https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzdZYKCAfPU
Number of Days in the Office: 7, Total Number of Employees: 212
Ah… It’s good to be back! October was a whirlwind of a month, I must say. Above you’ll find a little (4mins) montage of my trip to the USA. I actually have a TON of footage I shot over there this time around, hours and hours to be frank! However, I decided to keep this video short for digestion purposes! But – get excited, there is plenty of awesome video and podcast content coming in the next few months, thanks to my adventures at BlogWorld. So, onto the Monthly Report – strap yourself in – its a biggie!
First up, let me begin by saying a massive ‘thank you’ to those who submitted Guest Posts for the month of October. The idea to run a full month of guest posts came out of nothing but sheer laziness on my part, to be frank! I was traveling for almost three weeks of the month, and knew I was going to also be very engrossed in business, so wanted to not have to worry about the blog all that much. This laziness actually had some great advantages. First and foremost, it enabled me to highlight some of the awesome talent we have floating around in the growing VBL Community. You guys simply ROCK! Secondly, it did wonders for blog traffic, with our site’s Alexa rank growing from 109,000 to 89,000 at the time of writing this. So, again, thank you.
NEW: Guest Post Friday
In fact, I enjoyed getting you guys so much more involved in the blog in general (other than just tweeting, sharing and commenting) that I’ve decided to make guest posting a part of the regular VBL Diet of content. So, from now on, every Friday will be Guest Post Friday (as long as I have submissions, obviously!). So, if you didn’t get the chance to be included in October’s festivities, please feel free to submit your guest posts at anytime, going forward.
Old Style Networking – Still the BEST!
On the last day or BlogWorld I was asked to give a comment via video for a report that they were doing for their own blog (you can see the full video with everyone’s comments here). I was asked what was the one thing I took away from the expo, more than anything else. My answer, as you’ll see in the video, was the fact that even though I had met the majority of the people I hung out with at the expo, online, there was nothing better than forging those relationships by actually meeting up in person, shaking hands, talking, eating and laughing together. October was indeed a month of hand-shaking for me. Whilst in the US, along with the treasure-trove of bloggers and online marketers that I hung out with, I also met with three clients as well as two prospective clients.
Content, Content, Content
So, back to those upcoming videos and podcasts. I was supremely lucky to meet with a whole bunch of great people at BlogWorld, including (completely by surprise!) a new client that I had just helped find a Virtual Assistant via my Virtual Staff Finder service. From all the conversations, parties (thanks to Darren Rowse for invites to BOTH of the VIP Problogger Suite Parties, too!) and getting-to-know-you sessions, I collected a huge amount of great content for you. Coming up in the next few weeks and months you will be seeing interviews with, amongst others, the following people:
- Leo Babauta – Zen Habits
- Pat Flynn – Smart Passive Income (3-Part Video Series)
- David Risley – DavidRisley.com
- Maren Kate – Escaping the 9 to 5
- Jordan Cooper – Not a Pro Blog
- Vik Tantry – There’s Money Everywhere
- Eric & Seth – Frugal Theme
- Kevin Bates – We’ve Created a Monster
- Karol – Ridiculously Extraodinary
- Matt Gartland – Healthy Lifestyle Design
Zappos – Here I Come! (Exclusive Video Report SOON!)
Whilst in Vegas, I also got myself onto the Zappos Tour (along with social media guru, Mike Stenger, great guy!). They came and picked us up from the hotel and drove us right out to their HQ (about 20-30mins from the Vegas strip), and greeted us with open arms when we arrived. What followed was possibly one of the most eye-opening 2 hours of my life. Seriously. From a business standpoint, this 120 minutes has changed the way I look at things on a number of topics. You’ll find out how in November, when my full Zappos Tour Report goes live. Including a butt-load of exclusive video that I shot when on the tour itself..!
My First Full-Blown Passive Income Product – DONE!
Whilst traveling, I got down and dirty and worked my ass off finishing up a passive income product that I’ve been working on for the last year, literally, on and off. My first full-blown online product will be launched in early December (currently being finished up by my design team), and is a mix of an eBook, Videos, Audio and Webinar content. It’s totally unrelated to the VBL Blog, and is a true niche that I know a lot about, so I’m hoping that it’ll fly when launched. This is the first real step into the passive income world for me, so I am excited to see how it goes. I want to say a quick thank you to VBL Community member, Ben Lumley for motivating me to finish this thing up. Appreciate the confidence, Ben!
In Closing…
My monthly report wouldn’t be complete without an update on my ‘brick n mortar’ business, the Live2Sell Group, the 200+ employee business that I am attempting to unshackle myself from (on a day-to-day basis, that is!) and become that Virtual CEO. This month was a mixed one of losing a couple of small clients, but gaining two awesome medium-sized ones. It’s always tough when clients go, but its a fact of business life – it certainly helps to deal with it when you actually end up gaining ‘more’ out of it in the long run though.
Also, our new Operations Manager, Ben, who has now been with us for a couple of full months on the job, is doing a remarkable job rallying the troops together to finish off the year as strongly as possible. Lots of processes have been put in place, plenty of systems updated and I’m liking what I’m seeing from our growing management team. Im going to be giving you a sneak-peek pass into one of our upcoming MGMM’s (Monthly General Management Meeting) soon, so you can see exactly how I work with my team in growing and developing our team of outsourcing staff, as well as the company culture that we are putting in place, too.
All in all a very memorable, worthwhile, enjoyable and creative month…
I hope you enjoyed the update (if you liked it, please RT and Share!) and look forward, as always, to your comments, suggestions and feedback below.
