Sublime Products

Do you ever have days when things seem to keep going wrong?

I’ve just had a few weeks of things going wrong.

I launched a rather nice membership product/service recently – that’s going well – and after some of the feedback I got I decided to update the WordPress plugin that runs the service. Adding the couple of extra features that people wanted seemed a good idea.

Well, it would have been if it hadn’t taken over 3 weeks instead of a few days, as I originally anticipated. I made the mistake of promising timescales that just didn’t happen – bad idea. I don’t code WordPress plugins myself so the best I can do is take the word of developers giving me timescales. Unfortunately, they sometimes give you optimistic timescales.

Lesson #1: Until it’s in my hands and working, a new piece of software is not finished and ‘due dates’ are not set in stone. Be honest about that and expect hiccups. Developers are only human and they can’t always know how long something will take.

Lesson #1a: You can’t promise something that isn’t 100% within your own control. I can’t really promise something that somebody else is doing. I can give an estimated date, but unless I’m the one doing the work, I have to build in some hiccup time.

What made it worse is that one developer disappeared on me so I had to find a replacement fast. The replacement made all the right noises and understood my deadline and promised the work was easy enough to complete on time. Then he told me he couldn’t do it at all, the day after it was due….

Lesson #2: Sometimes, people will say anything to get the job – a promise is not the same as the delivery of that promise.  Measure by delivery, not the intensity of the promise.

So what to do? Once bitten, twice shy, right? Twice bitten, well that’s really shy! How about employing 2 different developers at the same time to make sure one of them comes through? Sounds like a good safety net to me.

Except if they both deliver the code you have to spend time testing both sets – it takes twice as long. Multiple coders may be a good idea if you’re sending a space shuttle up into space, but for a simple WordPress plugin modification I think it’s overkill.

Lesson #3: Don’t overcomplicate something because it’s gone wrong in the past. Be realistic about why it went wrong instead.

I recently lost internet connection for a couple of days and decided to work at my brother’s house. I’ve now realized that when I bought a desktop machine recently, to replace my dead laptop, it wasn’t exactly something I could drag around with me. It didn’t seem like a big deal since I have a couple of older laptops I could use.

Or I did, until my laptops decided not to play. I’ve had 3 separate laptops die on me – the last one on the day I took it to my brother’s house to use his wifi. In fairness they are all old machines and they were backup to the backup, so they were overdue for retirement.

Lesson #4: My desktop machine is fast and cool, but it relies on my internet connection. If that goes down I can’t work unless I have a reliable machine I can actually take where the wifi is. So I need a new backup laptop now – I’m sure my wife thinks that’s just an excuse to get a cool new toy, but I don’t want to be without the means of doing what I need to do ever again – at least as far as I can avoid it.

Once I had the updated plugin (which now works great) I tested it and that took a fair chunk of time. That’s ok. I then realized that I could speed up the production of the content for my service if I used a slightly different technique. Cue another day of testing.

The new technique I use works and it works really, really well. I estimate it will now save me about a day every month which is pretty cool. Better yet I can use it on other things I have planned so I’ll get extra mileage out of it.

Lesson #5: Sometimes it’s worth a little bit of extra time now to save time repeatedly in the future. I think some people call that “sharpening the saw”.

What’s the end result of this?

• I have a working plugin which is designed in a more flexible way for any future updates.
• I have a method for preparing content that eliminates drudgery and minimizes chances of mistakes
• I know of a couple of developers not to rely on!
• I’m aware of a weakness in my setup that I can now take care of

I can’t pretend it’s been fun – the stress of trying to get what I felt was a simple change done in a timely way for the members is something I’d rather avoid. I don’t like the feeling of letting them down, making them wait for their update.

I have, however, spotted ways to guard against such things in the future. I’m sure other things will crop up, but at least I have some coping strategies for these ones.

So what’s the point of this post? It occurs to me that some of you must hit roadblocks when you’re trying to set up internet income streams. How many of you don’t manage to break through those roadblocks? How many of you could break through those roadblocks if you kept going?

That’s the point, I think. Keep going. If an obstacle comes up then keep going, until you’ve gone round it, or removed it, or ignored it – whatever you need to do to get to the next checkpoint.

Then do the same with the next obstacle. I sometimes think they’re just a way for life to check whether we’re really serious about doing something!

So, do you have any roadblocks you haven’t managed to conquer yet? Add your comment and let me know.

We’ve all seen those really awful, cheesy emails (sometimes from big-name marketers) about how we can earn $1,793.34 a day, or even $12,492.96 in a day as I saw recently.

1. Does anyone really ever believe it?
2. Do you really think you can earn that?
3. What do you need to earn to make a huge difference to your life?

It’s question 3 that I want to explore here. I’ve done some research and in the UK the average salary is apparently nearly £21,000, which is $31,491.55

That equates to £57.53 a day, or $86.28 a day.

Those are hardly staggering numbers, when it comes to internet marketing. At least, not if you believe the hype in all the emails you get. Yet those relatively small daily amounts have the power to transform someone’s life. That amount means an average worker could leave his job and not have to be a wage slave again. OR the average worker could double his income, pay off his mortgage sooner, treat his family to more/better holidays, get better health insurance cover – the list goes on and on.

Yet many people struggle to make anything like that amount online.  Could it be that in aiming for a $1,793.34 a day target, they are bound to miss the much closer, easier target of $86.28 a day?

I’d like your input on this question. You don’t have to give your personal details if you don’t want to.

What I’d like you to do is make a comment and answer the following 2 questions:

1. How much money would you like to make every day, if it were possible?
2. How much money do you actually need to make every day, to change your life for the better.

I just thought of a supplementary question.

1. How much work are you willing to do to get the amount of money you answered in question 2, above?

Let me tell you why I want to know. I’m convinced that most people need less than $100/£65 a day to make a real difference in their lives. And I’m absolutely sure most people can earn that much if they do the right things and keep doing them.

I’m not saying don’t dream big – you absolutely should. But while  you’re awake don’t be day-dreaming. Focus on reality and what you can achieve today, because you can always build on that tomorrow. A house is built one brick at a time, but you still have to start with the foundations.

What I’m planning to do is create a brand new course for people who really need to earn up to $100 a day and so far have not been able to achieve it. And because I love to make things simple I intend to make it just about foolproof. I won’t hype it – you’ll never make millionaire status following it, but you just might earn enough to make a difference in your life. Sometimes, that takes less money than you think.

Quick personal story: I remember a time my wife and I had both been laid off work at the same time (different firms) and we were poor! Unemployment benefit doesn’t give you much slack, certainly not back in those days. I got back into work first, but there was going to be a full month before any pay so we were struggling. It was hard even to afford to get to work. So we both took a weekend job cleaning a huge office complex – the pay was peanuts. But it was paid the Monday following the weekend work.

The £100/$149.89 we got that first Monday felt like a fortune. We could afford my travel to work and a simple meal out and food shopping for the rest of the month. Believe me, I know just how little it takes sometimes to make a big difference in your life.

So, please, make a comment and I’ll tally the answers to see what people really need - because we all know it’s not a million dollars, even if that would be very nice to have.