Deleted Member 112605
Banned - Abuse of Staff
- May 9, 2010
- 4,219
- 3,757
Hey everyone,
My goal is to make $50,000 USD a month in 2021.
Currently, I'm at about $10,000 USD a month. I need $40,000 USD more.
Background:
In 2020, I set out a https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/igkings-epic-100k-in-2020-journey-instagram-not-allowed.1189458/. Shortly after I set up that goal, my Instagram ventures began growing exponentially, and all my free time was diverted back to Instagram. My journey thread ended up being uneventful, but I was making close to $25K a month with my Instagram ventures on autopilot, so my incentive to make $100k somewhere else wasn't necessarily appealing.
However, a few months into 2020, I essentially stopped working. I worked hard enough to put my business on autopilot. I became disillusioned with internet marketing. I became uninterested in my own business and "working" in general.
For those of you who don't know, I've been on this forum for a long time. I joined when I was 14 years old, and I have been doing some form of internet marketing for the past 10 years. My first 5 years were relatively unsuccessful when it came to making money. My last 5 years have been relatively successful. But once I started hitting 5 figures a month on autopilot, it felt like my work was done. In my mind, I "won" internet marketing, and the rest of my life was smooth sailing.
I moved to a different city. https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/share-your-office-space-pictures-for-motivation.1191551/post-13956087. I bought a Mercedes. https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/i-got-a-puppy-meet-jojo.1254624/. I traveled a ton (my best guess is about 28,000 miles in 2020 in the United States alone, during COVID). My focus was anywhere but internet marketing.
However, I felt this weird feeling inside. The more I ignored my business, the more I felt depressed. A part of me felt like I "gave up" on everything I worked so hard for once I started seeing some success.
I started thinking pretty irrationally too. I thought to myself: "You can make 5 figures a month on autopilot and work zero hours a week, but if you work 50 hours a week, you might only make a few extra grand a year. There's no reason to work. Those extra hours aren't going to be worth it."
Obviously, that above paragraph is the dumbest thing ever. My mind wanted to take the road of least resistance and attempted to validate every lazy thought that came to my mind.
So I then got into a slump. I was making money, but here's what was going on in my mind:
Thought 1: Depression. You gave up on something you worked hard on.
Thought 2: Inadequacy. You're not good enough to blow up your business even more.
Thought 3: Laziness. Why work or improve your business when you're already making money?
And this thought cycle repeated itself over and over again.
Realization:
I finally had enough of this thought cycle. My autopilot income fell to about 10k a month (still nothing to complain about) due to my inaction. I spent a lot of time talking with friends and colleagues about my scenario. I ended up reading 30+ books, and one sentiment from the "10X Rule" by Grant Cardone stuck with me: You're being unethical with your life if you aren't living up to your full potential when it comes to making money.
If I spent 0 hours a day working on my business, that horrible thought cycle would spiral out of control. When I actually started getting things done, I felt great about myself. I never thought about my laziness being unethical, I thought I "earned" this time off, but in reality it was driving me nuts. I'm a very competitive person. I want to live up to my fullest potential, and taking time off my business was not ethical.
Granted, I've had several other realizations in the past few months that have re-inspired my desire to grow my income, but I'll leave those out for the sake of brevity.
Look, I'm not saying I'm at rock bottom. I'm still making about $10k a month. I'm very grateful for my situation. I'd rather be at $10k a month trying to make it to $50k a month than be at $0 a month and try to make it at $5k a month. I feel like this journey to $50k will hopefully launch me into another realm of determination. It will aspire me to work as hard as I did when I was hungry 7 years ago, when I was a broke university freshman.
$50K a month is also crazy money for 99.99% of people. Me included. I think I could've made this goal "get back to $25k a month", but I don't think that would've challenged me that much. Another interesting takeaway from the 10X Rule book is to set crazy high goals (a lot of business books usually tell you to set easily attainable goals so you stay motivated). The purpose behind the "crazy high goals" is to aspire you to take an insane amount of action. The theory is: You're more likely to make $30K a month if you set a $50K goal instead of a $30k goal because your actions will be more extreme at the $50k goal than if your goal was at $30k a month.
So I said "Fuck it", let's do 50k a month and actually try to make $50k a month.
BUT HERE'S THE ISSUE...
It's time to learn:
For some magical reason, I managed to grow my Instagram business without knowing much about necessary Internet marketing skills. I felt limited in my ability to grow in 2020 because I didn't know much besides Instagram.
I didn't know much about:
- Analytics
- Google Ads
- SEO
- Facebook & IG Ads (I typically have had someone else handle IG ads, I usually handle organic/viral growth)
- Email Marketing
I had basic Wordpress skills, basic coding skills, basic marketing skills, and obvious Instagram skills, and that was enough to make $25k a month.
Now... I figure if I could consider myself an expert in analytics, ads, SEO, and email marketing, I should have no excuse on why I can't scale this up to $50k a month (and beyond).
So, I need to learn those things, because I've had shitty luck trying to have other people do those things for me. I spent a good percentage of 2020 trying to find someone to grow my business for me while it was runnning on autopilot because I always knew that this stuff was necessary.
I went to uDemy, and I signed up for 50 hours of courses in all of those topics so I can develop my understanding on how to properly grow my business. I figure if I have a steady enough base understanding in all those fields, I'll be able to further develop areas that are necessary and adapt them to my business.
So in January, I plan on being a novice in Google Analytics, Google Ads, SEO, Facebook & IG Ads, and email marketing.
Here's my current course load (obviously not affiliated with any of these classes):
50 Hours of Learning
Mailchimp Email Marketing mastery for E-commerce Stores - 4 hours
Google Analytics Advanced Training - Master Google Analytics - 3 hours
Advanced Google Analytics Course - 4 hours
Ultimate Google Analytics course - 4.5 Hours
Instagram Ads Masterclass - 4.5 hours
SEO 2021: Complete SEO Training + SEO for Wordpress Websites - 10 hours
Facebook Ads & Facebook Marketing MASTERY 2021 - 12 hours
2020 New Google Ads (AdWords) Course - From Beginner to PRO - 7.5 hours
And here's how I plan on breaking up this material over the next 3 weeks (I cleared out my schedule for this week, so I specifically overloaded this week).:
Week 1 (January 11-17): Analytics (11.5 Hours) and Mailchimp (4 hours) - 15.5 hours Google Ads (7.5 hours) - 23 Total Hours
Week 2 (January 18-24): SEO Training (10 Hours) and Instagram Ads (4.5 Hours) - 14.5 Total Hours
Week 3 (January 25-31): Facebook Ads (12 Hours) - 12 Total Hours
And that's all I specifically have planned at the moment. I have a ton of other ideas for future months (like obviously running ads, doing SEO, email marketing, etc), but I'm sure I'll be able to have a clearer understanding of what I should be doing after I finish up these courses.
So that's it for now.
Follow this journey if you'd like. I intend on being faithful to this journey unlike the one I did last year.
I'll post profit updates and answer any questions that come into this thread.
Hope you guys all have a kick-ass 2021!
IGKing
My goal is to make $50,000 USD a month in 2021.
Currently, I'm at about $10,000 USD a month. I need $40,000 USD more.
Background:
In 2020, I set out a https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/igkings-epic-100k-in-2020-journey-instagram-not-allowed.1189458/. Shortly after I set up that goal, my Instagram ventures began growing exponentially, and all my free time was diverted back to Instagram. My journey thread ended up being uneventful, but I was making close to $25K a month with my Instagram ventures on autopilot, so my incentive to make $100k somewhere else wasn't necessarily appealing.
However, a few months into 2020, I essentially stopped working. I worked hard enough to put my business on autopilot. I became disillusioned with internet marketing. I became uninterested in my own business and "working" in general.
For those of you who don't know, I've been on this forum for a long time. I joined when I was 14 years old, and I have been doing some form of internet marketing for the past 10 years. My first 5 years were relatively unsuccessful when it came to making money. My last 5 years have been relatively successful. But once I started hitting 5 figures a month on autopilot, it felt like my work was done. In my mind, I "won" internet marketing, and the rest of my life was smooth sailing.
I moved to a different city. https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/share-your-office-space-pictures-for-motivation.1191551/post-13956087. I bought a Mercedes. https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/i-got-a-puppy-meet-jojo.1254624/. I traveled a ton (my best guess is about 28,000 miles in 2020 in the United States alone, during COVID). My focus was anywhere but internet marketing.
However, I felt this weird feeling inside. The more I ignored my business, the more I felt depressed. A part of me felt like I "gave up" on everything I worked so hard for once I started seeing some success.
I started thinking pretty irrationally too. I thought to myself: "You can make 5 figures a month on autopilot and work zero hours a week, but if you work 50 hours a week, you might only make a few extra grand a year. There's no reason to work. Those extra hours aren't going to be worth it."
Obviously, that above paragraph is the dumbest thing ever. My mind wanted to take the road of least resistance and attempted to validate every lazy thought that came to my mind.
So I then got into a slump. I was making money, but here's what was going on in my mind:
Thought 1: Depression. You gave up on something you worked hard on.
Thought 2: Inadequacy. You're not good enough to blow up your business even more.
Thought 3: Laziness. Why work or improve your business when you're already making money?
And this thought cycle repeated itself over and over again.
Realization:
I finally had enough of this thought cycle. My autopilot income fell to about 10k a month (still nothing to complain about) due to my inaction. I spent a lot of time talking with friends and colleagues about my scenario. I ended up reading 30+ books, and one sentiment from the "10X Rule" by Grant Cardone stuck with me: You're being unethical with your life if you aren't living up to your full potential when it comes to making money.
If I spent 0 hours a day working on my business, that horrible thought cycle would spiral out of control. When I actually started getting things done, I felt great about myself. I never thought about my laziness being unethical, I thought I "earned" this time off, but in reality it was driving me nuts. I'm a very competitive person. I want to live up to my fullest potential, and taking time off my business was not ethical.
Granted, I've had several other realizations in the past few months that have re-inspired my desire to grow my income, but I'll leave those out for the sake of brevity.
Look, I'm not saying I'm at rock bottom. I'm still making about $10k a month. I'm very grateful for my situation. I'd rather be at $10k a month trying to make it to $50k a month than be at $0 a month and try to make it at $5k a month. I feel like this journey to $50k will hopefully launch me into another realm of determination. It will aspire me to work as hard as I did when I was hungry 7 years ago, when I was a broke university freshman.
$50K a month is also crazy money for 99.99% of people. Me included. I think I could've made this goal "get back to $25k a month", but I don't think that would've challenged me that much. Another interesting takeaway from the 10X Rule book is to set crazy high goals (a lot of business books usually tell you to set easily attainable goals so you stay motivated). The purpose behind the "crazy high goals" is to aspire you to take an insane amount of action. The theory is: You're more likely to make $30K a month if you set a $50K goal instead of a $30k goal because your actions will be more extreme at the $50k goal than if your goal was at $30k a month.
So I said "Fuck it", let's do 50k a month and actually try to make $50k a month.
BUT HERE'S THE ISSUE...
It's time to learn:
For some magical reason, I managed to grow my Instagram business without knowing much about necessary Internet marketing skills. I felt limited in my ability to grow in 2020 because I didn't know much besides Instagram.
I didn't know much about:
- Analytics
- Google Ads
- SEO
- Facebook & IG Ads (I typically have had someone else handle IG ads, I usually handle organic/viral growth)
- Email Marketing
I had basic Wordpress skills, basic coding skills, basic marketing skills, and obvious Instagram skills, and that was enough to make $25k a month.
Now... I figure if I could consider myself an expert in analytics, ads, SEO, and email marketing, I should have no excuse on why I can't scale this up to $50k a month (and beyond).
So, I need to learn those things, because I've had shitty luck trying to have other people do those things for me. I spent a good percentage of 2020 trying to find someone to grow my business for me while it was runnning on autopilot because I always knew that this stuff was necessary.
I went to uDemy, and I signed up for 50 hours of courses in all of those topics so I can develop my understanding on how to properly grow my business. I figure if I have a steady enough base understanding in all those fields, I'll be able to further develop areas that are necessary and adapt them to my business.
So in January, I plan on being a novice in Google Analytics, Google Ads, SEO, Facebook & IG Ads, and email marketing.
Here's my current course load (obviously not affiliated with any of these classes):
50 Hours of Learning
Mailchimp Email Marketing mastery for E-commerce Stores - 4 hours
Google Analytics Advanced Training - Master Google Analytics - 3 hours
Advanced Google Analytics Course - 4 hours
Ultimate Google Analytics course - 4.5 Hours
Instagram Ads Masterclass - 4.5 hours
SEO 2021: Complete SEO Training + SEO for Wordpress Websites - 10 hours
Facebook Ads & Facebook Marketing MASTERY 2021 - 12 hours
2020 New Google Ads (AdWords) Course - From Beginner to PRO - 7.5 hours
And here's how I plan on breaking up this material over the next 3 weeks (I cleared out my schedule for this week, so I specifically overloaded this week).:
Week 1 (January 11-17): Analytics (11.5 Hours) and Mailchimp (4 hours) - 15.5 hours Google Ads (7.5 hours) - 23 Total Hours
Week 2 (January 18-24): SEO Training (10 Hours) and Instagram Ads (4.5 Hours) - 14.5 Total Hours
Week 3 (January 25-31): Facebook Ads (12 Hours) - 12 Total Hours
And that's all I specifically have planned at the moment. I have a ton of other ideas for future months (like obviously running ads, doing SEO, email marketing, etc), but I'm sure I'll be able to have a clearer understanding of what I should be doing after I finish up these courses.
So that's it for now.
Follow this journey if you'd like. I intend on being faithful to this journey unlike the one I did last year.
I'll post profit updates and answer any questions that come into this thread.
Hope you guys all have a kick-ass 2021!
IGKing
