The Importance of Flexible Goals & Plans

It is incredible how much time it takes to run a blog, and run it well. I think I remember a post recently that told about the same picture, it took 60-70% of his time and provided for 1% of his revenue.

I guess trying to find a balance is most important, but probably the hardest thing to do. Scott

I just read the post on netprofitstoday… wow, what a “glowing” review :)

I think someone over there may have misinterpreted your blog a little, but what do I know?

I think you have done a great job with it so far. I have been spending A LOT of time on my blog and haven’t earned a dime either. It isn’t the “first” thing you do, first you have to develop a good product. Scott

I have no doubt that with the passion you have for your pursuits that you will succeed. I’ll bet you will find that monetizing this site will start things rolling for you.

Maybe there is some IM rule-of-thumb about when you declare an effort a failure, but I wouldn’t think that a month or two with your niche sites is long enough to let them “work” before marking them as failures.

Your writings have been info-filled and inspiring. I have found the discussions about what you are doing (like from the site you referenced above) to be enlightening as well. Some folks have a hard time grasping the concept of a site directed more to a peer audience rather than a site that is trying to establish the site’s author as an authority or an expert.

To me the expert site usually has that bottom line intent of just trying to sell me something … maybe a bit of teaser info, but I really need to take the class or buy the book or just send money!

I’m rambling … I need to get back to the day job … grumble, grumble, grumble!

Jeff

Hey Caroline, has the increased number of visitors and subscribers led to any revenue? We’re nearly halfway through November and I’m wondering if all the links you’ve gotten from prominent bloggers have helped at all.

Yeah, blogs can leech up a lot of your time if you don’t restrain yourself. It’s more of an addiction actually. By the way, I like MMOGs too :)

What I really like is the fact that you understand that success takes time. You understand that although your blog is doing well, there is alot more out there than just blogging.

I was marketing online for 2 years before I started blogging so I guess that causes my train of thought to be different, but I’ve been noticing lately MANY bloggers concentrate solely on their blog.

One can be very successful focusing on only one thing, but when it comes to IM, you really should diversify yourself.

Multiple streams of recurring income is what it’s all about and I believe you have one of the more solid plans of those who are just starting in IM.

It’s frustrating, isn’t it. Like almost everyone else, I would love to win the lottery so I didn’t have to stress so much over how I am going to pay the bills or feed myself, and just do the things I love (like writing).

I think you are right in that it is important to be flexible. You’re never going to know what is going to work, what you are going to enjoy most and how much time it is going to take. There are hundreds of sites out there telling you it is so easy to make money blogging, but the reality of it is that it isn’t that easy at all! So while we work to achieve problogger status, there has got to be something bringing the mortgage money in in the meantime…

I don’t want to be rude or something, but … well I don’t know how long exactly you tried the niche-blogs. But since you only started in August or later, and the niche-project was later, it can’t be more then two months or so.
But one of the most important things I learned by reading problogger, copyblogger, stevepavlina, getrichslowly and more is, that you should keep it going for “a while”.
A while means at least more then a year. Since if you do so, you gain links (iven if it’s slooow), and will sooner or later outperform the others just because of your endurance.
I for myself startet a forum in february about writing (in german), at the beginning I was almost only talking to myself, the grow came slowly, first only one member, after a month or so, then a second and a third two months later. Now there are over 600 members and more then 10,000 posts.
Yes it’s a forum and not a blog, … but once I had a blog, only a diary, but I wrote a lot (without any marketing, without doing anything to promote it), after a year or so I had pagerank 4, …
I think it’s all about time, about time and endurance.
Keep it going!

PS: Oh my gosh *blush* Sorry for the spelling mistakes, and the missing free lines.

PPS: I already wandered why you weren’t monetising this blog with so many RSS-readers and links even from problogger, and pagerank 4 …

Hehe, yes my blog is taking up an increasing amount of time, making no money etc blah blah yada yada. The real time drain is the hawking of said blog around digg, technorati, stumble and the rest.

However, it was while stumbling that I found this blog, you should monetize it Caroline, it seems to have a healthy readership and the content is really useful for those of us who don’t have your software skills.

PS, I’ve also just joined the Teaching Sells course. It’s not finding a niche that is the challenge, but choosing between all the ideas.

@chipseo, yes that’s right. I’ve started making lots of changes to the way I work in order to be more efficient. Like I have already written a whole week’s worth of blog posts at the weekend now so I can concentrate mainly on my niche work this week.

And yes Rosalind’s posts was a bit off the mark. I did leave a comment to clarify but it was deleted!

@Jeff, there were lots of specific mistakes that I made with the early niches. I still think the concept is solid, but my implementation wasn’t. I’m trying to learn from those mistakes as I move forward.

@Mike, no not yet – I still need to monetize in some way first heh :)

@Josh, I think many bloggers are trying to make money *just* with their blogs, which is pretty tough. I’ve always wanted to have many income streams.

@Nancy, I would hate to win the lottery. It would make all my efforts seem pointless. I want to earn my money and know that everything I have is because I worked for it. I don’t do the lottery :)

@Jacky, one of the niches simply had no money in it and two of them were extremely difficult to write for. I’m not going to work at something for an entire year when I’ve spotted a glaring mistake within a few weeks. Always know when to cut your losses and start over.

I realise the overall process takes time, but I won’t work blindly on one single idea for the entire time. Test test test, keep what works, chuck what doesn’t.

@Kate, the only social media sites I use now are Sphinn and StumbleUpon. Sites like Digg just aren’t relevant for this blog.

I understand you here Caroline! I too spend so much time on blogging when I began and really started to see that it wasn’t making me money also.

I don’t spend a lot of time blogging now. I also read less blog but I love your blog though…alway something quality and beneficial to read :-)

Keep us posted with your progress!

Hi Caroline,

Your story is very similar to mine. I was in high tech for lots of years (25+) and I’m only 43! I finally burnt out and decided to follow my heart and passion and do a blog about Math. Like you I quit my job without another job. That’s how WildAboutMath was born.

I’m living from my savings.

I’ve been at this seriously for only a couple of weeks now and I’m not at the monetization phase but I understand all about spending more time than you think on your blog. And I understand about wondering where your income is going to come from.

Have you considered technical writing as a way to earn some money. I’m doing some of that now, and some Math tutoring too.

Best wishes to your success. I’m cheering you on.

Sol

imho, blogging is a means, not an end. atleast, not yet. blogs that can potentially make enough money for you to live of them should lead you to another more profitable occupation that uses the same or similar skills/competencies.

my advice to you:

short term: since you’re already a programmer, brush up on your web design and web programming skills.

medium term: start freelancing as a web designer. there are tons of people who are ready to pay for this kind of work. i’d have been a freelancer myself if it wasn’t for me doing rather well in my postgraduate degree and subsequently landing myself a pretty good job. a couple of my friends who decided to freelance are so swamped with orders that they keep begging me to take some time off and help them out on weekends (with a generous cut of the profits too)

long term: once you’re established and earning well, you can probably set aside more time for blogging. plus, as a web designer, you’ll have had a lot more exposure to a lot more things web.

remember, freelancing isn’t exactly the same as working for someone. you’re free to set timelines based on how many hours you want to put in daily. you can work at whatever time of day you feel like. you can turn work down if you find your other interests are taking too much of a hit.

i say, give it a shot.

Caroline,

I think you hit the nail on the head when you wrote the title of this post…you just never know what’s going to come along when you decide to take some sort of action and so whilst having an overall vision to guide you is important…the interim goals and the route you take to get there, need to be flexible enough to change.

I had a similar experience this year when we decided to leave the UK and work/travel permanently. I already had a full time coaching business but decided to start a blog about what we were doing. Now, 9 months later, that blog is starting to take up more and more of my time – and it seems I’ve hit upon something that appeals to far more people than my “proper” business. The challenge now is monetising this – aside from the book I wrote about it – and working out how to “e-myth” it and turn it into a real business.

BTW – Leo’s ZTD book is excellent!…and there’s an affiliate program so a potential little money earner for you right there :-)

@Sol, I’m not entirely sure what you mean by technical writing but it doesn’t sound like something that would suit me. My writing style is generally quite informal.

@Kris, I can’t do web design to save my life heh! And I would never do freelance – that’s worse than having a day job, because you not only work for somebody else but you’re directly accountable to them. No thanks :)

My aim is to generate streams of income that can eventually be outsourced to become more passive. Blogging isn’t one of those obviously but as I said in the post, the blog was never meant to be a main income stream. It’s just something I enjoy.

@Lea, yes indeed, I do have very strong visions of what I want and don’t want to do. I get a lot of people making suggestions as to what I ’should’ do and they mean nothing to me if they do not take me closer to my overall goals.

@caroline – funny, I left a rather neutral comment on that article as well and it was also removed, go figure.

I did say I thought it was a bit off on the analysis so maybe only complete “pro” author comments are allowed. It was the first time I had visited that site, guess my comment wasn’t good enough :)

Hi Caroline,
I’ve actually just been writing an upcoming post about my change in priorities, so it’s nice to see I’m not the only one.

Flexibility is what it is about isn’t it. Arie de Geus who was high up in Shell found that the companies who lasted a long time (sometimes centuries) were those that could adapt to change (ie were flexible). Artists too are usually flexible and opportunistic – taking the gigs when they come up.

Which leads me to my pet hate: the idea that all those business plans will turn out. They don’t (maybe in really established industries and markets, but that sure ain’t blogging). I find them useful to clarify my thinking and sort out priorities. A book from a saner perspective is Start Small Finish Big by one of the guys who started Subway.

My big challenge at the moment is figuring out a niche. So I’m a long way from successful monetization. No doubt I have much more learning and flexing to do.

hi caroline,

i agree with you. i am still new in this, so i will see in a few months time if it is worth spending 60% of my time here..lol,yes, blogging can be addictive

I admire your courage in changing our career and life direction to follow this dream. I hope to do the same someday, but I’m taking a much more gradual approach due to my own life situation

More power to you!

Caroline,

I admire your courage in quitting a paying job to go out on your own. But, I would not recommend that decision to others. I have heard that when you start a new business you decide how much money it will bring in each month. Then determine how many months it will take to reach your goal amount. Then multiply that amount of months by 3. You should have enough in the bank (or under the mattress) to tide you over until that 18 month or 36 month mark where you are living on your income from the new business.

But, hey that is just a lesson I learned 22 years ago when I tried to go into business with $2,000 in the bank. If only I knew then what I know now. Haha.

Best of luck to you. I am rooting for you to succeed. Yay!

Caroline, I can’t believe you love games…especially MMOPRG :) I am totally into those kind of games

Anyways, I don’t always suggest making money online since the standards have been brought up so high that it is hard to obtain without a publicity stunt. Seeing that Shoemoney posted about you, you received over 200 subscribers, but there’s a WHAT IF? situation.

A lot of people give up after seeing there is no hope, but that is because people only view blogs that have “high RSS feed counts”.

-Mike

I guess this might be too silly – but why not just take a bum job to pay the rent – I am about to take up cleaning about 20hr a week – I can work my own hours I could earn about 5 times as much an hour if I took a “professional” IT job – but they are only full-time office hours and I want early morning, part-time hours! And because your brain is not required for the job you can focus all your creativity on your internet empire!

I just what to say that it takes guts to quit your job and focus on this! So, what I can say now is “Good on you!” and “Keep it Up!”

I do agree with you that the traffic generation skills you have built will come in handy. No matter what type of online business you plan to build, traffic needs to come first.

I don’t know if this will work for you, but perhaps you could look at doing some part time freelance work, or even look for jobs over Elance.com or Guru.com. At least, you’d have SOME income coming in while you build your online business. However, I also know that doing freelance work CAN be pretty time consuming. Guess we just have to bounce back on proper time management.

@Evan, yes I used to be big on making long term plans but I don’t do it any more because I put all that time into the plan and then something changes. Now, I prefer to have goals, and I write a few notes but I don’t try plotting out the next year on paper anymore.

@Mark, well the career change is hopefully temporary. I still want to write software, but just my won software, rather than somebody else’s.

@Kexster, I have a post about that topic scheduled for next week.

@Mike, I assume you mean ProBlogger, not ShoeMoney – that one would be new to me heh. See, I can’t give up because I have burnt my bridges behind me. I now have no choice but to continue on.

@Lissie, if I was worried about money I never would have quit my job. It was a perfectly good job. I quit so that I would have all my time available to pursue my dreams. I have no doubt in my mind that I will earn all the money I need in time.

@What sells, no freelance is not my thing. I simply want to develop my own assets – not somebody else’s. I am very clear on that point. I will not compromise my goals and plans to make a quick buck.

Hi Caroline,

I think that the great thing about your blog and the reason it reaches so many people is that it voices what so so many are thinking and you seem to have an uncanny knack to resonate with your peers.

Thanks to you, I am now following the 30 Day Challenge as I had wanted to do the Teaching Sells course but, frankly couldn’t spare the money. However, what I understand from what I’ve read there is that the aim is to prepare the project while it’s in progress.

This actually makes a lot of sense – I have been an English teacher here in Spain for the last 15 years, and now I want to take that to a new dimension by using the internet to be able to work from home and do what I do in a more specific way (while exploring other projects). In January I will be launching a new service for advanced learners which uses Skype, google docs, video and audio podcasts etc to address the specific needs of EACH individual student. I am going to put a limit of 10 students per 3 month course but this course can only happen “on the go” as it will be (as all teaching) an interaction between students and teacher.

This model has also been used by Jason Van Orden at Internet Business Mastery and I think you could apply it right now to your gaming project. Which gaming nut wouldn’t love the opportunity to actually particpate in the development of what they love?

Maybe that would be the way for you to make a living whilst doing what you love – even if it would mean that we would lose your blog.

Hope it all works out for you.

Good for you to set goal…
It is really important especially when you commit to net income..
Keep up good work and I hope you reach your goal soon..

@Chris, you won’t lose the blog :-) No matter how I make money online – even if it is a software related project, it still needs to be marketed so I would still discuss how I do that here.

Hello Caroline,

I came here from my sisters blog http://www.workathomemomrevolution.blogspot.com , she also spends a lot of time on her blog, probably more than she would like. She has a link to this page in a blog post, I just had to come and read a little.

My blog has also taken over my life, but you know….. I don’t care! During the last 6 months I have taught myself some html, xhtml and javascript. For a non code geek, I am rather proud of myself;) I have also connected with other photographers around the globe. I hope to successfully monetize my site with the best Pro Photography related products I can find, but while I am waiting for the big bucks to roll in, I have basically turned my blog into my main portal to my photography business website. It has given me a legitimate reason to continue, even with the obvious lack of income generated directly from the blog.

Check it out at http://www.digitaldilemmas.blogspot.com, you can even call me in North Carolina to discuss the pitfalls and joys of self employment. My numbers on the site.

Best of luck,

Ed Morgan

@Edwin, that’s a great looking blog you have there!

Caroline

I’m with Teaching Sells, too. For me I’m pretty sure it’s what I want to do in the short, medium and long term. Yes, I think I’ve found what I want to do, after looking for what seems the longest time.

Maybe you’ve spotted this already, but one business model that Brian and Tony advocate, and is the one they adopted for Teaching Sells, is that of launching the learning site with just a portion of the content developed. Chris touched on that in his reply above. Do you think that would work for you? Obviously it means that you can start earning money much quicker than you would if you had to invest all the time up front developing the teaching materials.

I don’t think that is what I would like to do myself, but it does work as Teaching Sells proves.

But whatever you do, the very best wishes.

Bill

@Bill, I haven’t got to the business model yet but for what I want to do with it, that would have to be the way otherwise I would never get it done.

Hi Caroline,

I’m one of your long-time lurkers and I thought to share my take.

I always have an open mind when it comes to planning. I don’t think I even plan that much at all. LOL.

Seriously, I’ve always thought that I only want to be a doctor. But when the Internet called me to explore other opportunities, I didn’t try to be too stiff about it and went with the flow to eventually become a budding virtual assistant.

Now after learning about how this business enables anyone to be mobile and travel and with inspiration from this blog http://www.locationindependent.com/blog, I’m now planning to explore not just the Internet opportunities but the world, too.

However, that’s now one of my long-term goals and this post of yours just spurred the idea to re-assess my plans and check my medium term plans.

@Alfa, that’s great to hear you are exploring opportunities, good luck :-)