Are You Ready to Dunk on the New Year? (2012 – The Year of the Baller)

(photo from a silly sticker I saw on a wall in Tokyo)

So, 2011 turned out to be a mixed bag of successes and challenges.

And, although the taste of Top Ramen is started to grow on me, I have decided that I’m going to earn a decent living online no matter what it takes in 2012.

I think with the 10×10 success group and the Benefiting from Bangkok Manifesto as a foundation I should actually be in a place where I can do this… with or without Google.

Now, I’m out to kick ass and I’m not going to let anyone in Mountain View, California (or elsewhere) stop me.

A lot of people make New Years resolutions, including me.

But in some ways, I don’t feel like I should be doing that now. Part of me feels like they are a luxury for those who have free time for personal enrichment. I need money, not learning new chords on the guitar or drinking 8 glasses of water every day. Maybe that’s not the most inspirational thing to say, but it is the truth!

Right now, I need to single-mindedly focus on income and cash flow. I have a road map that I planned out a few months ago that I have nicknamed my “diabolical scheme.”

Phase 2 starts in January :)

Also, I’ve always used this particular blog as a confession booth of sorts for my marketing experiences. I never really wanted to turn this blog into a serious business because I never wanted to be one of those people who “makes money online by showing people how to make money online” (not to knock that, it’s just my personal preference).

But I think 2012, I am going to try to actually take this blog seriously (don’t worry, there will still be lots of booze and debauchery discussed here–”serious” is a loose term).

I’m still not sure what to do with this blog since I still do feel very conflicted about how to move forward with it. However, I enjoy writing for it too much to not try to have a bigger impact with it.

When I started this blog I did nothing here that was in any way like what I did on my actually income-earning websites. I never did SEO. I never tried to build links. I never tried very hard to sell stuff. Yet I felt as though this blog did a much better job of engaging people over the long term than anything I intentionally did to make money.

This blog was the first experiment in social media, forum traffic, story telling, etc. and I’ve learned a lot because of it.

In 2011, I wanted to build an empire of affiliate sites and make mad coin online. Apparently, things did not work out that way, but after some adapting and course-correcting, I’m ready to get what I want out of life in 2012.

Time to take what I know about SEO and affiliate marketing and blend it with whatever you call what I do here. Together both of these activities should have explosive results.

Add to that some extra shenanigans, like webinars, paid traffic (ever hear of “retargeting”? Sounds like some powerful stuff!), and other mischief, and 2012 should be an epic year. Let’s just hope I can become an online baller before the world ends next year.

Anyway, I still have to tally up all the accounting, but I think I grossed something like $30,000 this year (which is just shy of double what I made last year), but I also spent a lot of money on business related expenses.

I’ve reluctantly become a legitimate blogger this year (or at least I started actually trying). After watching certain people seem to coast on to success without worrying about Panda farts and meeting a few successful bloggers myself, I figured it was probably the next growth stage for me to take.

There are some things I’ve learned about blogging. For instance many blogs that appear successful actually get, like, almost no traffic. If you are guest posting on other blogs, be sure to do your homework and find out if they actually have any real traffic before trying to guest post. Check things like number of comments per post, Twitter followers, and traffic estimates on compete.com (these estimates are incredibly inaccurate, but even so, I would rather post on a blog that gets an estimated 100,000 visitors over 1000 visitors per month).

For example, this blog gets pretty much no traffic (yet). There are a handful of very dedicated readers (thank you for reading, by the way) who comment a lot and create the illusion that this blog actually gets a lot of traffic. But this blog really only gets about 2000 visitors per month, so I would strongly discourage you from guest posting here for the time being until I blow up and get mad traffic :)

However, I’m still very grateful that I’ve been keeping this blog. Even though it gets very little traffic, the people that read it are the right kind of people and I’ve had many great opportunities present themselves because of this blog (plus those messages from people who find inspiration from some of the older posts are a great reward too).

In 2012, I’m going to try to post twice a week here. One post will be on something actionable and useful. The second post will be an accountability/case study post from the 10×10 project.

(I’m going ahead with that, by the way. The month of January, I’m going to focus on PRODUCTIVITY–Expect more info next week)

So, anyway, I’m ready to wail on 2012. Based on my “diabolical scheme” I am aiming for $50,000 in 2012, most of which will have absolutely nothing to do with SEO or affiliate stuff (although, I’m still going to be doing that too–but you never know what Google has in store for 2012…).

The basic plan involves creating a high-end product, then selling as much as possible via webinars, a proper launch, and upsells for personal coaching and a membership site. Add into the mix a few joint ventures to promote other people’s stuff and 2012 will be a great year!

How did 2011 shape up for you? What are your plans for 2012? Share your experiences in the comments below.

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