Friday Progress

Mikes blog about how he copes with MND

2006-12-31T05:56:00.000-08:00

Mike blacktopp has MND and has set up a blog to describe what happens to him has his illness becomes increaasingly worse.

What is increasingly moving is that he is writing this knowing full well that MND is a terminal illness and that it is something that will render him more and more dependent on care until the disease completes its course.

< A story about how Motor Neurone Disease effects me. at Living With Motor Neurone Disease (MND)

technorati tags:mnd, motorneuronedisease, neurone, disease, terminalillness

Progress - Reloaded or Revolution? It ends tonight anyway.

2006-05-26T13:35:00.000-07:00

I've had a very productive week this week and it has brought a lot of clarity to my thinking and about my business etc in general.

I've been reading a book called 'Ask and it is given' ( available from amazon) and it is opening my eyes to alot of things. The value of having a bookshop nearby for one - I couldn't wait for Amazon to ship it to me when I was told it would benefit me, so I went down to the bookstore at my earliest opportunity and bought the book.

Anyway, I have had a productive week and I expect next week to be even more productive. But with everything that is happening in my business life at the moment, a weekly report will no longer do. there is too much happening from one day to the next that I have no way of keeping up once a week.

And I guess you can say that I have finally evolved to the point where the friday progress report no longer serves its purpose. It certainly doesn't feel like it does.

I was looking for a phone in service a while back where I could call in my reports every Friday and you could call in on Saturday or whatever and listen to my week at 10p a minute.

I feel at this moment in time that what Ishi said to me (that I needed a more detailed plan) back in February or whenever it was can only be achived for me if I evolve Friday progress to a daily progress plan, monthly, quarterly and annual plan and take it offline so that I can be honest with myself and with what I write.

I got myself in this position because as a complete beginner decided to write about everything I did, and now that my businesses has progressed, I don't feel like I always can write about everything that is going on (not even about the fab results Gary & I are getting with parts of the system we are working on together) and that doesn't help my business to progress.

So I am revolutionising Friday progress into an offline system with a pen and notepad that I will write in every day about the day that has passed, what I learnt and what I plan to achieve the next day. In addition I will have a plan for the month and quarterly targets for at least a year into the future. I'll keep it simple. My wife will make me!

So it is goodnight from Me and it's goodnight from him.

Jon

Progress - Reloaded or Revolution? It ends tonight anyway.

2006-05-26T13:07:00.000-07:00

I'm busy go away!

2006-05-19T16:04:00.000-07:00

Notice:

I'm out creating my wealth.

PS - Actually, I am busy thinking about what it would feel like to have the freedom to by a car because I like it - there and then. And about the freedom to go house hunting pretty much anywhere, knowing that I could afford what ever house I liked.

It feels goooood! :)

and at the same time I am busy with some books and some niche nuggets.
Plus I have learnt more lessons than I can remember this week.

Getting things done perfectly, on time and to a schedule would sure feel satisfying!

Jon

Sometimes it is best to shut up

2006-05-12T14:30:00.000-07:00

Someone once told me that if you don't have anything meaningful to say, then on't say anything at all.

I feel like that this week.

If there is a lesson here, then this is it:

No matter how experienced you are and how well things are going, sometimes you ARE going to hit a bump in the road. Just make sure to dwell on something else.

But this week has been full of disappointment and setbacks that have been hard to shift attention from.

I am chosing to carry on as I go though, and one positive benefit from it all is that I have begun to realise that my lifeline is in those yucky things that are less than likable.

Gary calls some of these things neccessary steps on the path to greatness. And I am coming 'round to the idea.

Although the content nuggets of mine that I am selling are so far an utter disappointment. I have clearly targetted a niche where value is measured in cost price and not by its potential to add value to the business. An interesting lesson, and a good spurr on to make me use more of the content I create. Which is already adding nicely to the adsense income I am generating so far from few sites with few pages.

I guess proof would be handy for people. And we'll see how many more of these nuggets of mine I can sell before I decide I am better off paying someone to put the content on the sites for me.

Now I want to leave this brief post on a positive note.

Good.

Internet marketing Expert Needs Retuning and Refocusing.

2006-05-05T14:44:00.000-07:00

You know what?

2 years and 8 months after I bought googlecash from Chris Carpenter (where’s he gone btw? Left Perry Marshall to do his thing?) I have finally figured something out.

Back then, after a fantastic first 3 months, things were getting a bit more competitive so I decided to branch out from adwords. And I wasted lots of time dealing with my stupid mind.

What I figured out this week is that I am still doing these same stupid things! Looking back in history I can see a pattern developing where I over complicate things.

So my self development headline on the office wall now needs to read something along the lines of:
Oh for goodness sake! It took me 16 attempts to get this sentence out, when all I wanted it to say was “is this the simplest you can do?”

I already have “ how can I progress my business today” and “will this progress my business?”

I think the time has come to help my mind focus even more on the specific actions that will not only bring my business forward, but also actions that MUST be completed in order to secure progress.

And I think this sentence could possibly do it for me:

“Is this strictly speaking required?”

Or

“Is this really necessary?”

Although the latter inspires images in me of someone looking for every kind of shortcut to avoid working. A bit like how my cavalry captain described me 17 years ago when I left.

Did you want me to say something about what I had done so far this week?
Well my task list is back out and getting used actively – I don’t seem able to get anything done anymore without it.
And to my surprise, I am getting through more of the stuff on that list than I expected.
Not on my life will I tell you about what they are though – shhh they are secrets… that you can get at niche health articles.

I have also managed to close most elements of another project and I am looking forward to getting rid of more tasks. Especially as it got me really fed up that I had to work about 30 hours over the bank holiday weekend because some of my automation software isn’t working correctly at the moment.

But anyway, I’m sure that the ONE project I am running for myself at the moment should be ready sooner rather than later…
Jon

Wedding anniversary, speeches and gifts

2006-04-28T14:52:00.000-07:00

today is my wedding anniversary.

5 years.

last year my wife forgot it and it didn't bother me. This year I forgot to get her a card or a present and I am hearing no end of it. I guess it is an important date to remember ( !!! ) so I am going to go away and make it up to her some how.

I'll need some money to do what I want to do, and as soon as I have tallied it all up I am going to have to think about something to launch - oh - that's right - I have a few ideas up my sleve!

Anyway - got lots done this week. Even did some work for this company that pay me by the hour to do it.

Received some amazing feedback from one of the subscribers of one of my ezine clients which is fantastic.

Got my first proper book on my own laid out, printed and bound and would be ready to sell shortly :)
look out ebay! ( might as well test the market first!)

Now I am going to sort out some wine for later!
Jon

Where your travels take you for your holiday

2006-04-21T15:26:00.000-07:00

I have no idea what to write this week.

Sure it’s been hectic ( or was that just the last few days ) but at this moment in time I am at a loss what to write. My head is full of hair loss, cosmetic surgery and bowel and colon related issues from all the writing and researching I am doing for niche health articles.

My head has gone all fuzzy.

It seems I may be driving up to Heathrow tomorrow. Do I bring my laptop to work on while I am sitting in the foyer?

Do I take the train so I can work on the train? ( not likely! )

How early do I go? If I go too early I will run out of power before the day is out.

I have been getting into the groove lately, although the membership script threw me a bit off focus. I will shelf work on that until late May. Thankfully the guy behind it has been kind enough to keep me in the loop so I am not likely to forget about it.

What goals am I having at the moment?
I think at this point, a plan and a place to keep it safely and readily available would be handy ( you know how easy things are lost on a computer – I only just this afternoon found a draft outline for a book I was planning to publish based on the wisdoms of a 2 year old boy ( I remain amazed at the intelligence of someone who is now 3 and a half, and the patience he has with his Dad who clearly has no clue what the world is about. )

The books working title is “life is cake”, although that is only half the answer to what life is. The other half I have forgotten! I should have a look through my blog archives and see what I can find as I have written about it before.

Oh never mind – I googled for ‘ “life is cake” blog ’ and it turns out I have the top spot for that term woohoo!

Although a book titled “life is pasta and cake” could be mistaken for a cookbook. But my son remains adamant that life indeed is all about pasta and cake.

On that basis, I should remind myself that in order to create both these treats, some actual work has gone into their preparation. Some steps have had to be completed on the path to creating the greatness that is pasta. Or cake.

I have a feeling my son will be a chef one day. Although he is again adamant that he will be a football player. Considering the current salary opportunities in that line of work, I think it would be a wise move to actually get him a football.

I ramble. I have no other lessons to mention this week. And I think I will use these Friday reports from now on to try to look at what I’ve learnt in the past week. Although some achievements would be good. Matched with a plan. Ah right.

Well. I have a few more nuggets to get through, and a website to create with some contact details.

Tara and see some of you this weekend.

What about them ipod wearing teenagers?

2006-04-14T15:40:00.000-07:00

Friday progress 14th of April 2006

I’m working through modifying about umpteen website templates tonight so I’m only going to go through the basics of what I have done and concentrate ( briefly ) on what I have learnt this week.

What I have done?
Installed a certain membership script on a site. I might tell you about it when the design is finished. ( in fact I am sure I will )

Had a design created for a client on RAC for her website.
In hindsight I realize I sent a seriously unprofessional review copy to somebody that isn’t in the car rental business although I’m sure he gets asked that all the time. ( sorry for the sloppy work! )
Got some good news on the progress of a certain online project and the first stage looks good! ( now do you think we should let you see it before it is 100 percent fully automated?!? )
I added content to the website that has the highest revenue per visitor. I am going to keep on adding content to this site.
I am also moving hosting and changing the template and content management solution of my money tips review website. All in all I think I have about 4 websites that needs updating and redesigning before the end of April, plus come next week I am back doing call center work again from home for a well paying company.

I also reviewed more possible e-books for publishing into real print. ( most are crap and require re-write or are too basic, and it is as dreary as reading the usual stuff I publish.
Had a genuinely productive week,
I have also finished a niche nugget that I am going to sell – all on my own again.
(And I have 4 to make between now and Tuesday, although I have all the raw material already ready )

Lessons I have picked up this week?

As a society, we get the teenagers we deserve.
You can quote me on that. Remember it is Andersen with an E.

I live in a less than affluent area. To be fair it is the poorest neighborhood of England I have ever lived in. I would say 98% of people here are nicer than any of the neighbors I have EVER had before – they say hello to you on the street, ask you how you are and how your son or wife is and so on. Even the people OVER 19 are that nice. They apologise. They let you into the traffic with a wave and a smile and they are genuinely concerned and caring of their neighbors.

But then there is something that happens during school holidays. It is a combination of alcohol, teenagers and absolutely NOTHING for them to do locally.

Think back to when you were a teenager where could you go to meet your friends during the school holidays? Afterschool clubs? The park? Football pitch? Skating rinks? Café? Dance halls? Holiday camp? Sorry those don’t exist anymore. There’s a carpark where the park and pitch used to be and the icerink and dance halls have been replaced by offices in our haste to create an “efficient” society. PE is hardly part of the curriculum anymore as it is considered far more important to create individuals that know the theory but can’t DO. “softer” subjects that inspire and nurture creativity and self confidence is no longer taught. Facts are far more important than imagination and a sense of achievement.

Bollox my arse. If you want to start a political party or run for office, solve THAT problem and you’d be worthy of the position. Not otherwise.

And I think it is fair to say that THIS is the most important lesson I have learnt this week – if not in the last 35 years of my life ( 34 years and 11 months ):

As a society, we get the teenagers we deserve.

Jon,
still progressing.

Getting work done!

2006-04-07T15:05:00.000-07:00

This week I am mostly working on holsten pils.

No - what am I saying?

I have been busy working. There is so much I don't know still it scares me! Although, rather than focusing on what I don't know ( like how to get rotating page content on pages without having to modify cron jobs or apache handlers or what ever else crap needs doing.

So I am concentrating on making it simple instead. just do the things I know how to do and work on the sites that are already working for me, and just grow those.

Which is what is on my to-do list ( yeah, I have revived it as it is better than not having a list at all)

I take issues with the term to-do, in case you didn't remember, so I am going to think of the list as a list of task that remains to be done.

This week I have printed out my first test copy that I am sending to someone that I know reads this - and we'll see what that person thinks of the parcel that will arrive in their post in hte next few days.

anyway - it's time for me to disconnect and end the day.

tara
Jon

Paracetamol please!

2006-03-31T12:06:00.000-08:00

I've been on Ibuprofen most days this week due to a persistent migraine, and nothing seems to shift it. So I am going to go to sleep around 9 again, like I did last night and hope to sleep off the bulk of the pain.

Other than that, I have revived my niche nuggets and have worked on completing one of them this week. It would have been finished if I didn't have this headache to contend with.

It should be for sale at some point towards the latter part of next week and I hope to get my report on how to make the most out of them ready by then to ( I recorded it in bed - how cool is taht?)

The printing equipment is already fully installed, but as they delivered the wrong glue strips to use with the book binding machine - we're not going to deliver anything too soon.

Should be ready to roll again some time next week.

I'm not feeling my best tonight so I am going to keep it short.

There are so many of the things that I am involved with right now that I can't tell you about, but I can tell you what I learnt though:

- Do stuff that plays to your strengths. Doing something for the money when you don't enjoy it is a right pain in the neck.

- However, if it is easy work and you can get paid for it straight away - DO it!

- I STILL think that I have to solve all the problems first before I go ahead and implement something, which stops me. I think it is partially a good thing as it helps me avoid problems like having to completely redo a whole site or a whole solution because you decide to change the design or layout of something.

- Sleeping makes problems seem less so and puts out the flames of angry conversation. Lack of sleep has the opposite effect

- which leads me to think that the French don't sleep enough.

night night
Jon

Happy St. Patricks Day

2006-03-17T23:24:00.000-08:00

I feel I have more right than most to have a celebratory pint on the 17th of March because I used to live in Dublin. Not for a very long time, only about 4 years, but my time there changed my life forever.

That's all I have to say about my progress really this week.

If you have a how to book inside you and you are planning to get it into an ebook format, I will have the capacity to put the book into print and even onto Amazon as a REAL book for you. Of course there are other distribution channels that are available to me as an established publisher too, but Amazon is really the most famous. I also have a trading relationship with ALL the UK book chains if that is of interest.

So that is part of my progress this week, I have secured the equipment that is needed to make my publishing house more flexible and more responsive, plus I will have capacity to take on a few additional authors & printing projects.

And for those of you that have heard a cockney blue arsed fly buzzing around the Midlands, Wales and Dorset - that's half the reason instant- ezine is progressing slower than I would have liked. The other half of the reason is that I got the file formats wrong when I first started putting them together, so I'll be correcting them this weekend.

I've also worked on a couple of niche nuggets that I can sell again.

NOW - on to that pint!

Jon

Oh What A Twist! ( Peter?)

2006-03-10T14:35:00.000-08:00

I feel my progress will be overshadowed by world events today. There news here are in fairness 50 years old, but it isn’t often the British beat the Americans at anything so 50 years on, to the day this is still news:

"IT WAS MARCH 10TH, 1956 WHEN PETER TWIST BROKE THE 1,000 MILE PER HOUR AIRSPEED BARRIER, HITTING 1,132.13 MILES PER HOUR IN THE FAIREY DELTA 2 RESEARCH AIRCRAFT AT SUSSEX, ENGLAND."

And I thought he lived in Wales! :o)

Joking aside – this week has been a productive one with lots of directed action having been taken. It is currently directed at making money! ( cause the mortgage still needs paying! )

It does seem that I thrive under pressure and I have been piling it on this week, plus other people are now relying on me to complete things to keep projects on track (Hi Gary and hi Ishi).

A word of advice. If you want to get things done REALLY well, make sure someone else PAYS you to complete something on time. It works for me! And I’m scared of Ishi’s Wrath anyway (that sounds like a good book title don’t you think??) so I jump when I am told to!

Joking aside, having Ishi around to keep me honest is making a difference to what I manage to get done – and with Martin around on Skype to give me some input, even when he’s got Kickstart to get out, the direction is working out as well.

So for you ebook authors wanting to be “proper” authors, watch out.
For you contentnugget and nicheology people out there, watch out.
For aweber subscribers out there – keep a watch out!
And for you instant ezine beta testers out there – we’re still working on it and it is coming your way soon!
And for you trainers and … oh never mind I could go on forever – but it is still directed.
I also dedicate at least an hour a day to adding my very own content to my websites and blogs and another hour or two to create my own products.

I am going over to my private forum now to write up my private post – who knows what might happen with my book publishing business – I have negotiated a 20 per cent discount on some new equipment that can propel me with super speed into the realms of a seriously prolific publishing house. One of our competitors publish two new titles a month. With this equipment we can match that if we wanted to – and more!

Jon Andersen
Still Progressing!

Where does the time go?

2006-03-03T15:03:00.000-08:00

I'm not going to waste your time this week with some of my thoughts.

Frankly, I should be too busy to do this, but the honest truth is that I forgot what day it was this evening and have spent most of the evening in front of the box, finally watching some American Idol on ITV2 before it dawned on me what day it was.

I can not for the life of me remember completely what i have achieved this week, but I know that my action list is growing furhter behind than it should.

My Name is Jon Andersen and I am a pc gameaholic. ( although by that I mean I waste about an hour a day )

the game is a winter olympics one... if I haven't broken the habbit by Sunday the URL is going on the blocked list on my router along with all the other games domains I have come across.

It all started when someone posted about a stupid pingpong thingy game on the Kickstart forum and then the Winter Olympics arrived and someone in Norway decided to celebrate their imminent massive medal haul with a Winter Olympics game.

I am as Cr#p at winning this game as the Norwegians were at winning Gold. ( although I take comfort in that only 3 other nations had more silver and no other nation had more bronze )

As for my progress - it's there. I am learning from a number of people and from the neccessity of managing multiple client that my organisational skills could do with some updating.

There is no way if I did everything that I have on, myself or manually, that I would be able to do it all. Renting other people's time and using the tools to automate where I can is proving to be critical to my ability to stay on top of things.

I have also started to go for a 30 minute walk every morning after dropping Thomas off to Nursery, just to clear the head, listen to a bit of a presentation or to LedZed, AC/DC or Black Sabbath to get into the right sort of positive frame of mind - and it works.

Not only that - I bring my ericsson mobile phone lookalike mp3 recorder and record my ideas and flashes of inspiration as I get them - I recorded 13 of them this morning alone!

( reading Martins Kickstart today, I will put hooks on these ideas, I promise! )

that's it for today - i'm supposed to be in bed already!

There is a private post on my private forum as well by the way where I talk about a new service I am considering offering.

http://www.themoneytipsreview.co.uk/forum/

My Progress Thing and the sense of chickenpox

2006-02-24T13:30:00.000-08:00

You know what this has been a mad week.

I know that I went to a seminar a while back and I also went out and spent a few quid on an mp3 recorder and a microphone. I have been wanting to record stuff for a long time and now I can do it when ever I want. I am forever talking to myself about projects and stuff, and now for under £90 I have everything I need – including the editing software.

I have also discovered something that really needs testing, but could serve as a fantastic supplement to an ezine. I have checked and people are already paying to get access to the type of information that I was considering to make available that way. But I have so many projects on already we’ll see when I get time to try it.

What else did I get up to? Not a lot – I haven’t really got time to do this post either as I am a little late on the Niche-Health-Articles nuggets that I am working on.

I actually had a great kickstart to the week on Monday and Tuesday getting right into the work that I had on my plate, but then when I picked up my Thomas from Nursery on Tuesday afternoon I was pulled to one side and gently informed that they had noticed he was coming up with chickenpox rashes.

And that they would not let him back into nursery until next week. Thomas is never in nursery on Wednesdays anyway and spends it playing with him mom and following her around on her various shopping or business research trips ( unless they are off to some play zone, zoo or park ). This leaves me free to work hard – but not this week.

So when a 3 year old repeatedly shuffles ( man-like! ) into the office, looks at me with his doe like eyes and tells me he wants a cuddle cause he’s “not fewing vewy weouw” it makes for a very unproductive day.

Eventually I had to go out and get some air and so I found the Sony MP3 recorder for £49.99 that will enable me to put my voice to anything and everything without having to resort to phone recordings. I can use it in all of my client relationships so it was a good investment.

I am also tempted to get another page creation software, but as I struggle to find the time to keep up with what I already have on my plate, I can’t see how I can find the time to use the tool to create a minimum $200 a month without paying someone to do it for me!

Mike!??

I also have loads of new projects drifting my way that I will fit in some how. That time management book that I have heard have been in the working for the last 18 months could be handy at this point!

Anyway – next week? I have the NHA stuff to do, plus two offline projects to finish and something NEW to do for Gary. (aka Mr. Post-seminar man-shuffle )

UK seminaaar!!!

2006-02-17T14:28:00.000-08:00

Well I am at the info-product seminar UK in London today and I never thought I’d see the day when I would post a blog entry or send an email while I was at one of these places but here I am tapping away at the keyboard.

It’s good to meet some of the people I know from the forum and even some of the lurkers that know my name but who I have no idea who are! Good fun getting to know them though.

It’s been a productive week up til today . I had my meetings and got even more work out of it. I have started a new project which means I am calling companies from home asking research questions. And it is decent money for what work it is.

I’ll post something on Monday again and on the private forum too to tell you more about what I got up to and what I plan to do about it in the intervening time frame.

Thanks for now,
Jon

Where are the butterflies?

2006-02-10T11:53:00.000-08:00

Did alot this week:

Started on 4 more niche nuggets.
Started working on a new sales letter.
Gathered some material on 12 other niches for a different project
Set up a new filing system for my project paperwork ( I never seem to cope with ring binders and paper piles up everywhere, so now I have magazine racks, one for each project, on my shelf )

What else I got up to?

Well, the days are beginning to blur. My thursday chats with Gary and my Wednesday and Saturday Chats with my offline business partner lets me keep track of what day of the week it is, and the bit in between is filled with research and hunting trips for hungry crowds of people.

Not that I can say I have found any new ones that make much sense. I seem to trip up when I try finding out where these crowds hang out. ( as in I can't figure it out )

Seems to me I should begin to attract people that have access to these crowds, want to capitalize on them, but don't quite know how.

But WOW what a week this has been, lesson wise.

I have discovered I don't know as much as I think I do.

I guess it's about time I learnt that one, but as I get to speak to successful people alot more now that I work closely with 3 of them and still have time to read Martins kickstarts, it has been made even more apparent to me this week.

Firstly because Gary pointed out to me a flaw in my sales sequence on my websites and secondly because Martin corrected my understanding of what a Non-Response Disruptor actually is and what it requires.

Not to mention the lesson Mike Filsame gave me about viral marketing when I spoke to him earlier this week. ( or was it last week I can't remember? ) and would you believe my pet nuisance, perry marshall is beginning to grow on me - his newsletter today is talking about the "problem with misplaced positive thinking"

- and reading what he has to say I can only diagnose myself as suffering with this illusion. He's not knocking a positive attitude in his email, far from it. What he is saying is that you can't succeed in anything if all you rely on is your positive, long term, dreamy attitude. You have to have some realism in there.

You have to have keep an eye on the grim truth of the day to day realities.

and I think you'll recognise this if you think back to a past goal you failed to achieve. A goal you had pinned all your hopes on and you had a deadline, an action plan and you still did not achieve it and it made you feel really crap when you failed to achieve the goal.

Perry says to have faith that you will prevail, but don't confuse it with the dicipline required to confront the brutal facts of your current reality. Boy is that true for me. the faith is there, and thankfully now with a self employed opportunity to make as much part time as I used to make full time ( not counting the tax implications... ) my finances are looking up.

Looking forward to next week and applying myself with more determination to build a more secure future for myself and my family.

Jon

Do you want to know what I learnt this week?

2006-02-03T15:12:00.000-08:00

Do you want to know what I learnt this week?

So do I. Seriously. I can not for the life of me remember what I have been up to. And without that I can’t think of any lessons I have learnt.

One thing I suppose it that sometimes it is better to leave a job that doesn’t work out sooner rather than later. This time it took me two weeks to realize. That is a new personal record. ( yes, I quit my job - there wasn’t really anything wrong with the job in itself I suppose, but I guess I am just not a very good employee any more :o) )

And I did do the elance project.

What else did I do? Oh yeah, some butterfly bashing.

This is embarrassing. I don’t think I did much this week. I had a couple of interviews and received a contract to sign me up to another client.

I made Martin a few bob on contentcreatorpro and it aint bad. I’m happy to spend some time next week to get it going though.

Oh yeah – I have started working on the niche health stuff for Feb.

But I must admit I can’t think of any other lessons that I learnt.

Hmm.

Erm.

I guess it has been a research week because I have spent serious amounts of time reading ebooks and researching markets, niches and so on. And you need weeks like that.

I have been updating some of my websites but to be fair, the job departure has inspired me to work a little and research a lot.

I guess.

Who’s got a pint? I need a drink to get rid of this week and move on to the next one.

When It Rains, things begin to grow.

2006-01-27T13:36:00.000-08:00

What did I learn this week? Hm. Let me concentrate for a minute as a week seems far too long some times.

I learnt that I must remember what is positive about having a new part time job, even though certain aspects of it has been getting to me. It’s all in the mind I suppose, but when cold sweats start to happen just at the sight of the building I work in, something has to change. Thankfully I asked for some solutions yesterday and an ex-colleague of mine came up with a solution that could earn me more than twice as much per hour, which seems a much wiser thing to do – if I can get past the interview.

I have learnt that procrastination is a bad thing, but that I am a master of it. I think I am the world champion procrastinator, but I am at least managing my disease quite well. ( I have been writing far too much about Parkinson’s Disease the last week!)

I think the biggest thing that I do to get myself to take action is when I feel an obligation to someone else to do it. But I also discovered today that the simple action of my manager asking ME to track my OWN performance has given me an amazing spur.

There are two ways to go if I am responsible for measuring my own progress;
I can fake it and tell him I am better than I am.
Or I can just work harder because I don’t like the measurements that I see.

Knowing that phone stats and everything else can be double checked and verified, as can the post log and my managers appointment book, there is really no point in doing anything other than report things truthfully.

Which meant that today, when I was intent on not even making a single call, I still made enough calls to book one appointment. So at least I achieve ONE of my objectives.

Self policing is a powerful tool when you know that lies, false statements and anything else not true can be found out. Unless it doesn’t bother you.

As for my achievement, my tax return is still outstanding, my projects that were behind schedule are now mostly back on track and I have generated far more business opportunity for myself than I thought possible.

I also have a elance project to post about 30 tips for someone – I’m on it!

When it comes to car insurance, car insurance companies are not assuring!

2006-01-20T12:46:00.000-08:00

Had to get my car insurance renewed this week and these car insurance companies really do hire some really dim representatives into these car insurance call centre jobs.

I admit, I don't have a UK drivers license. I have an EEC license as I am a Norwegian citizen and thus a part of the Extended Economic Community which pretty much includes the EU countries, Norway, Lichtenstein and a rock in the North Sea somewhere.

This throws the inexperienced, and politically and geographically challenged high school drop out answering the phone as they can't find EEC or Norway on the African map. Hello, Norway is in the North sea by the way, right next to Sweden? Finland? Lapland where Santa lives? Ah I knew that one would get you there. No I have never seen a polar bear. To me this is really funny, but to pretty much everybody from any other part of the world Norway is not such a big part of their lives as I and the other 5 million Norwegians like to think.

When stumped, Norwegians will try to tell other unfortuntate non-Norwegians 3 or 4 things to explain about what Norway is:

- The vikings ( they raped and rampaged through England and Ireland a thousand years ago )
- The nobel peace price ( yup! the vikings from Norway are such a peace loving people though Alfred Nobel when he created his price funds, that I'll make the lovely people of Norway responsible for determining who should get it)
- The oil ( we're rich, but we're saving it until we're old so that we can pay for the care of the elderly - in other words those that are in power now )
and if pushed further, there is nice nature too.

Oh, and according to the hitch hikers guide to the galaxy, it is the most beautiful country in the world - but not alot of Norwegians know that.

What this has to do with my Friday progress? Not alot but then again I didn't achieve much this week either.

I wanted a week of peace, I got it - in the form of tonsilitis. Then I had the new part time job to get into which is proving interesting. At least it is close to where I live.
I have had a chance to work on two of my other projects - the more pressing ones, but I have mostly had to settle for recovering either in bed or sitting in the sofa reading ( the tv gives me headaches )

Next week I have to tackle my tax returns and a few other projects that are far too far behind schedule.

Jon

Ipod to tell your lung, cancer isn't nice

2006-01-13T12:44:00.000-08:00

working on a bunch of projects, managing an even bigger bunch of freelancers on scriptlance and researching a whopping bunch of stuff for a couple of people online and offline.

It's been a week that could have done with a bit more relaxation and calmness in it but I expect to get that back next week.

Things certainly haven't worked out exactly as I expected - I have one person desperate to give me work - and I keep on forgetting to call her! and then a massive project of me just fell through, but at least that solves my problem with not having enough time. And the stuff I have created can be reused anyways.

And that's it really - can't think of anything else. Productive but tiring i suppose is a good way of putting it. And the publishing business is taking a bit of a dip below what I would have liked, but again our high ticket items are selling really well so it compensates somewhat.

Next week I will concentrate on my the projects remaining in my pipeline & start my new part time job on Monday.

I need a hot drink or something and then to bed - I am shivering something serious it's stupid!

Jon

sometimes I just have to make fun of 'experts'

2006-01-06T16:08:00.000-08:00

Would you believe it ? The nitro affiliates and Tellman Knudson have FINALLY copped on to my TWO year development of accountability which I have managed to trace back to an idea that is at least a century old.
But thankfully, the incredible nitro team has managed to realize that accountability is a good thing. Glad you professionals finally caught up with a backward nerd from little old Norway.

But I guess for every fed up nerd like me there are 10 newbies that are new to the concept.
Anyway.

I had my meeting on Monday and it went really well – we managed to achieve more than our objectives and by Wednesday it was pretty much all ready to roll. Plus we had an idea to develop some content for another project of hers.

I also found out that I had some spare time and to my great surprise when I asked people if they wanted to use my time they snapped it up. Which was handy.

I’ve also got a whole bunch of other niches and software solutions to work on which is why I have been so incredibly busy.

I have done some more time studies on these niches and I’ve managed to cut the time down quite considerably.

Lessons learnt this week?

I can’t believe it’s only a week since last Friday! I have done so much so far this year it is incredible it’s not even a week old!

Things are falling into place, that’s all I have to say. Excellent.

Next week?
I can’t even think that far ahead – I want to sort out my accounts and my tax returns this weekend – Only I need to get some of the stuff to Kim sorted by Friday. That’s it really.

Christmas, City breaks & holiday time - what does it mean to you? To me it means...

2005-12-30T14:30:00.000-08:00

This week I have mostly had a family holiday. Plus tested and completed my first software outsourcing project.
Which was nice.

I did manage to have about a hours walk yesterday, but it was negated by the buffet restaurant we had the family lunch in later... Although in respect of weight loss I am hoping for a roaring success!

I have a sneaky feeling todays post will be a bunch of paragraphs of all the things I did. And for once the list of not done list is shorter than the done list. Mainly because I didn’t write one, but also because I had so few things planned for this week, I managed to do more than I intended.

I know some people try to be different and tell me they are not going to tell me to plan my year ahead this week, but heck – that dude with the magical product launch formula does it so then obviously so must I. :o) (sarcasm) I am a follower after all (/sarcasm)

I did say plan SOME, and to my shock I discovered that I can set a goal for this year by looking at what I realistically can earn from one of my ventures. Although there was one flaw – I didn’t have an exact measure of how long it takes for me to create one of them nugget things from start to finish. So I spent all of the morning yesterday working on it. Then I spent another hour in the morning today before the office demanded a good tidy up and the living room requested a vacuum and some business demanded attention in town. But I basically found out two things

Lesson 1:
The first proper pass at a full nugget took me 7 hours to complete. I must be a sucker for punishment as I hate to create something that isn’t original, but why on EARTH do I put in the effort to use my own words if people only re-write it anyway before they put it in their responders or their content rotators even though the nuggets are so short it is strictly speaking not necessary?!?
Which leads me on to Lesson number two.

Lesson 2:
I am now able to generate a vast and comprehensive compendium of research information on ANY niche you give me relating to competing digital products, related websites and paperback or hardback books on the subject.

==
So basically, I have found out that I am gaining access to some markets that could mean that I could realistically gross a very tidy sum in 2006. Although I knew that would be made possible for me this year. I am just so grateful it’s happing.

Other than that I am being subjected to all sorts of essential oils and ointments at the moment to help me focus. That and the boost of energy that is building are going to come in very handy as I work on a solution to fit everything in.
And you know what for next week, I know that I will be one of a very few people working on the Monday. I’m meeting a client in a hotel to start on the project I am working on with her. On Tuesday Pauline starts her new job and I have to send in the contract for mine. With me now becoming the primary childcare dropper offer and picker upper, it means I have a fixed amount of time for the next two weeks where I can kick things into motion. After that and for at for at least the next 6 months I have mainly afternoons and evenings at my personal disposal. The good thing is that I am set to learn a lot of great things from the job that I have taken. And it is getting me out of the house.

It is very tempting to create a schedule, but the way I have done it before never worked. I will find a new way of doing it that is flexible enough for my “life”.
Oh and the blooming tax returns!

Star signs, heart disease and hope to all!

2005-12-23T15:09:00.000-08:00

This week has been a LOONG week, which is a good sign.

Over the weekend a commissioned a job on a freelancing website, and I am worried that my choice of developer was a little hasty as I ended up going for the cheap guy.

It’s my first outsourcing job and so far it’s a good experience but I asked loads of questions first from the developer to make sure they knew what I wanted.

Then I picked someone else instead - J

What else is there to report? As I said it’s been a long week so let me start back on Monday and see what I did then; Research – writing – editing, getting a part time job (in marketing) to keep the bank happy on a long term basis. Pauline also spoke to the business bankers. They have as much power over the decisions as a male praying mantis has over his fate if he chooses to copulate with a female praying mantis.

There upside to the chat with the business bank though is that the bank staff – once again – decided to buy some of our books. The staff members at this branch are insatiable!

Tuesday I spent all of the afternoon with someone discussing a potentially very lucrative offline venture. I’ll have to see what comes of it, but it’s all good.

Wednesday I took the liberty of doing some Christmas shopping, without actually having anything to buy. So I ended up in my coffee shop drinking coffee and checking out some more information about an affiliate program related solution I have been looking for. I will learn this tool one day as it is rather amazing to watch what it can do. And I haven’t even had to pay for it yet!

Thursday was effectively wasted as I sat down to look at the list of people I could contact about the nugget thing. The immediate urgency has been taken away and the panic has therefore dissipated and I am doing something that used to bug me and my manager in my sales job before I left – I pre-DIS-qualified leads before I even had a chance to qualify them. That might only make sense to sales people. It wouldn’t have meant anything to me before I had sales experience.

I will pick up my walks again as I had put them off when my cough was getting worse. ( I do wish there was an easy way to get to see a doctor! ) Amazing what a massive dose of vitamin C can do for you.

Today? It’s the day before Christmas and I have had other things to do than business! J

Next week? Lose some weight, get more exercise and get a little bit of planning done for next year. ( and get those products ready for launch – the magic pill one is nearly ready but Pauline has taken Christmas holiday now that the bank has stopped harassing her.

Thank you to the banks for helping me understand I am among the successful people - they will know that soon!

2005-12-16T14:49:00.000-08:00

I think it is time to just have some change around here, just to liven things up.

It’s not like the rest of the week has had any excitement in it – oh I lie!

Although, as Gary kindly reminded me on Tuesday, I get what I focus on, so I will only point out that I gratefully received some financial education from not one bank but 3 this week. One of these educational sessions resulted in our mortgage balance receiving a rather generous credit as the bank in question realized they had rather substantially overcharged us interest for a rather lengthy period of time. As that was the last lesson we received this week I am expecting the money to start flowing our way again.

There is other evidence to support this as well – Pauline’s http://www.calendars4all.co.uk/ website has nearly sold out of stock on all but the Couples calendars.
Amazon sales have picked up and so has Ebay and a few other figures are pointing in the right direction. So now I know I am on the right track.

The offline business idea is moving along nicely and again, I managed to achieve some clarity on my second call with Gary. I also spoke to Martin a sterling chap (congratulations to Hannah and Alex by the way) about a few things that if nothing else, I will learn a tremendous amount from. My 4 pages of notes are still on my desk but the will be transformed this weekend as I have a number of things to get on with in order of priority:

- get on and create more money making products for the markets I have to hand
- approach new market opportunities for additional, related services to those that I already work with.
- automation & outsourcing opportunities ( found the seeds for a solution to both of the things I spoke to Gary about )
- website strategy and restructuring of the collective publishing website.

Paulines 11 years experience and accreditation in a particular field makes her the perfect author of what I hope to become a series of books utilizing her expertise to solve peoples pains. I mean, is ANYone here at all in the market for something that helps them become more productive by making your brain think clearer, make you better at concentrating on one thing for longer periods of time and makes you focus on the right things?

Anyway. I’ve got things to get on with. Ebay stuff and more, so apologies for not writing more. The rest is in my private blog on the link below.

PS, needless to say I am grateful that I have been given the opportunity to feel a bit of pressure. Strangely enough though, both Pauline and I are blissfully looking forward to the excellently successful years ahead.

Thanks,
Jon

Friday progress has been made available in the private forum

2005-12-16T08:12:00.000-08:00

for those of you that watch this in RSS, the private update has now been made here

http://www.themoneytipsreview.co.uk/forum/

The public update will be available later this evening when I am home again.

I hope the battery on this laptop hold out until after I have posted this!

Jon

Yellow Alert.

2005-12-09T12:34:00.000-08:00

Friday Progress 9 December

What was my throw-away comment at the end of my post last week?

“I’ll play with thingamablog”.

Apart from launching a bunch of ebay auctions and launching ONE of the 3 niche nuggets – I haven’t done much else. It’s fun to play with though and the draft function is pretty darn handy if you want to pre write the bulk of your blog posts in one sitting.

Funnily enough, my niche nuggets are perfectly made for that J

I have no idea where this week went. It’s gone and I can honestly look back and it and struggle to remember what I achieved. There is the roll of wallpaper full of my business plan mind map for my niche info publishing offering.

I have increased the price of the niche nuggets simply because I started them off too cheaply.

I have started to throw my name around on the warriors forum. Although I doubt my nuggets will be of any value to anyone there as the content seems to be too targeted for them. We’ll see when I have enough posts to post a WSO. And at a REGULAR retail price of $10 – I have thoroughly shafted myself.

Lesson learnt: Don’t price yourself too low basically!

I have also had to have meaningless exchanges with the bank managers again and have off loaded some more assets to pay off parts of the overdraft.

Thankfully when I worked at IBM I won a wad of John Lewis vouchers so we are scrounging for damaged and reduced stock at Waitrose these days ( At The Haut Couture end outlet of British grocery stores ). We may not have a regular income coming in every month, but goose pate and German smoked ham are the sort of treats one has to suffer with when one has to purchase food with vouchers. Makes it all more fun in my book J but it’s scary how many of these vouchers we have to hand over in comparison to how much something similar would cost as the WalMart representative in the UK. ( Asda )

So that’s my life this week. I’m glad I didn’t realize this could be happening when I left employment, but hell is it better than what I had before!

I’ve some how managed to misplace my links to NPB so until I find that I have to look for content to add to my other sites manually.

And in all this rush to make more money, the publishing business marketing & sales has been neglected to my peril. But heck, it’s Christmas soon and I’ve run out of money in 4 weeks – well not strictly true – my nuggets are making me money. Time to find the market offline.
I have defined my target audience, but I would love to come up with what my USP would be. I have a pretty clear idea how I can reach them – someone offering me an opportunity to take on a part time job runs a marketing company in Southampton so I might speak to him and see what I can offer his customers.

I have some more details in my private forum before the end of the weekend – I have a wedding to go to for someone I hardly know full of a punch of people I hardly know – so I must obviously be meant to meet someone that could benefit from my business services.

Next week? Get rid of this Lung Cancer nugget that is doing my nugget in! I am going insane over it.

I also have two more I can work on, but to be honest, the nicheology forum is dead as a dodo and we’ll see about the warriors forum.

Hunting money is certainly NOT the attitude to take to generate a massive income quickly!

Money, Internet Marketing & jobs from home!

2005-12-02T12:01:00.000-08:00

Last week I said that I wanted to make efforts to make more money.

And I have.

I have done lots more than I had expected as well, mainly because the bank that “helps” us with our publishing business has decided to provide us with “added motivation” to get off our butts and work.

Thankfully Pauline has secured herself a part time job that will help her deal with some of her own debts as well, and I gave her some work to do with my niche nuggets.

So next week I will have 3 more to release, taking the total to 5.

I’ve considered and pretty much rejected the idea of starting a membership site for them for the usual technical reasons, but the feedback so far is against the idea as well.

But with the banks rather crass approach to our business I will have to put something rather effective in place in the next few days to boost turnover and income all over the board.

I will put NPB back into operation again on a domain I have and build content on that domain with the template I have modified.

I also have a couple of clickbank things to sort out and I can sell one of my products on there initially as well then.

Plus I will push more stuff on ebay and create some more traffic to the various sites I have. (Although the conversion is diabolical on the traffic that is getting to it already and I’m not doing anything about it because I’m afraid I don’t know what I am doing.)

So I have loads of options – a bit of a curse – but at the moment the bank has provided me with a very strong motivator!

I honestly don’t know what to write next. I will work more to make more money. Come to think of it, I will just this minute start work on an idea I got relayed to me by Martins next excellent product ( which I’d love to sell Martin if you’ll let me! ) and see how it works out.

Lessons Learnt?
Don’t quit your day job if you rely on a JV to provide you with your income. Bitter? Not at all – just wiser. Hence why a paid membership site is not something I would like to do ever again.

Oh, and I’m playing with a thingamablog.

Get a Bloody MoveON!

2005-11-25T10:55:00.000-08:00

Last Friday I gave myself the challenge to work on my next product, prepare for todays seminar, follow ups for the publishing company and a quick one day job to make some money.

Well with the man-flu and all the seminar was out of the question, BUT I spoke to two different people about my nicheinfopublishing ideas and one of them is dead keen on using the service in her own consultancy business…

So I also need to put MY services into practice on MY business consultancy service… erk!

The other person I spoke to had some great ideas for developing the ideas further and we’ll see where we take it (I’m still reading your document miss… ;o) ) – although it seems increasingly likely to be best applied offline.

So all in all I think the seminar, as nice as it would have been, wasn’t really required after all.

In my near-dead state I still managed to do a couple of follow ups for the publishing company too AND I went out on that job to earn around £150 merchandising dozens of newsagents in Portsmouth & surrounding area. Shame it’s not a regular thing…

I even managed to set up some adwords campaigns for our newest website http://www.calendars4all.co.uk and to do some work on our ebay shop. Now that amazon has pretty much died when it comes to sales, we can at least compensate some by selling our books on ebay.

Note to self – I must create a follow up system for those ebay leads… Any suggestions? My backend, my product backend more specifically is rather complex and I am forever struggling to see how I can organize them in the best way. Maybe I don’t need a funnel but a matrix instead!

There is only one priority right now as Pauline has run out of money and I have less than a months worth left – earn enough to pay for food and mortgage!

I so look forward to January 2006 when all this is resolved J and my road to riches has been confirmed.

(Not much cashflow in publishing you see and as NSS is no longer, there is no income from that either - although the predicament is largely irrelevant to my business, I’m just pointing out that the brink is getting dangerously close and it is providing me with great motivation! )

Patsy Palmer comes dancing, Akon comes rapping, Jon makes the R&B industry swing! & LIberty x drives off!

2005-11-21T14:57:00.000-08:00

Weyhey what a weekend -

We blasted out all the leaflets that were supposed to last us all weekedn in one day and walked around the trade exhibition with our tee shirts promoting our books for the rest of it.
We come home and find a number of ordrers in our inbox and a swelling subscriber list.
We stayed at a pretty decent hotel simply because it was the cheapest good hotel hotel close to the Olympia exhibition grounds in London.

We also had it recommended by a friend in the media & entertainment industry.
I hadn't expected the kind of clientel it had though!

For breakfast my son decides to interupt Patsy Palmer ( Bianca in Eastenders ) while she was powdering her nose. ( with make up - Patsy's a sound lass and nothing like Kate Moss )

For lunch my son ( ever the celebrity spotter ) spotted the blonde bloke out of Liberty X. My 3 year old son is not a fan of Liberty X - he is just obsessed with BMW's - which is what caught HIS eye - it was ME who noticed the bloke getting into the car.

In the evening after dinner we finally decided to find out who these american guys with the serious "bling" were and my step daughters ringtone finally did it when it rung and the guys sorta did a double take and laughted.

Akon, a teen rap idol was in town and the only performance we got from him was via the ring tone on my step daughters phone - but he WAS at our hotel and we did meet him ( no photos though - and I wasn't going to discuss it with his substantial entorage!! )

At the end of the evening i noticed a quiet chap sat at the end of the bar with an orange juice, a pen and a notepad looking remarkably similar to an incredibly famour song writer, but I just can't think of who he is. ho hum!

but yeah, our book launch went well and the event went well - I am selling a tiny dinky little product that is actually selling and I met some other famous people as well but I'll tell you more about that in my private forum ( everybody who's registered has been given access to the friday progress forum - you may have to log in twice to see it )

I see more markets to implement my little products into than I can ever work on on my own, but thankfully JV propositions are already coming in. I also have a writer to help me out with some of the work.

I spent some time in the earlier part of the week working on the next product of mine. I will have lots of things to do on two other things as well this week ( preparation for a seminar this Friday and publishing company followup, plus a quick job for a day to make some quick money ))

I'd better leave it at that - i'm so excited having met the liberty x bloke, patsy palmer ( she's really friendly ) and Akon.

Now to make the week perfect - I MUST findout who that bloke at the bar was!

Cheers,
Jon

Instant Niche Emails and Forex markets

2005-11-11T12:49:00.000-08:00

I am worried. You see, I am sitting here looking at the first sentence appearing in my Friday progress report and I feel positive about the progress I made this week! This is not normal so I naturally have to worry about it, like it’s something out there that I have missed.

I’m going to have to take a closer look at my progress this week, and you know what? I can’t tell one day from the other.
So I am bringing back my daily blog to my private forum. Or I could simply do what Pauline does and write down on paper what I do in a day. If you saw my desk you would understand why that really isn’t an option. My accountant would have a fit if it wasn’t for the basket like device next to my desk that gets all my receipts. NO! it’s not the rubbish bin, but a post basket like those that should hang on your door from your letter box to catch letters. Only mine is hanging off the desk catching receipts. Most of the time.

Right.

The progress?

Well I completed the idea Andy gave me and have already sold some!

I have secured 2 distribution partners and found an outlet which targets exactly the niche market we are after, and they have a distribution list that makes me dizzy. Another website that started 12 months ago has 20k paying members who would also be interested in what our book has to say. The News of The World has confirmed that they are attending our book launch and the production company behind Big Brother is also sending representatives.

I’ve made £100 from odd jobs here and there for people and someone also contacted me for some help with adwords – and I spent nearly two hours on the phone to her discussing some very diverse subjects.

Aha! I found out what it was that I forgot! Ebay! I haven’t launched any auctions this week – but I am sure it is forgiven as I won’t be around next week to fulfill any of the orders.

Pauline has been too busy with publishing tasks to do anything with the stuff I gave her to do with her money making adsense plan already. I am beginning to think that I am going to have to sit down with her and talk her through it some time – which might mean that I have to forgo the business startup event on the 25th in London.

Next Friday I am in London. In Shepperds Bush near the Olympia. They do have wireless access at the hotel but my Friday progress next week will be on Monday or Tuesday. It would just be too hectic to dedicate much time to writing this report.

In Short, next week I am going to spend some time working on my next product ( I think ) but mainly I will be preparing websites, press packs, blogs and auto-responders for the big launch.

Next week truly IS a make or break week. I am so incredibly looking forward to telling you how well it all went J

Right now I feel like falling asleep, but I have an update to post to the private forum.

Tara,
Jon

Forex trading and Online forex trades - Why???

2005-11-04T13:40:00.000-08:00

i'm reading through the post from last week and I can't help but think that I forgot to set myself some goals for this week!

I certainly didn't mention any.

Well, this week I will be putting them inside my private forum and only let invited people view it.

This way I can let the goals be far more specific and others can use the same forum to share their goals with the other selected members on there.

The place to apply for membership is www.themoneytipsreview.co.uk/forum/ and if you've ever helped me or I have ever helped you or we know each other, then I'll approve the request - of course!

The point is to have people there that I can be accountable to obviously, but because it is a select group my sense of responsibility to DO what I set out to do will be stronger.

It's another level of accountability that I am now free to make work for me.

This week has had 4 and a half productive days. I've not completed everything on my lists but I am getting there.

Loads of stuff about the publishing company going on, and also a few things on niche service station and a couple of other things.

Go to the forum to read more.

Adsense has also picked up a little and I am expecting my first adsense payment to land in my inbox at some point this month. yay! ( not counting the ones landing into the NSS account. )

I bought Instant Niche Emails last week as well and have been playing with the somewhat deceptively named tool for 2-3 days to create the first set of niche emails.

I have also completed the income process system for Pauline and she's already identified a market she wants to target.

If I have time I'll post the summary to the forum.

I've also worked on a little idea that Andy Henry gave me so we'll see how that pans out.
I also need to post something to the Niche service station guys.

Would you believe that 25 % of the NSS list signed up to Kim Standerlines Niche-Health-Profits? ( 12 in all)

I've also spoken to more deviants in a week than I have ever thought possible and the book launch is on target.

Next week I will follow up a couple of hot leads for the show later and I also have some pressing newspaper work to do!

That'll have to do -this post has taken forever to put together today!

I had something else I wanted to write about as well but I can't remember!

Cheers,
Jon

lemon law, car lemon, bad car - bad week!

2005-10-28T11:10:00.000-07:00

Well ebay is doing well for us.
Even managed to sell a couple of fiction ebooks which I find incredible!

Next week is just more of the same. If only I can get my car lemon to work again. It is a bad car when a nearly new car is running out of oil in two days. Shame we don't have lemon laws over here.

Anyway.

I've written down the method I use to generate adsense income and I'll be teaching that to Pauline at some point if she can find the time.

I'll also add some more stuff to our ebay shop. At the moment 4 of our 7 titles are not even for sale there but we've still made around £100 on paperbacks in a month.

+++NEXT I AM SELLING SOMETHING+++
Thank you to those of you that helped me finance the purchase of the Sourcecoderights package. I'm really enjoying what it can do with the video, although it is a little crude, it does everything I wanted it to. I have a market in mind that I can sell services and solutions to using these software packages - if you have the same, I suggest you go get the stuff from here
http://www.sourcecoderights.com/go/6100
before the price goes up.
+++BACK TO MY POST+++

When I left my job in July I said that this was the opportunity to test my assumption that lack of time was the thing that is standing between me and my success.

Apparently it is my laziness instead. I certainly enjoy NOT working more than actually doing something. For example:

My yet to be completed list is growing by the day. I have so many things on it is hard to concentrate on what to do next.

there is our shop.
there is our ebay site
there is our book launch
there is the two niche business opportunities I am looking into
there is niche service station which is just taking too much time for the return
then there is the book launch on the 16th of November in London.
Then there is the exhibition to prepare for ( as visitors )
Then there is the business cashflow situation.
Then there is internet marketing and my niche websites & products.
Then there is the small issue of paying the mortgage

Yet I languish in idle use most of the day. I know some people ( like Gary ) prefer to do other things than business, but I have so many things that need doing for the business and other IM things that I should have more than enough to fill my days with.
I am tempted to get an office somewhere other than the coffee shop as that place makes me smell like an ashtray.
I know the solution to all my worries are staring me in the face, but for some reason, I don't seem to know how to remove this frosted glass kinda looking filter between me and whatever this thing is. I've found a pretty hefty looking sledge hammer though - if only I can figure out how to lift it without doing my back in.
The toilet duck might be a better option though, it is different and with enough force can do anything in! ;)
So i'm feeling a little depressed about everything this week but I remain positive because I know that I am at least in control of everything that happens to me and I am the one responsible for getting me into this situation and the one to get me out of it again.
Cheers,
Jon

What about My Health? Ethical Remedy Against Hype Please! Now!

2005-10-21T15:35:00.000-07:00

Two emails today reminded me of things that I am beginning to find irritating. Or should I say that I am beginning to label them as junk?

Jeff Walker bless his cotton sox is emailing me every day now reminding me what a fantastic community that I am becoming a member of, simply by being on his social proof email list. hark!

I know that he is demonstrating the powers of social proof through the blog and the comments he is getting people to put on his site, but it is getting tiresome.

It would work if I felt the whole thing was genuinely trying
to be a community, and maybe if I bothered to open all his "Very Important" emails I might change my mind.

I guess my self limiting belief is that I want to stay within the boundaries of what I feel is morally correct.
It's a problem I have had with marketing and sales people for a long time.

But am I the only one that feel like I am getting wise to the trickeries of real businesses and corporations as well? Am I the only one that think that maybe, just MAYBE, this internet thing is the great leveller, and that companies and retailers that have been pulling the wools over my eyes for decades finally are facing a challenge they deserve to lose?

When it comes to my own business, of course I apply marketing techniques, but I am using them in a way that I feel is ethical.

Who am I to criticize though? I haven't made as much money as he has - but I am not so sure I would want to make an obscene amount of money. Like the people that charge £10-£15k to create a website for somebody - I genuinely struggle to see how a website can be that valuable without the marketing to go with it. In fairness there are two UK marketers that do something similar, and because I struggle to understand their value proposition ( big word! ) I am still available to be convinced that they offer value. note - I AM OPEN TO BE CONVINCED. That means I am undecided. However, I am not in their target market so there is really no need for them to convince me.

Where am I going with this and what has it got to do with my friday progress?
Darn good question!

I just get somewhat irritated with people that treat others like they are stupid.

My primary aim in my life is to help.

I aim to do so to the best of my abilities and in the way I would like to be treated ; Honestly and with respect.

Pauline has a very good working principle: Treat others like you want to be treated. That is a principle I aspire to.

Hmm, this is beginning to look like a manifesto of some kind, but let me get on to the second email that rung my bells before I get on to my progress this week.

(Hello Mr Avis, how is your NHP promo going :) )
I do SO agree about the "arm twisting " bull that I see so often that he mantioned in his excellent newsletter today - but then I realised I had used a similar phrase to the nicheservicestation list this week about the same promotion that Martin is doing.

Suddenly I felt attacked. But then again this is Martin so I eventually figured that it was just a way for him to point out that he knows Kim just as well as I do! Amazing what a fuming 30 minute walk can sort out ;o)

I think the - is he talking to me - reaction was a natural response to meeting myself in the door as we say in Norwegian; Arguing against a behaviour then suddenly see it in myself.

So thanks for the reminder :o)

As for my progress:

On a complete whim after seeing how perfect Kims offer would fit in with our members I sent out 4 emails to the list over the last week telling them about it. Is a 25% response rate good? ;o)

I have read umpteen emails by Jeff Walker.

I have aquired 8 email addresses to decision makers in our outlets and got permission to email them on a regular basis.

I have also spoken to another 15 book stores.

I have researched a bunch of markets and I have developed some of the ideas I had last friday a little further.

Next week I expect to have to call, snailmail and email a whole bunch of people about our next book.

I have sold more books on ebay, gathering a further 11 email addresses and post addresses to contact in the future.

I have loads of things on my not yet done list.

Next week I will reduce that list down to zero and start on the next phase of our new book marketing plan.
( which is: write one!)

And I will spend most of the weekend listening to Paulines fantastic experiences and ideas she has had from going to the Frankfurt bookfair.

I might even twist her arm to reveal the important must have information to all of you that want to publish something in the real world too. :oP

Cheers,
Jon
Still Progressing Somewhat

Why Is Friday Always Fight Night in my house?

2005-10-14T07:24:00.000-07:00

First off,

Can those of you reading this that have migrated from the UK to another country or have bought property abroad please get in touch as I have a proposition for you that could mean good publicity and a little money for a little of your time.

jon AT collectivepublishing.co.uk

on to my progress

Here I am happily overcoming my manflu and other ailments and out of the blue my wife decides to pick a fight over our business debit card. ( I just mentioned that I couldn't see the sense of paying a 56p postage charge with a debit card from a bank that will charge us 35p for the privelege and off she went in a huff )

Reeling from yet another Friday Fight I am beginning to wonder why on earth women has to pick fights on the best day of the week?

My working week hasn't been 100 per cent productive but when I have taken action it has been decisive and positive.

I even got up at 2am last night when I woke up and remembered that the deadline for editorial material to a trade rag was today and wrote a press release.

But instead of getting congratulated, I got another earful for pointing out that my dearest desktop publisheresse had sent me the wrong image to include with the press release.

I carry on because I love Fridays and I do what I normally do on Fridays which is replacing activity with "thinking action" - so I get another earful for sitting on my lazy ar#e when there are dishes to be cleaned and rubbish to empty out.

And this repeats itself EVERY Friday!!

What is it that women dreadd so about the weekend? Have they had such a horrible week that by Friday it finally spills over? For the last 7 years, my Fridays have been a mixture of heaven and hell - I love the fact that it is nearly the weekend and I can finally relax a little and plan my next week in comfort, but pretty much EVERY Friday for some reason I can not fathom, I say or do something that some woman takes offense to and I get into a fight.

I'm not angry on Fridays. I'm not fed up. I'm genuinely looking forward to a happy weekend - but for some reason someone decides it is high time to pick a fight with me.

So what can you do?
Personally I added 3 more ebay auctions to our site and worked some more on the site that I created that my wife now has decided is using software that belongs to her. So I have to start over.

I have come up with 4 potential projects - not counting the other 3 I am mulling over. I have found the fundamental flaw in another one of my products and I have created content for 3 of my sites and scheduled a press release for this sunday, submitted two articles and sent off a press releast to a rag.

I have spoken to 15 book stores and signed up yet another website to our list of outlets.

I wish that would be enough for someone. It is for me.

But now I am on demand to show results, and I am not so sure how I can go about doing that.

Finally,

Next week I will start to deliver results.
Or I'll be looking for a divorce lawyer in January.

Cheers,
Jon

Another week of progress.

2005-09-30T10:16:00.000-07:00

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

2005-09-23T10:15:00.000-07:00

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?

2005-09-16T07:07:00.000-07:00

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

2005-09-09T12:13:00.000-07:00

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

2005-09-02T11:29:00.000-07:00

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! )

A slow one...

2005-08-26T10:34:00.000-07:00

"Next week I will finalise the niche pack & the niche product for an NSS member to review and I will finish the shopping site that I now have setup so that I can promote it with one of our customers.

I will also have a look at adding an ask campaign for the book that we are launching in November, when the digital format is ready and a second campaign for a niche that I had already rejected, but I have now found a couple of possible outlets for the title. We’ll see what I have time for. The top priority is to get this niche pack out and the shopping site set up properly."

Number one: I have NOT finished the niche packs nor the niche product that was the top priority NOR did I finish the design of the shopping site I had set up for my publishing business.

I DID launch an ask campaign using a free formmail account & dreamweaver to create the form for the publishing book and I will launch another ask ( or flycatcher ) campaign next week.

I did NOT do any work at all on the shopping site.

Is this going to slow down my progress. No. Progress happened slowly THIS week, but it does not impact the speed of progress next week.

It will of course mean that I will either deliver the products later or I have to work harder to deliver them on time.

Has my business suffered from me not meeting my objectives? Yes. There are members on the NSS site waiting for stuff to happen.

Has this week been wasted? No.

Resoundingly NO.

I spent an hour or so on the phone to a great trusted friend and mentor trying to figure out what to do with this book launch in November and how I could go about it without breaking the bank. I spent even more time working with book stores, book websites and my wife to sell more books and to get more money for the launch. We worked hard to figure out how to execute a plan that could work for our book.

That took a long time to go through but in the end the instincts told us that taking this on as a financial gamble is too stressful so we're going to work out another way of Launching it.

And we will definitely spend some time at the trade fair to get some publicity for our company & books.

But other than that, my mother is over visiting from Norway until Wednesday so it has been slow this week and I expect it to be slow next week too.

We'll see what I can come up with for goals. The main thing is to get the nichepack ready. the book is already on paydotcom, but the salespage needs serious work! ( http://www.traditionalchristmasrecipes.com/ )

And this is only the lead into the niche. There are more products lined up for Christmas. You should have yours lined up by now too...

Christmas Is here early.

2005-08-19T07:29:00.000-07:00

Last Week I said:
Next week, I’ll have a paydotcom book ready for my NSS members to promote, and I am also giving them a couple of website designs they can play around with in XSP. I’ll start up my adwords cashcow campaign again to see how it goes. And I will be contacting some people about my books.

Ok. The niche pack is delayed a bit as I had some troubles with the domain I set up and with getting it to work with paydotcom. I also need to feed in some articles, but the site is at least finished and about 80 percent ready. I’ve also got 3 design options ready for the site.
I have also moved forward a 3rd niche product because it is loosely related to a niche one of the NSS members is working in, and the product could lend itself well to her niche, with a bit of modification. So that one is about 80 percent ready as well.
The adwords cashcow has already given me two sales a week in, which isn’t too bad at this time of year, and I know my adverts covert well when they get shown, but they are being blocked by the fact that I am sharing my URL with the site I am promoting and so they get their ads displayed instead of mine. But again I have a PLAN to fix that, but it’s a matter of finding the time. Hmm. It could mean getting more money so I guess I’d better up it’s priority.
I have not had time to deal with the book company this week as much, but I spent Wednesday in London discussing publishing options with a print on demand and “short print runs “ specialist that doesn’t charge anything up front. Very good for our book launch in November and gives us the flexibility to print short test runs of possible titles to get review copies out etc.
I also read a very interesting piece in a newsletter this week about how to prove to investors that your business idea works, which I will adapt to publishing and try a few titles that Pauline has hinted about in the last few weeks as possibles. Although we already have 3 titles ready for publication as soon as we have the money. The book people in London might be able to help us out there though. They even work out cheaper than Profitspublishing which is incredible.
Next week I will finalise the niche pack & the niche product for an NSS member to review and I will finish the shopping site that I now have setup so that I can promote it with one of our customers.
I will also have a look at adding an ask campaign for the book that we are launching in November, when the digital format is ready and a second campaign for a niche that I had already rejected, but I have now found a couple of possible outlets for the title. We’ll see what I have time for. The top priority is to get this niche pack out and the shopping site set up properly.

Cheers,
Jon

Websites, Shopping Carts and Money

2005-08-12T07:08:00.000-07:00

Next week I will work on selling more books, and on the XSP niche product sites. Those are my main priorities. I’m also going to figure out why my google maps don’t seem to work and have the shopping cart software installed by Wednesday.
:
Ha! I laugh in the face of such easy targets! How vague those first 3 objectives are! Bah humbug what an easy life I lead.
The shopping cart was installed by Wednesday. I spent time over the Monday and Tuesday to install it on a hosting plan that didn’t support perl on IIS. Doh. So as soon as I was told to go for a linux server I did and had it installed and running like a dream on Wednesday. Then spent most of Thursday trying to figure out how to modify the design.
But finally I have a blimmin affiliate program!! Two tier and customizable by each affiliate! Woo hoo!
And that was the one that had a fixed target!!
The other target I had was to make the first seasonal product available via paydotcom by the 15th. The good news there is that I have the raw material for a 60 page ebook and I have the design for the site. Between now and the 15 I have to get the various pages that paydotcom requires me to put in place created and I have to pdf the product and add the links and feedback forms etc in the book it self. Oh, and I need a coverphoto, but I am working on that already. I have a picture of a whopping big turkey dinner from last xmas on a pc somewhere – if not I’ll grab one from my stock photo website.
Now, when you see what product it is you’ll go – Oh for Peters sake Jon, why did you waste your time on such a daft product?
Because I could. Just get it DUNN! That is my goal for this one. And it’ll be available to resell for anyone that are members of our service station too.
But the NICHE that this niche is within is a HUUGE industry and it gives me a foothold to develop further products to sell into the related niches.
Oh and the googlemaps thing is sorted out – google is case sensitive, but does not recognize uppercase … though it seems it is delisting my sites faster than an Australian can take wickets against England talenders.
And I’ve sold more books. Although my priority has been to set up the shopping cart to help some of our partners sell more of our personalized books.
Next week, I’ll have a paydotcom book ready for my NSS members to promote, and I am also giving them a couple of website designs they can play around with in XSP. I’ll start up my adwords cashcow campaign again to see how it goes. And I will be contacting some people about my books.
I also need to find a way to raise a bit over £4k to pay for the things that I need to launch our next title at a tradefair in November. Me has a plan…

Cheers,
Jon
- every day in every way I am getting better and better-

Now we're talking

2005-08-05T04:10:00.000-07:00

I feel good about this weeks progress, I must confess. I think it is because I have started to realize that I have no fixed income anymore and that it is up to me to replace my income. It is up to ME to make the sales figures in the publishing business increase. It is up to ME to get the new titles promoted. ( we got two new books definitely in the pipeline and are hoping to be able to afford two more ) So you could say the success of the sales force is quite critical for our future success.

I absolutely LOVE the freedom and the simplicity of running my own business. I have no employees to deal with and my aim is that I never will have to deal with it. What ever actions I take or NOT take have a direct impact on our business results and that is just incredible. To me it is at least.

Anyway, on to my progress!

Last week I said I wanted to spend my time this week working on the XSitePro niche packs and selling loads of books.

Well I sold a few books by ringing around some book stores, but I have also got some contacts in the company HQ that will come in handy and should provide us with a bit more traction in that book chain.

I have also extracted a recipe book from a public Domain book that I have been working on, and two other potential titles. My aim is to have all 3 ready on PayDotCom from the 15th of August and I am so far on track.

I have made some in roads on this ecommerce solution for the publishing company, and it seems I may have to resort to getting someone to install it for me as it isn’t as straight forward as I hoped it would be. I certainly can’t understand why it’s not working and we need to increase the revenue from our books significantly as we were hoping to exhibit in London in November. ( subject to lack of bombings… )

Doesn’t look like a lot but I have managed to identify 5 other decent projects to work on this week. I have bought instantblogandping and have run it on two of my sites. I will re-run it on one site again on Monday when I have updated the adsense adverts on the pages that I have on the site.

I have also finished the redesign of the money tips site and updated the 404 page with an automatic redirect. I have over 100 pages listed in msn and ask.com and I need that traffic to get redirected to somewhere useful until they come around again.

Next week I will work on selling more books, and on the XSP niche product sites. Those are my main priorities. I’m also going to figure out why my google maps don’t seem to work and have the shopping cart software installed by Wednesday.

Bar Progress

2005-07-29T05:14:00.000-07:00

The phone line didn’t get much better so I didn’t do much calling. It will happen on Tuesday next week.

I was going to work with Pauline to get clickcartpro installed, but had some difficulties with the script location when I first uploaded it. User error so there is nothing stopping me, just haven’t gotten to it yet.

I did ring the supplier and spoke to him for a while about his e-commerce solution that he is offering to his suppliers – for £250 pcm + VAT! Thanks fully this is a niche supplier and not a book supplier so it isn’t critical to our business to deal with him. I have the opportunity to meet him when I go to Birmingham this weekend for an industry trade show though. We’ll see what happens.

I have worked on a site that could go with the niche pack we’ve already released for our existing members and I have also near enough finished the next one and have created an XSP project for a third pack which I really need to get out there before the 15th of August.

I have also migrated my money tips review site to XSP but I have to set up an automatic redirect of the old URL’s so that they can find the articles they are looking for.

Other than that I have not done much. I have decided to let the battery life of my laptop decide how long I am working every day. Feels great! 

For next week I am working on the XSP niche packs and on selling loads of books.

I will also make sure the publishing business ecommerce situation is resolved so that we can start to implement the affiliate programme.

Short one today! It’s because I want a holiday…

Petrol, Coffee and an Internet connection please

2005-07-22T07:27:00.000-07:00

Wooha what a week.

My phone line sounds worse than a dry wood fire and my broadband got disconnected early. So I can sympathize with Rob S down in Portland about not having internet access. As I don’t. nor can I call waterstones or ottakars to ask them to buy our books as they can barely hear me over the crackling phone line.

Dial up at best is 28.8 speed but usually 9.6. In comparison broadband is usually around 400 where I live.

But I have written a list of the things I CAN do offline and yesterday I even hunted down the costs of a 3g data connection card for my laptop. Hah! I saw it as very expensive as it charges me for the amount of data not for the time used. So I dropped in on the nearest Starbucks this morning after dropping Thomas off to nursery ( a perk of working for myself ) and found it empty.

Yes. At 9:15am this Starbucks had two staff and no custom! But alas – no wireless hotspot. So I finish my drink ( grande latte ) and drive off home. I make a detour to the local serviced office building and find that they do hotdesks for £4 an hour or a permanent desk for £350 per month ( erk!) or an office with 3 to 4 desk spaces for £1300 a month. I have access to a free office space in Southampton but parking is at a premium down there costing me around £160 a month if I chose to go there 5 days a week. ( unlikely! )

I can still not get over the fact that Starbucks was empty…

Anyway, I suffer through 45 minutes of poor dial up to find my nearest local hotspots. 1 in the working mans club, 2 in nightclubs ( why on EARTH??) and 3 in various pubs. The closest one to me though is either the working mans club one or one at the local petrol station.

WHY? Imagine a small local petrol station in a residential area. It has the sweets and car condiment isles a freezer and a coffee machine. Plus a wireless hotspot.

But where on EARTH am I supposed to put down my laptop? Where am I going to sit and work? In my car while going through the carwash??

So for me my working environment while I wait for the broadband to work itself out will either be in the local Harvester or the local serviced office building. Unless the cinema complex will have a hotspot when it finally opens its doors. If I need access that is. Currently this is being written in a local sandwich bar.

It’s a hard life when broadband disconnects…

So in short, I haven’t achieved nearly as much as I was supposed to, but I have been able to think more about what I want to achieve with my self employment status. I have researched 3G costs and broadband hotspot costs and I have researched a couple of niches with a good representation in the magazine shelves in WH Smiths.

I’ve read more than I planned and I have just done other things to keep the progress going. There are always other things that I can do to keep on progressing. If there is a roadblock ahead of me, I find a way around it, over it or through it. Easy.

For next week,
If my phone line corrects itself, I will be calling book stores for 8 to 12 hours and see what it does to our revenue.

I will work with Pauline to get our ecommerce solution installed on one of our sites so that we can set up our affiliate programme.

I will also call and introduce myself to one of our suppliers as they have upgraded their internet offering – in fact I need to do this first.

I will also work on two content sites for the holding company behind niche service station and provide some long awaited resource updates to our members.

Cheers,
jon

- Every day in every way, I'm getting better and better -

Publishing, Progress And Promotion

2005-07-15T12:31:00.000-07:00

I can not get over the fact that I do NOT have a regular JOB to go to!

It's two full weeks ago since I had my last working day and I just can not get over the feeling that I am on holiday.

The worst thing is that the days are starting to get mixed up. I almost forgot it was Friday today!

So as a result, part of this afternoon was spent on planning my next 12 weeks progress. Particularly on the publishing business. It needs focus to drive it forward and upwards, which is a challenge with everything that I have on.

We got thermal binding equipment now so that we can print workbook style books on demand as well as spiral bound books.

How that fits in with our business plans is beyond me but I'm going with whatever Pauline decides. She is doing the bulk of all the work at the moment anyway.

So if anybody wants workbooks printed and bound from the UK then drop me a line and I'll quote ya a price. That is the functional offer. If you can think of a way a printed workbook can benefit your business or product offerings, then that's great. I'd be glad to help out.

And if anybody has any experience in the lingerie business please get in touch.

Pauline has also decided to take on a merchandising job to make ends meet now that there is no regular income coming in. My google adwords and adsense have vanished. Adwords because I stopped the promotions, granted, but adsense as well haven't been given the attention that the sites deserve to get new content on them. so the income has gone.

But she gets to see the strangest things on her travels..... Like today she had to undertake a black car doing 45 in the outside lane. Glaring at the lone driver as she drives passed she gets to see that he is in fact doing ALOT more than just driving slowly!!

He was busy enjoying the one handed drive if you catch my drift!! And from Paulines description he had LOTS to enjoy - but I can not for the life of me figure out what is so inspirational about the motorway down to Bournemouth!

What a life. And here I am doing housework like I wanted to. oh well.
I have a bit more tweaking to do on the plan that I will be achieving by the 30th of September, but I'll let you know what it was on the 1st of October. and then I'll tell you how I did it.

for now I will concentrate on becoming a Stepford husband, working the publishing revenues up and working on the niche service station automation.

Cheers,
Jon

Carry On regardless

2005-07-08T13:38:00.000-07:00

This week I made my first sales by personally calling a book chain of stores. It was a bit short of the weekly target but it was more than we would have taken in if I hadn't made the calls.
I have the rest of the chain to call next week and then on to other chains to drive sales in there. But there is an opportunity there at least to generate some sales.
I have also made a little progress on the various NSS projects we've got running. I really enjoy the hands on supporting of our members but we could certainly benefit from having organised some of our resources a little more effectively.
I knocked up a little site in xsitepro to test google sitemapping and the result is here:
http://www.nicheservicestation.com/googled_in_60_seconds.html
and the end result was baffling to say the least...
I've built another site with xsitepro which is a test site for a potential future niche for the service station. So I won't tell you what that one is on just yet.
the service station now tallies 34 members, without any real promotion of any kind.
I'll meet up with Andy this weekend to sort out the missing details. I suspect it will be a very VERY long rapid results event!
I am enjoying the limited freedom that I have gained from giving up gainful employment but it is still feeling a little like I am on holiday...
I have also taken up walking for an hour or so in the evening listening to weird people like Peter Twist & Mark Vurnum and a few other strange characters talking about internet marketing. ( iRiver Martin? bah! get the real stuff ! A sony NW of course! ) (admittedly you win on the name front.. ) ( MY next gadget purchase might be a tablet PC...which is effectively a pda style PC the size of a laptop)

Between now and next week - get on top of the niche service station stuff and contiue to increase my publishing sales.

As for London, all I am going to say on that matter is that I am not going to let the terrorist virus take up more of my time than it already has. I feel for those that have been directly affected and I can only imagine how lucky yet saddened some people feel today. Like those that had family in London , or those that would have had family in London if it wasn't for a change of circumstance. I have had my moment to reflect and I have offered a thought to those that suffered. Now I intend to honour their sacrifice by ignoring the chaos that the terrorists are trying to create and take on the spirit of one of the WW2 veterans caught up in the chaos on his way to a Veteran reunion:

"We've gone through this and worse before you know. I'll get to where I need to be soon enough. London is London "

He said this with a smile and it looked to me as if he knew what this would do to peoples spirits and how they would come together and help each other.

And that was far more than I intended to say.

Unproductivity insurance please!

2005-07-01T14:14:00.000-07:00

Yet another unproductive week internet business wise. That is ceratinly the sentiment I am starting with today.

I thik I may have lost my way somehow lately and although there is alot to do I don't seem to get them done on time or at all.
So sod the goals from last week - I''d rather just tell you what I DID do.
I've developed a clear idea of what I can do with the money related content I have accrued over the last couple of years.
I have spoken to my wife for hours on end about how to organise our time on the publishing business
I have quit my job and as of Today I am no longer anybodys employee.
I have worked on more content for the site that I HAVE published.
I have started work on another site, and I have about 3 others that needs finishing as well.
I have started work on the SECOND free content site that we will give away. Paul is working on the first one.
I have decided that I need to find an office to work from maybe one or two mornings a week as a productivity exercise.
I have finished two camtasia videos for the membership site but my flash producer thingy isn't working and I need to get it reinstalled
I spent most of last night trying to find all the paperwork that was supposed to go with my laptop when I handed it in at work today.
I have decided that I need a holiday, but it is very unlikely I will be able to get one for a while, but I do need to find my centre again.
I wrote and published two articles and a newsletter.
I have updated our sales page as required and I have been doing research into some new niches that I heard of in the newsagent.

So why does the week feel so unproductive? I can only assume it is because it is supposed to!

Catch Me Up Scotty

2005-06-24T14:18:00.000-07:00

it's that time of the week when I am supposed to report on my progress again.

Although I'm inclined to report on other peoples progress instead as I have been speaking to so many of them lately!

But I will leave the discussions between us and contemplate on the looming redundancy. Well it's not really looming anymore as it is here next Friday.

As of the first of July I will have my last working day. I have some regular "consultancy" work coming in to secure the mortgage payment but that's it for my employed life.

I look forward to create the success I want, but frump me I'm terrified!

( but don't tell the wife!)

The calls took alot of mytime last week and even some more process that needed fixing.

So apart from doing that, I have NO other DUNN at all!

none.

nothing.

I WORKED on another xsitepro site, which I aim to have uploaded tomorrow - assuming the url has come through by then. I have some content in place - just need to create a decent opening statement for the frontpage and get it up there. But it AINT DUNN

I've been discussing with Pauline how to organise my time when I leave and I may even have access to a free office I can use on some days, just to get out of the house and feel like I am going to "WORK" - but the plan AINT DUNN.

And I completely and UTTERLY forgot about the experimental page! So THAT AIN't DUNN either!

SO I have some catching UP to do next week.

The next batch of membes are already coming on board again even though the price has gone up quite a lot. At this rate we'll be fully subscribed sooner than we can cope with!

I have a feeling I'll be VERY busy finishing off things at work as well.

So I will focus on WORK - helping members and getting the xsite pro sites live. ( and the publishing business? help!)

sounds easy doesn't it?
:)

haircut 100, no thanks, just a trim around the head!

2005-06-17T13:30:00.000-07:00

On a mission yesterday to cut my hair to a more manageable "look". A trim around the ears is enough surely?

Oh, i'll do it myself.

say hello to mr brillo pad.

Anyway. This week has been utterly inspirational. I've been speaking to so many people that WANT to be successful and that WANT to be held accountable it's amazing.

We were told when we started to talk to people and potential partners about what we wanted to do, that we needed to make sure that we gave people what we want and not what they need.

The great news is that what we are providing seems to be in every way exactly what they want.

Which is incredibly inspirational for one single reason:

When I was working in a pc hell-center 8 years ago I told myself that my ultimate dream would be to work with people that would WANT to talk to me and would be positive about what we talked about and were actively seeking out my assistance because they felt that my assistance would add value to them. And that would listen and apreciate what I had to say.

I know it's early days. I know it is only the first call and I know we still have to prove to them that we are capable of delivering this value consistently and over time, but we're planning to reuse alot of the lessons we're learning.

We've got some great people on board willing and able to work hard to achieve their success. If a number of these people also start to work together to create wealth for each other and with each other, then it can become an amazing community.

And they give every impression that what we offer them in our calls are of genuine value to them and they appreciate what we are doing...

And I'm only 34.

Last week I said I was going to do all my jv tasks
and i did.

Last week.. etc: help pauline redo the website designs
the designs have been updated.

prepare for post-employment life
Well this one is so vague it's worthless really. But what I did was to take some days off, and I have also organised it so that I can do some merchandising a day a week- just to get out of the house on a regular basis. I've also started to look at ways to organise my working time in an way that is productive for NSS, the publishing business and the rest.

Also found out this week that it is increadibly easy for pauline and i to set up an ondemand printing business, but that is actually labour that doesn't really leverage our time. But I've already had someone tell me she'll have all her ebooks printed with me if I DO go for it.

I did in fact learn the basics of xsitepro.
and the tutorial site is up there to prove it.

Now all I have to do is crank out the content sites with it.
Should be easy...

Replicate the "experiment" is the only one i didn't do. It's not a time consuming task at all, but I am making things far to complicated for myself.

So i WILL have put up a page to experiment with before Sunday night or I will...

shave all my hair off? nah too late. Did that last night...

next week there are some more calls to do, and som excellent content to be added to the jv site.

I have to work out with pauline a structure for how to work when I leave employment.

I WILL be putting an experimental page up.

and I WILL create a content site with xsitepro.

For now, I'll sign off and have a short evening relaxing before it is my day off to spend with the family.

See ya,
Jon

Progress Is Chils Play if you're a child!

2005-06-10T13:38:00.000-07:00

Sitting in my sons sandpit, philosophising over this week, I found myself interrupted when he wanted to join in.

Whatyadoooin? he asks as per usual, chumping away on his fishcake.

"playing and trying to figure out what life is"

He looks at me as if you say, "well everybody knows THAT!" but realising I am not joking he puts his hand on my shoulder and says:

"Life is cake" and trotts off to find his watering can.

"Life is cake? just cake?"

Looking under a bush, ( for the aforementioned wateringcan) he goes with passion and a little bit of indignation at my ignorance

"NOOO daddy. Life is PASTA & Cake. "

So I guess, taking it from Thomas,
life, it seems, is pasta and cake.

I'll leave that one with you to ponder over.

Meanwhile,
I have confirmed that I will be taking permanent leave from my employment on the 5th of July.

Next - with the niche service station we have a tremendous pre-launch going and a few glitches but nothing major. I am learning alot from it at the moment and it is great to see so many people WANTING what they actually need.

I have also been spending some time with conjunctivitis again, so I think I will join the band of one eyed computer Pirates. Hi Gary. ;) ( get well soon!)

I have also bought myself a copy of xsitepro to play with which should be fun! Although I'm sure it won't make me quite the stepford wife. I am simply FORCED to install it on my brand spanking new IBM laptop that I bought as a sweetener for leaving, simply because my HP lemon of a desktop machine won't let me have that installed at the same time as having any other software running.

And now i simply HAVE to try the machine while sitting in front of the TV down stairs... :)

Things to do for next week:
- replicate the "experiment"
- learn to use xsitepro
- nicheservicestation tasks !
- prepare for my life after employment
- help pauline out with the site designs.

Cheers,
Jon ( with shades on, wondering what pasta and cake means )

PS Welcome back Rob

- every day in every way i'm getting better and better -

Niche Service Station Progressing

2005-06-03T20:24:00.000-07:00

This week I have mainly focused on the JV. There was a really long list of things to do, but we've done loads of them already so I feel great about that.

The rest of the time I have spent feel, well spent. seriously knackered i guess is another way to describe it. I've almost fallen over for no reason - and I've been doing it a number of times a day. Suddenly the ground gives way and I have to catch myself before falling flat on my face.
Oh and in addition I have this strange flu that keeps on varying in strength.
So with great trepidation I called my GP from work and asked to see him.
"Hayfever made worse by sleep depravation caused most likely by sleep apnea brought on by weight gain" ( yeah, i've shot up from 116.5 to 120.5 kg in the last few weeks. ( half a stone ) )
So the fatigue & dizziness is because I'm not getting quality sleep when I sleep. The flu i had wasn't flu after all.
So things are quite good after all! Shame... :o)
What's happening on other things? Not much change to be honest. Haven't worked on any of them this week at all so I expect them all to be ticking over nicely. Although adsense dropped off around the middle of May and hasn't picked up yet.
I also have to tend to the traffic generation activities of some of my other sites. One site I bought hosting for a month or so ago I haven't even sorted & uploaded yet!
I'm looking forward to getting the launch out of the way because then I can start to play with my new thinkpad ( sorry but factually, every OTHER laptop is just a poor copy if the thinkpad, the FIRST true laptop ) T41 that I got on the door today.
And get xsitepro. ( which we're giving away FREE with our membership site - we are infact BUYING it for our members)

Oh, do you remember that we published a book in March? Well it's currently set to be profitable before we expected, which is nice! So I'm gonna leave my employment and become a house husband. My new life starts on the 4th of July.

Next week, who knows what might happen. We'll be bringing on board our first testers and open it up to the early birds and then tweak and learn as we go.

I'm excited and apprehensive. I know what we offer will make a difference to our members, but can we get enough members to get critical mass, that's the question... For the price, I can't see why not, but who knows. And there are two of us from July being available to support our members full time so there is nothing lacking there.

Right, falling into the "superior product trap" again. Easy when we're making a superior product: PERSONAL care, attention & follow up. Making a rod for ourselves? Only if we don't enjoy it.
But is there a market for this and do we know where the market hangs out? Yup.
Are we Unique? I think so.
But not to worry, come the 4th of July I will have other things to focus on in this blog!

On A Knife Edge ( with my mp3 player)

2005-05-20T13:19:00.000-07:00

I've got the inlaws staying with us this weekend - they have travelled all the way from Malaysia to visit, on their way to Denmark for a conference.

Great for Thomas and means I have little time today to go through the progress this week.

Although there isn't much to write home about. I've been struggling with a bit of a cold or something and I have

NOT been to the Gym!

NOT done 3 Power evenings. I did half a one and even that wasn't strictly speaking done correctly.

I blame it on feeling absolutely worn out.

What I did do? Had my 34th Birthday and ate far too much icecream and hot dogs on the Norwegian constitution day. It was in fact the centennial celebrations since our liberation from Sweden. Although I hasten to add that although we celebrate that and dislike the Swedes for that, in the 90 odd years they ruled us they hardly ever bothered interfering with the governmental system we put in place just as the Danes lost us in a War with England.

So it was in fact the English that liberated us from the DANES in 1814 and GAVE us to the Swedes, who to be fair to them only treated us like an unwanted Christmas Present and let us roam free.

So when Norwegians hate Swedes it was because they made us feel unwanted! hmmm.. the things I learn these days.

bet they kick themselves now that the norwegian government has a slushfund of over 100 Billion pounds stashed away for a rainy day.

Oh right - MY progress?

Hardly any. I have read a lot of the self development books though, and i think my mind is asking me to do it mainly to prepare myself for the outcome of the redundancy deal. ( like if I am offered a good deal and then if I will take it )

One of my key factors deciding the outcome depends on some market research I am doing on an idea of mine.

" I am about to jump off the rat race - what on earth will I do to make ends meet?"

What's in it for you?

Well, if you were faced with this situation, what would YOU be feeling right now? Now you will be able to SEE and read what happens, but to somebody ELSE!

I am going to take it upon myself and show you what might happen if you decide to do the same.

And I will show you exactly what I do, the tools I use, the affiliate programs I use and the products I am working on to make a living - and you get to see if they thrive or worse, if they bomb -

NEARLY LIVE! ( nearly, as I have to DO it during the day, then blog and record about it in the evening and then publish.

I'll be putting IN all the details I am currently leaving OUT.

So if you'll be interested in seeing me take the mad plunge, let me know, or else I might not do it.

And you only have until next Friday. maybe even sooner.

Anyway.

Next week I will focus on the JV tasks
Go to the gym at least once
work through my other task list with the help of a couple of rapid results evenings.

Woohoo! My lucky day!

2005-05-13T22:37:00.000-07:00

Friday the 13th is always a watershed day for me, or something really nice happens on the day itself. Usually late in the evening!
Ok, time to let my nimble 116.5 kg frame review last weeks performance.
-----------------------
1. Do all the tasks the success principles book asks me to do
I've done as many as it asked me to do. Simply because I didn't read any in it! So DUNN - but for the wrong reasons :o)
------------------------
2. Read / Listen to all the messages I have received so far from the success website and take action on them
This one I actually did. The autoresponder from the success principles website sends out daily messages and I am reasonably well on top of them . Will get on top of them before the evening is out.
--------------------------
3. Another 2 Rapid Results Evenings this week. Saturday night and Monday night.
Yup. Did 3 infact is it makes such a difference. Although I need to make sure I don't do any more than three as I think it might loose the effect if I do it too much.
---------------------------
4. Complete 7 tasks on my task list.
DUNN. Worked mainly on the ebay tasks and my business. Still need to get an offer letter out to one of the new suppliers. Although we got orders from two other new customers this week. As in retail outlets.
---------------------------
5. JV tasks
Andy, Paul, Did I do them all? I know I did at least one! ;o)
----------------------------
Next week:

- 3 Rapid Results Evenings
- One birthday party to celebrate my 34th birthday
- One hotdog and icecream evening to celebrate the Norwegian constitution day on the 17th. ( It's hard to explain this one, but I will on Tuesday )
- Work through my to-d... hah! task list.
And I will go to the gym at least once.

-----------l-e-s-s-o-n-s---------
You know what I'm finding? that it is beginning to get easier to do things that are uncomfortable to do. Or at least I think they are uncomfortable before I start. Usually they work out really well. My guess is that it's because I am doing this progress stuff every week, but I have also decided that every time I feel like not doing something, just "casue I don't want to", I make myself do it straight away.

I think it was Martin that said in one of his currently irregular daily kickstarts that I should aim to do the difficult things first in the day so that they are out of the way and I can then crack on to do the nice bits later on in the day.

So I have been going to work around 7am this week to get more done. ;o)

I may have not many weeks left and so I need to leave my patch in a good state for someone else to follow up for the latter half of the year. Then again, I may have many more months or years left to go, as I am learning lots from this job, and the best part of the year is about to come around, so from a sales bonus point of view, I am insanely stupid if I leave.

But it is a good principle to apply if you're working from home for instance.

I posted a response on Kimis newbie netowrk forum about accountability blogs and I suggest you go there to read it if you're interested: http://www.newbie-network.com/webbbs/webbbs_config.pl?read=1626
(re-framing existing content - see, I'm learning Gary!)

Here is a strange thing that's happening to me though.

Remember I said I am going to work at 7am?
Obviously this means I am getting up earlier and working longer hours. But I'm feeling better for it! I am not sleeping any less, I am just not lazing about as long as I normally would be. When your son is two and a half you rarely sleep past 6:30 anyway! but for some reason, I am feeling more energetic when I get up within 10-15 minutes after he walks in, have my shower, grab my cereal and go out the door.

Maybe it has something to do with me not having time for my morning coffee anymore...

Anyway. I've got work to do!

Cheers,
Jon
+ every day in every way I am getting better and better +

Time Management Friday

2005-05-06T13:03:00.000-07:00

This week has an air of productiveness about it. Especially in the productive "reading" room.

Last week I commited to the following:
1. Buy running shoes after sorting out bank signatures with Andy and the nice but dim people of HSBC.
DUNN!! ( imagine Marlon Sanders saying it )
--------
2. Complete other tasks for the JV company.
A pretty vague one but DUNN
--------

3. Complete 7 tasks on my task list.
AINT DUNN! Did 4. Can't think of a good reason for the shortfall either.
--------

4. Spend at least 2 hours this week reading "The success principles" and "the mind gym".
DUNN! Problem: I haven't tracked the time spent. But I spend more than 2 hours in the bathroom every week so it must have been more than 2 hours.
--------
5. ( this is getting too long! ) try a Rapid Results approach on Saturday night.
DUNN!
--------
6. Set tasks for the Rapid Results Evening.
Also DUNN

============
I tried one evening of extreme focus on Saturday and it would have gone better if Lord of the Rings hadn't been on. But I still spent the minimum required hour on some tasks and I did at least produce SOME results.
This I think is something that requires regular repetition, as I found that because it takes me out of my comfort zone to work like that, Sunday and Monday was very unproductive in an article, marketing writing sense. I did read a whole lot in the success principles which I am sure must ahve made up for the lack of other progress.
But how can my experience with this book be different from that of reading other self developmetn books? ( those I never finish.. )
As the book says, if you don't like the results change your response.
So what I "do" with this book is different from the others in that I am taking action on the points that I am reading about.
Or to be pefectly honest - I will.... soon. Later at least. Anyway.
I have signed up for his 21 day "course" on the website. Dunn.
Now all I have to do is take action on the things he tells me to do. Honest.
It reminds me a bit about the time management class I had to attend in Dublin for my job over there. Half the class didn't show up the first day. With straight faces and with no hint of joking, they all told us on the second day that they didn't have time to attend the first day.
On the 3rd day the lecturer arrived an hour late as she forgot when she had to be there by! ( interesting as it was the same time the two days before! )
So with a 3 day course on time management you'd think I was an expert at managing my own time. In theory, I am. In Practice? i'm still practicing... ( I apologise profusely! It's been a long hard week at work )
COMMITMENTS:
1. Do all the tasks the success principles book asks me to do
2. Read / Listen to all the messages I have received so far from the success website and take action on them
3. Another 2 Rapid Results Evenings this week. Saturday night and Monday night.
4. Complete 7 tasks on my task list.
5. JV tasks
I think that will have to do for tonight. And then we'll see what I can get up to tomorrow night with my rapido resulto nighto

Cheers,
Jon

Tonsilitis Progress

2005-04-29T12:54:00.000-07:00

Reading through last weeks post, I'm not sure I committed to anything at all?

Whops! But makes for an excellent week for me!

Unless you count the Tonsilitis I have had since Saturday. 5 days off work driving my wife up the wall with my constant motivational talks. ( you try sitting in your office or bed room or living room for a whole week because you may still be contagious. )

Or the chest infection my son has picked up from somewhere.
Penicillin administered to me, some yellow antibiotics for him and we're both on the mend, I have suffered through the pain, hoping that the severe discomfort when eating would have helped somewhat in the weight department:

the needle rests at 116kg
hmm. I suppose all that soothing icecream might be to blame. And the sweet and sour chicken balls I had yesterday. Right, I'd better go and look for that diet of mine again.

You know that gym membership I got for valentines day? I still don't have running shoes! They have a nice pool that I have used, but no shoes, no access to the equipment in the gym. ( my socks were almost clean... )

I digress.
This week I have mostly been writing content for our brilliant new service. I suggest you have a peak at the website and send andy an email if he's ever been helpful and if you'd want to know what we're up to:
http://www.nicheservicestation.com/ ( yes I know it needs work, but we're busy doing other things to get ready! )

The publishing business has been ticking over nicely without much interference from us this week. Our interference does have a positive impact, but atleast the "biz" will actually make us an income without us doing any more promotion at this stage.
Although having it "ticking over" isn't the ambition.

We've also discovered this week a channel that we have not touched, but who is responsible for 14 percent of the book sales in the UK. So in the last two weeks we've been able to approach two new channels and about 4 companies that already offer competing titles in their product range. and they could potentially add over a 5th to our current sales.

The "unreasonable" company should expect a letter next week.

Although my sales training tells me my wife should really make an effort to meet the decision maker to find out what else they are up to.

But then I DO have a tendency to make things overly complicated.

Adsense & adwords? Don't make me cry. Once the content work is out of the way, I need to spend some time getting my niche sites some traffic. Because the google income has all but vanished for me and it needs replacing somehow.

Due to the massivly lacklustre response to the idea of me re-purposing some of my blog entries into a book and selling it, I have decided to shelve that idea for now :o)

COMMITMENTS:
1. Buy running shoes after sorting out bank signatures with Andy and the nice but dim people of HSBC.
2. Complete other tasks for the JV company.
3. Complete 7 tasks on my task list.
4. Spend at least 2 hours this week reading "The success principles" and "the mind gym".
5. ( this is getting too long! ) try a Rapid Results approach on Saturday night.
6. Set tasks for the Rapid Results Evening.

Cheers,
Jon
Still Progressing.

Home Business Banking Progress

2005-04-22T14:39:00.000-07:00

If I were to summarise this week right this minute
"hectic"
Would have to do. sorting my home business. Done my Business Banking as well to make sure business from home runs well

There is a risk that I am confusing "doing a lot" with "achieving a lot" so let me reserve judgement for a moment.

I'll drag out the bathroom scales first. I'm hoping they will show a number under 117.5kg
They did: 116kg.

Only another 41kg to spend according to the health websites. roughly. ( now there is a tangible target if I ever saw one )

It's not weight watchers so moving swiftly along.

Achievements this week:
===================
1. Sorted out a bank account number. What a mess! But now our joint venture has a joint bank account. Although I'm not sure banks wants customers...
2. One of my sales colleagues in the field has work accountability wise taken me by the scruff of the neck and pinned me down. He demands that I ring him every morning & every evening to first declare my tasks for the day and secondly to report back on the progress. It works WONDERS! I took on a sales role simply because it challenged my comfort zone to do so, and this week I personally feel it has been the best week I have had.
++++A LESSON++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Would I have taken the leap if I hadn't started this blog?
Highly unlikely.
I have no respect what so ever for sales and marketing trickery, "power words" and all that "evil" stuff. ( I'm sure those words will come back to haunt me! )
But I can not deny that it works. I don't like it, but it may not be a reason good enough to NOT use it. I would prefer not to, but the world it seems likes to believe in magic potions.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
3. Cracking away with the business. Did I mention this last week, but we hit a mile stone in traidng last month and we have already beaten it by 60%. ? One of our smaller distributors who ordered our new title 5 weeks ago has already needed to re-order. And they ordered more than their usual quarterly supply the first time.
4. Google adwords: Bismal. Had to cancel my cash cow as the landing page I need to direct to can't be directed to with the cj links I am getting - and so my conversion rate has been reduced to NIL.
So no income at all from that this month. Which is a worry. The nice little earner is still ticking over at around 75p profit a day still though.
5. Made THREE sales on my moneytipsreview website this week!!

++++++A LESSON++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I launched the website 10-11 months ago. And NOW it is beginning to earn a little income.
Lesson? Things take time some times, but if it is quality, I am happy to wait!
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

6. I did blog ONCE, but I just haven't taken the time to blog daily. I have written loads though for the service we're launching soon.
But if I am going to take a leaf out of my work experience then I can only say, Daily accountability is GOOD!
7. Hickups this week have been rare. Or maybe I just can't remember them. no. I can't remember any. How bizzarre.
The Bank kinda forgot we had an appointment with them. No kinda about it, she spoke to me on Monday, and had forgotten me by Thursday. Which was nice. But at least Andy got a free cup of coffe in their finest china. Seriously. A GOLD rimmed cup that I imagine old ladies drinking tea out of in the tea rooms. WITH a saucer. No sugar though. But we still have to come and sign the paperwork after Paul takes his plastered leg into his local bank to get "verified". Paul that is, not his leg.

I have to smile when I imagine the great big STAMP on his forehead though! :o)

So has this week been a new beginning? Well IT's a start. There has been some good progress, and I could do with some ideas for organising my time. Although Andy & Pauline ( my wife ) is now in cahoots to stop me from playing stupid computer games.
My task list has 15 completed tasks this week and 17 not yet complete. Tip of the iceberg, really, but scary to think that I have actually done all these things.

So in all this "doing" have I achieved anything?
Apart from the 7 points further up there, I am ready to sort out the merchant account now. I have just set up the email address I needed for that you see, so that is proppa progress.
We - as in the publishing business - managed to stumble on a completely NEW market here in the UK we hadn't considered before, and it is actually a niche sized provider of our niche titles already, so out of the 3 companies in that niche, we've contacted all of them and all of them wants to see our books for evaluation.
We've also managed to open a dialogue with a well known retail chain that had up until now demanded silly terms. So we'll see how that goes now that they are more reasonable.

So, yes - I think it's been a good week.

Question - I'm considering putting all these posts into a book format, any thoughts anyone? would YOU buy it? Or recommend it to anyone else?

New personal record. 2 and a half hours typing this up!
I'd better sav

There should be A Lemon Law Against This!

2005-04-15T14:37:00.000-07:00

You know something is about to happen when the forum headers change!
If you're not signed up with Gary's newsletters and blogs, I suggest you find your way over there http://www.oursuccesspartnership.com .
It's my way of tempting him to post here as I know he reads this forum and he has no idea I've posted the link here! :o)
Anyway. Shall I get on with it then? Two secs.
let me dig out my to-d... hmm. Task list and the bathroom scales first.

============= Accomplishments:
The scales this week insists on 117.5 kg. erk!
my task list is now up to 18 tasks. The software insists on calling it a to-do list, which might explain the odd linguistic slip up.
I completed 8 of the 13 tasks I had on that list last week.

Plus a few more that wasn't listed... I created a new website you see, and uploaded it, full with content and all. Got it via one of these pre-made niche package deals and I am not entirely impressed but we'll see what kind of traffic the typical marketing tricks can generate. Have har 3 search engines by already, so we'll see.
Never mind that I have 4 more lined up. And to think my goal for this year was to create 2. Now I have figured I need to create around 400 to meet my earnings targets from NPB sites. Although I suspect the JV will help towards the goal a little too ;o)
My first website, the money tips one is starting to see steady streams of traffic now as well. I wouldn't call it substatial yet, but enough to have made a few more sales this week.

I have proof read the wedding book and if I wanted to bother with setting up autoresponders I would have had it up already, but I have set up an ASK campaign for it and will create the landing page to hold the survey on Sunday.
This is what I would call arse about face. Classical mistake of getting a product done before knowing what the market wanted, or even checking out what the competition was like. But now I know, then I can set up an ask campaign & give away this "viral" book for free and still get some value from it.

====================== Lessons:
Healthy living regime. right. How about getting out of the office more often and actually do some exercise. I have a gym membership after all. And I do use it about once a week to go swimming.

I'm no guru material. I DO alot of things, but I am never ever satisfied with the progress I am making. Hey, I AM exceeeedingly happy that I am making ANY progress, and I am making money from this online lark, but I know full well I could make MORE progress. Having others doing what I do helps me focus though.
But this week has not been one of the sterling weeks. There is every opportunity that next week is though.

And, nope, I still can not get this typed up in less than an hour...

====================== goal for next week:
Pick up my daily blogging again.

As an overall goal for next week, I want to sit down next Friday feeling that I have accomplished alot. I want to feel how productive the week has been and I want the week to feel like it was a fresh start. One that some how brought about change and finally sets me up for the future that I know is right around the corner.

You know. That just looks sickeningly positive! Trust me, my day to day life is nothing like that rosy, and until 13-14 months ago I would have told myself -
geez jon, you're off the deep end! get drunk and come to your sense man!
but to Hell, Norway ( look it up, it's a place! http://travel.yahoo.com/p-hotel-357551-rica_hell_hotel-i ) with it. I might be off the trolly, out with the faries, brainwashed, dreaming, out of my mind,
BUT.
In ONE year, I have gone from no hoper to owner of over 10 websites, I have gone from a complete salary slave to someone insane enough to buy a publishing business.
I have learnt LOADS about what it takes to make a difference to my life.
I have learnt loads about what it takes to help out others make a difference.
I've met some of the nicest, greatest people around, and I have met some seriously strange characters along the way too.
And if that is what I get from being insane,

Why ON EARTH would I want to be normal?

Ipod, you pod, we all apple pod

2005-04-08T14:01:00.000-07:00

Sorry , but I thinkg I am going nuts! This ipodding is confusing me.

However, disregarding today's apple Ipod competition on the radio and continuing as I should, here is this weeks progress report:

============= Accomplishments:
It's been mainly work related achievements this week. I must have some issues with sleep / fitness at the moment as I am forever tired and never seem to get going in the evenings.

Weight is certainly contributing to the issue:
115.5kg (bmi around 38 - 25 is the highest value for "normal" weight)
I am also beginning to see benefits from the way I work in my job, so I have decided to transerf some of those things to my online stuff.
I did my first training session today for about 12 of my colleagues. What I did? Did a 2 minute overview of the topic I would like to train them on, and asked them to suggest problems they had on the subject, then got the other colleagues to suggest ways they had resolved those same problems.
I Guy Levined them!! And they all LOVED ever minute of it!
I suppose that's a lesson but I thought it was a bit of an accomplishment :)

And how many of you have considered that the techniques you taught to apply ONLINE, actually work in the real world too? I didn't!

I created a book cover for yet another book created by one of our writers, so that was good. It's getting proofed and should be available before the end of the month in a digital format.

====================== Lessons:
=============1=============
At work, I have a system in place to manage my task list, and it works wonders, but relies on ONE single thing:

= I have to update the task and re-schedule it as and when I work on it or it immediately creates more chaos than order. I HAVE to entere EVERY SINGLE task I have to do, or I have no way of remembering to do it.

It also helps me prioritise my tasks as I can only fit 22 in per work day. I drag and drop my tasks as I need to reschedule them. It communicates all changes immediately to all dependent parties. It focuses my mind to only work on important tasks, because I can only fit 110 tasks in on any single work week. Sounds like a lot of space but you'll be surprised how difficult it is to fit in everything important into those 110 slots. i think I will begin to call each cell a percent.

... and for those of you who DIDN'T see where I was going with that...

That way I always schedule my week so I can work 110 percent...

And on my internet business list there is only 13 tasks to do for next week.

A piece of cake!

( You can judge if that means I only put in 13 percent of effort ;) )
==================2====================
I have so many ideas going on in my head at the moment, I can only think it is because I have so much to do on the JV. Distractions I guess, are a way to test my resolve. But as far as I am concerned, this is a no brainer.

====================== goal for next week:
I'll make further efforts to manage my "home business" task list.
See if I can spend less than an hour and a half typing and publishing this thing!
I still need to get my cover and everything else done for the wedding book, although the idea seems better suited as an e course / content website that drives affiliate sales of all the other wedding related products out there. I do however have alteast one market interested in selling it for me.
And I'll aim to work through my task list.
It's bad form to call it a to do list apprently, isn't it Martin? ;o)

Diets, Toilet Paper & Progress

2005-04-01T13:27:00.000-08:00

============= Accomplishments:
I said I was going to step up a gear. Fancy judging this for yourselves?
This is what I said I was going to do:
- finish my product and set out my marketing plan ( although I should have had the plan in place first! )
- complete my business tasks
- manage my tasks better
- apply my JOB skills to my task management.
complete all my current JV tasks next Sunday ( 3rd of April)
This is what I did:
+Finished most of a niche product website & have submitted it to the search engines.
+ Started and finished writing a second product ( still needs a cover and proof reading ) ( romance )
+ Started & is nearly finished with a 3rd product ( still needs a cover and proof reading plus the creation of the bonus product) ( wedding costs )
+ Did 3 tasks on my business to do list. ( had 6 )
+ Have started to use my least favourite software to manage my to-do list in a way that creates urgency better than before.
+ Worked on my JV tasks less than I would have liked.
+ Found out more about the reality "TV" offer.
+ got two new distributors on board for our company
+ had Easter holiday
+ found another niche I'd love to develop something in as the searches are insanely high and the competition relatively interesting.
+suffered a day full of the "runs... "
====================== Lessons:
The thought of being responsible for teaching, coaching and motivating people to progress simply terrifies me, but it is a great inspiration to me too. Also when two people take up the baton and creates similar blogs, my competitive streak kicks in and I want to improve myself as much as they do.
I succumbed to watching the stupidest program on TV this week - The apprentice UK. I have never seen so many pairs of short planks on one tv show in my life. But this week, it showed me how quickly I have been brainwashed into a sales person. The two teams had to raise as much money as possible for a charity by organising a charity auction, auctioning off celebrity items to raise money. The teams had to get 5 celebrities to part with some impressive gifts to auction off.
Both teams had a theatre related celebrity on their list.
One team secured 4 tickets to a premier show with VIP and backstage passes for the after party.
The other team secured 50. But only after trying to get 100!
Guess which team won?
..........
.........
the last team of course - because every time they got an agreement for something, they always asked for more, or they followed up really well on the information they were provided. As an example, they wanted Darmoid McGavin (?)( "dermot, Laurence Llewellyn-Bowens irish gardener buddy ) to donate his motor bike.
He blankly refused. They left it and continued to chat to him about what was important to him and what other things he could consider donating. They eventually suggested that he donate his favourite jacket - the one he wears so often on TV apparently ( his "signature" jacket )
Again he blankly refused, but as a flippant comment he said as part of a sentence - " you would have more luck trying to convince me to give you my bike", so what did they do?
ASKED for the bike! and they got it! It was their persistence that made them succeed. The other team said they didn't want to be rude or pushy, but if the celebrity thought their cause was a worthy one, they would not have minded them asking for more.

I'm sorry for the crudeness of the following comment, but did you realise how coarse cheap toilet paper is?!? Sand paper came to mind on my 9th trip to the loo this morning!
Apologies for the visual, but from a marketing point of view, I am now sold on the idea of "CHA CHA CHARMIN'" toilet paper being nice and soft.
====================== goal for next week:
=>administrative responsibilities for JV : post forms to paul & arrange a time to see the bank.

=> business - 8 urgent things on my todo list! need I say more?
=> my money website - proof the wedding spending book & get a cover created for it
=> my other niche website => content & promotions
=> respond to JV feedback on my work so far.

Good Friday Progress

2005-03-25T13:42:00.000-08:00

============= Accomplishments:

Tonight Mathew, I Weigh 116kg

And further from that, I actually worked for an hour in the morning this week. As in from 6am to 7am ( ish).

I have also created a REAL content site which I am filling up with content as we speak. The honest, hard working way ( yeah i know! But there is a reason you see! )

I also met you with one of my JV partners for a short meeting at 9:30am on Saturday. 7 and a half hours later we decided we had covered everything we needed to cover and decided to go home for lunch....

====================== lessons:
As per usual, priorities change. Compared to what I set out to do, I didn't do many of them, but I made tremendous progress on a couple of things, namely my JV and my new product.
I am doing it in a very work intensive way. The reason for that, other than pure stubborness is that I am a firm believer that if you haven't walked up the mountain, you wouldn't have the foggiest idea how to best get down it! Walk the walk before you talk the talk.

To this day I don't feel experienced enough to deserve the kind of responsibilities my partners trust me with. I have definitely walked the walk for some time and I am beginning to develop a clearer idea of what my experience has taught me. Although you could argue that I have spent the last year successfully eliminating things that don't work! but that is progress too!

Though, I think it is high time I step it up a gear again. There are so many things that I know I should be doing, but I am not. There doesn't seem to be enough hours in the day.

====================== goal for next week:
Finish my Product, and then set out my marketing tasks for it for the next 4-6 weeks.
I must complete all the tasks I have been set to achieve for my business. It is becoming even more critical to get a decent CRM & PM tool to manage my tasks. Sort of. I already have a tool or two, but for some reason I can't get myself to use either of them properly
This weekend I will re-educate myself on the dangers of cutting corners on this. I have a system that seems to work in my JOB so i have every reason to implement something similar for my own business
My current JV tasks. Complete them by next Sunday ( 3rd of April )
That's ample!

Not quite daily but I'll Try

2005-03-23T14:12:00.000-08:00

I'll give it a shot to get back up there again.

So today I have added 7 articles to a content website I am working on. I'll stop around 50 I think, then submit it to a bunch of search engines, blog and ping - send out a couple of press releases, and then start to submit an article a night to article directories for the next month or so, if I can be bothered. It might be somthing I dedicate 15 minutes to a week eventually - but it is something that is well worth the effort though. The first article I did is already in the top spot of my chosen keyword...

In addition to that I spent time from 6:30 am to 7:45 am this morning working on my JV.
We're getting close to launch and the private part of the website is sorted with hosting now. Based on my real world background, I'm taking on a role or responsibility that I am happy that I am very comfortable with

So a productive day.

Bettina Can't Help It - But it's Launched.

2005-03-18T13:44:00.000-08:00

============= Accomplishments:

This week I can't think of a single one. Tried to sort out the banking details with the worlds local bank, simply because they are the cheapest on cashing US cheques. And they were also the only ones to mention that if the cheques were frequent enough or large enough, it would be cheaper to get a US currency account. They still cost more than my personal bank, but hey, business banking is a great big scam anyway. But would they let me join their scam? no. It seemed that the person taking the appointment booking forgot to tell me that as a member of a partnership, all partners has to be present at the opening of the account. I would have loved there to be 100 plus partners!

What else did I do this week?

Well work is going great. It seems I am actually quite good at it.

The business has also launched it's latest book ( Bettina Can't Help It )

And a associated lingerie website:
http://www.bettina-lingerie.co.uk

Weight loss? hmmm, I doubt the cheese cake I've just eaten helsp much. This week I have noticed that I have begun to struggle with actually seeing the reading on the scales.

But I can confirm the scales stop on 117kg dead, after I put on my glasses.
Strange. 4-5 months ago I didn't even need them. Now it seems my eyesight is getting worse day by day.

====================== lessons:
I should have shares in banks.

I'm sure there are things that I can learn from this week. One of them being that I have yet to find an effective way to stop myself from being a complete and utter time waster.

====================== goal for next week:

have a relaxing Easter!

I am meeting up with one of my JV partners tomorrow to tie up some loose ends and then it's just a matter of getting on with it!

As for my business, well. ( he smiles to himself )

We added some promotionals and adverts in the back of the book.

One of which lists an email address to subscribe to our authors newsletter. Only she's not entirely up to scratch on the whole internet marketing thing so I was ment to have set it all up on the server side, like the autoreply and the gift page where the subscribers get their gift and some more information about the writer.
have I done so? nope! But it will happen tonight.

The rest of the week will be split 3 ways: ( 2 nights each )

A product of mine

JV

My business.

I might consider spending some money to get an accountability tool built as the two tools that are out there either concentrate on some stupid lofty goalsetting fluff or show me a calendar. Neither is exactly what I need. So when I have enough money, I will have it made for me... but that's a little longer term.

1 Year anniversay - accountable

2005-03-11T14:47:00.000-08:00

The 52nd week!

One year ago, on the 12th of March 2004 to be presice, I posted my first accountability post on the UK net marketing forum.

You would have thought I had learnt something over the year about setting specific goals and having a decent system that tracks everything.

ha!

Three people I know have now started doing something similar in the last few weeks and as a result I have relaxed my "system" and this week leaves me with a feeling of non- acomplishment.

You know the feeling you get after a day full of interruptions, phone calls and all sorts of things happen that come between you and your PLAN... walking up a swirly waterslide with soapy water and water guns shooting at my face ever 11 seconds or so with a great big aligator pool at the bottom of the water slide... that sort of feeling.

I've had a week like that. Or I believe I have had a week like that.

So it's time to apply the only thing that can prove if I am right: logic.

And logically, I need to look at the achievements, my DUNNS of this week:

5000 books delivered. One article submitted, the press release released to a wire service - Only to get rejected. The risks I take dealing with US wire services. ;o)

Done some great progress at work. I can even prove it to my manager every Thursday.

We've sold lots of books this week, mainly down to my wife. I have also helped her prepare for the London Book Fair which is on this weekend.
I have built up a list of 10 topics for press releases. Although I need to rethink where to send them.

But I am also still wasting an awful lot of time browsing websites forums, writing emails and general tiredness.

Lesson? I want to get more energy, and the only way to do that is to exercise more. My son has been happy to help this week though -with crys of "Wunning!!" at 6am while running back and forth in the kitchen until Daddy looks reasonably responsive to stage two - "chase daddy wunning! "

Lesson 2?

Even if I don't DO as much as I think I need to, I seem to learn more these weeks. Like something that I know makes you thing I am far better than I am - a logical, written record.

If you take two minutes to write down a list of ALL the things you can think of that you have actually accomplished this week, the list will ALWAYS be longer than you think.

Try it...

My weight this week averages out at 118kg.

Next week?

I have Monday off as my wife is still in London and my son can't fend for himself while I am at work. So Monday and Sunday is all about babysitting him. MIght get an hour or two in the evenings for some work.

I will concentrate on testing the tools for our JV & working through some more of the tasks I have,

but in the main next week will be about creating awareness to the market that our book is out!!
Oh, and sort out how on earth I'll pay my high 3 digit tax bill :(

'till then, tara!

preparation is the breakfast of champions

2005-03-04T13:58:00.000-08:00

that was the accolade I got this lunch time after finishing my sales presentation course. I'll come back to that later. I'm drunk already so please remind me...

=> Last week Priorities:
Top priority is the marketing torrent for my publishing business.
Second priority is the JV related work.
Third priority is the Internet business product creation for passive income creation.

First things first,
I have started to create the marketing "torrent" for our latest book. Anyone care to help me spread the loving word can drop me a line. We're doing well but we need to do better as we're suffering under the heels of a dominant market player.
I'm also updating the blog and I will be adding a directory with articles to the website so I can link directly back to it on the website from the blog.

JV related work. I had the pleasure of half a day off this afternoon, so I was around to all the local banks to find out their business banking charges. We need to open up a business bank account you see.
Rip off merchants. I'm tempted to open a bank just to avoid having to use any of them, but I think' I'll settle for buying their shares. 30 BILLION pounds profit they made this year. The top 5-6 banks that is.
Profit.
And people are stupid enough to continue to use them.

And I have yet to create any products that give me passive income.

I spent the weekend in Birmingham, and it was really excellent to get to meet up with my JV partners and with so many other clever people. I learnt a couple of things that I wanted to put into practice, but I never got around to it.
I am almost hoping that I'll get a separation package so I can get on with creating these products, but I am using lack of time as an excuse.

Evidence: this lunch time I got back from my week long sales traing course and went to town for two hours to check out the banks. I got home and had some essential play time with my son and then got some dinner going. Interestingly, I also learnt why coastal nations traditionally eat fish on Fridays.
Between now and then I have produced NOTHING.
not a single web page, an article or anything else.
I have sat in front of the computer for nearly 3 hours and I have achieved NOTHING. I have tested a few scripts, posted on some forums and generally done very little to progress myself towards my goals.
So it is time to have a serious look at what it is that I do with my time online and be more rutheless with it.

Simply because my business demands it.
My JV partners demand it. ( and deserve it )
And my financial position demands it.

On a positive side, my adsense has hit a mile stone this week.

The rest of this week? Goodness knows where it has gone.
I have a to do list longer than my arm that I need to finish before my Sunday night publishing company meeting and I also have loads to spend some time with the family.
But this week was actually REALLY good. I spent it out of the office and in a class room environment getting sales training. At the end of it today, I was given recognition for presenting the best sales presentation that had EVER been presented to that particular class. EVER!

Which was cool!

So now I am off to see if there was a second bottle of red wine in that gift bag.... should be as I've been drinking out of two glasses for the last 20 minutes...

2005-02-25T09:37:00.000-08:00

Surprisingly early this week. I might be going to Birmingham on short notice so I'm getting this out of the way just in case.

I'll return to my "by project" style I used in the early days this week, and follow the progresses by 3 of my projects:

= JV

Last week I aimed to finish some tasks that I had been given for my JV. I DUNN one fo them and has made progress on all the others. I expect that I will be able to get closure on many of the others if I manage to get to Birmingham this weekend
I'll continue to progress the tasks I have for this. When I can give you more details, I will.

= Publishing Business:

last week I said I would write 5 articles. I have written one. If I am not travelling to Birmingham this weekend, I will be writing another 3 or 4 tonight
Our book is going to be available in the shops from the 15th of March and I need to create a marketing "torrent" between now and then and I have already committed to deliver a plan to the CEO ( the missus ) before Sunday for how to create this.

= Internet business

To be honest, there is not a lot of profit here this month. The campaigns do pay for themselves and then some, so it is really becoming pressing to get some products of my own out there. But will I get it from Ain't Done to DUNN?
Consider this, I have 10 to 16 hours available every week. Sounds like lots. Right. There is only one thing for it.
Use Nice Portal Builder!

No. It'll have to wait. I need to work on some templates, I have 3 domains to fill with content but other things are more pressing at the moment. It would be SO easy to get these things done and it seems to be a great idea to tap into these micro niches to generate some income. I might get to it if I manage the time properly this comming week.

=> Lessons Learnt:
Loads!!

One, There is time to create some focus again. I have had a look at what I do in the evenings and there is unfortunately a lot of time spent NOT pursuing the things that will accellerate my business. Easily done, but now that I am aware of it I will focus on eliminating that behaviour.

Two, what a great Idea to-do lists are! Rob And Kim has started their own blogs to make themselves accountable for their progress. The competition has spurred me on, but it has also allowed me to revisit a trick that I apparently used a while back but have forgotten about: Daily to-do lists!
BOY has this made a difference! Have I achieved everything on it? Erm - NO, but I have most definitely achieved MORe than the week before.

Three: Top priority post it notes. Thanks Martin. It helped. Did all three of them before Tuesday. I wonder though, should I add a new post it when I'm done in advance? ;o)

There was also something else I learnt yesterday, but I forgot what it was. I have forgotten more stuff this week than what I have achieved. Like where my credit card is...

=> So to Summarise:
Top priority is the marketing torrent for my publishing business.
Second priority is the JV related work.
Third priority is the Internet business product creation for passive income creation.

But apologies, I am off to find my credit card...

Marlon Sanders Progress

2005-02-18T14:03:00.000-08:00

Get the blimmin bubbly out the latest book by our publishing company has gone to the printers!!

I'll continue the Marlon Sanders style assessment of my progress this week. For those of you that have met him ( I haven't!! ) imagine him standing in the back of a seminar room heckling me when I read out the progress:

=> I will begin to go to the gym.

MS: DON!

Yes indeed. Although ONE session in the pool for 15 minutes hardly counts as a lifestyle change it is a step in the right direction.
As this is the HEALTH section, let me dash off to weigh myself 3 times again ( although the digital weight at work this afternoon at roughly 3pm declared in glaring red diode light that I weigh 118.2 kg )
Office: 116.5 kg
Hallway: 117kg
Bathroom: 116kg

Why 3 weights? Check out this post for an explanation:
http://newbiealert.blogspot.com/2005/01/weight-watchers-atkins-diet-and.html
Even though the mental health visitor my wife called in on me assured her I was sane, I think I will restrict myself to weighing myself at work every Friday on the digital scales...

I don't think someone who buys their husband a gym membership for valentines day should questions MY sanity!

(I got her a HUGE box of chocolates instead of the mouthwash by the way. Talk about cutting off my nose to spite my face...but it seemed a good idea at the time )

=> I will write the blurb

MS: DON!

hey. yes. Doing well so far. This one got completed as well. Although in the end all that was needed was ONE sentence.

But I thought about it for a long long time so it's really good!

=> I will work on the marketing plan & the partnering plan for the JV.

MS: AIN'T DON!

Well, I'd argue that a marketing plan is never really finished, but even though I worked on it, there are still quite alot that I haven't covered yet. I suspect it should really be done in a much simpler way, and possibly include my JV partners!

=>I will take some books with me and learn stuff while pauline is getting her photos taken for this mag.

MS: DON!

thanks for that. 3 out of 4 is a vast improvement. I bought an ebook on how to create a memorable marketing message and I must admit that when I realised that about 9 of the 27 pages was just marketing and sign up forms etc I was a bit miffed as I would have expected that from a FREE book - not one I paid for. So with the remaining "content" printed out we headed off on our 3 hour drive. Pauline drives for 15 minutes and I have finished the book. ( damn that speed reading program! ) But it helped me in identifying what it was that we really wanted to achieve for our clients with the JV though.

You know what I think of being accountable for what you set out to do - and you can see for yourself what that has done for my life! So that is an important part.
I don't think I'm great at setting goals, but I think I have a fair idea of how to
set some that work!

But if people want to be successful, all relevant things has to be taken into consideration. The thing we get a kick out of is thinking about what our clients could achieve with this. I know in my own mind what I would like to stand up and be proud of. What ever it is will have to offer genuine value to all parties, including any customers that our clients may have. I know what I don't like about the internet business.

I will NEVER stand by something that I didn't believe could make my client more successful than me.

LESSONS:
I still waste quite a lot of time forum hopping. I say waste as I only have about two hours a night to work on this internet business AND my publishing business. The bulk of the load falls on Pauline at the moment and we're a far way away from being able to take out any dividends from the business just yet.

And don't you know it, the gremlins have been out again.

My browser Crashed again while I was writing this blog entry.
I'm smiling though. I wasn't using the browser to type this in :)

=>
Next week?

Now there is a good question.

I bought a copy of Niche Portal Builder a month or so ago and did create a site last week: http://www.citybreakcentral.co.uk

I am tempted to spend some time on this sort of thing as it seems to make some money to help out our finances. money IS an issue but I'm sure it'll work out!

So this week I will do the following:

JV business. Tasks given on Sunday will have to be completed.

Publishing business. Have to start writing lots of articles for our websites. I'll aim for 5 articles around 600 words or so. I also will have to pick the 5 subjects.

Internet business. make sure I make money on the google adverts!

Now that I have spent an hour typing this up, I wish I could learn speed typing! beyond that, I am going to dig out that Champers and pop the cork!!

Time to get hammered!!

Mind Over Mattress

2005-02-11T14:35:00.000-08:00

Having deleted an hours work this evening, I am now typing this entry for the second time.

Mind Over Mattress seems to be a repeating theme for me this week.

There is the JV to work on, there is our imminent book launch to work on, there is google to keep a close eye on.

Oh and work.

Whops. Hang on a sec. let me weigh myself as I forgot to mention my weight last week:

117kg in the bathroom,
118kg in the hallway &
119kg in the office.

I guess I'd better start using the gym membership my wife gave me as an early valentines day present. grumble.

I'm considering giving her dental floss or mouth wash or something...

Work work is manic at the moment. I thought I was busy before but the sheer volume of admin stuff to do in addition to the selling is just stupid.

Well it seems a little excessive at least.

Excuses?
Could be. The results these week do look as if they need justifying:

=> write two sales pages and get them critiqued on this forum

Ain't Done.

If someone wants a nearly ready product to promote and know how to write copy, let me know!

=> research for my JV.

Done.

Great stuff in fact. If you're interested in partnering with me and a couple of other guys from this forum - we'll be looking for partners shortly. I'll let you know more when we're ready. This is no me too offering by the way. We're not the only one's plugging this hole, but we're just ahead of the competition.

= > for my business: write the coverblurb for the new book that we're about to publish.

Ain't Done.
I must admire Martin alot as I have never met Don Aint Don Marlon Sanders but I use the Don / Aint Don catchfrase Martin attributed to him..

Either way you look at it though. 66 percent of my targets were not even progressed this week. At all. There is only one reason for that though.

So how can I change? Sadly. It seems that going to the gym to build up more stamina and stress resistance will be tremendously beneficial to the amount of work I can get done.

Which gives me a REASON to go to the gym:

I WANT TO GET MORE STAMINA, IMPROVED ABILITY TO CONSENTRATE AND INCREASED RESISTANCE TO STRESS BECAUSE THESE THINGS ARE ABSOLUTE key TO GETTING THE WORK DONE FOR MY PUBLISHING BUSINESS, MY JV, MY JOB AND MY OTHER INTERNET WORK.

And those things are important to me because they are the vehicles that will give me what I am looking for from my life.

I'm feeling a little run down at the moment so for next week I'll be focusing on the JV marketing plan and formulating our USP.

Everything else Internet related will NOT be touched. Apart from google monitoring.

I can't remember if I mentioned that we were in the local rag a few weeks back. As a result of that double page spread we're off to stay at a hotel for a night this weekend as we need to go to a photo shoot for a weekly womens mag. So that is the weekend taken care of with business.

Oh yeah, and I need to finish the blurb on the back of the book before Friday as the book is going to the printers that day!
So in short,
I will begin to go to the gym.
I will write the blurb
I will work on the marketing plan & the partnering plan for the JV.
I will take some books with me and learn stuff while pauline is getting her photos taken for this mag.
I will NOT do affiliate marketing stuff

Nor will I just surf!

And that's it!

Cheers,
jon

Where Did The Car Insurance go?

2005-02-04T13:37:00.000-08:00

Forgetting all sorts of things this week, like returning the signed car insurance documents to get the insurance confirmed!

Anyway. Let me have a look at the tasks for this past week:

= Finish the tax return.
Yeah done. With a day to spare. Already started to collect the information I need for the next return, which I will work to finish as much as possible on the May bank holiday weekend!

= Book an MOT & get my new tax disk.
Done. Erk! Tax disk!! Forgot that! Guess where I will be queuing up tomorrow!??

= Work on the money product.
Well I managed to get it off to one of my reviewers this week, and I also had a look at the sales pitch I want to go for.

= Set out my money making strategy for the year.
That sounds very materialistic a goal, but it's not THE goal. It is actually more of a one year task to be honest a achieveing the financial goal that I have set out will mean that the business will have generated enough to cover the next printing of a book, all the loan payments and enough of a financial buffer to handle the swings and roundabouts of the business. Having a revenue target also helps us focus on what we need to do with the business to drive it forward. So it's only there to serve a higher purpose. Which is why it'll work.

this week:
write two sales pages and get them critiqued on this forum
research for my JV. Not that I can tell you much but you will NOT have seen anything like this before - AND we are only doing it because we have confirmed that there is a "need" hole to be plugged.
for my business:
write the coverblurb for the new book that we're about to publish.

I've been asked twice this week what I think this Friday post has ment to me and I gave prety much the following answer:

I've learnt that the best way to achieve anything is to focus on finishing one thing. ( Look at my money book - It's not finished yet as I never seem to give it much focus! )
It's also ment that INSIDE one year I have:
launched 3 websites,
bought a publishing company,
generated over £500,000 in revenues for ONE affiliate merchant
half written two books
bought more software and ebooks than I ever will read ( or use )
got to know some really nice, helpful people,
got to learn more about myself than I had in the previous 30 odd years
got to learn more about marketing
got to challenge my comfort zone
got to go to Las Vegas
and got to JV with two seriously knowledgeable people
got to make myself accountable over the phone to 5 excellent people

and I haven't even BEGUN to scratch the surface of this internet adventure ahead of me.

But now I am off to enjoy some american pie wedding!

Conspiracy?

2005-01-29T03:30:00.000-08:00

If I didn't know better I would say the forces are conspiring against me. Unfortunately for the forces I have developed this annoying knack of seeing the bright side of things, but for NOW, indulge me as I tell you a little about the last week!

Monday was set aside for my tax return. I spent some of the weekend finding some of the paperwork that I need. I STILL haven't found all the receipts but I know they are in a brown envelope. Just need to find that envelope! ANYWAY, as I was checking that my adwords accounts were accurate I thought - Hey, let me dig out the paperwork I need to log on to the inland revenue website to submit my return.

an hour or two later and I have the user id but not the password. I use my "remember" trick but only find the tax forms themselves ( which is handy!) but not the password to the website. At this point I am struggling to see the positive side to say the least so I decide to give in and request a password reset. THIS tells me it will take 7 days to process. So I find out a week early what I will be doing on the 31st of January. I didn't want to request the password as I KNEW I had the paperwork in house as I never throw anything from the tax man away.

I have made progress so I leave it and go to bed.

TUESDAY

I found the old password for the inland revenue website. This is now invalid. In distress and because I have to get up at 5am in the morning to take the train to London for a 9am meeting, I go to bed.

WEDNESDAY

5am comes and goes. 6am I wake up and realise I only have about 45 minutes to get to the train station. I decide to drive there, and knowing that the car park costs money I bring £4.50 in change JUST in case.

I arrive and park in the car park at 6:37 to find that the parking fee is £2.70 for rail passengers. Cool. I park, and go to get a parking ticket for my car. £4.70.

ahem. I need to get a £2 REFUND from the train ticket booth to get my £2.70 parking. 20p short I have to go up to the trainstaion and ask for help from the man in the ticket booth.

"Ah, you can get your parking ticket here, no problem."

With my credit card £45 closer to it's overdraft limit I run-shuffle back to my car and as I close the door and turn back I hear the announcment:

"London Waterloo now departing platform 3 - ALL ABOARD"

So I arrived 20 minutes late for a customer meeting. Very nice train ride though.

In the evening I found some more tax papers, and established that my affiliate income was indeed accurate and that I appeared to have made a mint. God knows where that mint went, but it was worth over 10 per cent of my job salary.

But as Thursday ALSO had to start at 5am, I stopped early and relaxed, confident that Thursday could not cause me the same hassle. THIS time I was driving to Staines for a 9am meeting and THAT was easy from where I live.

THURSDAY
I got up on time. I got in the car on time. I got on the motorway on time. I got to Sunbury 50 minutes EARLY.

hangon.

wait a minute. I'm in Sunbury. what am I doing in Sunbury?
I should be in Staines!

But hey, Staines is only 25 minutes away.
except.

I didn't know where the offices were in Staines! I had read Staines but heard Sunbury all along!

I popped in on a receptionist and asked for directions. He was kind enough to write them down for me in detail.

And I got lost. Severely. I had 45 minutes to get there. It took me an HOUR and 45 minutes.

So I was an HOUR late for a day long meeting.

So how do you leave Staines in the afternoon? Same way you came. But what if you have NO IDEA which way you came?!?

Finished the meeting at 5:30. Staines is right next to the M25. It took me an hour and 15 minutes to find it though! I drove PAST the motorway and ALONG it twice! I followed the signs to the right airport and STILL got lost. At one point a sign welcomed me to Windsor!

So at 9pm I was home. I pondered a bit on life and taxes over a hot chocolate and went to bed.

FRIDAY
Work was excellent. I get a very warm thank you from a couple of my colleagues as I manage to crack things open for them in a couple of accounts. I have a really good meeting with my new manager. My pay cut is reversed and my bonus plan now has nothing but UPside to it. This looks set to be a GREAT year and I plan to tell all of my readers that.

Southern Electric has other plans.

after the 3rd "blimp" in our electricity supply in an hour I give up and post a short message to this board. I give up trying to fix my machine from looping and shut it down. I finish off the last few admin bits for my company and shut down my wife's computer.

I bring my calendar and my black notebook downstairs and write some bullet pints for my Friday progress. I come up with even more ideas for my money book. I write them down and decide to publish the book & the audio in the current format to at least move it from "Ain't done" to "Done"

at 10pm I step on the bathroom scales and weigh in at a staggering 117, 117.5 and 120 kg in the bathroom, landing and office respectively ( there is a gravity anomaly in my house - see http://newbiealert.blogspot.com for more details! )

I decide to let you know how much I weigh!

And that - in essence - was my week!

I still made money from google. I enjoyed my time at work this week, which is REAL progress & this morning the new password for the Inland Revenue website arrived!

All I need to do for the following week is:
Finish the tax return.
Book an MOT & get my new tax disk.
Work on the money product.
Set out my money making strategy for the year.

and that's it.

Cheers,
Jon

Off Sick

2005-01-21T13:27:00.000-08:00

Priorities for last week:
1. annual plan.
2. Business goals.
3. Accountability. ( For those of us that are demanding more than a cookie cutter )
4. Money sales page & book.

Right.
the first one has been done & documented. It's a work in progress which I am testing out with a little tool I found which seems to do the trick. It will even let me document my progress! handy...

business goals have been defined at the wrong end but hey. I have defined a revenue goal for the year without knowing how to get there! We have also defined a rather lofty long term vision for the company in respect of revenues. We've also started systemising some of the processes and automating and simplifying those that can be simplified.

I didn't have much to do with my accountability team this week as I was away the week before and we haven't made time to bring me up to speed yet. But I have been checking out some of the things that need doing on the technology side of things.

Money sales page is one that I haven't worked on.

Next week I will work on it - and my tax return. And I think that will be my only two priorities. There are other things that need doing on business & other things but I'm still full of flu so forgive me for stopping early.

Las Vegas Progress

2005-01-17T14:21:00.000-08:00

What do you get when you gather 15000 people from all over the world in one room for a week?

The flu.

I got it on Wednesday and was out for the count pretty much from then on in. Made the flight home interesting, but at least I was so out of it I didn't really care how long it took. It was the shortest 13 hours worth of travel I have ever been on.

Only it ment I didn't get to do much in way of writing up my annual plan for this year. Which is something that I am ever so slightly miffed about. Planning is everything.

So I will complete that document this week.

My job benefitted from this week in a dramatic way. I am the software point of contact for around 70 companies. There are at least 6 field sales guys that cover the same area and have the same software scope of responsibility as me. And I met them all.

And 3 of them have agreed to meet with me in January & two of them have agreed to have fortnightly "account" meetings where I basically have to tell them what I plan to do on the accounts for the next two weeks and they tell me where I should concentrate, and then they tell me what they NEED me to do in the following two weeks.

So it basically makes me accountable to them for achieveing specific targets within every two week period.

Sound familiar to anyone?

I also figured out that I have a choice now. I can choose to be positive about the job. It is most definitely the most productive choice to make and it is a choice that will make me far happier about the world around me.

I watched 4 films in total while travelling. So that's not three. That's a pretty weak excuse when the time would have been better spent writing up my plan for 2005.

But I have that to do, plus my money book, plus my accountability stuff plus our business. It needs ALOT of attention now in the next few weeks from me. Press Releases, product descriptions etc. So be advised - If I have your email address, I may just send you a link to review!

Priorities for this week:
1. annual plan.
2. Business goals.
3. Accountability. ( For those of us that are demanding more than a cookie cutter )
4. Money sales page & book.

Finally, here is a little trick I learnt from a book I read this week:

Are you facing a difficult situation this week? Say this to your self and be surprised at what leaps out at you!

"Remember! Help me Remember the solution to this problem!"

Cheers,
Jon

"Every Day In Every Way, I'm Getting Better And Better!"

Can you Hear The Friday Progress?

2005-01-07T13:46:00.000-08:00

Listen!

I recorded the Friday progress to save myself some time today, then realised I'm excluding a vital segment in my fan base.

So,
Here it is again. It's not an accurate transcript I'm afraid!

LAst week I gave myself two things to achieve:

Finish the ebook & package it & find JV partners to work with.

Finish the website, publish it & create the content & plan the future content

And ( sorry Pearson! ) but the website and those bits got done. There is always more planning to do, but I've got time to do that on the plane!

The ebook. Wow, I do begin to detest this cool sucker but I am getting there slowly!
Thank you to those that have provided feedback on my feeble attempts on a sales page.

I have the pdf content ready. I have recorded 11 or 13 of the tips as well. I have set up a blog where I can publish the audio files. I haven't JV'ed with anyone, although I have a couple of people reviewing it for me.

If financial rewards are directly linked to the blood sweat, torment and stubborn effort that has gone into a product, this one will make me rich!!

But alas, this effort is not for the money. It is for the exercise in DOING it!
And it's been a long time in the making! March and these Friday Progress Reports will have happened for 12 months!

Anyway that wasn not even COVERED in the audio!

So I am going to las vegas. That means that next weeks Friday Progress will happen on Monday again.

It also means that there is NO internet business from me while I am away. I will spend some time on the flights doing exercises courtesy of mr Gary Vurnum - and NOT watch 3 films!

I will also attempt to get to the other conference that is winding up when we get there to see if I can establish any contact with anyone interested in our books.

But the main goal for the week is to get to vegas see vegas, learn to become a great sales man and get the H OUT of Vegas. ( and hope I get through O'hare ) in one piece.

That's it, and have fun! That is what I aim to do this week!

Leaving For Las Vegas

2004-12-27T08:02:00.000-08:00

Hi, and I hope you all had a nice Christmas.

I'm still recovering and I did't even drink alcohol last night...

For what remains of this week, I will have the new business website up and running AND I will have a proof read and fully finished & published ebook ready for JV partners.

The lack of back end products or even autoresponders is a bit of a downer, but I have an idea involving audio...

I have a rather long todolist for the next few days for a number of reasons - like having committed to completing a number of products by then and to launching this website for my publishing business.

We've created the kind of look and feel we want for the publishing site already and the next step is to create the content for it. And plan the future articles.

The plan is quite clear - I simply have to learn to stick to it!

In summary,
Finish the ebook & package it & find JV partners to work with.

Finish the website, publish it & create the content & plan the future content.

Much like the last few weeks to be honest, but I have decided to postpone the digital niche topic book for my publishing business for a little while until I get this stuff out of the way. And I have other things to get on with as well - niche wise.

And I am going to Vegas in less than two weeks. Got my tickets through just before Christmas and I am staying at Bally's. One week of 6am breakfasts, 12 hour seminars plus networking in the evenings.

I will learn so much in that week it is unreal!!

Between now and then I will have to complete a great number of tasks. I was hoping to have set up my plans for 2005 this week but I'll have a lot of time on the United Airlines flights to and from Vegas so I will at least have the opportunity to think and write on the plane.

Have you noticed how my "next week" plans have begun to include things that need to be completed several weeks into the future?

I'm beginning to think that the planning I have been doing on a weekly basis is helping me reach the next level of planning: medium to long term. I am certainly finding it easier to see how I can achieve something by this summer. For instance. Or even for NEXT Christmas.

But, if you don't mind, for now I'll concentrate on getting this book and this website ready...

Cheers,
Jon

= Every Day in Every Way, I'm Getting Better And Better =

Time To Re-Invent

2004-12-17T13:21:00.000-08:00

Right.

This week I am mostly drinking Holsten Pilsner. Well last night I did at the company party.

And this afternoon two people were fired.

I wasn't one of them. And it wasn't because of anything they did. My company just didn't want to pay for their employment anymore.

Anyway. That sort of sets the mood.

Have I progressed this week though? At this point in time, it doesn't feel like I have as my week has not had any structure. I'll use my weak memory to run through the week day by day and we'll see what happened. Trust me, I'll be as surprised as you when we get to the end!

Saturday. As far as I remember I only did my accountability call that day. I can't remember if I did anything else that day so I will assume I didn't. The headaches got progressively worse and I slept for a while in the afternoon. Oh yeah - we went to see Father Christmas and his Huskeys (!!!) at the nearby outlet shopping village. and had an eggnogg latte I think in Starbucks. THAT won't happen again! Overpriced and under quality. And I would never have believed that so many staff members could do so little in such a long time, had I not seen it for myself how 6 people behind a bar can cause such chaos. But I should have believed you the first time you mentioned it in Kickstart Martin!

Sunday we took our son to the companys Santa's Grotto arrangement. I did some research for my accountability call that day I seem to remember, but in the main tried to stay off the computer. I think I registered my blog on yahoo that day to. By tuesday about 20 of my blog pages were indexed. Today: 67 on alltheweb, 66 on yahoo & altavista 65. Msn has been kind enough to index 5 pages.

Google?
whose ads I am showing?

TWO....

So registering your blog on yahoo certainly gets your pages indexed with the inktomi based network..

Monday. Walked in to Fareham again after having seen the GP for my eyes and Thomas'es Eyes in the morning. Or at least I think I walked in to Fareham on Monday. Checked out specs again but there is really no way I can get myself to spend £160 for something I can get for £50 online. Although I want to make absolutely sure I have the right frames before I go and order online. My face does not look good with the wrong type of glasses on. I think I also did some Camtasia video on this day, but I am not sure.

REcorded something on Instant Buzz at least at some point. Also using camtasia to record my actions while I am researching my various projects - and it is of tremendous help! It helsp if, like me, you like the sound of your voice though.

Tuesday?
It's all a blur. Last day before going back to work & I can not for the life of me remember doing anything other than ebay auctions ( sold 3 books on ebay so far ) and monitoring the amazon progress. So far December is proving FAR more impressive than November. I did some more research on the first digital-only title from our publishing company at least but left it early as I was getting worn out.

Wednesday was some more accountability research recorded with camtasia. I didn't do much else. Oh, I checked google and found to my horror that although I am still getting the clicks, the sales have vanished. so I have reduced the max click cost in the hope that it will both reduce the number of clicks and the daily cost.
December last year was like this as well, but I have at least sold for more already this month than what I did in all of December last year.

Thursday was a wasted day. Well for most of the people I was out with as there was a free bar. I was driving and the most I drank was beer with 0.2 % alcohol in it. Even though I asked for non-alcoholic beer. I finally had to leave after the two glasses of Coke started working on my Irritable Bowel.

I was hoping to proof read some books and add content to the digital title. Doubt I did either, but I can't remember! I have an appointment to see an osteopath in the morning tomorrow and then it is off to celebrate my step daughters 21st birthday. So that is the weekend taken care of!!

Monday & Tuesday is a two day course in selling, which will hopefully come in handy one day. And then there is 3 days full of telephone calling getting people ready to close deals. In Norway it is legally forbidden to trade past 3 o'clock and staff must not be allowed to remain on the premises past 4. Only a selected number of bars used to have a special license that allowed them to open up on Christmas eve after 9pm I think it was, but with the increase in the single population, they have relaxed that now. Or maybe abolished it - what do I know _ i haven't lived there for 8 years...

But it DOES mean I MUST

- finish the latest publishing website as we've sent out a press release to the industry rag saying we launch the site on Jan first!
- proof and edit my money book & get it ready for publishing.
- finalise the content to be added to the digital copy of the book ( although this one can wait until Feb to be honest )

Eye Have My cunjunctivitis Glaucoma'ed on you!

2004-12-10T13:01:00.000-08:00

How I'm Doing This week:

Been off sick this week. I bet it's just the tension in my shoulders but the GP thinks it's my eyes and the optician thinks it isn't. Although she was concerned with the pressure in one of my eyes. So I bet it's the tension in my shoulders. Or Glaucoma. So it's time to start looking for blindspots in my vision!
And all of this started just because I felt sick with dizziness last Friday.

So It's been an interesting week!
But I am going to have to keep this short, because if it is glaucoma ( tension) then I need to get away from the computer for longer.

Current Goals:
= My Clickbank Money book: One evening a week at least ( up to 3 hours )
= Our Business must grow ( 2 to 3 Evenings a week ) - 6 to 9 hours )
= Succeeding in my new job. It is commission based and I need to focus on getting great.

New things I will TRY to do:

Setup the video conferencing to work when we have Christmas dinner on Christmas eve. Both my brother and I have installed skype and it works a treat. There should be a video conferencing option available, and now we both have broadband, the connection could be quite good!

Things I am Dropping:

moaning. I haven't got time to feel sorry for myself any more. I need to get cracking!

Last Weeks Achievements:
I've launched the ebay auctions for the business. Lots of opportunities there. I have registered my website via my RSS feed on yahoo. I am also getting closer to deciding on what content management tool to use for the websites our business will be launching on the first of January.
My money ebook has not been looked at this week, but I will proff read it tomorrow morning. I am tempted to turn it into an audio thing to be honest. But I have decided to publish it in it's current format and give it away from the related website.
And I got camtasia for £5.99 and recorded my first video with it!
And I got my brother to get skype working. Although I didn't need to do much - it worked straight away!
As I was in Fareham this morning anyway, I decided to try the Martin Avis life style ( aka the Andy Henry Saturday experience ) and spent 4 hours sitting in a coffee shop having a pannini and a grande latte ( there is only two types of latte in this coffee bar: Large or Grande ) while writing up my focus plans in my newly purchased big blue book and then worked on a number of the actions I set myself.
.
.
.
It was the most productive 4 hours I have ever had!
Got a press release sent out to the trade rag just in time to get included in the January issue.
got 6 other possible press releases to work on.
worked on two other actions that would progress the business and help us with our advertising income.
Did I finish al my actions?
Bet your bum I did NOT!
Of the five focus areas ( what a contradiction in terms! and how ironic if I am going blind! ) I only worked on one. And I defined a total of 25 actions.
Critical path analysis? no I forgot to do that!

Next Weeks Targets:

Where do I start?
Well, the job thing is kinda on hold as I am not in the office.
The money book will need proof reading and editing.
This weeks lessons:
Taking breaks is a good thing. Not taking breaks can have consequences far beyond what you think. Like giving you RSI or eye problems.
That's it from me. Time for a rest.

Inspired, Tired & Strangely Empty

2004-12-03T13:31:00.000-08:00

How I'm Doing This week:
There will be very little excitement over the next few weeks thankyouverymuch.

I can tell you now that the goals, project and everything else will change very little, if any at all.

There is STILL the small issue of whether I should leave my job in the hope that something bigger and better will come along and replace the income I am currently getting as the only one with a regular salary. I am hoping it may have somthing super highway-esque about it.

So generally, I am feeling pretty fed up, tired, drained but inspired. Perplexing doesn't even begin to describe the emotional state I am in. But at least I keep on moving.

Current Goals:

= My Clickbank Money book: One evening a week at least ( up to 3 hours )
= Our Business must grow ( 2 to 3 Evenings a week ) - 6 to 9 hours )
= Succeeding in my new job. It is commission based and I need to focus on getting great.

New things I will TRY to do:

Still List & Sell the 43 things I have marked for ebay sales. I am also going to launch some sales efforts from ebay that relates to a product from our business. It seems the logical place to try it. and maybe on froogle as well

Things I am Dropping:

Anyone want to help me automate more content creation on my money site? This business takes up so much time I really don't seem to get around to it. The alternative is to drop it, which is a shame as we've put in some good effort getting it out there.

Last Weeks Achievements:

I have finished writing my book!! Now I need to decide what to do with it, or how to publish it. It's never ending this book writing lark!

I created an exercise schedule. Then I ignored it. Someone else recognise themselves?

And don't get me started on my newsletter! I just don't seem to get the time. I know I could put aside maybe 20 minutes a week writing about money. I know I can do that every day. But Now there are so many things to do and so little time to do it in. It's just not important enough to get done.

Our business is humming along. My wife went to an industry fair back in November and our sales on amazon has since picked up quite dramatically. The most selling title used to be on position number 59 THOUSAND on the best selling list. Now it is in the top 5 thousand. Compare that against the 120 THOUSAND new titles published EVERY YEAR and be suitably impressed when I say that that particular title was first printed in 1999. I have also set up google advertising which is directing 3-8 clicks through to our books on amazon every day. I have also set up a campaign that will hopefully send clicks through to our website, although that campaign is on "manual approval" keywords according to google... go figure. I will be setting up an ebay campaign and an ecommerce solution for it. I want to use paypal, but I am having difficulties convincing the CEO that it is better to give people SOME means of electronic payment than none at all.

Yeah. work. Making calls to customers now. Which is suitably amusing. Called maybe 5 customers. 2 of them is interested in doing business on specific projects, NOW. The other three will let me know more about their projects when I ring them back in January. If selling continues to be this easy, I'll be a very rich heart attack victim within the next 8 years.

Next Weeks Targets:

= Proof read & edit the book
= follow exercise schedule
= Complete all assigned business tasks
= moneytips newsletter ( You just HAVE to have one of these perpetual goals on your to-do list. Might as well make it obvious which one it is ;o) )
= pick up my ebay selling again

This weeks lessons:

There is only one thing that stands out for me this week. It relates to the post I made on MArtins forum ( )
and that is that I do not link goals with rewards. If I do all the things I should do with my exercise, what will be my reward? NO Idea! So maybe that's why I don't put so much effort in?

I also need to write down my business goals for myself, as I seem to forget I need to do them until later in the week.

Master Mind Progress

2004-11-26T14:06:00.000-08:00

How I'm Doing This week:

I am so shattered this week I really didn't feel like writing anything at all today.

It's been a long eventful week with days when I was ready to quit my job (Wednesday), Days where I spent 4 hours solid on a mastermind conference call, ( Thursday ) and days where I thought my job was going to be tolerable for quite some time to come ( Today)
As someone who has been used to controlling his own schedule and his own structure for the day for the last 4 years, it is a big culture shock being sucked back into an environment where the number of bums on seats are measured and 9am is a religious moment that no one in their right mind will willingly greet from anywhere other than their office chair.
This is a serious drain on my enthusiasm when I let it be, and so I am aiming to generate enthusiasm from the fact that the calls that I have had to practice with have gone well ( With real customers )
And that worked REALLY well today :o)

Current Goals:

= My Clickbank Money book: One evening a week at least ( up to 3 hours )
= Our Business must grow ( 2 to 3 Evenings a week ) - 6 to 9 hours )
= Succeeding in my new job. It is commission based and I need to focus on getting great.

New things I will TRY to do:

List & Sell the 43 things I have marked for ebay sales

Things I am Dropping:

There is little left to drop. I could do with spending less time surfing and checking emails.

Last Weeks Achievements:

I added 3 ideas to my ideas sheet, which is progress from the previous week. but I would hope that my mind is capable of producing more than 3 ideas a week!
I've also completed 85% of the writing of my book, and if this call on Thursday hadn't gone on for four productive hours ( and they were productive! ) it would have been complete by now.
I also finished a web based sales course and qualified for a diploma saying I passed. Good thing I have access to a laminating machine for when it arrives... ( rah rah rah )
I wrote quite a number of articles for the money tips website as well, but I don't seem to get my head around actually sending out the newsletter. You'll see if I make it THIS week - ONLY if you have signed up! ;o)
That's a joke by the way as there is no newsletter signup option on the site anymore. There is a log in which will give you access to another menu, but nothing exiting there at all.
Yet.

Next Weeks Targets:

= finish writing my ebook
= Create & follow exercise schedule
= Complete all assigned business tasks
= moneytips newsletter
= make my first sales calls for my JOB
= pick up my ebay selling again

This weeks lessons:
Long Talks Make Big Man A Babbling Idiot. 4 hours is pretty much my limit when it comes to calls!
If I choose to concentrate on the negatives, the job that I now have will be unbearable. When I re-focus on the benefits of the job, and remind myself why I am there, it is so much better.
The short term financials will be a nightmare, but I'd hope to get some kind of rewards quite quickly. Even
Although I have to suffer the punishment of going to Las Vegas first! ( Sorry Martin... )
Although I will take a leaf out of your book and try to experience the place through your enthusiastic eyes. It will make my stay there far more pleasurable. And I can remember with a smile that one day, the hotel might get demolished in style.

And no I will not be flying over the canyon as all the helicopter operators are fully booked already. Which is a shame. I've never thrown up over a canyon before.

Progessing in multiple ways!

2004-11-19T13:28:00.001-08:00

How I'm Doing This week:
Pearson would have been really depressed about this week as it was absolutely fabulous!
It's been mad busy to sort everything out. especially I was sick for about 3 days of this week. But we have made tremendous progress, and we were only £21 off the weekly sales target, which isn't bad 3 weeks into trading! and especially as the sales target I set is based on the level of business I am expecting us to trade at when we are fully operational.
We've also discovered that our niche is served by two completely different industries, that both seem to shun each other. In one of those industries we are authorised suppliers to around 300 outlets - the other: three. The second one has over 800 outlets in the UK alone. so we've got another 797 potential places our customers hang out that we haven't even approached yet.

Current Projects:
= My Clickbank Money book
= Our Business
= Fitness
= Sales Job Success

New things I will TRY to do:
Catalogue my new product ideas so that I don't waste time researching new ideas when I should finish off other products further down the pipeline

Things I am Dropping:

The weekly time table from this post. It doesn't seem to add any value to anyone.
Last Weeks Achievements:
Get 90 minutes worth of exercise, including brisk walking. => I did 45 minutes. Walking up the stairs on Wednesday ( 3 flights ) I stil got puffed out as per usual, but it only took me about 20 seconds or so to recover and not 10 minutes )
I have now completed 51 percent of my ebook, one percentage point over my goal. I think this is another first - I have actually over-achieved on one of my goals!
Managed to get loads of research done for the events that my wife are attending this weekend and also wrote an advertising pack for her to take with her
Stay on top of, and keep on updating my money website with newsletter = not done at all!

Next Weeks Targets:

Finish the ebook?!? Could be done actually as I am really getting into the "voice" of the money tip "ranter and reviewer". And I am a natural ranter on many more subjects other than money!
That elusive exercise time table needs working out. I have scheduled in the work to set it up for Sunday Morning.
There is a lot of follow up actions comming out of the events this week so I will be carrying out those. I also need to write a press release that.
And of course trying to get some more structure on this fitness of mine.
This weeks lessons:
Funny how I get to cultivate and do something productive with a trait that is un-productive! The ranting I mean.
Just goes to show you never know where your interests and talents may lie.
Has anyone else that works for themselves and have a job as well, that when the business is going well it is incredibly difficult to motivate yourself for your job? I guess it helps if your job is really motivating you, but if it isn't then I find that a business that IS interesting has such a demotivating effect on the JOB.
Or can have. I have been trying to focus on the fact that the job will teach me something I really need to learn. I know what some of it is, but I am sure I will learn something I hadn't even thought of. And I am already finding out that things that you guys have taught me helps me understand my new sales job better.
Although due to the non-disclosure agreements and non-competitive clauses I am even more restricted than before when it comes to creating software products.

Cheers,
Jon

PS, if anyone has received notices of Instantbuzz but haven't been able to get an invite, let me know and I'll send you one. just drop me an email on mr_otherwisen AT hotmail.com
( I'll review it in more detail when I have had more time to see it perform )

What Is it that structure has against me?

2004-11-05T13:10:00.000-08:00

How I'm Doing This week:
I am having a VERy busy evening!

I've not been very good at following up all the actions I have given myself this week. A consequence of my lack of dicipline I am afraid. Typing for 45 minutes once a week is the easy bit in this life long experiment of mine. Actually following through on the things that I set forth to do is another matter. Look at my current goals and you can see that I have set myself some steep challenges between now and new year.

On top of that I now have a completely new job to learn. And I must admit that one is taking me through an emotional roller coaster at the moment. It is fair to say I am now working in the least respected part of the organisation. That doesn't bother me. There isn't much that bothers me about the job to be honest, but I do experience so many different emotions in a week - covering ALL of the spectrum. Like I really don't know what I'm doing in this type of job to be honest. But then again, I seem to be reasonably well articulated and seem to be able to talk intelligently about business to the people I call.

And the fact that I don't have a choice about wether or not to go in to the office seems to help my dicipline!

Which is VERY good for my business. And eventually VERY good for my health. Once I get into the swing of exercising again. I am walkign the stairs more often at work now, which is a start. But I need to do more.

Current Goals:
= My Clickbank Money book: 3 hours writing a week
= Our Business must grow. I'll tell you the plan when it has worked.
= Succeeding in my new job. Shouldn't be too hard.

Current Weekly Time Table:
Thursday: Google & inspirational day.
Friday: Remain my progress report day.
Saturday Mornings I am accountable to others.
Sunday: Free Day / Business focus meetings
Monday: Money product day.
Tuesday & Wednesday: Business Days.

New things I will TRY to do:

setting aside some dedicated time for exercise in my weekly schedule. and then exercise at that time

Things I am Dropping:

http://www.telecomplus.org.uk/fareham
Is getting ditched this week. As an MLM proposition it's not all that great, but as a customer I love it.

Last Weeks Achievements:

I didn't write for 3 hours on my book, but I got some work done. 10 percent of it done in fact. And that was in just an hour. My new aim is to see it finished as close to the 20th of Novemeber as possible, as I managed to get so much of it done in one sitting.

The exercise this week consisted of playing with my son, walking the stairs for roughly 12 minutes and a woodland walk in the Queen Elisabeth Country Park

The newsletter got sent out - eventually! What a lark. My autoresponder website stinks to high heaven. I don't know why I bother with it to be honest as I'm sure only about a 3rd of my subscribers get the email.

And my business actions ( all three of them) - two of them are complete and the 3rd I can't do until Sunday. But I'm ready for it.

Next Weeks Targets:

exercise 3 times 20 minutes!

I hope to complete another 20 percent of the book content before Friday

and beyond that, I better start cracking on with the various roles I have in the business. The sales are trickling in, but I need to help open the flood gates.

This weeks lessons:

Time Tables & routine

2004-10-29T13:12:00.000-07:00

How I'm Doing This week:

I haven't been following my Time table as rigorously as I intended, but it usually takes me a while to get into things properly. Google isn't raking in as much as I hoped it would either, but it's been a good month anyway.
I have wasted endless time siting in front of the TV or browsing aimlessly this week. The forum isn't "aimless" by the way, but may not always be "productive" time.

Current Goals:
= My Clickbank Money book: One evening a week at least ( up to 3 hours )
= Our Business ( 2 to 3 Evenings a week ) - 6 to 9 hours )
= Succeeding in my new job. It is commission based and I need to focus on getting great.

Current Weekly Time Table:
I'll Make Thursday my Google & inspirational / reflective day.
Friday's Remain my progress report day.
Saturday Mornings I am accountable to others.
Sunday I will spend as I please, researching or catching up or just having fun. ( or business day, if required )
Monday is Money day.
Tuesday & Wednesday is Business Days.

New things I will TRY to do:

Moderate the UK forum... So be gentle with me! Please...
Read my emails after 10pm, when I am done with proper WORK.

Things I am Dropping:

It should be important to me to actually remove something that I do which is more harmful than beneficial. I'm not ready to look inside myself yet, so I'll look at other things. So. Unless more people want to sign up to my Utility Warehouse club, I'm quitting it.
http://www.telecomplus.org.uk/fareham
I get a £5 for each sign up 90 days after the service start date & you can have that back. There is a tiny residual income element to some of the services and I only need a few more people to cover the fees I pay to be a reseller.
The service is good value, but not the cheapest on international calls. It is however quite competitive on internet, mobile, gas & electricity.
But if there is no interest, I'll ditch it.

Next Weeks Targets:

Write on the clickbank book for 3 hours in total.
Exercise 3 x 20 minutes.
Complete all actions assigned to me at the business focus meeting - and on time. I don't know what they are yet!
Send out that newsletter!

Last Weeks Achievements:
We've found two new online outlets for our books. One of them wants to do a feature on us as part of their re-launch. The other is reviewing our titles.
With the help of a mentor I have also finally cracked how to approach bigger online partners to ask for their help in promoting our two main campaign packages. Mainly because he helped me come up with the campaing packages!
I had the pleasure of working in a 3rd floor open plan office where the elevators were out of order this week. and the filter coffee is only available on the ground floor... So I achieved my exercise goals.
I have also migrated a whole section of money tips onto the website.
But I have yet to write a single word on my clickbank book.
Nor have I sent out any newsletter.

This weeks lessons:
If things don't always go to plan - adjust the plan! Things happen that you don't expect. It invariably does in my life anyway.
I was thinking of the map reader realising that the map didn't match the surroundings. But he doesn't re-write the map! What he does do though is use the map to find out where he is accoring to where he wants to be, and adjusts his route accordingly. So although the goal remains the same, sticking to one plan may not be a good idea.
And once in a while someone or something comes along to test how well you know where you are and how good your plan is.
So if I find myself OFF plan, I need to know where I have drifted off to, and then decide how to progress towards my target.
It's infuriating and frustrating while I am lost though!

A Day Late, but what a day it's been!

2004-10-23T15:14:00.000-07:00

I have a good excuse! I usually do come up with some sterling reasons why I failed to do what I said I was supposed to do. It's something I have perfected over the years.

I didn't mention it in last weeks post, but yesterday, after a hard day at work ( new job that unfortunately requires me to work 5 days a week in the office again. ) I had to drive from the sunny coast of Hampshire all the way up to Lincolnshire in a great big van.

Why?
To exchange contracts and complete the purchase of our business and to take posession of the equipment & stock and to transport it back down again.

We weren't going to do that last night obviously! :o) There are limits to Paulines super human abilities. We drove up last night because we didn't fancy a 4-5 hour drive in a van on a very very VERY early Saturday Morning, do 3 hours of VERY hard physical labour, and then drive 4-5 hours back down again. Only to spend another 3 hours emptying the van we worked so hard to fill!

So we arrived at the premises at 10am, loaded up the van until about 1pm, had lunch, signed the contract and handed over the balance of the money.

And I mean MONEY! The bank has a limit to how much money you can transfer electronically in any given period, and the purchase price exceeded that. But ask for help and you wouldn't believe how many £20 notes a bank will have available on a Friday afternoon.

And one bank clerk in Newark probably thought something dodgy was going on in the neighbourhood when a bloke strode in with wads and wads of £20 notes to deposit this Saturday afternoon.

No I haven't written anything on my money book.
No I haven't added content to the money website every day.
No I haven't published a newsletter yet. I've written it twice, and it's vanished off my site twice but I haven't published it.
Yes I have exercised. Twice. Plus loading and off loading a van today. I am also walking the stairs at work instead of taking the lift.
Yes we did clear enough space for the books.
Yes I did host the call ( but I got there late! )
Yes I am on top of google.
yes I have also launched two new campaigns.
Yes, I have stopped them again as they were just about breaking even.
Yes, I lied: they heammoraged money.
Yes I have been working 5 days in the office, 10 hours a day. I have so much to learn it's insane.
Yes I have gone to bed before 9 on two of those working days.

Yes, I WILL finish the clickbank money book before the 3rd of January ( as I MAY be going to Las Vegas for 9 days from around the 9th for my new job - depends on if they think I should go to this business event. Don't shout too loudly. Vegas stands for everything I detest in this world so it's not an experience I am looking forward to.. )

Yes I will be devoting the next 2 and a half months to 3 things:

= My Clickbank Money book: One evening a week at least ( up to 3 hours )

= Our Business ( 2 to 3 Evenings a week ) - 6 to 9 hours )

= Succeeding in my new job. It is commission based and I need to focus on getting great.

I'll be trying to stick to a strict agenda for these next months, just to see if it works.

I'll Make Thursday my Google & inspirational / reflective day.
Friday's Remain my progress report day.
Saturday Mornings I am accountable to others.
Sunday I will spend as I please, researching or catching up or just having fun. ( or business day, if required )
Monday is Money day.
Tuesday & Wednesday is Business Days.

And thats WHY I forgot to write a Friday progress report yesterday.

( back to it's usual format next week )

Cheers,
Jon

A Resounding Failure!

2004-10-15T02:21:00.000-07:00

Get ready for a lesson in Failing Gracefully!

=======================
How I'm Doing This week:

As I start to write this, I am feeling really positive about all the things that I have done this week:
Got a new job - starting Monday at 10:30.
Updated our business plan - again!
Updated the processes we've already defined and defined a few more.
Written up an early organisation chart of our publishing business.

Usually I am a bit despondent at this point. only to find I had no reason to be. This week It is almost the other way around. When you come to read about last weeks targets you will notice that this week is unique among ALL the Friday Progress Reports I have ever posted -

I Failed to progress on most of them! Totally failed to do a single action to bring them forward!
I have NEVER failed to progress on ANY of the targets I have set myself.

Now, feel free to laugh at me and think - I never thought he'd last - to yourself.
But I'll choose to disagree with you. Although I'll happily leave a smile on my face.

Because i did progress my business. Just see the list I opened with. But I didn't progress those things that looked important to do last Friday.

So failing to achieve those targets isn't a failure to progress - I just choose the wrong targets that's all. I'm not going to get too hung up about not achieving a target, as it is the destination that is important. A target is just something to aim for in the hope that it well get you closer to where you want to be.

Disagree? Well, then. I ask you this - If your target is behind you, do you still aim for it?

===================
Last weeks targets:

=> Fitness, pick up with the work outs again and maintain and improve the lower pulsrate I achieved in Malta. Down to 62 now from 68 two weeks ago

Result: FAILED!
Couldn't even TELL you if I am improving as I haven't measured my pule ONCE. However, it is the best indicator of how fit I am. And with this new job role I am taking on - fitness is crucial to succeed. Nor did I even get off my bum to exercise at ALL!

=> Google, Finish the spreedsheet template.

Result: FAILED!
Finish the template? I didn't even update the data in it until yesterday, when I found out I have been loosing money since Saturday. big time!

=> Publishing. Clear Space. Choose between distribution or Margin.

Result: Half A SUCCESS
we're clearing space for the company equipment we're going to get ( oh and the stock!) , and I have managed to contribute to this. We've moved most of the books out of the office, but the utility room down stairs needs a great big cleanout this weekend. Did do a run to the tip with a bootfull of stuff last weekend, but that was the obvious crap. The rest are in theory sellable, but they are large items. And as for distribution or margin, it seems logical to increase the distribution first to be honest.

=====================
New things I will do:

Get started on the Monday updates really. Only, I am dependent on Google sending me the file on Mondays. So I will do it whenever they send me a file.

Syncronice the goals in this blog with those I mention in my mastermind group.

=====================
Things I am dropping:

Nothing comes to mind really. Other than that my google cash cow is now on profitability watch. The company I advertise for has started google advertising on ALL my keywords... annoying.

===================
This weeks lessons:

1. Affiliate merchants don't really like to pay you the commission. They are happy to let you take the risk, but if you hit on a gold mine, it seems they'll happily jump in and take over.

I don't care. I am already testing another merchant in the same niche with nice click to impression rates so far. Just have to see how the clicks convert to sales before moving all the campaigns over.

2. listen to off the cuff (?) remarks.
Spotted two independent one's this week, and managed to use the two together to find some highly interesting keywords for a campaign I hadn't even considered. The fact that the keyword don't convert well to clicks is another matter, but the opportunity is there once I tighten in the keywords a little and change the adverts around slightly. But at least I am getting impressions.

3. As Oracle Gary keeps on saying " keep the WHY in mind". I find it helps keep things in perspective.

4. Writing about my goals and whether I achieved them or not is FAR MORE effective in driving home the lesson, than just talking about it. I couldn't begin to pretend WHY, but I would expect it is for one of two reasons: I put more thought into what I write than what I say. I get it re-iterated over and over again when I write it when I proof read my post.

===================
Next Weeks Targets:

= Enjoy myself on my Sons 2nd birthday this Sunday.

= 4 times 20 minutes exercise

= remember to host the call! ( And get my car to the garage and back before 10am! )

= clear the office and utility room as much as possible before the great book-flood.

= post money tips newsletter & add new content every day.

= complete the first chapter of the US Market targeted money tips book.

=============================
This weeks audience question:

In The Portsmouth Area In Two Weeks time? Bonfire Party invites Available to anyone who wants them.

( I also have a Hilton Nearby in case anyone wanted to have a Collocvial Co-operative Mind sharing event experience the same weekend? )

I'd love to present the business venture to anyone who'd care to help me make a success out of it!

The Importance of Being Clueless

2004-10-08T13:46:00.000-07:00

=======================
How I'm Doing This week:

Post Holiday Madness!

===================
Last weeks targets:

3 weeks ago I wanted to have a great holiday. And we did. I even got fitter while we were away! inspite of the daily ice creams!

=====================
New things I will do:

Do my google accounts on Mondays. I check the adwords progress daily, but I shouldn't need to waste time updating the accounts once I have automated the rest of the new spreadsheet. Well those things I am able to automate with my limited knowledge.

=====================
Things I am dropping:

Nothing comes to mind really.

===================
This weeks lessons:

It's like someone's given me a key.

I am strangely perceptive at the moment. And ideas & stuff for the business are coming thick and fast. Only, not now - as I am dead on my feet.
I can articulate my ideas better. I am more understanding of WHY people do things that are annoying. Or try to sabotage my progress in the fast lane.

And I'll let that rest there. There is no point in analysing too much. Things are happening for a reason. Just accept it.

===================
Next Weeks Targets:

=> Fitness, pick up with the work outs again and maintain and improve the lower pulsrate I achieved in Malta. Down to 62 now from 68 two weeks ago

=> Google, Finish the spreedsheet template.

=> Publishing. God where do I start?
Well what's important this week is to clear the space to fit the books and maybe even sell off some stuff on ebay in the process.

The offering to the potential online customers needs selecting as well. I have a number of different ways to do this and it all depends on what's important to our business - margin or distribution. Right now I can't make my mind up.

=============================
This weeks audience question:

What bugs YOU when you are trying to find your next holiday online?

Away with the Syncronicity

2004-10-01T01:51:00.000-07:00

Still in Malta this week.

after struggling for 4 days with the coffee republic book I put that aside and read through e-myth revisited in 2 days.

very easy book to read as it is light on new cotent, but it's always good to get implicit knowledge expressed explicitly.

To say that I was unimpressed by the book is an understatement. I know about systems, so my lack of enthusiasm for the book doesn't mean I disagree with the message. far from it.

anyway.

I am also half way through syncronicity and that's about it.

Google advertising? roughly 300GBP since the 20th. roughly as the smallest one should account for about 45 and the other one is already up to 263.

Now, this should be the last time I mention actual earnings but for me it is just a cool way to highlight the power of this thing - I made a bit of money, while I was on holiday.

Now how to get this done with my publishing business....

Holiday Progress

2004-09-24T01:15:00.000-07:00

As I'm in malta on a pay per minute internet cafe, this weeks is a short one.

And also because I am on Holiday...

Just thought I'd let pearson know that since Monday, when I went on Holiday, my affiliate income has totalled 109.74GBP - so far...

that's from two adwords campaigns.

Now I will resume my work/life balance and speak to you all again in a week

"Getting ready for a long holiday" - day

2004-09-17T13:09:00.000-07:00

Well this week has been mad in all senses of the word!

I have a feeling that the list of things that Pauline and I achieved this week is longer than usual. Maybe it has something to do with the accountability calls ( Hi guys ) ,
Maybe it has something to do with me going to Birmingham this Saturday
Or even that we're going to Malta on Monday and I haven't got any summer clothes yet.

=======================
How I'm Doing This week:

Well I have received my holiday reading. I finally sat down and used my amazon affiliate link to buy some books that the seaside landlady suggested I'd get back in July I think:

Syncronicity
e-myth revisited
Anyone can do it - building coffee republic from our kitchen table

How's that for geeky! No, wait - it gets worse:

The hotel we are staying at - we picked it because it was the only one in the catalogue that offer their customers an internet connection...

===================
Last weeks targets:

=> exercise 4 mornings before Friday & log my pulse when I wake up every morning.
RESULT! Went out on the bike twice, had a little Taibo session and went for a long walk.

=> The money website newsletter will be sent out again as soon as the DNS changes are completed. There are a good few articles and reviews on there now, and I can add the rest of them as I go.
RESULT!! I even did some more design stuff to sort out the template I am using on the site.

=> Brainstorm the things that needs planning, and then prioritise. we've got most things down - like the top 6 things that needs to be done first and in what order.

This one scares the living daylights out of me. but we did some planning, and built the mind map as well as a short list of priorities. However we spent most of the week updating the businessplan and taking action getting ready to buy this thing.

=====================
New things I will do:

This week? Swim in the mediterranian (sp?) and the same next week. And enjoy the sunshine and the wine

=====================
Things I am dropping:

my day job. for two weeks anyway.

I didn't have to drop my land line. It's now fixed. They were reasonably quick to come out, but I should have expected that as they sure charge enough for the line rental!

===================
This weeks lessons:

Doing new things are scary. Terrifying!

Spending over £20k to buy ourselves an income is not something I would have considered doing only this time last year. But all the signs point to it being a good decision. I KNOW that the things I know about internet marketing and so on WORKS. I also know that market research and split testing will help reduce the risk. I have other avenues of income opportunities available to the business model so that I can reduce the risk even further. I know I am married to someone who has graphics design, desktop publishing and exceptional drive for the things she enjoys doing. Both of us have at least two mentors each - I even have a mastermind group to rely on for advice. We have a network of contacts inthe niche, in the publishing industry and in the corporate and marketing arenas.

A no brainer. based on my knowledge.

However,
the gap between the KNOWLEDGE and the DOING IT is filled with FEAR.

I hope it's like that for everyone, or I'm in trouble!
I guess having decided to make some movements forward in April, and just deciding to stick with it no matter what, has made it easier for me to face the fear and do it anyway.

But obviously - NOT without checking the size of the gap!

And another lesson is that AdwordsMentor seems to be making a difference.
My Turnover from July to August doubled.
My Turnover In September is at this present moment £150 short of my turnover last month.
I'll let you know if there's any long term improvements as with my luck this upsurge is only seasonal.

===================
Next Tow Weeks Targets:

=> Enjoy my two weeks holiday.

=============================
This weeks audience question:

What bugs YOU when you are trying to find your next holiday online?

Wet as a Drowned Cat!

2004-09-10T15:31:00.000-07:00

Just to keep Pearson pleased, I really felt miserable biking in the cold rain this morning. Daft thing to do really and I can only sit here and hope I don't come down with the "man-shuffle"

But other than that it's been a productive, if not scary week.

=======================
How I'm Doing This week:

Well. We went to see the vendors last weekend. nice folks. Their reasons for selling sounded very plausible. They were very similar to Pauline and me, only I have the benefit they hadn't - access to a bunch of people with marketing acumen. I spoke to someone I know in the industry, who told me NOT to get into the industry as it is a cut throat, hard industry to succeed in. We saw an accountant who said we should go for it as it was such a small financial risk that there was no reason NOT to try it. Besides it would be significantly easier than to start from scratch. So I dug out another 4-5 different industry market reports and found a couple of swot reports that pointed to some obvious flaws in the way the traditional actors operated, like not offering upsells or a sales funnel. It also told us where brand loyalty can be created. It also confirmed that the business' distribution of sales to the various sales channels were in line with the industry, almost perfectly.
So we put in an offer, had it obligatorily rejected and we offered our next offer an hour later which was then accepted.

So subject to everything, come November 1st, we should be the proud owners of a running business.

Now the trick is to get the balance between the technician, manager and entrepreneur right....

===================
Last weeks targets:

=> On my bike 3 mornings before next Friday. (while it is moving at speed)
RESULT! ( did them all, and it's a great feeling just to get out there )

=> Get one more review categories relocated to the new server by Friday
70 Percent Result. I just need to configure (?) the last 4 out of eleven reviews and then this is done.

=> No goal for google. Other than to keep the spreadsheet current.
RESULT! as up to date as google will let me be.

=====================
New things I will do:

I am what I eat diet. Or try at least. Mung beans don't sound appealing until a chow mein fan like myself realise they are often used as stir fry bean sprouts. I keep on calling them dung beans though. Feel sorry for my wife. She lives with this sort of humour 24/7
I will attempt to list 6 things to do every 48 hours, that needs to be completed in 48 hours. if I can spend enough time thinking through it properly.

=====================
Things I am dropping:
Mysteryshopping jobs for fast food restaurants. I swear they have hypnotic drugs in those things to make you drowsy, lazy and weak in will.

A regular phoneline. Or a brick on the BT van that never arrives to fix my phone line. Some of you may have the pleasure of sharing my experience on the 10am call, but if it gets as bad as it is tonight then I'll be dialling in my mobile.

===================
This weeks lessons:

Accountability is a great help if you want focus. And adding the goals to the Friday Progress again made a huge difference in my productivity. I wasn't simply going through the motions this week. I had targets that I was accountable for again.

In my experience, there are two types of people. There is one type that can never sit still. If they have nothing to do they do anything to avoid being idle. That's not me.
I belong to the other group, who strive to become idle. At every opportunity, if there is nothing to focus on, my "default" reaction is to seek out idleness.
So having these goals hung up in front of me every time i sit idle in my leather office chair snaps me back on track.
I guess testing accountability without goals over the last few months will show that it is far less productive than accountability with 2-3 goals defined.

===================
Next Weeks Targets:

Smart goals.hmmm.
I could list quite a few, but the overall goals for this week are as follows:
=> exercise 4 mornings before Friday & log my pulse when I wake up every morning.
=> The money website newsletter will be sent out again as soon as the DNS changes are completed. There are a good few articles and reviews on there now, and I can add the rest of them as I go.
=> The business adventure has just changed to a venture as we have had our offer for the business accepted.So it's time to nail down all the things that needs putting together: Pauline & I need to Brainstorm the things that needs planning, and then prioritise. we've got most things down - like the top 6 things that needs to be done first and in what order.
No, I don't like challenges!

=============================
This weeks audience question:

Have you seen my blog lately?

Thanks

2004-09-03T05:29:00.000-07:00

Hi again.

First of all a thank you for all the feedback I got after last weeks post. It's good to find out that you actually read and enjoy my ramblings, but you DO know I do this for selfish reasons don't you?

Even so. I will post some news about accountability calls later this evening.

My selfish reasons? Well I need help with my focus and making sure I don't take on too many things. Or more than I can comfortably handle. And I am not getting that help from these posts in their current format.

I've tried to limit the time I spend on my blog every evening as well. Ok. I confess. I forgot to post this week. And last.

If there is a lesson I can take from the last two weeks is that writing about what you are supposed to do for the following week helps you stay focused.

And at the moment my focus is on two things. It should be on 3, but it is on two. because I've been slacking. No need for excuses as I guess there is only one person responsible for my progress. Am I going to beat myself up about it?

take a wild guess!

now on to the progress update

How I'm Doing This week:

I did say last week that google ads were doing quite well. Sorry Pearson, but I'm afraid to say I'm doing well out of this one at the moment. It turns out August was the best month I have had so far. By about 26 per cent. Don't be fooled into thinking that it is making me rich though. It's not.

I am currently only running the two campaigns that regularly make me a profit, but the profit is enough to pay for other investments like seminars, webhosting, software and so on. just.

One thing I'd like to mention about adwords though - ebooks don't work. For me at least.

I personally think it is because people like to buy from somewhere they feel they know, like a brand or on a recommendation from someone they trust. I don't pre-sell via my own website, but direct all the google adwords traffic to the merchants website, so I am finding that I have better luck when I promote the industry or niche leader.

Like when I made over £300 in the three months before christmas last year promoting to the keyword [freeview] in the UK. it cost me 5p per click to stay in the top 8 adverts. I held the top spot most of the time in fact. But now the searches have drop to a third of what they were and the adverts from my competitors remain. And about 9 others. Although the search to results ratio is very good at 29.

Feel free to give it a go, but be warned the profits I earned from this amazon promotion was under £30. At 5p per click...

But that's better than some of the others though. Allposters.com is all I have to say to that one. And about 23 others merchants as well.

And freeview isn't as hot this year as it was last year. Or I asume so anyway, until the TV adverts tell me otherwise.

And for my SECOND trick this week -
My intrepid business (ad)ventrue shuffles along. The To-Do list is beginning to look a little less cluttered as the DONE list gets longer. And by Monday "visit the premises" and "meet the current owners" will have moved over to the DONE list. I've found a number of helpful websites both for business plans and about the e-myth, but will I ever tell you what this busines is about?
The THIRD trick?
Now, I said initially I was focusing on only two things this week. And I meant to say that the third one was ignored. And that would have been my money site. Although I haven't sent out a newsletter for the site in - hmm - quite a while - I actually didn't ignore it this week. I am just not giving it my all. I have added articles and reviews to the new server but not at the rate I need it to happen. And I have had some ideas about how to re-brand it as well, but that will have to wait until I have migrated this stuff over!

New things I will do:
Add "next weeks targets" to the template

I have also dug out my trusted two wheeler which I intend to use at least 3 mornings a week. I have the pleasure of being woken up by a wet nappie on my face every morning at 06:01am so I might just as well spend the time before work doing something about my fitness.

Things I am Dropping:
Hollyoaks.
It wasn't really my thing initially, but it has become a bit of a family wind down time. I'm not going to be able to abandon the living quarters and escape to the office during Hollyoaks, but I will be able to spend that time doing some housework.

But I will never give up Neighbours! (when I become a full time home worker, I will watch the lunchtime airing, but while I am in the office, I am unavailable after 5:35pm )

This weeks lessons:
Writing every day about what I am going to do the next day or what I have learnt from today is a great help.

Although I must admit that I am inclined to think that looking BACK at what I did shouldn't take longer than thinking about what I should do tomorrow.

Getting into the money saving market was a decidedly BAD idea. The model I chose didn't make me stand out, but I think an audio format, as well as a "progress" ( funny that really, don't you think? ) style blog / weekly article series along the lines of: THIS week I will try the stupid money saving tip over THERE.

Why will I try this when I have completed my money website migration? Because the best feedback has been about the stories about ME and what I went through. And I love to talk about money as much as I dislike writing about it.

Next Weeks Targets:
=> On my bike 3 mornings before next Friday. (while it is moving at speed)
=> Get one more review categories relocated to the new server by Friday
=> No goal for google. Other than to keep the spreadsheet current.

This weeks audience question:

Paul C - Do you have those mindmaps with Mike Litman anywhere convenient? I'm on mindmanager x5 if that helps.

Anyone know how to value a business with a max turnover in the last 5 years of £52k ( ca 10k average per annum ) & stock/equipment valued at £5k (representing a max potential revenue of ca £56K ? ) I have a fair idea, but if anyone would like to offer their insight, drop me a line to glenesha42 AT btconnect.com

Cheers,
Jon
(still progressing)

From A Royal Cockup To a Cock Eau Vin

2004-08-27T13:19:00.000-07:00

How I'm Doing This week:

My google ads are doing quite well I must say. The profit so far this month looks to get pretty close to last months turnover! I think most of it is seasonal changes, but it's great to see anyway.
My "new" money website is coming along nicely. But it has ment I haven't bothered with the old one at all. It seems like there's no point until I have moved everything over. Or at least more of it. It's a little more time consuming than I anticipated. And unfortunately the first usability tests are down compared to my old website. But this new solution includes some membership features as well, although nothing that allows me to charge for it yet.

My business venture is looking promising. We're now doing some comparisons between two strategic options but my action list remains far too long for my liking.

New things I will do:

I don't have time to do new things - the only thing I can think of is that my fitness is becoming a business risk. and as such I need to consider how I can reduce that risk. Now there's a novel way to look at being obese!

But it is true. Certainly is in my case as I am Clinically Obese according to my GP and there are all sorts of health risks involved. So from the point of view that I could die from this one day if I don't change, and also the energy levels and stress tolerance levels can be improved by some simple fitness exercises.
So I need to think of a way to improve my health for next week

Things I am Dropping:

I'm beginning to think there's no point to these Friday Progress Reports anymore. I'm not sure I'm getting anything out of them anymore. Especially now that there aren't really any goals in them.

This weeks lessons:

This one comes from my J.O.B actually.

I think it is incredible how powerful a relationship can be in getting me to do things I had never dreamt of before. it is no secret that I detest my job with gusto, but I let someone I respect down early this week, and this colleague of mine TOLD me straight that this upset her.
So I spent the remaining 4 days of this week working my B-hind off to try to re-deem myself in some fashion. I don't think my standing will ever quite recover, but at least I took charge of the chaos I created and made every available effort to keep it stable and at the same time keeping all my other projects moving along as well.

My job is the reason why I want to focus on one thing at a time. In corporate lingo I am currently "on the bench" which means I am between roles within my company.
I handed over my responsibilities 3 weeks ago officially, so that my old department no longer pays for me. But I am still responsible for progressing 4 projects. Full workload would usually mean over 10.

But having only those 4 to focus on made such a huge difference as I can follow up both developers and clients daily if required, and give them updates before they come and ask for it.
Anyway, I digress. I don't think I would have put in such an effort if it wasn't for the simple reason that I hated myself for letting this particular person down. And it was all down to the respect I have for this person that I have worked so closely with for the last two years.

This weeks audience question:

Did you read this far?

The Rule of 6, adwords success & a telephone chat

2004-08-20T14:16:00.000-07:00

How I'm Doing This week:

Yay. Google: Good times are being had. August is set to become the 3rd most profitable month since I started adwording. If you haven't started thinking about what to promote for christmas, get your finger out! and forget anything with "gift" or "present" in the keyword as it is WAAAAY full of untargeted competition.

Money tips review: Hm. Grumble. I think the site feels a lttle neglected. It has been. but Hey, it's August and at least I KNOW what I SHOULD be doing! and at least the website will be getting a little more attention over this weekend.

Business. ah - yes. We'll be meeting the vendors in 14 days to look at the premises & the accounts as well as the order books. had a great chat with Julia McDaid from Startup Right - http://www.startupright.co.uk who gave me some truly excellent advice that has resulted in me having an action list longer than ever before!

life. My mom is coming over for a week next Saturday so next Friday really IS a going on holiday day. And then on the Monday after Peters seminar I am off to visit my wifes family in Malta for two weeks. So I have every reason to get cracking. Especially as I don't actually even have a job as such in the company I work for.
( end self motivating talk)

New things I will do:

It's not so much a new thing, but as I have finally sorted out an easier content management solution I have to move the 80 or so articles over. I'll be busy.

Will I be too busy for Mark Litman? I must admit it is a hard slog to get through his ENTHUSIASTIC SCREAMING but I have at least gathered ONE nugget already and I will continue to try to apply the rule of 6.

Things I am Dropping:

My HTML template on my money website! It's been bugging me pretty much since day one.

This weeks lessons:

It's great to just START, but if you set things up wrong, you'll soon suffer for it.
BUT. the only way to KNOW if your setup is wrong is by STARTING in the first place!

Now my hope is that I will in fact take this lesson to heart on my other projects as well!

I KNOW I should be taking certain actions to promote my website, and I'll get there one day. When I am good and ready.

At least the rule of 6 is helping a little. I call it that by the way - not sure what he calls it as I haven't been able to face Mark Litman SCREAMING about my GREATNESS since last week
.
The rule of 6 is a time management system where all you do at the end of every day is to spend about ten minutes thinking about which 6 concrete things you can do the NEXT day that will bring your business forward the most.

I'm struggling with THINKING too little and writing too much - I always end up with a chaotic list of about 8 items that would be useful to do.

Seems to me that one beneficial thing for me to do would be to spend 8 of those ten minutes brainstorming the things that could bring you progress and then spend the next 2 minutes picking the 6 most important ones.

But I'm sure Mark Litman might tell me that in the second half of the CD, if I ever get that far

This weeks audience question:

Will I be seeing YOU in Bimingham at the "Twister" Seminar?

6 steps & google

2004-08-13T14:43:00.000-07:00

How I'm Doing This week?
Funny you should ask. My google adwords are being clicked on like mad. Anyone buying more though? nope. Sales are holding steady, but the clicks have gone up. No idea why.
In my "real life" I am still employed but have no actual "job" to do. It is a bizzarre situation to be in I tell you. I log on to my broadband in the morning and all I have to do is browse my companys internal job noitce board, speak to people in my network and pick up the odd problem from my old "job". Will they let me go? no. Can I pick and choose what roles to apply for? yes? Do I have to get interviewed every week? yes. Are there any consequences if I don't? not for a while.
But anyway. In the evenings I crack on with the possible business venture. Which basically means I am back to my a set of 3 projects again:
- google adwords
- money website
- offline business venture

New things I will do:
I haven't mentioned it before, but as I am doing it already, I might just as well tell you these two things now -
I am concentrating alot of my effort on getting the money tips website content management problem sorted.
The rest of my time is now being spent on investigating buying a business.
Although I have just realised I could launch a paid membership website to the marketplace, without buying the business, and at far less setup cost.

This weeks lessons:
Mark Litman's Greatness held hostage has made me realise I am better at listening to stuff than at reading about it. But he is so annoyingly enthusiastic I have yet to get through the whole hour long cd.
I did pick up a system for making progress though, which involves writing down 6 things I could do tomorrow to progress my business.
For tomorrow I have written down:
1. Write up the market reseach findings I have so far & identify gaps
2. write a money article
3. Submit a money article
4. I need to decide on what to do with my domain / hosting of my money website as the current plan doesn't support the content management tool I prefer.
5. If I receive the accounts from the business we are reviewing, copy them and send a copy off to our accountant.
5a - If i don't get them, then I need to sit down with pauline and write down all our findings in our mind map, so the plan gets written down at least.

6. Write a background or summary for the business startup coach I am hopefully speaking to on Tuesday ( hopefully as I haven't had the call confirmed yet )

I think I'll use my blog to publish my 6-list. Although I might shorten it if I can't get it all done in a day.

Anyone any good at business planning? drop me a line if that;s the case!

An Introduction

2004-08-06T14:42:00.000-07:00

Hi there.

I have posted a report on my progress into the internet world since March 2004. I have done this on the UK internet marketing forum.

It started as a way for me to make myself accountable to someone for what I was committing to do. As a result I launched my first website in May, creating over 80 pages of content so far.

Now, I am getting requests to share my posts to other websites, and I consequently have created this blog to let people add feeds to their sites to get the updates automatically when they happen.

And to save myself some time!

This is indeed the FIRST post to this blog, but I have imported all the Friday Progress Reports that I have posted so far and in cronological order.

I hope you enjoy reading my journey as much as I have enjoyed travelling it.

Thanks for visiting.

Keep Progressing,
Jon

Moving Sideways Is also Progress

2004-08-06T08:06:00.000-07:00

Hello and let's get cracking. There's not much to say this week so I might just get it over with.

How I'm Doing This week:

Well I have sent off one as yet unpublished article to hitched.co.uk as they were looking for stories on honeymoons.

My website is targeting the UK market place so other than trying to get a foothold on some of the money forums and searching in vain for uk specific article directories, there isn't much else I have done.

I have signed up to the Adwords Mentor website and by tweaking a campaign that was suffering a little I have now twice as many sales this week compared to last week.

I haven't mentioned adwords since about April as I vowed to keep it running as was until August. August is now here and I am ramping up for the Christmas show down.

The merchants are touting the back to school offerings but I have yet to find many positive looking keywords for that market so I am inclined to not bother, unless a particular product offering leaps out at me.

I am looking actively to buy a business with a positive cashflow to replace my salary. That way I would in theory be able to "retire" from the corporate world sooner rather than later. We have so far rejected about 25 possibles, but think we have found one that suit our interests, that has a market with high demand and has run successfully since 1999. Just need to make sure the numbers add up I suppose.

And that we have a clear idea of what we can do to improve it.

I have also finally established a test website for a PHP and Mysql managed content website. Now all I need to figure out is how to change the design!

New things I will do:

None. I have too many outstanding current "actions" as it is! although I have bought a software development package as I have two product ideas for the money website.Â

Things I am Dropping:
None.

This weeks lessons:
I feel that I have not contributed as much as I hoped on my "main project" this week as I should, but I think some times, I need to remember that it isn't the PROJECTS that are important but what I am trying to achive with my life that is important.

So when I have dedicated as much time as I have to investigate the market, the suppliers, the customers and the rest, then that is because I think that will bring me closer to my goals.

I know this is an excuse, but I do this for the lifestyle that I want. Too lofty a goal Gary tells me, but it is the reason I do it. The vision of being able to go to Machu Pichu when I want to, is better I suppose, but the over riding factor for me is:

I will not do anything that will take over my life, unless it is enjoyable, and give me the freedom to work it from anywhere in the world.

And my biggest problem is that I don't know what I enjoy! :o)

This weeks audience question:

Anyone know how to modify PHP pages?

Can't Be Bothered? Whose Loss Is That Then?

2004-07-30T08:10:00.000-07:00

Do you mind if I don't bother today? I'm not feeling to good.
If I really were to ask that of YOU, I would have missed the point of doing these posts every Friday since March.
I was asking it of myself this morning. And no, I didn't read Gary's post on "can not be bothered" until only a few minutes ago. So here goes, but shorter than usual for various health reasons. ( sitting in front of the computer for 14-16 hours a day is taking its toll

How I'm Doing This week:

Having a great time learning the meaning of migraine. Must have been something I said the other week to kimi about me never having any headaches! been really rough so I have keept away from the computers as much as possible. And that will have to continue for a little bit longer.

New things I will do:

Nothing. Not deliberately anyway. I am still looking for somewhere to send my articles to!

Things I am Dropping:

Plates and shopping. I can't seem to hold on to anything properly this week, so I am guessing it will carry on and I will smash yet another Woolies mug or a pint of milk by letting it slip out of my hand and onto the tiled kitchen floor!

This weeks lessons:

a pint of milk is heavier than you think!
Even though I had a week OFF computers through simple neccessity, I still managed to get some things done. I even have an article in mind for this weekend, and some good reviews lined up.

The value of this post to anyone else might be minimal. If any value at all can be gleaned from this post it is this:
You will have "uphill" weeks where everything is harder than usual. That's just the way it is. The fact that you are having one doesn't make you special, a victim or someone that should be pitied. It just shows you you're alive.

This weeks audience question:

if you know of any , ANY, UK orientated article submission directories then let me know, as I can't find them!

Doing Nothing On My To-Do List Was Good For Me

2004-07-23T08:08:00.000-07:00

Yet another installment of my Friday Progress I am afraid. Thank you by the way to those of you that have told me on this forum and in person how much you appreciate me posting these updates.
It's a strange experience for me I tell you to have people I hardly know tell me they enjoy something that I do for my own benefit.
So thank you very much.
How I'm Doing This week:

On my blog I posted yesterday that this was a week for re-balancing myself.

Which means I didn't do any of the things I said I was going to do! I hope we all have weeks like this!
I also mentioned in the post that not doing what I set out to do made me feel uncomfortable. Maybe even a little guilty. To be honest I was really fed up with everything and everyone. But it was possible that this discomfort was trying to teach me something. I'm still not sure what it was, but it also made me conviced that I can't avoid discomfort.

If there is something I don't like, I might need to spend some time looking at why it is making me uncomfortable. If I don't like dealing with hassle that might happen on a forum like this, maybe my brain is trying to tell me that I am going about it the wrong way. Maybe it isn't trying to tell me to stay away from this sort of hassle, but asking me to consider other ways of dealing with it.

Either way, my re-balancing act gave me a chance to reflect on the old and ask about the new. and a good few people took the time to respond to my forum posts. I was particularly grateful for Andy Henrys response on a thread on this forum as it came at a time where I needed to read what he wrote. Thanks.
Other people offered words of encouragement and even gave me an ebook so I could read up and find some of the answers that I was looking for on Martins Forum. That was of tremendous help in getting me out of the midset I was drifting into.

On the day that Martin mentioned my post, I was having a dreadful day and at the end of the day, I sat down and wrote in my blog. And I had to reflect on what had happened that day. And because of the nice people that responded to me, I had to concede that the day hadn't been a total waste. In fact, as I read my post back, I had to find it quite an inspiration that people can be this nice.

New things I will do:

Well, I have yet to apply the marketing tactics of actually submitting my articles to any directories. So I will, come hell or high water, submit at least ONE article this week to a directory.
and the ebook. well. I will spend 4 hours on it this weekend.

Things I am Dropping:

The early morning writing "sessions". At least for the time being as I am as dead as a dodo before 9am - which makes me a bit of a road hazard! Shame really as the days where I start to work before 8 usually turn out to be very productive days.

This weeks lessons:
I think you'll find most of my lessons mentiond at the top of this post!

But. Maybe. Sometimes, not doing what I set out to do can be a good thing. Sometimes you just don't feel like doing what you're supposed to be doing, so should I still do it? Should I bother?
I had a week like that this week, but in spite me completing absolutely no tasks that I had set out to complete, I still managed to move forward, but in a different direction than I anticipated. I don't think it's very productive to act like that very often, but I also found it to be quite depressing to feel guilty about not doing something I should be doing because I enjoy it.

It is so easy to dwell in this guilt, and to be honest I pretty much was for most of the week. But sod it, if I need a week of rest, then I'll take a week of rest! It has also made it quite clear that the format is far more work than I anticipated, and maybe I should consider opening it up to others writing some of the reviews and articles. Or turn them into a email course, or ebook.

And I also learnt masses about myself. For instance, I am getting increasingly better at talking myself UP. These Friday Progress Reports help tremendously, but so do the daily posts on my blog. Like a diary, they make me reflect on the days events, and because I focus on the positive lessons I can extract from the days events, it makes me feel good.

Which can't be bad ;o)

This weeks audience question:
Would it be useful to have a website with all these little reports collected in one place? I have a fair few by now, and the philosophy is getting clearer in my head

Worn out, tired, chewed up, drained and drowsy.

2004-07-16T08:12:00.000-07:00

Worn out, tired, chewed up, drained and drowsy. I could do with an energy boost. But I am still keeping going. This week out of sheer stubbornness rather than pleasure. Although it is quite pleasing to learn that I can push myself.

How I'm Doing This week:
I'm ahead of myself again with the reviews this week, although I doubt I'll have everything ready for Sunday as I will be spending all of the weekend away. But we'll see what I get done tonight and tomorrow morning.
I've also started hanging out in a UK money forum, but they all seem to frown on anyone other than the site owner posting affiliate links.
Which is a bit greedy of them I find.
Maybe that's an opportunity there for me, as I am sure I'm not the only one wanting or needing to make a buck.
And I have promised my subscribers that I will create a forum for them. So maybe I will let that be the USP of my site then ; affiliate links allowed after you have posted a few times, added value, no blatant advertising or spam, and clearly mark the links as affiliate links.
There is one web site that does something similar, only he only allows affiliate links in one thread, and you then have to link back to that thread if people think you deserve the commission, and you have to post an affiliate free link too.
Anyway. I have also as you may have seen started to distract myself by looking at buying a business that is already up and running. It seems like such a fantastically easy thing to do, this buying a business, improve its efficiency, let someone else manage it, or sell it, and then move on to the next business. I am experiencing illusions of grandeur as I think I should consider going into Business Development. As property development is not my thing. yet. But obviously I am not ready yet as I am thinking that it is easy.

New things I will do:
Not so much a new thing, but I have yet to submit any articles anywhere. So I must do that.
As I am now woken up every morning between 5am and 6:30 by a little toddler who has found out how to open doors, I might as well start using half an hour every morning working on the following weeks money reviews.
That way it will free up time in the evenings to work on articles and on my WHY. Ad writing more of the articles to go in my ebook (- let)
Things I am Dropping:
Nothing is getting dumped this week. Although I am hoping the seminar won't cause too much havoc. Wen I learn new things havoc has had a tendency to follow.
And the blog is nearing the risk threshold. It is likely at least that I will drop it down to 3 days a week instead of daily. But for now I will keep at it so I can continue to get to know my dicipline guide that tries to show me the right thing to do. ( who posted that comment somewhere? It was a quote from Jim Rohn any way and it made great sense to me! )
And the web site publishing method I am using is still at risk.
This weeks lessons:
For a section starting with "nothing is getting dumped this week" there was a lot I needed to say!
Rubbish isn't always rubbish.
As I left the office this afternoon I spotted a little rabbit doing something that triggered a "light bulb moment" for me.
I must tell you that the location I work in is actually smack bang in the middle of a protected wildlife area. It is actually on what used to be the sea, but after a lot of work the area was turned from a sea bird haven into the 6 buildings that are there. But as part of the deal with the council, the company I work for had to create a massive lake and water canal system to recreate the environment some of the wild life that was there was used to.
It works. There are stork like creatures there, Cranes I think they are called? Huge solitary creatures they are, mainly hated by gardeners with ponds because they come and pinch the really expensive karps. We have loads of various ducks, massive pigeons, and lots more that I have no idea what is. And Canada Geese. Tons of them. They eat grass like there is no tomorrow. Only it comes out like grass as well. Everywhere. But some how, by the next morning the Canada droppings have vanished.
I was assuming it was the cleaners and janitors that cleaned this up, and maybe it is, but this little rabbit I saw was nibbling away on the Canadian "deposits" with as much gusto as the Geese ate it. and it makes sense. The grass must come out as fast as it is being put in, so a lot of the nutrition might be left in it. And it saves the rabbit a lot of work if he only has to find a ready made grass pellet a la goose to get a wholesome meal.
So maybe that's how it all vanishes in the night. As the site has vermin like levels of rabbits right by the buildings.
So I got a lesson in reuse. What is no longer required by some - to put it delicately - can be life saving for someone else. Or indeed a delicacy! To me it was a reminder that opportunities are can be found in the unlikeliest, and sometimes unpleasant, places.
So next time you step in some Goose pooh, feel sorry for the rabbit whose meal you just ruined.

This weeks audience question:
If a tree falls in the forest, onto a little cabin, was it the trees fault or the cabins fault that the roof caved in?
Can think of anything important to ask. If you want to tell me something feel free! :o)

Friday Progress In New Clothes

2004-07-09T08:16:00.000-07:00

Hi, I'm trying a new format this week. let me know if it's any better than what I've done before. The format that is!

How I'm Doing This week:

It feels like a mixed week as I did get my money tips out, although a lot later than I wanted to. I also blatantly forgot to work on my ebook.

I have maximum of 15 hours officially to my disposal every week- but I probably do more like 25. I know I spend maybe 4 to 6 hours on adwords and the rest on blogging, articles, newsletter and reviews. Oh and time wasting. And website issues, learning new things and learning about myself.

The list is longer than I remembered it to be, but at the same time it's not much of an achievement. More than Nothing is better than nothing. Sets me apart from 95 % of people out there aparently. But I am stealing 10 hours of sleep or family time every week which in my book is bad.

New things I will do:
I am not going to mention new goals or anything on Fridays any more. I will do that on my weekend post instead, with an update on progress mid week.

What I will do on Fridays instead is in this section I will mention my weekly Kaizens - my new things that I am going to start doing.

A KAIZEN is a small, insignificant step, but one that brings progress in one way or another. I might mention as few or as many as I feel like.

Things I am Dropping:
This week, that would be to publish my weekly goals on a Friday. I will do that on Sundays most likely, after publishing my newsletter

This weeks lessons:
I always seem to learn a lot every week. This week for instance I have realised that whenever I have to write these Friday progress reports, the list of things I have done and achieved is always longer than I imagined it would be. And it feels nice to discover that every week! I start out writing things like: " It's been a mixed week - I have only done this, that, the other, that bit, the other one, and this one over there and another one too. Plus the two I forget every week. So all in all I've done quite a a lot!" which get a bit contradictory! But it still feels darn nice to discover it!

It has also (finally!! ) begun to sink in that when I don't feel like doing something - I should just go and do it straight away. Not only does that make me "challenge my comfort zone" which supposedly is quite important, but it means I won't be wasting time thinking about doing something that might be uncomfortable.

A third and final lesson is about Gurus. I just had confirmation that they are nothing special. They just got lucky, and some of them forget this and THINK because people come to them with generous JV offers that they ARE special. Someone that started learning what I want to learn a day before me can be my expert. They do after all know what it is like to go through their first day learning the subject. So just like it is among mortals, gurus can be dumb too.

It just strikes me as odd that when they concentrate on building up a reputation, they are more interested in making a fast buck than to protect their brand name. Not that I have one worth protecting yet, but I most certainly wouldn't like to stake my reputation on a bad, illegal or ethically questionable product. But they have revealed themselves to be human after all.

This weeks audience question:
Would it be better to have your newsletter come out on a predictable day and time, or randomly within each week?

What is a "good" week?

2004-07-02T08:21:00.000-07:00

Last week I gave myself three things to finish in addition to the usual seven reviews. I committed to finishing my afilliate directory, which I have. I committed to writing an article for the Money Review, which I have. I also said I would finish my ebook, which at the moment is with the proof-reader. That would be my wife by the way.

I will let you guys tell me if that means I had a good week. You need to consider that I actually have not finished the book yet. I will be spending the next hour working on my money tip reviews, because I just need a break from this book, but as I am babysitting tonight I'll have the rest of the evening available to work on the book.

I don't know if you have tried writing a book, and I distinctly remember telling Pearson just to get on with it, when he was saying that he had problems and self-doubt when writing his. Or if I didn't tell him I certainly thought it. Now that I have actual experience I can only humbly apologise for my simplistically ignorant and inexperienced opinion. Now that I know what he means!

Anyway, I have somewhere between seven and 14 Money Tips to review and to find afilliate links for in time for Sunday's News Letter. So if you don't mind I'm just going to get on with it.

This week I would be grateful for if you could tell me if you think a forum would be useful on my website, and as it is a low-cost, low-budget production, if you know of any free solutions that are any good, and the that I can put on my website then let me know. I can't take any PHP based stuff. I already have a hosted forum I am testing, and I could hide the fact with frames I suppose, but I would not be in control of the adverts.

What's your views on this?