Performance Reports

December is always an exciting month for me. It’s one where I feel the holiday spirit, plan out for 2017, and sprint to the finish line of 2016. I also got interviewed in December, and I think you’ll be interested in what I said about digital marketing. With that said, here are some of December’s highlights:

 

Udemy Power

I initially had a slow start on Udemy, but since my middle of the month promotions, I’ve exceeded 37,000 students.

I’ve also added two courses to my arsenal giving me a total of 23 courses.

Write 1 Book In Under 6 Hours–the retail price is $40 but I lowered the price to $10 for the purposes of this Performance Report.

How To Accomplish Any Stretch Goal–this course is free for everyone.

While it seems like the end of the year has struck, I can very easily publish two additional courses (both free) by the end of the year. One would be about getting more blog traffic while the other would be a free Twitter course. I’ve done all of the blog traffic videos and am just about done with the Twitter course videos.

One of my New Year’s resolutions is to surpass 150,000 Udemy students by the end of 2017. At this rate, I need to gain at least 300 students per day. I’ll reach this milestone by creating more free courses.

I’m aiming for 40 courses on my Udemy profile before April 1st.

 

TSMD

I am NEARLY done with the Total Social Media Domination membership site. I’ve created the Facebook Group, added dozens of videos, and am working on the final stages.

I don’t have much to say about it now. The suspense continues 🙂

 

90% Of My Christmas List Consisted Of Books

I got many books this Christmas, and it’s my intention to read them all before the next Christmas. I enjoy reading books because they keep my mind sharp on matters relating to my niche.

Learning new things every day also makes it easier for me to come up with blog post ideas and video ideas. Since one of my goals is to come out with one YouTube video EVERY DAY for the entire year, I need as many ideas as I can possibly get.

In total, I got 21 books and I’ve already read a few of them (more on that later).

 

New Year’s Resolutions

I have mentioned two of my New Year’s resolutions so far. The rest of those resolutions are all included in this video.

Getting more blog traffic has been a recurring goal. With that in mind, I committed to getting 100,000 monthly blog visitors by the end of 2017. I made this goal public in a video that I can’t take off the web now. It’s too late to back out.

 

My Commitment To My Readers

At the end of 2016, my blog surpassed 700,000 lifetime views. Based on my goal to surpass 100,000 monthly visitors, I realize that, in 2017, my blog will surpass 1 million lifetime views.

To think I started this blog about five years ago…

As I thought about the milestone, I remembered that YOU are one of the many people who will make this milestone possible. To share my thanks, I am committed to providing a new experience on my blog.

I got comfortable with only publishing 1 blog post every week. While those blog posts were valuable, I know as a fact that publish 1 blog post every week isn’t enough. I will gradually increase the number of new blog posts until AT LEAST 1 blog posts gets published on this blog every day!

Here are some ways I plan on publishing 1 new blog post on this blog every day:

 

Accepting more guest posts: I like to learn from my blog too. In 2016, I publish two guest posts on this blog. While that may not sound like many guest posts, I started offering this option late into the year.

 

Do a better job with the podcast integration: Right now, my podcast tab leads people to a very basic webpage. In the upcoming weeks, that same tab will lead people to podcast interviews that you can find on this blog. The podcast interviews and the blog posts will now have the same home on the web.

UPDATE: I just got the podcast integration working yesterday with the PowerPress plugin. Huge hat-tip to Tom Corson-Knowles who I mention again in this performance report.

 

Write an extra blog post myself. I’m getting much better at writing a large quantity of quality, lengthy blog posts. My greatest fear of writing 1 blog post per day was sacrificing value, but I don’t have to do that since I’ll have help.

I am very excited about providing you with more content in 2017…and that doesn’t even include me publishing 1 new YouTube video every day. You can rest assured that some of those videos will end up on my blog.

 

My New Productivity Format

My productivity workflow is never set in stone. For about two years, I engaged in the weekly scorecard. With this weekly scorecard, I tallied my way to accomplishing a goal and used a checkmark to indicate I accomplished the goal.

My new weekly scorecard is more advanced.

Instead of giving myself weekly goals, I give myself daily minimums. Here’s how a daily minimum and a weekly goal differ:

Weekly Goal: Create 35 videos

Daily Goal: Create AT LEAST 5 videos

The weekly goal results in 35 videos that I can do at any moment I desire. If I really wanted to, I could do all 35 videos in two days. It would be stressful, and missing one of those days would spell “Game Over” for that goal.

The daily minimum makes video creation a habit. This form of goal setting made me feel more comfortable with creating videos. On some days, I find myself doing over a dozen videos in one sitting.

At the end of the week, I’ve created AT LEAST 35 videos. On some weeks, I create exactly 35 videos. On other days, I create over 45 videos. If I feel up to the task, I have no problem with creating additional videos.

The weekly goal structure got me focused, but I limited myself to 35 videos. With the new daily minimums, I can create as many videos as I please as long as I create at least 35 videos.

 

Books I Read

This portion of my performance report should get broken down into two sections: books I read before Christmas and books I read after Christmas. This month was my first semester of college finals so I didn’t do much reading before the break.

I only managed to listen to Find Your Extraordinary by Jessica Dilullo Herrin. While I don’t like only reading one book in one month, I’m happy I digitally picked this book up.

And the books after Christmas? Oh, I’m glad you asked. These are the books that I read from Christmas Day to the time I published this performance report.

The Kindle Publishing Bible by Tom Corson-Knowles

Secrets Of The Six-Figure Author by Tom Corson-Knowles

Email Marketing Mastery by Tom Corson-Knowles

What To Do When It’s Your Turn by Seth Godin

Content Machine by Dan Norris

There was one day in which I read two books. That made me feel great considering I had been slacking for the entire month. It’s also worth noting that I am also in the middle of reading The Success System That Never Fails by W. Clement Stone.

 

Blog Posts I Wrote

5 Social Media Lessons Pool Taught Me

23 Lessons I Learned From My Podcast In 2016

How I Went From Zero Books To Reading 10 Books Every Month

I’m honestly not very impressed with the quantity of blog posts. I know that each of them are valuable, but I want to provide more content for readers like you. I address this issue later in my performance report.

 

Podcast Episodes I Published

A glitch from UpWork combined with an inefficient workflow only resulted in two episodes this month. This is the last month that I will forget to do a weekly episode.

Episode 17: How To Host A Successful Event With Ramon Ray

Episode 18: How To Get Customers To Eagerly Buy Your Books With Tom Corson-Knowles

Both of those interviews are jam-packed with value. In terms of my workflow, I would do the interview, send it to my audio editor, and do the outro a few days later. The problem is that this would cut too close to the episode publication date.

I literally saved my outros for the last minute, and that didn’t go well since my audio editor was given very little time.

Now I do the outros immediately after I finish every interview. It saves me from frustration and the inability to serve my audience with my podcast.

 

January Goals

For most of my performance reports, the goals for the next month were rarely connected. The great part about coming out with a New Year’s resolutions video is that I am now very clear with what I need to do from now until the end of 2017. With that said, these are my goals for January:

 

#1: Surpass 1,000 Blog Visitors In 1 Day

I have achieved this milestone before, but I honestly don’t remember the last time I achieved it. To enlighten my memory, I’ve decided that I will accomplish that goal in January 2017.

My email list will be a critical factor that allows me to surpass 1,000 blog visitors in 1 day.

 

#2: Get My 1st TSMD Sale

I’m virtually ready to launch TSMD, and I’m getting its first sale this month. I will promote TSMD through Facebook advertising. Since TSMD is a $47/mo membership site, I expect to have a strong ROI from the Facebook ad I run.

 

#3: Have Videos Scheduled Past March

I currently have videos scheduled through January, but I want to strengthen my buffer. Creating videos isn’t a problem for me anymore. With a minimum goal of five videos per day, I’ll create 150 videos this month. That gives me at least 90 videos that I can dedicate to training courses and TSMD.

To achieve my other video related goals, I envision myself doing well over 10 videos on some days.

 

#4: Get 20 Guest Posts In The Queue

Every day, for the rest of the month, I will contact at least four people and invite them to write content for my blog. Getting guest contributors will allow me to learn from my blog and provide you with a better experience.

By following this plan, I’ll contact at least 124 guest bloggers by the end of the month.

If 16.2% of the guest bloggers I contact submit a quality guest post, then I have achieved my goal. This small approval percentage is the fuel behind my goal.

If I only contacted 20 guest bloggers in January, I’d have to hope that all 20 of those guest bloggers submitted quality guest posts. The margin for success is very small. Contacting 124 guest bloggers in January greatly expands my margin for success. The bigger my margin for success is, the better.

The cool thing is that as I get more guest posts on my blog, more people will submit their guest posts. Eventually, at least four people will submit their guest posts each day. That will be very cool.

 

#5: Publish At Least 16 Blog Posts

This is a big step for me. I’m slowly getting back to publishing 1 blog post per day. In one month, I will go from publishing 4 blog posts per month to publishing 4 blog posts per week.

I’ve made bigger leaps before 🙂

But enough blabbering. Here’s how I’ll publish at least 16 blog posts this month:

 

1: I write and publish two blog posts every week. These are the blog posts that you are accustomed to reading on my blog.

 

2: I complete the podcast integration. I publish new episodes on my podcast every Wednesday. So far, all podcast episodes exist on a separate entity. I will bring them to this blog to provide a new method of consuming content — audio. Previously I’ve only offered written content and videos.

UPDATE: I literally just figured this out. I apologize for an update on the same topic, but now I can focus on the artwork for each episode and using pictures to highlight the guests better.

 

3: Publish one guest post each week. I currently have no guest posts in the queue. If you know someone or would like to contribute following these guidelines, I’d love to have your guest post. I do have several guest bloggers who are interested in writing content for my blog, so I need at least four of them to give me quality posts by the end of January. If I get more guest posts, then I simply publish more content.

And that doesn’t include the fact that I’ll be publishing 1 YouTube video every day of the year.

 

#6: Create My 32nd Udemy Course

As of writing, I currently have published 23 Udemy courses. By the time you read this, chances are I’ve published a few others. While the New Year is rapidly approaching, I’m squeezing out as many valuable courses on Udemy as possible before 2016 comes to a close.

My goal for the end of 2017 is to have at least 50 Udemy courses. Publishing my 32nd course at the end of January means I only have to complete 18 courses to reach my minimum goal. 18 Udemy courses in 11 months is very doable for me…especially when summer rolls along.

Also, I’m still in the middle of my winter break. I will capitalize on the extra time to make this goal a reality.

 

#7: Surpass 50,000 Udemy Students

Between now and the end of January, I will have added nine courses to my arsenal. Those nine courses will be pivotal for me to surpass 50,000 Udemy students in January 2017.

Accomplishing this goal is dependent on my creating the additional courses. I know how to promote them. It’s just a matter of having new training courses to promote.

 

#8: Read 10 Books

I got a lot of books during Christmas. Now I have to read through them. I am currently researching to discover which method of speed reading will allow me to achieve the best results without blurring my vision.

I am excited to go through them. I’ll set a time at night to read through books. That way, it’s easier for me to fall asleep afterwards.

 

#9: Reassess How I Use Twitter

I believe a few small tweaks to my Twitter strategy will double my traffic and save me money and/or time. Here’s are some of the things I’ll reassess in January:

Outsourcing Costs—I think I could find five minutes in my day to do the bulk file uploads. If adding an extra task on my plate makes me go crazy, I’ll outsource it. I can also take on more work for my Twitter strategy and outsource more tasks in exchange.

The Tweets—I need to share more of my new content more often. Expect more tweets about my podcast episodes too! I might even tweet once every five minutes. I’m back to experimenting with new tactics. I also need to get better at including pictures within my tweets.

 

In Conclusion

This performance report is my last performance report of 2016. I wrote this performance report with my New Year’s resolutions in mind. I don’t fully know how to accomplish about half of them, but I’ll figure them out as I go.

Each performance report in 2017 will focus on my resolutions. All of my goals excite me, but the most exciting thing will be revamping this blog with new content at a more frequent rate.

Now that I think of it, a weekly Q&A blog post doesn’t seem outside the realm of possibility. 2017 is going to be a great year in my journey, and I hope you’ll stick with me to see its completion.

What were your thoughts on this performance report? Have any tips on accomplishing New Year’s resolutions? What are your goals for 2017? Sound off in the comments section below.

This month was very exciting for my business. While I did start slow, I got a lot accomplished. Out of all of the months, October represents the month in which I got more of the previously stated goals accomplished from the prior performance report than any other month.

Without any further adieu, let’s dive in.

 

Total Social Media Domination (TSMD)

I am happy to say that I have published my TSMD membership site. The reason you haven’t heard much about it yet is because I’m still working on a few final adjustments.

Before I share it to the world, I need to polish the copy and dashboard. I’ll also have to upload some of the final videos and create a schedule for me to update the membership site.

But the bulk of it (about 90%) is done. For now, here’s a screenshot to whet your appetite.

 

ConvertKit

The swap between iContact and ConvertKit is virtually over. My critical landing pages have made the complete switch. It’s just a matter of getting some email addresses moved over. With October technically not over yet, this is something I can very easily do in the last few days.

 

Public Speaking Gigs

I am in the process of landing public speaking gigs. I sent out almost a dozen pitches to different events. My new plan is to focus on getting local speaking events which are easier to get. These events will help build credibility and result in more events later on.

In addition to credibility, speaking at local events puts you in front of more people, and in particular, more event organizers who can land you more public speaking gigs.

I am more than happy to speak at public speaking events even if they are free because in any public speaking gig, there’s money to be earned. Even if you don’t get paid to speak, you can offer your product or service to the audience. If you get some sales that way, then it was worth it (or if you want credibility it’s also worth it).

 

StatusBrew

I began using a new tool called StatusBrew to grow my Twitter and Instagram accounts. While the Instagram capabilities are limited due to Instagram’s API rules, Twitter growth has no limits as far as API is concerned.

StatusBrew interested me for a few reasons. The big reason being that it’s the only tool I know of that helps you unfollow Instagram users not following you back while enabling Twitter auto DMs.

While I have been strongly against auto DMs and it’s something people encourage you not to do, I have responded to some of the DM call-to-actions I have received over the years.

So I decided to test one out. I currently have an auto DM promoting my eBook 27 Ways To Get More Retweets On Twitter.

I modeled my copy after some copy that recently attracted my attention. It’s too early to tell whether auto DMs work. I will have a better viewpoint a month from now.

 

InstaPower

I am at a position in which any relevant Instagram photos I post will automatically exceed 50 likes. I am very excited about Instagram’s potential for my business. I finally found some extra time to focus on Instagram which is why I can actually grow my audience on that platform.

I recently surpassed 2,500 followers and am aiming for at least 10,000 Instagram followers by the end of the year.

I’m promoting my Instagram account on my other social networks and even plan on doing some email list promotion. I’ll have more on this in the upcoming month.

 

Guest Posts

I got two submissions for guest posts this month that I will be publishing on my blog shortly. These are the first two guest posts that will ever get featured on my blog.

The reason I take guest posts now is because they provide a level of insights that I cannot provide on my own. I want to learn new things on my blog just like you. My goal is to get at least one contributor each week to offer new content for my blog.

If you are interested, read these guidelines.

I plan on contacting some guest bloggers I know and having a freelancer contact other people as well.

 

Unlock Your Potential—BIG NEWS

The manuscript for my upcoming book Unlock Your Potential has been completed. Now I’m on the hunt for a publisher. I have already contacted two people and will choose one of them. I respect both of these individuals and know that they will take my book and my brand to the next level.

The book totaled at 38,000 words (I’m not offering a page count because there are so many factors involved with page count), but that word count will be slightly modified after all of the editing takes place.

But I have put myself in a position to hand off the baton to someone else.

 

I Now Have A Structured Week Plan
Out of everything I wanted to discuss, the structure I created for myself was by far the most exciting thing I wanted to discuss. Every day of the week, I know exactly what I must do from wake up to bedtime.

Some may argue that this level of structure restricts freedom, but it’s quite the opposite. This structure eliminates most of the decision making process which gives me the freedom to pursue my work instead of guessing what work I should pursue now and what I should hold off for later.

Within this structured week plan is 1.5 hours of knowledge acquisition. Every day, I am listening to a podcast episode for 30 minutes, listening to an audiobook for 30 minutes, and reading at least 30 pages of a book each day.

That totals to 900 pages, 15 hours of listening to podcast episodes, and 15 hours of listening to audiobooks. At that rate, it will be easy for me to consume (read and listen) to over 10 books each month.

 

Books I Read

I did not read 10 books this month but I set up a structure so that won’t be a problem for the following month. I didn’t listen to as many audiobooks because my knee was bothering me.

That’s important to know because while I could easily run, I avoided the bike because I did not want to risk an injury. Virtually all of the time I listen to audiobooks is conducted while riding the bike.

With that said, I did get to read some books:

#1: Email Marketing Demystified by Matthew Paulson

#2: SEO 2016: Learn Search Engine Optimization by R.L. Adams

#3: Writing Copy That Sells by Ray Edwards

#4: All Marketers Tell Stories by Seth Godin

#5: Email Marketing Demystified by Matthew Paulson

 

Blog Posts I Wrote

7 Ways To Get More Instagram Followers: In some cases, my writing reflects topics I am investing my time towards. This blog post is no different. By reading it, you’ll discover some of the methods I’m currently using to grow my Instagram account.

Why I Switched From iContact To ConvertKit: I go into detail about what each of the services offer and why I ended up making the switch (ConvertKit cheaper and more valuable. That’s the basic summary).

The Top 3 Email Broadcasts You Should Be Sending: This blog post goes into detail about how you should communicate with your list to serve them the most.

 

Podcast Episodes I Published

The podcast is still growing strong. I even added a tab to this blog leading directly to the podcast. That’s my temporary solution for now. Eventually, I’ll publish all of the podcast episodes straight on this blog in addition to the other platforms I currently utilize.

Episode 10: How Lise Cartwright Starting Making $3-4K Within Her First Six Months As A Kindle Author

Episode 11: How To Land $20K+ Clients With Matt Inglot

Episode 12: Landing More Public Speaking Gigs With Jen Grisanti

 

Looking Back At September

I was not happy with the progress I made from August to September. October was meant to correct that problem, and I am happy with the progress I made. September was all about adapting to a new way of life.

Nothing spectacular happened for my business last month, but it set the stage for an epic October.

While I still haven’t surpassed 1,000 daily blog visitors, it is still a strong goal of mine, and I am moving in the right direction to make that happen.

November Goals

Some of the goals I have set for myself this November are different from the types of goals that I have previously set for myself. This is partly due to reading more books and learning about all of the possible goals I can set for myself. In addition, I discovered which specific goals would yield the greatest impact for my business.

 

#1: Conduct At Least Three Email Swaps

In case you are not familiar with an email swap, it’s a mutual relationship between two marketers in which they both promote the other’s landing page to their respective email lists.

The end result of email swaps is that both you and your partner’s email lists grow. Conduct enough of these email swaps and you’ll have a massive email list in no time.

With that said, I will ensure that these email swaps benefit my audience. I don’t want to promote some random guidebook on fashion because I know that doesn’t resonate with my targeted audience.

If I get the chance to promote a book about generating more sales using Google AdWords, then I’ll promote that to my email list in an email swap.

This will be similar to how I promote affiliates or free guidebooks that I read through. I feel like I’ll have an extensive case study on this topic in the future.

 

#2: Read 12 Books This Month

With my structure in place, I am reading 900 pages and listening to 15 hours of audiobooks each month. AND since I speed up the audiobooks to x2 or x3, I will actually listen to anywhere from 30 to 45 hours of audiobook content.

Reading 900 pages each month puts me on pace to read 4-6 books each month depending on the lengths of the books. 30-45 hours of audiobooks puts me on pace to listening to 4-9 audiobooks each month.

And that doesn’t even include podcast episodes which I’ll be listening to at x2 pace.

The point is that in a single month, I will be far smarter than I was in the prior month. My knowledge will continue to expand, but the true test will be me putting that knowledge to use.

I am very excited with the possibilities.

 

#3: Get At Least 15 S4S Partnerships On Instagram

S4S, otherwise known as share for share (or shout out for shout out) is one of the most powerful ways to grow on Instagram. Foundr Magazine referred to this tactic as their top method for growing a massive audience on Instagram.

Just to give you an idea of Foundr Magazine’s InstaPower, the brand got 10,000 Instagram followers within two weeks and over half a million Instagram followers within one year.

I aspire to achieve similar results for my Instagram marketing as Foundr Magazine. Therefore, I’ll be engaging in more S4S partnerships.

With that said, I’m not partnering up with anyone. I will only partner up with brands who mirror what I can do. I want the S4S effect on my audience to be seamless. No matter what, each of my Instagram pictures will motivate and provide value.

 

#4: Send Multiple Broadcasts Every Week

I need to do a better job at consistently communicating with my email list. I usually communicate with my email list every 7-10 days.

Communicating with my audience via this platform more often will force me to crank out more value. In addition, the relationship between me and my subscribers will be strengthened by this change.

 

#5: Schedule The First Month Of My 2017 Content

I currently have all of my content scheduled until the end of November. While that provides me with a cushion, it’s not a sufficient one. I want to schedule more content for a longer period of time to create a more comfortable cushion.

The more comfortable this cushion is, the more I can focus on providing value instead of strictly getting the content out. While I always focus on value, it’s a difference between 80% focus and complete focus.

 

In Conclusion

October is in the books. I am set up to have a very strong November. Out of everything I did this month, my greatest moment for the entrepreneur side of my life was interviewing Seth Godin. Without him, I’m not an entrepreneur (maybe I’m 20% of what I currently am).

That’s how much of an impact Seth has had on my entrepreneurial journey…and life.

While the interview will come out in a few weeks, one of the topics we discussed was self-criticism. We tend to critique our shortcomings instead of magnifying our successes. This type of self-talk prevents us from moving forward with our goals.

For every 60 seconds we self-criticize, we lose a minute that could have been used to move a little closer to accomplishing your next goal.

In November, I’ll continue raising my bar higher, but I also aspire to avoid self-criticism. Self-criticism is more toxic than any other type of criticism on the planet. If I don’t accomplish all of my goals, I won’t self-criticize myself. I approach each task with a desire to get it done, but I won’t dwell in my mistakes. Instead, I will magnify my successes.

What were your thoughts on this performance report? Did anything stand out? How did you do this month? Sound off in the comments section below.

Most of September was about adjusting to college life. With that said, I still made progress for my business and changed up some of my goals. Here’s my month in review:

 

My YouTube Goal

Earlier, I set a goal of getting 10,000 subscribers by the end of the year. At this stage, me accomplishing that goal seems unlikely. I took a three week hiatus from YouTube to adapt to my new life in college.

I’ll have more to say about YouTube the following month. Right now, it’s too early to tell what my target is. Before I know for sure, I must see how much work I can reasonably do each day to grow my YouTube channel.

 

Speaking Tour In June

I’m really excited about this one. The reason I couldn’t go all-in as a public speaker was because of my conflicting school and running schedules. I have very little room to squeeze in speaking gigs throughout the school year, and I don’t want to spend all of summer making up for what I couldn’t do.

So I have decided to apply to a bunch of events that take place in June. My goal is to get at least three event organizers to have me as a speaker. I even put together a public speaker video, so you know I’m serious.

I finished the video but have to make some minor adjustments. It will be out in the first week of October.

I am very excited about traveling to different places while doing what I love. Once I have times, dates, and locations, I’ll let everyone know.

 

Guest Posts

My blog traffic has been down lately. It’s been happening all across the board to people who use Twitter as a primary blog traffic search. I reached out to one of my mentors to see if he was affected, and it turns out his Twitter traffic has been down too.

He then suggested that I write guest posts again, so that’s exactly what I am doing. So far I have written three guest posts that are in the process of getting published. I’ll have more about that in October.

 

Unlock Your Potential

While most of September was focused on adapting to my life in college, I made progress with Unlock Your Potential. I am happy to say that the book is over 30,000 words, and it is coming along very nicely.

It will definitely be finished by the end of the month. At that stage, I’ll send it over to my publisher.

 

My Podcast Is Rocking

In case you didn’t know, I finally got around launching my podcast. So far, the podcast features eight episodes, and many are in the works right now. I am very grateful for all of the support I have received from my guests and fellow listeners.

Yes, I say fellow listeners because I’m in it to learn too. The more people I interview, the more dedicated I become. I implement my goals at a much faster pace and end up adding other goals to my arsenal.

A lot of my heroes are coming on my future episodes. I am especially excited about those episodes. Who are these guests? The suspense builds!

 

Books I Read

This performance report hasn’t been reading like my prior performance reports in the summer. However, this is the bright spot. I read several books this month:

#1: Triggers by Mark Reiter and Marshall Goldsmith

#2: Driven To Distraction At Work by Ned Hallowell

#3: Toilet Paper Entrepreneur by Mike Michalowicz

The first two books focus on personal performance. I took a special focus on personal performance this month because with my new schedule, I needed a new mindset to get my work done.

In both books, I learned the importance of creating a structure. A structure does not restrict you. Rather, it informs you on when you should complete specific tasks. For instance, Wednesdays are my off-days, so that’s a good time for me to do videos, podcast interviews, and the bulk of my business work. The weekends are great for me too.

I am currently in the middle of reading a copywriting book and an SEO audiobook.

 

Blog Posts I Wrote

5 Ways To Find Time For Freelance Writing: Freelancing is an interesting side hustle that some writers explore. If you are looking to find some extra revenue writing about topics you enjoy, this blog post will help you out.

10 Social Media Trends To Pay Attention To: Social media is rapidly changing and 2017 is just around the corner. You’ll want to capitalize on these 10 social media trends before everyone else does.

How To Integrate Live Streaming With Your Social Media Strategy: In a word, live streaming is HOT! If you want to discover how to integrate live streaming with your social media strategy, well that’s the name of the blog post 🙂

7 Twitter Analytics Insights That Will Grow Your Business: Twitter Analytics is a cool part of Twitter that not enough people are utilizing. In this blog post, I reveal how the information from Twitter Analytics can take your Twitter reach to the next level.

 

Podcast Episodes I Published

I am going to relish every moment of writing this portion of the Performance Report. If you’ve been following me for a while, you know how much this means to me. So I will take my sweet time 🙂

Episode 1: Successful Podcasting With Jeffrey Shaw — I couldn’t be any happier to have had Jeffrey Shaw as my first guest. I give him A LOT of credit for helping me start the podcast. He made a last minute change to his schedule just so I could interview him before anyone else.

The truth is I assumed that it would be a great idea to interview someone with a podcast first. Jeffrey knows the process I went through from start to finish. At one time, he was just getting started. I enjoyed our Creative Warriors interview a lot (that’s his podcast).

So there’s the background information. The episode itself is about building a successful podcast. It’s great for anyone considering a podcast, on the verge of getting started, or ready to take their podcast to the next level.

Episode 2: Building A Kindle Empire With Nick Loper — Nick is a side hustler who is the epitome of the Swedish proverb “Many little streams make a mighty river.” He makes money doing a lot of different things. One area he mastered is building a Kindle Empire. You’ll get a lot of great nuggets on how to take your Kindle publishing to the next level.

Episode 3: Growing Your Blog With Brian Lang — I read Brian Lang’s guest post on ProBlogger and instantly knew he had to be a guest on my podcast. We talked about growing a blog and tackled some of the fears that hold bloggers back.

Episode 4: How To Get 100,000 Monthly Blog Visitors With Neil Patel — If you know Neil Patel, you know that every blog he touches turns into gold. He knows how to focus his maximum efforts in the right areas to virtually ensure success. We touched upon getting those visitors within this episode.

Episode 5: Growing and Maintaining Multiple Businesses With Jeet Banerjee — TEDx speaker Jeet Banerjee stopped by to share how he manages multiple successful businesses at the same time. Just like me, he got started as a teen and is now crushing it in his 20s.

Episode 6: How To Make Six Figures Writing Kindle Books With Steve Scott —  I’ve been following Steve for a while and got a change to interview him for my podcast. He’s written dozens of Kindle books that allow him to make six figures in “passive” income. I only put it in quotes because we’re all doing work to get that income, but the point is Steve is making money in his sleep.

We talk about some ways to crank out those books and market them for maximum success.

Episode 7: How To Make Thousands Of Dollars Per Month By Freelancing With Gina Horkey — Gina has a story that resonates with many people. She pursued freelancing as a way of making extra money, but she didn’t want this side hustle to get in the way of her family time. What she did and how she ended up crushing it get revealed in the episode.

Episode 8: Becoming A 10% Entrepreneur With Patrick McGinnis —  The concept of a 10% entrepreneur amazed me because it explained why I am a successful entrepreneur even though I’m a student-athlete. The less time you have, the more seriously you take every minute that you are given. We talk about that and much more within this episode.

Episode 9: Mastering The Launch With Tom Morkes — Tmorkes (I don’t know if that’s his official nickname, but I’ve seen it floating around) knows a lot about successful launches. He has launched his own products and the products of people like Jeff Goins, Neil Patel, and more. This episode is jam-packed to the gills with advice on crushing your first (or next) launch.

 

Looking Back At August

The focus in August was on my YouTube channel. My changing schedule impacted the way I viewed my goals. Right now, the YouTube goal is undetermined. I spent most of September laying out the ground work for a strong end of the year.

I intentionally read more personal performance books so I could perform at my best even under a changing schedule. The podcast, affiliate marketing, and my book Unlock Your Potential are the three main constants mentioned in the prior performance report.

 

October Goals

Since September was largely preparation for a strong October, I am giving myself ambitious goals for the upcoming month.

 

#1: Get 1,000 Daily Visitors For My Blog

Guest posting and a bigger email list will help me big-time with this goal. I get a few hundred daily visitors and am looking to expand this number. I will continue listing this as a goal until it gets accomplished.

 

#2: Get Three Speaking Gigs For June

I want to travel to different places while doing what I love. I can’t go all-in with public speaking, but getting a minimum of three speaking gigs for June is my goal.

Getting those three speaking gigs would make it easier for me to get more speaking gigs in the future when I have more time available.

 

#3: Launch TSMD

I had this goal for the prior month, but it’s been taking longer than expected to get the videos edited. I am actually on the clock to get this launch done because I promoted the course in an upcoming summit in the middle of October.

I have spent countless hours working on TSMD, and I know that it’s going to help a lot of people master social media.

 

#4: Read 10 Books

Reading one book every three days is an ambitious goal, but I believe in my ability to get it done. To clarify, reading books also includes listening to audiobooks. Furthermore, I skim through many of the books that I read.

As you read more business books, you come across the same advice again and again. Why read insights that you already know? I want to get straight to the meat and bones of each book that I read.

 

#5: Finish The Unlock Your Potential Manuscript

My biggest goal for the month is to get the wheels rolling with Unlock Your Potential. I want to submit it to my editor so she can spice it up and then we get it out to the world. I’ll have to write anywhere from 20,000 to 30,000 words for the book this month to accomplish my goal.

 

In Conclusion

September was a month filled with adjustments. I changed my structure three times and had certain high-stress moments. On certain days, I felt completely unproductive and disappointed with myself.

The personal performance books helped me get through this phase and prepare for a stronger October. I’ve had to pause certain projects to pursue others with greater intensity. Outside of the business, my physical strength hasn’t been better. That’s what being on a team in college will do to you 🙂

Thank you for reading my month in review.

Each month feels like another month of rapid progress. July is no exception. In fact, it’s crazy to think July has already ended.

 

July 2016 Summary

I interviewed more people for my podcast. I plan on launching it in August. I promise you’ll love the episodes.

My family went up to Boston twice to watch the Red Sox play ball. We saw the team win two games and lose two games.

My brother and I hosted our Teenager Entrepreneur bootcamp which is always a blast. For those of you who don’t know, my brother and I empower teens with the knowledge they need to build successful businesses based on their passions.

That’s the Teenager Entrepreneur bootcamp in a nutshell.

I won the People’s Choice Rule Breaker Award back in 2014, and now I’m ready to win another Rule Breaker Award in 2016. I am a rule breaker because I started my business in middle school.

If you want me to win the award, please vote for me here.

Here’s what else happened this month:

 

Content Creation Calendar

I have read several books this month (more on that later) and structuring a content creation calendar got mentioned in several of those books. So I decided to structure my own content creation calendar.

It’s one of the better decisions I have made regarding my content. If I have all of my content creation calendars in front of me, and you wanted to know what I’ll do on December 13, 2016, I could tell you.

I considered taking a picture of one of my content creation calendars but it’s got several of my future content ideas on it. I would rather write out the content first. If I remember, I’ll include the August 2016 Content Creation Calendar within that Performance Report.

The Content Creation Calendar made it possible for me to identify themes I need to focus on and how I can manage to produce a new piece of content every day. I was great at that in the past. But that became more difficult as I wrote longer blog posts.

 

My Battle With Amazon

About 1-2 weeks ago, I sent an email to my list detailing my struggle with Amazon. The struggle many Kindle authors face is that Amazon doesn’t allow you to sell your Kindle books for free. $0.99 is the minimum price you must charge for your Kindle book.

So why are some Kindle books free?

The answer is that there’s a workaround. If you publish your book on Smashwords for free and get the premium status in Smashwords, Amazon is more likely to listen. Publishing your book on Smashwords isn’t good enough without the premium status.

I plan on getting the premium status on Smashwords soon. I haven’t gotten to it due to a lack of time. Then I am sure Amazon will change the price.

The interesting thing about this Kindle book is that it actually made four sales. The only time I promoted it to my audience, I told them to not buy the book because the entire book is me copying and pasting one of my blog posts.

But four sales got my attention. While I didn’t want this particular Kindle book to make sales (it’s one of my blog posts and I only make $0.35 per sale), I see potential.

The next time I turn one of my blog posts into a book, I’ll add additional content so I feel better charging $0.99 for that Kindle book. It’s just unnecessarily hard to make a Kindle book free on Amazon. For now, having one Permafree Kindle book is fine with me.

 

Problems With Udemy

One of my goals from the June 2016 Monthly Performance Report was to create more Udemy courses. The entire thinking was that since Udemy is changing and fewer people want to create courses, now is the perfect time to jump in.

Since then my opinion has changed. I’m not as focused as I once was to create more training courses. Udemy’s pricing policy and rule to hide certain courses with an insufficient average rating from their search engine didn’t go well with me.

For instance, my free course Guest Blogging Your Way To Ultimate Visibility and Traffic was removed from Udemy’s search engine.

Udemy said that if a course averages below 4.10 stars in its recent reviews, it gets yanked from the search engine. The last 10 reviewers averaged 3.85 stars which means I was .25 stars away from not having any problems.

Combine that with the fact that the course’s all-time star average is exactly 4.10 stars, I’m not pleased. Udemy is continuing to change, and most of the changes aren’t looking good so far.

All of the income I make from Udemy is now passive. I haven’t updated a course there for a while. But I’m not giving up on training course creation. Enter TSMD.

 

Total Social Media Domination — TSMD

TSMD is one of the most ambitious projects I am currently pursuing. TSMD will be a membership site that consistently gets updated with new videos on how to dominate social media.

I don’t know all of the details yet, but I know I’ll include a FB group for members to chat and ask me their questions.

The plan is to commit at least three hours of my time to building TSMD every single day until its completion. That way, I can finish the whole membership site before the end of summer. Adding monthly updates will be much easier in comparison.

For those of you interested, I plan on having an affiliate program for the membership site with a recurring commission for each member you refer.

 

Unlock Your Potential

Speaking of projects, I’m also working on a new book. The book will be called Unlock Your Potential. Right now the manuscript is over 10,000 words long. I aim to get the manuscript to 30,000 to 60,000 words by the end of August.

This book will be a manifesto. I’ll reveal what has driven me so far and how you can achieve significant results in your life. This isn’t just going to be any personal development book. It’s going to be one of the best if not the best personal development book out there.

I’m pursuing a publisher for this book so my book can reach the hands of more readers. I dream of being able to find this book in Barnes & Noble.

 

I’m Intensifying My YouTube Efforts

I can’t show a picture of my content creation calendar, but I can give you an idea of the work involved. Every week, I am uploading a minimum of four new videos to YouTube.

#1: Videos For Teenage Entrepreneur Series on Mondays — These videos are specifically aimed towards providing teens with the knowledge they need to crush it in business and life.

#2: Misc videos on Tuesdays — Anything from social media marketing to productivity, but I keep these videos within my niche.

#3: Podcast videos on Wednesday — I will redistribute all of my MP3 files into YouTube videos with my podcast’s channel art. Why not?

#4: Q&A videos on Saturdays — I am answering one question every week. Have a question for me? I’ll answer it in a video and promote you at the same time!

My goal is to eventually publish one new YouTube video every day. The focus in August is to get comfortable with publishing four videos every week. I want to feel comfortable taking that type of action so it’s an easy transition during college.

 

Books I Read

I read a lot of books this month largely due to traveling back and forth from New York to Boston…twice.

1. The 10X Rule

2. Podcastnomics

3. Will The Real You Please Stand Up

4. The Content Code

5. Content Rules

6. Podcast Launch

As you can see, I am reading books in three specific areas. Content marketing, podcasting, and personal development.

After my interview with Aaron Walker, I learned that reading personal development books won’t just help you become a better person. Personal development books help you become successful in all areas of your life…including your business.

If you could only read one of these books, I’d recommend The 10X Rule hands down. It’s a personal development book that is all about achieving success. These rules apply regardless of what niche you are in.

One cool stat from The 10X Rule is that most workers read one book every year while most CEOs read 60 books every year. That stat reveals how important it is to read books.

One of my goals is to listen to at least five audiobooks each month. This goal has been easy for me in the summer due to traveling. In school, that goal will get more challenging, but I am determined to pull it off.

 

Blog Posts I Wrote

If you missed the blog posts I wrote in July and want to read them, I have included them here as a reference. I published a bunch of YouTube videos too which can be found on my channel.

5 Ways To Use SnapChat For Business: The new social network is growing as the days go by. Now is the perfect time to start using the revolutionary social network for your business. In this blog post, I’ll reveal how I use SnapChat for my business and how you can do the same.

3 Ways To Fit Something Into Your Budget: When businesses find themselves at their maximum budget, these are the methods they can use to find more room within their budgets.

10 Tactics To Get High Quality Backlinks: Backlinks are very important for SEO. In this article, you’ll learn some of the best tactics you can use to build a quality backlink empire.

How To Write A Ridiculously Long Blog Post: Some of my blog posts are over 5,000 words which is great for SEO. You’ll learn the mindset I approach these blog psots with so I can go from an idea to 5,000+ words.

5 Power Tips To Get More Done: Want to accomplish more in your lifetime? This blog post reveals how you can do just that.

 

Looking Back At June

I already went in-depth about Udemy, so I won’t mention that here.

I still haven’t created a new landing page yet. TSMD will force me to create several landing pages so I’m happy about that. I won’t consider creating another landing page until I complete TSMD.

I technically published a new Kindle book although making it permafree will be the next goal. What interests me is that the book has already resulted in two new subscribers. Making the book free would put it in front of more people, and as a result, grow my email list.

I am still not averaging 1,000 daily visitors for my blog yet, but I did make significant progress. I finally have a solid plan of attack for producing content. By the end of August, I’ll be in the groove of publishing one new piece of content for this blog every day.

Part of that plan is having contributors, so if you would like to contribute a blog post to my blog, you can go here for the details. I have two people working for me to get more contributors.

I honestly thought I would have interviewed more people for my podcast. I only interviewed five people this month but I largely attribute that to travel and the Teenager Entrepreneur bootcamp.

I had an absolute blast during those five interviews and am sure you’ll enjoy them too.

 

August Goals

I normally called this section the “Highlights” section, but “Goals” seems more appropriate. These are some of my goals for August:

 

#1: Launch The Podcast

For the past two months, I’ve told my audience about all of the awesome people who I have interviewed. The podcast is finally going to see the light of day. On my content calendar, I have already designated August 24th as the day the first podcast episode goes live.

There’s still much to do but the heavy lifting is over with. The most challenging part was committing to having guests and then interviewing the first few guests. It’s been a breeze since then.

 

#2: Complete TSMD

I will work on this membership site for at least three hours every day until its completion. I am excited about this membership site and all that I will offer on it.

I’m so excited about it that I am even working on merchandise. I am finalizing some of the shirts on Zazzle now.

Below the social media logo are the words “Total Social Media Domination” and “@MarcGuberti.”

All of those shirts will be available to the public soon enough, and you better believe I’m wearing those shirts during my future YouTube videos.

 

 

#3: Get 1,000 Daily Visitors For My Blog

This will remain one of my goals until I accomplish it. July was the planning phase and August is the month in which I execute that plan. I am more focused on the podcast and TSMD, but any extra time I have will get allocated towards this goal.

 

#4: Increase My Affiliate Marketing Revenue

I have made several changes to my blog with affiliate marketing in mind. A while ago, I added a resources page to my blog with some of the online tools that I recommend.

All of the links are affiliate links, and I have no problem with making money promoting a tool that I would have recommend anyway.

I have gone through all of my blog posts and included affiliate links at any reference of HootSuite, Optimize Press, ManageFlitter, or any of the other tools that I use.

The moment I publish my podcast, I’m pursuing Audible’s podcasting affiliate program. That will be a lot of fun since I read all of my books on Audible and can therefore promote it very well.

I’ll never promote a product as an affiliate unless I like the product and am proud to stand behind it.

 

In Conclusion

In all of the years I’ve been a blogger, I have always explored new opportunities and achieved the best results during the summer. Summer is coming to an end.

But I’m not walking out quietly. In a span of the next 30 days, I’ll launch a membership site and a podcast. I’ll be increasing the number of emails I send each month which means I’ll be switching over to ConvertKit very soon (there’s no limit in monthly emails).

Thank you for reading my month in review. I hope you enjoyed it.

And please don’t forget to vote for me to receive the Rule Breaker Award.

I did a lot this month. I have always felt this way, but writing about what I did each month allows me to remember everything in detail.

 

June 2016 Summary

My high school running career ended. Now I’m preparing for my college running career.

I interviewed a bunch of people for my podcast. Jeffrey Shaw was my first guest. I have interviewed successful Kindle authors, freelancers, millionaires, TEDx speakers, and many high-profile people.

I am eager to publish the podcast and share all of those interviews with you, but I want to have enough podcast episodes done before publishing. I have no idea what my college schedule will look like, so I want a three week buffer in case I have less time to interview people.

I’ll publish those interviews by the end of the summer.

I find these interviews inspirational and educational. Preparing for the podcast will take up most of my time, but I did other cool stuff in June too. Here’s the performance report.

 

Expansion

I’m writing guest posts again, and I won’t stop for a very long time. I’ve read case studies about people writing 30 guest posts in 30 days.

I get pumped by these case studies and they impact how I approach guest blogging. I lost count but I have written at least 10 guest posts this month. Some of them have already been published while others are in the works.

I am also trying to appear on more podcasts. Right now I’m at the stage where I can say yes to most requests, but that won’t last forever.

 

Thrive Leads

I got Thrive Leads this month and I already see the impact on my blog. It’s a plugin that makes it easier for you to grow your email list.

Thrive Leads allowed me to add a welcome mat to my blog that’s hard to miss.

And that welcome mat works. In a given day, that welcome mat will have anywhere from a 4-9% conversion rate. This welcome mat shows up almost everywhere on my blog which is sweet.

Here’s data from the first 206 unique impressions it got in June.

I was very surprised to see that I was getting a few new subscribers from StumbleUpon.

StumbleUpon is notorious for being a website that gets you a lot of traffic, but for the most part, a high bounce rate.

Some pages have low bounce rates, but those are the exceptions, not the rule.

But I began getting more subscribers by sharing my content on StumbleUpon. Sure, on those days the conversion rate is messy. Most people won’t subscribe. However, I ask you this.

If you could get 10,000 targeted people on your blog and achieve a 1% conversion rate or get 100 targeted people on your blog and achieve a 5% conversion rate, which would you prefer.

One option results in 100 new subscribers and the other results in 5 new subscribers.

The cool part about StumbleUpon traffic is that it won’t interrupt what you are currently doing. If you can get 10 subscribers each day, the subscribers you get from StumbleUpon are a nice bonus.

And who doesn’t want more targeted subscribers?

 

Guest Contributions Now Accepted

I never thought I’d see the day I would allow guest contributions. I have been adamant of only allowing my content on my blog.

But from an educational and content marketing perspective, I see the point of guest blogging. There will always be people in my niche who know things that I don’t know.

I want that knowledge on my blog so I can learn from my blog too 🙂

If you are interested in contributing to this blog, you can learn more here.

 

Consultation Sessions

I now offer consultation sessions. In a way, I always have, but I intentionally priced them far out of reach. For a limited time, I am not charging as much for my consultation sessions.

Some day, I may never offer consultation sessions again, but if you want me to grow your business and get actionable insights, my consultation session is the right one for you.

It will be interesting to see how I maintain the consultation sessions and everything else during school.

 

Twitter Analysis

I am conducting a deeper analysis of my Twitter engagement. The goal behind this deeper analysis is to discover specific areas of digital marketing my audience likes the most.

I also want to consistently get 200,000 impressions per day. Right now, I get over 120,000 impressions each day.

Impressions are not the most important data to look at. But more impressions mean more clicks, and I like big numbers 🙂

I’ll have to follow-up on an earlier post I wrote about analyzing my Twitter account.

 

Utah

My mom got a speaking engagement in Utah and was kind enough to bring my brother and I for the ride (or should I say flight).

I listened to several audiobooks on the plane ride both ways. We had a lot of fun at Utah, and I got to run up mountains.

The only problem was that as the only runner in the family, I mostly ran alone. I trekked into an area of complete isolation for what must have been a mile.

I don’t take selfies often, but with no one else to take the shot, I had no other choice. I like to call these types of pictures “Pictures Of Proof.”

 

Books I Read

I read a lot of books this month largely due to flying back and forth from New York to Utah. Here’s the list:

Smarter Faster Better: Charles Duhigg dives deep into productivity. He shatters myths, mentions powerful ways to boost our productivity, and provides provocative stories of his methods in action.  

Content Inc: This book changed the way I view content marketing. Focus on providing value and building your audience before you shift towards making revenue.

The Entrepreneur’s Blueprint To Massive Success: This book is a manifesto that should even be read by the best entrepreneurs on the planet. I learned a lot in this book and started applying some of the methods today. For instance, I always drink water upon waking up to boost my energy. That’s one of the many tactics I’m applying from the book.

Be A Sales Superstar: I was originally skeptical because I thought most of the book would be related to cold calling. However, the methods in the book can be carried over to virtually any profession. The most important lesson I learned was to be prepared for any type of response in advance so you can steer the conversation in the right direction.

How To Win At The Sport Of Business: Mark Cuban combines all of his blog posts and experiences into one quick read that will leave you motivated and hungry for success. If you want to get motivated and learn in a way like never before, read this book.

The Virgin Way: If you are not having fun and don’t have a strong team around you, you are doing it wrong. Richard Branson provides several anecdotes about himself, his company, and some of his competitors. The Virgin Way is a combination of knowledge, humor, and storytelling.

I find it easier to read my books as audiobooks. Audible has been a game changer for me, and you get a free book each month just by signing up!

 

Instagram

I am taking a stronger interest in this social network. I was at 1700 followers for a while and ignored the social network. Now I am a little over 2,000 Instagram followers and my goal is to have well over 10,000 Instagram followers by the end of the year.

Instagram is starting to excite me a lot. I’ll have more to say about it next month.

 

Blog Posts I Wrote

If you missed the blog posts I wrote in June and want to read them, I have included them here as a reference. I published a bunch of YouTube videos too which can be found on my channel.

How To Put On Your Marketing Hat: We can’t be creators forever. It’s essential for us to strike the balance between marketing and creation. If you create a bunch of products but don’t market them, you won’t get sales. In this blog post, I discuss how we can achieve that balance.

How To Prepare For Your Podcast Launch: A lot of things are happening with my upcoming podcast. I have interviewed several guests and plan on launching the podcast by the end of the summer. I discuss my experiences with podcasting and how you can prepare for a successful podcast launch.

3 Reasons Your YouTube Channel Isn’t Taking Off: Have a YouTube channel that isn’t getting much traction. This blog post will reveal what’s wrong and how you can fix the problems.

50 Tactics To Grow Your Email List: This is the longest blog post I have written to date. At a little under 6,000 words, you’ll get a bunch of effective tactics you can use to start growing your email list today.

 

June Review

In my May 2016 Performance Report, I said I would do five things:

More Udemy Courses

Blog Transformation

Guest Interviews

More Landing Pages

Here’s what happened.

 

#1: More Udemy Courses

I started a course. One of my favorite instructors was taken off the site. It sounds like Udemy had warned this instructor but that combined with the continuing effect of the price change did me in.

I didn’t create any courses this month. Instead, I put my courses on additional platforms like SkillShare. My HootSuite course on SkillShare is now accompanied by six other courses (two are in draft mode).

I would have put all of my courses on SkillShare to make additional revenue, but SkillShare wisely suggested that I release them consistently to not bombard my audience with courses.

 

#2: Blog Transformation

While I don’t have a homepage like Pat Flynn yet, Thrive Leads was a big plus for my blog.

Allowing guest contributions is a pretty big change in itself. I felt like I did good here.

 

#3: Guest Interviews

I have interviewed 10 people this month. I don’t have many interviews scheduled in July yet but that will change very soon.

 

#4: Create More Landing Pages

I managed to create one landing page this month but I wish I did more. I’ll set a specific number for July so I have a more clear target.

 

July Highlights

With June coming to a rapid close, I am now focused on July. These are some of my goals for the business.

 

#1: Interview At Least 15 People For My Podcast

Each podcast interview feels more like a conversation. They are enjoyable, but with that said, I want as much of a buffer as possible for college.

Considering I only have two interviews scheduled on my calendar this July, I’ve got a lot of work to do.

Keeping up with dozens of guests at once while getting more guests for the show is a challenge, but I get it done. My inbox has gotten very organized over the past few weeks.

I mark each of my podcast related emails with three flags, and each flag indicates what part of the process that guest is in.

 

#2: Create At Least 5 New Landing Pages 

I want to give my audience more options for the freebie that requires an email address. The more options I provide, the more conversions and segments I get.

Segments are important because you can provided specific content to specific people. You can identify which people are interested in Twitter and don’t care about Facebook and vice-versa.

 

#3: Publish At Least One New Kindle Book

I want to get back into the Kindle space because of the interview I had with Steve Scott. Chandler Bolt got me back into it a few months ago and now Steve got me back into it.

I learned the power of writing 500+ words for your books each day. Writing 500 words each day is a very manageable target, but the effect this can have on your book creation is huge.

If you write 500 words each day for one of your books, you’ll write over 180,000 words for your books every year. That’s 6-10 Kindle books depending on how long you make them.

Due to many years of typing away, it’s easier for me to crank out 1,000 words in a given day without a Kindle book taking away from the other parts of my business.

If I write 1,000 words per day for my Kindle books, I’d have 30,000 words total. The true challenge is the formatting, editing, cover, description, and the marketing.

 

#4: Average 1,000 Daily Visitors

In a quest to continue gaining blog traffic, I am in pursuit of an ambitious goal: 1,000 daily visitors.

For the purposes of this goal, I will be including StumbleUpon traffic.

In case one of my blog posts doesn’t go viral on StumbleUpon, the continued analysis of my Twitter account combined with guest blogging and the analysis of my Pinterest account should lead me to victory.

As my email list grows, I’ll get more traffic each time I promote one of my blog posts to the list.

 

#5: Create A Training Course

I’m not talking about an Udemy course. I’m talking about a course that I offer on my blog. It will be a mega course that is more detailed than any of the other courses that I have created.

Stay tuned…

 

In Conclusion

Expansion is the focus. I want more people to read my content and join my email list.

I am also getting back in the game of writing Kindle books. In all of my years as a Kindle author, I have never promoted a paid Kindle book to my email list.

I did a free promotion to my email list, but in my eyes that doesn’t count. I’ll offer my Kindle book for $0.99 for a limited time and then bump it up to $2.99.

Thank you for reading my month in review. I hope you enjoyed it.