It’s been a couple of days since I last updated, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been creative. It just means I haven’t been as creative, or as productive as I would’ve liked to be.

That’s all about to change though. I signed on to be a contributor to a new self-help giveaway that starts this weekend. So the rest of this week will be all about getting a gift and a special offer together for that.

I’m going to try a new way of working as well. As in 9 to 5 instead of a few hours here and a few hours there between naps. Sometimes it works, but other times there’s just not enough structure in the day for me to get done what I need to. And since there’s no one here to create my structure for me, it’s time for me to put my big girl costume on and do it for myself.

And that’s about it for me tonight.

Thanks for being here!

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So I’m probably more excited than I should be. Golf GPS Systems is live, finally!

It’s my first attempt at an IPK site and it too me way longer than it should have to get done. I probably shouldn’t be surprised, because it always takes me longer to do things that I think it should. There’s a lot of self-sabotage goin’ on here, and that’s one of the reasons I’m recording my progress over this month — to force myself to actually finish things and show proof that they’re finished.

Anyways, back to the golf gps site. The good news is I turned off the maintenance mode at about 4 p.m. this afternoon, and when I just checked a few minutes ago, the googlebot had already been to visit.

The bad news is that when I searched for my keywords, they didn’t come up within the first 50 yet. I’ll be checking again tomorrow and may have to do some tweaking to the pages to make sure I’ve got everything that the course suggests.

Looking ahead, I’ve got another couple of sites ready to start and I’m confident that they’ll go a lot quicker. I love doing them in wordpress, but I may try one with the static site outline just to see if that makes a difference. And if it does, I just may get really creative and make myself a wordpress theme that looks similar to the static pages.

On the plate for tomorrow as well is to get my report on creativity finished, and to get a new issue of The Acorn Stash out. But for now, I’m callin’ it quits tonight.

Hope you’re having a great weekend!

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So, it’s Friday. I got a lot of creating done today for my first IPK site. I had hoped to have the whole thing ready to go live today but even though I’ve created all the images and the pages needed, I’m too tired to transfer it all to wordpress tonight. So it will have to wait until tomorrow.

Since this week was so messed up, it’s looking like a working weekend for me. I may take a little time off to go and watch the dragon boat races tomorrow afternoon, but that’s about it for me.

Have a great weekend, and I’ll see you with another progress report tomorrow night!

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I hate to say it, but all the running around I’ve done this week caught up with me today. I was so tired by the time I got home from running errands this morning that all I could do was rest this afternoon. I didn’t even get started working on anything until about 9:30 tonight. So for today all I have accomplished is about 2/3 of the final page for my first IPK site.

The good news is that there is absolutely nowhere I have to be tomorrow, and so I will be spending the day getting caught up.

Thanks for being here!

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It was another one of those days today. It’s shaping up to be one of those weeks where I don’t get a whole day to sit and do nothing but write.

Monday it was the annual stress test. Tuesday it was shopping with my boy, and while I love spending time with him, by the time he was done dragging me all over the city to check out bikes and sport shoes and all manner of other things 20-something young men like, I was wiped out and ready to sleep for a week! Today it was the eye doctor that took me out of work mode for most of the day.

I think I can breathe tomorrow. I have one errand to run in the morning, and other than that I’m not doin’ nuthin’ for nobody that doesn’t involve a yellow legal pad, and my favorite pen! In fact, if it’s a nice day (it’s raining right now) I might even take said pad and pen and park myself at the riverside cafe for the morning and work there where I can’t be interrupted.

I did finally get to start writing around 6 p.m. tonight and I worked straight through until about 10:30 with just a short break to eat dinner. I ended up shutting myself away at the writing desk in my room — away from the computer, and the tv, and all the other distractions like kid and dog. I’m actually working on a product about creativity, and I got about half the first draft written. I had hoped to get the whole thing done before I had to stop and write this post, but that was probably a little unrealistic on my part. It will be interesting to see how much more I get done tomorrow when I know I don’t have to stop and run all over the city.

That’s it for me tonight. I think I might go back in the other room and see if I can’t get the first draft finished before calling it a night.

Thanks for being here!

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The first day of a new month is always exciting for me. It’s like having a clean slate, the old month and whatever you did or didn’t do is in the past, and you have the chance to set new goals and challenge yourself to achieve them. And when you screw up as often as I do when it comes to getting things done, being able to choose to start over is a really good thing.

I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve been really lax over the past little while when it comes to creating new content, whether it’s articles, blog posts, or even new products… the ability to sit my butt in a chair and do the work has failed me miserably. But that’s all about to change…

I’ve been watching Tiffany Dow and following her progress on her 30 Days of Productivity, and now her 30 Days of Making Money challenges. I’ve been amazed watching her videos and reading her blog posts about how much work she gets done in a day and how much money she makes from it. Tiffany’s success has inspired me to really get motivated and sit my butt down and get to work.

So for this month (June 2010) I’ve decided to create my own challenge — 30 Days of Creativity — where I will create at least one new piece of content every single day this month.

In a nutshell, my plan for the month is to:

a) create new info products
b) build new websites based on the IPK method
c) get comfortable with using video

I’ve got a list of half-finished projects that I want to clear off my desk, so those will be the first things I work on. They take up so much mental energy just in thinking about getting them done, that this month they’re either going to get finished or get trashed.

I also bought the Info Product Killer course a couple of weeks ago and have been slowly working through it all. I’m pretty slow at the site building so far — not because it’s hard to do, but more because of that inability to keep the body in a chair long enough to actually finish a site. So my main goal with this is to get comfortable enough with the process that I can complete a site in the few hours that the course suggests is all you need. (And yes, that’s an affiliate link and I will get a commission if you decide to purchase.)

The final thing on my list is to start working with video. I’ve done a couple of short videos for The Acorn Stash, but nothing like what I want to be able to do. It’s a huge step outside my comfort zone because I’m not a video person at all. I’d much rather read that watch, but as I keep being told, I’m in the minority these days as most people would rather watch a video than read a report.

You might have noticed that so far I haven’t said a word about making money. That’s because for this month, making money is not my priority at the moment. Of course, everything will eventually lead to some form of income because I am working at building a lasting business here, but for the moment it’s more important for me to actually get things finished and out where they can be seen and judged on their own merits rather than my own penchant for perfectionism.

I’m working at changing my mindset from one that’s based on fear of being rejected or ridiculed to one where I am confident enough in my creations to put them out and let you decide how useful they are to you.

And that’s it for me today. My son had a day off today, and that made it pretty much a write-off for getting anything really constructive done. In light of that, I’m counting this post as my first installment. I couldn’t let Day One go by without producing at least something!

Tomorrow is the day when things really start happening around here, and I’ll be back tomorrow night with a progress report!

Thanks for being here!

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…but I’m learning how to network like a pro.

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted anything here. I’d apologize for that, but I’m not really sorry. I’ve been rethinking my whole business strategy and had pretty much decided to shut down completely because there’s one thing I’ve learned over the past few years… To be a success in any type of business you need to have great networking skills. And, quite frankly, I suck at networking.

But I made a promise to myself this year, and that is that I would give myself one more year. And if I couldn’t achieve the level of success that I intended for myself by the end of 2010, then I will pack it in and explore a new path.

Once that decision was made, it was easy to determine the next step — learn how to improve my networking skills, both online and off. I’m such an introvert that it’s really hard for me to interact with people. I don’t mean just meeting new people. Even friends and colleagues I’ve known for years have felt the effects of my introvertedness as I go through long periods where I don’t keep in touch, don’t know what to say or even how to act around them. I’m not kidding when I say that I am seriously socially challenged! I am the epitome of what Dr. Ivan Misner calls a “cave dweller” in his book Networking Like a Pro.

You know how they say that once you make a decision, the Universe does everything in its power to get you what you need to succeed? It wasn’t long after I’d made my decision that Dr. Misner’s book appeared in my path. And I have to tell you, it’s changed my way of thinking about networking and how to go about it.

I had always been under the impression that you had to be the ultimate extrovert to be a successful networker. You know, the life of the party, totally outgoing, winner of every popularity contest kind of person. And that is so not me.

Reading “Networking Like a Pro” taught me that even an introverted, bookwormish, stand-in-the-corner-and-speak-when-spoken-to (if you’re lucky) person like me can be successful at networking if they play to their strengths. Better yet, the book actually gives concrete examples and strategies that I can use to make myself more comfortable in group settings.

If you follow me on Facebook you’ll no doubt have noticed that I’ve been talking about this book a lot over the last little while. I’ve been more active on Facebook in the last few weeks, and it’s becoming easier every day because of the things I’ve learned while reading it. I can’t help but talk about it because I know how hard it is for shy people and beginning networkers to really get out there and do it. And there are so many examples of people doing it wrong too! I know that I’m nowhere near a networking pro, and probably never will be, but I’m confident that I can hold my own now.

If you want to take your networking skills to the next level, you should read this book. And now is a great time to pick up a copy. It’s International Networking Week from today (Feb. 1) until February 4th, and to celebrate Dr. Misner is giving away a six-month subscription to Networking Pro which includes access to the resources at NetworkingNow.com. You can find out more details here: Networking Like a Pro Special Offer. (not an affiliate link)

Happy International Networking Week!

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It’s Day One of my project to get traffic to the PLR blog. As I mentioned in my last post, one of the things I did wrong with the giveaway was that I didn’t put enough focus on driving traffic to the site. My goal now is to take the blog from the 30 visitors a day it gets now to 100 visitors a day using social media as the main source of traffic.

In order to have a starting point to measure from, I took a screen shot showing the daily visitors for this month so far. I also went through the individual URLs to determine the most popular posts by actual views and how many times they were used as the entry page. I’m not going to list the actual URLs here so as not to skew my results, but the top three we’ll be starting with have stats as follows:

• URL #1 – Page views = 80, Used as entry = 31
• URL #2 – Page views = 66, Used as entry = 22
• URL #3 – Page views = 54, Used as entry = 24

The goal by time we reach the 100 visitor a day mark is to have all of the individual posts bookmarked. I’m not using automation for this, nor am I outsourcing at this point because there’s no room in the budget for it. I also want to get a feel for how each site works and that’s not something you can really do using mass-posting software. (Not that I’m against the software, because I can assure you when the budget allows it’s on the list to buy!)

I’m also not going to overly concern myself with finding the absolute perfect keywords. I have, in the past, driven myself to distraction and inaction by over-analyzing keywords so this time I’m just not gonna worry about them and get things done. I do have a list of about 10-12 relevant keywords that I’ll be using just to keep the tagging consistent and that’s as far as I’m going with keywords for now since I’m not focusing on SEO at this point.

That’s it for me today. I’m off to get started on my social bookmarking tasks for the day. I’m actually really excited about doing this. It’s something I’ve always managed to find ways to procrastinate over, so I’m counting on the fact that I’m forcing myself to get it done publicly to keep the ball rolling. If you want to make sure you get the latest posts and results, be sure to either subscribe to the email version of The Ritchie Report, or subscribe to the RSS feed.

Have a great day!

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It’s only a failure if you don’t learn from it, to paraphrase Malcolm S. Forbes. And that’s a good way to sum up how I feel about my birthday PLR giveaway now that it’s over. It was a success on some levels because I learned a lot, but it wasn’t as successful in terms of hard results as I’d hoped it would be.

In the end the lack of hard success boils down to one major issue: lack of promotion. Even though I emailed, tweeted, and blogged about the giveaway I didn’t do all the other stuff that my coach suggested I do to get eyeballs on the pages. I didn’t social bookmark the daily posts; I didn’t mention it on facebook after about the first day or two; I didn’t do any article marketing (which is kinda touchy when PLR is the subject matter anyways); and I didn’t do video after the first one. Yes, I know better. Yes, I know that in reality the ratio of promotion to content creation should be 80/20. And yes I know I should listen to my coach because he’s a success and I’m not… yet.

But I’m going to rectify that. The blog is staying up (with the freebie links removed, but more on that in a minute). My next challenge is to take the promotion aspect of things more seriously than I have been. So I’m going to be doing the social bookmarking, creating some squidoo lenses, and definitely some video marketing. My new goal for the PLR blog is to get the daily visitor count up to 100 a day.

My second big mistake was that I didn’t ask for help. It wasn’t that I thought I could do it all alone… I knew that it was a lot to take on. It was more a case that I’m not very good at asking for help even when I know it’s necessary. It’s also that I’ve been away from IM for a long time and so having no list or other asset to leverage, didn’t feel like I had anything to offer in return. This giveaway was my way of re-introducing myself to the community and making a fresh start.

Lesson learned. As soon as I’m in a position to start building a team of helpers and partners, that’s what I’ll be doing.

There were a lot of positive aspects to the experience too, and these are what made it a success for me.

• I discovered that I can stick to a topic and a blogging schedule when I really put my mind to it.
• I discovered that I really love sharing information and resources that have the potential to make a difference in someone else’s life. I always suspected this but was too afraid of being a failure at it to really try.
• I learned that I still have some work to do to overcome my fear of failure.

I also learned that I’ve come a long way from the last time I tried to build a list and run a newsletter. I don’t take things nearly as personally as I used to. I used to cry and hurt for days whenever someone unsubscribed or sent me less-than-flattering email. I know now that I saw each unsubscribe notice as a personal rejection and a validation of my former abuser’s claims that I was worthless and that no one liked me or cared about anything I had to say anyways.

If you don’t know my story (an you probably don’t because it’s not something I’ve really talked about much) I am a survivor of domestic abuse, both physical and mental. By the time I got out of my last marriage, my career was in tatters, I had absolutely no friends left, and I thought that I was lower than pond scum. It’s taken me ten years to claw my way back to feeling even a smidgen of the self-confidence I used to have. So for me to look at the unsubscribe column and not feel like the world is ending is a major accomplishment. And for that reason alone this last month has been a huge success for me on an emotional and psychological level.

Would I do it again? You betcha! In a heartbeat. I had a blast finding things to write about and choosing the products to give away every day. I’m actually thinking of making this an annual thing.

As for what happens next, I’m planning on moving all the download links into a password protected area this week. You will get the password as soon as I get it set up, and it will change every month. I plan to keep adding to the gifts collection whenever I can. I’m also planning on setting up an affiliate program and you’ll be the first to know about that as well. I have the software, I just have to find the time to install and test it.

I want to thank you for being a part of this for the past month and hope that you enjoy all the experiments yet to come.

Thanks for being here!

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I’ve always been leery of playing in the list building giveaways for a few reasons. First, because I’ve heard horror stories about the hoops some organizers make you jump through. And then there’s my own introverted personality that has usually sees me preferring to say in the background. Finally, there’s the notion that people who take advantage of all the freebies on offer will never become long-term subscribers or paying customers. When you add it all up, participating in a list building giveaway almost seems futile.

But it’s not, as I found out firsthand this week.

I really surprised myself when I decided to join the PLR-Giveaway this week. I surprised myself even more when I actually took the better part of a day to set up a gift, submit it, and get it approved. And I have to say I’m really glad I did.

There were no hoops to jump through. Sure the display of gifts on the download page goes by points, and I’m near the bottom but that’s okay. I don’t have an active list (that’s another story I might tell ya someday) so I don’t have a lot of people to promote to. I’m forced to rely on blog postings, and a few mentions on facebook and twitter to help me raise my ranking.

The really cool thing is that I’m getting signups. Even being mired down at the bottom of the page, I’m averaging about 10 new subscribers a day. And I’m ecstatic with the results. I’ve also picked up a few gifts myself of PLR products that I haven’t seen offered anywhere else.

If you get a chance, stop by the PLR Giveaway and check out all the great PLR products available for the cost of an email address.

What are your experiences with giveaways? … Leave a comment and share your story!

Have a great day!

Thanks for being here!

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