My Resolutions for 2010 and a cool freebie
Late December is what I call “inventory” time. It is a time to reflect on what you did, what you could’ve done and what you need to do to improve yourself for the following year. Here are some of my resolutions for the upcoming year….(and believe it or not, most have very little to do with internet marketing…)
If you have trouble with setting goals, an acquaintance of mine who runs a newsletter is giving out his “goal” e-book with worksheets. You don’t have to sign up for a list (although his newsletter is very good…and entertaining to boot if you like good reads). Just a heads up though.
To check it out, click here. It is Paul Myers for anyone wondering…and it’s free….
My Future Goals for Myself- My personal resolutions
- Run 20 miles a week- I am almost ashamed to admit it but I have put on a little weight. Three years ago, I was running 2 miles in 12 minutes and was competitive in 5 and 10k’s. These days, the only things I would be competitive in is a pie eating contest. I am 6 feet tall and weigh around 200 pounds. I need to drop that by at least 25 pounds…..running will help me get there.
- -Read two classics a month and put it into a marketing perspective- This is really for me to further improve my writing overall. If you want to learn how to write, the quick way is to read more. Building Stories and marketing go hand in hand. One thing I have noticed is that the best marketers out there are the ones who can tell the best stories. One of Claude Hopkin’s ads ran for over 70 years and it was little more than a narrative. Who knows? I may even build a site where I discuss some of the classics. Catcher in the Rye, anyone?
- Go to Bed Earlier/ Get Up Earlier- I have been a night owl the better part of my life. There are very few days where I go to bed earlier than 1:30 and because of that, there are very few morning where I get up earlier than 9:30. I think that this messes with my productivity on the whole. In fact, there is a Chinese saying that goes like this:“No one who can rise before dawn 365 days a year fails to make his family rich.” I believe that there is some wisdom in those words.
- I need to cut the fat, keep the lean AND maximize what is working- I talk about it all the time but unfortunately don’t do it as often as I should. Nearly 85% of my online income comes from 10% of the websites/traffic funnels I have in place. I suspect that those of you who have 100’s of sites would realize you are probably in the same boat. So, what do you do? Well, if you are like me, you continue to spit out site after site. Recently, I started thinking about this. What if, rather than constantly concentrating on new sites, I instead maximized my return on the websites that are generating real income? I could go into a 5,000 word dissertation on why we seem to like to sabotage our efforts by concentrating on things that don’t work but won’t. Instead, I will just resolve to do a better job…
- I want to spend more time helping people and less time trying to FOOL them- 5 years ago, it was okay for me to write a completely fake review for a product in the effort to make money from. A year ago, it was okay to build a persona that was built for no other reason than to fool people into relating with my fake character who would, in turn, buy a product that I probably wouldn’t recommend to someone that I didn’t like. Blame it on having a kid, getting older, circumstances…whatever…but something tells me that there is more to life than making a pile of money and buying shit. People like Jay Abraham and Zig Ziglar preach about helping people as the way to not only more money but more happiness as well. Maybe they know something that the majority of the make money crowd doesn’t.
- I am actually going to improve this site and make an effort to make it more visible- As much as I like the organic and home remedy markets, I really have grown to love this blog. Maybe it is because I have such a passion for it. Maybe it is because I can actually talk with people that love and do (or wish they do) what I do. I think 2010 I am going to really make a push to legitimize this website as a good source for information on internet marketing. I write on this blog whenever I feel like it. I haven’t tried to optimize this site, rank for anything or even publicize the site whatsoever. In essence, this site has been the red headed stepchild that I neglected. This year, I will pay more attention to it and may even (**gasp**) SEO it….finally…
That’s it for my resolutions. You can hold me accountable.
Do you have any resolutions for 2010?
12 Responses to “My Resolutions for 2010 and a cool freebie”
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My resolution is always the same and plain and simple – make as much money as I can. Period. Every day is a new day and every day I try to figure out what I need to do at that moment that will help me to that goal. This is Internet marketing related of course.
OMG Leo – SEO?? Are you sure
Its funny I used to think of time spent on MMO site was “just for fun” – but now I take it a bit more seriously – and I get more readers and make more money – starnge but true!
Leo,
Good list of goals. I think my mail goal for 2010 is to focus more. I have too many domains that I bought but never used. Have been building them out with content and selling them off cheap(while offering my hosting to the buyer to make some on going money).
I want to focus more on larger sites, so I avoid these wasted domains and everything associated with it.
Looking forward reading more about goal No. 2 (which is my main working goal for 2010 – improve my written English).
Happy new year to you Sir!
I’m looking forward to new posts and you growing this blog!
Cheers!
Diggy
I haven’t exactly made resolutions but I have been doing goal setting for the last few days of the year.
I actually made a decision to drop IM for the time being and concentrate on more important things in my life.
I have been trying to do IM for a while now, but something has been holding me back. I think it’s related to what you mentioned in your resolutions. I’m already 41 old, I have only limited time to do what I want to do in life. I don’t want to spend my time filling world with stuff I don’t really care about.
It’s not that I don’t need extra money – I have debt and I would like to be able to pay it back sooner and be financially independent.
I might get back to IM if I can figure out a way to combine it with something I passionately care about and believe in. I think I have gotten many ideas from your blog on how I could do it (and from what I have learned from doing IM so far) so I don’t think my time has been wasted.
Sorry for this essay, I guess I had to tell someone.
Happy new year!
I just found your blog today… and I love your style. Thanks for sharing with us…
So… goals for 2010…
1. Pay off $3,000 debt.
2. Make $2,000/month, working up to $5,000/month
3. Contribute $10,000 to our house savings funds.
My plan to achieve those goals is to:
1) Read blogs like yours, giving honest peeps the unvarnished truth about IM and how to make it work honestly (did I already say honest??).
2) Build one Squidoo lens or HubPage per week. (PLUG WARNING: My this week’s lens is linked above).
3) Build Brainstormist.com Services page to get coaching clients.
4) (This one’s going to be the hardest). Write and submit 1 article per day (a different niche each day).
5) Put systems and templates in place so that when I sit down at my desk, I know exactly what I need to do.
6) Keep learning IM, HTML, SEO, etc… One little step at a time.
7) Stop spending money on info products and programs…
And I think I like your #3. I, too, stay up until 1 or 2am working on my businesses. Morning, I’m violently roused from the comfort of my bed at 7:30am (if I’m lucky) by 3 wild younglings who want to be fed and entertained… Reversing my working hours (waking up earlier) just may work… Thanks for the suggestion and thanks again for an awesome, “real” blog!
Hi Leo,
I wrote a comment but it seems like I am being caught as spam. Hope you see this one.
Hey Leo I really look forward to seeing you post more here. I always enjoy what you have to say as you tend to look long term which I think is what really works unless you are marketing to the GET RICH QUICK crowd.
My goal is to move my business to $2000 a month by next year. My plan should actually allow me to reach that sooner.
Now I just have to work my plan. (I think I read that here also. LOL)
Hi Leo,
Except for point 5 (I was lucky enough to decide that before I begun), I could copy and paste your resolutions !!!
I think the second point, about reading classics, is the most important (at least for me, but also for a lot of people). I did that a few years ago, and it worked really well… As my beloved litterature professor used to say, “To write well you shall have read, and to read well you shall have lived” (not sure about the translation). But wouldn’t the fact of relating it to marketing ruins a bit of the benefits ? If so, why don’t you read Seth Godin instead of Shakespeare ? I.e reading classics and relating them to marketing involves a risk of losing most of their light, don’t you think ?
Anyway, I wish you good luck for *our* resolutions !
Happy 2010
Dushan, from Switzerland (I speak french, please forgive my poor english)
P.S : I read your blog for a few months and think it’s the most interesting and original english-speaking marketing blog out there.
P.S 2 : I never comment before but your “Hey you…yeah…YOU…you have stopped by a few times…why not drop me a comment and add to the conversation? I would love to know what you think…” widget make me step in. What plugin is that ?
@ Dushan,
The plug-in is comment prompt/reminder. As far as reading the classics and moving them into a “marketing message”, I didn’t mean that I would search for a marketing message in “little women”. What I meant was I could take the characters of the stories and make them relative in external stories. I sometimes read articles in the New Yorker by journalists who have the most riveting stories and I wonder “where the heck do they get this?” (anyone who read Malcolm Gladwell would know what I am talking about). They somehow are able to pull you in with a story and move you through point by point. By the time you get to the end, you are simply nodding your head in agreement.
Now the classics may not be a good example of this. Reading Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand or J.D. Salinger’s The Big Cheese (dunno if that is a classic but I remember loving it when I was growing up) may not fuel the stories that I am looking for. Then again, they may pump up my creativity which, in my opinion, is my greatest asset as a marketer.
And thanks, man…I really appreciate it.
Hi There,
Found your site via Ben’s at make money online with seo.
Good luck with your 2010 resolutions. I have set my own money making goals too and hope to be successful with them.
Only time will tell.
Best wishes
TTC