Business — Perfectly Petersen

by Jesse Petersen on February 10, 2010

A New Chapter

The last few months have been a nearly continuous cycle of working on school work until clients scream and then work on client work until a school deadline was looming: not much fun for being self-employed. I’ve lost a couple of clients, gained quite a few, and been busy keeping all of these fine china plates spinning.

The Dream

Something I’ve been struggling to get my mind wrapped around for nearly 3 years is the whole concept of residual income. What do I know, what can I write, what can I sell? With the highs and lows of life, that sends one into a single-minded passion for something until hitting a brick wall and taking a turn for a new path. For now, everything I earn has required dedicated time spent to earn money. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Business Tagged With: The Dream

by Jesse Petersen on February 2, 2010

One Year of Business – A Year in Review

One year ago seems like forever and yesterday at the same time. Last year, the Super Bowl was on January 31st. The next day started with work as normal until 10:45am. No longer with a job position and a backlog of freelance work, I opened the doors to Petersen Media Group on Feb 2nd, 2009 – Groundhog Day.

Within the first month, I had a major publishing house on my list of clients, ported a British non-profit’s 1,600 page website to WordPress, and reconnected with nearly every one of my SOBCon connections for work or referrals. It was quite a February, that is for sure. I was getting 2-4 hours of sleep per night and my health deteriorated. It was time for drastic measures. Sleeping pills and intravenous antibiotics got me back into health and I changed my work style.

I finally had my dream of dream jobs. First was to work from home, which I’d been doing for 5 months. Second was to work from home for MYSELF. What the heck was I thinking letting myself go down like that? It was time to act like an entrepreneur and take care of both my clients and myself, because if I didn’t take care of myself, my clients were going to get neglected.

So, in one year, Petersen Media Group, LLC has:

generated 219 invoices for 74 clients
taken 2 weeks of vacation to re-charge the creative batteries
earned (or is earning) 31 credit hours to finish a B.A. degree

The company site(s) are in re-design for some new focus and products, so stay tuned for that. With graduation on Mother’s Day weekend, expect some grand news in the first part of May. Thanks for your support for our first year and I look forward to serving you more and more each year.

Filed Under: Business Tagged With: anniversary, Petersen Media Group

by Jesse Petersen on December 4, 2009

Changes in the Air

We have a lot going on recently, so I apologize for not updating in over 10 days. Tonight is my Spanish final. I learned that I got a 60% on my third exam, so I am feeling the weight of this one, though I’m more confident about the contents of this exam than the previous one. I just can’t get to sleep, so I fixed the way this site look on that stupid browser called Internet Explorer after Kristin informed me today that it was wonky. Once my exam is over, it’s time to step my new projects into high gear to take a break for Christmas/New Years.

I’ve been working off and on, sometimes furiously and obsessively with some Thesis theme projects that I am doing for residual income. I’ve developed some cool tools that work hand in hand with the theme, but I wanted to do things right. I purchased aMember, a membership software that protects areas of my site, my product files, maintains my member lists, and automatically logs members into the member areas and my members-only support forum. Very cool stuff, but I also had to hire a programmer with experience with aMember to get it to all work together. Now I’m building the support forum content while another programmer adds new features to my tools that were outside my skillset, but within my vision. Once this first item is ready to go and selling, I need to bring him back into the picture to hit a home run on my next tool. I guess I’m beginning to be more visionary in my “old age.”

I am also working on some new business models, which includes monthly retainer clients. I acquired a new client that has a base of 1/6th of what I need each month with a likelihood of reaching 2/3rds of my monthly goal, so long as his 10yr-old business stays as successful as mine has been. Working together, we can do some great things, but the time needed is far from putting all of our eggs in one basket.

I am aware of 3 projects that clients have been waiting until I begin Christmas break from university to start so they can be completed quickly. They are very exciting and… shall we say bill-paying projects. If all goes well, I will be in good position to get ahead in some classes when the new semester begins without worrying about cashflow.

It is time for a face lift on all of my sites now that I have learned so much more since they were last modified. I will have to write a regretful e-mail to one developer because he is a major source of traffic because my sites are in his theme showcase. The flipside of that is I should get more traffic from the new developer when they do the same.

Related to that, I’m going to be combining my company site with a full-featured blog that I’m going to come up with a publishing schedule for. I’m determined to add value to the WordPress community with regular tips, commentary, and discussions. I’ve got plenty of people bored with P-squared now that I’m talking business so much now… it’s time to move them to a new home. I can hear my wife cheering in her sleep as I write that.

Just a few more days until the fun begins. Stay tuned…

Filed Under: Blogging, Business Tagged With: aMember, changes

by Jesse Petersen on November 12, 2009

Join Me at WordCamp Orlando Dec 5th, 2009

I was scouring my new Twitter list of bloggers yesterday when I spotted one from my friend from the SOBCons I’ve attended, Chris Cree, who was saying he registered to attend the Orlando WordCamp in December. I got so excited about the potential about attending a WordPress event so close to home AND with a friend, I had to check my college final schedule. We have the option of a Friday or Sunday final exam for Spanish, so I’m opting for taking it on Friday night to get it off my mind. I also contacted Michael Pretty about serving (volunteering) at the Genius Bar for WordPress help with themes, plugins, usage, etc. I’ve got a whole box of business cards for anyone who wants the follow-up treatment after the conference.