One of the major reasons we made the move was for my office space. I was working in a small space in the last house. I was thinking about renting an outside office, but then we got to looking at it…

When you combine the mortgage with the cost of the outside office, we could easily rent a much larger house for less than that. So, that’s what we did. We rented out our own house and now we’re renting a big 3500 square foot house. The house has a lot of great reasons for being here (it is great for the kids and we have an awesome waterfront view in the back)… but alas, I got my bigger office.

It is actually two different rooms. Here’s a quickie video:

As you can see, it’ll be nice to have the video setup and not have my kids mess it up.

So, I’m looking forward to doing some more videos! I’m not necessarily going to use the “set” every time, but at least I have options.

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Well, she did. I don’t know what she thinks now. She comes from a time and place (back in Russia) where the very concept of what I do for a living was completely unheard of. When she came and visited us a couple years back, she asked my wife if I was into something shady. From her viewpoint, I sat there and pressed buttons on some strange machine (my computer), and yet somehow our bills were paid and my wife wasn’t working.

My wife’s grandmother has since passed away (God bless her). She has one grandmother left, and who knows what she thinks it is that I do.

But, it puts things in perspective. What I do for a living is such a strange concept to most people, whether they are from overseas or live right here in my own neighborhood. And, I guess that’s OK. It is what it is. I love what I do. I’m lucky to be able to do it. And I enjoy helping others do the same.

2010 was a successful year for me. My family is doing well and we’re happy. And we’re looking ahead to a different (and better) kind of year in 2011.

In this post, I want to share some parting lessons from 2010, some thoughts on 2011, and (of course) those income figures that everybody seems so interested in.

2010 Started With a Bang

… and that bang was the launch of Blog Masters Club. Other than this last launch, the prior time I launched was January of 2010. So, I hit the ground running and the launch did pretty well for me. Then, a double whammy….

The birth of my son, Nathan. And with him came new joys as well as new stresses. I love watching the little guy grow up, and watching him interact with our daughter. On the other hand, it was some added stress for me personally. I now had 2 kids and I was the sole breadwinner for our family. I was making it work, of course, but it is pressure. Plus, there is all the noise that goes with working from home with 2 loud children (love ‘em to death, but they are LOUD).

It is always a tad interesting when I talk with some of my friends in this industry. Most of them don’t have children. Life is simpler when you don’t have children. I don’t live the jet-set lifestyle, I don’t travel all over the world, I don’t really do most of the things that people often associate with online success. Instead, I’m a father. And in the long run, it is far more fulfilling that way.

Also accomplished in 2010 was a re-design of PCMech as well as 3DayMoney. I began working with a new designer, Shawn, who has been awesome to work with. We also went to town on re-designing the Blog Masters Club, and you guys just got to see that handiwork in the launch that just ended. A lot of work and prep time went into that whole thing, and, of course, it was all done with long-term use in mind since I’m not closing Blog Masters down this time.

So, some things happened and it was a packed year. There were, however, some challenges and some things I intend to do better…

My Challenges in 2010

One might not have noticed from the outside, but internally, I felt like I hit a little bit of a wall in 2010. As you’ll see below, my income for the year was up a bit from the prior year, but not by much. What it shows me is that my business didn’t really GROW in 2010. It just kinda maintained the status quo.

And it isn’t as if the status quo sucks. But, the Internet is a fast-changing thing, and if you’re not growing, you’re actually shrinking. That’s just reality.

The big lessons I take away from 2010 are:

• I need to be more active when it comes to creating lasting assets for my business. As an example of what I mean, I launched Blog Masters in January of 2010, then I didn’t do it again until just recently. That was a year without my flagship product even being on the market. Not only that, I didn’t really create anything new. So, I haven’t been nearly as active on that front as I should have been. My sales funnel needs to be developed out more.
• I need to finally get my outsourcing strategy honed and working. I have Lisa, who consistently does everything I throw her way and she’s awesome. The problem is… I’m not having her do ENOUGH. I still have a bit of the old do-it-yourself mentality going on in my business, and I know this is something which bottlenecks me. Essentially, people aren’t being managed entirely, and the buck stops with me on that one.
• I need to put in more organization which will support the growth of my business. With all lines going through me, I hang things up. Not only that, my efficiency ebbs and flows. Quite frankly, sometimes I just don’t feel like doing what needs to be done. The solution, as I see it, is to set up systems which are repeatable then put somebody else in charge of that.

All in all, I think my business is doing well, but it is at a bit of a crossroads. Certain things need to be reorganized, and certain ways I do things changed, in order to allow things to move to the next level. And therein lies my focus for 2011.

But, before we talk 2011, let’s talk income for 2010. How’d I do?

The Annual Blogging Income Report for 2010

As I alluded to above, my income for 2010 was up from 2009, but not by alot. Now, before I jump into this, I always remind people that these numbers are gross income figures into my business. Many people equate this to “take-home pay”, and that’s an employee way of thinking. These numbers are not my personal paycheck. OK…

In total, my business brought in $210,284.60 in the fiscal year 2010. Here is the general source breakdown…

• Advertising on PCMech.com:
  • $39,041.20
• Affiliate Marketing (various sources):
  • $35,416.88
• Blog Masters Club:
  • $77,701.87
• PCMech Memberships:
  • $47,099.54
• Inner Circe/3DayMoney:
  • $5,887.30
• Misc Consulting:
  • $2,040.00
• Other (mostly old product sales on PCMech which are no longer on the market):
  • $3,284.24

This is in contrast to 2009, where I brought in $204,629.79. So, my annual gross increased by $5,654.81.

Here is a general monthly breakdown:

Now, there is a strong lesson to be seen right there in that graph, which I will address below. But, another interesting thing to look at (at least for me) is how my income distribution has adjusted. Here is a breakdown by source for 2010:

And here is that same breakdown, but for 2009:

So, in general…

• My revenue from PCMech memberships dropped.
• Revenue from ads on PCMech has dropped.
• Affiliate marketing became a little bigger segment of revenue in 2010.
• Blog Masters Club grew quite a bit.
• All in all, income from DavidRisley.com and related properties increased while revenue from PCMech has decreased.

On the expenses side of the equation, it remained almost exactly the same in 2010 as it did in 2009. The total expenses for the business came out to $122,660.43. While I won’t get into a full dollar-by-dollar breakdown on this (namely because it would reveal things like what I pay people, and that’s not for public consumption), I will say that my two biggest expenses are payroll and commissions.

Commissions, you might ask? Yes, when you have affiliates, you have to pay them, too.

I paid about $7,700 in business-related travel, $11,620.23 in web hosting costs, $3,500 in education investment for myself, $6,900 in credit card and merchant fees. I also had some utility charges that I pay out of the business, postage, equipment purchases, development services, etc. I also, privately, paid out $3,400 from the business to a charity of my choice (which will remain private).

One thing I freely admit (and I plan to pay attention to in 2011) is that my business expenses are too high. For one, I’m overpaying for web hosting and I know it. I have 2 dedicated servers that I pay through the nose for, all in addition to fees I pay for Amazon S3, 1ShoppingCart, GotoWebinar and various other services I subscribe to for the business. One of my projects is going to be to streamline things, and very likely abandon one of my dedicated servers. I think I can easily get everything onto 1 box, perhaps also picking up a cloud hosting account to play around with.

OK, there you have it. More figures than I’ve revealed in quite some time.

Lessons From 2010…. Taken into 2011

Every year is a learning experience, and I’m learning new things all the time. I mess things up just like everybody else. I’m not always Mr. Effeciency, and sometimes things don’t operate internally quite as well as I would like.

The trick (if you want to call it that) is to periodically take off the worker hat and put on the executive hat. When I’m wearing the exec hat, I take the time to look at my business from a bird’s eye view. In a way, I had to put on my exec hat to even write this post, as I got a large 2-year trend idea on what’s going on in my business. If you don’t look at things from this perspective from time to time, you don’t learn and you miss what’s going on.

So, in looking at 2009 and 2010, what did I learn? And how do I plan to bring that into 2011?

#1 – Follow-Through Is Super Important

I follow through on many projects, and those are the ones you guys see. Behind the scenes, I sometimes drop the ball. One example of that is when I launched Blog Masters in January of 2010 and then waited a full year to do it again. That wasn’t smart at all. In fact, if you look at my monthly breakdown on income above, you’ll see the huge spike in the first 2 months of the year, then things tapered off. That was Blog Masters Club.

When you build a nice momentum like that, you want to keep it going. And, in my case, I dropped the ball. The Club lost momentum and it was doing absolutely nothing until just recently. The monthly payments of the January class ended around June, and I never replaced the income stream.

So, the lesson there is to build leverage and build momentum, and once you’ve got it – KEEP IT.

And this leads me into my second lesson…

#2 – Make New Products – And More Often

After I relaunched Blog Masters in January, I created nothing NEW for the rest of the year. Well, I did launch Inner Circle, but that wasn’t even really a launch. I just kind of opened it and I still, to this day, I haven’t really taken the time to fine-tune that funnel.

So, one of my goals for 2011 is to create and launch at LEAST 6 new products. I just started off the year with reopening Blog Masters Club again – this time permanently. I did it so as to kick it off again and let it be a permanent part of my sales funnel. Plus, it will allow me to orchestrate some ongoing promotions for it both internally and with affiliates – something I couldn’t do before.

My next product will likely be coming out in February. None of them will be nearly as big as Blog Masters. I’ve learned some hard lessons regarding product creation that you guys will be seeing over the coming year.

#3 – Build My Team, Hone It Down

My business needs to reorganize to the degree that I am not the hub of it all. My internal projects to finally create repeatable systems for most things need to be completed. I need to find people to fill those missing gaps in my business. And people will need to be evaluated as to their effeciency and how much they add to my business bottom line.

One of my biggest stumbling blocks has been properly harnessing the power of others. Sure, I do it… it just isn’t always pretty. And that needs to change. I’m still doing too much myself, so this area is going to get attention this year and decisions will need to be made.

#4 – Turn My Business Into a Lean Mean Machine, Dammit.

This covers people (see above), but also systems. There are holes in my system right now. There are leaks. My business leaks money due to some inefficiencies (for example, paying for far more hosting resources than I really need). There are also things which aren’t being done properly or at all, because of lack of systems.

One thing I am looking into are changes in my shopping cart system. I ran into limitations with 1ShoppingCart that bug me. Plus, there are even limitations with the followup and targeting capability of Aweber (as powerful as they are). I’m actually pondering systems like Infusionsoft, but still have research to do on whether it is the ideal system for me.

But, I need to cut expenses, increase overall effeciency, all while making 2011 more productive than 2010.

And Lastly…

There you have it. A big HONKER blog post for you today, with far more detail than I usually go into on such matters.

I have a lot of projects on my docket for this year. In addition to the 6 new products, I have some plans for PCMech.com, a book I’d like to write and release, plus a desire to be more “out there” when it comes to guest posting and things like that. So, I’ve got a busy year ahead.

Here at home, things are going to change. A big change for us this year is that my wife is going to be re-entering the rat race. She’ll be going back to work as an engineer and she’ll be doing pretty well there, too. She’s interesting in that she is NOT entrepreneurial – AT ALL. I could be making a million dollars per year, and she’d still want to have a 9-to-5 job. So, I’m happy for her because I know SHE’LL be happy. We don’t really need the extra income, but it will be nice to have her contributing to things financially.

This, of course, means I won’t have the kids home all the time. They’ll be in daycare until at least mid afternoon. We think it will work out quite well. The kids will get more variety to their day, both my wife and I can focus more, and our evenings will be much more dedicated to simply spending time with the kids rather than trying to multi-task.

Coming full circle, though…. I really love what I do for a living. I love that I can do it while helping others at the same time.

I really think we’re all in the same boat, on a level playing field. I don’t have any special magic powers that allow me to do what I do…. I just do it.

So, all of my best to you and your family for 2011. I value every one of you more than you can imagine (even if i haven’t met most of you in person yet)…. and I truly THANK YOU.

Yours in Blogging Success,
David Risley

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Coffee.

See, a friend of mine recently asked me if I wanted to review a coffee maker on my blog. At first, I was going to say “no” simply because I don’t usually do things like that around here. However, then some facts made me change my mind…

• The coffee maker she wanted me to check out looked pretty darn cool.
• She said I could keep one. Yay!
• I address an audience of bloggers, and let’s face it – most of us are coffee addicts, right?
• She was providing me an extra unit to GIVE AWAY to one of my readers. Once again, Yay!

So, I accepted. Something I very rarely do on this blog. And here I am reviewing a coffee maker on a blog about blogging. Weirder things could happen, I guess.

Behold… The Tassimo T20

The Tassimo T20 is a single-serve coffee brewer, meaning it only makes a single cup at a time. Being that I’ve never owned a single-serve before, I found it interesting the way it works.

Essentially, you keep water in a reservoir on the back. Then, you use what is called a T DISC. It is a little disc with the coffee inside of it. On top of that disc is a barcode which the T20 reads in order to determine quantity of water, temperature, etc. Pretty slick, really.

To make a cup, you just make sure you have water, put the Disc in, and smack the button. In a minute or so, you have a hot cup of coffee to drink while you go work on that killer blog post.

You don’t have to drink just plain coffee, either. You can get T Discs from most of the major brands, including Gevalia, Starbucks, Maxwell House, etc. You can even do teas with it (I probably wouldn’t, though). Among the coffees, you can also do expressos, flavored coffees, caffe lattes, cappuccinos, etc. The bar code tells the machine what to do. The ingredients are there. You just hit a button and wait a bit.

Here is a little video where I will make a cup of Starbucks caffe latte…

And My Review Is…

I like it. With my regular coffee maker, I do one thing – make coffee. With the T20, I can mix it up and do different things.

The only downside I see is the cost. You have to use the proprietary T DISCS in these units. All these single serve makers use their own proprietary setup for the coffee itself. So, you won’t be buying any coffee bricks of Folgers at the local grocery store.

Depending on what you’re making, you’ll be paying anywhere from 50 cents to a dollar per cup. The company sent me a Gevalia signature blend coffee…. 16 Discs. It sells for $8.99 on their website, which comes out to about 56 cents for a cup of coffee. Certainly affordable to what you’d spend if you bought the coffee away from home, but compared to brewing in a standard coffee maker, it is more expensive.

The company also sent me the the cappuccino primo package from Starbucks. It looks like it sells for $10.99, and makes 8 drinks. That’s about $1.37 for a cup, and if you compare that to what you’d pay inside a Starbucks, it is obviously cheaper.

So, the cost element depends on what you’re drinking.

Also, you can’t buy the T DISCs just anywhere. Some stores carry them, but not all. My local grocery store only carries Kuerig gear (a competitor to Tassimo). Mostly, you’ll need to buy the discs online.

All in all, a great unit to have around if you like caffeine. But, I’d keep a regular coffee maker around as well.

And Now… Can I Give You One? (Giveaway Details)

I’m told that the company has a T20 waiting for one of my readers.

Now, we’re all bloggers here, and we’re familiar with promotion, right? Obviously, this whole thing is being done in order to promote the coffee maker and the company. So, what I’m going to do is have you do a few quick things to help spread the word about it… and that will be how you enter this little contest to get a T20 shipped to you for free.

1. Head on over to TassimoDirect (opens in new window), pick out the kind of coffee that YOU would want to drink while writing that killer blog post, and post your choice below as a comment.

OK, that one is mandatory, meaning that’s how you enter this bad boy. Below are some ways you can throw additional entries into the hat and help spread the word….

1. Like this post on Facebook (see right below this post).
2. Retweet this post using something like this…
   “I’m entering to win a Tassimo T20 coffee brewer from @davidrisley, so I can blog faster and better.”
   Man, I just came up with that tweet. Am I inventive or what? Oh, make sure to include a link to THIS POST in your tweet, too. Also, include my Twitter handle (@davidrisley) so that I’ll actually SEE your tweet.

Each of these actions puts an entry into my proverbial hat. The drawing will be completely random, and I’ll announce a winner this coming Friday, December 17th. You must have your entry in by noon on Friday. I’ll announce the winner as an EDIT on this very post, and I’ll also tweet out about it and contact the winner directly. If the winner gets me their shipping info ASAP, I’m told the company can have this machine to you in time for Christmas.

OK, that’s the scoop. (pun intended)

BTW, you can connect up with Tassimo on Facebook as well as on Tassimo on Twitter.

UPDATE: Dec 17th, 12:15PM
OK, guys. Entries are officially CUT OFF for this contest. I will be tallying up the number of entries, doing a random drawing, and getting in touch with the winner shortly.

UPDATE: Dec 17th, 12:49PM
Tallied up entries, a random number was then generated by Random.org, and a winner was chosen. Waiting for acknowledgement from them first, then it will be announced.

UPDATE: Dec 17th, 1:12PM
OK, the winner of the Tassimo T20 is Christina Crowe, from CashCampfire. Congrats, Christina, and Merry Christmas to you and your family. Thanks so much to everybody who entered the giveaway contest.

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And, yeah, I’m a dad. So, I’m gonna brag my ass off.

I’m a lucky man. Here’s why…

Those are my kids. I need no bigger motivation than that, really.

Kids are weird. See, they can annoy me to no end sometimes. If you follow me on Twitter, you’ve probably seen some of my escapades with regard to my daughter. I mean, she in her “terrible two’s”, and let me tell you, that shit is REAL. And she’s about to go into her terrorist 3′s.

But, I wouldn’t have it any other way. It means she’s got energy. It means she has spunk. My little boy is the same way…. he’s a bundle of energy and I can tell he’s probably going to make my daughter seem tame by comparison.

My kids are a gift. The word “gratitude” doesn’t even scratch the surface.

And then there’s my wife, Malika. The two of us are like ying and yang, but it works. For one, while I am insanely entrepreneurial and pretty much hate the idea of a regular job – she digs it. In fact, no matter how successful I am with my business online, I expect that she will have a regular job. She’s an engineer and she likes that sort of thing.

My wife and I complete each other, and I don’t mean that in the weird movie-esque stereotypical sense. It literally is the kind of thing where she is good at the things I’m not good at, and vice versa. Where I can be impatient, she’s patient. Where she can be more unorganized, I’m organized. Together, it works.

My entire family is out of my league. My wife is beautiful, my kids are cuter than hell, and then there’s me. Or at least that’s how I see it.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I want to end off with that. No more needs to be said, really.

I want to leave you with one thing…. I’ve shared what I am grateful for. But, what about you? Perhaps you can share below what you’re grateful for (in comments)…. that is, if you’re not too busy eating your faces off.

Lastly, remember that it should continue past today. Think deeper about gratitude, because as I said a couple days ago, it goes deeper than simply expressing thanks for your life.

Stay awesome.

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October has been a busy month. So, here we go…

Income Report – Short Form

So, no fancy graphs or anything, but just an update (since people still seem to dig this stuff).

In general, my online business has been coasting through this summer like it has most every other summer – slow and steady. I’m not sure what it is, but the summer always tends to be slower in terms of income for my business. It has been that way for years, and in talking to a few of my entrepreneur friends, it seems I’m not alone.

The monthly gross is as follows:

• June 2010 – $15,114.33
• July 2010 – $10,287.90
• August 2010 – $13,237.35
• September 2010 – $7,472.88

As always, I want to make clear that this is GROSS. Not take-home pay.

Some may wonder why I say the summer is slow with figures like that. Well, I track two different sides of the coin. One is actually revenue GENERATED. The other is revenue COLLECTED. The figures above are collected, which means some of that income was generated in the months prior and I just happen to get paid for it then. During those same summer months, I’ve seen drops in ad revenue from my tech site. Also, the current class of Blog Masters Club ended, so that revenue stream dried up. October is going to end up over the $9K mark, but if it weren’t for the membership promotion I ran while at Blogworld, it would have been down.

This seems to be the typical summer flow, perhaps coupled with a little more focus on my part on future stuff rather than current stuff. I’ve got plenty planned, so not worried about it at all, really. More on that below…

My October Travels

I spent about two weeks this month on the go. First, it was Las Vegas for Blogworld Expo, then back to Florida for 3 days, then off to Phoenix for the Product Launch Formula event, then back home.

Both events were a success for me. Blogworld, as you know, is my can’t-miss event of the year. It was great to hang out with so many of my online friends in person. Plus, it was also an honor to be speaking at the event for the first time.

The PLF event was a completely different beast. It attracts a crowd of real entrepreneurs and marketers… and this is distinctly different than the majority at Blogworld. See, there are bloggers who are entrepreneurs, and they are the bloggers who often end up speaking at the event. But, the majority of attendees are still trying to ramp up to that. Bloggers are all over social media… the PLF guys have an entirely different perspective on things like Twitter.

In short, I think it is really valuable to go to events in both camps. I’m a blogger who bridges the worlds of blogging and internet marketing, and that shows in the events I attend as well. I think it is valuable.

#BloggerDiet

Ah, yes, the notorious B-I-G… aka, me. So, before my October traveling, I publicly committed to starting the Power 90 program and losing weight. I put it off until after my travels were over because I knew it would be a nightmare to begin right then. A few people harped on me for procrastinating, but – whatever. It was the right decision.

But, now that I’m back – it’s on! I’m only 3 days in, and today’s workout will be number #4. Yes, I’m sore. But, I’m still enjoying it (strangely enough) and I feel good.

It is a good feeling, too, because I don’t feel like such a sloth when I sit at the computer and work during the day. As a blogger, this is a good balance. Our jobs have a lot of sitting, so I think you need to exercise to keep from rotting.

Also, there are obvious parallels between exercising and the dedication you need to succeed in an online business. Because exercise isn’t always fun, but you stick to it and take action. Sounds alot like business, doesn’t it? I’m fully expecting my business to kick ass during this period of increased exercise. I can think faster and I think it all goes together.

I’ll be updating my Twitter account with #bloggerdiet updates periodically. And, yes, I’ll use the #bloggerdiet hashtag just for my own edification.

Moving Ahead

Right now, I am prepping up for a relaunch of Blog Masters Club. We’re putting some awesome stuff together for that.

I also have a few new mini-courses I’m going to be making – some paid and some free. Registered a few new domains for those, and I’m going to be tackling head-on some of the biggest constraints that I constantly hear from bloggers who fill out my surveys. So, stay tuned for that, too.

I’m also putting more emphasis on systematizing and building out my team. We’re getting systems and procedures set up inside of Basecamp so that, as I bring on specific outsourcers, there is no confusion as to how to proceed with them. In the past, I’ve brought on people then under-utlilized them because I was too disorganized. So, that’s going to change. As I said in my post from PLF, it is time to think bigger. And I’m doing exactly that.

So, there you have it.

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I sat there and tried to sleep in a really uncomfortable chair, cursing the hospital staff for not thinking of us soon-to-be daddys. Of course, my wife has a job on her hands, so I probably shouldn’t complain. My part was easy. The least I could do was just suck it up and try to enjoy my little six-pack of cheese crackers I got from the snack machine in the hall. I’ll just call it…. breakfast.

Later that morning, it happened. Pure magic. First she wasn’t there…. then she was. We heard that first cry and we both knew it had all changed. Everything changed. While I stared at my beautiful baby girl, I leaned down and kissed my wife. Neither my wife and I are the tearful type, but this event did it. We shared a few tears.

We had done it. We were parents now. Nothing would ever be the same.

Ever.

The Return Home… And To Business

We returned home a couple days later. It was baby’s first car trip, and daddy’s first drive with said baby in the car. I was always that guy who saw the “baby on board” bumper sticker and snickered. But, now I understood.

But, we made it. We brought our baby girl into the house for the first time. We were alone. No nurses to help us, nobody to make us feel more relaxed when she cried. We made it through that first night, but not without adventure.

The next day, I sat back down in my office chair. And breathed. I knew this day would come, but now it was here.

I was a blogger. That’s what I did. And I’ve got a new baby girl who depends on it.

My blogs will pay for her diapers, her bottles, the hospital bill, the doctor visits – everything. I looked ahead at the next 18 years and, yep! Gotta pay for that, too.

I clearly remember the hospital registration lady asking me what I did for a living when we pre-registered. She listened, but she didn’t get it. I tried to explain it, but she’d never get it. But, she saw I was somehow able to pay that hospital bill.

Back in my office, I breathed. It is all on me now. I had been what some call a “problogger” for a few years now, but until now, I had nobody riding on it but myself. Now, I’ve got a daughter. She doesn’t know what a blog is. She just knows that things appear when she needs them. My job is to make it happen.

She Grows

Having kids is an adventure. We see the days when she learns to crawl for the first time. We see the days when her wobbly little legs supported her while she stood, with the assistance of our coffee table, of course. We saw the days when she found new and creative ways to splash green bean goo all over her high chair. How they manage to make such a mess is beyond me.

Throughout it all, I stay steady on the balance beam of fatherhood. I have to be there for her, but I also have a business to run. It is the ultimate tug-of-war. She needs me, but she also needs the fruits of my labor. “Money doesn’t grow on trees!”…. I always heard that one, but now I know just how true it is.

My wife and I work our tails off for our new little girl. She stopped working to be a mom and that is a pretty tough job. It is mentally taxing and my wife sometimes gets a bit resentful with me that I have the liberty to wall myself up in my office and just…. work. Of course, I do love what I do, but it is also work. I try to make it all happen…. to be there for my family while also growing my business. But, it is tough at times.

My wife barely understands what I do for a living. She just knows somehow the bills get paid. She feels a little out-of-control not directly contributing to our family income. It does bother her, but this is just the stage we are in. For myself, I consider myself lucky to be able to be the sole bread winner while doing what I do.

I run a couple launches. I grow my business. In fact, my business has grown more in terms of revenue since the birth of my daughter than ever before that point. Perhaps it is sheer necessity level, but I’m making it work.

At the end of the day, however, I’m daddy. It is job #1. I’ll be there to hold her when she is ill, tuck her in bed at night, and try to have conversations with her on the phone when daddy has to be a few thousand miles away, wishing he were home.

The Future

My daughter, and now my handsome little son…. when I look into their eyes, I see the future. I see potential.

What will my business be like then? I have no idea. Will I still be blogging? Will blogging even really exist in the same way when my kids are older? I don’t know.

I’m a resourceful guy, though. I like to think I can keep up with what changes come my way. I figure if I provide value and help people using the Internet, things will work out. After all, this is business. The rules haven’t changed. When you provide value and people trust you, you’ll be rewarded.

So, I’ll keep blogging and I’ll keep loving it. And when that time comes that I need to make some adjustments to how I do things, I’ll do it.

When that day comes, when daddy is walking his beautiful little girl down the aisle, I’ll know I pulled it off. I’ll have accomplished something. Really, one of the few things that really matter.

I can imagine it now… having my dance with my daughter. Trying not to step on her toes. Trying to keep the tears back. I’ll remember the green beans all over her face, the huge mess of toys in the living room, the feeling I get when we just hang out and watch Spongebob. I’ll remember when she came and visited me in my office, played with my mouse trackball and looked for something entertaining on my computer screen. When she’d catch a glimpse of my blog on the monitor, point at my picture and say, “daddy!”.

Others may know me as “six figure blogger”, or whatever I might be known as in the future. But, to her, I’m just daddy and I always will be.

What is it like being a problogger and a daddy? It is an adventure with ups and downs. You look at blogging a little differently. It is a business. And I intend to do it well.

Because I’m daddy. That’s what I do. Just ask my little girl.

No related posts.

A long time ago, there was a meme going around where some bloggers would list 25 random things about themselves that their audience might not know. So, I did it and came up with 25 Random Things You Probably Didn’t Know About David Risley. Several months later, I guess I did it again: 25 [More] Random Things About Dave.

Well, guess what? I did it again. Because it is kinda fun. So, here are 25 more insanely random factoids about David Risley.

1. I drink about 3 cups of coffee per day. I tried the whole tea thing. Its OK, but doesn’t do it for me.
2. I haven’t worn real shoes in months. I wear sandals pretty much all the time.
3. I sometimes find that I’m too impatient with people. Depends on my mood.
4. People in the blogging market have told me many times that I am accessible, approachable, etc. The truth is that I am that way because I know the truth. The truth is I’m not that big a damn deal.
5. I have a hard time reading many business books because it takes them 300 pages to say what I coulda said in one frickin blog post.
6. The reason I don’t podcast is because I seriously don’t think I could talk for that long about one thing. I tend to be a to-the-point guy, which means I’d “blow my wad” in like two minutes and have nothing else to say. Then, I’d just look like an idiot.
7. My wife gives me a hard time when I buy new gadgets (like my Ipad). I tell her to talk to the hand. Yeah, that doesn’t go very well.
8. I thought up my daughter’s name on the way home from Sarasota, FL while driving down I-75. My wife thought up my son’s name while we were on a date at a Thai restaurant in Brandon, FL.
9. When I see pictures of myself at conferences, I think “mmmoooooo!”. Yeah, I need to lose some weight. Damn it.
10. Many times when I write a post about time management or organization, it is because it is something I was dealing with at the time I wrote the post. And it feels odd sometimes when I think that some of my readers think I wrote it because I have all the answers. I don’t.
11. I think my home office is way too small. It may look big on camera, but it is really just a 10×10 room. My wife and I plan to upgrade the house to something larger, but like a lot of people, the real estate market has messed with us, too. Although probably not as much as some.
12. I love sarcastic comedy.
13. I’m having a hard time watching my language around my kids. Getting better at it, but ugh.
14. I stopped using Foursquare. Just don’t see the point. Sorry.
15. It pisses me off when people make conclusions about things they have no idea, or when they take other people’s opinions as their opinions and yet not personally LOOK for themselves. It is mental laziness and a sign of stupidity. And, unfortunately, it is VERY prevalent in our society. Why let the news media be your brain when they prove time and time again to lie and make things up for the sake of controversy?
16. It sometimes seems surreal that I make my living blogging.
17. I have always been insecure about my appearance. Its just this thing. Its weird, too, because I also have a lot of self confidence.
18. Blogging, for me, is about more than business. With this blog, it is also one way of many that I hope to leave the world a better place because I was in it. If I can help others achieve their goals in any way, then I feel I’ve accomplished something.
19. I sometimes have a very hard time biting my lip about politics online, but I try to because I know that, no matter what I say, it’ll alienate some of you. And I think that’s really unfortunate when you consider we all want the same things in life.
20. My office chair is an Aeron chair, by Herman Miller. Yeah, it was expensive for a chair, but it was a reward to myself for a product launch.
21. Sweets? I could take it or leave it. I definitely don’t have a sweet tooth. My weakness is carbs. I love snack foods.
22. When I got SCUBA certified, they made me do some interesting things. Like an underwater obstacle course with a blacked out mask. Like swim a full-length pool, both ways, underwater without taking a breath (that one killed me). Comes in handy, though. Was in a cave opening in a Florida spring a few years back and being able to navigate tight spaces in low light was handy at the time.
23. My music tastes are VERY wide. Sometimes I listen to alternative rock, other times jazz, other times some Yo Yo Ma.
24. I host a meetup group here in Tampa for internet marketing. Usually have 25-30 people there every time we meet.
25. Sometimes, when I have nothing else to say on Twitter, I have to resist the urge to just type in the words “fa shizzle”. I shit you not.

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The breakdown here is pretty much showing a business which is coasting. I haven’t had any major new releases, and most of my work has been behind the scenes. It also goes to show which areas need some attention on my part.

Here is the breakdown:

The biggest segment for June was banner advertising running over on PCMech. That said, it was only 27% of total revenue. Once again, this shows my overall emphasis on internal products and not ads.

Blog Masters Club just went through it’s last renewal with existing members, so that stream will dry up next month. Of course, that also means I’m going to be relaunching soon. I’ve got a big mindmap for the launch itself, as well as some changes to the actual product. So, it is going to be pretty exciting and, even if you end up passing it over and not enrolling, I’m sure you’ll get a lot of value from the prelaunch.

Things always vary month-to-month, and some months see big spikes in some areas and others don’t. June was a pretty “normal” month. No launches. No big promotions.

This month, I’m going to be “relaunching” PCMech.com and am very likely going to run some type of promotional campaign over there. I’m also going to begin prepping for the Blog Masters relaunch (as I mentioned). I’m also going to be promoting 3DayMoney a bit more (forewarning ). And I’ve got other mini-products in the mental pipeline.

July is shaping up to be a bit of a transitional month. PCMech is “in flux” right now, with some Google algorithm changes affecting traffic in a negative way. Hence, ad revenue will be less in July. I’m not overly concerned about it because I’m actively working on PCMech right now, and the membership program is going to be getting a lot more attention (and that’s what I want, because I don’t like ads anyway).

So, stay tuned.

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Yes, YOU. I’m directly talking to YOU.

If you’re reading my blog, then I’m guessing you’re a blogger. At the very least, you’re probably involved in internet business in some way.

And you’re trying to accomplish certain things. Perhaps it is more traffic, more people on your list, more revenue. All of the above, most likely.

And perhaps you’ve been working on this for some time. Well, chances are you have certain things which you find frustrating. Certain areas where you consistently feel like you’re spinning your wheels and making little (or no) headway.

So, my question to you is… What are your biggest frustrations when it comes to your blogging?

Go ahead, post your input as a comment below. I’ll be reading every single one.

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I’m pushing a few projects further down the road at the same time. I’m not usually a big proponent of multi-tasking, but it is kind of what I’m doing right now.

Today, I thought I’d give you an inside look at what I’m working on for my tech site: PCMech.

Mission: Make PCMech Cool Again

Many of you know that, well before I ever began blogging about blogging, I was (and am) a tech blogger. PCMech.com is my largest blog and it has been online for well over a decade now.

The thing is… it is becoming irrelevant.

I don’t really enjoy saying that about my own blog, but it happens to be the truth. The tech niche has saturated so much and things are changing so quickly. And we, at PCMech, aren’t doing a great job at keeping up.

Now, don’t get me wrong. As a business, PCMech is doing fine. The site is on it’s way, still, to generate a six-figure income this year. So, it isn’t sucking in the revenue department. However, traffic has decreased and the site is becoming a bit stale. The bounce rate has gone up, too.

So, the project is to make PCMech cool again. I actually have this project set up in Basecamp called exactly that. In short, here is what this campaign of mine is going to entail:

1. A complete re-design of the entire site. Emphasis here not only on aesthetics suitable for a technology site, but on focus on community, mailing list, premium membership, and searchability. Use of ads will probably diminish somewhat.
2. Refocus the content. The industry is moving quickly and, today, it is more about web apps, mobile, and lifestyle. The days of talking about building computers is over. The number of people out there who still build their own machines is dwindling and getting smaller every day. So, I’m going to be bringing on some new writers. I’m also going to bring on a researcher who can act as information gatherer. By doing this, I think we can create some much higher quality posts than we have in the past.
3. Ramp up the community. A strong sense of community, united around a common desire, is what will help PCMech stand out in a crowed niche. That common desire needs to be shifted toward an emotion – enthusiasm for what we can accomplish using technology. To foster the community, the PCMech forums will be ramped up. I’ve already switched the blog to Disqus (which has better social media integration). Myself and the authors are going to be much more involved in the comments. By combining the content focus with this, I think we can get people involved like never before. The PCMech audience has been slow to adopt social media, and I’m going to have to entice them into it.
4. Move revenue more in-house. PCMech makes more money from the membership than from ads and it has been that way for awhile. However, I think we’re going to begin making the switch even more by not showing as many ads. Now, don’t get me wrong – there WILL be ads. Unlike this blog, PCMech is suitable for advertising so I’m not going to completely ditch that revenue stream. However, in general, I want to begin promoting the membership more and start lessening the visual clutter of the ads. It allows me to control the message. We’ll see how this one plays out.
5. Bring back the Daily Alerts list. For some time, we’ve mostly stuck with the weekly newsletter on PCMech, plus a few random emails in between. Our daily “Tip of the Day” email just goes on automatic and isn’t really promoted that much. However, my “Tip of the Day” emails enjoy a much higher open rate than anything else we send. Now, that’s interesting! It tells me two things: (1) People want to get alerts for new content via email because they don’t use RSS, (2) They like “tips”. So, I’m going to bring back this option in public on the blog, powered by Aweber’s blog broadcast feature.

I won’t go on and on. There are a lot of details in play here, plus some other psychological things I’m going to build into the site. I won’t go into all of them here. Even once the new design goes live, I’ll be doing a lot of testing and fine-tuning.

The focus, so far, has been on the re-design. I’ll give you a look-see.

Essentially, I am taking a theme from the guys at Elegant Themes and I’m modifying it quite a bit. It has already been edited quite a bit, however the site is undergoing a “treatment” from my graphics designer, so it’ll be getting a full new logo, some color adjustments, layout adjustments, etc. But, this screenshot is as of 2 or 3 days ago and gives a bit of a look at my “sandbox”.

So, that’s the scoop. So much to do here, but PCMech has been needing my attention for some time. And now it is getting it.

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