Another week of progress.

You know, this week, if I chose to - I could come up with a long list of things I did NOT do. I can easily make a Didn't Do list alot longer than a DONE list. everybody can.

I'm tempted to actually give it a go and see if I can but I don't really see the point of doing what everybody else is doing ;)

Thankfully my DONE list is rather short this week.

done two updates to existing sites.
uploaded an article for a website of mine.
got two adverts drafted to put into a trade rag - and went with the one that was most similar to my best performing adwords ad for the product. ( one of our more expensive books )
I've spoken to 2 suppliers this week and progressed a mailing list opportunity with one of them ( with an 11k list they "email when we remember to" - needless to say I've offered to write articles for their newsletter! )

I've worked out a deal with another supplier to set up a website built with their XML feeds - they do all the work - I have to drive traffic to it. Some revenue to me - some revenue to them.
ebay has already started selling our books. We've sold 3 so far which isn't bad considering I'm really only displaying ads for two of our books at the moment and a "mystery" parcel ( u get a book for £1.98 incl. packing when it normally is £6.99 )

We've broken yet another sales record this month.

Pauline has signed up two more outlets.

We're planning a booklaunch to co-incide with the fair at the Olympia. I'm thinking we need to get it done a little AHEAD of time so that the rags & papers have something to write about to put in their papers on the DAY the fair opens.

I've upened - ei? I have OPENED another teleconference call line ( thanks to Gary's 0871 service ) so that I can record interviews, reviews etc with various people who've read our books and for further products.

I also B&P'ed a site although I can't remember which one it was!

Next week?
This weekend I will issue the press release of my fuel book and publish the article I have written for it. I can easily produce 5-6 articles on the fuel subject - all different. ( after all I have 58 tips to pick from )

I will then contact the suppliers again and launch a product aimed at the exhibitors at the fair. I have the sales material to write still.

Other than that, I want to interview a publisher about her experiences getting successful results from Amazon - the benefits of real books over ebooks and her views of what people considering publishing should do.

Eat my words time. I replied to a forum that I would never do a how to product. Only now I have the telephony-technology - and I realised that we DO have some great experiences getting our books into amazon, book stores, niche outlets and so on. So at least if we record it, then it is something we can make some money from later.

so
- press release
- 1 article
- 2 follow up calls to suppliers
- spend 3 hours on Tuesday calling customers
- uploading some more auctions to ebay
- record an interview with a publisher

That should be enough to get on with

today doesn't seem to be my day

Two parking tickets, one busted printer, a firefox update gone wrong... but at least I don't have to go to a job...
...
So today I spent in the coffee place again and I've managed to progress on another site I was playing with a while back. And that is pretty much all Ihave had time to do this week. The publishing business has taken up most of my time this week with getting an affiliate program problem sorted with the software I am running. We've organised 3 more promotional partners ( one of which has two lists of 50k subscribers ) We have "interviewed" and selected a new DTP and illustrator person, a proof reader, a researcher ( subject matter expert! ) and a photographic artist that is helping us on our next titles and we will outsource some of the work to in future. Pauline and I have also taken business advice that came with my redundancy package and we were given 5 things to "sort out" between now and the 11th of October. One was to determine the long term growth implications of the various options that we have for the future. So I need to think about that. Have launcehd the ebay store for our publishing company. Have sorted out the design problems with our "affiliate" site. ( although the affiliate script is STILL not working ( where the H~~~ is the sendmail function on the blooman 1and1 servers?? ) The lady that gave us the business advice needed a membership script ( and so do Pauline for her latest idea for a membership website ) She needs an income of her own bless her independent soul so if you have it in you to come up with some suggestions feel free! Now I'm off to figure out how to pay the TWO parking tickets we got today! Next week? who knows. We'll see. Something is amiss and I can't put my finger on it. The motivation and hte action is there but the only progress that really inspire me is offline. Maybe it is because it is physical or maybe it is because it is something I have control over. Who knows.
Or maybe it's because I haven't had the kcik up hte backside that I need!
pardon the spelling mistakes - i'm busy!

what do you do for money honey?

Friday progress 16th of September 16, 2005

So last week was successful. I feel like I have worked less this week but I seem to have achieved stuff at a far greater rate than I have ever done before:

Launched an ebook product. I’ve not done much promotion but I have had sales without an affiliate program, but it helped that I knew of 4 markets where I could promote it to.

I created the camtasia training I committed to do. ( Now I just need to publish the LINK! )

How many websites this week? Only the one, but I have been blogging and pinging the new ones I launched last week and spent some time contacting partners that can promote our books with us.

Am I working 50 hour weeks though? I have no idea. It certainly feels like it is a lot less, but I am finally beginning to get into a rhythm where I can spend an hour a day one something that will yield a relatively immediate income.

I also started an adwords to adsense campaign that have yet to yield any result. I may have picked keywords that are too unpopular…

I bought Power-RSS & RSS Content Builder.

They do pretty much the same thing, and as I found the RSS Content Builder to be far easier to implement on my sites, I asked for a refund of Power-RSS. I don’t like doing that, but my comfort has to be that I gave Adrian some honest feedback of how I thought he could improve his tool.

I also almost had heart failure when my Friday-progress blog was nowhere to be found. Vanished in what I thought was bloggers revenge for my instant blogging and pinging.

Blogging and pining blogger has its risks apparently as if you go over their daily or hourly posting quota to an account it can flag you in their systems and people I know have lost all their blogs doing that. So you can see why I was preparing for my deathbed when 14-15 months worth of blog posts was gone.

Until I found the spelling mistake.

And now I have another blogger account and I have installed wordpress on one of my websites as well.

So the atom feed is still available and should work with any reader that can read atom feeds : http://fridayprogress.blogger.com/atom.xml

Lessons to learn for this week:
I will learn to hate chocolate
I will learn to hate chocolate
I will learn to hate chocolate
I will learn to hate chocolate
I will learn to hate chocolate
I will learn to hate chocolate
I will learn to hate chocolate
I will learn to hate chocolate
I will learn to hate chocolate
I will learn to hate chocolate
One day.
In the mean time I will be clearing some of my time to get going to the gym as per my schedule again. I will also dust off my bike and see if it is of any use.

Other things I commit to: - generate some more inbound links for our publishing websites. I’ve used SEO elite to find some potential linking partners. All I have to do now is overcome the fear that these high PR sites don’t want to link to us. Why wouldn’t they?

Where do I strike the balance between immediate profit and longer term tasks to improve performance of existing sites? That is one question I continue to struggle with. And while I struggle I end up wasting time thinking about it.

So for next week, I will be focusing on generating REAL sales from the publishing business.

I will also promote my new book with some articles and some improved adwords advertising.

And I will work out a strategy for updating & improving the ranking of a site that I have the fits in nicely with an adword strategy I have been thinking about implementing.

But more than anything else, I will shut down this laptop, and spend some time trying to figure out how to split my time between all the things I need to do. When I am overwhelmed I have had this instinct that shuts my brain down and I sit in the garden swing doing nothing for a couple of hours.

Nice, but doesn’t bring home the bacon.

Have A Break

have a break.

If you only listen to ONE piece of advice EVER, then sit up, get a pen and paper, or simply print out the following report.

I have had the most tremendous week.

I got back from Rockley park on Monday, the most heavenly place on the Poole western seafront.

It was better than that in fact and for one simple reason:

Any talk of work related subjects or any subjects remotely related to "work" was banned.

It was the most relaxing time I have had in AGES.

There was no need to think about what to do.

There was no need to GO anywhere else.

There was always something on for everybody in the family.

And this week,

I have published the niche pack to our members.

I have sorted out some old expenses.

I have created 4 new websites

I have updated 3 old ones slightly

I have pinged a few of my blogs and ran blog & ping on my business website, doubling the links back to my site in an instant.

I have set up an adwords to adsense campaign

I have got one affirmative distribution partner on board for the new book that we're launching in November.

I have recorded one camtasia on an application I am using.

I recorded how I FAILED to create content on a site I made with XSitePRo.

and I wrote two articles for my publishing company.

And I'll be buying Power-RSS next week to try it out to see how well it can do what I want it to do.

Next week I am simply going to continue as I am, There are still many stores to sell our books to and there are still loads of links to be generated

SO, here is the pen and paper moment:

In order to work at your peak you need BREAKS where work is a taboo topic that is not even entertained. thoughts shall be treated like they are obscene and removed from your mind straight away.

Jack Canfiled in the success principles talk about preparation days and working days, but als, the most important one - was resting days ( i think that's what he called them ) and you can guess what each of those days are about.

HIS aim, was 150 resting days in a year.

104 is easy enough with just weekends. but these are days where you have to GET AWAY from it all.

I did.

It made a massive difference.

All the best.

Cheers,
JOn

Wonders Never cease

I didn’t really set myself any goals for this week as my Mom was visiting from Norway and it left me with pretty much only one day to work this week.

Progress has still been made though as I have found a few more interesting niches to look into and I have FINALLY finished the niche summary report on the Christmas niches. There is a lot of work going into a single page of text I tell you. To be perfectly honest though, I have been less than efficient this time as my publishing business has been distracting me.

I find that the time I spend in the coffee shop working is effective, but that I could benefit from it even more when I implement a stricter work structure. Michael Green for instance only does his internet marketing work on one day and he is busy running a printer and being a Member of Parliament the rest of the time. ( He’s actually quite nice to speak to – in spite of his political career, although he hadn’t been elected when I met him last time… as if that would make a difference… )

True to form, I am going to copy someone else – him - ( it’s called “Re-use” and is perfectly acceptable J ) and work to a specific schedule so that I can fit every thing in that I need to fit in. This seems to be the best way of doing it, plus I am going to nominate ONE morning a week to be my “power morning” where I execute a money making action every week on that day. We’ll see how it goes.

I don’t know what else to write really. I’ll be ready to deliver the niche stuff next week (honest!) for our members to use. There is one or two updates to make to the site for our product, like adding the affiliate sign up link and then the pack has to be put together for our members to download it.

And then I have my business to run as well! August was our 3rd best month since taking over and it has been doing amazingly well online, but our sales still need a boost.

The only other thing I’d like to mention before I head off on an impromptu holiday to Rockley Park (Pauline booked it Gary, not me – I’ll keep an eye out for the wannabe pop idols J ) is something that keeps on popping into my head these days.

Pauline’s favourite saying these days is “wonders never cease” as I apparently have begun to do my share of the house work! We’ve taken out the dishwasher again and it could be permanent this time as they just don’t seem to clean as well as a good hot handwash does and it’s good for the environment.

What is stuck in my head though is what she says, plus what I reply:

“Wonders never cease – And seizers never wonder”

It’s the “just do it” attitude I am trying to cultivate that is making me repeat that in my head I suppose. Although I didn’t read the word seizer to mean shanghaier ( as per dictionary.com! )