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Read this if you want to succeed in 2011…

©2011 Kim Roach - Guest post from Kim Roach – Internet Marketer and Web Traffic Expert

I received this article from Kim in an email and wanted to share it with you.  These are awesome tips to help you succeed in 2011 and beyond. I hope you enjoy it.

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Like many of you I’ve been planning out 2011.

I have some BIG HAIRY audacious goals for 2011. But at the same time we’re staying more strategic and focused than ever.Oftentimes we get so caught up in the little details of our business that we forget to look at the big picture.

Let’s face it, it’s fun to learn new traffic tactics or jump on the latest new secret of the week.

But…

That’s NOT going to bring you success in 2011. In fact, your success in 2011 will be determined much more so by what you IGNORE.

And in the words of Gary Vaynerchuk, “It’s time to hustle.”

But I’m not talking about ‘work’ just for the sake of working. You know as well as I do that we can sit in front of our computers 12 hours a day… posting on Facebook, checking up on Twitter, answering emails… and not do a single thing to grow your business.

That ain’t work!!

So let’s not pretend that checking our stats, browsing the Warrior Forum, and doing ‘research’ is any sort of ‘work’.

My goal in 2011 is to take our business from six-figures to seven-figures. So you can bet that I will NOT be spending much time at all
on Facebook, Twitter, or any other time-zapping gremlins.

Instead I’m focusing in more and more on the critical few tasks that are going to create massive growth in 2011.

And I’m not talking the 80/20 rule here.  I’m talking the 95/5 rule.

We’re focusing in on the 5% of tasks that create 95% of the results. And we know exactly what works and what doesn’t because we tracked
EVERYTHING down to the click in 2010.

As you guys know, I’m kind of anal about tracking.  Because if you don’t measure it – you can’t improve it.

In order to create a strategic plan for 2011, you MUST know where you’re starting from and have a CLEAR vision on where you want to go. Without having a clear vision of what you want to achieve, it’s impossible to decide on the core directional choices you’ll need to make to get there.

So it’s time to get our hands dirty now!

I want you to get out a piece of paper right now so that you can start creating your strategic plan for 2011…

Yes, right now while you’re reading this email.

Go and grab a piece of paper and pencil because this could very well be THE most important thing you do all year.

Ok, now that we’ve got our trusty writing utensils I want to help you create a vision for 2011!

In order to create and achieve your goals for 2011, you’ll need to answer 4 questions:

1. Clarify where you are now.
2. Create an exciting vision for the future.
3. Determine the action steps needed to get you there.
4. Choose a time-frame for each intermediary goal.

The first step is to clarify where you are now. I know this can be kind of scary. I use to be afraid to even check my stats because I was afraid of what I might see

But remember, you can’t improve what you don’t measure. So write down where you are now. Are you making a $1,000 per month, $2,000 per month, 5,000 per month, $10,000 per month.

Doesn’t matter. Just write it down.

2. Create an exciting vision for the future.

Here’s where we create our Big, Hairy, Audacious goal! Little puny goals just won’t cut it. I want goals that cause me to jump out of bed in the morning.  This year my goal is to take our business from six-figures to seven figures.  In order to do that I’m focusing on a select few strategies that will allow us to scale to seven figures.

• Creating a world-class affiliate program.
• Launching 6-10 new pillar offers into the market.
• Providing our subscribers and customers with unique and exciting experiences. (a.k.a Turning our customers and subscribers into raving fans)

3. Determine the action steps needed to get you there.

Once you’ve created a clear vision of what you want to achieve in 2011, it’s now time to create a game plan for getting there.

Whip out the whiteboard coach!

It’s going to be tempting here to list 50 different techniques and strategies for achieving your goal. Heck, I could whip out 50 different traffic tactics write here and now.

But… That would be crazy!

You need to create clarity. You only need 3 good strategies for creating your best year ever!  Remember what we talked about earlier – you’re success in 2011 is dependent on what you IGNORE.

I promise this ain’t crazy talk

It’s come from over 5+ years of painful trial and error.  My biggest growth has ALWAYS come from zoning in on the critical few tasks that create the biggest growth in our business.

In 2009, that was list building.

I finally started focusing all of my marketing efforts on building a list of subscribers and my business grew like never before.

In 2010 it was launching my own products.

And in 2011 it’s creating a world-class affiliate program to scale our business to even higher levels of growth.

I want you to come up with 3 ideas that will grow your business by 100X this year. This will weed out all those small, puny tactics like blog
commenting, tweeting, and article marketing.

I want you to think BIG!!

What 3 traffic strategies will catapult your business by 100X in 2011?

I’m talking about things like webinars, interviews, recruiting affiliates, integration marketing, strategic alliances, etc… And if any of those sound scary, they should!

Remember, your biggest growth lies OUTSIDE of your comfort zone. So be sure to get your big boy panties on!

4. Choose a time-frame for each intermediary goal.

Now we’ve come to the fourth and final step to creating your strategic plan for 2011. And this is the most important of them all! Because without deadlines – these are all just nice ideas that you wrote on paper one day.

So now it’s time to break each of your goals into specific tactics, action steps, and time-frames.

Here’s a quick example…

Objective: Create a World-Class Affiliate Program.

Now, this sounds nice and pretty but it doesn’t really give us a clear vision of what we want to achieve. So we need to turn this into a clear objective that can be accurately measured.

So here goes…

Create a World-Class Affiliate Program that funnels an average of 500 subscribers per day into our sales funnel.

That’s better! (MUCH more measurable

Now we need to ask ourselves – “What would need to be true in order to create a World-Class Affiliate program that funnels an average
of 500 subscribers per day into our sales funnel?”

Here are a few ideas that come to mind:

• Affiliates that feel like Rock Stars! (Recognition) Active 20-30% participation of our total affiliates. (Only a certainpercentage of your affiliates will ever promote. But there are a quite a few things you can do on your side to activate a higherpercentage of your affiliates.)
• Affiliates tell their friends. (Via a highly rewarding 2-Tier program)
• Affiliates who integrate our offer into their marketing funnel (ontheir thank-you page, download page, exit offer, etc…)

And those are just a few that come to mind! But I hope you see how we’ve clarified the objective and created a clear vision for the future.

Next we need to define the action steps needed to achieve our objective.  Here are a few examples…

1. Spend 2 hours per day recruiting new affiliates.

2. Send a broadcast email your affiliates at least once per week.
(encouraging them, training them, announcing new contests, etc…)

3. Send personalized cards to each affiliate that makes at least 5 sales.

4. Create plug-and-play tools that allow your affiliates to easily
promote your program via email, Facebook, Twitter, blog reviews,
forum signatures, etc…

Do you see how these action-steps correlate directly with achieving our previously defined objective?

Now, moving onto our final step…

Define a time-frame for each objective.

This includes monthly targets as well as daily actions needed to hit your goals.

So for me, daily actions might include:

1. Spend 2 hours per day recruiting new affiliates.

2. Spend 2 hours writing broadcast emails each day. (As you guys know,
your list of subscribers is THE most important asset in your business
so you need to be spending some quality time each day creating
value-driven content for them.)

3. Spend 2 hours per day creating pillar content. (This can be focused
on product creation, blog posts, or both.)

Do you see how each of these are measurable and specific?

Yours should be the same. Once you’ve defined your objective you’ll need to break it down into daily and weekly action steps that will allow you to reach that objective. And then set monthly goals to make sure you’re on course to reach your quarterly and yearly goals.

Remember, “Being strategic means consistently making those core directional choices that will best move you toward your hoped-for
future.”

Here’s to a big, hairy, audacious 2011!

Cheers,
Kim

I hope you enjoyed these business building tips.  I’d love to hear more about your plans for 2011, please leave a comment