Over the past several weeks I have been publishing my SMART Goals for the upcoming year. In order to take my passive income business to the next level, I decided to layout my goals which will serve as a guide. I plan to review each of the goals that I set at the end of every month at a minimum. As time goes by and things change (as they always do), I will adjust my goals accordingly.
2010 SMART Goals
As a recap, I set 4 SMART goals for next year which I believe will increase my monthly earnings income as well as take my business to the next level. If you missed my goals before, here they are again -
- Increase Twitter Followers to 50,000
- Attain 2,000 RSS Subscribers
- Increase eHow Earnings by 100%
- Earn $3,000 per Month in Alternative Income
My Plan to Reach $3,000 in Monthly Income
After publishing my final goal (generate $3,000 in monthly alternative income), I was asked several questions by my readers for more specifics. In some regards, my SMART goal to earn $3,000 per month in alternative income may not have been as specific as it should have been. As a result, I am going to provide some additional details on my overall plan.
While every fine detail has not been documented below, here is a breakdown of how I plan to hit that $3,000 mark by December 31, 2010.
Projected Income Streams
I have identified 6 income streams that I plan to focus on during 2010. In order to reach my goal to earn $3,000 per month in alternative income by the end of next year, I have broken down the total into 6 different categories. I have set a goal to earn $500 per month in each of the categories below.
- Niche Site #1 – My first niche site that I plan to expand and grow has been live for about 4 months. I will focus a lot of attention on this site in the first few months of 2010 and build on the content that I have already published. Of all the niche sites I plan to run, this will be the easiest and quickest opportunity to start earning income next year.
- Niche Site #2 – The second niche site in my portfolio of income streams has been live for 11 months. This site has been seriously abandoned over the past 8 months as I had focused on other ventures. My plan is to really start adding content early on and begin to grow this niche as I believe it has real potential.
- Niche Site #3 – The final niche site that I want to build is only in it’s planning stages at this point. The content of this site will be focused on local information in the area that I live in. While the potential number of customers is limited to the region that I live, I think the earnings potential is tremendous based on analysis that I have done. I am most excited about building content for this site compared to the other two mentioned above.
- eHow – I already have a SMART goal set to increase my eHow earnings by over 100% by June 30, 2010. If I am successful, that means I will have built a $500 per month passive income stream.
- Online Store – This is the wild card in the whole mix to be honest. Setting up an online store is completely new to me. However, it has the most potential of any other income source to really take off. As additional motivation, I joined the Build Your Business Competition last week. Lot’s more to come on this income stream in the future.
- Miscellaneous – I have not defined every income source I plan to build over the coming year, which is why I have created the miscellaneous category. I am still working out a plan for what else I want to focus on. This category will probably include several smaller income streams like any money generated from Twitter, HubPages, Info Barrel, etc.
Helpful Tools
I have written a lot recently about focusing on building a passive income stream through Info Barrel. Nothing has really changed. I still plan to build solid income streams through a variety of third party sources including Info Barrel, HubPages, Squidoo, eHow, and more. I also recognize the fact that I don’t own these sources of income outright and could lose any of these income sources at any time.
I plan to leverage both the income potential of sites like Info Barrel, as well as use them to build traffic towards my niche sites and online store. The strategy is nothing new as many other bloggers have been using it for some time. I just wanted to stress that I am not abandoning these sites, just leveraging everything I can from them to grow the internet real estate that I own!
Final Thoughts
I believe that I have a good mix of income streams that I will be focusing on next year. Each one of the sources will focus on building internet real estate, which I believe is the quickest and most effective way to create alternative income. While I believe there is tremendous potential in setting up these online income streams, I will also be working to grow some traditional passive income sources like certificates of deposit and dividend paying stocks.
I look forward to the coming year and working to put into action the goals that I have laid out. While I fully anticipate several challenges that lay ahead, I believe I have a solid plan to work through any roadblocks that may come along.
Have you defined your SMART goals for next year? What are you waiting for?
Related posts:
- Increase Twitter Followers to 50,000 – SMART Goal Setting
- Attain 2,000 RSS Subscribers – SMART Goal Setting
- Earn $3,000 per Month in Alternative Income – SMART Goal Setting
- Increase eHow Earnings by 100% – SMART Goal Setting
- SMART Goals – Clearly Define Your Objectives
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John, this is a great post. I like how your goal is reasonable and yet will still make such a difference in your life. I also like how you’re implementing several income streams to get there. I look forward to following your progress! I may need to do some similar goal setting.
@Julie – Thanks for the kind words. That $3,000 per month can really change everything about our families life.
I write down my goals in a 2010 goals booklet. It is always in my wallet and I review it regularly. It keeps me focused on what really matters to me.
Enjoy and success!
Ronny
Oh,
Maybe the most interesting post I have read so far today. I would love to focus on several ways of making passive income, but I think I will be focusing on eHow, Info Barrel, affiliate marketing and sales, and building traffic for my website.
If this is too personal to answer, that is fine. How much do you earn passively now? I have yet to reach my $10.00 on eHow, and that is my first passive income venture
@Moon – I am earning around $200 – $250 per month on eHow. Hang in there with the $10 per month. I was at that same place last year at this time.
Both you and @patflynn have been very inspirational to me in terms of how you have set goals, pursued them consistently, and achieved them. I don’t know about you, but there is a lot of active, hard work to making inactive, passive income happen
@Steve – Wow, that is some very good company. Pat really has things going on. I appreciate the complement. Yes – passive income takes a huge amount of effort in order to get it working!
Nice, I hope to be settings goals as high as yours.
I am still shooting for the $1,000 a month of residual income as my goal, so far only floating around $100 bucks but thats not shabby for a 3-month start I suppose.
Good luck and I hope you achieve your goals quickly!
@Bacon – I just checked out your goals for 2010 and enjoyed checking them out. It will be nice to work towards my goals while reading up on how others are doing.
We have similar income goals for 2010 – but I don’t really see the connection with the twitter followers -the RSS readers I can understand you at least build trust from them and give you a chance to tsell to them down the track – but I have hundreds of twitter followers and I have logged on for months – there is no engagement with twitter – its just marketers following marketers and hoping the other one will follow back LOL! I’d look maybe at building an opt in list to complement those that don’t like using RSS readers (there are quite a lot of them) – but I do think that twitter is for the birds
@Lis – Funny. An opt in list is something I have been wanting to do, but further down the line. As far as Twitter, I am looking to build some income through my account although I haven’t gotten to far yet.
Hi what a great post, very inspirational and informative. This site is now bookmarked and subscribed!
Just one question though that has been on my mind whilst reading this excellent post, how do you find the time to build your pasive income streams, work (full time?) and be a father to two young children? Maybe this is already a blog post, but I couldnt find it
eddy