Archive for 30 day challenge
Ed Dale’s 2010 Challenge
Posted by: | Comments(This post assumes you’re familiar with Ed Dale’s Thirty Day Challenge. If you’re not please visit Rob Somerville‘s blog for an excellent history and explanation of what the 30DC is/was.)
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If you thought the 30 day challenge was good you’re going to love what Ed Dale has in store for us this year.
Back in April Ed posted that the 30DC was over. But . . . he went on to explain . . .
“There is no way I’m going to leave you hanging. What will replace the Thirty Day Challenge will be radical.
It will be state of the art.
It will be beautiful
It will be fun.
It will be easier.
I will make the same lame jokes…
Even Drummers will be able to do it.
BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY
It will be 100% free.
AND
It will be more EFFECTIVE.”
And now he’s finally announced the shape of what’s to come.
Gone are the thirty days. And in their place are 3 blocks of 7 working days with 7 days off in between.
The format has been changed because of Ed’s frustration, in the past, with how few people actually stuck it to the end of the 30 days. And yes. Mea Culpa. Again! I started the 30DC on 4 different occasions and never got to the end of the first week.
Ed’s take on why people don’t make it to the end, and my thoughts on that, are because of:
1. A lack of time – This has been addressed by limiting each day to just 30 minutes work which includes both watching the videos and completing the tasks that need to be done.
2. The Expectation that they will have a business after just 30 days. The focus of the original challenge was to make your first dollar that has now shifted to more of a business mindset - “the whole point of the challenge is to build the foundations of a business that will last. A business that will replace your 9-5 pay packet over time.”
3. Lack of Stickability – Keeping going for 30 days on the trot is a big ask for many of us so now all we have to do is make it to 7 days. Then take a break and make it to the end of another 7 days. I’m going to be really interested to see how this works out because the downside of having a break is loss of momentum. I’m going to stick my neck out here and predict that the same number of people will drop out after the initial 7 days as did in the past. (Sorry Ed). I think the key to this is to have a balance between the amount of work, which has been met by the 30 minutes a day change, and keeping momentum going.
4. We Hate Getting Left Behind – This is addressed by the 7 day break which will allow people to catch up if necessary. However, Ed feels “This is the number 1 reason anybody quits any challenge.” I disagree. I think it makes it harder but I don’t think it is the reason. I think it is just one of any number of excuses we use when we meet resistance. If this is my excuse of choice then no matter how long you give me to catch up, I won’t. It is a symptom but not the cause.
5. Lack of Results – This is most definitely a biggie when it comes to staying motivated. This is tackled by having a number of different outcomes, namely:
- You’ll have made your first dollar and built the foundation of your online empire!
- You’ll sell your website on Flippa.com and make some money back that way.
- You do all seven sections and you’ll be able to work as an SEO specialist
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So, that’s the new format and, although I disagree with Ed on some of his reasoning, I can’t wait to give it a go. It’s a brilliant opportunity to learn from a master and, if I don’t make it through to the end, it will not be due to lack of quality on the part of the materials!
As with the 5 CFT Challenge I’ll be reporting my progress here so you can follow along. But why not join me (and thousands of others) this time? Ed Dale’s 2010 Challenge is due to start on July 1st but you can sign up now and stay up to date with what’s happening. It’s free and now it’s only going to take 30 minutes a day there really is no excuse not to give it a go. Sign Up Here and I’ll see you on the inside.
Internet Marketing Overwhelm or Oops! I Did It Again
Posted by: | CommentsAs last week drew to a close and my stress levels increased. I realised I’d made the classic Internet Marketers mistake (again!) and was trying to focus in too many directions.
One of the reasons for joining Ed Dale’s mentoring programme was so I would have a structure to work within that might contain my tendency to jump from one thing to the other. Alas, in the short-term, this has not been the case. I’m still tempted by “shiny new” and, as a result, I find myself in a position of having to make some decisions about what to drop and what to keep.
There’s a fine balance to be drawn between focussing on a single thing (e.g. this website) and bringing other things into the mix to add a bit of variety which helps me stay interested and motivated. However, I need to work at something long enough to create a system around it, so I can outsource it. I’ve reached that point with the link building for this site so I’m ready to add something else into the mix.
Since I’ve never outsourced work full-time before, this process in itself has to be learned and is, therefore, a project in it’s own right.
So, currently I have this website and setting up an outsourcing project to focus on.
But . . . I’ve also been tempted by other stuff since I started the mentoring, some of which I’ve not mentioned before. These include – list control, the free “Take Over Page One” video course, John Reese’s Outsourcing videos, Crowd Mountain and the addition of Ed’s teaching on buying and selling websites. Oh yeah. And then there’s the stuff in 30 Day Challenge+ which is included in the mentoring package. So, with all these things swimming round in my head, you can see why my mind is beginning to get more than a little muddled.
There’s simply not enough time for me to do all those things – soooooo – how do I sort out the mess and narrow down my focus again?
Well, as I said – this website and setting up an internet marketing outsourcing project are in. This website is the current focus for my mentoring and I definitely need to outsource stuff if I want to create a business that I really enjoy. There is only one more John Reese outsourcing video so I’ll watch that later once my CFT is completed and then I can delete that from my list.
The 30 Day Challenge+ I can follow as and when I need it. I have created an index of what is available so I can check there when I have questions or am starting a new process.
List control, which has been on the back burner, will have to be dropped. I don’t have enough traffic to be building a list a this point and it just takes focus from what I need to be doing right now.
The “Take Over Page One” video course will be moved to the back burner. I will look at that once I’m actually in the position of making a video. Seems pretty obvious when you write it down, but it’s so easy to get sucked in and distracted when you have emails tempting you and what you’re currently doing is more than a little tedious!
What else . . .
Crowd Mountain. Hmmmm. Bit tricky this one.
My main motivation for signing up was to have an opportunity to try out the CM tools. However, the sales message was misleading. In the guarantee Michelle McPherson stated that, amongst other things, we would have 30 days to try out the tools. Once inside, this is not the case. Three weeks in and only one tool is available. We won’t have full access until week 6 apparently, so I’m not going to be able to test them out until after the guarantee has passed. That said, I like Michelle’s approach, so I’m willing to give her the benefit of the doubt and pay the money so I can try out the tools.
That results is a bit of a dilemma though. I’m tempted to follow the Crowd Mountain process as well as wait for the tools, which ties in quite nicely with what I’m doing since it has bits in common with the 30 Day Challenge. But there simply aren’t enough hours in a day. I think I’m just going to have to try and fit this is once my critical focus time blocks are completed.
Once I’ve got some outsourcing sorted I’ll be able to spend more time in Crowd Mountain and, possibly, apply the strategy to my old sites.
Internet Marketing History Shows A Lack Of Internal Motivation
Posted by: | CommentsI first tried my hand at internet marketing back in 2005, when adsense fortunes were being made practically overnight. I was instantly hooked by the ability to create a site and start earning money within 2-3 days. It wasn’t really the money that hooked me in though, although I was unaware of this at the time, it was more the excitement of the numbers. Of being able to see things change (pages indexed, adsense earned etc.) almost instantly.
But the easy money adsense days came to an inevitable swift end and I then spent years in the web marketing wilderness trying to recreate that buzz. I tried Underachievers, Ultraunderachievers, Jeff Johnson’s Coaching Club, Perry Marshall’s Adwords Course, Traffic King Pro, PLRPro’s 90 day challenge, the 30 day challenge, The Lazy Affiliate, PPC Kahuna, authority loophole, and numerous seminars etc. etc. But all to no avail. Until this year, I never managed to create a decent IM income again.
Looking back I can see that all my previous attempts at setting up an internet marketing business were externally motivated. I was focussed on the money I thought I would earn and the tactics that would get me there. I never stopped to question why I was really doing it or what I was hoping to achieve, beyond the dollars. I just blindly started, but rarely finished, one project after another.
And I am not alone. Thousands of people have spent thousands of dollars chasing the internet marketing dream but relatively few have succeeded. In some cases this is simply due to a lack of skills but more often than not it is due to a poor understanding of what it is we are really after. We find ouselves chasing a dream that’s not really ours and focussing on purely external goals. When these goals aren’t connected to our internal motivation then it’s easy to get distracted and give up when the going gets tough. So we adandon what we’ve been trying and move on to the next shiny, new toy.
So, this time around, I’ve taken the time to consider why I am trying internet marketing again and what my internal motivation is. This has allowed me to define success on my own terms rather than in purely monetary ones. Instead of blindly chasing the “get rich” dream and making money the goal I have set up the game so I can play it by my own rules and measure success in a way that is meaningful to me. So now when the challenges come they will be worth making the effort to face because the reasons I am doing this are now connected to my internal motivation.
