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December 2017 Monthly Performance Report

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The last month of the year is always a fast sprint to the finish line. No matter how productive I felt for the rest of the year, December is always a sprint…and I like it that way.

Before we go into this Performance Report, here are two cool facts about this Performance Report:

I wrote this report on New Year’s Eve. I did this on purpose so this is a true reflection of my year. Again, with the way I sprinted in December, there’s a lot I did during the final week.

I wrote this Performance Report as a teen entrepreneur. I published the Performance Report on my birthday. I’m 20. If that feels weird for anyone who’s known me as a teen entrepreneur, think of how weird it felt for me to write that while I was still 19 (and using the word was).

Without any further adieu, let’s jump into this month’s Performance Report.

 

My Content Calendar Is PACKED!

I’ve been promising more content for several months, and I’m finally living up to that promise in a big way. At the end of the year, I had daily blog posts scheduled up to January 20th. That number continues to grow since I’m committed to writing a blog post every day.

With that said, I am experimenting with having more contributors and even a ghostwriter. Right now, I am talking as a full-time entrepreneur, and I may need some additional help when I return to part-time.

Plus, I go into more detail with each of my blog posts. I include at least three pictures per blog post and do more research than usual. You’ll see more blog posts from me when I mention at least five other articles. I plan on telling everyone I mention that I mentioned them to boost social shares for my content.

And the podcast is even more packed. I have episodes done past February and enough interviews scheduled in advance to get me past mid-March. One of my assistants takes care of audio editing while another assistant writes show notes and schedules the episodes.

All I do for the post-production stage is send my audio files to my audio editor. He puts the finished episodes into a DropBox folder which my other assistant uses to write show notes. A Google Doc displays a show notes rubric and lists publication times and dates for each episode.

By the end of the first quarter, my blogging process will run as smoothly as that.

 

Content Marketing Plaza Gets Buffed

I’ve added dozens of new videos to the Content Marketing Plaza. I have more plans for 2018 as my students ask me more questions. I initially had an imaginary barrier that prevented me from doing videos.

It was much harder to start than it was to actually do the videos. Once I got more comfortable with starting, the video output flowed and expanded with ease. I now aim to do at least one video every day for the Plaza or one of my other training courses.

 

Building The Team

I am a big fan of delegation. It’s a topic that comes up in almost every Performance Report. Combine that with the fact I recently (finally) read The 4 Hour Workweek, and now I’m more supportive of delegation than ever.

I welcomed two new people to the team and am about to welcome a third member into the mix.

One of my assistants now contacts potential guests and books appointments. This takes off the responsibility of writing so many emails.

In last month’s Performance Report, I said I’d try to commit an hour a day to sending emails to build new relationships. I’m no longer about that life. I would rather have assistants help me with this task so I can focus on other areas in my business.

 

I Will Use Facebook Ads Very Soon

I might have used Facebook ads earlier, but my subscriber numbers were very sketchy towards the end of the year.

My landing pages didn’t work for at least a month (yes, you read that right), and several people told me about it. I can finally say with confidence that the problem is over.

Sometimes my landing pages would work for just one day and then not work for several days or even weeks. With that problem finally over, I can now pursue Facebook ads. My brother is an absolute wizard with Facebook ads, so we’ll have a quick meeting to set up the ad and roll it out.

 

Marketing Is At The Forefront

With all of the extra content I’m creating, marketing is still at the forefront of 2018. I’ve always seen marketing as critical, but most of my time goes towards content creation. I’ve successfully optimized and delegated some marketing platforms (i.e. Twitter) but need to expand.

This is one of the reasons I’m doing more research for each blog post and mentioning more people. I may even outsource more of my content creation so I can focus more of my time on marketing what I create.

I may start with one delegated blog post and one contributor every week to lighten the workload. This is especially important when school starts again and I don’t have as much time.

My blog and podcast showed more growth towards the end of the year. I will ride this positive trend into 2018 and beyond by placing marketing at the forefront of my business related actions.

 

I’m Organizing Meet-Ups

This is the most out-of-left-field goal of the year. During my interview with Austin Iuliano, we talked about finding, landing, and getting paid to speak. One of the tactics was to start Meet-Up Groups to get more speaking gigs.

Now I’m in the process of planning my first Meet-Up. I want 2018 to be a big year for the public speaking part of my business, and Meet-Ups will help me get there. They will also give me some practice if I decide to host and organize a large scale event later on.

If you want to listen to that episode, it will come out on February 19th at 9 am eastern. It’s Episode 97 of the Breakthrough Success Podcast.

 

Books I Read

I have to get better at tracking the books I read. I was really good at this in past Performance Reports, but I’ll commit to improving this part of the report in 2018. Now I go for about 10 books per month instead of getting as close to 30 as possible.

I studied for finals during this month so The 4-Hour Workweek is the only book I remember reading. I’ve read many Kindle books but it’s been harder for me to keep track of those.

 

Review Of December 2017 Goals

I did not do enough to land clients for my coaching program. I’ll put this on the back burner in January and get back to it in February.

Breakthrough Success is now a weekday podcast, and I am very proud of that. At the pace we’re going, Breakthrough Success may become a daily podcast soon (yay!)

I didn’t do anything this month to make CMSS evergreen. I do have a sequence in place for the Plaza which will allow me to capitalize on my profit maximizer.

 

January 2018 Goals

#1: Get Consistent CMP Sales: This goal seems more likely when I first stated it. I created a landing page and plan on changing old sequences to promote the Plaza.

#2: Plan A Meet-Up: The meet-up will focus on content marketing. I have a few locations in mind but no confirmed time and date yet.

#3: Schedule All Content Past March: For the podcast, this goal is honestly sitting on my lap. My assistants handle this part. I’ve have completed episodes past February, and by the end of the month, I would have completed episodes past mid-March. The blog is more of a challenge since I’d have to write an additional 60-70 blog posts. I want to get this goal accomplished in January so this isn’t an issue after the winter break.

 

In Conclusion

2017 had some ups and downs, but this was a strong end to the year. I sprint strong towards the finish line as I see it getting closer. I not one to procrastinate often, but when I look at my December sprint and the rest of my year, I wondered how I could extend that sprint.

With a new year in front of us, now is the perfect time to expand on that end-of-the-year sprint. Most people are great at extending that sprint for the first few weeks of the year.

Make sure you can extend that sprint for the long haul. 2018 and beyond.

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

November 2017 Monthly Performance Report

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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.

October 2017 Monthly Performance Report

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October was a very important month for me. I only published one blog post the entire month as the focus was on completing my book. This is why I won’t list the blog posts I’ve published this month in this Performance Report. I plan on creating more products and conducting more launches in the months and years to come.

I can’t keep hiding behind the fact that I’m working on a product or prepping for a launch. Towards the end of the month, I reflected on this issue and finally have a solution in place to combat the issue.

I Officially Have An Accountability Partner

After many months of listing this as a goal and saying how an accountability partner will help me, I did less talking and more walking. I found my accountability partner towards the end of October after I saw the lackluster production as a serious problem.

My accountability partner will get me committed to consistently publishing new content on my blog and podcast. I am excited to get started with my accountability partner and believe this will have a great impact on the level of value I provide to my audience.

 

Daily Episodes Are Coming

With no virtual summit in the plans until May, I have more time to connect with potential guests and have them on the Breakthrough Success Podcast. For a while, I’ve dreamed of turning Breakthrough Success into a daily show, and with the extra time, I can make it happen.

The plan is to interview many people now and go to the next level towards the end of the year when I’ll have a few weeks off from school. Interviewing people for my podcast is one of my favorite things to do, and my mission is to provide you with more of those interviews so you can gather more insights.

 

The Formula Is Getting Simpler

Sometimes, people stand still because they feel as if they need to do so much. In the beginning of October, I was that person. I thought about organizing a mastermind, offering a coaching package, creating a new training course, growing my freelancer base, and marketing what I already had.

That’s too much to think about. Instead of letting that jumbled formula dictate my actions, I became more clear with my approach:

Get more sales for my Content Marketing Plaza course. That’s the top priority. If a task doesn’t help me get more sales for the Content Marketing Plaza course, it doesn’t matter.

 

Fully Activating My Freelancers

One day, I see myself as an individual with a big team of freelancers. Depending on the vision, I’ve seen myself with a team of anywhere from 10-100 freelancers. While it’s important to set a vision for yourself, you need to do the ground work to get there.

Right now, I have five freelancers working for me, and before I think about adding Freelancer #6 to the mix, I want to fully activate the five freelancers currently working for me. Here’s what a full activation looks like:

An efficient workflow. I now have a Google Doc where my freelancer can write show notes using my format. This is more efficient because I would normally edit some notes my freelancer gave me to create the rubric. Now I just copy and paste those show notes into Libsyn and upload the audio file. Eventually, I won’t have to do that step.

More hours. Most of my freelancers are part-time, and I need to get them closer to full-time for them to have a bigger impact on my brand’s growth.

Constant communications. I’m arranging more meetings with my freelancers to make sure the work process runs smooth.

 

Books I Read

I started very slow with reading (my iPhone’s touch screen is sketchy which means Kindle Reader isn’t an option), but thanks to a thrift book store (a lucky find), I was able to finish strong.

The Five Hour Workday by Stephan Aarstol

The Automatic Millionaire by David Bach

The Big Thing by Phyllis Korkki

There Are No Overachievers by Brian D. Biro

Poke The Box by Seth Godin

The Happiness Makeover by M.J. Ryan

 

October’s Podcast Episodes

E51: How To Schedule Your Dreams No Matter What Your Schedule Looks Like With Liane R. Grant

E52: Turning Blog Posts Into A BOOK With Amy Morse

E53: Overcoming Obstacles By Dancing To Their Beat With Jamie Stenhouse

November 2017 Goals

I want you to notice something very important about my November 2017 Goals. I’m only mentioning four goals. In all of 2017, I averaged 6.3 goals per Performance Report.

More importantly, all of these goals work together. They aren’t independent and unconnected. Rather, the work I put towards one of these goals aids me for the other three. I don’t know if every month will be like this, but I will aim for that sweet spot in future months.

#1: Get Consistent CMP Sales: The Content Marketing Plaza (CMP) is my top training course. It has the highest retail value and overall value. Selling this training course matters more than selling any other training course that I offer. CMP provides a level of value that can transform content brands, and that value needs to reach more people.

#2: Fully Activate My Freelancers: With the help of consistent CMP sales, I can fully activate my freelancers. I’m not thinking of expansion right now. Full activation is the focus. Knowing that my freelancers are performing more tasks in the background will give me more time to address CMP and other parts of my brand.

#3: Have All Of This Year’s Content Scheduled: Fully activating my freelancers is a critical stepping stone to reach this objective. My accountability partner will keep me on track with my blog posts, and my podcast is virtually covered at this point.

#4: Crush It With Content Marketing Secrets: While this goal doesn’t depend on the other three, it supports all three goals. At the beginning of the book, I’ll include a free resource readers can get by joining my email list. This offer will be visible when potential customers preview the book’s first few pages on Amazon before they pay. I understand some people won’t pay after getting the free resource, but that resource will lead to CMP. As the book helps with leads and CMP sales, it automatically helps with the other two goals for November.

 

In Conclusion

The word that sums up my efforts for November is “automatic.” I have created set-and-forget systems in the past, but nothing to the scale of what I’m about to do.

And of course, no one really forgets about the systems they set. Any system can go through a good tweaking process and convert even higher.

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

September 2017 Monthly Performance Report

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September 2017 was highlighted by my Productivity Virtual Summit where over 50 speakers shared their insights on boosting your productivity. At the same time, school started and took up more of my time.

Let’s dive right in…

The Usual Script

For some reason, I always find myself saying that I wish I had a more productive month regardless of what I accomplish. This month will be no exception. I tend to view what I didn’t do, and that sometimes results in me forgetting what I did or not taking what I did as seriously. This is an issue I’m striving to fix.

My Decision With Virtual Summits

As much as I love to provide a great experience for my attendees, I need to get smarter when hosting virtual summits.

I only gave myself three months of prep from the Content Marketing Success Summit to the Productivity Virtual Summit, and while I thought about running another virtual summit in March, I am currently holding off on that idea.

There are many moving parts when organizing a virtual summit, and it’s very difficult to run a virtual summit on your own. With the exception of three video editors, I ran the entire summit on my own.

I was an affiliate manager, web designer, interviewer (including prep), the guy responsible for outreach, swipe copy writer, email sender, and more all wrapped into one.

Instead of creating an entirely new summit, I’m going to strengthen CMSS for it’s second year in May 2018. I will have a team behind that launch because I don’t want to put all of the workload on myself anymore. I’d rather focus on doing the interviews and communicating with attendees.

 

I Am Really Close To Hiring A VA

September made me realize how much I need a VA. As you’ll see when I reveal the content I published this month, I didn’t have a solid plan in place to continue publishing content as the summit was running.

I published relatively little content, and I need to revamp my Publishing Calendar to reflect this month’s output.

I’ve mentioned hiring a VA before, but this time, I am very close. One of the speakers for the Productivity Virtual Summit specializes in finding the best VAs, and some VAs reading past Performance Reports directly contacted me.

In the end, I’m looking for someone who can accomplish the majority of tasks I need them to accomplish while being a weekly accountability partner via a Skype call.

 

A New Approach For Writing Blog Posts

I really need to give a shout out to Meera Kothand for this tip she shared in her book The One Hour Content Plan.

She said that instead of writing a blog post from start to finish, you can write several blog posts at the same time.

For instance, on Day 1, you write out the blog post topic and its outline. On Day 2, you write the introductions and conclusions for all five of those blog posts. On Day 3, you write the bodies of those blog posts. On Day 4 you polish those blog post bodies with some research and SEO juice, and on Day 5 you schedule all five of those blog posts.

I’m more than willing to give this a try, especially after this month’s performance from the blogging standpoint.

 

DATE REVEAL: Content Marketing Secrets

I have put several months of time, attention, and energy towards this book and the Productivity Virtual Summit. Now I can solely focus on the book, and I’m almost done with it.

I will publish the book on November 14, 2017. I know, just two months after the summit, but I have a nice break going into the holiday season and launching a book (in my opinion) isn’t as difficult as prepping for a virtual summit.

Several people have already agreed to provide advanced praise for the book which is really exciting, but there’s a special reason why I chose November 14th, and I need your help!

This book is the last book that I will ever publish as a teenager…

I turn 20 on January 3, 2018. I’ve always wanted a book of mine to land on a bestsellers list while I was a teen because that would help inspire other teens and let them see what’s possible for them. I’ve been putting my heart and soul to making Content Marketing Secrets a bestseller worthy book, but the marketing makes that status possible.

If you want to help me accomplish this goal for my last book in my teenage years, please email me with the subject line “Book Launch Team”

 

Books I Read

I initially started out on a cold streak due to prepping for the summit, but then I got on a hot streak. It turns out I decided to enroll into Kindle Unlimited which offers 1.4 million eBooks for just $9.99/mo.

Many of the top publishing companies don’t put their eBooks through Kindle Unlimited, but I’ve been reading more self-published books lately, and they’ve been amazing.

The Kindle Writing Bible by Tom Corson-Knowles

Schedule Your Success by Tom Corson-Knowles

Rules of the Rich by Tom Corson-Knowles

Instant Focus by Patrick King

The One Hour Content Plan by Meera Kothand

The Content Code by Mark Schaefer (first time audio, second time Kindle book)

Content That Converts by Laura Hanly

Productivity For Indie Authors by David Lee Martin

Million Dollar Habits by Stellan Moreira

Book Launch Formula by Justin Ledford

The Anti-Procrastination Habit by Steve Scott

 

September’s Blog Posts

How To Stay Organized On Your Computer

Case Study: How To Read 30 Books In 30 Days

September’s Podcast Episodes

E49: Building A 7-Figure Amazon FBA Empire With Ryan Grant

E50: Real Artists Don’t Starve With Jeff Goins

 

October 2017 Goals

For this month, I opted against reviewing my September 2017 goals because I’m still working on them. Here are my goals for October:

#1: Get At Least 100 People On The Book Team: I’ll send an email to my list about the book launch soon. I’ve already contacted some people within my network.

#2: Get Interviewed On At Least 10 Podcasts: I’m leveraging my network and expanding it to make this goal a reality.

#3: Finish The Final Draft Of The Book & Pre-Order Page: I’m making great strides in this area by waking up at 4:30 am every morning to write my book.

#4: Create 100 Videos: I might record videos in a different setting, but I’m looking to reduce the amount of steps it takes for me to go from idea to published video.

#5: Hire A VA: This has been a goal for a while, but I’m determined to make it happen.

#6: Write 15 Blog Posts: I only provided my audience with two blog posts this month which I’m not happy about. I’m making up for lost time.

#7: Read 30 Books: I’d set the goal much higher if my iPhone wasn’t messed up (the touch screen has a mind of its own. I only have to hold out a little longer until the iPhone X comes out). For now, I primarily read Kindle books on my computer.

 

In Conclusion

I wish I did so much more in September. The combination of a summit and school starting up again crunched up a lot of my extra time, but I ultimately let it happen.

With that said, I am in a position to get a lot done in October. We’ll have to see what happens.

Did you like this performance report? Have any big goals of your own? Do you have a question for me? Sound off in the comments section below.

August 2017 Monthly Performance Report

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NOTE: This performance report came out later than usual. My website actually acted weird on me and shut down for a few days. I couldn’t access my dashboard and my audience couldn’t access my content…a lose-lose situation that has now been fixed.

I didn’t get as much done in August due to my two week vacation, but I still got stuff done. We’ll dive straight into one of the differentiators between me and other people in my niche.

Planning For School

I am entering my sophomore year of college and running, so I’ve been working out for several hours each day to become a better athlete. August 30th is my first day of school which means I lose a lot of time I’d normally spend on my business. I also have an expanding workout schedule by choice which means less time for the business.

The strange irony is that when I feel like I’m losing more time to address the business, I end up getting more done.

With that said, if I don’t plan for school, athletics, and business, those pillars will fall. On some days, I’ll home early. On other days, I’ll get home after 6 pm.

There’s more free time for college students than high school students, but abusing this free time is the recipe for disaster.

Here’s how I’m planning for school (a.k.a. making sure the business still gets plenty of attention and thrives in the process)

1. A temporary break from virtual summits. I love organizing virtual summits, but they are a lot of work. I have no problem with interviewing people, but I have to create training videos for 3-5 training courses within a few weeks, make sure all of the funnels work, and respond to a ton of people.

2. Daily podcast episodes. With that said, I still love interviewing people and providing my audience with those interviews. My solution for my temporary summit hiatus after the upcoming Productivity Virtual Summit is to publish one new interview on my Breakthrough Success Podcast every day. I will conduct several interviews on Tuesdays and Wednesdays so I can do other things for the rest of the week.

3. More outsourcing. Every time I have outsourced any part of my brand, my business has grown. Outsourcing allows me to regain countless hours in my day. I will go more into detail about my outsourcing plans towards the end of the Performance Report.

 

My Progress With The Monthly Calendar

I’ve been writing more blog posts ever since I instituted the monthly calendar. Not all of the blog posts are published yet, and I attribute that to going on my two week vacation. As it will be a very long time before my next two week vacation, I’m not making any excuses.

Vacation

It has been a very long time since my last vacation. Physically, I go on vacation 2-3 times per year and all in the summer.

But I went on vacation for the first time in several years…

I did virtually ZERO work. The most I did was respond to emails at the end of the day or when other family members did their work. I want more vacations to be like that last one where I’m not doing any work. It was an amazing recharge and I came back more productive than ever.

The work I do to outsource more of my tasks will make that dream become a more frequent reality.

Productivity Virtual Summit—Finishing Touches

This summit is the 2nd one I’m organizing (50+ speakers) and I plan on taking a short break from summits. With school and athletics taking on a bigger portion of my life, I don’t want to go head first into another virtual summit.

I was able to organize the Productivity Virtual Summit right after wrapping up CMSS because of the summer schedule. If I were to organize a summit after PVS, it would have taken place during my finals, or the bulk of the preparation would have occurred during my final exams.

I’m almost ready to reveal the site, and if you’re subscribed to my email list, you’ll get that info before everyone else.

I’m Turning Breakthrough Success Into A Daily Podcast

I love interviewing people, and since I have no immediate plans on organizing a third virtual summit, I need a new excuse to interview the top experts on the planet.

Enter the beefed up Breakthrough Success Podcast!

At some point between the end of the Productivity Virtual Summit and the end of the year, the transition from weekly to daily podcast will be complete.

I already have almost a dozen extra interviews scheduled for the Breakthrough Success Podcast. Marathons such as interviewing 33 people in two weeks for CMSS will get applied to the podcast for a while.

I intend on having far more episodes than I need so I have the ability to host another virtual summit in the near future if I see something that can work.

Affiliate Marketing

I am in love with affiliate marketing. The opportunity for me to impact people with other people’s training while generating some revenue is amazing. For instance, I’m promoting Matt McWilliams’ No Product No Problem course which teaches people how to become successful affiliate marketers.

Matt has been teaching me this stuff for years, and I am so happy to be promoting his training to my audience.

I also have plans on sharing some training from Jeff Walker (THE founding father of online product launches) and Michael Hyatt (a master in productivity) just before I start promoting my Productivity Virtual Summit.

I’ll sprinkle in several blog posts and episodes in between 🙂

I have plans on doing some internal launches soon, but I won’t reveal the details until I have a more clear picture of products and time tables.

Books I Read

Humanize Your Brand by Jessica Ann

Getting Things Done by David Allen

Weekend Millionaire Mindset by Mike Summey and Roger Dawson

Code Of The Extraordinary Mind by Vishen Lakhiani

Top Of Mind by John Hall

Conversion Code by Chris Smith

Rich20 Something by Daniel DiPiazza

The Magic Of Thinking Big by David J. Schwartz

Schedule Your Dreams by Liane R. Grant

Daily Inbox Zero by S.J. Scott

7 Habits Of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey

Work The System by Sam Carpenter

The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson

Quantum Success by Sandra Anne Taylor

10 Messages Your Angels Want You To Know by Doreen Virtue

Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans

Mind Hacking by John Hargrave

No Limits by John C. Maxwell

Do Less Be More by Susan Pearse

Jeffrey Gitomer’s Little Platinum Book Of Cha-Ching by Jeffrey Gitomer

 

August’s Blog Posts

How To Choose The Best Blog Post Topics

How To Play More Offense For Your Business

6 Indispensable Factors For Attractive And Strong Content Marketing In 2017

7 Jackpot Principles For Improving Your Email Outreach

 

August’s Podcast Episodes

I did several interviews but didn’t realize I didn’t publish them. I’ll make up for it with the summit, but I plan on outsourcing more steps in turning an interview into an episode so I have less tasks to address.

 

Review Of August 2017 Goals

#1: Set Up A Strong Set-And-Forget Revenue Stream—While I haven’t launched this system into the public yet (I’m finalizing a few things), I made great progress in this area. I am taking all of the training courses I created while organizing the Content Marketing Success Summit and putting them all into one funnel.

#2: Contact 1,000 Affiliates—I have close to 100 affiliates confirmed for the launch. While I wasn’t able to contact 1,000 affiliates in all, I still believe I did a great in this area…especially since I truly went on vacation and wasn’t just physically at a vacation destination.

#3: Finalize The Street Team For My Upcoming Book—I joined a mastermind that specializes in this area and is filled with people who support upcoming book launches. I consider that a strong start, but I have to actually take action to get people on my launch team.

#4: Finish Writing My Book Draft—When I was writing this Performance Report, I thought, “Well, I didn’t really finish the book draft.” However, there are still six days in August, so I’m visualizing that I did finish writing the book draft over the final days of August. I chose some days to write over 5,000 words and got the job done. Now I can start building up early praise.

#5: Finish The PVS Portal—I finished the CMSS portal a few days before the summit went live. With the exception of a small number of remaining interviews (I’m done by the first week of September), the PVS Portal is finished. Since I don’t have to worry as much about making the portal, I can focus more of my time, attention, and energy on creating the training courses I’ll offer during the summit.

September 2017 Goals

#1: Crush It With PVS—I’ve put three months of preparation into making the virtual summit special. I didn’t need as much time as compared to CMSS due to the summer season and the fact that PVS is my second go. I want to make this summit a legendary experience for all of the attendees similarly to how I did with CMSS.

#2: Build My Book Team—I don’t see this being too hard considering the Facebook Group I’m in. It’s just the process of posting book covers and more info in the group which I’ll do by the first week of September. I need to act quickly with this one.

#3: Land More Podcast Interviews—I’m getting on as many podcasts as possible in preparation for my upcoming book. I will consider hiring someone to help me with this process but will do most of the legwork on my own.

#4: Plan Out Book Promotion In Greater Detail—I need to paint a more complete picture of what the book promotion will look like so I can crush it when it’s time.

#5: Outsource More Parts Of My Business—The more you outsource, the more you realize you need to outsource more tasks. Right now I’m more focused on finding a super VA than hiring several people. Once I have a VA who can perform many tasks for me, I’ll then return to looking for help in specific areas from multiple people. Hiring a VA is currently the biggest step I can take with outsourcing more parts of my business.

 

In Conclusion

I had a strong summer but this was not my brightest month from a business standpoint. I did get to capitalize on my two week vacation and not think of work. That was a plus.

With that said, I needed a month like this. August got me hungrier for September and I can already tell you I’ve made sweeping changes in my habits to prevent the same mistakes and continue to grow in the process.

What are your thoughts on my performance reports? Do you have any questions for me? Sound off in the comments section below.

July 2017 Performance Report

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success

Dramatic changes happened in this month. I’m jumping straight into the recap in this performance report, and will be brutally honest about my flaws and successes.

The Question That Opened My Eyes

I received this question from one of my Twitter followers: “Would you please share that how did you become such a great influencer?”

I’m happy to share the answer in a future blog post, but the point I’m making here is that reading the question was like getting drenched with a bucket of cold water.

I was so absorbed in future projections that I almost never took the time to appreciate anything I had done in the past.

For instance, I never stopped to think I’m providing my freelancers with a source of income. And some of them depend on that income for their livelihoods. Now I realize that if I slack off, or am slightly off, I’m potentially letting everyone down.

In our pursuit of the future, we often fail to acknowledge the beauty of what we’ve already accomplished. But we can use this acknowledgment to keep us going and motivated to achieve our goals.

Maybe this part of the Performance Report was your version of the eye-opener. Maybe you’ll hear someone say, “How do you do that so well?”

Everyone’s eye-opener will come sooner or later. I hope you’re open to yours now. Take time to appreciate what you’ve done and celebrate the small wins.

Publishing 1 New Piece Of Content Every Day

I love becoming as efficient as possible. I think of ways to write content faster so I can move on to other tasks. While some of these ideas (content batching and writing blog posts on my smartphone) have worked wonderfully, others (writing less content and ineffective communication) have been disastrous.

At one point I was publishing one new blog post every 12 hours. But then I developed a bad habit of publishing one blog post every week (and was emailing my subscribers even less frequently). That changes now!

I got so focused on revenue generation (still important) that I sacrificed content creation, something I hold dearly. Under the new schedule, I’ll publish new blog posts on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. I want to provide more content because I love it.

I have also updated my Publishing Calendar to reflect these changes. On Wednesdays, I’ll publish an episode from my Breakthrough Success Podcast.

That leaves Mondays, Fridays, and Sundays on the table. I’m still thinking of ideas and might return to publishing YouTube videos. But if you have an idea of what you’d like to see from me on those days, let me know in the comments.

How Am I Making Revenue Then?

I mentioned that I got so focused on revenue generation that I sacrificed content creation. But as I began to expand the time I spent creating content, I faced another problem.

How do I continue making revenue? I can get the traffic, but if I sacrifice revenue, then eventually I can’t financially support my brand. Here are the streams I’m utilizing:

#1: Virtual Summits—I am happy to say that I have landed 50+ speakers for the Productivity Virtual Summit. Tom Ziglar, Grant Cardone, and Dan LeFave are some of the many superstar speakers you’ll learn from. I love virtual summits because I provide top value content, a product, and I get to learn a lot about productivity.

#2: Books—I am in the process of writing a book that details how your content brand can absolutely crush it. I’m publishing it in late October or early November.

#3: Affiliate Marketing—I promote some of the top products and tools and receive a commission for each sale.

#4: Funnels—These funnels will lead people to various training courses, upsells, and downsells.

#5: Coaching—I’ll teach you what you need to know and keep you accountable. Contact me marc@marcguberti.com if you’re interested.

The important thing about these revenue streams is that after the initial work, these are set-and-forget systems that bring in revenue. At this stage, all I have to do is check the stats and tweak things here and there to boost optimization.

I have intentionally chosen to focus on set-and-forget methods of revenue generation (with the exception of coaching) so I have more time to create high value content. And as the content brings in more visitors it will result in more revenue from my set-and-forget systems.

As I make more revenue, I’ll outsource more of the parts that I can’t forget about (i.e. recruiting affiliates).

TSMD Still Needs The Royal Treatment

I did very little for TSMD this month even though I was all-in the previous month.

The reason I haven’t been taking action is solely because I don’t like the prep work for videos. Although I love thinking up ideas and completing the videos, I don’t enjoy doing the lighting, editing, descriptions, and uploading.

Even though I’ve outsourced editing and uploading, it’s still a pain in the neck. My solution is to do more live videos so I can skip many of these cumbersome steps. My brother religiously incorporates videos into his brand, so I’ll pick his brain before proceeding.

Books I Read

Extreme Productivity

Millionaire Real Estate Investor by Robert C. Pozen

48 Days by Dan Miller

Born To Win by Zig Ziglar

#AskGaryVee by Gary Vaynerchuk

Double Double by Cameron Herold

15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management by Kevin Kruse

Execution by Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan

View From The Top by Aaron Walker

You Were Born Rich by Bob Proctor

Win by Frank I. Luntz

Ego Is The Enemy by Ryan Holiday

Live It by Jairek Robbins

Scrum by Jeff Sutherland and JJ Sutherland

7 Strategies For Wealth & Happiness by Jim Rohn

July’s Blog Posts

How To Turn Content Creation Into Content Marketing

4 Ways To Improve Your Social Media Strategy

Improve Your Content Marketing Strategy Using The Buyer’s Journey

How To Freelance Without Losing Control Of Your Blog

5 Hacks For Writing Blog Posts Faster

Decoded: Make Thousands From Your First Virtual Summit

July’s Podcast Episodes

E45: Are You Winning The Brand VS Wild Battle With Jonathan David Lewis

E46: Penniless Immigrant Now Living The American Dream With Nitin Chhoda

E47: Creating A Positive Impact On The World Through Our Businesses With Hamilton Perkins

E48: Open The Door To Happiness And Szen With Gary Szenderski

Review Of July 2017 Goals

#1: Have 10 Streams Of Income: I didn’t want to spread myself too thin, especially with the uptick of content creation. Once I have more set-and-forget streams of income, I’ll work my way towards 10 streams.

#2: Hire 3 New Freelancers: I hired one new freelancer and rehired another freelancer. It could have been better. The next freelancer I hire will most likely be a revenue generating freelancer instead of a time saving freelancer.

#3: Stop Over-Monitoring “Useless” Info: Mission accomplished.

#4: Conduct All 50+ Summit Interviews: I didn’t conduct all 50+ interviews this month, but I interviewed an overwhelming majority of the summit speakers in July.

#5: Host Weekly Webinars: This was a disaster as I didn’t even attempt it. I’ll change things up by hosting one webinar before I commit to hosting several webinars.

#6: Recruit 100+ Affiliates: It was initially difficult to recruit affiliates because I couldn’t find productivity-related products that offer affiliate programs similar to mine.

But I found my niche with JLD’s Freedom and Mastery Journals. Since then, I’ve contacted many affiliates and got several YESes. I plan on sending an email out to my entire list very soon.

August 2017 Goals

#1: Set Up A Strong Set-And-Forget Revenue Stream

The strongest form of a set-and-forget revenue I have is the Content Marketing Success Summit set-up. The only problem is that the summit is now over and it’s harder to promote a past summit.

I will use all of the order bumps and upsells I created for that summit to create the Set-And-Forget revenue stream. I’ll also modify my 27 Ways To Get More Retweets set-up to boost the revenue potential.

#2: Contact 1,000 Potential Affiliates

I want the Productivity Virtual Summit to dwarf my Content Marketing Success Summit. I’m focusing more of my time, attention, and energy on recruiting affiliates.

#3: Finalize The Street Team For My Upcoming Book

Because contacting 1,000 affiliates and finalizing a street team in the same month makes sense 🙂

#4: Finish Writing My Book Draft

I need to finish the book draft so I can start receiving early praise for the book.

#5: Finish The PVS Portal

For CMSS, I interviewed the last speaker four days before the summit was launched. During this time, videos were still getting edited and the portal wasn’t finalized. None of the CMSS order bumps or upsells were ready.

This time, I am finalizing the entire summit so I can focus more of my time on order bumps and upsells. My strategy for virtual summits is to offer as many order bumps and upsells as possible (even if I haven’t created them yet) to force myself to take action. I also have all of the necessary order bumps and upsells for a future funnel.

In Conclusion

I wrote more content in July than I have in any other month in 2017. That made me happy because I enjoy every moment of content creation. You’ll see a lot more blog posts from me in August, and I look forward to increasing that number in September and October as well.

The Productivity Virtual Summit and my upcoming book are the two main projects I’m working on now.

What were your thoughts on this performance reports? Have any tips for us so we can achieve our goals? Do you have a question for me? Sound off in the comments section below.