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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.

How To Find More Time In Your Day To Create Epic Content

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epic content

When school is back in session, I always make adjustments my work flow. The long summer hours are getting shorter and I have less time to craft content for my business.

Whether you’re a student, 9-to-5 worker, or even an entrepreneur, it seems there’s never enough time in the day to get everything done.

You may write blog post, promote your content, or respond to an email, but you’ll likely find yourself struggling to accomplish several things in one day.

Some people use this reality as a crutch: “I simply don’t have the time,” they say, but that’s a classic excuse for not getting more done.

The truth is, making excuses allows you to believe that you have more important things to do with your time.

But finding more time isn’t always a solution. There comes a point in which working longer hours results in a decrease in overall productivity, rather than an increase.

So it’s not about the number of hours you spend working. It’s about the quality of those hours, which is another way of saying “work smarter, not harder.”

I no doubtedly work on my brand for far less time than most people each day, but the time I do spend working is far more intense.

Some people can only manage to squeeze in brand-building activities for 15-30 minutes a day, while others can handle much more. But anyone should be able to find short bursts of time for creating content each day, working smarter with the time they have.

Now you might be thinking that without knowing your schedule I can’t possibly be sure that you can find more time for content creation.

But even the time people spend rambling about their schedules to friends, family, and themselves is better spent more productively – creating epic content.

If you believe this doesn’t apply to you because your schedule is just too tight, prepare to have your mind blown.

Batch Individual Parts Of The Process

Every blog post contains an introduction, body, and conclusion. For a long time, I wrote entire blog posts from start to finish exactly in that order.

I was surprised to learn that this is an inefficient approach to writing blog posts. Instead of writing one post at a time in a traditional format, it’s better to come up with ideas for several blog posts at once.

After that, write the introductions for all of them. And after you’ve written the introductions, move on to the conclusions. Finally, wrap them all up with research and body copy.

This is definitely something that is rarely taught in the blogging world. The traditional format resembles essay writing, but blog posts are different, and require an altogether different approach.

Choose one day to write all of the introductions and conclusions. And another day to conduct research and write the bodies. Repeating the same bite-sized tasks over and over enables you to maintain a higher level of focus.

Without this batching process, you’re forced to make transitions each time you move from introduction to body, from body to conclusion, and from one blog post to the next.

Each of these transitions takes time that you can save by staying in the introduction mindset as you write the intros for several blog posts. Once you’re in the right frame of mind, you simply extend it to cover more ground.

How Much Time Do You Really Need?

It usually takes me around 30-60 minutes to write a 1,000-word blog post – likely because I’ve written dozens of books and thousands of blog posts. But I’ve been able to reduce this further simply by eliminating those nasty transitions.

At some point, your fingers either fall off or you become a fast typer. Not only will the batching process help you type faster, you’ll also think faster as you write each post. The result is a higher-value blog post in a shorter period of time.

If writing a 1,000-word blog posts intimidates you, there’s nothing stopping you from writing 250-500 word blog posts. Make it as easy as possible for yourself to write and publish content on your blog.

But the next time you write a blog post, keep track of how much time it took. That’s the amount of time you’ll need to make available each day or week, depending on your publishing schedule.

Use Opportune Moments To Write Your Posts

People most often write blog posts on a computer. Nowadays, you have a computer in your pocket. It’s called a smartphone, and while I’m not saying anything new for now, just read the next line.

Use your smartphone to write blog posts.

Anytime you’re waiting for an Uber, sitting on a train, suffering through tv commercials (or any other moment in which you’re waiting in line or for something to happen), add more content to a future blog post.

I’ve written dozens of blog posts from start to finish on my iPhone. That’s several months of additional content without any extra time investment. I wrote these posts during commercials, while waiting for class to begin (college life), or any other moment in which I found myself not doing much of anything.

You can also write blog posts while driving. No, I’m not advocating texting and driving. I’m taking about speaking and driving. Just install an app that transcribes your voice into text and speak out your blog post.

When you are in front of a computer with the transcription, you can then make edits and schedule the blog post for release.

It amazes me how many hours people spend commuting in a given year but how few of people turn those hours into opportunities.

Dictating blog posts is one option, but you can also turn your car into a university on wheels by listening to as many audiobooks and podcasts as possible (if you’re looking for a podcast recommendation, I recommend my Breakthrough Success Podcast with full, complete, and utter bias).

In Conclusion

We all have the same 24-hours in a given day. Your success is determined by how you utilize every one of them. I once heard that the average American spends at least four hours a day watching TV.

With those same four hours, I can write 10,000 words for my latest book, create an entire training course, or read several books.

And that’s just four hours repeated 24/7/365. Maybe you don’t watch TV for four hours a day, but chances are you do something similar that you can adjust.

For instance, I used to play a lot of video games. Then, I went cold turkey after a two week vacation (the vacation helped ease me into it). Now, I only let myself play video games when I’m visiting friends.

Your desire to create epic content must be greater than your desire to do other things.

What are your thoughts on these tactics for finding more time in your day to create epic content? Do you have any other tactics for us? Do you have a question for me? Sound off in the comments section below.

The Best Content Creation Calendar Strategy…PERIOD

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Consistent bloggers often decide between writing all of their content at once, shortly before their due dates, or writing several blog posts in advance.

The problem with writing all of your content just before their due dates is rushing or missing the mark. The problem with writing all of your content in advance is missing out on new trends.

I admit that for the first time in my blogging journey, these problems caused me to be inconsistent.

And not because I was slacking off – I was in the middle of organizing my first virtual summit. In fact, since I’m quite good at planning ahead, I had scheduled the summit’s launch one month before final exams (basically preparing for the summit while studying for my finals).

And now that I am back to blogging — and getting more contributors at the same time — my publishing schedule has become more complicated (when do I post? when do my contributors post?)

Mark Asquith to the rescue!

Mark was one of more than 50 speakers at my Content Marketing Success Summit. And he spoke about consistently creating epic content.

One of the questions I asked Mark was what he considers the best approach to creating a content calendar, addressing the two problems I mentioned above—cramming versus planning ahead.

His response blew my mind. In October of 2016, Mark had identified all of the blog posts he would write for 2017. And by the end of the year, he had written all of them.

Mark began 2017 with all 24 blog posts he’s publishing this year. He publishes one every other week.

But let’s say I pre-wrote all of my content for 2018, and then something significant happens in the industry: SnapChat comes out with another revolutionary feature. Facebook advertising comes out with even more targeting.

How can I write about these major updates if I have all of 2018’s content waiting in the queue? Here’s the answer…

If, like Mark, you schedule all of your new blog posts for every other week, you can simply write new blog posts in between.

For instance, if you’ve scheduled blog posts for October 1st and October 15th many months in advance, you can publish a new blog post about a recent trend on October 8th.

This way, you can incorporate new content while having the bulk of your content scheduled in advance. And if all of the blog posts you write in advance are evergreen, then it doesn’t matter whether you publish them in 2017 or 2027.

For example, a blog post about productivity will be relevant every year because productivity tips do not rely on trends.

So, why is this such a great strategy? Let’s capture the scope of its impact:

#1: You Can Write About Trends Without Content Calendar Conflicts

As mentioned before, you can publish trend related articles in between the content you schedule in advance. You don’t have to tinker around with rescheduling content; you schedule in advance intentionally leaving room for gaps.

#2: You Can Warm Up Your Audience To Launches

I promote several products in any given year. Yet my 2018 calendar remains fairly open apart from a February launch that I’m participating in. I can prepare for that launch now by writing relevant content.

But let’ say Chandler Bolt asks me to promote Self-Publishing School in April, and my pre-written blog posts have NOTHING to do with writing a book (or even writing content)?

I can still write relevant content ahead of time and insert it into my content creation calendar. In fact, writing about content creation, and how to become a successful author, will warm up my audience up to this promotion.

#3: You Can Enjoy More Freedom

I wrote this entire blog post off the cuff without an outline. Of course, I still sent it to my editor, but the post remains a case of “just cuz.”

Not only will you have your content scheduled far in advance, but you will also have the freedom to write and publish additional content anytime you feel like it. Win-win!

I believe too many people miss out on this part of blogging. They are so focused on planning and writing their next blog post that they don’t truly feel free when writing.

This feeling of freedom is based on the fact that you can write about a topic that interests you while not feeling pressured to schedule the post you’re working on.

It’s more of a choice and less of “I need to publish this piece of content so my blog gets new content.”

In Conclusion

Mark’s concept got me thinking about my 2018 publishing schedule …even though we were in May of 2017 when we pre-recorded the interview.

The ability to have all of my content scheduled in advance removes most of the stress associated with being a blogger. And it’s easier to write from the heart because I’ll have so much more time.

Another concept that came up during our interview was batching. This is something also used by John Lee Dumas (discussed in Episode 38 of the Breakthrough Success Podcast).

All Mark needed to do was write all of the blog posts he’d planned for 2017 from October 2016 to December 2016 (with the exception of additional content).

Similarly, John Lee Dumas chooses two days a month to interview the 28-31 guests he has on his podcast every month.

You can choose one week to write blog posts for two months. And if you follow Mark’s posting strategy, you only have to publish one blog post every other week (or two blog posts per month). Then you’re covered for two months!

You can take this concept even further and write 12 blog posts in one week — it’s very possible if you believe in yourself — and that would give you a total of six month’s worth of content!

You can fill in the gaps by writing content about trends, inviting contributors, or by not filling them at all. Only fill in the gaps when it’s relevant to do so.

What are your thoughts on Mark’s strategy? Have any advice on carrying this strategy even further? Sound off in the comments section below.

E54: Using NaNoWriMo To Write Your Own Novel With Anne Rainbow

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Introduction:

Anne Rainbow is the content editor and creator behind Scrivener Virgin where she takes us through her journey of mastering the popular writing tool while providing insights into the realms of self-publishing and marketing. Anne also created the Red Pen course where she teaches writers how to self-edit and enjoy the process.

 

Quotes To Remember:

“That’s what makes it so compelling, you can’t give up, because you’re in a team.”

“It’s all in the planning.”

“It doesn’t matter where you start, as long as you have a mind map.”

“Whatever your challenge is, it’s much much easier if you have people around you supporting you.”

“I want to breathe the same air as people with whom I share values.”

 

What You’ll Learn:

  • How to prepare to write a novel in a month
  • How to juggle creating useful content in blog posts and other places while still working on your own novel.
  • How to decide what your book will be about.
  • How to write over 50,000 words and turn it into useful content
  • How to plan in advance to create time. Even up to a month!

 

Key Links From The Show:

Anne’s Site

Anne’s Facebook Page for Scrivener

 

Recommended Books:

I See You by Claire Mackintosh

Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life by Dr Wayne Dyer

The Artists Way by Julia Cameron

How To Batch Content Creation So You Can Pursue Bigger Projects

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content creation

Consistently providing valuable content keeps your content brand alive, and generating revenue from your efforts allows you to thrive.

Content creators often struggle with generating revenue from their products while continuously creating fresh content.

While I believe both can be interwoven together (maybe the idea for a future blog post?), one proven approach is to batch your content creation so you can dedicate more time, attention, and energy to revenue-generating activities.

What Is Content Batching?

Content batching is as simple as committing one day to producing an extraordinary amount of content.

John Lee Dumas, for example, designates two days a month for conducting interviews (his daily episodes over at EOFire mean he’s interviewing 15+ people on a regular basis). John also dedicates one day per month as an interviewee for more than 20 podcasts.

If you choose one day to write a month’s worth of blog posts, you can then focus on product launches, brand building or other initiatives for the rest of the month.

How To Batch Your Content Creation

Batching content creation begins with nailing down a date to write all of your content.

Prior to writing, set one day aside to come up with ideas. So if you decide to create all of your content on the first Tuesday of each month, you should create a list of topic ideas no later than Monday.

If you want to use the content batching strategy for your podcast guests, start contacting people 2-3 weeks in advance. Booking guests for your podcast is different from batching blog posts because of the time needed for emailing and scheduling the podcasts.

But in either case, you must be hyper focused once you have your ideas clearly in mind.

Becoming Hyper Focused

You may choose one day to create your monthly content, but if you frequently get distracted, you are not fully unlocking your potential.

To succeed, you must be actively engaged in your work for most of the day. This means not only thinking about how you work, but also getting smart about the environment in which you work.

Always choose a commitment-free day for content batching. For example, I enjoy participating in cross country and track meets – which usually take place on Saturdays – so I wouldn’t plan my content batching initiatives on the weekend.

Choose a day that isn’t surrounded by work or outside commitments.

The day before you’ve committed to content batching, remove all distractions from your environment. Since each of us is distracted by different things, it helps if you create a list of potential triggers.

Writing a list of potential distractions will help you prepare in advance: you’ll know what to avoid while working, and what to ignore before you even get started.

Advice On Pursuing Bigger Projects

Once you begin creating content in batches, you’ll have extra time to work on bigger projects. Don’t take that time for granted because your next content-batching day will arrive sooner than you think.

In addition to creating lists to assist you on your content-batching days, create a detailed plan for how you’ll pursue bigger projects.

What progress must you make by the end of the month? How will you plan each week to reach your monthly goals? What will you do each day to accomplish your weekly goals for each week of the month?

If you struggle with keeping yourself accountable, ask someone to help you. In a sea of free information, hiring a coach is one of the most underrated investments you can make for your success.

A coach will steer you away from common mistakes and move you towards success, but in this case, your coach will keep you accountable.

Advice On Content Creation

One of the dangers of content batching is the tendency to consider content creation as a necessary evil.

Viewing content creation as a chore keeps you from content marketing, and always pursuing bigger projects prevents you from enjoying the work at hand.

Once I’d focused so much on content marketing and bigger projects that I saw content creation as an obstacle. This is one of the main reasons my blogging consistency dropped from two posts a day to once per week.

Before I changed my mindset, I was even inconsistent with publishing the weekly post. So if you decide to batch your content 1-2 days per month, never forget to look forward to, and enjoy, those days.

In Conclusion

Content batching allows you to focus solely on creating content 1-2 days each month, giving you the rest of the month to concentrate on promotion and additional projects.

You can also apply the batching method to any time-consuming task in your business to open up more time in your month for other tasks.

But you must be careful not to look at batching activities as a necessary evil. Rather, try to appreciate those days as time to be hyper focused on something that brings you pleasure.

If you see any of your tasks as necessary evils, change your thinking! If you can’t, eliminate or delegate them.

What are your thoughts on content batching? Do you have any suggestions? Have a question for me? Sound off in the comments section below.

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

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Jamie Stenhouse is an entrepreneur and marketer who specializes in assisting business owners and clients to generate customers online—in any industry. Jamie founded his first business, JCP Creations, as a 19 year old. That business specializes in website design and online marketing. Since then he has helped customers online across over 70 industries and has personally worked 1-on-1 with over 150 businesses spanning from startups to multi-million dollar brands

 

Quotes To Remember:

“Let me begin to utilize it, embrace it.” (when Jamie discusses his stutter)

“An obstacle is really just a good opportunity to learn and to grow, and to develop a new skill set.”

“Whatever problem you have, look how you can flip this around…can that become a very helpful asset or skill set for me in the future?”

“What would this look like if it was easy?”

“It’s a progression not a switch.”

 

Learn how to…

—Own your obstacle

—Confront adversity head-on

—Find happiness in who you are and what you are becoming

—Combat negativity

 

Key Links from the Show:

Jamie’s Site

 

Recommended Books:

The War of Art by Steven Pressfield

The Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday

Ego is the Enemy by Ryan Holiday