Where I've been

“Did you publish a blog post today?” Brian asks.
“No.”
“That’s two weeks in a row you haven’t posted,” he reminds me.
“You know what I’ve been doing” I say, more than a hint of “WTF?” in my voice.
It’s cute how he tries to boss me around. Never works.
Since he’s concerned about the weekly posts, I suggest he write one.
“I can’t do that,” he says. “Nice people read your blog. I’m not nice.”
I LOL.
I wouldn’t let him post here anyway, unless he was announcing my untimely death or the post was a vlog.
Brian is funny AF when he has a gunsmithing tale to tell, or when relaying a story about how he tried to give an econ lesson to some hapless boob attempting to get a firearm-related thing for nothing. I’m not the only one who’s told him he ought to preserve these comedic encounters with a podcast.
His writing, though, makes me cringe. Commas where periods should be, and other similarly heinous punctuation infractions.
So, because Brian is right about my weekly commitment, and because I am actually in a position to do something about it at the moment (sitting alone in my son’s house in KY with a Chromebook and no WiFi, but hey – the text editing app works), I’ll update you all on what’s been going on.

For the love lack of money

Over the last few months, we’ve piled on debt. Nothing crippling. It’s just that instead of making progress we went backward.
The significance of this is twofold:

1. Without building up a financial cushion, it’d be foolish to do any traveling;
2. Although living in the RV would be cheaper than living in our house, we can’t instantly extricate ourselves from the house without (OMG a sublist – really?):
   1. Making at least some minor repairs
   2. Having the money to make these minor repairs

Our major outlays are:

• Mortgage payment
• Shop rent
• RV payment
• Towed vehicle payment
• Credit card debt

Our major revenue streams are:

• Ott Gun Works

Yep, just one lonely bullet under revenue. We know getting A Fearless Venture off the ground will take time (among other things…but I’ll get to that in a sec).
So while we could more easily work on and show/sell the house without us living in it, right now adding even a cheap monthly campground rate on top of all of the above would be too much.

Time to get Fearless

Pretty sure my 2017 earnings rival the days I worked only a part-time fast-food job while going to college.
I wasn’t marketing myself effectively or to the right people. I got fewer jobs and probably should have turned down more of those that did come my way. I simply got to the point that I hated what I was doing with my former business.
I knew I had to make a change, but I wasn’t sure what to do.
I know now! Well, at least, I think I do. I wrote a bit about this change of direction a little over a month ago.
Now, thanks to 2+ solid weeks of focus (i.e., no Wandering Porcupine posts…sorry) I have in place part two of this plan. A part that should actually make money.
I’m kind of “bite-sizing” my services, offering ones I have a particular knack for, that I find fun to do, and that are difficult for others.
The first one on the agenda is WordPress Website Speed Optimization.

Life in the slow lane

Why are there so many more slow, clunky, difficult to use sites these days? Even though most of us have über-fast internet?

Because people new to blogging and online business cannot resist adding shiny, new things to their websites. Every damn widget or gizmo seems like a fabulous idea, or someone else convinces them it’s crucial.
They don’t know enough about the technology involved to do things any differently. Heck, even people that’ve used WordPress quite a while don’t always know what makes it run poorly.
But – I do 🙂
I’ve continually refined my process to the point that I can fix several speed issues at once for a super-reasonable fee. When I’m done, the solutions I leave in place continue to positively affect speed. I also provide customers with personalized recommendations for further changes (or things to avoid) that could help them, in a report showing before and after stats and graphs.
I have what I think are good marketing ideas for the service, and a killer guarantee. If I can’t improve a site, I’ll refund the customer’s money 😯

2018 will be our year

The website speed optimization may not be a million-dollar product. It does require actual, hands-on work for every customer. But I have a gut feeling about it. Like, this is the thing that gets the ball rolling.
Then, instead of posts explaining why our RV is still sitting empty in a parking lot across town, I can write about some cool thing we found while boondocking in the middle of the desert out west.
Brian knew I was working on this offering when he prodded me about being absent from the blog. I’m trying to do both, but when push comes to shove, A Fearless Venture needs to win for us to get out of Dodge (er, Douglas, actually).
I’m sure I’ll be able to do more once we offload the house. Until then, when I need to make a major push, Wandering Porcupine might be quiet.
My goal is for none of you guys to see our Dutch Star looking like this again:

View this post on Instagram

This is not quite the #RVlife I hoped for. She's sitting in a parking lot miles away (photo credit: Brian) & we still have a house, business & inadequate financial cushion for travel. Working hard/different to bring the change we seek. Hope to look back on this post in 2018 with nothing but gratitude for how far we've come. #1stworldproblems

A post shared by Teresa Rosche Ott (@thewebwench) on Dec 9, 2017 at 5:16am PST

p.s. – Want me to fix your slow-ass WordPress website? Holla.
Want to try fixing it yourself? I’ve got a fairly in-depth guide that’s yours for free in exchange for jumping on my e-mail list. That option will pop up if you go to leave the page without buying my service. Look Ma –I’m marketing 😀