I was supposed to write this post on jan 1st, but you know how life can get in the way :-/
I did my yearly review for 2016 and didn’t turn out to be a bad year.
On the family side, my daughter celebrated her first birthday, and despite having a baby, we managed to do a few trips (USA, England, and a few visits to Sweden). So, yes, you can travel with a baby!
On the financial side, I didn’t reach my yearly goal, but the part that most frustrated me was that I made less money than in 2015 (not that big of a difference, but a business is supposed to keep growing…).
Reviewing why this happened, aside from the fact that going from having 0 children to 1 child makes you, on one hand, less owner of your time, and on the other hand, re-think your priorities, the main issue was a lack of accountability.
So with this post I’d like to “slightly hit without causing any damage” 2 birds with a stone (I’m not too fond of killing animals):
- Write down my goals
- Share them with the world so there is a certain accountability expected
So this is what I have in mind for 2017:
- Earn over 200.000 dollars (before tax; a bit over 30% of that will go towards building roads and some other uses). So far my record is around $90.000/year, so it’s a bit of a challenge.
- Create, launch and sell 6 different software products (5 of them coded by me, one of them outsourced; this is a new thing since I’ve always done the coding, but it takes too much of my time)
- Build a membership site where I will share everything I know about building an online business
- Grow my list to 15.000 readers
- Send an e-mail a week to my list (minimum) with useful and actionable content
- Write a blog post a week (minimum), again, with useful content for my readers (no vacation photos allowed, just good business advice)
Right now I looked at the calendar and it’s the 3rd week of the year, so I’m a bit behind in #5 and #6, I will need some catching up.
Also, at the end of every month, I will write a blog post stating how much money I made, where it came from, and how far away I am from achieving my 6 goals, so everything will be documented, and, hopefully, all my readers will be able to learn a bit about my successes and failures.
So why did I say this can impact you?
Well, I expect that by sharing useful content, experiences, ideas, etc., you will be able to pick up a few ideas to implement in your own business, even if it is what NOT to do.
So, that being said, if there is anything you would like me to write about, just let me know; otherwise get ready for some random advice.
Thank you so much for reading this, and see you along the way.
I wish all my readers a wonderful 2017.
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Excellent post!
Thanks Idriys!
Hey Raul
Happy New Year.
Great goals for 2017 and I am grateful to be a beneficiary of them.
Maybe we could all participate in your strategy… we all post our goals and dreams for 2017 and how we are going to get there.
We could also show our gratitude for your efforts by agreeing to share your blog with friends to help you get to your 15,000 followers goal.
Kind regards and good luck for 2017
Happy New year to you too Helena!
Awesome idea! What are your goals/dreams/projects for 2017? Looking forward to hearing them 🙂
Thank you for sharing my post, I appreciate it! Hope I can serve lots of people this year…
Hi Raul
How About writing a post on starting from scratch (literally)
Do you start with an auto-responder to start building your list
Do you start with a mini-site
Do you just start with a blog to generate some sort of traffic
No one seems to tell you how to go about it from day one
Hi Thomas,
I truly appreciate your suggestions. I will use them to compose blog posts and e-mails, keep an eye on them!
Yes, I can remember when I was starting out, didn’t know which course to take, which product to buy, which route to take… And I did a TON of mistakes, so I’ll be sharing those (and a few successes) with you all, so you can hopefully get some benefit.
Thanks once more for the ideas!
Hi Raul great to see that you are planning to keep documenting your progress & share with us what you get up to business wise this year. I agree with Thomas above, how about a scratch start guide to help people earn their first money from internet activity that can be repeated and scaled?
I think most people prepared to take action understand that they are not going to suddenly ‘earn thousands’ within a week like most of the ‘shiny object guru’s’ regularly claim. But if you can put together something that will bring in $’s then you can build a community from that which will spend time & money with you to improve their own businesses long term.
In fact now I have read back what I just wrote this seems like the seed of an idea that could pay off for anyone with the existing skills to start helping like minded people to build from scratch.
I will follow your blog with a keen interest.
All the best for 2017 to you & your family,
Si
Hi Si, thanks for your message!
I will take your advice and start from scratch, telling my readers how I got started, how I made my first $100 online, and how I took from there. Also, all the stupid things I did along the way.
I appreciate your comment, more to come from me soon!
Hi Raul, I think you remeber me. We had some back and forth email conversations couple months ago.
Anyways, i have some suggestions and questions as well:
1-Suggestions:
I remember you promised to start a step by step website before but you never did. I am sure its was because you had a newborn. I know how that goes. I have 3 myself. I think if you make a website especially an affiliate website for Amazon and show us how to make our first 1$, it will be a good idea. Also this will validate the idea of having a membership website.
If we follow your footsteps on the demo site, i will buy your product once you have a membership site.
Also, i would like to know what you think is the fastest way to make money online:
Is it a blog,affiliate,membership site?
Could you please tell us if you have the chance to go 3 years backwards what would you do and not do in your online adventure?
What is the best advice you can give to sm1 who is struggling to see his first $1online. (Man a$1 not a big deal in real life but in IM is a huge thing for beginners)
Can you suggest the best person or the best course to buy to make that freaking $1?
Thank you and good luck to you and to all your readers.
Hi Khalid, thank you for your comment. Sure I do remember you and our conversations.
Also, thank you for the ideas, I will take all your questions into account and write detailed answers in upcoming blog posts and e-mails. Hope they will be useful
I applaud you for setting and publishing your annual goals because it encourages me to do the same thing with my personal goals. I do routinely set long and short-term goals. But, I have not taken the step of publishing them as an accountability method.
I am a retired consultant. As a consultant, one of the services that we provided was to partner with business leaders to assist them with “Strategic Policy Management”, which includes creating a systematic way of setting and executing top-level Goals and Objectives. I thought I would share a bit of my experience which I hope will be of some value.
To start, a systematic approach (perhaps any approach) needs begin with an understanding of at least a few (simply put) fundamental terms, such as:
Vision & Mission: While these two terms have specific definitions, for the purpose here, I will simply define them as statements of your longer-term purpose (Vision applies to what you want to be and Mission applies to what you want to do). In my view both represent your BIG WHY!
Goal: A statement of your direction regarding one or more elements of a certain priority or set of priorities. It represents the 1st element your what! (Goal statements need to be persuasive. Therfore, they may include a why element in order to inspire engagement.)
Objective: The way that you plan to measure a specific factor that will enable you to make progress on a goal (the metrics/success factors). It represents the 2nd element your what!
Target: The level of achievement that is expected toward the fulfillment of a particular Objective. A Target is set in response to business need. It creates a challenge that demands innovation. It represents the 3rd element your what!
Means: The ways in which you will proceed with carrying out your objectives in order to reach your target. Means represent the how in the plan to achieve your goal and objective(s).
These are just a few of the top-level terms that I have found to be useful to enabling people to understand what to focus on as they go through the process of setting and carrying out their goals. These terms can e funnel further down to the: methods, activities, actions, tasks and behaviors that are necessary as the how to execute on a particular objective.
I hope this makes sense and that you find some value in it.
Charles, thank you so much for sharing this with me (and all my readers).
I certainly find tons of value in your comment, especially when you mention the BIG WHY! I am still in the process of defining it, but once I became a dad, it became much clearer…
Hope my upcoming posts will help you (at least, as much as your comment has helped me)
I love your goals Raul! They remind me of my own and you’ve inspired me to write them down to manifest them faster. Thanks so much for your blog posts. I read every one!
Hi Regina, thank you for your words! Hope your goals manifest fast (but not too fast; you need to get to enjoy the process and learn along the way) 😉