CIAO9to5

Hurray! I’ve finally joined the 6 digit Technorati ranking club. Not exactly sure what this does for me. I guess I can get found easier and stuff. Well, whatever it does, it is a better status that my blog has obtained. Better status is never bad, I assume.

Also, don’t forget that if you’re looking for people to add your blog to their Technorati favorites, I will add you quick.

That brings me to anther point:  I’m always looking for link exchanges.  Just click the link exchange button on the top and you can find my email.

Still missing out on some easily blog revenue from PayPerPost? It’s probably because you haven’t signed up yet. The other day I received my first revenue from PPP. It is only a mere $30.00, but it is still money. And, if I say so myself, it isn’t that bad for a few days of work. It might not be the $18,000 some people are making but I’m sure it will grow quickly in the future, as my blog continues to grow. So, what are you waiting for? The money tree is ripe for picking.

I thought about making a list of goals for 2008 and try to complete them, but the more I thought about it, the more that sounded like a bad idea. You see, I have a problem of trying to finish everything I need to have done during the last minute. Well, I’ve decided how to fix this. I’ve decided I’m going to set goals for each month during 2008. This way, I have more last minute deadlines to meet, making me work more(It sounds good in theory). At the beginning of each month when I list my goals, I will also talk about my past month’s goals. Did I achieve them, why didn’t I achieve them, et cetera…

Well, here are the goals I have, for my blog, for January of 2008:

1. Have 100 RSS subscribers
2. Have 100 authority on Technorati
3. Make $100.00 - this will be hard considering many ad networks won’t accept a site so young.
4. Improve my post quality

I’m not sure if these goals are modest or not. I suppose as time goes on, I’ll get a more general idea of what my blog is capable of. But, I didn’t want to set myself up for failure.

Since it is the beginning of the year, I’m going to make a couple of new years resolutions as well:

1. Make all A’s at school
2. Improve my French and Italian
3. Become fluent in C++, PHP and either Python or Java
4. Start up another online business
5. Manage my time better
6. Become more self-disciplined
7. Make a habit of waking up at 6:00 everyday

Well, wish me luck for January and the new year!

The thing that drives me the most while making this blog is the fact that I’m extremely competitive. I think this is a big reason why my blog is starting become successful. Many people are now starting to tell me that they enjoy my blog and it is very helpful for them. Well, this would of never came about if I was not as competitive as I am.

Everyday when I get to a point where I feel like taking a 15 minute break or so from my blog, I look at other start-up blogs and see if I have surpassed them yet. I check when blogs have received their first comments and compare them to mine. I check their RSS in relation to the time they’ve been online and compare. I check how many post they make daily. There is basically nothing that I don’t check.

I’m not entirely sure you can train yourself to become competitive, since I was born this way. But, I am sure everybody has a little bit of a competitive spirit in them. You need to use this to drive your blog to the top. You need to use it to make your blog better than everybody else’s. The competitive spirit is a key factor behind the motivation to keep your business going(I assume money is the other).

So, next time you find a start-up blog: check all it’s stats and see how well it is doing in relation to your blog. If you’re doing better than it is, you’ll be surprised at how motivational it is.

That being said.. you can take competition too far. Don’t go start hacking blogs and redirecting them to yours. Also don’t start ripping content for your blog. Keep it civilized.

There are a lot of factors that go in to making a person successful.  However, there is one, above all, that can push you to the top.  It’s not your brains or your looks.  It’s not your connections, where you’re from or who you are.  No, the thing that is going to push you to the top is perseverance.

Perseverance is described as continual determination.  It is having patients to achieve your goals and the discipline to do the hard work needed for the goals to be achieved.

My first job was working at a grocery store in my hometown, stocking shelves and carrying groceries out for people.  I hated my job.  But, I knew that if I ever wanted the bosses to realize that I was the most valuable worker that they had, I would have to do this job when nobody else would.  For the most part, all the other employees would hide in the back room when the cashiers would call for somebody to package and carry out the groceries.  But, I went every single time.  I can not tell you how much I hated it.  I would never take breaks in the back.  I never used all the time in my lunch hour.  I never came in late and I never left early.

This was during high school and I would rarely work less than 30 hours a week.

Now, a little background information about why I got the job and about the place I worked at:  I got the job to buy a computer that I had been wanting.  The place I worked had a policy that you’re only allowed to have a raise if you’re full-time.  So, all of us part-time people were stuck with $5.15 an hour.

Now, back to the story.  Eventually, I paid for my computer and decided to quit.  When I talked to the boss about quitting, he offered me a raise and the chance to pick my own hours.  He told me that I was the best employee he had ever had.  Even after I quit, they changed the no raise policy so that part-times could get raises.

Basically, what I’m trying to tell you is that perseverance is a key factor in success.  With it you can do anything.

The greatest oak was once a little nut who held its ground.  ~Author Unknown

In life there are leaders and followers.  Followers are your friends that are getting entry level jobs as Business Analyst at the bank down the street from your college and making barely enough money to support their self.  Leaders are the ones that start their own business and take advantage of the fact that everything depends on what they do.

This means, if you want to make more money, you only have to put in the work to do it.  Having your own business allows you to change what you want, when you want.  A promotion is always in sight.  Followers have to wait for their boss to allow a promotion.  But, we both know that this promotion is only going to allow the follower to pay off their credit card debt at a little faster pace.

Yes, it is hard to become a leader and start your own business.  But, don’t you think it’s worth it?  JohnChow is making around $20,000 a month with his blog.  He is making $20,000 a month, solely with his blog.

List of leaders:

1. J.D. Rockefeller 
2. Andrew Carnegie
3. Ray Kroc
4. Sam Walton
5. Bill Gates

List of followers:

1.  Your business analyst friend.
2.  The 99% of the world that doesn’t own 40% of the world’s wealth.

Tyler Cruz is a 23 year old guy from Vancouver, BC, Canada. I started watching this guy I guess about 2 or so years ago from SitePoint. The first post I read from him was called “I’m doing it, guys” and it was about his rising internet income. At the time he was making around 1300 Canadian Dollars/month.

Well, that was then, this is now: he is making about $256.00 USD(I’m sure he wishes this was in Canadian, considering the value of our dollar here sucks) a day from the combination of all his sites. He owns, I believe, 4 or 5 sites that pull in the majority of his income. I’m not exactly sure. The main money maker is a poker site, PokerForums.org. I’m not exactly sure how much the money divides out between each of his sites, I’ve just heard that the poker site is a main player.

Now down to the site that I’m sure much of you will be more interested in: his second big money maker. I could be wrong on the whole second thing.. but, we’ll ignore that and all just believe it’s the second because we want to. Second “is” his blog. Tyler’s blog makes new post everyday that are inspirational and informative. This can easily be seen by the amount of people subscribed to his RSS. I may have discounted this number earlier as not high. However, upon creating a blog, I’ve noticed that it is not easy to get RSS subscribers(click the link at the top, please :P).

I’ve found Tyler’s blog to be the most motivational blog that I’ve read. If you check it out, I’m sure you’ll agree.

I’m not entirely positive on how many hits a blog is supposed to get after it’s first day.  But, I think I did okay.  I got 62 unique and 108 hits.

So, I’m curious.. how did others do on their first day?

I’m not going to lie, I haven’t been spending my last 24 hours like this holiday was given to me for.

My blog has officially been online for 24 hours, as of now.  During these 24 hours, I slept for 9 and worked the rest.  That means I’ve spent around 15 hours on this blog during the last 24 hours and written 13(including this one) post.  That’s a lot of hours and even though it may not sound like a lot of post, it really seems to drain you.

Why?  Because I want to see how quickly I can make this blog successful.  I believe that all it takes is a lot of hard work.  Many people don’t realize this when they begin blogging and soon grow tired of the idea of continuing the routine everyday.

However, there is a remedy for this sickness:  persistence.  If you are persistent about your blog and continue to work on it, it will be successful.  This applies to anything in life.  You have to want it bad enough.

So, now the only question is:  are you going to be a success or a failure?

A fun wait to build motivation is to know where you’re going with your company. I like to think about what my next project for my blog is going to be. How I’m going to develop something or what kind of ways I’m going to try to get publicity.

A good way to keep up with this is to open a notepad file and type out all the stuff you need to do to make your company grow. For me, a major one is posting in my blog. Some stuff is more high priority than others, so sort them out and make them organized. If you have a great idea you want to attempt later down the road, put it in. But, don’t get too excited and start it too soon. Launching an idea too soon can be devastating. Timing is very important, especially in the beginning stages of your business.

After I do what needed to be done, I simply erase it off of my notepad. This always works for me because I never close a notepad that I have open without seeing what is in it, first. Once I notice it is my list of things to do, I keep it open. In addition to helping motivation, it helps organization. You get more done in a less amount of time because you don’t spend so much of your day thinking what needs to be done.

Another way to motivate yourself by thinking about where you’re going with your company is to think about the stuff you will buy when you get there, hehe.