Last week shows me PPC blasting, attending Practical Profits, finishing my class, and spending too much time in airports:

• First half of the week found me very busy campaign blasting. Haven’t broken through that 100 blast goal quite yet, but made some serious progress towards doing so. Another six days left in this round, so I’ll see if I can find enough focused time to get it done!

• Last half of the week found me in ridiculously hot Vegas for the Practical Profits conference. Luckily, spent the hottest part of the day inside with some of the smartest internet marketers out there! Made lots o’ notes, met lots of interesting people, drank lots of water… The mind is still reeling, but I’ve got at least another 50 different directions to try out if I’m ever in need of ideas! If you’ve never been to a conference like that, don’t hesitate. The cost was insignificant compared to what I learned. And I can say without a doubt that applying just a little of what was put out there would pay me back a hundred-fold. Give me a bit to tidy up my notes, and I may just pass along a tidbit or ten…
• Between checkout time and when I needed to catch my flight from Vegas, borrowed the hotel’s wifi and finished up the last of my entrepreneurship class. Definitely picked up a few pointers. Along with a renewed hatred for all things PowerPoint. Swear to god, PowerPoint is the death to anything deeper than surface knowledge, and being forced to use it to create something that would be much better conveyed via a few simple paragraphs worth of text just drives me nuts. Nevertheless, the bits of info picked up made the time invested in the course worth it in the end.

Anyway, must get back to blasting! So what did you do last week?

[What is this all about?]

PPC campaign building, list marketing education, and my online class were in order as the wife and son were out of town for half the week. Basically, two less distractions from getting things done, even if they are my two favorite distractions. Took full advantage of the opportunity, loaded up iTunes and cranked it way up, had me a few dozen cups of coffee, and worked far too late into the evening morning almost every day they were away.

• Got in gear on my late start to the latest blast challenge. No completed blasts are live as I type this, but as always, I’m batching the steps of my process, and am well on my way to finish a healthy chunk of my goal. Will I finish up the whole 100 that I set as a goal for myself? Who knows, but I’m certainly going to make a concerted run at at…
• Signed up for Andre Chaperon‘s AutoResponder Madness. Still working on the whole list building thang, but have heard good things about this course from more than one source that I trust, so thought it’d make a decent investment. The trickle feed style of providing the information personally drives me a little nuts, but it’s a great example of the type of system he suggests anyway.
• Spent a fair amount of time scrambling to get ahead on the last few weeks of my online class. This weekend has me at the Practical Profits seminar in Vegas, and next weekend has me in KC for the baptism of my niece, so not a lot of free time to devote to it otherwise. Still have a handful of assignments to finish, but I’m essentially done with the class.

About time to decide what I need to take with me to the conference, and see if I can get a few of those PPC campaigns live before I get on board the plane! Wish me luck…

[What is this all about?]

Returned the middle of last week from a great couple of weeks wandering with the family through the Colorado wilderness, with more than a fair share of time spent recouping at the wonderful Cheyenne Mountain Resort between stops. If you ever make a trip to the Colorado Springs area, I have no hesitations recommending the resort — the cost may be a little steep, but the service was amazing. Plus, we got a hell of a deal when we booked through Expedia and ended up paying no more than we would have at a decent national chain hotel anyway.

So the last two weeks’ reports were right — I got absolutely nothing done towards my goal. Exactly as planned. Hell, even though I brought along my netbook, and free wifi is pretty much anywhere people congregate, I didn’t even bother to check my email for a week+. I was on vacation, damn it — we spend far too much time tethered to our tech as is!

Anyway, now that I’ve returned, it was time to get back on the saddle:

• Threw my hat into the ring for the next Blast Challenge. The latest challenge started while I was on vacation, so I missed out on the first week and a half, but I’m shooting for a full 100 blast by the end anyway. Because, as you may or may not know, THE holiday is coming much sooner than you realize, and I fully intend to take maximum advantage of the opportunities around. A ton of preliminary work was completed, but the first official blast of the challenge hasn’t went live as of yet.
• Since I missed out on the last Earn1kADay seminar because of scheduling conflicts, I’ve kept my eyes open for something similar that didn’t absolutely break the bank. I believe I found it with the Practical Profits seminar happening in a couple weeks. Looks like some great presenters, so signed up to attend and just have the hotel room left to finalize. Which I intend to do as soon as I finish this update!
• As I was gone for a couple weeks, I had a couple weeks worth of stats from the various programs I earn from to process. The system I have in place to aggregate it works pretty slick, but there is a little bit of effort involved in bringing all the pieces together. In the end, had some great days and some not so great days. But then, this time of the year has been all over the place earning-wise since I’ve been doing this, so no big surprise there. Plus, even those not so great days were at least profitable ones. You do recall I was on vacation and not even checking email during that time? Sounds like some pretty passive income to me…
• Oops, forgot about some homework for my class. Scrambled to squeak it in under the deadline!

Onward to week 30!

[What is this all about?]

Took it a little easier than normal last week, spending quite a lot of my free time celebrating our independence by joining my son in blowing some things up and setting other things ablaze. The 4th definitely brings out the inner child in me! Nevertheless, I did manage to get some work done:

• Started doing what I do with the reports my outsourcer returned to me, and managed to set up 45 landing pages. The other 35 will be done this week, and then I will work to blast away at ‘em.
• Working ahead on my online class before we take off for vacation in a couple weeks. I still will probably have to do a little work on the road, but hoping I’ll be able to finish it up while riding through a bit of emptiness. If it takes much more than that, it just ain’t getting done, I’m on vacation. I’m at that point in life that what kind of grade I get in class really matters all that much anyway…
• Did some work building out a couple long neglected domains. I’ve been playing around with a trial of Market Samurai and the Nanocontext concept, and realized I have a couple domains with some pretty substantial Adsense potential.

Oh, and for a great bit of thought on independence, check out the inimitable Johnny B. Truant’s latest post! Hell, check out all of Johnny’s stuff — makes for some inspirational if irreverent reads. My favorite type…

[What is this all about?]

Another Monday arrives, which means another accounting of my time has come due. So, what have I managed to accomplish this week?

• Didn’t get done with ‘em by Wednesday as planned, but managed to get another 65 landing page blasts alive n’ kicking. Got distracted by a shiny metal thing — a lesson to not open your email when you have other things needing your attention — and so didn’t get them all finalized until Saturday.
• My outsourcer finally finished the eighty sales reports I expected, oh, four weeks ago. Lesson to take from this one: set a deadline. No big deal, really, as I have a ton on my plate anyway, but was beginning to worry the task would never get done. That said, the final product is always great from her, so going forward I’ll just make sure to have a tighter schedule in place. Plan to go through the reports over the next few days, and see what kind of progress I can make this week.
• Continue to plug away on my online class. The focus over the next few weeks appears to be writing up a business plan based around an actual idea we intend to implement. Decent idea, but far too in depth for how I work. Lots of focus on selling to business idea to investors or justifying to potential profit to lenders for my online endeavors. On of the main points of these mini businesses I am building is that they don’t require a heavy investment in capital. In my mind, if it take years or even months to see a positive return on the investment, my time is better spent exploring other ideas in my list.
• Set up the horseshoe set I received for Father’s Day, and spent a hot afternoon trying my luck. Let’s just say more practice is definitely in order…

Enjoy the 4th everyone, and try not to blow off too many fingers!

Ah, another early summer week, and continuing to progress towards my goal:

• My landing page build ‘n blast binge goes forward. Another fifteen are alive, and another forty or so are at least somewhere in the process of getting to that point. Because of these efforts, I believe the substantial slowdown I have seen during this time of the year in the past appears to have stalled. While I may not be gaining a bunch of ground compared to, say, January, holding pretty much steady during this time is a success as far as I’m concerned. Once things begin to ramp up again later this year, I should be in phenomenal shape…

• In years past, I have done a little to keep my mind sharp by taking a formal class or two. It’s been a couple years since the last one. Decided to pull the trigger on another one when the regional community college’s quarterly mailing arrived in the mail and signed up for an online class. Last week was the first week in my Intro to Entrepreneurship class. Seems a little odd to be taking an intro class in it as I’ve been running this entrepreneurial enterprise profitable for a couple years now (and at least marginally for a few years more). A few new insights will make it well worth the effort! Plus, not caring about the grade you get makes a class a helluva lot more interesting as well as fun. Wish I would have realized that the first time around, might have gotten a ton more from my college experience!
• More work tweaking my flavor of a nanocontext system when time permitted. Meaning not a ton, but I did work in a few interesting twists at least!

Oh, and don’t forget: your quarterly estimates are due in the mail, um, today… :/ While it sucks to write big checks to anyone — especially the gov’t — one also should remember that doing so just means you are doing well!

[What is this all about?]

Again, my weekly KITA arrives a day late, but I was more interested in spending a little quality time outdoors with the family on an almost perfect warm & sunny spring afternoon versus throwing up a post on Memorial Day. I don’t know what it was like in your neck of the woods, but here in Nebraska, just about the entire weekend just begged for outdoor activities, and I was more than willing to oblige. The sorely-needing-a-mow yard once again reveals the fact that, indeed, our place is not an abandoned chunk of ground. The freshly tilled and planted garden has me dreaming of fresh fruits & veggies in the not too distant future. And the various heads on spikes lining the compound attests to the fact that a variety of animals sacrificed themselves to the culinary gods this weekend.

OK, maybe exaggerating just a little with the last one… That said, the physical world wasn’t the only place seeing some attention this week:

• Another 20 landing page blasts went from brainstorm to fully live. My little kaizen chart shows me finally catching up with — and passing — where I want to be towards my goal so far. Must say that I am pleased with how May ended.
• My outsourcer is well on her way to doing her thing with my second batch of reports, and expect to see the final results sometime this week. Which means another 80 landing pages will be hot on the heels of those twenty finished last week. Even during the summer online buying slowdown, I’m pleased with my recent additions. No reason to scale back my efforts now, that’s for sure!
• Still working through the nanocontext report, and working out codifying my own flavor of a system to implement it. I really love a well thought out system…

On to this week…

[What is this all about?]

Well, this week was certainly a busy one!

• Finished up my 66 remaining blasts from the latest blast challenge. Then neglected to actually turn on the advertisements until last night. But hey, at least they’re finished!
• Decided to take my own advice and looked into doing some much heavier outsourcing than I have in the past. Set up an account on oDesk, wrote up a description of one of the more tedious tasks I’d love having someone else take care of, and let it rip. Had 21 people apply to take on a test project, and am weeding it down to the two or three who seem to fit best. Plan to let them loose on the project sometime today if I can stop the phone from ringing for a while.
• In the same vein, had a dozen or so articles outsourced for those keyword-heavy domains I picked up last week. Got my articles in late last week — more than up to my standards — and plan to build little minisites around them sometime this week, time allowing.

Oh, and to boot, it’s been astounding outside this week. The fact that I got anything done that required me to sit in front of a computer after my day job was done is a feat in and of itself…

[What is this all about?]

The arrival of spring, while distracting, amazingly didn’t totally take me off track! Another productive week, though again, little totally finished. That will change this week…

• Despite my best efforts, just don’t see finishing up the last 66 blasts in the latest blast challenge. I have been plugging away, and figure that I’ll be able to let the remainder rip within the next couple days. It’s just that I batch process everything in a blast, from niche selection to keyword choice to landing page building to ad construction and every little step between. I did manage to get somewhere around 80% of the way through my process on all of them. But 66 of ‘em is a pretty big batch of blasts, and finishing that last 20% on all of ‘em by the end of the deadline for the blast challenge aka today? Not likely, at least while handling other things that are more urgent.
• A smattering of nanoblog posting. Been slacking on this front the last couple weeks.
• While researching a few oddball items I’d like to purchase, stumbled across a couple exact keyword domains that no one has grabbed up despite a ton of fairly high value Adwords bidding. So I picked them up. Going to send off a request to have some articles outsourced this afternoon if I can squeeze in a few for keyword research.

See ya’ next week, if not sooner!

[What is this all about?]

Sean didn’t accomplish a damn thing towards meeting his goal this week!

Feel free to berate him…

Not precisely true, in that I did manage to get together some basic sales information to cover the missing six blasts from the prior week as well as all twenty for the one just finished. Finished that up last Monday evening, set the info aside with full intentions to get rolling, and suffered the remainder of the week with I-don’t-know-what.

In fact, I continue to suffer with whatever it is as I type, and am making a run up to the clinic after I finish this up. Being like most men, I don’t run to the doctor unless I’m feeling incredibly shitty.

And I am.

So maybe next week we can get rid of the stocks… but personally, I’d be fine if I can just get rid of whatever has decided to camp out in my head!

ed. So doc loaded me up with a boatload of full body antibiotic pills, some eye drop antibiotics (I should have grabbed a few scary closeups of my pair of seriously bloodshot eyes before I started the eyedrops), and some nasal steroids. More meds than I’ve been on for a long time — apparently, had good reason to feel like hell!

[What is this all about?]