Happy 2012 & Recap of My 2011 Goals

Happy new year everyone, happy 2012! It’s my favorite time of the year. If you’ve been reading PPC Ian for a while, you know I’m always thrilled to share my goals for the new year around this time. Two years ago, I shared my 2010 goals and last year I shared my 2011 goals. Since I’m so big on goal setting, I want to make the process a bit more formal this year. In today’s post, I’m going to reflect on my progress towards my 2011 goals. In one of my next posts, I’ll share my 2012 goals. You’ll definitely want to stay tuned – my 2012 goals are quite different from my 2011 ones. In 2011, I had 5 main goals…

Goal 1: Continue To Set Myself Up For Vice President of Marketing

Finishing The Half Marathon

I’ve now been at the Director level for over three years. The last 2 years and 4 months have been at a large, publicly traded company. When I was exploring my current job opportunity, I actually had a VP level offer from a 60 person startup (now larger). This goal is not only about achieving VP (if I wanted to do that, I could have joined that startup 2 years and 4 months ago), it’s about achieving VP at a large company.

Going from Director to Vice President at a large company takes time. It takes persistence. More than anything, it takes the consistent delivery of stellar results. In 2011, I spent a considerable amount of time delivering stellar results while broadening my corporate scope. In my affiliate business, IJL Productions LLC, I have always employed a broad marketing strategy. I regularly leverage all online marketing channels and even a few offline ones. In 2011, I expanded the scope of my corporate focus. In addition to pay per click, I focused on the following channels in a major way: Landing page design, SEO, social media marketing, display, and other marketing channels.

I hit my goal in 2011 of continuing to stay the course, I’m setting myself up for VP at a large company. Moreover, I did a few other things in 2011 that position my career quite well.

Goal 2: Grow My Affiliate Marketing Revenue By 5x

Check out my Money Map and you’ll quickly understand my financial strategy. Affiliate marketing is absolutely critical to my long term strategy. In a nutshell: I’m building up passive income above and beyond the income from my job. I’m reinvesting that money in other passive instruments (such as Lending Club). Long term, the passive income will balloon out of control and fund my family’s life.

While I did not hit my ambitious goal of growing my revenue by 5x, I did increase revenues by 79%. Moreover, my margins were the highest ever. I expanded them from non-existent (I made a net investment in my business in 2010) to 67%, the benefits of an SEO-focused portfolio of websites. I’m quite happy with my results, but at the same time have much higher goals. Stay tuned for my 2012 goals, I will definitely be discussing this one!

Goal 3: Focus On Fewer Websites

Out of my personal website portfolio 120+ websites, I actively focused on about 5 of them in 2011. I believe that is one of the main reasons I grew my affiliate marketing revenue so dramatically. Looking back, I started seeing even better results in recent months due to a two site focus (PPC Ian and one of my authority websites). The end result: I achieved this goal.

Goal 4: Half Marathon, Here I Come

It all started with the 2010 San Carlos Fun Run. After that race, I was hooked and started running all the time. I quickly set my sights on the half marathon and, as you can see in the picture above, I did it! I completed the half marathon in 2011, a long-time personal goal. I ran a strong race (the “Run With The Jets” race at Coyote Point in San Mateo) and did not walk at all. After the race, I felt quite bad, but that’s because I did not hydrate properly. I learned the hard way that it’s all about hydration when preparing for something like this.

Goal 5: Great Vacations With My Wife

Nicole and I really enjoy Hawaii. We enjoyed the Hawaiian Islands each year for the last three years. In 2011, we had Major Fun Times In Maui. We really went all out and had a super vacation. In addition to Hawaii, we visited Las Vegas. Also, we just got back from a holiday vacation to Carmel. Goal achieved!

So, there you have it. I achieved 4 out of 5 goals, not bad! Stay tuned for my 2012 goals. I have some incredibly exciting things in store for 2012 and can’t wait to write about my plans. Also, my sincere thank you for reading and for your support. I’m wishing you an amazing and prosperous new year!

Image in this post of PPC Ian running © PPC Ian