I’m in the process of putting my plans into play for 2014. Doing a little research around that, I came across a post on the Warrior Forum where a guy admitted that it took him 7, yes, seven years to get into the solid 5 figures … while holding down his day job!
Now I don’t know about you, but I was impressed. Consistency is one of the keys to winning in business and this guy had worked, learned, implemented and improved as he went without giving up. His eye was on the prize – to replace his employment income, and he was in sight of doing that.
Personally, I find my motivation surges and wanes and the overwhelm and lack of clarity can get the better of me. But it IS about staying the course and plugging away in a progressive manner.
This guy claims to have had no plan. I call furfy on that! A plan can be 5 years long, or a month long, or what you intend to do tomorrow. Having some sort of idea about the direction you’re heading, what you’re working toward and what steps you need to do next to get that project moving are necessary. Otherwise you’re just playing at a hobby, tinkering around the edges.
Here’s a listing of actions he took over those years:
- Built my Main Site Using FrontPage/Expressions Web (Not Recommended)
- Wrote Lots of Quality Articles for the Site
- Translated them into 12 different Languages (More Pages/little extra work)
- Joined Adsense/Put it on my Site (Instant Cash – cha-ching!)
- Put Google Site Search on the Site (Highly Recommended)
- Tried Some Affiliate Programs (Most were very poor)
- Tried Adwords (Could not make it work for me)
- Wrote a Lot of Books (I love writing!)
- Created my Own Products for Sale (Did I say I love writing?)
- Created my Own Banners
- Paid People to Write for Me (Articles & Books)
- Outsourced Graphic Creation for my Products (Not my Strong Area)
- Outsourced Voice-Overs for My MP3 Products (Found a Great Guy!)
- Started an Affiliate Program (Using ClickBank it was Very Easy)
- Wrote an Affiliate Marketing Course for My Affiliates
- Bought PLR for Many Other Books (to use as Give-aways)
- Gave Lots of Them Away for Free (for traffic & links)
- Gave Master Resale Rights Away to Some (for traffic & links)
- Sold Master Resale Rights With Others (for traffic & links)
- Made Some of them Rebrandable (as affiliate tools)
- Submitted to DMoz Directory (Recommended)
- Built Links using Article Marketing
- Built Links using Forum Marketing
- Built Links using Social Bookmarking
- Submitted my feeds to RSS Directories
- Submitted my site to Web Directories
- Did a Bit of Reciprocal Linking (Not Recommended)
- Started a Directory of Related Sites
- Tried some Joint Ventures (Difficult to find Quality Partners)
- Tried Newsletter Advertising
- Did a Press Release
- Tested Various Price Points for My Products (Recommended)
- Tested Various Product Bundles (Recommended)
- Tested One Time Offers (I don’t like them & don’t use them now)
- Tested Up-Selling and Cross-Selling (Not doing it presently)
- Tried a Few Blog Carnivals (Not great results)
- Used Various Article Distribution Services (Was not Overly Impressed)
- Started the Inspiration Newsletter (Good Move!)
- Created our Free Courses
- Created my Blog (Another Good Move!)
- Created my Video Section (Just for Fun)
- Started My Own Channel on YouTube
- Created Our Resource Section (Good Move)
- Started a Forum (Hard Work with Moderation and the Spammers)
- Forged Strategic Partnerships with Related Quality Sites (Recommended)
- Studied/Learned Copywriting (Another Good Move!)
- Created Approx 12 Other Sites just to Try-out My Ideas
- Created a Blog Network (Again Hard Work with Moderation)
- Created/Launched the eWriterPro Viral Campaign (Success!)
- Added Tell a Friend Scripts and Buttons (Recommended)
- Added Social Sharing Buttons (Little Effort for the Advantage)
- Submitted to Feedburner (Recommended)
- Submitted to Technorati (Recommended)
- Syndicated My Content to various Sites
- Accepted Every Offer to be Interviewed
- Accepted Every Offer to Write for Someone Else’s Product
- Did Some Guest Blogging
- Stopped Looking for the Magic Key
Maybe the biggest one is the last one.
What action can you do today, in the next 24 hours, to keep moving forward?