New, Bigger Goals for 2009 and Beyond

Many people who are working as employees expect that they will get cost of living raises (based on inflation) and possibly some larger raises if they move into higher positions. So that is exactly what they get.

I learned a lesson early on in my career. As I mentioned in my IT consulting e-book, I got laid off after 14 months on my first job. The company got bought out. Two months before, I got a raise of about 30 cents per hour which was almost insulting. They gave me four weeks notice, and during that time I managed to find another job. The funny thing was I got a 30% raise. My first lesson was ‘You make more money jumping between companies than staying in one company’. That may have been short-sighted but it kept working. I jumped again a couple years later and got an even bigger raise (plus I went contract). I was getting $35/hour which at the time felt huge!

I eventually ended up in IT in a couple start-ups, but got exposed to webMethods software which is used in the integration space. I started to get my head around consulting rates in the $100/hr range. This is because I was talking to sales people from the company and discovered what they (and others like IBM) charge for professional services – from $150/hour to over $200/hour. At the time those numbers were unimaginable as I wasn’t even making six figures as an employee. My general view was that I would make cost of living increases or possibly up to 20-30% more if I jumped to another position.

I’ve been making the same amount of money for years, and recently realized that it was because I hadn’t set a larger target since the early days as an IT consultant. So I was getting was I was envisioning. I needed to think big, to set bigger goals. We all need to create challenges and strive to meet them. This is what gives us excitement in life, not the money but what money can enable. I believe that we are mostly seeking freedom in life. Freedom to make our own choices, and live the life we choose. This usually requires money!

So I recently set some new, bigger business goals. This has re-energized and refocused me.  I’ve started to take action already, I’ve tried a few things so far that haven’t had much success online, but I will persist! I’d like to share the path that I’ve taken and the new goals I am setting and hope you will do the same:

• find a niche market to target (Done!)
• start a corporation and start consulting at $90+/hour range (Done!)
• start working remotely so I can avoid commuting, meetings, get more accomplished during the day and have more freedom (Done!)
• find more contracts that allow remote work and diversify my client base globally
• reduce time-based pay (getting paid by the hour) by finding and creating products to sell online
• obtain recurring revenue by creating membership sites
• move out of the big city and work remotely from a home in the country
• generate $1 million dollars per year of revenue
• give more to animal charities (up to 10%)

I’ll be talking more about working remotely (ie. working from home) and generating online revenues via internet ventures in future posts.  So set your new, bigger goals for 2009 and beyond now! Remember, what you focus on expands.