I’ve decided to post monthly update reports. I was hesitant because I prefer to post extremely in depth articles, and update posts will be shorter/less informative. Also, because I blog so seldom, I don’t want every other post to be an update post. However, I think a good % of my audience is interested in them, so I’ll keep them going as long as I feel there’s enough interest.
For new readers, you can check out why I started my blog here: Welcome to Forever Jobless
Blogging update:
Here’s a traffic screenshot from January:
Subscriber Count:
January 1st: 1,730
January 31st: 1,803
January subscriber growth: + 73 subscribers
There wasn’t much traffic or subscriber growth, mainly because I restarted the blog on January 17th, and only made one post for the month:
UPDATE: Forever Jobless is Back!
Why such a difference from month 1 when I launched the blog?
I didn’t really do much of anything besides that one post. The first month I made multiple posts:
Welcome to Forever Jobless
How to Buy a Ferrari for $20k
How to Get Lucky in E-Commerce
I also did a number of interviews and guest posts on other sites which helped grow ForeverJobless a good amount.
By just making one update post and nothing else, there isn’t going to be much growth since there aren’t many new people finding out about the site. A lot of full-time bloggers are spending all of their non-writing time promoting their blog. Since I’m not a full-time blogger and am working on other projects when I’m not writing, I depend on the quality of my content to generate most of my traffic and subscribers.
As I mentioned in one of my last posts, there are a lot of flawed theories about how to grow a blog and the incorrect assumption that the blogging market is saturated. I get a number of comments and emails on this, so I’ll be writing a post on it soon. Most people —including a lot of “A-list” bloggers—are doing a lot of things that don’t make sense.
Networking on Steroids
One of the things I wanted to do better at this year was meet more entrepreneurs that are doing interesting things. I’m attending a number of conferences this year, and going to quite a few events. One thing I’ve tossed around the idea of doing is having a relatively small, private, invite only conference that doesn’t cost anything to attend(or would just cost a few bucks to cover costs). There are a ton of awesome entrepreneurs out there, and I think having a small, unique event where a lot of us get in the same room and exchange ideas would be extremely beneficial for everyone. Kind of a cross between a mastermind and a conference, but with a select group where each individual person would help bring value to everyone else in the room. Most conferences are a handful of people offering the value, and everyone else paying to attend. I envision something where the payment to attend is the value you bring.
There are some good conferences(a friend of mine is starting one that I think will be very good), but a lot of conferences feature presentations from ‘big’ names that don’t really say anything new. So, the value you get should be from the networking, but because the majority of the audience is made up of people who came to hear the big names speak, the quality of the audience is extremely watered down. It becomes a job to find high value attendees to network with.
Getting Organized
I finally hired an assistant this month. Her name’s Stella. I’ve been talking about doing this forever, and I think she’s going to help make me much more productive. I’ve always been the worst at following up on things, or remembering to get back to people because I have so much going on. So, if you send me an email and get a response back from Stella, it’s because she’s trying to minimize the number of emails I read through to increase my productivity.
On that note, if you’ve got a question for me, it’s best to leave a comment rather than emailing. I read every approved comment, and I do my best to respond to just about every one. It’s also helpful to others because many people may have a similar question.
Guest Posting
One subject I’ve received a lot of emails about recently is guest posting on ForeverJobless.
One of the reasons I got into blogging was because people weren’t talking about subjects I thought were important. Almost everyone in the blogging world seems to just be regurgitating the same things. There are a lot of words being typed, but not a lot being said.
A 500 word article on how to start a blog is clearly not something I’d be interested in posting, but I’ve gotten several requests like that. Most people are guest posting in an effort to grow their list/make more money, instead of offering value. It’s fine to want to grow an audience or make money, but providing value should be priority #1. That’s the flaw of most bloggers. Same with entrepreneurs. Many think of themselves first, then the customer. That’s not good, and will keep most people from becoming successful at whatever they’re doing.
In short, I won’t publish a guest post on here unless it’s ridiculously valuable, and is a fit for ForeverJobless. Other than the update posts, I mainly write 2-3k word articles on subjects I think are important and haven’t been covered well before. I want to talk about things that haven’t been talked about, or to talk about them from a new angle. Some posts have taken me over 20 hours to complete. So, if someone has something extremely in depth on a subject that’s very important for entrepreneurs to read, I’ll probably be interested in posting that. I really haven’t seen much of that out there, which is one of the reasons I started ForeverJobless in the first place.
Quality over quantity is what I prefer. There are obvious benefits to posting multiple times per week and letting lots of people guest post on your blog. On the other hand, the content tends to gets watered down and becomes like most other blogs.
Could I grow faster that way? Yes. Am I going to start doing that? No. My goals are different than most bloggers.
I plan to continue posting a few times per month max, but I want to write material that people read and gain enlightenment from.
I want to be THE blog you subscribe to if your goal is making money. I don’t want to be just another blog that posts the same stuff as everyone else.
ForeverJobless Podcast?
I’ve thought about possibly adding a podcast to the blog. If I did, I’d probably do it similar to the way I do the blog. Very few shows, but very in depth. I’d want it to be different from what’s already out there. If there’s something you’d love to listen to, but it isn’t currently being offered, let me know. I’d love to hear your ideas.
Shark Tank
(note: This next part actually happened in February, but I thought it would be interesting to share in this post since it just happened)
I attended a really cool event on Friday. It was a private viewing party of Shark Tank thrown by one of my friends Yuen who was on the show. He ended up getting a $1 million investment from Kevin(aka Mr. Wonderful) for 20% of How Do You Roll. It’s a pretty unique concept—custom sushi(think Chipotle for the sushi market).
I think it’s important for entrepreneurs to look at businesses like that, that are doing something other people aren’t doing(filling a need in the market), and are extremely scalable. That’s why Kevin invested at a $5 million valuation. Because there’s no reason they can’t be worth $100 million in the future. Filling a need in the market + being endlessly scalable = the potential for a lot of profit.
Most entrepreneurs start businesses that don’t have both of those traits. Some don’t even have one.
There’s nothing wrong with starting a business that doesn’t scale if you’re happy with it. A lot of successful entrepreneurs do.
However, even if you aren’t interested in a large scale project like that, I think it’s extremely important to learn from entrepreneurs who are doing things differently.
Yuen is clearly doing something different here. He took something that didn’t exist, and is attempting to scale it all over the country, and potentially the world. If you’re not used to thinking on that scale, there may be amazing opportunities you’re passing up because you don’t see the potential vision for them. I’m sure I’ve missed things in the past because I just didn’t see the scalability of an opportunity.
How can you improve at this? Learn from others who are doing it successfully.
Are You Networking Correctly?
Most bloggers/internet entrepreneurs are saying the same things and then agreeing with each other.
I notice people who network a lot often trick themselves into thinking they’re improving with all of the networking they do. However, everyone in their network thinks the same way, so no one in their group is bringing a new perspective. It’s almost more dangerous than not networking, because at least then you know you’re not learning. If you have a large network, you might feel like you’re improving. In reality, if these people have your same exact mindset, all you’re doing is digging yourself further into the hole of what you already know.
Final Thoughts
In closing, please let me know your thoughts on the monthly update posts. Do you find it interesting/helpful seeing traffic and subscriber stats? Is that something you want to see on a monthly basis? Is there anything specifically you want to see in the update posts?
Would you be interested in a ForeverJobless podcast?
Please leave a comment and let me know your thoughts on these things.
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