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Offering and Selling Products Is BETTER for Everyone…

April 25, 2009 by
75assemblyline

I’m in week three of making everything I sell “products.”  Life is gonna be really, really good, really really quickly.

See, I decided to sell things instead of constantly look for jobs.  I decided to do what I was getting good at: delivering Thesis Blogs, setting up people on social networking sites, and of course making sales videos, and creating tutorials for all of it. My velocity increased.  This week, I did OK, I made progress…on the business.

But it feels like a business.  By not trolling for any and all work, I feel less stress.  I made MORE money doing it this way, for sure.  I know what I’m delivering, when the project ends, how I’m getting paid, what my obligations are, and how to get better.   We’re getting the design interview process down–we tried it about 8 ways for 8 blogs this week, and I think we’ve got some coherent thoughts.

We’re going to fire up either WP Wishlist ot Digital Access Pass tomorrow for my main blog at http://rightrightnow.com.

But really, limiting things, saying it’s this, but not that, makes the world easier for everyone.  Clients included.

  • Semi Cusotm means I don’t have to charge as much.  I can still make a killing.
  • Semi Custom also means FAST: Inventory Turns are where it’s at.
  • Semi Custom means I’m in charge.  I’m selling a service, not selling anything else.
  • Means I’m not begging for a job, I’m offering a product on a take it or leave it basis.
  • Semi Custom also means DONE…RIGHT NOW.
  • Semi Custom means I can create expectations that are crystal clear…then smash them.

So I give up a little bit of artistry?  Meh.  Who cares.  Just go to test.genuinechis.com or test1.genuinechris.com  (test2-12) to see what we’re whipping out and tell me that we’re not killing it right now.  I decide what services I offer–and don’t offer.   Makes me more powerful and tougher to deal with.   I can also create things that smash the expectations this way…and that’s the ‘next step’ stuff that I’ve  got.

Moved back into a standup desk today, my freakish intensity returned….and it’s time to get going.

I proved this week that the volume is there, now this COMING week I have to have sysyems. Goal is 10 blogs delivered, and 10 sales of guerrilla.me.   Everything done on time.

Gotta bounce.  Gonna go have salad, watch the kids play in the pool.

Filed Under: Business Building, miscellany

Great Freelancer Sales Video: How to Get Freelance Clients

April 22, 2009 by
freelancersalesvid

Let’s face it, i’ll get the format, but this is the first time I’ve used screenflow for my stuff.  It kicks ass.  But the bottom line is this:

How To Find Clients:
Freelance Sales Video

Sources of clients:

  • BNI Chapters.
  • Twitter (HUGE)
  • Blogs.
  • Local Businesses.

Start Cheap

  • Freelancers Try to get 1st time buyers…to buy a Mercedes.
  • You an make a good living getting clients.

Acquire Clients To Market To:

  • Each client will pay you X per quarter.
  • 10 Clients getting $500 in services a quarter = $20,000 a year.
  • More clients that you have, the more stable your income.

Attitude You must have:

  • Here to Help
  • Cheap first job (DIFFERENT THAN FREE)
  • Accumulate Paying Clients (market share)
  • Develop “No Brainer” Services

NEVER do a freebie.

  • Spend time looking for more clients.
  • Do a favor for a friend–it’s different than doing a freebie for a schmoe

I’ll commit to getting much better at delivery in this format.

I’ll share what my settings were next time–this particular time, I have no frigging clue.

STAY TUNED FOR PART 2!!

Filed Under: Business Building Tagged With:

Products, Not Projects

April 21, 2009 by
genuinechrisprojectmanagement

genuinechrisprojectmanagementI still do projects.  Really I do.  I dig ‘em, and I dig getting stuff done for people.  But, I’m more selective right now than I was.  I don’t take anything because I can’t, and (B) I have to make sure there’s a path to money.  I’m making a living delivering insanely great value.

So, I’ve come up with 3 things to sell, and plan on having 5 over at my business.

All sell & compliment each other.  All have nutso value.

The other candidates that I think I can sell are:  some type of writing service (as yet undetermined).   And some type of freelancer sales training.   That’s it, nothing else is needed really.  I can do projects or refer them, but that’s enough things to sling that will (A) add value and (B) keep me able to sell stuff.

The problem with projects is this: if you don’t get the spec perfect, it can be a huge pain in the neck to get paid and get finished.  There is often more work and tension.  But with a “product” I sell something.  You either buy or you don’t.  And…I don’t have to be an employee.

People buy from me, and I create the experience.  I have minimal friction.

Recently, I took a $400 job.  It was tedious.  There was friction.  And it took a day and a half of bloody work.  And neither me nor the client was particularly pleased with the outcome.  It is over, and the client is a good guy and we’ll again work together.

Instead?  I should have passed or passed it along.  Live and learn.  More on this in a bit.

Filed Under: Business Building, selling/marketing Tagged With:

Freelance Sales Video: How To Stop Chasing Your F#@!%ing Tail

April 20, 2009 by

LOADS of freelancers chase their tails.   Don’t be one of ‘em.

Look–following up with people over and over and over…

…doesn’t get your bills paid.

Make a rule, stick to it.

Me?  I follow up 3 times and then call it a day.

Filed Under: Business Building, miscellany

I will Out Sell Your Marketing.

April 17, 2009 by

Someone asked me to sign an NDA.  Thought I was crazy for sharing my ideas (http://guerrilla.me).   Thought I was on crack for not ‘keeping it under my hat.’

Thing is: I could tell you EXACTLY what I’m gonna do.

HOW I’m gonna do it.

And still be fine.  Still win the war.  Because most people (you) aren’t gonna take any action.  And most of my ideas are not revolutionary.  An account creation and social media training site.  Big Whoop.  Oh, it’s a kickass idea.  One form propagates to 30 sites.

But doing it–getting it done, finishing it, making it happen is what matters.  So I can share it here, and not feel threatened.

Grinding out the damn work.  Nobody wants to.

So with that said, I’m going to make a MINT off of Brian Clark and Chris Person..

All while I send them $40,000 and more.   (Think about this: have you ever deployed a product that can cause people to have goals of sending you $40,000 and get rich doing it?)

And I’m going to tell YOU how–the cliffs notes–that I’m gonna do it. Because you won’t.  Nobody will outhustle me.  Nobody on the corner has swagga like me.

They made the Thesis framework.  It powers my blogs.  And my clients blogs.  And it’s a worldbeating gamechanger.  I reviewed it here. I wasn’t generous enough with it…because I was pissy about only being able to order one deployment license at a time.  There are annoyances that are working themselves out.  I’m pissed because EVERYONE bought it.

Here’s how that thing is gonna make me a mint:

I’ve gotten a good start on collecting overlays for Thesis.  Thesis is made to be tweaked and customized.  It’s made to do different and cool things…and it does a decent job.  Kasey Kelly was instrumental in getting me started on this stuff.  I’ll have 20ish looks, deliberately putting buttons elsewhere and resizing them.

The second thing: by collecting this work I commoditize the design process.  By having 10 aboslutely and freakishly good overlays (I’m at 4), I can sell those themes, do a better job for less money than anyone.

The third thing:  $750?  For a kick ass website?  AND training in the basics (SEO, Running WordPress)  AND customization?  AND your plugins installed?  HOLYCRAP.  AND an affiliate program (20%)…?

The forth thing:  More stuff to sell.  “Insanely Great” products that deliver training and value, and help people sell their own stuff.  Social media account creation, ping services, blog writing.  If I get my 700-1000 clients (225 work days * 4 a day), I can help them all.

There are details to work out: which CRM, what other stuff, but this is an awesome way to live.  My guerrilla.me product will be every bit as strong as this product and they will sell each other forever.

I can spend $2,000 bucks on initial thesis designs, and then $100-150 to designers…for one off customizations that utterly kick ass.

I can make $460…net…20 times a week.  And more.  ($750 – 40 for thesis = 710 -25 for merch. services = 685 services – 125 for design = 560 – 100 for affiliates (average) = 460)  * 20 = 9,200.

Direct sales can drive this.  Each client should also retun another $800 gross/500 net/ year.

I believe that thesis is gonna keep getting better at the same rate, and so I’ll hitch my star to theirs for this gig.  I can get this stuff done rapidly, and knock this out of the park.

The difference between me is that I’m a sales guy.  A hustler.  I’m wired that way.  I don’t tire of selling people.  I’m more @garyvee.  I love it.  I want to help people plugin to the matrx and help them sell.

I just told you what I will do, and it doesn’t matter.  You’re free to fight me or join me.   Point is, execution matters.  I will outsell your marketing.

Filed Under: Products, Projects and Process, selling/marketing Tagged With: , ,

Getting it done is ALWAYS Better than Getting It Perfect.

April 16, 2009 by

Perfectionism Sucks.  Seriously. it’s the enemy of anything.  The ability to make a decision, to have things ABOUT right is pretty important.  Right now, I’m without a CRM, mostly because I’ve been toying with Heap, Highrise, Act 6 and Daylite.

I’ve been trying to predict what I want to do when I grow up, and the fact that I don’t have anything other than Aweber driving automation is holding me back.  My list still is good.  I still can email and expect a response, but every marketing idea is isolated,it’s in a one off.

And I’ve said that I’ll have a CRM that I’ll adopt for some time.  I’m enamored with Heap CRM.  I pay $14 bucks a month as an ode to Ben’s genius.  I’m also enamored with ACT! 6.0.  No other versions, they all suck.  ACT 6 is the solo warrior’s best friend–except that it is a PC program and even OPENING the email component makes my mac FUBAR.

The prbolem is that I have nothing, it’s hemming me in.  In Geddy’s immortal words: I have chosen not to decide, and thus have made a choice.   So, Sunday morning, I’m going to worship at the Church of CRM and make a decision by noon and spend the rest of the time implimenting it.

You can waste time shopping, or you can F#!@%ing get something done.  Nothing is perfect.  All of my choices sort of have limitaitons that I hate, from having to use the damn mouse for too much (Heap) to lack of activity series (highrise) to being forced to be on a PC (ACT!).  But the fact that I have nothing is fierecely stupid.   I have aweber.  And for those of you on one of my lists, hi there.

I love heap, I want to like it, but it’s such a drag to use the mouse.  Seriously, it limits radically the people that will become customers.  I’m not into slowing down, I’m not into mousing around, I want to hit ALT-C.   Whatever.

Any CRM people have suggestions?  Do I need to get my own made, adopt sugar?

Getting ANYTHING decided is important.

So it’ll either be DAYLITE or HEAP.  I suspect Daylite CRM even though I never got to use it during my 30 Day Trial..  If I was using it, I’d know who I was supposed to call back today.  As it is, if I’ve left you out and you’re not in the process forgive me.

Filed Under: Business Building, Products, Projects and Process

What am I missing here?

April 16, 2009 by

So what am I missing:

I’m trying to create a streamlined design interview so I can whip out site designs fast.  I always ALSO talk to my customers, and try to ‘feel them out,’ on the path, but this sort of tool keeps all my questions in one place and allows me to make this sort of thing work efficiently, and allows me to shovel work off to one of my thesis designers.

These blogs are priced at $750 and are designed for me to have 2-3 hours modifying existing design, not full blown designs.  Thesis is flexible and it’s a framework to design over the top of, not a design in and of itself.

So with that said, what am I missing, how can I make this form better?  What questions am I not asking?

Filed Under: miscellany

Freelancers: Have some F#@%ing Manners.

April 14, 2009 by

Seriously.  I have hired a couple dozen freelancers this year to do odd jobs.  Anything from doing a WP install, to doing a block of SEO-riffic blog posts, to site scrapes…and more.

And I pay on time, I pay early a lot.  I find jobs, and find people that can do them and I charge for that service.  And the one thing that happens a lot…and the one way I spot low caliber people I don’t want to be working with is the ‘thank you’ portion of the experience.   A ton of people don’t bother with basic manners.

And you can tell a problems going to come because entitlement kills every business.  Having the entitlementality is a good part of the reason I wrote my book.  The situation goes like this:  A job gets done on time, I get invoiced and pay on the agreed date.  Often, the freelancers that want payment fastest are the least likely to say thank you.

And, I’m guessing it rubs everyone the wrong way.  I don’t need you to genuflect, I don’t need you to fellate me for paying on time, but seriously, a simple thanks is all it takes to get good will.  And more business.

The ones I called out on it said, “I don’t have time to acknowledge payment, too busy.”   I’m insulted, and I don’t work with people that don’t acknowledge payment (esp. first time around) with a thank you. I view them as scuzzy and I probably ascribe characteristics that they don’t truly have.  And I’m sure other people do as well.  Even if a job was less than smooth, even if you don’t care to work together again, say thanks.  Super simple.

But then they are the same ones that signal that they are highly broke by invoicing multiple times, asking for advances and even soliciting my clients directly.  Stopping a moment to be in gratitude is so powerful, it changes the dynamic.   And not doing it sends signals that you’re not a real good guy.   You shouldn’t be doing work you’re not grateful to be doing.  You should pass.  If you view it as shitty, simple moneywork, then you should find work you’ll run through walls to do.

Filed Under: Business Building, selling/marketing Tagged With:

How To Get Started as a Freelancer: Plan your first job

April 13, 2009 by

Every single week, someone asks me “how did you get started as a freelancer.  More to the point, the question is really, “How can I get started a s a freelancer.”  So what I’m going to do is demonstrate what I do to make a kickass living, and grow a business, mostly for a twitter friend of mine.

Getting started as a freelancer is sales focused first.  You have to sell yourself, build up your personal brand, in order to be where you want to be.  You have to have a real simple widget to sell and deliver…all while not over-analyzing or over thinking things.   I’ve talked about the “daily number” before, which is to say the number that you gotta make to stay in business each day.   You gotta know that number COLD.

Then, specifically, you need to have something to sell.  Offer insane value for what you’re selling.  Make it a product that doesn’t have flexibility, and make it cheaper than anyone else’s.  (Think: Blue Ocean Strategy).   Don’t overthink the deails of your product–I’m going to give you an EASY one now.  Keep all the points of friction to a minimum.

Make it something that you can grind out quickly–in a day or two.  Don’t take big long projects.  Make it prepaid, always.  Pass on clients that want freebies–find more by using Twitter, your blog, the phone book.

What I’m offering, How I’ll make $7,000 next week.

Brian Clark and Chris Pearson created and marketed a WordPress theme called Thesis.  It powers my blog.  It powers my e-book sales site. I was charging clients $1500-2,000 for setting up and going with a thesis blog.  I don’t need to charge that much anymore, I can do it in my sleep, and I can make the training outsourced.

#1:  I will sell the Thesis Theme blogs.

I have used the Thesis theme in about 60% of the blogs I’ve delivered. I’m going to do so in 100% for the moment.  One of the things that I’ve built is a bunch of thesis designs. I can reuse those pretty much at will now.

#2: I will make it cheap. I was charging people up to $2,000 for WordPress blogs one on one training and thesis blogs.  That’s too much, even though they felt like they got vlaue.  It’s too much because when someone pays you $2,000 they think they own you.  And to a point, they do.  We need to make it way cheaper.  $750 for the basic blog, $250 more for a year’s hosting on my hostgator server.  That’s it.

#3: I will add value. I have a good list of things I do with every blog.  I have a lot of things that I do and so I can make this work by making screenflow screencasts. I can do 3-4 screencasts a day this week and have ‘em organized properly to teach people what to do.  (Camtasia has a 30 day trial, screencast-o-matic works, so does snapz and screenflow)

#4: I will deliver fast. I have 3 capable designers that have done Thesis blogs with roughly equivalent quality.  I’ll be able to do this in 48 hours, 100% of the time, with instructions to get into the training site immediately with videos delivered.  (use google docs to orcistrate all that you want to do)

…

Fast wins.  So here’s what I’ll be able to do:  $750 per blog…I’ll pay out $40 to the Thesis designers (they have an affiliate program).  I’ll pay roughly $150 for design (probably average lower).  That’s $560 left for me.  Lose $25 for merch. services, and I’m making $535, and I can do this 3x a day and more.  This creates immense value for people.

…and it gets clients in the door and used to paying me.  A secret I’ve learned is that in my practice, I can count on all of my clients paying me about $375 in profit per quarter, if I maintain them properly.  So if I get 20 clients in 2 weeks…ah, that’s another $30,000 a year in revenue.

It’s a modest way to begin, but it works for me, and it works for others.  I’ll show it off next week…and you’ll have a blast.

Filed Under: Business Building, selling/marketing Tagged With:

Microsoft’s Apple Tax: What An Asinine Campaign.

April 10, 2009 by

I’m a Mac user.  Switched in August.  Never, ever going back.  I’m more than competent using a PC, but i’ll never go back voluntarily.   The frustration ended, and I saw a productivity gain of about 35%.

Microsoft’s marketing  people have come up with a new concept: the apple tax. They are showing a (modestly inflated) version of the how much more expensive apples are.  I don’t dispute that.  Apples are more.  And they are worth it.  Every single penny.   Microsoft is picking the wrong fight by trying for a race to the bottom.  If you are earning $50 an hour…and are 20% better…you can increase your rate 20%, bill your clients 20% more, and make 10 (20% of 50) * 2,000  = $20,000 more each year.

They make no claim that they are better.

Microsoft states that you’ll pay $3,367 over five years on their “apple tax return” document by using 2 pcs over 2 macs.  (This is WITH mobile me, a useless and expensive service that costs $700+/year.  This is $1683.50 per seat…over five years.   I don’t hate windows.  But it’s a BARGAIN to only have to pay that much.  Seriously.  5 years?  $336.67 a year?   $28 bucks a month?  To use a MAC that doesn’t suck? DEAL!  I’m in.  It’s a bargain even with their inflated numbers.

Notice: MS doesn’t attempt to make the argument that they’re as cool as, as good as, as easy to use as a mac.  They don’t fight that battle, saying instead, “they’re cheaper.”   Well, everything works a smidge better.  Firefox running google aps feels like a destkop ap on the MAC and even on a comparable PC with good horsepower, gDocs still feels like a web ap.

You’re telling me for just–at most–$28 bucks a month, I get to use spotlight, I get to not deal with stupid crashes, I get to use a mac that thinks about like me?  And I don’t have to deal with Vista?  And I get to be part of that club that helps each other out, and has set themselves apart?   Hell, even with my IRS problems, I’m in.  Pick another line of reasoning MS.

You want to appeal to my analytical side?  It’s $28 bucks a month to not have to deal with registry garbage, to not have to be locked into your .docx hell.  Done deal.  Thanks for reminding me how much better I have it for such a little extra money.

How stressful is it to deal with a computer that is mercurial and unpredictable as all Windows Vista PCs are?

What about the things that you can’t do on a PC, like use Keynote to grind out videos FAST?

What’s the PC equivalent to the layering goodness that is Imovie?  Movie maker?  That thing?  With the 1990′s interface?  Puh-leaze.

Oh, where is visual hub for the PC?

Where is snapz?  Are you thinking camtasia?  Heh.

Microsoft, you’re just reminding us on this side how good we have it.  I’m glad that you’ve done the math, even accepting your (inflated) numbers, I win.

Filed Under: Business Building, Products, Projects and Process Tagged With: ,

Thesis Theme: A Comprehensive Review of What Brian Clark, & Chris Pearson Created for WordPress

April 9, 2009 by

There are no affiliate links here.   Thesis Ain’t Perfect, but if you ain’t making $1,000 a day, you can use it to do so.

I was an early adopter to the Thesisphere last year.  I bought the developer’s license thing in May or June of 2008, and deployed it on my sites. (Here, http://guerrilla.me, http://ftherapybook.com,   And–right now–it’s the easiest way to make money for yourself on the Internet.  I’ll get to that in just a second.  The design framework comes from Chris Pearson, who is responsible for some of the very best themes in the WPress-o-sphere.  (Cutline, PressRow).  He partnered up with Copyblogger’s Brian Clark to shill this thing, and it’s ubiquitous.  If you read blogs, you have come across Thesis.

The Thesis Theme For WordPress Is For The lazy sales guy.

I’m not yet perfect, but look, if you can’t sell thesis sites, then give up on selling anything.   I can make sites that look like mine, or that look like Bakingasametaphor.com I can put stuff anywhere I want it, and with 1.5, I can make any width I think looks good….without limitations that are preset.  Thesis creates css code for me.

My workflow is simple.  I follow keywords on twitter.  (Blog redesign, fix my blog, many others that I ain’t sayin’).  I call ‘em up (if they have anything in their profile) and tell them my team can whip out a blog in a day, and it costs, $1,000 bucks.  You’ll have a little work in it, you make videos on http://screencast-o-matic.com to tell ‘em how to work it, and you’ll be coming in chepaer than anyone else, delivering a better experience, and you’ll pocket 800-1k per.

I send out a paypal link, I do a brief, recorded design interview.  I have someone cool like Kasey Kelly bang out a design for them.  I install WP on their server or mine with whatever plugins it needs, and give ‘em access  to it.  The whole thing can be in and out in a day, and clients are happy with the results.   It’s cheaper for them. It’s FAST, and it’s GOOD.  And since I’ve made a ton of WordPress how tos, it’s easy to support.  Brian and Chris get $40 per deplpoyment.  I pay $100-200 in design, and that cost is trending down because I’m building a library of cool friggin’ looks.

A client can have a killer blog in a day and a half that doesn’t HAVE to look like other blogs.  And then we retain the desing shells, the custom.css theme to deploy in other colors elsewhere.   At the end of the day, I’m the one that delivered a killer, custom blog in a day for just a grand…not some jackass that sold them a crappy website that is fixed.

The Thesis Theme For WordPress Is Flexible & The Support Kicks Ass.

Look at all these thesis blogs.  Couple hundo per deployment because it’s one custom.css file.  They don’t have to look very much alike at all.

The support?  I generally haven’t needed much, and what I’ve needed is in the forums on their website, or I can, since I’m lazy, @pearsonified on twitter.  The forums have stuff–and another semiscocial community space to waste time with random bragging (my random bragging goes here on  the blog).

The Bad Stuff

Keith Baker had gotten me used to using Headspace2, and headspace2 doesn’t seem to work with Thesis, not right, at least.  I also have to, from time to time, edit and modify code a little bit for this plugin or that thing.  And, there seem to be upgrades about 3 times a week, so you may have to upgrade more than you like (although, in fairness, You also need to, once you buy a developers license, pay $40/pop to put it on someone else’s site.)   Also, when you do want to legalize your licenses, their cart doesn’t let you edit quantities, so you can’t buy 10 at a time.  It’s not clear to me when All-In-One SEO works and when Thesis’s stuff (SEO details and additional Style) work.  It also needs to have some more clear instructions to get custom pages, and a better/saner uploader.

There are also minor peculiarities on install, and times you need to save, and the normal stuff where widgets can pass code to the whole theme if you dont close an <iframe> tag or whatever.  Nothing that’s not learnable by a sane person in 3-4 times and fixable easily.

If you’re SUPER lazy, you run the risk of all your blogs looking  alike. That’s happening on the net and we’re a couple beats away from Thesis being a brand that people avoid (I don’t-want-a-thesis-blog).  Hopefully Chris will whip out something new.  Clients won’t notice, but when you lower your standards, it’s  F#@%ing slippery slope.

Finally: I’d sell blogs and make cash with or without thesis.  Seriously.  But it’s a framework for a sales guy like me to be able to rapidly deliver a quality experience.

Filed Under: Business Building, Products, Projects and Process, selling/marketing

How to Set, Measure Share and Track Goals on Google Docs Part 1 of 6

April 5, 2009 by
I’m not gonna be all paranoid like my new friend Michael Martine and de-googlify my life. Google has its limitations, but really, it’s a tool in a tool box.  I’m using them to publically track and share my goals.  Nothing more, nothing less.

I love achieving something.  Breaking a BHAG down into tiny bites.  The wheels came off my life this week because of some seriously sweet distractions, some opportunities that were unexpected, and because I moved into my kicking new office.  And frankly, because I let complacency back in and rested on my imaginary Laurels. F#@% that.  I got behind because I was doing more writing than usual, and that is something that simply takes time.  Enough.  2nd Quarter is here, and it’s time to kick ass.  I’ll pay no mind to those that resist me by ignoring me.

Anyway, this will be a six part series in how to make goals with Google Docs, it’s all I’m going to run this week.  This is the prelude, running Sunday.

How To Set Achievable Goals

Think bigger. I’m not saing decide to be an astronaut, but everyone has a sense of what they COULD accomplish if they did whatever they could in a big way.  We know that we could lose X pounds, sell X widgets, whatever.  And a lot of people decide to let the clutterpeople in their lives set goals for them.  When I was at First Ohio Home Finance, the owners out and out laughed at my goals.   Don’t let others set them.  My goals are huge–as youl’ll see at the bottom of the post.

Make it hyperspecific. My goal: lose 25#, or do 300 sales of F#@% Therapy …is spefic.  It’s got steps.  “Be an astronaut,” is not a specific goal.  It’s also not, “Get inlinks” for F#@% therapy.  it’s SELL F#@% therapy.  i may need inlinks to do it…but I don’t care if I don’t get ‘em.  That’s why my website at http://rightrightnow.com is awful.

I’m going to set and hit some goals, and I’m going to make it seriously public.  There’s a lot that I intend to do, but the core stuff:  Ftherapy , Right Right Now, Guerrilla.me are my primary projects.  Those things need to perform at consistent levels, Right Right Now is the company I run freelance business through.  Note: it has–at best–a bad website.  Finishing the website is something that i’m indifferent towards.  I can get by without it….because I’m 80% Twitter and WOM.

Break it down: I don’t believe in annual goals.  I believe in–at most–quartelry goals broken down monthly…then weekly  You can get away from an annual goal fast.   After the quarterly goals get broken down, you look at weekly and daily behaviors that lead to goals.   You’ll see my sidebar get relaunched with the goals I’ve got this week.

Start with quarterly, break it to monthly, then weekly, then daily, and figure out what you have to do.  Ignore everything else, and just focus on the stuff that gets you to the next deal.

Here are qnd quarter’s goals.  I’ll break the rest down for you in a bit, how to measure and track ‘em.  For now, I’ll leave you with this.

2Q09 Goals and Predictions:
—
End Goals:

Ftherapy: 1200 total sales  (I get 17$/per)  ($20,400)

300 april
400 may
500 June

Right Right Now: (My Freelance Projects)

$45,000 in gross revenue, netting out $27,000 to me. (60%)
Keep the work quick and small, no big projects.

Average ticket is 1800 right now: 25 gigs needed. (I should reduce average ticket also)

Guerrilla.me:

250 total sales @ $300 Average Sale  = $75k.  Affiliates Avg: 20%.   $60k left, cost of execution ~$6,000ish Split $54 50/50= $27k.

Launch Freelance Sales How to: (Name TBD)

$69.00/month
10 clients in May
+10 in June
Acquire net +20 retainer/monthly revenue clients.  (500/month for one on one coaching using GOTOMEETING) $10,000/month
Lose 25# (10 in april, 8 in May 7 in june)  Been plateauing for a quarter.  Time to bust that.  I’m 55# over where I want to weigh, and I carry it OK.
Refile 06, 05 taxes.
Cut total debt down by 20%.
Pay all ’08 tax liability & get current on ’09 with q1 and q2 accurate estimates filed.
Family: 1 date a week with my wife
1 day a week with Just The Kids so the Wife Can Stay Semi Sane (tracked, checked off)
1 time hanging with Jack/week.
1 time hanging with just ruby/week.
Filed Under: Achieving Goals, Start Here Tagged With: , , , ,