May represents a month of clarity in which I learned how to effectively allocate my time to achieve the results I desire the most. To achieve those results, I’m going through drastic changes in my professional and personal life. This performance report will break down those changes and some of the big projects I am working on.
5 am or 6 am…
From this point forward, I will either wake up at 5 am or 6 am. Here’s the reasoning:
Now that summer has started, I like to read for an hour upon waking up.
I also need to run in the morning because, since it’s summertime, it gets HOT really fast. I prefer running early in the morning.
I listened to The Miracle Morning audiobook.
To compensate for waking up earlier, I’m sleeping earlier and incorporating an afternoon nap…because I’m less productive during that time anyway. Then I wake up with renewed willpower.
My New Stance On Blogging
I’ve seen an interesting trend in the blogging world. As bloggers get more established, more guest contributors write the content and the blog owner doesn’t write content as often. I see some blogs getting updated with new content every day even though the blog owner has written less than three blog posts the entire year (we’re in May).
I understand the logic behind this decision. Out of all forms of content, it takes more time to produce a blog post than any other form of content.
As a productivity hungry individual, I see this phenomena and know I need to change my ways to save more time. At the same time, you’ve all been very supportive of my journey, and the blog allowed me to create a big impact in so many people’s lives.
Here’s my new publishing schedule:
- Weekly podcast episodes
- Weekly YouTube videos
- Monthly performance report
- Monthly blog post
- Guest contributors provide at least two blog posts each month
I’m still providing an intense amount of free value, but I am doing it in a different way for the sake of saving time.
This additional time will go towards organizing more virtual summits, creating more training courses, and (finally) finishing another book.
Content Marketing Success Summit—A Few Weeks Out
It’s amazing how time caught up with my biggest project of the year. A little bit of me thought that somehow June 7th would never happen and we’d be in the world of June 6.1s and June 6.2s.
As some of you may know, I successfully got over 50 speakers for CMSS (first virtual summit for me). It’s possible that by the time it’s all said and done, I could have 60 speakers, but I am not applying additional effort to get the 60th speaker.
My focus on the summit are now…
- Communicating with speakers and affiliates
- Finishing training course videos
- Doing a few technology checks
- Setting it up to be a legendary experience for attendees
PVS Is Next
Uh, oh. Another acronym. What can this one possible stand for?
Productivity Virtual Summit (September 18th—25th)
I have already contacted and landed speakers for this summit. I am really early in the process because CMSS is still my main focus (I have registered a domain name though).
The goal for PVS is the same. Get over 50 highly sought productivity experts to share their insights to attendees.
The biggest difference I can see with the Productivity Virtual Summit and the Content Marketing Success Summit is that I’ll have a much larger affiliate army.
Here’s the thing with affiliates…I barely know how to find and recruit them. I also feel like I don’t have enough time (I know. Lame) and haven’t recruited a single affiliate on my own (unless you count speakers).
So how did I get dozens of affiliates for CMSS (not including speakers)?
My friend Matt McWilliams wrote a blog post, sent an email to his list, and tweeted a few times about my affiliate opportunity. You can see the post here.
This meant so much to me because Matt has connected me with countless individuals and opened the door to new opportunities that I couldn’t have achieved without knowing him. His efforts to get more affiliates for my virtual summit was a very humbling experience.
And I can’t possibly continue without thanking Tom Morkes for recruiting affiliates (in this case, speakers). He didn’t write a blog post, but he sent dozens of emails to people who he thought would be interested in speaking at CMSS.
I can’t thank those two and everyone involved in CMSS enough! I spent so much time putting the summit together, but I know that I don’t have a summit without the speakers saying yes and doing everything they can to spread the word.
So with that said, the Content Marketing Success Summit is going to be epic. My goal is to make the Productivity Virtual Summit epic-er.
Books I Read
Out of everything I did this month, I am by far the most proud of what I accomplished here. Reading the books I read significantly changed my mindset, and I feel a stronger bias towards action than ever before.
Drive by Daniel H. Pink
Tools Of Titans by Tim Ferriss
Expert Secrets by Russel Brunson
The Power To Get Things Done by Chris Cooper and Steve Levinson
Success Through A Positive Attitude by Napoleon Hill and W. Clement Stone
Secrets Of The Millionaire Mind by T. Harv Eker
Stand Out by Dorie Clark
How Will You Measure Your Life by Clayton M. Christensen, James Allworth, and Karen Dillon
Marketing by Brian Tracy
Motivation Manifesto by Brendon Burchard
Millionaire Success Habits by Dean Graziosi
The Way You Do Anything Is The Way You Do Everything by Suzanne Evans
Twitter Power by Joel Comm
The Seven Spiritual Laws Of Success by Deepak Chopra
The Charge by Brendon Burchard
Eat That Frog by Brian Tracy
The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod
The Amazing Results Of Positive Thinking by Normal Vincent Peale
Blue Ocean Strategy by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne
Sales Management by Brian Tracy
Become A Better You by Joel Osteen
Success Is A Choice by Rick Pitino
Do Cool Sh*t by Miki Agrawal
The Entrepreneur Roller Coaster by Darren Hardy
Reaching Your Potential by Normal Vincent Peale
Content Chemistry by Andy Crestodina
80/20 Sales and Marketing by Perry Marshall and Richard Koch
I Will Teach You To Be Rich by Ramit Sethi
Affiliate Program Management by Evgenii Prussakov
May’s Blog Posts
3 Strategies To Get Out Of Your Inbox Faster
7 Simple As Pie Email List Building Tips For Beginners
May’s Podcast Episodes
Episode 38: How To Grow A 7-Figure Podcast With John Lee Dumas
Episode 39: Using Webinars To Generate A Massive Profit With Jon Schumacher
Episode 40: Igniting Your Motivation and Productivity With Trevor Oldham
Review Of May 2017 Goals
#1: Contact 50 potential sponsors—this did not happen. If I pursue sponsorships for my Productivity Virtual Summit, I will outsource the outreach to a trusted freelancer.
#2: Contact 50 potential affiliates—Matt McWilliams to the rescue (other than his help, I probably contacted three affiliates max)!
#3: Completely plan out the summit marketing—Done!
#4: Have blog posts and podcast episodes complete past June—Batching will get me there soon. I went all-in with the virtual summit and final exams competed with my time, attention, and energy as well.
#5: Confirm 10 speakers for my next summit—I’m making progress in this area already which is a big milestone.
#6: Read 15 books—I can now do that in a week.
#7: Identify a good coach—I have a coach in mind. I just have to decide how much I want to pay him. I will wait until CMSS concludes to see how my revenue looks after what is so far my biggest project of the year.
#8: Plan out a second podcast—I need to get thousands of daily downloads for Breakthrough Success before I start a second podcast. I don’t want to split my promotion time between two podcasts because I know that’s not a sustainable strategy. This is different from organizing two summits at the same time since the heavy weights from CMSS were taken care of by the time I started promoting PVS.
June 2017 Goals
#1: Make CMSS A Smashing Success—This is my most important goal for June. It will arguably be my most important goal of the year. This summit has the power to redefine my path and give me access to more opportunities than I can think of.
#2: Get 50+ Speakers For PVS—I want to conduct all of the PVS interviews in July, so while working on Content Marketing Success Summit related tasks, I will be gathering PVS speakers in the background.
#3: Schedule Content Past August—I will choose one day in the month to complete all videos and blog posts that would carry me past August. I would also have to reach out to potential podcast guests and contributors.
#4: Complete All Training Course Videos—Right now, that is a total of 77 videos, but I am sure that number will surpass 100 as I want to create superior training courses. Chances are I’ll batch them together for one day of the week and incorporate content dripping to give myself some extra time.
#5: Add 20+ Videos To TSMD—With all of the summit preparations, I have not given TSMD the attention that it deserves. My goal is to add over 20 videos to the portal because my members deserve them. My goal to make TSMD a superior social media membership site is still strong.
In Conclusion
All of my work for the past 4-5 months has led to my upcoming performance report. In that performance report, I will finally break down the Content Marketing Success Summit and the impact it has on my brand.
I also hope to talk about something other than virtual summits for the bulk of my performance report, but with PVS coming up next, there are no promises.
What are your thoughts on this performance report? Have any questions? Sound off in the comments section below.
Lale Byquist says
Marc, great job! Although the number of bloggers is growing, just a few of them share achievements and plans. I love this idea as it’s so motivational to track your success!
Marc Guberti says
I’m happy to hear you like the Performance Report structure. I wanted to do something different from earnings reports because I don’t like sharing those details, so I decided to focus more on my performance.
Louie Luc ? (@LouieLuc) says
Hey Marc!
Impressive performance report, man! (Makes me want to publish a similar kind of post on my blog.)
Let me just tell you that I’ve copied and pasted your list of books read because I plan to buy and read them soon.
You’re such an inspiration that I almost forgot you’re still in school and have to deal with exams, studies and all that stuff. I’m not reading any complaints from you about it but my advice is enjoy it (even so it might seem boring at times). Enjoy the “now”, always!
Wish you the best for your CMMS,
Louie
Marc Guberti says
Thank you for the kind words Louie. Several of those books had a big impact on me, and I hope they have the same impact on you as well.
Itxy says
Very motivating post! I’ll be looking into those books, too. Love that we got a full insight into your plans, thanks for sharing 🙂
Marc Guberti says
My pleasure Itxy. Thank you for taking the time to read my Performance Report. I love writing them.