Accountability, It’s Not Just a Word in the Dictionary

Apparently, this is a hard concept for people to grasp, but we cannot control the actions (or inactions) of anyone but our own self. To further this point, we are not responsible for anyone’s actions (or inactions) but our own. Let that sink in for a few moments.

The first thing I tell my clients when they approach me is that they will be held accountable for their portion of the project. I will not do their projects for them, I will do their projects with them.

They will receive a to do list, I will receive a to do list, and we each receive a time line. Under no circumstance will the other person be liable if one of us does not get a task done properly or on time. We both need to deal with the consequences of our own actions.

I should note that accountability and consequences are two different things and consequences are not necessarily bad.

If we both complete our portions of the project as outlined, the consequence is having a wonderfully completed project (good). If one of us does not complete our portion of the project, the consequence can be a delay in the project (bad).

Having accountability means that if there is a hiccup, we can look through what needed to be done, but wasn’t – then correct it.

If a client is unwilling to be held accountable for their own actions, then that is a client you do not need or want. It’s usually the indicator of a person who doesn’t want to do anything for himself and wants someone else to run his life for him.

If a person shows that they do not want to be responsible for their own actions – then that person has another think coming and it’s someone you should disassociate from ASAP. You may just find yourself being blamed for something you had no control over.

With that said – remember that you are only in control of yourself. Control over anything else is an illusion. Live your life to the best of your ability. Say what you mean, do what you say, and mean what you do because you are responsible for it.

Getting Stuff Done

Today was definitely better than yesterday and 100 times better than the day prior to yesterday.

I got a lot of work done for my affiliate site and also found some inspiration for future affiliate sites.

I initially set my goal to get at least 5 inbound links to my affiliate site. Somehow, I found myself on a linking hayday and by the time I finished I had requested (manually by emailing webmasters) 5 link exchanges and submitted my URL to 20 website directories. Yep, 25 inbound links (20 are confirmed).

I found a good number of link partners simply by doing a Google search and submitting URLs to the first 2-3 pages of results. The search term I used was allintitle: keywords directory (substitute keywords with your website’s keywords or niche).

Another good thing is it really didn’t take me all that long – it was an hour of my time well spent. I also got some more good news when I checked my stats and I see that Googlebot finally decided to make his way to my site. He crawled most of the pages and he was the last of the three big boys to get there.

And before I close up this post for the evening. I finally broke down and applied to another affiliate because I have not heard any word from the initial company I applied to. I think their affiliate manager is asleep at the wheel. The only problem with the new company is that I cannot link directly to specific products, so I am still holding out for the first affiliate company.

The website is almost done and I will be adding the search script tomorrow and I will be promoting my website’s directory so that I will obtain even more link partners.

Oh yea, one more thing – I’m finally due to get my first check from Google this month and I am extremely excited. Since I cannot disclose actual numbers, suffice it to say that it’s a larger payout than I expected.

That’s the business update.

Sick and Tired of So-Called Internet Marketing Gurus

I do a lot of reading, especially a lot of internet marketing blogs and articles. After reading about four blog articles on how their PR is up and how many people they have linking back to them, I finally decided to stop reading.

While I understand the importance of link exchanges and PR and all that other wonderful stuff, there is already plenty of people writing about it and how they already have it. What I want to hear more about are the results. Cold hard figures. Describe to me how your going from PR0 to PR4 in a month has impacted your online revenue.

In that month timeframe, how much more money did you earn as a result? In that month timeframe, how many listings has your blog or website or whatever jumped in the SERPs? Those are the things the internet marketing gurus need to be talking about.

You can have all the PR in the world and you can talk about it, and to some internet marketers who are still wet behind the ears will start thinking you’re some amazing SEM God, but the fact remains, unless you have cold hard figures to back up the announcements of the ever increasing PR, it means diddly to me.

It is definitely time for me to go through my bookmarks, newsletter subscription lists, and RSS feeds and decide which of these gurus is worth the 5-15 minutes of my life that I waste reading their BS. I’ll post my results at a later date.

So Much Stuff, So Little Time

It seems that life is always putting something on your plate, whether you want it or not. I woke up this morning, late mind you, and I thought to myself “dammit, this sucks!” because I hate getting a late start. When I get a late start, I really don’t feel like doing much of anything.

To make things even worse, I hate going out in the late morning – early evening times because I fear bumping into one of my neighbors. It’s not that I don’t like my neighbors, I just don’t feel comfortable being withing eyeshot of any of them. Oh well, I’ll just wait until tonight to get my grocery shopping done.

On a lighter note, I believe I will try to get some other stuff done around the home today. Shut off the computer for the rest of day (I will surely need God’s help with that one), and work on my business plan. I currently have a couple projects I am so antsy to get done. I set up my very first affiliate site a couple nights ago and already added 69 items to it – don’t get any bad ideas about the number, it was just a coincidence. Today, I really want to get some link exchanges going and have the link directory set up. My goal with this particular website is to generate a steady $1,000 per month. I know it will take a few months to get it up to par, but that’s what goal setting and prayer is for.

My ultimate goal is to have about 10 more affiliate websites, each generating at least $1,000 per month, before 2005 is over – anything more than that is an added bonus in my book. So far, I’ve tasted the sweetness of affiliate marketing and getting paid for setting up a website one time and putting it on “auto-pilot” – I figure why not do some more.

Also on my agenda for today is to actually clean my house – it literally looks like a pig sty because I’ve been so busy. Hopefully when all is said and done, I won’t get distracted and I’ll have plenty to show for my time when I sit down to write my “today I accomplished” list.

I’m still trying to fit into my blog skin, so I’ll definitely be using this website as a place to get my thoughts all collected and organized.

I Need a Better System

I floated by last year and it was by far the best year I had in terms of business. 2005 got started with a huge bang and hasn’t really slowed down since. That’s good news. Actually, that’s great news because I feel very inspired to “get stuff done” and continue growing in terms of business.

But it’s painfully obvious to me that I need a better system. Better organization because some days my head seems like it’s stuck so far up my ass I can see through my nostrils. Each time I purchase a new organization system or book, there seems to be something missing from it or I’ll be good for a few weeks, then revert back to my old habits (I’m a habitual procrastinator).

I really need a better system, so that will be my ultimate goal for tomorrow. I know I have a few client projects to work on and I have two potential clients lined up (yay – they will help me to fund my ventures and pay down some bills), but I plan to only spend 4 hours working on client projects, 2 hours working on my web ventures (namely setting up the link exchange directory for my new affiliate site and submitting my URL to a couple indexes), and then I will spend the remainder of the evening filing. Yep, you heard right – filing. My filing system is non-existant and I have papers flowing all over the place.

It’s tax season and I swear I’m not very good at taxes. Last year was definitely better than 2003 and I only had to pay $100 so I can just imagine how much Uncle Sam is going to try and take from me. I believe I will definitely be bringing my business to somewhere like H&R Block or something so I can hopefully get out of having to pay any money at all because I had a whole lot of business expenses for setting up.

I know I also need to get all my receipts in order and all my paid invoices to really take inventory of how well I did last year with my consulting business. But for the immediate future, I just need to find a suitable filing system and a suitable organization/motivation system.