Reverse To-Do List

The Daily Hustle I am a list builder. I break projects down into their most granular tasks and write them down in a to-do list on an old school scrap of notebook paper. If you look around my desk, folded and tucked neatly reused as bookmarks into books on my shelf, and in my round file cabinet (aka the trash), you'll find them everywhere. Using to-do lists is reinforced everywhere on the web. The tech industry, in particular, is obsessed with the cult of productivity and to-do lists. There are posts on the 5 best to-do list managers, not-to-do lists, and there are apps for that. The Read more

Why Conferences Matter

A Cynical Conference Veteran's Perspective In the Internet Marketing industry you can go from newbie to conference veteran easily in a year. One, there are so many of them and two, internet years go twice the speed of dog years. Gearing up to Affiliate Summit West I told myself if it wasn't for the fact I had promised to speak on a panel, I wouldn't have gone at all. As a salty conference veteran of 3 or so years, I thought I knew everyone I needed to know and could garner the information provided just as easily by staying at home Read more

Local Lead Plan Review

What is Local Lead Gen? This review assumes you know the basics of Local Lead Gen. If you don't, the first few links in my Local SEO Resources post will get you started. Local Lead Generation How-To Earlier this year Chad Frederiksen (CDFNetworks.com) wrote "Local Lead Plan: A Comprehensive Guide to Running a Successful Local Lead Gen Business." I received the launch email, put it on the back burner while I was doing projects, and totally forgot about it until October. So, like you, I thought “if I can get a list of 83 niches and Adhustler's Local Online advertising series free, why would I Read more

DIY MBA Reading List

Drawing heavily from the Personal MBA and infusing books that are either 1) directly applicable to building a web-based business or 2) have been personally recommended, here is the list in subject-matter Read more

Scaling Local Lead Gen

Good Local Lead Gen info to be found in this game of twitter telephone. Read more
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What got you here won’t get you there

Posted on December 16, 2010 by Amanda in Business, Self Employment | 10 Comments

In the last 632 days of working for myself I’ve adopted a pattern that feels increasingly stagnant. So, in an effort to change things up I took a morning to sit down and candidly conduct an After-Action Review. An AAR is an idea borrowed from the military (we employed it loosely as cadets at The Citadel). It’s an evaluation, and applied to a business, it’s a lot like seeing the doctor for your annual check-up. (Though, in my case, I could have used one about a year ago.)

Specifically, an AAR is meant to answer four questions:

  1. What was expected to happen?
  2. What actually happened?
  3. What went well, and why?
  4. What can be improved, and how?

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. -Albert Einstein

If you want different results you need to do things differently. Simple enough.

So I mined my own records and listened to the feedback of those who have to interact with me on both a business and personal level daily. These are my results:

Read more

631 Days of Working for Myself

Posted on December 15, 2010 by Amanda in Business, Self Employment | 9 Comments

“Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes.” – Oscar Wilde

I quit my nine-to-five 1 year, 8 months and 21 days ago. There are a few things I wish I had known before setting out and quite a few I have to keep reminding myself along the way. So rather then scrawl it into yet another notebook I thought I’d publish it. Read more