My million dollar to-do and got-done lists

In a post a couple of weeks ago I wrote my first public to-do list, together with an update regarding what I got done.

It’s now 2 weeks later, and it’s important to see if I made any progress, if I’m moving in the right direction, and what I should focus on next week.

Writing these things down and sharing them in public generate (at least for me) a lot of extra motivation. No need to believe in miracles, let’s just get things done and turn Business Bloomer into a 1 million dollar asset.

It’s too early to talk about revenue after a few days of business development (I started this in early September), but for sure I can say I’m delighted I’ve already sold $700 worth of sponsorships for WooWeekly, without any sort of marketing or direct emailing (this makes me wonder why I didn’t think of sponsorships in the previous 356 WooWeekly issues).

Anyhow, let’s recap my to-do business development list, and then see what I got done so far. At the end, I will define what I’m working on next week based on the diff.

Ah, almost forgot:

Table of Contents

    Business development to-do list

    The main objective of my biz dev sprint for the next few months is making businessbloomer.com more “acquirable”, and specifically increase its value to $1,000,000.

    The main issue right now is that approximately 45% of Business Bloomer income depends on myself as a WooCommerce freelancer.

    But despite I don’t want to stop coding and working with clients, I’m looking into improving the “productized” share of my business: online courses, Bloomer Armada memberships, affiliate income (me, suggesting to purchase a plugin), income from affiliates (Business Bloomer affiliates, suggesting to buy my products), newsletter sponsorships (new!), referral income (have been doing this in the background for 1.5 years) and brand new products.

    If I am to grow product sales, I also need to keep generating traffic, closing on new partnerships, improving my personal brand, applying to speak and looking for help. Easy… Click To Tweet

    Here’s my updated to-do list:

    1. Analytics
      • collect day “zero” data before business development started
      • keep tracking and self-reporting each month
    2. Workforce
      • find a WooWeekly newsletter co-author
      • hire copywriters for blog
    3. Traffic generation
    4. Product development

    Got-done list

    So, let’s take a look at these first 2 weeks of business development work and see what I did.

    A to-do list is worth $0 if you get nothing done. Click To Tweet

    Of course, it’s early enough to assess if I’m in the right direction, so I’ll keep my feet on the ground for another 2-3 months and just get down to work.

    So, here’s what I’ve done so far based on the above to-do list.

    Analytics

    • keep tracking analytics and self-reporting each month: DOING IT (at the beginning of October, so I can compare with enough data)

    Workforce

    • find a WooWeekly newsletter co-author: DONE (David Mainayar of PeachPay agreed to co-write WooWeekly for September)

    Traffic generation

    • Give some help in Facebook WooCommerce groups: DONE & DOING IT (?) (answered a few questions here and there, although I much prefer Stackoverflow now, where I can share code)
    • 1 YouTube WooCommerce video tutorial / week: NOT DONE (I have no recording gear with me here at the beach house, will get started in a week or so once we move back to the city. Scheduling recording sessions in my calendar now every Friday)
    • Speaking: DONE (applied to 2 events, but should do much more)
    • Podcast: TBD
    • Guest blogging: NOT DONE

    Product development

    • Publish new online courses: NOT DONE, but I’m writing down an outline which is already a start:

    Focus, focus, focus

    Keep focusing, Rodolfo! This ain’t a road, it’s a very long highway (like how I motivate myself?).

    I definitely need to start working on the product part now. “Traffic” and “Workforce” are almost up and running so it’s time I invest my (little) time into revenue making.

    By the way, I’m still working with WooCommerce clients…

    So, first and foremost, WooWeekly sponsorships (https://wcwkly.com/sponsors). That’s the easiest product I can sell right now. I’ve enabled sales for October/November/December 2021 and 3 slots have already been purchased. Getting in touch with David right now, plus making a list of 10 WooCommerce contacts that I believe would love to get in front of 14,000 subscribers and on https://wcwkly.com/ (so, actual dofollow links). 10 emails + David’s one sent!

    Second, WooCommerce online courses. Black Friday is coming (was it winter is coming?). Will I have the time to create a new course while I buy a new house, I renovate it, I move and look after my kid? Not sure. But writing down a course outline is a good start. Scheduling it for this week. Course will be something along the lines of “PHP for WooCommerce“. I will make sure to share the outline on Twitter and here while I build the course in public.

    Third, Business Bloomer affiliate program (https://www.businessbloomer.com/affiliate-area). This is something I totally overlooked in the last few years. I’ve been paying AffiliateWP subscription for years but really did nothing with it, apart from earning from their own affiliate program. I’ve now got to open my program to the public (as long as the potential affiliate/blogger is relevant to my business of course) and do more with it. I need to redesign that page, better communicate value and potential, and give affiliates more material they can use. I need to enable affiliations on all my products, not only courses: Armada, newsletter sponsorships, my new product, etc. I should also offer to write on their blog as a guest. More to come.

    Fourth, I need to keep working on my new product/s. Hopefully now that I have less client work than a couple of weeks ago I can spend a few hours on it and release the first one. I will schedule this for Tuesday, let’s see how it goes.

    Finally, I need to complete my email marketing switch. The new WooWeekly sign up form and website are up and running (https://wcwkly.com) but now I need to improve the website (add the “supporters” area, improve its design, etc.), set up email automations and self-segmenting, import old newsletters (https://wcwkly.com/newsletter-archive) and other vital stuff. I’ll try to get this done now… nope! Got to go to my kid 😀

    Wrapping up for today

    I’m tired, but I feel I’m on the right track. It’s Friday evening, my kid is waiting for me, so I’ll check my emails and go.

    But I’m somewhat happy that my road to a 1 million dollar evaluation has just started.

    What's in your to-do list? Leave a comment below and let's keep each other accountable. Click To Tweet

    R

    Published
    Categorized as Business

    By Rodolfo Melogli

    Author, WooCommerce expert and WordCamp speaker, Rodolfo has worked as an independent WooCommerce freelancer since 2011. His goal is to help entrepreneurs and developers overcome their WooCommerce nightmares. Rodolfo loves travelling, chasing tennis & soccer balls and, of course, wood fired oven pizza.

    2 comments

    1. It looks like I’m the first one to comment, so I add my to-do list, which is super short. Step 1: find a partner to grow the business. I took care of that for 8 years, but now, as a “pure Engineer” (capital A for personal pride), I would rather leave that aspect to someone who is specialised in that field.

      The rest of the list will come after establishing this important partnership, because the following tasks will depend on it.

      Reply

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