While I’m hard on myself for most performance reports, I am very happy with my overall performance in November. I have some very interesting ideas for 2018 and plan to finish strong in 2017.
Speak Out For Net Neutrality
Before you read the performance report, read this. It’s important and I know you’ve heard about it from someone.
FCC chairman Ajit Pai, big phone and cable companies, and their lobbyists want to destroy Net Neutrality. Destroying net neutrality would let cable and phone companies decide who’s heard and who isn’t.
What’s that mean?
If for some reason one of these companies (let’s say AT&T) gets paid off by a site like Amazon to make their site run faster and the Amazon site run significantly slower (think about trying to load Amazon on a 10-year-old computer but worse).
Or they could just block Amazon all together. That means all of the self-published authors writing books on kdp.amazon.com lose a big chunk of their audience because greedy companies and lobbyists are trying to fill their pockets.
What about the people who use Amazon FBA to make a living? And Amazon’s just one of the many websites that would be affected. Google, Facebook, and any website you visit (including yours if you have one) are all at risk. This wouldn’t just affect the big guys. It would affect all of us.
They could shut me (or anyone) down because I’m talking about net neutrality, or just because they feel like it or have a conflict of interest. This quote sums it up:
“Our world is digital – all digital. To make the most of it, my delivery truck and your delivery truck should have equal access to the same highway system and connecting roads. Just like we do in the physical world.” — Ad Age
This is like Chris Christie’s Bridge Scandal, but digitally spread across whoever AT&T, Comcast, Verizon, and others would like to choose. They can slow down digital bridges and even tear them apart. As our world revolves around digital, this wouldn’t just disrupt businesses, but also the entire nation.
Here’s an idea for the companies and lobbyists who want to end Net Neutrality. Instead of making money by threatening some of the most innovative companies on the planet (and possibly getting them to pay up for normal load times which everyone gets now…and to avoid getting blocked out entirely), why not do something innovative that actually generates revenue and results in happier customers?
Just a thought.
Here’s the link if you want to help.
I know you didn’t expect to hear about Net Neutrality in this Performance Report. I promise it won’t come up again. The rest of the Performance Report is strictly business. I’m enjoying my privilege to write my content on the free web where the big companies don’t decide what websites I can and can’t visit (or have to wait very long before they load).
Daily Blog Posts Will Return In 2018
I feel so happy just to write that. I’ve mentioned daily content in past performance reports and found myself struggling to reach that goal each month. That’s when the frustration mounted and it seemed as if I got harder and harder on myself in each performance report.
Now I finally have a system that works for me.
I don’t just publish a new blog post every day. I write exactly one blog post every day. With past experiments of content batching and writing multiple blog posts at the same time, this approach works best for me.
You may be naturally better at batching the content, but I prefer to write one blog post each day. Nothing more and nothing less. If I have a second idea I really want to write about, I let all of that excitement overflow into the next day.
It only takes me 30-45 minutes to write most of my blog posts, and I get started on them first thing in the morning. Now I can write 365 blog posts or more each year.
If you include contributors, we could return to the golden 12-hour standard, but I’m not ready to make that commitment yet. However, this commitment is a big step in the right direction.
One Final Step To Daily Podcasts
If it were free, I would have no problem with hosting my own daily show. However, a daily podcast comes with a significant boost in storage and editing costs. I have a month to figure out how I’ll reduce these costs and generate more revenue from the podcast to make a solid profit.
I’m landing interviews as if Breakthrough Success will become a daily podcast on New Year’s Day. I want to be prepared to host daily episodes when the time comes.
With this part of my content strategy in sync, I’ll publish over 730 pieces of content every year (blog + podcast). Plus, I get to interview 365 awesome people who will have a positive impact on my growth.
I love creating content, and 2018 looks to be quite the treat for that part of my life.
My Reading Habit Is Changing
In past months, I’ve read as many as 30 books. These books weren’t quick reads either. Tools Of Titans is like six books wrapped into one.
But now my reading habits are changing. I no longer intend on reading 30 books every month. My new target is 10 books per month because I now spend ore time reading articles. This is part of my new initiative to provide more outbound links in my blog posts. I can’t link to a page in a paperback book, but I can definitely link to someone else’s blog post.
I also learn a lot from reading articles. While I am reading content from my favorite writers, I’m also finding new writers on Medium. I’m slowly turning into a Medium junkie, and I am perfectly fine with that.
The Race To 400K
I know that you shouldn’t get fixated on the numbers on social media. I feel like I’ve been stuck at 300K Twitter followers for a while, and surpassing this milestone is more symbolic than anything else.
With that said, I do have a spreadsheet tracking how many followers I need to gain each day, but I don’t view social media as a numbers game. Those who do will eventually lose.
A Big Revelation
For a long time, I was confused and disagreed with a big part of Neil Patel’s work schedule. For people who click the link, I understand that Neil changed his work schedule so he isn’t grinding for as many hours (he uses more time to recharge).
However, one single task dominates the others by storm. That one task is sending emails, and he’s usually in his inbox for four hours every day.
I thought to myself, “Why would you spend that much time in your inbox? You could be creating so much content (even more than what he’s already doing)!”
Then it hit me.
During those four hours, Neil builds relationships, communicates with his audience, and leverages opportunities that and in his inbox. He spends much more of his time marketing his content than creating it, and that’s why Neil can scale a new blog up to 100,000 monthly visitors in under a year.
I now plan to commit at least an hour of my time each day to sending emails. Whether that means replying to emails or outreach, I’m sending emails for an hour each day. I plan to delegate this task so I have a helper rather than taking this responsibility off my shoulders.
You should delegate most of your business, but don’t delegate everything.
Books I Read
From now on, I’ll skip the parts where I share the podcast episodes and blog posts I published because those lists will be too long in 2018. That’s why I’m heading right into my reading list for the month.
I did surprisingly little reading this month. I read Gary Vaynerchuk’s The Thank You Economy and re-read The 12 Week Year (I strongly recommend The 12 Week Year. It was one of the first productivity books that had a big impact on me, and it had an impact on the re-read as well).
Review Of November 2017 Goals
1. Get Consistent CMP Sales: I’m still working on this, but I took steps in the right direction this month. I included three packages so CMP now ranges from $497 to $1997 depending on which package you want.
#2: Fully Activate My Freelancers: I’ve communicated more effectively with my freelancers and created Google Docs for them. I wish I used Google Docs to lay out instructions and changes to the plan much earlier.
#3: Have All Of This Year’s Content Scheduled: Boom! This one is done. I just have to schedule podcast episodes. I can’t schedule them all in one month due to storage space limitations, but the episodes are all done. Blog posts are scheduled past 2017 🙂
#4: Crush It With Content Marketing Secrets: It has been a long time since I looked at something I did and said, “WOW,” to myself. I set very high standards for my work which is why I rarely have that wow feeling, but Content Marketing Secrets provided me with that wow feeling. And over 1,000 customers (mix of free and paid) now have their Kindle edition of the book.
December 2017 Goals
#1: Land 7 Coaching Clients: I am taking a new shift to coaching clients. I was originally skeptical of coaching because I thought it would take up too much of my time. However, I discovered how to make the process efficient and effective for my clients. If you are interested in my coaching services, you can contact me through my email marc@marcguberti.com.
#2: Make Breakthrough Success A Weekday Podcast: In this Performance Report, you’ll see that I wanted to turn Breakthrough Success into a daily podcast. I decided to go for a weekday podcast at the end of November and into early December, so I didn’t modify my earlier thoughts that I wrote. I want to give my listeners the weekends to catch up on any episodes they missed to avoid overwhelm.
#3: Make CMSS Evergreen: I know this summit can positively impact the lives of more people, but I need to make it evergreen for it to impact more people.
In Conclusion
This was a very good month for me, and I believe December will be even better. I only have three goals listed which allows me to focus my time on a few areas instead of spreading it thin. I’ll be creating a lot of content in 2018 and have some very exciting things planned.
Also, if you have some extra time, please fight for Net Neutrality. I’d greatly appreciate it.
What are your thoughts on November 2017’s Performance Report? Do you have any questions for me? Sound off in the comments section below.
Success! You will receive your free eBook shortly.