Examples of key performance indicators for sales include: Sales: Ecommerce retailers can monitor total sales by the hour, day, week, month, quarter, or year. Average order size: Sometimes called average market basket, the average order size tells you how much a customer typically spends on a single order. Gross profit: Calculate this KPI by subtracting the total cost of goods sold from total sales. Average margin: Average margin, or average profit margin, is a percentage that represents your profit margin over a period of time. Number of transactions: This is the total number of transactions. Use this KPI in conjunction with average order size or total number of site visitors for deeper insights. Conversion rate: The conversion rate, also a percetage, is the rate at which users on your ecommerce site are converting (or buying). This is calculated by dividing the total number of visitors (to a site, page, category, or selection of pages) by the total number of conversions. Shopping cart abandonment rate: The shopping cart abandonment rate tells you how many users are adding products to their shopping cart but not checking out. The lower this number, the better. If your cart abandonment rate is high, there may be too much friction in the checkout process. New customer orders vs. returning customer orders: This metric shows a comparison between new and repeat customers. Many business owners focus only on customer acquisition, but customer retention can also drive loyalty, word of mouth marketing, and higher order values. Cost of goods sold (COGS): COGS tells you how much you’re spending to sell a product. This includes manufacturing, employee wages, and overhead costs. Total available market relative to a retailer’s share of market: Tracking this KPI will tell you how much your business is growing compared to others within your industry. Product affinity: This KPI tells you which products are purchased together. This can and should inform cross-promotion strategies. Product relationship: This is which products are viewed consecutively. Again, use this KPI to formulate effective cross-selling tactics. Inventory levels: This KPI could tell you how much stock is on hand, how long product is sitting, how quickly product is selling, etc. Competitive pricing: It’s important to gauge your success and growth against yourself and against your competitors. Monitor your competitors’ pricing strategies and compare them to your own. Customer lifetime value (CLV): The CLV tells you how much a customer is worth to your business over the course of their relationship with your brand. You want to increase this number over time through strengthening relationships and focusing on customer loyalty. Revenue per visitor (RPV): RPV gives you an average of how much a person spends during a single visit to your site. If this KPI is low, you can view website analytics to see how you can drive more online sales. Churn rate: For an online retailer, the churn rate tells you how quickly customers are leaving your brand or canceling/failing to renew a subscription with your brand. Customer acquisition cost (CAC): CAC tells you how much your company spends on acquiring a new customer. This is measured by looking at your marketing spend and how it breaks down per individual customer. What are key performance indicators for marketing? Key performance indicators for marketing tell you how well you’re doing in relation to your marketing and advertising goals. These also impact your sales KPIs. Marketers use KPIs to understand which products are selling, who’s buying them, how they’re buying them, and why they’re buying them. This can help you market more strategically in the future and inform product development. Examples of key performance indicators for marketing include: Site traffic: Site traffic refers to the total number of visits to your ecommerce site. More site traffic means more users are hitting your store. New visitors vs. returning visitors: New site visitors are first-time visitors to your site. Returning visitors, on the other hand, have been to your site before. While looking at this metric alone won’t reveal much, it can help ecommerce retailers gauge success of digital marketing campaigns. If you’re running a retargeted ad, for example, returning visitors should be higher. Time on site: This KPI tells you how much time visitors are spending on your website. Generally, more time spent means they’ve had deeper engagements with your brand. Usually, you’ll want to see more time spent on blog content and landing pages and less time spent through the checkout process. Bounce rate: The bounce rate tells you how many users exit your site after viewing only one page. If this number is high, you’ll want to investigate why visitors are leaving your site instead of exploring. Pageviews per visit: Pageviews per visit refers to the average number of pages a user will view on your site during each visit. Again, more pages usually means more engagement. However, if it’s taking users too many clicks to find the products they’re looking for, you want to revisit your site design. Average session duration: The average amount of time a person spends on your site during a single visit is called the average session duration. Traffic source: The traffic source KPI tells you where visitors are coming from or how they found your site. This will provide information about which channels are driving the most traffic, such as: organic search, paid ads, or social media. Mobile site traffic: Monitor the total number of users who use mobile devices to access your store and make sure your site is optimized for mobile. Day part monitoring: Looking at when site visitors come can tell you which are peak traffic times. Newsletter subscribers: The number of newsletter subscribers refers to how many users have opted into your email marketing list. If you have more subscribers, you can reach more consumers. However, you’ll also want to look at related data, such as the demographics of your newsletter subscribers, to make sure you’re reaching your target audience. Texting subscribers: Newer to digital marketing than email, ecommerce brands can reach consumers through SMS-based marketing. Texting subscribers refers to the number of customers on your text message contact list. To get started with your own text-based marketing, browse these SMS Shopify apps. Subscriber growth rate: This tells you how quickly your subscriber list is growing. Pairing this KPI with the total number of subscribers will give you good insight into this channel. Email open rate: This KPI tells you the percentage of subscribers that open your email. If you have a low email open rate, you could test new subject lines, or try cleaning your list for inactive or irrelevant subscribers. Email click-through rate (CTR): While the open rate tells you the percentage of subscribers who open the email, the click-through rate tells you the percentage of those who actually clicked on a link after opening. This is arguably more important than the open rate because without clicks, you won’t drive any traffic to your site. Unsubscribes: You can look at both the total number and the rate of unsubscriptions for your email list. Chat sessions initiated: If you have live chat functionality on your ecommerce store, the number of chat sessions initiated tells you how many users engaged with the tool to speak to a virtual aide. Social followers and fans: Whether you’re on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, or Snapchat (or a combination of a few), the number of followers or fans you have is a useful KPI to gauge customer loyalty and brand awareness. Many of those social media networks also have tools that ecommerce businesses can use to learn more about their social followers. Social media engagement: Social media engagement tells you how actively your followers and fans are interacting with your brand on social media. Clicks: The total number of clicks a link gets. You could measure this KPI almost anywhere: on your website, social media, email, display ads, PPC, etc. Average CTR: The average click-through rate tells you the percentage of users on a page (or asset) who click on a link. Average position: The average position KPI tells you about your site’s search engine optimization (SEO) and paid search performance. This demonstrates where you are on search engine results pages. Most online retailers have the goal of being number one for their targeted keywords. Pay-per-click (PPC) traffic volume: If you’re running PPC campaigns, this tells you how much traffic you’re successfully driving to your site. Blog traffic: You can find this KPI by simply creating a filtered view in your analytics tool. It’s also helpful to compare blog traffic to overall site traffic. Number and quality of product reviews: Product reviews are great for a number of reasons: They provide social proof, they can help with SEO, and they give you valuable feedback for your business. The quantity and content of product reviews are important KPIs to track for your ecommerce business. Banner or display advertising CTRs: The CTRs for your banner and display ads will tell you the percentage of viewers who have clicked on the ad. This KPI will give you insight into your copy, imagery, and offer performance. Affiliate performance rates: If you engage in affiliate marketing, this KPI will help you understand which channels are most successful. What are key performance indicators for customer service? Customer service KPIs tell you how effective your customer service is and if you’re meeting expectations.You might be wondering: what should the KPIs be in our call center, for our email support team, for our social media support team, etc. Measuring and tracking these KPIs will help you ensure you’re providing a positive customer experience. Key performance indicators for customer service include: Customer satisfaction (CSAT) score: The CSAT KPI is typically measured by customer responses to a very common survey question: “How satisfied were you with your experience?” This is usually answered with a numbered scale. Net promoter score (NPS): Your NPS KPI provides insight into your customer relationships and loyalty by telling you how likely customers are to recommend your brand to someone in their network. Hit rate: Calculate your hit rate by taking the total number of sales of a single product and dividing it by the number of customers who have contacted your customer service team about said product. Customer service email count: This is the number of emails your customer support team receives. Customer service phone call count: Rather than email, this is how frequently your customer support team is reached via phone. Customer service chat count: If you have live chat on your ecommerce site, you may have a customer service chat count. First response time: First response time is the average amount of time it takes a customer to receive the first response to their query. Aim low! Average resolution time: This is the amount of time it takes for a customer support issue to be resolved, starting from the point at which the customer reached out about the problem. Active issues: The total number of active issues tells you how many queries are currently in progress. Backlogs: Backlogs are when issues are getting backed up in your system. This could be caused by a number of factors. Concern classification: Beyond the total number of customer support interactions, look at quantitative data around trends to see if you can be proactive and reduce customer support queries. You’ll classify the customer concerns which will help identify trends and your progress in solving issues. Service escalation rate: The service escalation rate KPI tells you how many times a customer has asked a customer service representative to redirect them to a supervisor or other senior employee. You want to keep this number low. What are key performance indicators for manufacturing? Key performance indicators for manufacturing are, predictably, related to your supply chain and production processes. These may tell you where efficiencies and inefficiencies are, as well as help you understand productivity and expenses. Key performance indicators for manufacturing in ecommerce include: Cycle time: The cycle time manufacturing KPI tells you how long it takes to manufacture a single product from start to finish. Monitoring this KPI will give you insight into production efficiency. Overall equipment effectiveness (OEE): The OEE KPI provides ecommerce businesses with insight into how well manufacturing equipment is performing. Overall labor effectiveness (OLE): Just as you’ll want insight into your equipment, the OLE KPI will tell you how productive the staff operating the machines are. Yield: Yield is a straightforward manufacturing KPI. It is the number of products you have manufactured. Consider analyzing the yield variance KPI in manufacturing, too, as that will tell you how much you deviate from your average. First time yield (FTY) and first time through (FTT): FTY, also referred to as first pass yield, is a quality-based KPI. It tells you how wasteful your production processes are. To calculate FTY, divide the number of successfully manufactured units by the total number of units that started the process. Number of non-compliance events or incidents: In manufacturing, there are several sets of regulations, licenses, and policies businesses must comply with. These are typically related to safety, working conditions, and quality. You’ll want to reduce this number to ensure you’re operating within the mandated guidelines. What are key performance indicators for project management? Key performance indicators for project management give you insight into how well your teams are performing and completing specific tasks. Each project or initiative within your ecommerce business has different goals, and must be managed with different processes and workflows. Project management KPIs tell you how well each team is working to achieve their respective goals and how well their processes are working to help them achieve those goals. Key performance indicators for project management include: Hours worked: The total hours worked tells you how much time a team put into a project. Project managers should also assess the variance in estimated vs. actual hours worked to better predict and resource future projects. Budget: The budget indicates how much money you have allocated for the specific project. Project managers and ecommerce business owners will want to make sure that the budget is realistic; if you’re repeatedly over budget, some adjustments to your project planning need to be made. Return on investment (ROI): The ROI KPI for project management tells you how much your efforts earned your business. The higher this number, the better. The ROI accounts for all of your expenses and earnings related to a project. Cost variance: Just as it’s helpful to compare real vs. predicted timing and hours, you should examine the total cost against the predicted cost. This will help you understand where you need to reel it in and where you may want to invest more. Cost performance index (CPI): The CPI for project management, like ROI, tells you how much your resource investment is worth. The CPI is calculated by dividing the earned value by the actual costs. If you come in under one, there’s room for improvement. How do I create a KPI? Selecting your KPIs begins with clearly stating your goals and understanding which areas of business impact those goals. Of course, KPIs for ecommerce can and should differ for each of your goals, whether they’re related to boosting sales, streamlining marketing, or improving customer service. Key performance indicator templates Here are a few key performance indicator templates, with examples of goals and the associated KPIs. GOAL 1: Boost sales 10% in the next quarter. KPI examples: Daily sales. Conversion rate. Site traffic. GOAL 2: Increase conversion rate 2% in the next year. KPI examples: Conversion rate. Shopping cart abandonment rate. Competitive pricing. GOAL 3: Grow site traffic 20% in the next year. KPI examples: Site traffic. Traffic sources. Promotional click-through rates. Social shares. Bounce rates. GOAL 4: Reduce customer service calls by half in the next 6 months. KPI examples: Service call classification. Pages visited immediately before call. There are many performance indicators and the value of those indicators is directly tied to the goal measured. Monitoring which page someone visited before initiating a customer service call makes sense as a KPI for GOAL 4 since it could help identify areas of confusion that, when corrected, would reduce customer service calls. But that same performance indicator would be useless for GOAL 3. Once you have set goals and selected KPIs, monitoring those indicators should become an everyday exercise. Most importantly: Performance should inform business decisions and you should use KPIs to drive actions. By Mark Hayes
Gig on Fiverr March 7, 2018 bizadmin Do check out Write Blog Posts on This Blog, which I have created a gig on Fiverr. The above image was done by me and edited in Photoshop. By chance, I woke up at 4:30 am at the crack of dawn and decided to check emails for anything important. Also checked for blogging micro jobs to complete and found one. This blog will not be to where it is today without your support and constant patronage. I love writing and I guess this is the thing that I do best; instead of cracking my brains over long codes to debug. But I do have an admiration for those hard-core programmers who toil day and night to solve our problems. Well, I guess each to his or her own success and don’t compare. Everyone has their own skill sets and it is up to us to take massive action. Don’t envy others who are more successful or earn more than you. There are others who could barely put bread and butter on the table and there are those who live in the streets with no roofs over their heads. Just be contented of your abilities and be thankful for God’s grace and unmerited favour to bless us tremendously each day. Whatever skills you are lacking, there are always solutions to it and money can buy talent. Just like employing people smarter than you to work in your organisation, instead of feeling threatened. That’s my food for thought.
5 women whose inventions changed the world March 4, 2018 bizadmin Thursday 8th March is Women’s Day. To celebrate, we want to share some of the greatest female minds of our time, whose discoveries and inventions have the changed the world in positive ways. Many of the women on this list fought prejudice and other adversity during their careers, and it’s testament to their determination and extraordinary talent that we can recognise their achievements today. 1) Patricia Era Bath Patricia Bath invented the Laserphaco Probe in 1981 – a device for quickly and painlessly removing cataracts while simultaneously lubricating the eye. Cataracts are a common ailment of the elderly, causing confusion and stress. In 2000, Patricia received another patent for her invention, this time for the use of Ultrasound in cataract treatment. As a black woman growing up in Harlem, she fought a predominately white, male-dominated field to help provide eye-care to racial communities, returning independence to their lives. 2) Grace Hopper Grace Hopper revolutionized early computing. She programmed one of the first computers (IBM’s Mark 1), which helped solve mathematical problems for The Manhattan Project (subsequently ending WWII), and created the first compiler – a system for converting English into machine code. Her work also inspired COBOL, one of the first programming languages which are still in use today. As a woman who favored new ideas and approaches, she was often challenged and discouraged by her peers. But through skill and ingenuity, “Amazing Grace”, as she came to be known, shaped modern computing into what it is today. 3) Rosalind Franklin Francis Crick, James Watson, and Maurice Wilkins have largely taken credit for the discovery of the double-helix structure of DNA. But without Rosalind Franklin, who contributed vital image data (specifically image 51) to the project, the trio might never have won the Nobel Prize. Franklin only received recognition for her contributions after she passed away. Since then, it’s been argued that Wilkins showed image 51 to Crick and Watson without Franklin’s permission and that she might’ve deduced the structure of DNA on her own. Controversies, aside, there’s no doubt that Franklin’s work on DNA has helped to underpin a whole new branch of science. It’s just a shame that Nobel doesn’t allow posthumous awards. 4) Marie Curie As the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, and the only woman to have been awarded one twice, Marie Curie has left an indelible mark on the world of science. She has been pivotal in our understanding of radioactivity, invented mobile X-Ray machines for use in the field during WWI, and discovered Polonium (named after her home country of Poland) and Radium. Having been denied a place at Krakow University because she was a woman, Marie Curie overcame incredible odds to become one of the most important scientific figures in history. 5) Caresse Crosby Caresse Crosby improved the comfort of women everywhere by inventing the modern bra. Sick of the lung-crushing restriction of whalebone corsets, she strung together some handkerchiefs and realized the potential of a lighter, more flexible design. She was awarded the patent in November 1914, and women have been breathing easier ever since. While it’d be impossible to list all the women who’ve changed the world in this post, I hope these five have inspired you to celebrate the many others who overcame incredible odds to make the world a better place for all of us.
21 Suggestions for Success February 25, 2018 bizadmin One of the main suggestions for success is to marry the right person and it is so pertinent. This one suggestion will determine your happiness or misery! For some, it could even mean longevity or short life due to premature death during heated quarrels. This happens very often amongst Indians where the wife or girl friend is killed by their spouses out of jealousy or for whatever reasons. I have read several cases in the press as published before. Also, work at something you enjoy worthy of your precious time and efforts. Become a positive and enthusiastic person to others, giving them hope and goals. Most importantly, be forgiving of yourself and others. No one is perfect and don’t have high unrealistic expectations, including your business partners or spouses. Unless they cross the line, then it might be time to re-consider the relationship. Be generous for blessed are the generous but don’t be conned every time. If a man keeps borrowing money from you all the time, then he is not husband material. Because in the initial stage, if he keeps borrowing, then he will continue borrowing as a habit and expecting you to pay and pay. Once or twice is ok, but too many times is a warning sign. Have a grateful heart. Nobody is more pleased with another than others with a grateful heart. Be generous in your compliments when it is called for as well. Be loyal and be honest too. Take good care of those you love and not belittle them in public, hurl verbal abuse or slam the door at one’s spouse while talking to neighbours!
Confident People Vs Insecure People February 9, 2018 bizadmin Here, I shall only highlight traits of confident people. You can refer to the infographic for insecure ones which I don’t wish to mention. Basically confident people are Open Minded and Gives Complements. They are not afraid to ask and are willing to learn from other people or have a mentor. Confident people operates on principles and admits mistakes. They are not afraid to show flaws and such. They are positive thinkers and risk takers. Also, they never talk negatively about others or put others down in order to elevate themselves! They are abundance mindset giver and loves people. They are more forgiving and accepts other’s differences, while at the same time, can laugh at themselves. More importantly, they make decisions quickly and take action. They also keep learning and growing. For the not so good comparison, refer to the picture or infographic and try to avoid these traits and stay away from people with such traits.
13 Reasons You are Not as Successful as You Should Be January 22, 2018 bizadmin The infographic is self-explantory, but here, I shall highlight a few of them. One of them is Laziness. Yes, most people wake up late and do nothing to keep their brains active or work with their hands to prevent poverty. It is easier to just tuck in bed under your silk duvet and turn on the air-con instead of trundle out of bed, have early breakfast and get to work! Most people dream of success, but the rich ones are the only people working their butts off. Most will dream of success and even envy the rich, but still they do nothing about it and prefer to laze around, expecting parents or the Government to feed them, while they merely exists. The other one is Fear! I am also guilty of this; like fear of failure, etc. Don’t ever let fear come into your life for it may become a reality. God works by faith which is the opposite of fear. Have faith that you can do it and read up to learn new skills. Rome was not built in a day! It takes years of learning and practice to get to where you are today. Personally, I have a fear of programming because I could not troubleshoot. Hence, my challenge is to over come this fear and slowly pick up the pieces and put them into a jigsaw puzzle. Stay away from Negative people who may put you down or destroy your confidence! They could even be your close friends, in-laws or relatives who feel inferior and try to put you down instead to feel superior and a sense of power over you. These parasites are to be avoided at all costs! You need to set goals and resolutions for the year. No goals means no action taken and you will vegetate away. You need to set goals to keep yourself productively occupied and set plans, desires and purpose in life. Then only living for something or someone you love makes it all the more meaningful. You will enjoy the journey along the way. Waste time is another factor of the reasons you are not as successful as you should be. Don’t be a time waster by playing games unless you want to destress for a while, but don’t play games to the extent of forgetting to eat, take a bath and play till you drop dead. This had happened to a few professional game players where they are so addicted to computer games that they forget the most important activities in life.