I haven't posted over the last 3 weeks, not because there haven't been any changes, but because things have been changing a lot here, and I'm concentrating on gauging what I'm capable of, and trying to push forward on things that will give me revenue so I can make the 33 months I have left. (wow, that was a run-on sentence if I ever read one!) I had an appointment with the neurolgist on the 31st of March, and we both decided to give this 8 weeks to see if I could effectively work or I needed to move toward applying for SSI. As a function of that appointment, he prescribed Aderall for my ADHD and told me to stay on the Vicadin, and take them consistently, once a day.
The first week or April was amazing. I felt like I was at 95% of what I used to be. You can't imagine the change....suddenly being able to think, to plan, to work, to lay out near, mid and long term business strategy. I felt like a totally different person, a person I hadn't known for almost a year. Physical stamina for being active and doing work around the house wasn't there, but I think that was more of a problem of not being able to do anything for almost a year. So it was a great week, came to a lot of conclusions, and got a fair amount of ancillary work done. I was confused about how the Adderall took away the physical manifestations of the MS. The back pain and full head was gone. I could concentrate. To the point where when I would quit at the end of the day, I felt pulled to go back to work..... I kept thinking that I felt good enough that I should be pushing forward. Maybe I wasted the time, but I resisted the temptation - I opted to spend time with the family and enjoy actually being "me" again.
The "perfect" feeling lasted about a week. Now, I'm drifting down again. Its most likely my system getting used to the Adderall, so there's some hope of adjusting it if it isn't effective any more. The first week I had insomnia, but now its gone. I continue to have some physical pain and stiffness, but for the most part the intellectual stuff is livable. Good thing, 'cause this week coming is the push week. I've concluded that stress is really a killer for me. There was a day this week where I was upset about something, and it killed my energy completely. So its one of my conclusions for moving on - minimze stress. Along those lines and reducing the overall stress was getting taxes done. Refund will be about 3x what I projected. The financial model now says that I'll make it to the end of the 3rd year, so the urgent need to generate near term revenue is reduced. Good thing too, as the SERPs for the publishing product site have fallen off a cliff for the terms that sell the product. No sales in the first 10 days of this month. Needs action, but that action one my conclusions. Here they are:
1) Instead of splitting my time in thirds between the distributable, local business, and web sites, I need to look at investing about $3k in contracting to program the distributable web site. That will free me to concentrate on local business and adding content to the main site (which I've been able to do over the last 10 days). I'll still need to spend some time on design, but the contractor I've identified can do this more efficiently than I can. The only issue is that she make the coding according to my conventions so I can maintain it. This is a big change.
2) Get the distributable done, and sell it. SELL IT! That is the best chance I have at near term revenue. The next cycle for sales is in the fall, and I have to be ready by June in order to be able to catch that business. Not sure of the pricing scale, or how much money I'll be able to make at it, but if I don't get it up and running all that time will be wasted. Got a lot of leads at this point, but can't work them as there's nothing I can show them from the seller standpoint - and that's the most important thing.
3) Get content on the main site. The content I put up in the second half of last year is driving more visitors, and the visitor stats are better than ever. Product sales are down, and I need revenue to cover the cell phone, memberships and other expenses. I'm torn right now about whether to link build for the product to get more sales, or just expand the content to drive more visitors - beacuse the increased visitors has given me 3 clients I should close in the next 30 days. Right now I'm concentrating on just getting the new product up, and putting up videos. That should enable me to drive more links. BUT, I really need to put up more reviews, get the store straightened out, and get more general links. I need a Yahoo Directory listing, but I don't have the money. And I still have the industry blog to start and work on.
4) Start cold calling and visiting local businesses. I started this a week ago, but didn't get too far. I need to design a program and stick with it. I waved off doing it this week because of the Easter holiday. I have to get into it big time on Tuesday and Thursday of next week. Got a client I may be able to close that will give us a year's revenue, but the odds of it happening are about 40%. Meeting with them Wednesday.
So that's it. Having some problems physically today, but about to go outside and do some work. We'll see how that goes, and what it does to my thinking processes and how I feel physically. I'm still pretty optomistic. Here's the tally for today:
Scale - 10 is worst
Weather - 70 and sunny
Upper Back Pain - 2
Foggy Head - 2
Ears Full - 0
Hand Numb - 0
