Here’s how the week played out. Or, rather, here’s how I let the week to play out.
Writing: 7,548 words for the week. Short by about 1500 words. So got only 80% of the target. Or rather, missed it by only 20%.
Blogstarta: Made some important decisions that needed the input of key stakeholders. Stakeholders in this case are hosting companies, support team and my own prayers. Also, for the last two years or so, my boutique hosting company has been generating enough to support all of my online activities (even Aweber payments were being taken out of profits from the hosting company). For the last few months, the online activities can now be afforded by LifeETC itself (or herself, never himself). Anyways, the hard time I was facing with hosting, I’ve decided to hire people who know more than me. Ask them and get the thing sorted. Alhumdulillah.
I am hoping that this month, May 2014, will see the whole system come live, and I will be offering a unique combination of online infrastructure for independent publishers at a very affordable price. I may need to work on the pricing (it’s currently 147 US$ per year, which is on the cheap end). I know that the system, when it’s ready this month God willing, will be worth much more than this. I will be surveying people for the pricing, I hope. And I hope you will give me your valuable input regarding this when the time comes. 
Cakes.pk: The kitchen setup is now being discussed to be opened “in house”. Which, of course, literally means, in the house. Set up the small veranda at the back as a bakery, that sort of thing. I am not in favor of this, as I want the whole operation to be “easy to separate”, which it currently is not.
Separation is critical to allow the owners to disengage from the operational side of things. It is my contention that owners are usually the biggest hurdle towards the growth of their startup, because of this inability (or nonwillingness) to remove themselves from their startup’s operations. Owners are usually not the right people for the job, and “letting go” takes on a whole new, difficult meaning. Let’s see what happens on this front though. Allah khair karay.
LifeETC: Made a few sales in the last week. This was a pleasant surprise. I think it has to do with two things: I have more products on offer (two products to be exact!) and I have been regular in writing and reaching out to the community. I have designed the Aweber email template to include links to my products, and they have worked.
I also got a very glowing testimonial from one of the customers. He bought the case study and then bought the dairy farming guide. Which means that he was happy with the case study; at least happy enough to buy, related product from me. Here’s the email that I got from him:
Quote
Thanks for the confirmation of amount Dear Mohammad Khan. Your Bank Account Number is already in the list of beneficiaries. Dairy Farming Guide will be your second publication which I will buy. The first one was Case Study on How to sell Milk. In fact opposite to your advice to start 2 businesses at a time (Milk Production & Milk Selling), I have jumped into both but I am confident Allah will help me and my team. Your publications are of course important guidelines for me. A follower, prospective entrepreneur of Momekh:-)
I like that this person has enough confidence in me to trust my advice, and enough confidence in himself to make his own decisions.
I feel that as an independent publisher, one of my key metrics to track is the number of testimonials I get for my “publications”. Shouldn’t we all be collectors of testimonials?
DesignByMomekh: Did make some headway into finalizing the theme for the nth time! I have now established the things to do before I try to release the WordPress theme into the wild. First, I had an arbitrary idea of what I wanted, and that idea kept changing the moment I’d reach the end. Now, I have a list. A list of features to add. That’s it. Thanks to Chase Reeves for the reminder: you are the CEO and the Worker Bee, just make sure you don’t mix the two up when working. So the CEO has spoken, the Worker Bee can keep his opinions to himself (well, not really… the Worker Bee keeps a list of things that should be added in the second release, the Worker Bee is strategic like that 
).
So there you have it, the weekly report of the four projects and the one ritual that I’m tracking. By God’s Grace, I feel confident that this is the way forward. I feel happy everyday (Pharrell Williams FTW) and more importantly, I feel that sometimes, at the end of the day, I am actually fulfilled! (Tony Robbins FTW!! It was TR who clearly differentiated “happy” and “fulfilled” for me. I understand that as: happiness is a state of mind, an emotion. You can be happy after a good meal. Being fulfilled, on the other hand, means that (a) you are progressing towards your goal: real happiness lies in progress, and ( 
you feel that your goals will contribute to the lives of others as well as your own. So yeah, TR FTW fersure!)
“Fulfilled” Momekh, out. Alhumdulillah.
P.S. The new month of May has now allowed me to revamp my tracking sheet. I have been tracking these four projects for a month. I have now adjusted the tracking sheet for the month of May. Most of the things I planned to track were too superficial. I ended up tracking very little, although I would think about them!! That “thinking about them” helped me find the key metrics that would help me really pin down the work I am putting in. So far so good. Thank you for reading, and thank you for your support and interest.
God bless, M.
NTS: Break down the quarterly goals into monthly goals, and write down the goals for May w.r.t. each project. The rituals are more important but goals help me stay motivated and stay even more focused. InshAllah.
+++
Responses