Performance Reports

This month didn’t go exactly as planned based on the previous Performance Report, but I believe it’s for the better. Here’s what happened this month:

 

CMSS Is 100% Evergreen

The Content Marketing Success Summit was one of my most successful launches. I had been working to make it evergreen for a while, but I finally made it happen. That means if you missed it in 2017, you can get the same attendee experience now as attendees got during the launch. 

This is a very important piece of my strategy which I’ll discuss later, but I also have plans on making the Productivity Virtual Summit evergreen in July. 

 

Podcast Movement Ignite

I’ve mentioned on several Breakthrough Success episodes that I am going to Podcast Movement. If you haven’t gone to big events like Podcast Movement, Social Media Marketing World, or any of those, you should make it a goal to attend at least one of those events within the next 6 months. They are very powerful.

While I know I was heading over to Podcast Movement as an attendee, I recently learned that I’ll also be heading over as an Ignite Speaker. I want to thank everyone who voted to determine who would speak at Ignite because I wouldn’t be speaking at Podcast Movement without them.

My topic is about growing your podcast on a crazy schedule, and I have 5 minutes to deliver a 20 slide presentation which will be a lot of fun. The slides are already done on my end so now it’s just constant rehearsal until I take the stage.

 

Breakthrough Success Sets A 2nd Consecutive Downloads Record

Breakthrough Success received a lot of love this month, and I only see the number of downloads growing in the future. We finished just shy of 3,000 downloads for the month. Next month, we’ll hit our 20,000th all-time download.

After checking the Breakthrough Success stats, I decided to check the all-time stats for this blog as well. This blog has received just over 950,000 views all-time, so the 1 millionth view will occur this year. I am very excited about that milestone as well.

 

Interview Days

Anytime summer comes around, I have more control over my schedule. With that extra control, I use Mondays as my Interview Days.

I’ll interview as many as 11 people from 10:30am to 10:30pm with a 2 hour break in between. It’s an incredible experience from a personal development standpoint. I aim to be at least two months ahead of schedule before the end of summer.

 

Books I Read

Creating Magic by Lee Cockerell

The New Era Of Fitness by Eric and Chris Martinez

Your Creative Career by Anna Sabino

Think And Grow Rich: The Legacy by James Whittaker

 

July 2018 Goals

I’m intentionally skipping the goal review for the previous month because I don’t want to think about other goals. I only have two goals this month, and that’s by design.

Goal #1 is the Tipping Point Goal, which upon accomplishing, makes every other goal easier. All of the past goals I’ve come up with will be much easier as soon as I accomplish Goal #1.

Goal #2 is something that may help me with Goal #1. Anyway, here are those two goals:

 

#1: Grow My Email List By 1,500

The money is in the list, and my income tends to shrink and expand in relation to how much I’m growing my email list and engaging with the people already on it.

1,500 subscribers per day requires that I average 50 subscribers per day. Accomplishing this goal makes it easier for me to do the following:

• Attract more coaching clients
• Increase affiliate revenue
• Increase traffic
• Increase downloads
• Get more public speaking opportunities
• Reach more people
• Growing my team 

All of my goals become much easier if not already completed if I grow my email list. I want to reach a point where hundreds of people join my email list every day. That’s why I reduced the amount of goals and am not thinking too much about last month’s goals.

Every goal I have becomes much easier if I’m growing my email list on a higher scale.

Here are the three ways I intend to grow my email list right now:

1. Facebook ads
2. More virtual summits (Wealthy Author Summit will be launched on November 7th)
3. Bundles (my first bundle will come out towards the end of August)

 

#2: Hire One More Assistant

I already know who I want to hire. It’s just a matter of making more revenue so I can easily pay her and everyone else on my team. That goal will be made possible if I see myself making more revenue…and you already know the Tipping Point goal that will help me make more revenue.

Everything, once again, goes back to growing the email list.

 

In Conclusion

My business model relies on the email list for revenue and growth. In past months, I have given myself several goals. However, I am solely focused on growing my email list this month. No other goal matters because a larger and more engaged email list allows me to accomplish far more of the goals I set for myself.

I see myself reading fewer books in future months not just because of the time investment and that I’m still a college student. Rather, I see myself interviewing at least 10 people each week even during the school year to continue providing you with Breakthrough Success episodes and epic virtual summits.

What are your thoughts on this Performance Report? Do you have any questions for me? Sound off in the comments section below.

I did some things this month, but overall, I feel like I didn’t do as well as in previous months. As I thought about writing this Performance Report, I thought I’d have a lot of exciting things to say.

Note: This performance report came out later than usual due to a blog update and problems with my website after the update. The problems have now been solved. This is also why you didn’t seen as much content from me last month.

However, I played a lot of defense this month and have 162 flagged messages I have to get to in my inbox. April was also the first full month of baseball, and as a big Red Sox fan, I find myself watching a lot of the games on MLB’s website.

I know my productivity will return to top form in less than a month because that’s how close I am to my summer break. The plan is to work so intensely throughout the day that I can relax in the evening when baseball and family time take over.

This Performance Report will take a different structure from previous reports. It will address what I did this month and focus on goals for the following month.

 

So What Did I Actually Do This Month?

I’m not writing that as a catchy headline. I actually have to ask myself that question. I did all of the things I’m supposed to do. I continued providing you with content, interviewing incredible guests for Breakthrough Success, and everything else I’m supposed to be doing.

If I slipped on anything this month (things I’m supposed to be doing…not to be confused with goals I set for myself), it was on tweeting. Twitter’s new rule changes mean I have to tweet manually, and I’m looking for creative ways to do that.

Most of the productivity this month can be categorized into three areas:

Training my assistants and boosting accountability

Working with my coach and audio editor to provide a better experience for Breakthrough Success listeners

Plan out my new coaching program for anyone who wants to start or grow their online business (I’ve told some people about it. Lets e know if you are interested in learning more)

 

A Special Note About Breakthrough Success

I get a great joy out of interviewing the guests who appear on the show. I know this format provides a lot of value to you, and that’s why I’m working to improve the experience.

One of my podcast coach’s suggestions was to incorporate music in the beginning and end of my episodes. He recommended I go through Audio Jungle to find the right music for my show. After listening to a few audio snippets, I realized Audio Jungle was the wrong place for me.

Fun Fact: My grandpa was incredible with the accordion. He frequently played it when he visited us.

Fun Fact #2: You’ll hear some of his music in future Breakthrough Success episodes (my mom urged me to do this, so a big shout out to her).

I now get hit with some nostalgia each time I listen to some of the upcoming episodes. You’ll hear those episodes soon. I’ll make a big announcement when the new changes are in effect.

 

May 2018 Goals + New Change

Before I state my May 2018 Goals, I want to first address something about my Performance Reports.

I always state goals for the upcoming month. I don’t always do them. I’ll forget about them a few days after writing the Performance Report because a new goal catches my eye.

While this wasn’t my most productive month, one thing I learned about myself is that I am VERY productive when I’m using Google Docs.

I don’t know why, but for some reason, my productivity and accountability spikes when I’m using Google Docs. I have multiple Google Docs set up for each of my assistants.

I created a Google Doc with some of my running goals, so I asked myself, “Why stop there?”

I will state my May 2018 Goals, but most of the details are in a Google Doc. I initially thought to provide the Google Doc link in this report, but since it’s so late into May, I’ll just list them here:

#1: Land 5 Clients For My Coaching Services

#2: Host 2 Webinars

#3: Revamp The CMP Sales Page

#4: Add 20 Videos To CMP

#5: Read 10 Books

In Conclusion

I intentionally made this Performance Report shorter than usual. You can see continuous updates on my five goals in the Google Docs. I’ll include what I’m doing each day and week to accomplish the goals I set for myself.

What are your thoughts on this Performance Report? Do you have a question for me? Sound off in the comments section below.

February, just like all months, was interesting. I gleaned over some of my Performance Reports and realized that I dramatize each month a little bit.

They feel dramatic in the moment, and this one certainly fits the bill too. However, a few months later, this month, just like the others, won’t feel as dramatic.

But since I’m writing this in the end of February, we’re about to get dramatic.

 

Copywriting Academy

One of my favorite training courses to promote is the Copywriting Academy. My audience responds the strongest to Ray’s training and gets a lot out of it which is why I continue promoting it each year.

Anyone who bought Copywriting Academy will get more details about the bonuses soon.

The launch timing for Copywriting Academy was critical because I went down with a stomach virus for an entire week. If I went down with that stomach virus on the week I ran one of my virtual summits, it would have been a disaster.

But as an affiliate, the timing couldn’t be better. All I really had to do was take Ray’s swipe copy, slightly modify it, and share that message with my audience. That meant I could still communicate with everyone and provide value even though I wasn’t at my full capacity.

The stomach virus is an important part of February. I literally did nothing productive for an entire week other than promote Copywriting Academy. I learned a lot during that stomach virus (more details in the report) and came across a startling realization to finish strong.

 

My Business Didn’t Get Sick

If I got that stomach virus two years ago, then I wouldn’t have been the only sick one. My business would have also had several off days.

Flash forward to the recent stomach virus. Parts of my business were still inactive. Blog posts weren’t scheduled (my fault) and I didn’t publish a new SkillShare course during that stretch.

But some things were still happening.

My show notes writer continued writing notes and my podcast editor continued editing episodes. Here’s the important lesson…

Even though I did NOTHING for my business, SOME THINGS were still happening.

This is why you need to delegate some tasks within your business. If you get sick, that’s not an excuse for your business to temporarily pause.

 

Trimming Expenses

This month, I made a very conscious effort to trim down my expenses. While I know this before, I relearned that there are two ways to make an extra $1,000.

Everyone knows the first way. The first way is to earn an additional $1,000 from your work. The second way to make an extra $1,000 is to spend $1,000 less than what you’re already spending.

I made two decisions that will save me a considerable amount of money every year. The first decision was to replace my audio editor with an editor I could more readily afford.

The second decision was using ThriveCart instead of SamCart. ThriveCart was a one-time cost of $595 while SamCart is a consistent $197/mo. ThriveCart also has more capabilities than SamCart including the (for me) very desirable ability to incorporate multiple Optimize Member websites in the same ThriveCart account.

This alone saved me a lot of frustration from SamCart which only allows you to use one website with an Optimize Member integration. I literally created the Guberti Academy portal with all of my courses and summits in it just to accommodate SamCart’s limitation.

ThriveCart’s capabilities and my new knowledge on running evergreen events is now making me float the idea of hosting another virtual summit. Hosting virtual summits isn’t easy, but ThriveCart makes it very easy to host multiple summits without creating a mega portal with all of the logins.

 

Books I Read

As I promised in the previous report, I finally tracked my books again. You’ll notice that this Performance Report is different as there will be asterisks next to some of the book titles. An asterisk indicates I already read the book but re-read what I underlined in those books.

I also got a few free books from people who will be guests on some of the Breakthrough Success episodes. #PodcastPerks

Ditch Your Inner Critic At Work by Susan Peppercorn

How Successful People Think by John C. Maxwell

The Other Kind of Smart by Harvey Deutschendorf

5,000 Words Per Hour by Chris Fox

Profit First by Mike Michalowicz

Shortchanged by Shortcuts? by Aaron Hendon

500 Social Media Marketing Tips by Andrew Macarthy

Tribe Of Mentors by Timothy Ferriss–I always find that reading one of Tim’s mammoths of a book puts me back on a streak of reading more books.

Rise And Grind by Daymond John*

The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy*

Quantum Success by Sandra Anne Taylor*

Secrets Of The Millionaire Mind by T. Harv Eker*

No Excuses! by Brian Tracy*

The Science Of Getting Rich by Wallace D. Wattles*

Millionaire Success Habits by Dean Graziosi*

At least three additional books*

 

Review Of February 2018 Goals

#1: Contact 50 Podcast Hosts: I did not contact that many hosts, but I have been a guest on more podcasts. I also made a summit appearance.

#2: Delegate Scheduling Content: I am right at that stage. I wrote this report on February 25th, but by the end of February, this will be done. My assistant handles scheduling content right now but one small tweak needs to be made for me to consider this complete.

#3: Publish At Least 20 SkillShare Courses: My stomach virus put me off track from this goal, but I did publish 10 new courses in February. Right now, I’m hesitant to create more courses because one of my courses gets 90% of the minutes watched. I need to get more courses at the level of my top course before I consider creating 20 new SkillShare courses every month.

#4: Get At Least 10 Patrons: I did not get any patrons this month. I promoted my Patreon Page to my audience but it didn’t happen. I managed to significantly cut expenses which makes up for me not getting 10 patrons this month.

#5: Hire A Coach: I really thought I’d accomplish this goal in February. I know I need a coach eventually. However, February was filled with such change that I want to ensure I have the right objectives and am in a better position to get a better ROI.

 

March 2018 Goals

#1: Run FB Ads For The Content Marketing Success Summit: The summit is a proven concept. I am finalizing the evergreen side and then using FB ads to promote it. This is part of my initiative to have over 100,000 email subscribers by the end of the year.

#2: Get Involved With 4 Cross Promotions: One strategy I’m experimenting with is partnering up with other people who have similar audiences and email list sizes. I promote one of their landing pages and they promote one of my landing pages. I anticipate getting an extra 200-500 subscribers in March by implementing this approach.

#3: Plan Out A CMP Promotion: The Content Marketing Plaza is my flagship course. Since I’m not going all-in with other people’s courses for a while, I want to promote the Plaza. That means setting up a new funnel, landing pages, free offers, and a webinar.

#4: Write The Draft For My Next Book: My next book will be about content marketing. It will be similar to Content Marketing Secrets but explore new areas that I didn’t cover in the previous book. I’m working with a publisher for this one and will keep you all updated. The first draft of my book must be 50,000 words.

#5: Delegate More Tasks: I’ll have to get creative with this because I feel like I’ve delegated a lot. However, the more I delegate, the more things I realize I need to delegate. I’m sure I’ll have a list of things to delegate by the first week of March. I intentionally delegate much of the tasks around me so I can focus more of my time on my priorities.

 

In Conclusion

After a bump in the middle of the road, I finished strong and came across new ideas. I attribute the strong turnaround to Tom Morkes’ 100K Launch School.

I was one of the speakers during this virtual summit, but I watched some of the other sessions. Those sessions empowered and inspired me to try new objectives and pursue goals I had forgotten about.

I am very excited about delegating some of the content creation for my brand. The plan is for me to provide a macro outline and my assistant writes the complete blog post. This is still in progress.

What were your thoughts on this month’s performance report? Do you have a question for me? Sound off in the comments section below.

This was a special month for me. Not only is the start of a New Year very exciting, but I also celebrated my 20th birthday.

I’m no longer a teen entrepreneur, and that doesn’t bother me. In fact, I’m more excited than ever about my potential.

I established a few new key habits in my life and optimized what already worked.

 

My New Book Reading Habits

Yes, I forgot to track the books I read again. However, to make up for it, I will track them in the future and leave you with some new reading habits.

The first reading habit I developed is to read 5-10 books when I wake up. These 5-10 books are all the same books that I’ve already read. I’ll read 5-10 pages of each of these books and only read the parts that I underlined.

I choose high impact books that are easy for me to read at the start of the day. For example, The Compound Effect is one of these books, but I couldn’t stick with a social media based book because my mind isn’t ready for that at 4 am.

I’ve considered reading 5-10 different books to conclude my day which would be a guaranteed 10-20 books every month.

But how do I then read new books each month? As I originally did, I find time in my day to make it happen. However, I’m incorporating audiobooks into more parts of my life. I finally decided to listen to audiobooks during commutes. That’s had a big effect on my learning.

40 minutes each day. At the 1.5 speed rate, that’s an hour of audiobook content every day. With 30 hours of new audiobook content every month, I can get through 5-10 audiobooks each month depending on the average length of the audiobooks.

 

My Favorite Way To Learn

Knowledge acquisition is one of my top priorities. I know that if I expand my knowledge, I expand my potential.

Of all of the ways to learn, my favorite way to learn is by interviewing people on the Breakthrough Success Podcast. I interview at least five people each week. Since each interview is 30-45 minutes long (lately closer to the 45 minute side), I learn anywhere from 2.5 hours to 3 hours and 45 minutes every week.

From a content production standpoint, I have no need to boost this number right now. I have interviews done at least two months in advance. However, I want to continue learning new things and eventually turn Breakthrough Success into a daily podcast.

Also from that content production standpoint, I’d choose not to conduct any interviews during a two week vacation.

Podcasting is the best way to create a new piece of content. I can go on and on about podcasting, but I choose to stop here for now.

 

SkillShare Courses

Lately I’ve been creating more courses on SkillShare. This was inspired by one of my Thinking Sessions where I determined that I could easily generate more revenue by creating courses on SkillShare.

For me, this was an underutilized opportunity that didn’t take much time. My SkillShare courses are very short (10-30 minutes) which makes it possible for me to complete multiple courses in some days.

I’m in the process of choosing 2-3 days where I complete at least seven training courses. The goal is to eventually launch one new SkillShare course every day.

I’m focusing more of my time on SkillShare for a few reasons:

The Content Marketing Plaza has been fully buffed. I don’t need to add another update until a few weeks out.

SkillShare is the Netflix of learning. For $9.99/mo, you get unlimited access to the courses SkillShare provides. This makes binge learning possible. If you want to get your first two months free of charge, join SkillShare with this link.

The payment structure is a per minute basis. This payment structure gives me a greater incentive to create courses. The more minutes watched, the more money I make. SkillShare’s binge learning set-up also makes it beneficial to create more courses as one student may decide to watch all of your courses.

These aren’t as long as the Udemy courses I create. Right now, my plan for incorporating these courses into Udemy is to create a few themed mini courses on SkillShare and group them into one big Udemy course. However, this is yet to happen.

By the way, since I aim to eventually publish one new SkillShare course every day, what do you want to see? Please share in the comments after you read this month’s Performance Report.

I Will Be On More Podcasts In 2018

I can’t count the number of reasons why I enjoy interviewing people. At the same time, I couldn’t the number of reasons why I enjoy getting interviewed on other people’s shows. The big ones for me are the added exposure, reconnecting with myself, and reminding myself of my knowledge.

The first one is obvious so I won’t talk about that one. That’s why I’ll skip to the other two.

When I get interviewed, I almost always have to talk about my story. Sometimes we forget where we began, but getting interviewed reminds me of my roots. As we get deeper into the interview, I have to fully display my knowledge.

I know I also have to do this with every blog post I write, but interviews feel different. I get very specific questions and need to tailor my answer to the question and the host’s listeners.

I saw the impact of these interviews and my work in comments like these.

Each time I’m interviewed, I take it very seriously. I want to create that level of impact with every interview. Obviously, some interviews are better than others. The host and guest need to flow, and in this case, Caitlin and I were absolutely jamming.

But to create the impact, I need to get on more podcasts. I’ll have a goal for that in February which I’ll talk about very soon.

 

Review Of January 2018 Goals

Here are my thoughts and progress on the goals I set for this month.

#1: Get Consistent CMP Sales: I am working hard to optimize the sales page. I have temporary discounts in play and will add more videos to the sales page soon. I’m using Chandler Bolt’s SPS sales page as a guide.

#2: Plan A Meet-Up: I recently learned that I can simply contact some local libraries and get my book in there. I learned this from one of the guests I had on my show. Instead of planning a meet-up, I sent several pitches to places I could speak at over the summer. My fingers are crossed.

#3: Schedule All Content Past March: My blog posts are done past February and my podcast episodes are done past March. The only challenge is scheduling them, but I am working to delegate this task soon.

 

February 2018 Goals

Now that I’ve reviewed my goals for February, I’ll provide the list of goals I have for February 2018:

 

#1: Contact 50 Podcast Hosts

Instead of setting a goal for the number of interviews I get in February, I will set a goal for the number of podcast hosts I contact.

I know that as I land on more podcasts, I’ll get more requests to be on other people’s podcasts. The initial work I do will pay great dividends later on.

 

#2: Delegate Scheduling Content

I have no problem with creating content, but scheduling content has been the problem. I am actually close to delegating this part. I have a Google Doc in place with set instructions for my blog posts. All I need to do now is finalize it and create a Google Doc for my podcast episodes.

This will be the easiest task to delegate, but I’ll need to boost my revenue with the extra time.

 

#3: Publish At Least 20 SkillShare Courses 

This is one of my strategies for boosting revenue based on what I previously discussed. I will give SkillShare a month to see if this is a revenue generating activity I should continue pursuing.

The eventual goal is to make thousands of dollars of passive income through SkillShare each month. Other creators have achieved this milestone and I believe I can get there as well.

Plus, I no longer find it difficult to start doing videos. It’s become much easier for me to create videos ever since I took SkillShare seriously again.

 

#4: Get At Least 10 Patrons

While I can’t say enough great things about being the host of the Breakthrough Success Podcast, it costs me over $1,000 each month to keep the show running and expenses continue to grow.

To provide you with a better experience, I don’t include any ads within my shows. The problem is that this requires me to sacrifice a lot of revenue. That’s why I’m asking you and the rest of my community for help.

I recently started a Patreon Page to ensure I can run the show and keep it ad free. If you want to help me reach my goal of 10 patrons for this month, please consider leaving a small contribution on my Patreon Page.

Even $1/mo makes a big difference, and if you’re one of the patrons before we reach $100/mo, I will audit your website and give you personal recommendations on how you can boost your traffic and conversions.

This is a goal that I can only achieve with your help. Please consider becoming a patron and asking others to help support the show.

 

#5: Hire A Coach

My research is done. I don’t have a list of five coaches or even a list of three coaches. I have a list with one coach and one coach only. This individual has coached several of the guests on my show and some of the top influencers in my niche.

I don’t want to say this individual’s name until I’ve officially hired him and we’re getting started, but I have one coach in mind.

The more successful I am with SkillShare and my other ventures, the earlier in the month I can hire him. This is something that I know needs to happen.

In Conclusion

I started off the year strong. I’ve acquired much knowledge, established some new habits, and am excited about what February brings. Hiring my coach will represent a big investment for my success, but I know it will be well worth it.

What were your thoughts on this month’s performance report? Do you have any questions for me? Sound off in the comments section below.