May 2009 Goals: Some BHAGs

There is really light at the end of the tunnel for me with all of the IRS/etc that I’m up against.  I’m looking at (now) a low five figure debt, and I’m looking at being able to be free of it relatively quickly.  So, it’s time to work harder than I have been if that’s possible.

I’m going to get back to posting my Goals on Google Docs on monday.

The main metrics are as follows:

  • +30 Thesis Blogs Sold.
  • 40 Guerrilla.ME accounts opened.
  • 100 Copies of my Book sold.
  • 45 videos made for Guerrilla.ME & Thesis Blogging.
  • $7500 month in the rest of freelance business (closing out existing pipeline….stop doing one off jobs).
  • 8 Pounds shed. (Been far off the wagon in that area)

Now, I’m gonna post about this stuff almost every day here, I’ll probably exclude it from the feed except weekly by finding some category driven plugin to do that.

There have been some serious bummer growing pains in moving from selling blogs at $2,000 to $750.  I’m still committed though.  The bummers:

  1. Expectations: My original article didn’t say what I would get done.  People expected everything from an identity package and letterhead (!) to a much more refined look that comes from multiple revisions.   So I’ll say it now: Custom Header, Cusotm Color Scheme, Custom clean look….plugins and analytics set up, good checklist.  Thanks to Mark Shandrow for finding and using Thesis Open Hook.  For some reason, it Fubar’d the fist time I installed it, and never went back, but now it works well.
  2. Videos: The first batch of videos were utter crap.  Not really, but I was stuttering more than Rain man and they didn’t have the pop or polish I’d want.   So I scrapped ‘em.  I started doing ‘em again, this time with Screen Flow instead of Snap Z, and holy hell…what more can I do.  The problem is that the production takes longer.  I think it’ll be worth it…but I’m a little stuck on making ‘em perfect instead of getting ‘em done.  There’s a serious “OMFG its COOL factor with ScreenFlow….but I dropped the ball HARD on the videos this week, stopped selling for a while to try to get caught back up…and am daunted by the task.
  3. Paid Wall I envisioned this as a membership site, I got WP-Wishlist to run it, and then realized that this was a chore.  So I moved everything  to rightrightnow.com  I planned on having both the ‘guerrilla.me’ and the ‘thesis blog’ videos there, but it makes more sense to have that stuff all live at http://guerrilla.me.   The camo makes it look and feel more like a traning environment and initially I can sell more Thesis Blogs than Guerrilla.MEs.   The paid wall ate me up, and I should have dumped the videos to a 100-200 MB file and delivered.
  4. Script: I need a script that works with thesis to install it and the plugins automatically.
  5. Pricing: Existing Blog Hosts Gotta figure out if I want to migrate/upgrade existing blogs.  ALL the problems with DNS/Hassle were with people that I upgraded with existing blogs.

The downside of doing ‘products,’ is the lonliness in the start.

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

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.