My last “real” job was as an inside sales rep and one of the things that I had to do every month and every quarter was to forecast my sales. So I would have routine meetings with management letting them know about my bigger deals, when they might close and to overall just track my progress to ensure I was hitting my quarterly plan. I used to hate doing this and after I got fired from my old job back in October 2009 and focused on running my own business I never really did sales forecasting or planning. In fact, my entire business goal used to be focused on just doubling my income (somehow) every year – which I more than accomplished in my first full year of self employment when I earned well over $100,000. In the following year I fell short of doubling my income (I sold a website in 2010 for six figures and in 2011 I was rebuilding that lost income stream). Now in 2012 I’m having a better year than ever before and I owe a lot of it to the goals I outlined at the start of 2012 and this simple $9.00 investment:
How My $9.00 White Board Helped Me Double My Income
Yes, that’s right. A $9.00 whiteboard has helped me grow my business which is on track to more than double my income by the end of the year. In a typical day job you might get a 10% raise, maybe 20% if you got promoted, but when you run your own business you don’t have to feel constrained by rules.
The method for actually increasing my income isn’t all that exciting, in fact three years ago I found it downright boring – yep – I owe a lot of my success this year by focusing on doing the things I used to hate in my old job – forecasting sales and tracking projects. So now instead of sitting down at my computer and asking “What should I work on today?” like I had in the past, now I look to the whiteboard and begin working, whether it’s on a new website, a website I bought, a software project or something else. This has given me the focus and attitude towards planning that I lacked during the first two years of self employment and forces me to think about long term plans for my business in the way “real businesses” are forced to do. This is especially helpful because I put deadlines on all of my projects as well, so that it’s not easy to simply let things slide.
At the start of this year I had three business goals that I wanted to achieve:
Earn $250,000 In Profit
Buy $100,000 Worth Of Websites
Donate $35,000 To Charity (at least)
Total Required Earnings: $385,000
This works out to making over $1,000 a day (which is obviously a huge number). The way I’ve tried to tackle this feat is to focus on smaller tasks like creating as many $100+ a day income streams as possible whether it’s focusing on growing my network of website earnings from CPC advertising, selling some software products or something else. But before you think I’m making $1,000+ a day – sadly I’m not there yet. Frankly, I was a bit ambitious with my goals at the start of this year and I’m likely to fall short unless a few of the other businesses that I’m starting before the end of this year take off faster than I anticipate they will. But by focusing on the three core pillars of my business that I outlined at the beginning of this year:
Building Websites, Buying Websites and Selling Software / Information Products
I’ve been able to avoid distractions like building more iPhone apps and some of the other projects I’ve wanted to do for fun and to focus on the elements I want my business to be about. Now I’m still going to be doing some other fun projects like writing some Kindle books – but I plan to donate all of the proceeds for this year from any books that I write to Charity Water. I already donated one well to their organization on World Water day and I would like to do two or three more before the end of the year to help reach my charity goal.
The lesson I learned this year is to decide what you want your business to really be about and to completely focus on that.
Why It’s Important to Treat Your Blog, Website, Part Time Project, Whatever – As A “Real Business”
When you start to think about your part time hobby projects that you build after work etc. as a “real business” your mindset shifts. In a real business it’s not acceptable to build some project for fun in your part time after you get home from work and not try to make money from it in some way. You have to focus on making money when you’re running a business, but a lot of what I see with people building websites, running blogs, or whatever is that they think of them as a hobby and when you think of what you’re doing as a hobby you’re setting your expectations too low. You’re just telling yourself “I’m not really trying to build a job replacing income stream” – you’re just doing it for fun. If that’s your goal that’s fine, but for me personally shifting my mindset to be really focused on building my business has helped me with direction.
Do you think of the time spent on your computer as building a business? If not, then don’t expect to quit your day job Click To Tweet This
Yes, it definitely is a good idea to Track the Progress of Projects, also for the less business like projects such as submitting things like Slogan- or Short Story Contests or Photo Competitions I have a special – Submissions Book – to keep track of my Submissions.
Hi Chris,
Valid point. We should look at blogging as a business especially when you are a full time blogger. I agree that forecasting and tracking each step helps you achieve your goals.
Finally I’m about to quit my day job after so much back and forth and I must keep your advice for my Business success!
Thanks,
Vijay
Hey Vijay,
That’s exciting news about the day job. Yah I just feel a lot more focused when I’m able to really track my progress and where I want to be for sure.
Chris
Chris, this is so timely! What an awesome and important post! And there’s still in time to do something about it this year. I hope you make your goals with ease. We are entering the best sales season of the year, so anything is possible!
Hubby just bought a whiteboard for me as I was doing the sitting down at my computer and asking �What should I work on today?� thing and was all over the place as usual. The distraction and extra work of getting the place cleaned and sold here and finding a new place and packing is awful, and has made it even harder to concentrate than is usually is for me.
Now have to up my game as this is a real business and will be feeding clothing and housing both of us from here on in. He is a project manager, so there is boring grown-up stuff I will be so happy to hand off! I need to think about the direction of the business seriously too. I met my goals for 2012 back in April on income level and now have quit work a couple of months early too. They were the only goals I had! I’d better get some new ones. Thanks for the great post though, perfect timing!
you are right chris
“Why It�s Important to Treat Your Blog, Website, Part Time Project, Whatever � As A �Real Business�”
That is it if you really want to achieve more in internet marking you should pay close attention to every bits of your stuffs
That’s a great mindset Chris! I also like how you’re breaking down your $1000/day goal into 10 different $100/day assets. That way you don’t have all your eggs in one basket, plus with more income streams, you have a better chance of having one of the take off and become huge!
Thomas
Hey Thomas,
Thanks – yah that’s the plan I’ve tried to focus on but some of those baskets are over the $100 a day mark so I still need to diversify more if possible but overall it’s helped me grow with this approach.
Chris
OK, I will have to stop being so lazy. I have a whiteboard and it has been on the wall with the same unfinished daily tasks from 2 years ago.
Now what would be cool would be to figure out the best way to format the whiteboard. I once heard of John Reese having a whiteboard room with no computer in the room at all
Hey man,
Great post really, really inspirational. I’m definitely gonna put up a whiteboard in my home office too! 🙂
BR
/Matt
Hey Chris just found you via itunes podcast. I really liked you story as i too was into gaming when i first became interested in Online income.
What you have achieved so far is awesome. I’m making decent money online, but from a hobby point of view. After reading your post i realize i should switch my mindset to it is fulltime business. I have always put more focus on living my prefered life style.
Hey Moe, thanks and happy to hear you found me via iTunes 🙂
Yes – focus on building a business has certainly helped. Now as I approach near the end of 2012 I’m more focused on trying to enjoy the lifestyle though and not be so tied to the computer. So I’m looking at giving up some money to get more time back (in the form of more help managing my business i.e. customer support, running websites etc)
First of all, I’m not a planner, but I married one. That is one of the area’s that I am really looking at focusing on in the next few weeks as I build my blog business. I’ve just launched my new site with the goal of teaching others what I’ve learned over the past few years on building a business online.
I’ve come to realize that I NEED to set some goals and actionable items in which to keep me focused. I can so easily be distracted by bright shiny things. I need to get myself a small white board and keep that in my view as I work each day.
I appreciate the simple thoughts and suggestions. It truly helps keep me going in the right direction. Maybe soon I can set a goal like you have that involves 6 figure numbers. I’m working with a goal of 3 digit numbers and maybe 4 if I can get things rolling in the right direction.
Thanks again!
Hey Steve,
Yah setting specific and measurable goals has really helped me out and to further grow my business for sure. Happy to hear you’re working on some 😀
Chris
Very true what you’ve said Chris, If you treat your business like a ‘hobby’ its going to pay you like a hobby ( hobbies pay slim to none). I used to just be very relaxed about my online ventures, until I started treating them seriously much like you would any business, then cash started coming in regular monthly affiliate cheques and Paypal deposits!
Thanks again for a valuable post.
Great post Chris.
I need to track a lot better, just got one of those stick on whiteyboards, so need
to get going with this.
It’s really true that because we’re working online on a computer and not in a brick and mortar business we often forget that it still is real business…
You need to plan your tasks, whether they are reccuring in your business or whether you work on a project.
Otherwise you won’t be able to really scale and leverage your business and will stuck at a certain level!
Thanx a lot for the idea of the whiteboard, I will try this out. I think it must really help to visualize what you should focus on…
Thanks for the great blog post. I am in the same boat as you. I have problem focusing on getting things done and fixing whats not right in my online business and moving it to the right direction. Recently, I learned an important thing,don’t ignore momentum, it can be your greatest advantage. I’m starting to focus on the sites that have made money in the past but have now dwindled due to competition.
I totally agree that a White Board is an Excellent Tool to work with. People that know my Home Business Blog (an also read my tiny little Vision eBook) might know that I have experience with working on some really Big Music Sales Campaigns. (for some of the really big Internationally known Artists.) Although we didn’t specifically used a Whiteboard for Forecasting Sales or Tracking Projects, a Whiteboard is also just an essential tool to be able to simply keep your goals in front of you all the time.
I do believe that Walt Disney also used a White Board to just put up his Goals & Ideas, and just constantly kept asking the question: ‘How can we improve this?’ Since I find a Whiteboard such an excellent tool, I also actually (Pre) Sell them on my Home Business Blog.
I agree with the report you got with this little investment of $9 because outcomes increases when you start analyzing the available data.