Things I want to accomplish this year

I’m never very good at making New Year resolutions because frankly, I don’t believe in making New Year resolutions simply because I think whenever you want to do something, you want to bring about some change, you should simply do it and shouldn’t wait for a new year to come by.  But anyway, I think the beginning of a new year is a good time to move on and make some plans — planning always helps.

There are many things I wanted to accomplish last year and they remained neglected due to lack of time (okay, you can say, commitment).

• Develop a system to keep in touch with existing clients: Recently I was going through my old folders.  In the past 4 years I have worked/interacted with more than 500 clients. Among these, I think there have been just 20-30 clients who gave me repeat work. They remembered me, they tracked me down on their own when they required my content writing services.  There must be many more clients who may often need my services but hire other content writers simply because they have forgotten about my services or they can’t recall  whom they hired last time. This is a big waste especially if they liked my services.  I have already signed up for a mailing service and I’m definitely going to use it regularly to keep in touch with my clients.
• Increase my traffic: The traffic on my website is appallingly low.  It is only a miracle I get enough work and I know miracles just can’t keep on happening all the time.  Sooner or later I will run out of work due to lack of traffic. The traffic on my website is so low that I need to increase it to more than 500% in order to ensure continuous supply of work.  I have been neglecting this aspect simply because the current amount of traffic keeps me financially comfortable.
• Expand my network: Very few people know me on the Internet despite the fact that I have been active here since 1999. People came a year ago and became celebrities.  No, I’m not crazy about becoming an Internet celebrity (I would rather become a singing sensation) but knowing more people is not only rewarding intellectually it also helps you generate more work.
• Set up a dependable team of writers: Although I love writing and till now I have had practically no problem delivering assignments to my clients I won’t be able to grow much if I keep on writing on my own.  I will have to take up bigger assignments in order to grow my business and this can only happen if I work with multiple writers and outsource work to them.
• Start singing professionally: My singing teacher thinks I’m ready to perform but I am going to wait and practice more for the next 5-6 months because I think I need a more powerful and expressive voice.  So far I’m quite happy with the progress.

There are many things on the personal level that I would like to achieve/change by the time 2009 ends but professionally I think these are the fundamental things I need to achieve in order to solidify my financial stability.