I’ve been planning to move to Lisbon for the last year or so. My partner and I decided we were fed up with London and wanted a different life. One without the smoggy pollution, busy tubes and workaholic attitude to life!
I told my employer early this year, once it was confirmed, to see if they’d be interested in me working remotely from Portugal. For a few months, I got the vibe that it’d be fine.
But when I jumped on the final call with HR last week, they started off by clarifying why I wouldn’t be able to keep working from Lisbon… At least beyond my notice period!
So I handed in my notice that day and started my 3-month notice period. I’m grateful to have these 90 days to still have a salary as I plan out what I’ll do after leaving this company.
Needless to say, I started planning immediately! That same night, I already had a page in my Notion where I’d mapped out a rough draft of the 6-month plan you’ll find below.
Planned Projects & Stages
It all comes down to 7 different projects I’ve organized into 6 stages.
- Keep posting on this blog
- Keep posting and networking on Twitter
- Finish writing a mindfulness ebook to promote on this blog
- Start a podcast, documenting my unique journey into marketing entrepreneurship
- Start a consultancy to offer SEO services
- Start building a sales funnel on this blog
- Start offering funnel-building services
There are a few reasons I organized my plan in this order.
First, I want to keep doing the things I’m already doing. Since I’m already doing these things, I just need to keep doing them. After that, I’ll monetize my website and start documenting my journey.
Then I want to start working with clients with a service I’ve already offered to household brand names. Finally I want to learn a high-ticket skill to offer to future clients and upsell existing clients.
Here’s a review of what I’m planning at each of these stages.
Stage 1: Keep Doing These Things
There are many things on this list that I’ve never done before. However, starting with the quick wins… there are rewarding activities I just need to keep doing.
By these activities, I mean writing for Mind & Practice (the blog you’re reading right now) and posting on Twitter.
Growing an audience is a powerful way to get my message out there. For everything that comes next, I’ll be promoting them on my blog and Twitter.
Building a community on these platforms is probably also the best way to get relevant feedback around my different messaging and offers.
Instagram and LinkedIn are similarly important, though I haven’t yet focused much effort on these platforms. Over time as my business grows, I’ll look to include these platforms in my audience-building strategy.
But for now, I want to build a great audience on these two platforms, rather than many small followings across all the different platforms.
So for now I’ll keep doing the things that I’m already doing. That way I only need to focus on adding the activities from the next 5 phases.
Stage 2: Monetize My Website
In this phase, I want to monetize this website.
I already generate enough traffic each month to make a sizable passive income if I convert some of my readers.
It’s worth noting that I HATE ads.
That might sound funny coming from a marketing guy, but I believe there are more valuable ways to monetize without selling my digital real estate to ugly banners owned by other businesses. After all, this website is a reflection of my mindfulness and productivity practices.
Not just some shameless money-grab!
That’s why I’m writing my Stoicism ebook. Stoicism is one of the main things people ask me about after reading my blog, so I feel like there’s demand there to get a deeper dive, a comprehensive overview of the philosophy. Right now, I’m finishing up my ebook and expect to launch it over the next few weeks.
At that point, I hope to finally start making some passive income — which has been my dream since way before I even started this site.
Once I’ve monetized the site, I’ll only be more motivated to promote it and try to get more traffic: through social media, online communities and forums, and the podcast I’ll start in Stage 3.
Stage 3: Document the Process
I think it’s important I take a step back to realize I’m doing something really cool here. In fact, I’ve been dreaming of the day I’d quit my job since about 2 weeks after starting my full-time job in 2016. Now’s the best time to start documenting the process from full-time employment to entrepreneurship.
I believe anyone can leverage their skills and start a profitable business, and I want my story to inspire others. I’m making myself accountable to myself as well as to everyone who listens. Plus I’m excited to share my journey and all the learnings with others.
I get the feeling people will be interested to hear what I have to say about my journey as it unfolds. The format will also help me refine my voice and become a better podcaster.
Hopefully I’ll eventually get a few good interviews out of the process! I’ve heard it’s easier to speak to people you want to learn from when it’s under the guise of helping them promote their products and services on your podcast.
Stage 4: Start Making Money
Beyond the passive income I’d like my website to generate, I need another revenue stream to make sure I can cover my living costs. After all, I don’t just want to create digital products. I also want to help brands build their presence.
That’s why I’ll start working with clients and offer a service I spent many years offering clients in an esteemed London agency: SEO.
I’ll start offering SEO services to a well-defined niche. My target audience at this stage will be interested in increasing their search engine visibility without paying for each individual click that may result in a purchase. With SEO you’re targeting a wide variety of keywords by offering landing pages and blog content relevant to these terms.
You also need to ensure your site’s technical factors enable Google to crawl your site and list your pages in their results pages. And finally custom reporting helps you track your organic optimizations to see which results have paid off and which future optimizations you might make.
Reach out if you’re interested in discussing SEO services for your website.
Stage 5: Learn the High-ticket Skill
I’ve read a lot of books this year about copywriting and growth marketing. And from the very first book, I knew it was something I wanted to offer clients one day. Now that I’ve handed in my notice, I’m one step closer to helping clients build funnels that 10x their business.
But I also realize there’s a lot of skill involved that I don’t have yet. It’s not enough to know how funnels work. You have to make them work. Repeatedly.
I don’t want to waste clients’ time with a subpar service until I have results to prove it. That’s why I first want to turn this website into a funnel with an active newsletter and various mindfulness and productivity upsells. The ebook I mentioned in Phase 2 will be part of this offer, as well as a Consultancy offer.
Once I have a clear system that generates money and clients passively, and brings readers up the value ladder, I’ll start looking for dream clients and offer the funnel-building service for free.
I want to use the funnel framework I learned in the book Dotcom Secrets to help small businesses grow. Then with each funnel I build, I’ll expand on my own framework with additions around copywriting, SEO and whatever else might impact performance.
I’m not trying to make money at this stage. I just want the experience I’d need to offer a great service to similar clients when I do start charging for it. And once I have my own clear framework, it’ll make selling this service much easier.
Stage 6: Sell the High-Ticket Offer
Now for the final step in my plan. Once I have the experience I need to offer an amazing service to my dream customers, I’ll finally start selling it!
I don’t just want to make money fast. I want to help people grow their businesses. I want to use my own funnel framework to get as much value from their site’s visitors and customers.
SEO is a great skill because it helps businesses get free traffic in the long-term. However, I’m well aware that businesses want fast results. And SEO optimisations usually take 6+ months to kick in. Whereas a sales funnel will start growing a business virtually once it goes live.
Because funnel-building helps businesses dramatically grow their businesses right away, I should be able to charge more for this than for the original SEO services I’ve planned.
After I have significant experience helping people grow their businesses with landing pages, email sequences and funnel structures, I’ll start selling this to my existing clients.
I’ll also start using growth marketing as my main pitch when approaching new businesses.
Where I’ll be in six months…
If everything goes according to plan, here’s what I’ll have by the end of the year:
- A larger blog and Twitter audience
- A website that generates money passively each month
- A podcast that documents my journey and learnings, while promoting my services to future prospective clients
- An SEO consultancy working with brands who need improved search engine visibility
- Expertise in sales funnels that I leverage as my high-ticket consultancy offer
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Otherwise, I’ll see you on the next update my friend! 🚀