2008 will be a landmark year in my life. As of today, January 7th 2008, I am my own boss. I have resigned from Groovr for various reasons, leading me to take the jump and be responsible for my own income. This is a scary and exciting time for me but I will make the best of it!
Well, I probably won't quite reach that goal but I sure will try! I have been trying my hand in internet and affiliate marketing in my free time and have already seen some success. Enough success to sustain my bills and keep my head above water. I figure if I dedicate a larger chunk of my time and work smart, I could earn a pretty penny.
I also have a few idea's I am working on. Generating leads for niche markets that, as far as I can tell, are basically competition free! I can't tell you exactly what that is of course ;) As my methods and techniques get more fine tuned, my revenue will grow. I honestly see no reason why I can't make $1 million dollars in the next 365 days.
I don't pretend to be that good—yet! While there are people who do generate millions of dollars per year using affiliate marketing techniques, I know I am no where near that level. I also have something else in the works.
A few months ago I was approached by a friend to co-found an internet related company. This company is more of a service provider than a "Web 2.0" style startup. My friend is already a millionaire internet entrepreneur and successful business man; it was very important that I consider his offer.
After a month or so of thinking it over—and after I made my decision to leave Groovr—I agreed to help co-found this new company. I will give more info on this later as the company progresses.
My buddy, and new business partner, is already an established affiliate/internet marketer and is actually a fairly well known person in the community. We have other ideas that we plan to team up on to generate income. Each of us brings to the table something that the other lacks and the combination of our skill sets is proving to be a profitable one.
I plan to post a lot more often to this blog. Not only to give progress reports on my goal but to also write valuable and useful posts related to marketing, software, tech, etc.
Also I realize that this blog is a big part of my "brand" online. I have gotten work from it before, but I never really took the time to cultivate it into a larger following. I will try to do that in 2008.
If you haven't done so yet, now is a good time to subscribe to my RSS feed so you can stay up to date with this blog.
I happen to have a small leg up on most of my competition in the Affiliate world; I am able to write my own software, manage my own servers, etc. I've been doing that for others for a decade. Of course they have more marketing experience than I do, but I am a quick study. Luckily I also have my buddy to turn to for help and advice. I also have a few ideas in the works that will actually help other marketers and allows me to turn a profit at the same time.
My goal is to automate as much as possible with custom software so I can focus about 75% of my time on the new company and the rest on my various projects. This is a pretty easy thing to do with my lead generation sites, but not so easy with other things I am working on. So I will need to dedicate a chunk of my day to the affiliate stuff.
In a pinch I could always do a little consulting or projects for various companies to help boost the income that month. Luckily I have made a lot of contacts through the years and I should be able to find decently paid short term projects pretty easily. I would rather not use this option but it's always there as an alternative.
On top of all this I also need to make some time to spend with my family. My daughters both play soccer (basically year round if you count all-stars and tournaments) and I have a lot of fun at their games. But they still need to practice and I make it a point to help them with that. My wife is obviously a large part of my life and will be helping me out as much as she can. We still need our evenings out and personal time together, etc.
I believe that you need to keep your mind and body healthy. For the mind I try to read a few books a month. Usually anything that is NOT computer/internet related, though lately I've been reading books on writing and marketing.
For the body I work out 5 days a week with a full body weight lifting routine. I do cardio exercises 3 times a week as well. I refuse to give this up and I generally go to the gym at 5:30am, so this shouldn't interfere with my work days anymore than it currently does.
So that's it. My basic outline for 2008. Whether or not I make $1 million dollars isn't the point. It's the fact that I am shooting for the stars that will make this a special year for me. What are some of your plans for the year?