Here I am in Ko Samui. As I’m writing I can hear the waves crashing on the beach. It’s a beautiful island and a totally different experience from Chiang Mai.
I love being able to choose where and when I work. However getting here from the UK after New Year has meant setting my business goals for 2015 a few weeks into the year. I’m a bad, bad entrepreneur!
I love travelling. Scratch that! I love destinations. Travelling is actually a bit of a pain in the ass when it comes to that small matter of running a business. Flights, jetlag, wifi … first world problems. I’ll shut up.
Review of 2014
2014 was definitely a standout year for both business and personal reasons.
My passive income more than trebled from the previous year from just over $15,000 to more than $50,000 and towards the end of the year I moved to Chiang Mai, Thailand, which was great for body, mind and spirit.
The biggest business win of the year was my Udemy income increase – it was bringing in $1000/month at the beginning of the year and in November (Black Friday month) I nearly cleared $7000. This is both good and bad. Good because, er, income. Bad because it represents about three quarters of all my passive income.
One of my most painful moments in business was Google killing a few of my sites in 2012 and that taught me to not put all my eggs in one basket. Never rely on one source of traffic; never rely on one source of income; never rely on a third party platform you can’t control.
So I continue to find alternative income streams. I’m moderately pleased with my Kindle sales increase. I’m making $600-800 a month now on Kindle compared to roughly $200 a month at the beginning of the year.
Personal goals
At the end of Q3 2014 I wrote that I should care less about numbers and more about helping people. Rather disappointingly, that didn’t happen. I’m involved with a charity in Bangkok that provides food and shelter for disadvantaged refugees there. But aside from that, I was unable to find a long term “helpful” project that could run alongside my business in 2014.
Meditation, reading, physical exercise as well as healthy eating and drinking habits were harder to maintain whilst in Chiang Mai towards the end of 2014 (especially the drinking).
I shall try to improve on these in 2015.
Another personal goal I have to is to speak good conversational Thai by the end of this year. It should be possible but I’ll have to systematise my learning process. I said to myself that I’d learn the Thai alphabet by 2014. That didn’t happen.
Business targets
Specific business targets
Here are specific targets that I set three months ago and more targets for three months’ time.
| Target | Q4 2014 target | Q4 2014 actual | Q1 2015 target |
|---|---|---|---|
| Passive Income | $20,000 | $21,624.45 | $30,000 |
| Monthly unique visitors | 20,000 | 29,735 | 25,000 |
I hit the passive income target and smashed the traffic target. The traffic increase is due to my perennial calendar article which gets a lot of Google traffic.
I’d experienced a huge traffic drop during 2013 and most of 2014 which seems to be reverting now. At the time of the traffic drop I was consulting with various SEO “experts” and disavowing links like crazy. I’m now of the opinion my traffic drop wasn’t down to any penalty, it was just part of Google’s movement towards favoring the big brands. Google is no different to any other company. They haven’t got a clue what they’re doing either.
General business targets
Last quarter I had three targets. Here’s how I got on:
- Chill out and have a bit of a holiday Target Hit! What a stupid target! That was like a red flag to a bull.
- Write a personal development book — Target Missed! I wrote 5,000 words of one but lost momentum. I did publish a WordPress Kindle book though.
- Think more seriously about helping people and less about numbers and business, business, business — Target Missed! This was another unspecific (not SMART) target so I should think more carefully on this subject instead of creating general objectives.
So, here are my business targets from now until the end of the first quarter 2015:
- Release a major new course on Udemy on making passive income with info-products
- Do a major Jeff Walker style seed launch for the same course to my list
- Publish that damn personal development book on Kindle
Follower numbers
Here’s the ego trip bit (as if the rest isn’t)…
| Indicator | 1st Apr 2014 | 1st July 2014 | 30th Sep 2014 | 31st Dec 2014 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| My Twitter followers | 2596 | 2742 | 2842 | 2959 |
| My YouTube Channel, subscribers | 1221 | 1477 | 1843 | 2309 |
| My YouTube Channel, video views | 373,423 | 428,668 | 486,948 | 566,054 |
| Facebook page Likes/Fans | 638 | 720 | 822 | 1010 |
| Subscribers to RobCubbon.com | 5948 | 6276 | 6692 | 7511 |
The most important number is the last number. My main email list is growing faster these days. This is down to my clever ways to collect email addresses using Udemy and Kindle.
What does this all mean?
Well, it means I’m a lucky boy for one thing.
Although everything is looking fairly rosy in the garden, I’m maybe too much of a worrier to descripe my business as “running fine”. In my experience, just when you put your feet up and admire your handy-work, that’s when life likes to bite you on the bum.
In terms of “Threats” to my business, an over-reliance on Udemy is certainly one. In terms of “Weaknesses”, one of them is my ability (or lack of) to work on the road (especially in Ko Samui). I shall address these.
And, I need to buckle down and move my business on whilst maintaining my personal goals of physical fitness, meditation and helping others.
What about you?
What are some of your business and personal goals for 2015. I’d love you to leave them in the comments.
Hi Rob,
I’m first time on your very interesting and exciting blog. Great post. Thanks for awesome review of 2014 and brilliant targets for 2015!
Koh Samui is great. There are some nice and quiet beaches up the top near Bang Por.
Those are some great passive income earnings. Are you still doing your freelance work while travelling or just focusing on the passive side of things?
My business goals for 2015 are to earn enough from freelancing and passive income streams and some kind of online business so that we can move back to the UK and not have to get proper jobs.
My person goals are to keep going to the gym, eat better (primal), stick with yoga, and try meditation.
Good luck for 2015!
Hey Joe, I’m living between Bang Por and Mae Nam now. I haven’t actually been swimming in the sea yet, can you believe that? I’m not a big swimmer but I’ll definitely check those beaches out.
Your business and personal goals are very interesting. I hope you make them 🙂
Goals yikes!
To put it mildly, I don’t like them.
I described mine on my blog in alike manner – summary for 2014 and goals for 2015.Great minds think alike 😉
The one I feel I have most influence upon is publishing a dozen Kindle books this year. The first one has been launched yesterday.
I don’t have power on subscribers or readers to solicit them into buying or subscribing. I definitely have power over my person and my work.
That’s an interesting way of doing things, Michal, to only concentrate on things that you can definitely control. 12 Kindles a year is an awesome goal. I’ll probably only manage 4!
There is an expression that goes something like this: “if you keep an eye on numbers they will always go in the right direction”. I can’t remember where I read that but I really believe it. Don’t ask me why!
Hi Rob,
Congrats on an awesome year! So happy for you. My big goal for 2015 is to get my first Udemy course published along with a companion Kindle version. I’m about 50% there, so wish me luck!
Hey Mary, thanks for the comment. That’s an awesome goal for the first quarter of this year! Good luck! I’m sure you’ll do it. 🙂
I am greatly inspired Rob, though i am diversifying from my web and graphic design into t-shirt manufacturing and promotional clothing ever since repatriating back to to Zimbabwe from the UK, i hope to use some of your tactics in growing my business! Over 50, 000dollars in income, geez, i am greatly inspired!
Thank you very much Rob for sharing and its like i have watched you grow as i started following you when you designed a website for Dynamos FC, a Zimbabwean Football Club. Whatever happened to that website?
Looking forward to a great 2015!
Hello Anesu, thank you, I’m so glad to have inspired you. I would love to get into doing t-shirt designs one day. I have no time at the moment though.
Dynamos FC!! Wow, I’d forgotten about that. Yes, the client let that one go, unfortunately, I’ve no idea why because it would have been great to put a forum on there as the traffic would have been awesome! 🙂
Best wishes for 2015!
Koh Samui looks like it rocks Rob! I am raring to get there; Bali for 4 months coming soon but a Thai trip may be in order after. All the best with Thai; we know a few phrases but like any language with diligence you can become fluent in good time. Be patient, keep at it and you’ll be stunning Thais all over the country lol!
Thanks dude for sharing!
Ryan
Samui is growing on me (just decided to spend an extra week here). It’s funny if you say just a few Thai words to a Thai they think you’re amazing. Which is incredible considering my Thai is never as good as their English!
Hi Rob. Great website. I found you from your Udemy courses. I’m definitely following you.
Thank you for the follow, Steven. I hope you stick around. 🙂
Ha, you’re so right about the destinations over travelling Rob. It reminds me of a favourite quote of mine from Dorothy Parker — “I hate writing, I love having written.”
It’s great that you bring up Jeff Walker, I’ve been revisiting his work in prep for building the sales funnel for my new site that’ll promote my Udemy course.
I hate to admit it, but I actually bought his PLF3.0 program years ago, watched it, but never took action. I was foolish, because it wasn’t cheap. I guess implicitly I assumed that buying the thing was an indication to myself of my commitment, and the rest would just … well… follow naturally. Stupid.
Now I have a product I’ve invested a lot of time into and proven viability on Udemy, I’ll make sure I don’t repeat the same mistake.
Enjoy Ko Samui Rob!
Very interesting to read about your journey, David. I love everything Jeff Walker does and I always watch his “pre-launch content” – you can learn loads by just watching what he does. Best of luck with your new product, David. Thank you for the comment.
its my first time visit on this site which i found the article and really awesome idea for business and really enjoy with article writing
thanks for sharing with us
Good job
Have nice day
Thank you, Sachin. 🙂 Have a good day yourself!
IM is a tough gig, you seem to be doing good with it though. On a side note Thailand is an amazing place. I lived and worked there for a couple of years and the people (away from the tourist areas) are really down to earth, generous people. Thoroughly enjoyed the life there, I can’t wait until I can also work from anywhere or not need to work at all!
Thanks for commenting, Nigel. Yes, I agree the people here are amazing. I’m looking forward to many years like these travelling around Thailand 🙂
thanks for the information
pleasure 🙂
Im really stoked on learning from someone who has proven himself. It was really nice speaking to you. I am sure that I would greatly benefit from all the learnings. I will start documenting these as well. I have just downloaded the free tool box and cannot wait to get started. But it would be better to walk the walk before I do the talk. 🙂
Great to talk to you as well, Niel, I hope you keep coming back to the site to learn more 🙂