For those of you who have forgotten, just eight short weeks ago we were all talk about everything we were going to accomplish in 2010. I don’t want to fall victim to the New Year’s syndrome and I don’t want any of my readers to either. So, I figured it was time for a wake up call and a personal check in. First I have to give a shout out to Sara Davidson at WalkTalkChewGum because she commented on my Q1 Marketing plan which forced me to get off my ass a bit and get more serious about making all of these things happen. Below I’ve listed my main goals and where I am at in terms of progress towards them.
2010 Goal Review #1:
Q1 MARKETING PLAN PERFORMANCE REPORT
Guest posts/Content: When I created the plan for Q1 I had this really aggressive goal to write 2-4 guest posts per week and post several times a week here. As you’ll see I’m more or less on track. I’m not outperforming expectations quite yet, but having a plan has kept me consistent. In terms of my own content, a few conversations with A-list bloggers such as Jonathan Mead made me shift of my focus from quantity to quality. Below you’ll find a list of all of the guest post that I’ve written in the first 2 months of 2010.
- True Success: Finding Your Perfect Wave-@Serenity Hacker
- Faith, Patience, and Your moment in the Sun@QuestforBalance
- Using a MindMap to Dissect Your Goals@LifescapeArtists
- Why Networking Doesn’t end When Your Job Search Does@Under30CEO
- 7 ways that a slight tweak will dramatically change your life@DumbLittleMan
- 7 Personal Traits for Effective Lifestyle Design@LifestyleDesignForYou
- How to Work the Room at a Networking Event@WasabiBurger
- The First Year of a Surfer’s Journey- A Look Back @StokedforLife
- Carrots, Sticks and True Motivation@LifestyleDesignForYou
- How to monetize your blog without advertising, affiliate products or any other products@Under30CEO
- The Difference Between Success and Perfection@MsCareerGirl
- 8 Essential Business and Careers Skills Developed from Blogging@LifeWIthoutPants
- 7 Reasons a blog is a Phenomenal Personal Development Tool@TheChangeblog
- Pending posts submitted to Blogussion,Daily Blog Tips, and a few others
Total Guest Posts Published: 14
Reader Growth: I set an extremely aggressive readership goal to go from roughly 500 to 1000 readers in Q1. Barring some sort of serious spike in the month of March, it’s probably not going to happen. But I’m ok with that and I don’t intend to change that goal. Focusing on a goal that is higher than what you’ll probably achieve will make it that much more likely to get you closer to the original goal. As the quote says “shoot for the moon and you’ll land among the stars.”
Unexpected Twists and Turns: Part of what slowed my aggressive growth plans for the Skool of Life was the launch of BlogcastFM. It was something that was completely unplanned and unexpected. However, I think it as actually a really good thing even if it meant slowing down my efforts here at The Skool of Life. I think my future success is going to be largely due to the work I’m doing at BlogcastFM. As a byproduct, I’ll probably see some growth here at The Skool of Life.
Other (email, affiliates, etc): I have not put nearly as much effort into developing a more substantial newsletter as I should have. I can’t really think of any excuse other than laziness or lack of ideas. But I think it’s something that will become more of a priority to me over the next month. I finally have started to understand how to promote affiliate products. I realized that I could be an affiliate for anything that I use on a daily basis. This is because these are products I truly believe in. Take a look at my Skool Supplies page and you’ll see a list of everything I endorse and has been essential in my growth here at The Skool of Life. If you have questions about any of those products, feel free to email me. I have a generated a whopping $8.64 in affiliate commissions because of a friend purchasing his newest domain through me. But it’s a start.
Income Goals Report:
I set a goal of earning 5000 dollars a month from the work I do here at The Skool of Life. I’m pretty far off and some of you might think I’m out of my mind, but that’s the number I’m aiming for first. Last week I told you about How I made my first 700 dollars online, so I’m not going to go into too much detail, but below I’ll share all of my Q1 income streams that are a result of this blog. For the purposes of this exercise I’ve left out the revenue I generate from my paycheck at my full time job since I don’t consider it a direct byproduct of this blog.
Advertising Revenue/Building a Client Blog: Below is the snapshot of income earned from the last 2 months
Part Time Consultant for Bio Ionic Haircare: $1000.00
Total Income Generated: $1273.30
Personal/Miscellaneous/Un-categorized(Goals and Accomplishments)
- Read The following Seth Godin Books: Tribes, Purple Cow, Linchpin (done)
- Surfed as much as possible and graduated to a shorter board (done)
- Read at least 3 books every month
- Costa Rica Surf Trip (a work in progress)
- Start Identifying more passive income streams (in progress)
- Borrow a page from The Life Design Project and Hire a Virtual Assistant to find freelance work for me
- Clear credit card debt and utilities from my previous apartment (in progress)
- Setup my ING direct savings account (done)
How to Conduct your own review (condensed version):
- Break your goals into three categories (personal, financial, professional)
- Write down your goals
- Write down where you are at in terms of accomplishing them
- Write down actions you can take towards each goal
- Publish it on your blog
- Rinse, Wash, Repeat every month
I decided to write this post for a few reasons. After writing a post about why a blog is a personal development tool, I realized it gives you a great place to review and track progress towards your goals. It also gives you a great way to get feedback from like minded individuals. I plan to conduct this goal review at the end of every month because I’ve just realized how useful this exercise is. How are you doing with your 2010 goals? Did you fall victim to the New Year’s Syndrome? If so, how do you plan to get back on track?
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{ 18 comments… read them below or add one }
Very nice man. I’ve noticed your progress, you’re really doing it big. Congratulations! I’ve seen your guest posts everywhere and I know that if I’m noticing them then a lot of others are too. Keep it up but make sure not to burn yourself out and big things are still to come in 2010.
I personally am keeping up with my promise to myself and my blog traffic has picked up significantly. My latest novel I’ve been working on is nearly complete, and I’m close to launching an ebook I’ve had in the works for the past couple of months. That aside, I need to improve my grades a little bit this semester and I’ll be officially on track. Really hoping to make a huge impact before summer kicks in with the sales of my ebook and novel.
@Robby: Yeah, I think the reason I stuck to an average of about two guest posts per week was because 4 would have been a burn out rate. I have a job and other things now that keep me busy. It’s great to see you are working towards all your goals as well. I’m really excited to see what the future holds for all of us who have started this journey together.
Keep at it Srini!
Just a motivational message that I appreciate the value you’re providing here. I’ve gotten some great stuff here and through BlogcastFM, and passed the word about the podcast on to several people.
Thanks for everything you do.
–Mike
@Mike: Thanks for the shoutout. I appreciate your spreading the word. It’s true fans of the podcast and true evangelists like yourself that make us grow. I think you’ll really love some of the interviews we have coming since the bloggers we interview are getting bigger and bigger.
Publicizing your goals can certainly help keep the momentum and the challenge.
And the people who care for you (online and offline) can help cheer you on! As you show here, periodic review is very important to make sure the targets are being met. Carry on Srini! 
Mighty´s last blog ..Adora Svitak: Writer and Teacher of Other Kids
@Mighty: I definitely think that’s part of why I wrote this post. Now I’m held even more accountable thanks to the fact that I’ve put all of this out there. IF there’s anything I love about the community we have developed here, it’s the ability to cheer each other on. I’d really like to see some other people write a goal review post as well.
Very awesome that you share this info Srini! Admittedly, I never really flushed out the Word doc “2010 Life Goals,” so maybe I should take this outline and do a little belated goal setting this weekend.
Jenny´s last blog ..One Second, Norm. Let Me Calculate Your Worth (in donuts).
@Jenny: I think it’s one of the most useful exercises you can go through. It’s helped me so much in terms of getting on track. The other thing it has done is allow me to get feedback which I think is the most valuable part of going through this exercise.
Congratulations! If nothing else you PROVE to others it can be done unlike many articles on the web that theorise – please keep reporting!
CrisisMaven´s last blog ..Economic Musings II: The Euro as a Basket Case
@CrisisMaven: I hope that it does prove it can be done. It’s taken quite a bit of work to get to this point. It’s still far from perfect, but the process is largely about trial and error and figuring out what makes sense and what doesn’t. I’ll be conducting this review every month going forward because I realize it’s important and helps to keep me on track.
Very impressive. My approach is much less structured. I look forward to hearing more!
Kaushik´s last blog ..The Basics – 9 excellent techniques for developing Awareness
@srinirao: Thanks – it’s fascinating. And all this that is happening in this blogosphere where everyone who is willing can study from the incumbents, many of whom, like commendable you, are willing to share and help along instead of jealously guarding “against competition” as is often the case elsewhere, is so much different from the world of MBA dry runs with artficial exercises of either fully hypothetical companies or else exercises “winning the last war” so to speak. I will closely follow!
CrisisMaven´s last blog ..Economic Musings II: The Euro as a Basket Case
@Kaushik: Good to see you back over here. I think you were one of the very first bloggers I ever interacted with. It’s amazing how much progress we can make just by sticking with it. I thought I had hit momentum a few months ago, but this month has been really interesting.
@CrisisMaven: It’s interesting isn’t it. We live in a world now of competitive collaboration. While we want your blog to be on the A-list, we get there by promoting other people. As a recent graduate of an MBA program I get exactly where you are coming from about the MBA dry-runs. It’s not really hands on.
Dude you’re the man Srini. As I said on skype, I’m super impressed with what you’ve been doing lately. It’s been a pleasure seeing your blog and ideas grow.
Imagine where you will be a in years time.
-Bud
@Bud: Thanks. BlogcastFM wouldn’t be what it is without the people like you who allow us to interview them. It’s been a truly great journey. I’m really excited to see what lies ahead over the next year.
Thanks for the shoutout sir! Holy shit, this is impressive. I need to get to work!
@Sara: You’ll be amazed at how much you’ll have accomplished when you look back in a year. I’ve been at this for about 8 months and it’s been really interesting.
Great blog, Srinirao. I’ll be back often to read more.
Carlos´s last blog ..Throttlehand.com Motorcycle Videos