5 Lessons I Learned in 2009 (and How I Plan to Leverage Them)

Looking back on the past year, I think I have learned a lot about building a solid passive income business. While I have had some success stories (i.e. building a solid eHow income stream), I have had more than my share of failures. Instead of fretting over failing, I like to think I can learn from my mistakes and leverage them into something good.

Here are a few failures that I have had over the past year and what I have learned from each one of them.

5. Outsourcing SEO

I decided to outsource a few projects during the past year to help accelerate my passive income. In one of my projects, I hired a virtual assistant to work on optimizing a niche website I started. The thought was to hire a resource to push my content higher up in the search engine rankings while I focused on other tasks.

Unfortunately, I acted too quick on hiring a resource to do this work and didn’t really have a solid plan in place. In the end, I spent a few hundred dollars and have seen little return on my investment.

I have actually started outsourcing again. However, this time I am taking my time planning things out the right way. All of the jobs that I plan to outsource will align with my SMART Goals that I have defined for the coming year.

4. Starting a Blogging Network

I had high hopes in 2009 to start a passive income blogging network. The plan was to form a group of 5 to 7 individuals who were focused on building passive income. The network was to serve as a tool for networking, communicating, and sharing ideas about building alternative income streams.

As I tend to do, I stretched myself too thin and this project fizzled. I found a group of talented and energetic people to form the network. We even picked out a name for the group and I actually purchased a domain name and setup the site. That is about as far as we got as the team lost any momentum we may have had. The leader (me) didn’t have the time to devote to organizing and setting things up the way they should have been.

In the coming year, I hope to stay focused only on the tasks defined in my SMART goal setting. Instead of trying to do too much, I will focus all of my attention and time on my goals.

3. Hiring a Coder

I have been using the “Thesis” WordPress theme here on PFI for well over a year now. I think it is an incredible theme that offers a ton of flexibility. The one problem that I had with using this theme is that a ton of bloggers are using it now.

My solution to this dilemma was to create a custom look to PFI that could be laid on top of the Thesis theme that I like so much. I decided to hire out this work to a coder. Unfortunately, I only got about 85% of what was agreed upon and the developer has not been heard of after they got their payment.

While I am happy with how the customized design turned out, I am very disappointed in not getting a final product. I have been fixing things here and there as time warrants. Bottom line – I will never hire another resource without checking there references first!

2. Not Setting SMART Goals

Looking back at my personal finance goals for 2009, it is amazing to see how vague they actually were. I had ambitions to “… create at least 5 new passive income streams …” and to “… bring in $1,000 per month by the end of the year in passive income …”.

All of my 2009 goals seemed legitimate and attainable. They were just missing one important thing – a plan. I had great intentions and aspirations to reach my goals, just no road map to get me there. I have changed my approach for this new year through SMART goal setting. I now have a set of goals in place and a plan to get me there for the upcoming year. I can’t wait to check back next year to see how I did!

1. Posting Content Too Often

For some reason, I had it in my head that I needed to write a post every day (or at least 5 times per week) on PFI. Overtime, I have come to realize that post frequency is not as important as the quality of your content. While I wasn’t purposely publishing questionable content, trying to keep that frequency didn’t allow me to show off my best work.

While posting every day works well for some bloggers, it doesn’t work well for others. If your a full time blogger, then it probably makes sense to get content out to your readers every day of the week. I am not a professional blogger (at least not yet) and shouldn’t force myself to stick with that type of schedule.

Moving forward into the new year, I plan to post to PFI three times per week (Monday, Wednesday, and Friday). While this could change, I have been experimenting with the frequency a little and am comfortable with it. I believe this change will help me spend more time creating better content for my readers, while using the extra time to focus on other income streams.

Final Thoughts

Well, that is it for 2009! It has been both a rough and promising year in the economy. Let’s learn from our mistakes from the past 12 months and make 2010 a year to remember!

What are your biggest mistakes from 2009?

Related posts:

1. 5 Lessons I Learned from Flag Football That can Be Used in Starting a Home Business
2. Personal Finance Lessons I Learned Growing Up
3. Peer Lending – Mid Year Review (2009)
4. Plan, Do, Check, Adjust Your Way to Financial Freedom

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Tagged as: smart goal setting, SMART Goals