the PPC Book|Pay Per Click Blog | Long Tail Thoughts in a Short Tail World

No matter who you work for or what you do for a living, it’s essential that you place a lot of emphasis on setting and achieving goals for the year. After all,

The future you see is the future you get.
Robert G Allen - Goals

Now is the time to SEE your 2008. People pay a lot of lip service to setting goals. The reality is, you have to put as much effort into setting the goals as you do anything else. Without a clear visualization of where you want to be, your ’self’ won’t know where to go, and you’ll end up wandering aimlessly through life.

In 2007 we all heard a lot about “The Secret“, and the underlying fundamental behind it - the law of attraction. It sounds cliche and new agey and flaky, but it is true. Thoughts are things and they do affect your life profoundly. Basically, you get what you believe you deserve.

If you have a preconceived notion of cynicism surrounding this type of thinking, that’s ok. I can be as cynical as anyone out there, but this is one thing I absolutely do not mess around with. I NEVER think negatively about what I want to accomplish and I NEVER ever tell myself, verbally or subconsciously, that I can’t do something. I save my cynicism for the Chicago Cubs and various Chicago sporting franchises that crush my dreams year after year.

At the end of 2006 my wife and I set a series of goals for the upcoming year. We carefully considered everything we felt we wanted to accomplish, and then put it down in our preferred format, which is a mandala. Basically, a circle divided into 4 quarters, representing the year, and visual representations of your goals and things you would like to see laid out across the circle. (this is our preferred method, there are a million different ways to do this)

Here’s what we did in 2007:

Quit my job
Went into business for myself
Repaired and staged our house to sell
Sold it in 2 months (for basically our asking price, in one of the worst markets ever)
Found a house in one weekend, and had our agreement finished before we got on the plane back home
Bought a house in a new city (in our dream neighborhood)
Moved to the new city
Furnished the new house
Found a great daycare
Wife found a good job that fit with her schedule
Successfully launched my business
Best financial year since 2001
On track to do much more in 2008

Going into business for yourself is something I think everyone should do at least once. It will give you an entirely new perspective on the working world. It’s at once exhilarating, exhausting, rewarding, punishing, and above all, it’s what you make it. I prefer it this way because I am solely responsible for what happens.

It’s not all a bed of roses, mind you. I often get that look of envy from people who are working in corporations. “Oh you work for yourself…hmmm”. Believe me, the grass is not always greener. I can’t sit around and watch ESPN. I have mouths to feed. I work my ass off, all the time. There are no guarantees. In fact, I tried being self employed once before and failed, in 2005. I failed quickly, however, and set a stop gap that would prevent anything from seriously harming our finances. It actually worked out for the better, and my next job was the one that set me up for the situation I have now.

Was it a perfect year? Absolutely not. There were quite a few things I didn’t accomplish, mostly related to the business. It’s actually a miracle I got anything done considering what we had on our plate. That’s another advantage to writing down goals. At the end of the year you can see what you didn’t get done. Now I’ve spent the end of 2007 and early 2008 analyzing what went wrong in those areas and applying that knowledge to my 2008 planning.

Some of the things I’ll be focusing on this year:

Simplifying(clearly defining a handful of business goals and sticking to it)
Organization (my wife is helping with this, she’s great at it)
Delegation (becoming more efficient at delegating low value tasks)
Focus (straight and narrow)

Basically, I’m going to pare down my scope, stick to what I do best, and delegate everything else. The projects I’ve identified right now are the only ones I’m working on the rest of the year. (I’m an idea person so I get in trouble when I spread myself too thin.) I’ll build on the success I have, and learn from what went wrong in 2007. I will focus everyday on a single minded purpose. I’m happy with where I arrived in 2007, but I have a whole new set of goals for this year.

Arriving at one point is the starting point to another. -John Dewey

Best wishes to everyone for a wildly successful 2008 (if that’s what you want

I don’t generally spend a lot of money with Ask.com, although I know of several folks who do quite well with it. Either way, if you are an advertiser with them and missed this email, it’s something you may want to be aware of:

Re: Legal Notice of Class Action Settlement Affecting Your Rights

Legal Notice:

If you purchased online advertising from IAC Search & Media, Inc. and/or Ask Jeeves, Inc. (collectively “Ask”) between August 1, 2005 and the present, you may be a class member in a class-action lawsuit, Lane’s Gifts and Collectibles et al. v. Ask Jeeves, Inc. et al., Case No. CV-2005-52-1, in the Circuit Court of Miller County, Arkansas. This notice advises you of your legal rights.

You should review the detailed Settlement Notice as soon as possible, as there are several important deadlines that you must meet to take certain actions in connection with a proposed settlement of the class action lawsuit. Your legal rights are affected whether you act or do not act. The deadline for filing an objection or excluding yourself from the proposed settlement is February 2, 2008, and the last day to file a claim under the proposed settlement is February 2, 2008. For further information, please refer to the Settlement Notice.

The Settlement Notice informs you of the Court’s certification of a class for settlement purposes; the nature of the claims alleged; your right to participate in, or exclude yourself from, the class; a proposed settlement; and how you can claim an award of advertising credits under the settlement or object to the settlement.
• The proposed settlement will provide advertising credits to class members who certify that they were the victims of “click fraud” or other invalid or improper clicks on online advertisements purchased from IAC Search & Media, Inc. and/or Ask Jeeves, Inc. on or after August 1, 2005.
• The proposed settlement will resolve claims that IAC Search & Media, Inc. and/or Ask Jeeves, Inc. breached its contracts with advertisers and violated other laws by failing to adequately detect and stop “click fraud” or other invalid or improper clicks on online advertisements.
• If you are a member of the class, your legal rights are affected by whether you act or do not act.

For a copy of the Settlement Notice, click on the link, or visit the case website at www.AskSettlement.com.

To file a claim for your award of advertising credits under the settlement, click on the following link: AskSettlement.com/claim. Each advertiser will be allowed one claim per account.