(If you’re new here, welcome! I set 3-5 major goals every year publicly on my blog and update my progress every quarter. Here are my goals for 2010.)

Let’s see how I’m doing!

Goal #1: Create and Release 10 New Products in 2010

This one has slowed down a bit–you’ll see why as you read the rest of this post! I’ve released four products: Guest Post Secrets, Best Blogs, my first one-day workshop, and Blog Set Up.

I did hold my first one-day workshop with four participants on June 26, and it was a huge success! I gained confidence in what I want to teach, which I plan to release as a product later this year. And all four participants gained great insight into their businesses.

I also learned that my projector, which I bought a few years ago, wasn’t up to the task…so I bought a new one! (Note: 1100 lumens is insufficient for anything but pitch black. I upgraded to a nice 4000 lumen Epson projector!)

I plan to hold another 1-day workshop later this year here in San Diego. As my blog readers, you will be the first to know about it.

Three of the products I’ve released have now made over $3,000 in revenue each: Guest Post Secrets, the workshop, and Blog Set Up all crossed the $3,000 threshold.

But what about Best Blogs? Let’s talk about what happened with it in the second quarter:

Goal #2: Create and Launch my Startup

The original Best Blogs prototype was developed in PHP by a developer I hired in Romania. There wasn’t anything wrong with this setup, except that I had to manage him, and I burned out on that pretty quickly. The prototype was (mostly) functional, but I kept encountering bugs, and it seemed like every time my developer added a new feature, something else broke.

The site stagnated. In early June, I realized no development had been done on the site since April. I had to make a critical decision. Either I needed to hire a developer who could be mostly autonomous, and pay him accordingly (U.S. salary), or I needed to scrap it and call it quits. Paying a developer would mean about $20,000 of my own money spent on development costs over the next 6 months with no immediate payoff. It was a big decision.

I thought about it for about a week, ruminating over possibilities in my head. Eventually I came up with what I believe will be an astoundingly profitable revenue model, and mentally let the $20,000 go in preparation to hire someone. (In other words, I promised myself I wouldn’t fret over paying someone $20,000 to develop the site.)

I found a local developer here in San Diego who agreed to redo the site from scratch. Best Blogs will re-launch later this year (probably August or early September), built on Pylons and being far better managed. The interface will be largely the same. I reviewed the revenue model with my developer and he “gets it.” I’ll talk more about that as we re-launch the site, but suffice it to say, it’s a common yet oddly overlooked model. And it has nothing to do with banner or display ads.

I’m again excited about Best Blogs, and having someone work on it with me that I trust makes it so much better. Since he’s local, we meet at a local coffee shop once a week to go over anything that needs to be talked about regarding the site. Next year, assuming all goes well with the launch, I will spin off Best Blogs into its own corporation and give my developer some equity. The business has huge potential, but probably won’t start showing revenue until Q4 2010 at the earliest. It’s a startup, so it’s still a gamble, but I like the odds!

Goal #3: Get 20,000 Blog Subscribers

I’m still plugging away at this one. My Feedburner count shows nearly 11,000 people. As we’re over halfway through the year, I’m going to have to pick up the pace. This will be a close one!

I had a nice week where three of my guest posts ran on three consecutive days on other popular blogs. I signed up over 450 new email subscribers that week. (If you’re one of them, welcome!) A few more weeks like that would do me well. It will take some more guest posting to really get those numbers up, though!

And now, the exciting part…my income numbers!

My Income Numbers!

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you know that my goal was to make $10,000 a month blogging in 2008.

That didn’t happen.

Then, in 2009, I lost most of the year to being sick, and was eventually diagnosed with Celiac disease. By the end of the year, I was feeling better, but I still didn’t meet my goal.

In 2010, my blog began to really take off and I started posting income numbers. But I still hadn’t hit my goal.

Well…I am proud to announce that in June, 2010, I finally hit the goal I originally set in December, 2007!

It took me longer than I expected, and I had some setbacks, but I persevered.

And I not only hit my goal…I blew it out of the water.

Here is my income breakdown:

Most of the income came from my Profit Instruments review. 183 people signed up through my link for Profit Instruments. What an amazing number! I thank all of you who signed up, and definitely understand what you (my readers) want now.

Marketers always send me programs to review. I go through 2-3 programs a week, and decline to promote 99% of them. (A reader recently asked me to go over why I don’t promote most of the programs people send me…I will write about that in the future.) Profit Instruments was a program I felt comfortable promoting. And while it hasn’t been without its snafus–mostly regarding Paypal–overall, people have been happy with the program. I’ve even heard a few reports of people taking action and using the Profit Instruments system to make money. Good! That’s what it’s all about!

I wasn’t expecting so many people to take action and invest in Profit Instruments, and I was humbled and pleased that so many did! The deluge of emails–both questions about Profit Instruments and people emailing me receipts–was quite a handful. There was one day where I sent something like 160 email replies. I think all I did that day was hit “Reply” and type out responses!

I quickly realized I needed to hire someone. It just so happened that a friend who is in college was looking for a summer job and not having any luck finding one. (She lives in Portland, OR, which I hear is a difficult city to find jobs in.) I agreed to hire her part-time as my virtual assistant, and she became my savior, sorting out all the receipts, getting everyone on an email list, and generally cleaning up my inbox!

(Note: I always have someone ask me when I write about virtual assistants: “Is the email I got from you really you?” The answer is yes–every email with my name on it is written by me.)

She’s also now doing the blog setups, so if you order a blog set up, you’ll get a reply from her! Thanks, Alonna, for making my life easier!

I’ve so far written about two people I hired last quarter. This week, I hired a third–my first full-time employee here at Inspiring Innovators! His name is Matthew and he lives in the Philippines, and he’s doing full-time SEO work for erica.biz and my other websites. So far, he’s on a 7-day trial and working out well. I found Matthew through Replace Myself’s job board.

It’s been an amazing quarter, and I am so grateful that I was finally able to achieve income levels I didn’t think were possible only a few short months ago! I look forward to continuing to grow my business, as well as being able to share my journey and help you along your path, too!

Recommended Reading:

• 2010 First Quarter Goals Update. Posted in April, 2010.
• 2010 Goals. Posted in January, 2010.
• 2008 Year in Review / 2009 Goals. Posted in January, 2009.
• 2008 Goals. Posted in December, 2007.

A product roadmap helps you figure out
where your business is going.

Great question, Amy! I’ve shared my goal about creating 10 products in 2010, but I haven’t talked much about how they all fit together…

The Problem: Infinite Opportunities

It is possible to do a nearly infinite number of things to make money online. There isn’t just one “proven path” to riches…witness the huge number of crazy inventions that make their inventors millions. (Ever had that feeling… “I could have done that! I should have done that!” Right? Me too!)

I want to do so many things. I’d love to write a book to help out people who are discovering that they have gluten intolerance or Celiac disease. I know that would be profitable. I constantly have ideas for WordPress plugins, video products, a product on great businesses to start online…

Pretty quickly, I had to learn to focus. I had to think strategically…not only about which products would make me the most money, but how those products would integrate with each other. This is the real key.

Step 1: Test With a Free Product

I started testing the market for blogging success materials by releasing my free Blog Success Manifesto. I went over the top with it as a free product. It’s 62 pages, jam-packed with practical advice on growing your blog faster than you ever have before. I could have easily charged $17-$27 for it, but I wanted the readership growth instead. (And I got it…nearly 4,000 people have downloaded their free copies!)

More importantly, the success of my free download proved there was a market that was interested in growing their blogs. I then launched my Guest Post Secrets product to serve that same market. I edited my Blog Success Manifesto to refer to Guest Post Secrets, and put a big mention about it here on my blog. Now I had two products working together, like this:

Step 2: Go Upmarket

My next step was to present a higher-ticket offer. I created my one-day workshop and offered a free webinar to my list (most of whom joined up originally because my Blog Success Manifesto.) I sold 4 out of the 5 slots right away, and the 5th one closed later. (That means my first San Diego workshop is now sold out! Hooray!)

These products worked in tandem like this:

Step 3: Fill in the Blanks

Now I wanted to create more products. Once you have a couple of paid products out the door, you can start filling in the blanks.

Part of Best Blogs will be a mailing list bloggers can sign up to, so I added that into my roadmap. Then I launched Blog Set Up as another low-price opt-in similar to Blog Success Manifesto:

My next product will be an intermediate product offering an hour with me for $497:

And then, I plan to release a product guiding people step-by-step through setting up their blog and driving traffic to it:

It’s pretty cool to see how these products fit together, isn’t it?

The key here is that once you have a buyer, you need to offer more products to that person. It’s much easier to sell something to someone who has already bought something else from you. If you don’t have the products to fill in the blanks, you should go out there and find great affiliate products that you are happy to promote, and make money that way.

Step 4: Automate

The final step in your roadmap–after you’ve launched some products–is to automate much of the cross-selling. You can do this with an email autoresponder series — something I plan to talk about in a later post. (I use Aweber as my email service, and recommend them.)

Four days after you download my Blog Success Manifesto, my email autoresponder follows up with you to make sure you got the download–and also introduces you to Guest Post Secrets. The Guest Post Secrets homepage allows you to opt in to see some high-value free videos, and over a 4-day period, gives you a special deal on buying Guest Post Secrets.

As I launch larger products, I will integrate these into my autoresponders, too. My goal is to have a defined roadmap of products to create in a “funnel” that automatically rolls people over from buying a low-ticket product like Blog Set Up or a free product like Blog Success Manifesto into buying higher-ticket items. Many of these products will be hands-off on my part, allowing for an automated income stream of thousands of dollars a month.

It is incredibly difficult to make a million dollars online selling one-off products…especially if they are inexpensive ebooks. Here’s a typical example: A person decides to make money online. They sell a dog training ebook, then the next month peddle psoriasis cures, then leap to the “make money online” niche. They now have three different lists, each with only a handful of people. And imagine trying to write content about dog training, psoriasis, AND making money online all in a few days! Forget it.

Multiple products are a good thing. But without a product roadmap, and a plan of action for seeing how they all fit together, multiple products are less than worthless. I vastly prefer becoming an expert in a few small fields and selling products in those fields only. I may pass on the next overhyped “million-dollar idea!”, but I can feel confident that every customer I gain will pay off far more than the people who simply hard-sell one or two items.

Repurposing Your Products

By the way, here’s a roadmap I’ve been developing for my next set of products:

You may see now how some of my existing products can be re-purposed for a different audience. Can your products do that? If not, you may want to consider changing your product roadmap.

Questions, or comments? What’s your product roadmap? Let me know in the comments!

Recommended Reading:

• How To Make A Mind Map. Do you ever feel completely overwhelmed by some of the projects you are working on…like you’ve set an impossible goal? Here’s a video on how to make a mind map and get all that junk out of your head…quickly and easily!
• Creating A New Product. A four-step guide to creating your first product.
• Products I Love. If you haven’t seen this yet, check it out…it’s the full list of all the products I use on a regular basis and recommend!

Blog Set Up.

If you’re new here, I write my goals publicly on my blog every year, then update regularly with new information. My biggest goal for 2010 was to create 10 products and release them. This was a challenge to myself to learn to create and release products quickly.

So far I’ve released:

1. BestBlogs.net (more on Best Blogs in a later post)
2. Guest Post Secrets
3. One-day in-person workshops

And now, my latest creation: Blog Set Up.

One way to get more customers for your products is to create more customers. Guest Post Secrets is geared toward bloggers, and I have another product (not yet released to the public)–video tutorials on how to set up your blog. What better way to sell these two products than to help people get a blog set up?

As part of an “implementation challenge” at a conference I attended, I set up Blog Set Up from scratch in about 24 hours. On Thursday, May 20, I did keyword research and eventually settled on the domain name blogsetup.us.

The site works like this: You sign up for a HostGator account through us, and we set up your blog for you for free. We get paid by HostGator to refer you as a new customer, so that’s how the site makes money.

Once we’ve set up your blog, we send you an email inviting you to opt in to our Blog Set Up email list, which contains a free helper video on how to set up a custom design for your blog (WordPress calls this a “theme”.) Then, we’ll send you some more cool content in the hope that you will purchase Guest Post Secrets or my as-yet-unreleased blog tutorial videos.

Testing Your New Product

By Friday, May 21, I was ready for my first customer. I mentioned it at the seminar I was at, and five people there signed up.

When you launch a site, you’re not going to get it right the first time. Watch others go through it–and keep quiet. Ask them to run through their thought process out loud. Note any questions they have–those are questions your site needs to address up front.

After watching two people go through the process, I redid a significant portion of the site, then launched an AdWords campaign to drive traffic to it. The AdWords campaign is getting an amazing click-through rate, but people aren’t buying, so one of my next steps is to address that.

The good news is that people who do know me are buying, and the site is just about to crest $1,000 in revenue in its first week!

I also shot two quick video testimonials from people at the seminar whose blogs I set up. I’ll add those to the site over the next few days to show some social proof. (Tip: Video testimonials work far better than text ones. Invest in a camera and record them on the spot, then edit and post them!)

Next Step: Outsource the Work

Right now, I am doing the blog setups, but one of my additional next steps is to find a capable person to outsource this to. I plan to use oDesk to find the person, then use Camtasia to shoot a how-to video with my exact process for setting up a blog, and then watch my new employee go through a setup his/herself. That way I’ll know quickly whether I’ve hired the right person.

Want to Launch a Product Fast? My Tips…

I’m proud: I was able to break through a lot of my own barriers and launch a complete website in just over 24 hours! That’s a new record for me, and makes my 10 products goal for this year much more achievable. This website should also boost my income significantly–especially if I can get the AdWords clickers to actually take action and buy a hosting package.

There was no way I could have launched Blog Set Up in 24 hours if I had to write all the HTML by hand. So, for quick implementation, I used WordPress as my content management system–even though Blog Set Up is not a “blog”.

I have to give credit to WooThemes and their amazing “Optimize” theme. It looks fantastic on Blog Set Up. Plus, I found a bug in the theme and they were able to fix it just a few hours after I posted on their forum. Optimize was well worth the investment.

Since I’ve had such great support with WooThemes, I find myself buying from them again and again. (erica.biz runs on their Fresh News theme.) I highly recommend WooThemes if you want to launch a site quickly. Check out WooThemes.

Need a blog set up? Have you been procrastinating on getting started with a blog? Take advantage of Blog Set Up today and get your blog set up by our experts!

Have questions about fast product launches, or about Blog Set Up itself? Ask ‘em in the comments and I will answer! Also, feel free to share your own product launch experiences.

P.S. Stealing this product idea would not be a good idea. Find your own product idea.

Recommended Reading:

• oDesk Review. Is outsourcing worth the effort? Here are my thoughts, plus my step-by-step guide to using oDesk to outsource labor.
• What to Do When People Aren’t Buying. Ever get the comment “I’d love to buy your product, but I just can’t afford it”? Or–how about the even more blunt “That seems expensive!” You probably don’t need to lower your price! Read this for what to do instead…
• How to Read People’s Minds… …and create the product they most desire! It would be great if we could read people’s minds. As far as I know, that product doesn’t exist, but these two methods come pretty close.

It’s the end of the first quarter (okay, a little bit past it…where did the time go?!) and I’m ready to share with you what’s happened in the past three months.

First Goal: Create and Release 10 Products in 2010

I’ve released three products so far!

Product #1: Guest Post Secrets

The first product was Guest Post Secrets. Through March 31, I sold 58 copies of Guest Post Secrets, for a total income of $2080.00. This is solely to my own email list and on this blog–I haven’t pushed it hard anywhere else. In Q2, I plan to start advertising it and offering it other places. (The affiliate program is up! You can sign up here.)

I used some of the income from Guest Post Secrets sales to create banners (via 20dollarbanners); you can see them inside the affiliate program and place them on your own site or blog to promote Guest Post Secrets and make money!

I’m pleased with the amount of Guest Post Secrets sales, especially since the product will continue to sell for many moons to come, generating a nice stream of passive income for me.

Note: If you purchased Guest Post Secrets, you should have an email invite to the special online workshop I’m doing just for buyers on Tuesday, April 27. If you have purchased Guest Post Secrets and didn’t receive that email, please contact me.

Product #2: One-Day Workshops

My next product is a series of one-day workshops. On March 31, I did a free 90-minute webinar, which I called a “Wednesday Workshop.” At the end, I made a pitch for an in-person workshop here in San Diego in June.

I developed the workshop idea because of the large number of people who are asking me for coaching of some sort. My main concern with coaching is becoming too passionate and getting “sucked in”. When I work with someone, I really want that person to succeed, and I absolutely go out of my way to help that person grow his or her business. But that often leads to me spending hours helping the business owner tweak her website or get “just the right” 30-second pitch.

I love doing that, but I don’t want to pull myself away from being able to help thousands of people at once via this blog or creating an information product. So the workshop, for me, is a good compromise. It gives you, as the business owner, a full hands-on day with me, with at least one hour guaranteed to be about you and your business. It also introduces you to four other small business owners and gives you insight as to what they’re struggling and doing well with. We meet in person, so we can kick down barriers easily. And, because the cost is split between five business owners, it’s far less expensive than straight-up hiring me for a day.

I made the pitch on my Wednesday Workshop and four of the five spots for San Diego sold out right away! (If you want the last spot, go read the details and then contact me. You’ll need to pay from the workshop page. Once you’ve paid, I will be in touch with you to confirm everything.)

Will I be doing these workshops again? Yes, absolutely…but the price is going to go up. I want to take them on the road, too. I’ll announce more workshops via online workshop webinars throughout the year. But if you want in, don’t wait. That fifth spot will fill up. If you’re the right person for it, shoot me an email.

Goal #2 and Product #3: Create and Launch My Startup

Goal #2 was to create and launch my startup. (I’m counting this as one of my ten products.) By now, you may be familiar with it: BestBlogs.net. I ended up hiring a developer to write the site. (I found him on rentacoder.com.)

After a few weeks of hard work, I launched Best Blogs at South by Southwest on Leo Laporte’s This Week in Tech. Unfortunately, the project has been relegated to the back burner as I work on another information product, but I plan to get it started back up soon.

My next task on Best Blogs is to hire a VA who can go through and add ~10,000 blogs to the site. This will take a month or two, but then the site will have some great data. I also have some big new features in the works. I just have to start making more time for the site!

Goal #3: Get 20,000 Blog Subscribers

Goal #3 was to get 20,000 blog subscribers to erica.biz. I’m moving along well on this goal. I gain about 13-15 subscribers a day at this point, which is nice growth–although still slower than I need to reach this goal.

The Feedburner counter on the sidebar, which currently shows ~7,800 subscribers, seems to be undercounting subscribers a significant part of the time, so I may need to switch up my goal and just use Aweber’s email subscriber count instead. I currently have ~4,300 email subscribers via Aweber.

There are a few methods I plan to use to increase my subscriber count. One is to continue guest posting on other blogs, particularly on the “become a blogger” type of blogs where my Blog Success Manifesto will go over well. I have a guest post already scheduled for Daily Blog Tips in June.

Another one is to implement a pop-up “subscribe” window when a person reaches the end of a blog post. I got inspiration for this from Chris Guillebeau, who implements this nicely on his site. He cheerfully made an introduction to the developer who did that for his blog, and his developer implemented it for erica.biz a few days ago. It shows up only the first time you visit my site, and prompts you to opt in for my Blog Success Manifesto when you finish reading an article.

Along those lines, I have in the works a new free ebook. It’s going to be about business mistakes. I expect to release it in the next month or two. You all will get first dibs on it as my blog subscribers…so be on the lookout!

Revisiting An Old Goal: What Happened to Making $10,000/Month?

Some of you old-time subscribers may remember that I set a goal in December, 2007 to make $10,000/month in online income from this blog.

I still haven’t made that goal, but I’m making huge progress toward it. In March, I made $4,660.76 of revenue that is directly attributable to this blog.

Next week, I will detail exactly where that income came from–and reveal some surprising statistics! Make sure to sign up for my free business tips, if you haven’t already, and I’ll see you then.

Feel free to post any goals you have or any questions you have about my goals in the comments!

Recommended Reading:

• 2010 Goals. Posted in January 2010. The current set of goals I am working on.
• 2009 Goals. From January 2009; I recap my 2008 goals and set new goals for 2009.
• 2008 Goals. Posted in December, 2007.

I don’t use a costly system. In fact, my initial investment was about $6: Several notebooks at Big Lots–a closeout store. (Here are the same notebooks on Amazon.)

Below are some questions and answers showing exactly how I use this system. If you have additional questions after reading this, please feel free to post them in the comments.

Q: Why/how did you decide to use this system?

I want to do something productive to move my business forward every day. Running a business is a marathon, not a sprint. Doing 1-2 hours of productive, creative work every day will do amazing things to help your business grow. By keeping my task list simple and filled with tasks that are both creative and productive, I know I’m moving in the right direction. And there’s nothing like flipping through pages of crossed-off to-do items to make me feel like I’ve really accomplished something.

This to-do system may sound deceptively simple, but the reality is that having my notebook open and beside me at all times motivates me like nothing else. I can immediately look at it and pick one task and just start working. Without it, I would be lost–and I would probably resort to surfing the Internet a lot!

Q: How do you decide which tasks to put on your list?

At the beginning of the notebook, I leave space for big projects. (I typically organize these by month.)

Every Sunday night, I write a to-do list for the following week. Next to each item, I write an approximation of how many minutes it will take for each task.

Each week, I aim for 5 “big” tasks and 5-10 smaller tasks. I classify all tasks by the time I think they will take–in minutes. (This also forces me to get far better at estimating how much time each task will take.) You can see the time estimates in the picture below; “60+” means more than 60 minutes, or multiple hours. If I believe a task will take more than 2-3 hours, I will break it down into smaller tasks (e.g. “write blog post 60,” “edit and post blog post 45.”)

This week’s task list.

Q: Do you modify your list during the week?

The list isn’t sacred. I can–and do–modify it during the week. If an email comes in with a task that takes longer than 10 minutes, I write it down on the list. If it takes less than 10 minutes, I do it as it comes in.

Q: What do the circles around some of the dashes before the tasks, like “Pull together Problogger blog post,” mean?

This is how I denote “A task so large that I don’t need to do anything else that day.” If I clear that task in one day, I take the rest of the day off. That’s how I motivate myself to tackle bigger projects.

Q: You’re a geek. I’m surprised to see you using a notebook. Why not use a software-based task system?

One of the reasons I use a notebook and not a computer-based task system is that it was too easy in most systems to move tasks from one week to the next. With every computer-based system I tried, I ended up with a pile of stale tasks at the bottom of my list that grew larger over time. That was incredibly demotivating.

With my notebook, I start fresh every week. When I do my Sunday night writing-down of tasks, I manually copy tasks from last week to this week. I use that time to consider why tasks didn’t get done. Sometimes I simply run out of time or energy to get everything completed. But other times I realize that there is a draining task I really don’t want to do on the list. If a task remains on the list for more than two weeks, I generally either outsource it or forget it. This notebook, then, is a perfect way to see what I need to outsource next in my life–as well as what’s not important to me.

I don’t write 100 tasks on my to-do list. Bigger projects go at the beginning of my notebook or in a mind map.

If I get everything on the list done for the week, I take the rest of the week off. This is rare, but it does happen…and I make sure to never pile more things on my list just because I am done with my tasks for the week. I reward myself with a day or two off instead.

Q: Why do your task list on Sunday night and not Monday morning?

In Jack Canfield’s book The Success Principles (which I highly recommend reading), he suggests adding tasks and looking over your to-do list before you go to bed so your subconscious can figure out the most effective way to do your tasks while you sleep.

I find I also sleep dramatically better with my to-do list out of my head…I don’t get awakened with any thumping heart, “oh my gosh I need to…!” moments. If my mind insists on going over a task I have on the list, I remind it that I already have that task written down, and my brain quiets so I can go to sleep.

I have been known to get out of bed and write tasks down in my notebook so I don’t forget them. (Same with blog post ideas!) It’s worth the two minutes of getting out of bed so you can sleep better at night.

Q: Do you recommend this system to everyone?

Everyone is different. This is the system that works for me. I happen to know that this system, or a similar one, also works for many others. (I sent J.D. Roth over at Get Rich Slowly a link to this video, and he loved it so much that he started using a similar system!)

You may or may not like this system; that’s fine. What’s important is that you have a system. Never turn on your computer without knowing what you want to accomplish; there are so many time-sucking programs and websites that you can spend hours on without ever really doing anything. Having a system helps to ensure that when you do decide to work, you get the most important things done.

Have questions? Want to share your own system? Feel free to leave a comment!

Recommended Reading:

• The Success Principles: How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be. If you read one personal development book, I’d recommend this one. Canfield summarizes at least 20 other personal development books. I pulled a ton of insight from this book.
• How to Make a Mind Map. This is how I make larger projects come to life!
• The notebook I use. Here’s a link to the notebook I use; via Amazon.com.

2009 Goal #1: 350 paying customers for Inspiring Innovators.
As an explanation, I incorporated my company as Inspiring Innovators, so any product I release will have that as the company name behind it. But the actual inspiringinnovators.com site is what I am referring to here.

I did launch the site, and got some paying customers. But, frankly, the back end sucked. It was confusing.

So, I didn’t meet this goal. I want to redo the backend and launch again in 2010. I plan to scrap Amember and move to Wishlist Member, which is far more intuitive. Lesson learned: Test your back end before you launch.

Also, I never had a sales letter set up for Inspiring Innovators. Another lesson: Do a sales letter! I tested it as a blog site where people could preview the audios and then sign up after listening to the preview, but people were confused by that, too. When I re-launch, I’ll probably just do a straight long-form sales letter on the front page, and you can preview the interviews here on erica.biz.

I also plan to hire a VA to schedule interviews for me, as I found I slacked on getting interviews set up.

2009 Goal #2: Grow erica.biz to 4000 subscribers. Done, and done! I had about 800 subscribers or so when I set this goal. Truly, it has been an awesome year for erica.biz.

2009 Goal #3: Complete our move to San Diego. Done, and loving it here! We moved July 1.

As they say, two out of three ain’t bad!

On to my goals for 2010. I have an exciting announcement to make!

Goal #1: “10 Products in ’10″

My primary goal is to release 10 products in 2010. Most of them will be information products, like Guest Post Secrets.

To release 10 products in ’10, I have to have a laser focus. I can’t start all 10 projects at once; I’d never accomplish anything. Part of my goal is to finish one product and release it before starting on the next one.

This is really a “can’t lose” goal. If it’s the end of 2010 and I’ve released, say, 6 products and achieved goal #2, I’m going to be really proud of myself, even though I didn’t technically meet this goal.

Goal #2: Launch a Startup (You Heard It Here First!)

One of my 10 products is going to be a new website with potential for strong growth and revenues.

That’s right–the really exciting news is that I’m actually going to launch my own startup!

I don’t plan to take on any venture capital; I don’t need it. I still haven’t decided whether I want to code the site myself myself or hire someone. My little company is going to take on some big players, including at least one that is VC-funded.

I am really amused about this. 10 years in the Valley and I never once created a “Web 2.0″ website. I stuck with blogging and running a web hosting company. Now that I’ve moved to San Diego, I’m going to launch a startup with a Web 2.0 business plan that competes with other Web 2.0 companies (and, frankly, a lot of Web 1.0 companies.)

Although I can’t say more details about the startup now, I can say this:

The idea came to me in 2009 and just would not leave me alone. There is a venture-backed company doing this exact thing, but they are doing a piss-poor job of it. Since, at its core, it’s a relatively simple idea, I looked around for other companies that were doing this, and shockingly, I didn’t find any.

I ran Google keyword searches, and there are over 250,000 people a month searching for this. Most of the sites in the search results aren’t productive to the person searching for these terms.

I expect the development cost for this site to be minimal–about $1500 if I code it myself, and only a few thousand dollars if someone else codes it. I have a monetization plan.

This is a simple idea. There are other companies in this space. It’s just that I think I can do it better than they can, and I have a specific plan to achieve that. Plus, since I didn’t take $32 million in venture capital, I can achieve profitability quickly and (hopefully) make money month after month.

Goal #3: 20,000 Subscribers for erica.biz

erica.biz had massive growth in 2009, thanks to you! I easily hit my goal of 4000 subscribers. Here’s my stretch goal for 2010: 20,000 subscribers. That’s going to require more blogging than I did in 2009, but I’m ready for that.

To summarize, here are my big goals for 2010:

• Create and release 10 products in 2010. This includes Guest Post Secrets, my startup, and whatever other information products or pieces of software I choose to release.
• Launch my startup. Of course, I’ll be detailing the startup costs and more about it right here. Stay tuned!
• Grow erica.biz to 20,000 subscribers. A big “stretch goal” that requires me to write a lot more…but it will be fun!

My #themeword for 2010

My #themeword for 2010 is CREATE. 2010 will see me release several products, including Guest Post Secrets, and my new startup.

I created the #themeword meme in 2007, and I’m so excited to see how it’s taken off! To participate, just think about one word that you would like to describe your new year. I encourage you to make it positive. Your #themeword can unfold in unexpected ways!

Other people who have posted their #themeword (click on their links to see what their #themewords are):
Erica O’Grady
Tara Hunt
Kathy Sierra
Donna Maria Coles Johnson
Kendall Ruth
Cati Brown
Ruth Kalinka
Andy Dolph

If you’ve posted your #themeword on your blog (and used #themeword in your blog post), please let me know, and I will update this post!

Search #themeword on Twitter to see everyone who has been Tweeting their #themeword.

Happy New Year! Please feel free to post or link to your own goals in the comments.

Recommended Reading:

• My 2008 Goals
• My 2009 Goals

How to make a mind map.

I felt that way when I first started writing my Blog Success Manifesto. I started with a blank document and quickly got lost. I had so many ideas, and it just seemed impossible that I could address all of them. The document gathered dust on my hard drive for a few months…until I figured out how to make a mind map.

I brainstormed out at least 20 topics I wanted to talk about, then realized I could sort them into five sections. Once I did that, I easily completed the entire 10,000-word ebook in just a few weeks!

This, too, may seem like a pipe dream to you…so I created a video to walk you through the process of making a mind map. In it, I show you how to map out a project to break it down into manageable pieces, so you can finally finish whatever that big project is that’s been languishing in your head for months or years. I also show you the exact mind map I used to create my Blog Success Manifesto:

Highlights

[0:10] I start off by answering the obvious question: Why should you care about making a mind map?
[0:45] I use a free tool called MindMeister (link opens in new window) to create my mindmaps. Why do I use it instead of other tools?
[2:00] The first thing that you see when you create your mind map…
[2:25] There are a ton of keyboard shortcuts in MindMeister. I show you the two that will save you a lot of time.
[4:12] How MindMeister helps you override your perfectionist instinct.
[4:40] How to easily create a layout for an entire book or product just by dragging and dropping.
[5:29] My favorite part of MindMeister!
[6:20] I wasn’t able to finish my ebook until I mind mapped the entire thing.
[7:15] The exact mind map I used to fly through and finish an over-10,000-word ebook in just a few weeks.
[8:20] After my mind map was done, I set a simple goal…
[9:20] This should help you get your next project done much more quickly!

How Making A Mind Map Can Help You

Think about a project you would really like to start. Maybe it’s a book, an ebook, or a new product. Maybe it’s a conference you would like to run (I used a mind map to run a conference in 2008!) Any big project you undertake should have a mind map as its basis.

Mind maps help you understand the scope of your project, break it down into manageable chunks, and complete it faster. They reduce overwhelm and help you overcome your perfectionist instinct.

But quite possibly the best part is that great feeling you get when every piece of your mind map has a little checkbox next to it, and you suddenly realize…you’re done! For a project that may have seemed impossible just a few weeks ago, that’s quite a feat!

MindMeister FAQ

Your free MindMeister account won’t expire, and you can have up to 3 mind maps. If you want more features, like unlimited mind maps, the ability to use MindMeister offline, or to search your mind maps, the Premium version is $49/year.

Check out MindMeister for free right now.

(Note: I recommend starting out with the free version and upgrading as you see fit. The link above makes me money if you choose to upgrade to the Premium version. )

Recommended Reading:

• Creating a New Product. The first post in this series; discusses market research.
• How to Start A Business with No Money. It doesn’t take a lot of money to start a business…
• How to Get More Profitable Clients. A quick brainstorming method I dreamed up (literally!) to help you make your business more profitable.

On January 4, I published my goals for 2009. Now that we’re over halfway through 2009, let’s take a look at each of them and how I am doing:

1. 350 paying customers for Inspiring Innovators by the end of 2009.

In April, I mentioned I wanted to stop procrastinating and launch my new site, Inspiring Innovators. What is Inspiring Innovators? In a nutshell, I’m giving you access to some of the Internet’s top entrepreneurs, with audio interviews and how-to guides so you can start your business by replicating their businesses. There will be a huge demand for this from those of you who want to start an online business, but are looking for an idea or more guidance.

Internet entrepreneurs are hard to get in touch with! Since they can work from anywhere, many of them live in remote locations. They travel often and you aren’t likely to bump into them in traditional networking venues. You can go to Internet marketing conferences, but they’re usually speaking at those and are just swamped!

I decided to use my influence to ask them the same questions you would ask. How did they get started? Do they have any special skills that lend themselves well to making money online? Where did they find customers? I am picky about who I am interviewing, only picking entrepreneurs who started by working from home, bootstrapped their businesses, and are making a full-time income online.

I was surprised at how well the first interviews turned out! These successful people offer a wealth of information. Each case study is at least 30 minutes long and includes a transcript and a how-to guide so you can follow in their footsteps.

Inspiring Innovators will be a paid membership site; the price will be $27/month, with a discount to the first folks to sign up. Why paid and not free? I want to create a community of people who are serious about taking their Internet businesses to the next level. Also, I can do cool things, like hire people to write in-depth articles, bring in paid experts to help you, and do webinars myself and answer your business questions. I will be working tirelessly to ensure you get amazing value from your investment!

The site isn’t up yet, mainly because I am waiting on final approval for a merchant account so we can process payments, and because I’m tinkering with a few technical issues. However, the first interviews are there and ready to go. I will work hard to make my commitment of 350 paid members before the end of the year. Considering the value proposition, I don’t think it will be too hard to meet this goal. It entails some fun challenges, too, like attracting affiliates and learning Google Adwords. I look forward to this!

Every time I write about Inspiring Innovators, by the way, people worry that I will stop writing here, or that this blog will become a members-only paid site. That will not happen! erica.biz will always be free, and I will continue to write at least one high-quality blog post per week.

2. Grow erica.biz to 4000 subscribers.

As of today, I have 3,749 subscribers, which means I am most of the way there! I will hit this goal easily. So what’s next? I have a lot up my sleeve.

I have been wanting to release an ebook for a while. Good news — I am close to being finished with my first one! The even better news is that it will be totally free; you won’t even have to sign up for my free business tips to read it.

The ebook is called Blog Success Manifesto. Its goal is to help you gain your next 1000 blog subscribers in record time. In it, I pour out a ton of secrets, including a recent easy tweak I made that doubled the number of new subscribers per day here on erica.biz.

This will be a great resource for those of you who are blogging now or who are interested in starting a blog. I’ve read a lot of information on setting up a blog, and honestly, I haven’t seen a free guide as comprehensive as the one I am about to release.

Expect it in August at the latest. (If you get my free business tips, I’ll notify you when I release it!)

My stretch goal for the end of the year is 10,000 subscribers, but really, I’ll be happy as long as I see continual growth. Blogging is a marathon, not a sprint, and I know as long as I keep posting great content, things will continue to go well.

3. Complete our move to San Diego.

This one is DONE! We moved to Solana Beach, CA as of July 1. I really love it here. We live less than a mile from the ocean, and get a nice cool breeze throughout the house. (No A/C required!) Plus, there is plenty of great food (including Mexican food — my favorite!), interesting people to meet and hang out with, and lots of stuff to do.

San Diego is expensive compared to the rest of the U.S., but it is surprisingly cheaper than the Bay Area. It’s also more relaxed — I don’t see as many people slaving away late at night in offices, and I see a lot more people outside enjoying the great weather. Not long ago, I grabbed a burrito to go from a local taco stand and walked from the taco stand to the beach. I sat on a big rock on the beach and ate dinner while watching the surfers catch waves and folks walking, playing football, and enjoying the late afternoon sun. (You Bay Area folks have no idea what you’re missing!

One great thing about living here is I don’t feel the need to jet off to paradise very often. Why fly somewhere and pay for expensive hotels when I can walk to the ocean from my house?

When people ask me why I moved to San Diego, I usually reply, “I can work from anywhere, so why not live in paradise?” It’s totally worth starting an Internet business in order to be able to live where you really want!

An Update: Health Problems

About a month ago, I revealed some health problems that were causing me to become exhausted and sleep for some 12-15 hours a day. These problems were the primary reason I did not launch Inspiring Innovators as intended in April. Here’s what I found out:

My blood test revealed several issues. The chief issue was that I had an acute infection — which, based on the test, was mono! (No wonder I was sleeping so much.) Currently, the doctors are performing another test to see what else, if anything, is going on in my gut. These problems are very common, so if you’re feeling tired and you don’t know why, see a qualified health practitioner and get as many tests as you need to help track it down!

The test also revealed two nutrition-related problems: reactive hypoglycemia and insulin resistance. I now have several supplements that I take with each meal. Also, I recently switched to a low-carb diet. I have to watch my intake of things like bread, flour, and beans. Since meat wasn’t the issue, I stopped being pescetarian and started eating healthy lean meats — turkey and game meats. (I still don’t eat chicken, and I eat minimal red meat.) I’ve noticed that these meats no longer give me indigestion; a sign that something is going in the right direction. I still cannot eat many high-glycemic index fruits without feeling sick, so I eat vegetables instead.

I assembled a team of three natural health practitioners — a nutritionist, a chiropractor, and an acupuncturist. I found them based on opinions of other people I trust. I’ve stopped taking advice from the Internet; there are just too many opinions out there. Instead, I ask the three of them any health questions I have. Surprisingly (to me), they all tend to have similar answers. I’m now doing acupuncture every week (which I also highly recommend — no, it doesn’t hurt, and yes, it freaked me out at the beginning too!)

I am feeling much better and am amazed at the difference in my energy levels in just a couple of months. The lesson I learned from this ordeal was to find doctors I trust and work with them to help find the right cures for my body, instead of trying to self-diagnose online. I couldn’t have made a better choice.

Look for another goals update in October. Thank you for reading!

Recommended Reading:

• 2009 Goals Update: Perfectionism is Your Worst Enemy. My April, 2009 goals update, as well as a harrowing story of how my perfectionism cost me thousands of dollars.
• 2008 Year in Review and 2009 Goals. My goals as posted in January, 2009. Did I meet my 2008 goals?
• You Are Worth More Than You Think: Overcoming The Key Reason Entrepreneurs Fail. One of my favorite posts; if you haven’t read it yet, it’s worth a look!

Last year, when I stated my goal of making $10,000/month online via writing and creating my own products, I felt it would be a goal that I could accomplish by the end of 2008. When 2009 rolled around, I again felt confident that I would hit the goal quickly. It’s April, I still haven’t hit it, and here’s why: I am being too much of a perfectionist.

Let’s roll back to 2008. I first had the goal of creating a pay site called HardworkingMillionaire.com. Then I decided I didn’t like that name, so I scrapped it and went back to Inspiring Innovators–a domain name I have owned for a while. My desire was to create a site where I could interview top entrepreneurs about their business, charge a small monthly fee, and have a few hundred or a few thousand members. I would do two interviews a month, publish them, have them transcribed, and people would pay something like $8-9/month for them.

I did some interviews and they turned out fantastically well. Doing the interviews was straightforward, and the monthly fee was a bargain for the content my members would be getting. With the help of Richard, my boyfriend, we built out a complete membership site at InspiringInnovators.com and sold a couple of interviews via the Warrior Forum. My interview with Tony Laidig, selling for $7 as a standalone product, sold over 120 copies!

Then I went to a women’s business networking event in San Francisco, and excitedly told them about my new business. Having just sold 120 single interviews, I felt this was a no-brainer. But none of the women seemed that excited about the project. I asked them what they wanted instead, and they said they wanted me to consult with them. That night, I ended up showing them a few Google tricks I know to rank #1, and the said they wanted me to teach them that.

My Business’s Fatal Mistake

This was where I made a fatal mistake. I ended up second-guessing my interview project, and instead tried to create a complex membership site where I would teach people how to dominate the Web. And then things spiraled from there. I hired a copywriter, Chris Haddad (who is amazing!), and worked with him. Chris said Inspiring Innovators didn’t sound like the right name for a membership site dedicated to teaching people online marketing tricks — and he was right! So I spent weeks coming up with a new name, and finally negotiated and acquired BeTheAuthority.com.

I absolutely love the name “Be The Authority”. However, this kind of site takes a significant time investment to launch! I’ve currently spent weeks working on the idea for the site, finally coming up with the following two products:

• Be The Social Media Authority, a 3-month course that teaches you how to use Twitter and Facebook for business and not just to connect with old friends.
• Be The Website Authority (working title), a 3-month course that teaches you how to rock Google and get #1 search results for relevant keywords for your business.

These are in high demand from business owners, and I have confidence I can sell them. But they also take some personal time, as part of the package is regular group webinars with me.

Hindsight is 20/20

In retrospect, I should have launched Inspiring Innovators last year and tweaked it along the way. I took my own advice and started talking to people to find out what they want, but I forgot the most critical part — I needed to launch something, and iterate it based on suggestions, not hold off on launching!

Perfectionism took a great, simple business idea and made it into a killer monster — a noose that hung around on my neck and tightened as I talked to more and more people and got more opinions. The more opinions I got, the more frustrated I became; a sure sign that I was going in the wrong direction.

The project has grown out of control. Currently, I am juggling several projects at once, instead of just creating a simple business and promoting it. Worse yet, none of those projects are getting done, and I’m watching more TV than I have in the past — another sure sign that I’m headed down the wrong path with my business.

Are You Heading Down the Wrong Path?

Here’s the scoop. You know you’re heading down the wrong path when…

• Your business doesn’t excite you. If you’d rather watch TV than work on your business, you’re in the wrong business.
• You seem to “work” for weeks at a time but don’t release a project. Something, anything, is better than nothing. Release! Ship! Get feedback…but only after you release your first iteration.
• Your business idea keeps growing, and growing… Your first iteration should be small and simple. Add features later.

I originally intended to launch Inspiring Innovators in January, 2008. It is patently ridiculous that I let this grow completely out of hand instead of getting something out there. If I have any consolation, it is that I know thousands will read this post, and hopefully it will stop a few of you from doing the same thing. Whatever you are working on — release it quickly, even if it doesn’t have everything you need. Your perfectionist instincts may cost you thousands of dollars.

My Commitment

To combat my perfectionist instinct, I WILL RELEASE INSPIRING INNOVATORS WITH ITS FIRST INTERVIEW BY THE END OF THE MONTH! That means I have two weeks (less, actually, as I will be traveling this month) to get it up and running with two interviews, a membership component, a payment system, etc. NO MORE EXCUSES!

Also, since I know there is a ton of interest in Be The Authority, I will release that quickly, too, with one 3-month system available for purchase by May 22. Why May 22? I’m speaking at UnSeminar6, and would love nothing more than to launch it there and honor Pat O’Bryan, as he took a chance on me and gave me my first Internet marketing speaking gig last year.

If there’s one thing I wish I could implant into your brain in big, flashing, red letters, it’s that perfectionism is your worst enemy when it comes to launching a business. Don’t do what I did; it will cost you more money than you will make by launching quickly and iterating.

I currently have completed interviews with marketing maven Ben Mack and blog whiz Steve Pavlina, so those will likely be my launch interviews. I’d appreciate any feedback you have on what you’d like to see on Be The Authority, or any person you would like me to interview for Inspiring Innovators.

See my previous posts about my goals.

I had four main goals:

1. Launch Inspiring Innovators. I did not achieve this, primarily because I changed its business model in November. Inspiring Innovators will launch this month — more details on that coming this week!
2. New car. Yes! I bought a 2008 Mazda MX-5 hardtop in January, 2008. So far, my new LIL ZOOM has treated me quite well. I’m still extremely pleased with both Mazdas I’ve owned. (I donated my old 1999 Miata to a local charity in early 2008.)
3. Moving. This was a “maybe” from the start. We didn’t move, but we plan to do so in 2009 — probably in the June timeframe — and it looks like we will be heading to San Diego. I’m excited for a change — August would be my 10-year anniversary in the Bay Area, and although I enjoy the many friends I have here, I’m also ready for something new.
4. Start a new (offline) business. The business I wanted to start was office space for small startup companies — getting a big office and then subletting it to startups, complete with great working space and good coffee!

   I looked into this pretty seriously, but ultimately decided the timing wasn’t right and the demand wasn’t there. Real estate was too costly and there wasn’t enough profit to make it worthwhile. This may change as the economy tanks, and there may be another opportunity for this type of company in the future. I’m open to the possibilities and not disappointed that it didn’t work out in 2008.

5. $10,000/month in writing income. This is the hardest one, since I talked about this a LOT and it generated a lot of interest. I didn’t make this goal. My highest income was in September, when I earned $1,199.21.

   I don’t feel 2008 was unproductive in this regard, but there were a few good reasons I didn’t hit the goal:

   1. There was a lot more learning to do than I had originally accounted for. I studied affiliate programs, membership sites, went to 2 Internet marketing seminars, and absorbed hundreds of hours of books, audio, and videos. Invariably, I decided affiliate marketing was great on a small scale, but to build quickly to $10K I would need to create my own products.

      I started with the interviews, and sold 2 of them, giving myself an opportunity to write my first sales copy (fun!) and sell using a membership software backend (even though it was a one-time purchase.)

   2. I didn’t have a clear focus on how to make the money. It took me far longer than expected to develop a clear plan, and when I finally did — in December — I decided to launch Inspiring Innovators in January instead. This is probably the biggest problem for most who want to make money online. Many spend their time trying every new trick that comes out (SEO! List building! Affiliate marketing!), but without that focus, it’s hard to move forward.
   3. A purely monetary goal didn’t excite me. Even though I broke it down into manageable chunks, there just wasn’t any emotion behind it that got me motivated to work.

2009 Goals

Now that I have a clear focus, I feel that $10,000 a month and then some is easily achievable for 2009. Since I’ve learned that purely monetary goals don’t motivate me, though, I’ve decided to reframe my goals for 2009. I’ve picked just three goals that will be meaningful for my future. Here they are:

January 30-Day Trial

In addition, I have decided to start a new 30-day trial for January.

One of the biggest failings of this blog, as I see it, is my inability to write consistently. I notice that my traffic patterns fall off after 2-3 days, suggesting that you (my readers) would prefer to see me post 2-3 times a week. However, I’m lucky to stick to my predefined schedule of once a week, and my posts can be erratic. I feel this has cost me subscribers, and it’s also bothered me personally.

Therefore, I decided to set a goal to simply write for 30 minutes every day in January, no matter what. I also decided I wouldn’t necessarily force myself to write a blog post — if I felt my time would be better utilized doing a mind map, writing in a personal journal, or writing a how-to for an interview, I would do that instead. So long as I was creating instead of consuming information, I would count it.

My goal is to get over whatever it is that’s preventing me from writing every day. So far, it’s been working. Even though I’ve been sick and running a fever the past two days, I still hauled myself out of bed and wrote for half an hour. The results so far? A ton of clarity on Inspiring Innovators, and this post, which has taken me 2 days to write. So far, this is working out great! I’ll report back at the end of January.

The #themeword meme

Last year I set a “theme word” for the year in my 2008 goals post: “connect”. In my post, I defined a theme word as one word that describes what you want out of the next year. What I didn’t expect was that, due to the influence of Tara Hunt and Laura Fitton (among many others!), that the “theme word” meme would take off on Twitter. This year, hundreds of Twitter users Tweeted their #themeword! That’s awesome, and I’m glad that this has helped so many people.

If you want to set a theme word for 2009, just Tweet what it is and put the tag #themeword into your Tweet so it’s searchable.

My theme word for 2009 is growth. 2009 will be the birth and growth of Inspiring Innovators, and I have no doubt that it will be a huge personal growth year for me as well. I’ll also be helping other entrepreneurs grow their businesses through this blog and Inspiring Innovators!

Even though I didn’t meet most of my original goals for 2008, I feel that what I learned in 2008 laid the foundation for huge amounts of future success — and opened the door for me to achieve some really BIG goals in the future. Stay tuned, and don’t forget to subscribe to see if I can carry out my 2009 goals!