Episode 270,.

Late Night Internet Marketing.

This week on the Late Night Internet Marketing Podcast, I'm going to give you everything you need to have an incredibly successful 2025. I'm talking your best year ever. I'll be introducing my Align Productivity Framework and I'm going to give you everything you need to get productive right away. All this and more on the Late Night Internet Marketing Podcast.

The Late Night Internet Marketing Podcast. But you want a business to run yourself. You want to know how to start and where to begin. Can you get out your comfort zone, my friend? Yes, you can do it right when it's late at night. At the end of the day, your dream's burning inside.

So keep it up and you will find and now broadcasting late at night from a little studio in the big state of Texas, your host, mark Mason. Hey, hey, hey, how is everyone doing? I am your host, mark Mason, and this is the Late Night Internet Marketing Podcast, where we talk about building businesses online. Even if the only time you have to work on them is late at night, I'm coming to you from the little studio in Dallas, texas, and of course, it's that time of year again where we sit down, stop down and talk about goals for the coming year and a lot of discussion about the best way to achieve them. Now I've been working on goal engineering and outcome engineering, both professionally and as a side hustler, for a long time. Professionally, we're talking about three decades of achieving outcomes in my corporate life and with a late night internet marketing podcast. This is a topic we've been on now for more than a decade and we've gone through an evolution where we've taken the best learning from some of the best books out there. 12 week year, the One Thing, atomic Habits 5 am books that talk about getting up early in the morning and how to do things, and year by year, I've incorporated those into what I refer to personally as my ALIGN framework. Now, the ALIGN framework is really an acronym and it stands for assessing goals, listing the steps that are needed to achieve those goals, initiating the action that you need to make those goals a reality on a day-by-day basis, gauging your progress and nurturing the habits that underlie a successful outcome. Now, that's the Align framework, and what I want to do in this podcast is explain it all to you so that you can get started right away. I'm actually, later in January, going to be coming out with a very, very inexpensive Align Productivity short course, kind of a mini course, and the great news about that course is, as a loyal listener of the Late Night Internet Marketing podcast, that's going to be available to you free of charge when it's released later this month. I'll have more information on that next week, but this week I want to set the stage, whet your appetite, maybe, get you excited and even get you started about what's involved in the Align framework and kind of the culmination of really 20 years of reading literature and understanding what makes productivity work for me personally and for other people around the world.

Okay, so in the Align framework we start with the letter A, which I told you is assess goals, and by this I don't mean the standard old way that we talk about. I think it's really good to have smart goals and it's really good to have a goal I want to grow my email list by 5,000 subscribers by July 3rd. We're going to get to that, but really, what I want you to do is reflect and dream, and the construction that I usually use for this when I'm coaching is if you and I just me and you were in a Starbucks or a coffee shop maybe something even better than a Starbucks and we were having a conversation one year from today and you were so excited for the meeting because you couldn't wait to tell me what you were so proud of, what you had finally been able to accomplish. You didn't even think you could do it, but you've been able to do it and you were so excited to tell me that. What would that be? I think it's good for that to be a smart construction. In a way. I think it's good that it's specific and measurable and attainable and time-bound all of those things relevant to your bigger goals. But if we were talking in a year, what would you tell me and what would get you really excited? And maybe there are many things like that that you would like to accomplish, many large goals that you have for the coming year.

For this purpose of this exercise, I want you to reflect and dream about the goal that's really would be the most impactful to you. What would change your life the most? What gets you most excited? What are you most fired up about? What do you really want to go off and do? And for the purpose of this exercise right now, let's just choose one. That's the A in the Align framework is assessing your goals. Once you've assessed a goal, then what we're going to do is we're going to move on to the L in the Align framework and that's list the steps for the goal. Now we know from the very famous book the 12 Week Year that we can accomplish in 90 days what it takes most people a year to accomplish.

So what we want to do is set a very specific 90 day SMART goal, something aggressive and meaningful that's aligned with our dream. It's the first of maybe four big steps that we're going to take to achieve this year long dream, but we're going to set the 90 day goal first. So what do I mean? Like this Maybe you've decided that your big goal by this time next year you want to add six-figure revenue to your business so that you can have a six-figure business. You're starting at zero, but your big dream is that you want to have a six-figure business. Well, maybe the first thing you need to do in 90 days is create a new course that can be the basis for this new revenue generation, and maybe that's going to be a pretty good size course with many videos that you've got to film and you've got to lay out the course and do the research, do the marketing for the course and maybe you decide that's about a 90 day project for you. That's the kind of goal that I'm talking about and we want that to be a very specific 90 day smart goal.

In 90 days, on April 1st, I'm going to launch a new course called XYZ course. It's going to be a seven module course and each module is going to have five videos. This is a 35-video course and it's going to cover XYZ topic and I'm going to launch it to the market on April 1st and it's going to sell for $297. And that's my 90-day SMART goal. And the reason that that's such a great goal for me is it aligns with my vision of $100,000 new revenue stream and the basis of this is going to be this new course.

But I'm going to do the first part of this the very important, most part in 90 days and when I think about that, as I'm in this listing steps, the steps that I want to list are one week chunks. In the first week, I need to get clear about what the course is about, outline it, do the market research and so forth. That's necessary to get a clear outline. In the second week, I'm going to create the slides that I need for all the video presentations. In the third week and fourth week, I'm going to film all of the videos that I need to make all 35 videos. I'm going to really kill it and I'm going to film all those videos.

In weeks three and four and so on. If you mess with that for a while, write that down and get a rough outline for what you want to accomplish each week. This is again very well described in the book, the 12-Week Year. But this is where you list steps and here's why we do this, because step three, the I in the Align framework, is that you need to initiate daily actions, and here's the problem I think that everyone faces. This is something that it took me a long time to figure out. I would wake up on a random Tuesday morning and not always be crystal clear on exactly what I needed to accomplish that day. What is it on the second Tuesday in February when I wake up? What's the one thing, the one critical task that I need to do that day?

So in step three, we're initiating a daily action that supports our goal for the week. So let me give you an example. Let's say that our goal for the week is to film 15 videos, and we know that's a rate of two or three videos a day. I better be making sure that the one thing that I get done on that Tuesday is filming the next two or three videos. It doesn't matter if the phone rings, if other stuff happens. Other stuff gets in the way.

The one thing that I'm going to prioritize is that I am going to get those videos recorded. Why? Well, because I've got this 12-week plan and in this week I know I need to be recording videos. Well, why am I doing that? Because I need to build this course. Well, why am I building the course? Because I have this vision. I have this aligned vision that a year from now, I'm going to have a new $100,000 revenue stream and it's going to be based on this course that needs these videos. And that means on this Tuesday, if I'm going to realize that dream, I need to be recording. See, if you had just said I want a hundred thousand dollars in a year, it would be really hard for you to tell me exactly what you needed to do on a random Tuesday.

So what I recommend for each day is that you have one task that you absolutely must get done and, if possible, you block out a deep work session on your calendar to to actually get that work done. It is like a doctor's appointment or an airplane ticket where you can't move it. You gotta be there and you're going to get that work done. And then I recommend that you have two additional tasks for those great days when you get a lot more done than you expect that you're going to get done. Now, in this video recording thing, super easy you record. You're going to record two videos today and, if everything goes well, you'll record a third one maybe, or a fourth one, but the key thing is that that one critical task that you've got to do today to support the goal that you've got to meet this week to support the goal that you're trying to achieve in 90 days. That gets done today. And I've found that the key to that is blocking a deep work session for one hour. And the way I do it is I take the first five minutes to get organized, get myself together, I work for 50 minutes and then I take the next five minutes to kind of stretch and decompress and stretch out. And you know, as long as I get 45 or 50 minutes of deep work in in that calendar time, I think that I'm always happy with that. And I get 45 or 50 minutes of deep work in in that calendar time, I think that I'm always happy with that and I get an amazing amount of work done that way.

One of the daily habits that you need to do to support this is the habit of scheduling deep work. And the second habit that you need in order to make this work is that you need to, daily and weekly, make sure that you are staying on track with your plan. And that gets us to step four, the G you need to gauge your progress, monitor and adjust, and the best tool and this is a tool that goes all the way back to David Allen and getting things done. The absolute best tool you can do for gauging your progress is weekly reviews. And what are we doing in our weekly reviews? We're touching base with the big picture, emotionally and mentally $100,000 of new revenue and all the things that that means for you and your life, and that exciting conversation that you want to have one-on-one with me in a cafe a year from now.

Every Sunday I sit down and I touch base with those goals and then I take a look at my quarterly plan and I honestly reflect on where I am in the 12-week plan, how I did this week with regard to the plan. Did I do a good job or not such a good job? And I adjust accordingly. And maybe that means I need to work a little extra hard next week. Or maybe it's that I recognize that this week wasn't such a great week and I give myself a little grace and I act accordingly next week and do a little better. Or maybe this means that this week, you know, I'm doing my weekly review and last week I skipped it and I see that my habits aren't exactly what they need to be. Whatever I'm doing, I'm monitoring and adjusting, and I'm doing that once a week. I do mine on Sunday nights. You may choose to do yours on Monday morning. What's important is that you do it.

And then step five is to nurture the habits. That's the N in the Align Productivity Framework and you know, really, habits are fundamental to having sustained success in anything, and I recommend that you review the book Atomic Habits. But for you, your habits are going to be things like the weekly check-in, about having a plan each day with an hour of deep scheduled work and, for me, checking in at the end of the day and maybe journaling a little bit. Man, today was not great. Today was really great a little bit. Man, today was not great. Today was really great.

And I've started using chat GPT a little bit for this, where chat GPT and I are having a conversation about how things are going and it gives me encouragement and so forth. Like that I think artificial intelligence will be increasingly valuable in the role of kind of sideline coach, where every day you kind of brain dump into something like chat GPT and it's able to organize your thoughts for you and create a really nice journal entry for you, so you have a record of what's going on. So here's the thing If you're able to stack together, using the Align framework, 90 days of really significant work and in most of those days you're able to do the work that you said you were going to do Not all of them, but most of them, maybe way more than half, but not nearly all of them what you're going to find is, if you stack up day upon day upon day of progress and that progress is properly targeted at the most important goal, this 90-day goal that you set at the beginning of the Align framework, you're going to be amazed at the progress you're going to be able to make and the thing that you're going to be able to build just simply by staying on target for 90 days and reminding yourself every day that tomorrow is going to be a new day where you're going to work on a very specific thing that supports your overall 90-day plan. This is the Align framework. Now there are a lot of tools and techniques and worksheets and a lot of things that I plan to deliver in the course that's coming in the month of January. I will make sure that's available to you. You can sign up to be on the waiting list at markmasoncom forward slash align. That's markmasoncom forward slash A-L-I-G-N. Get on the waiting list and, like I said, listeners of this podcast will get this course for free when it first comes out. And what I'm hoping for is that you'll love it and you'll write that down and you'll become a testimonial for the course, and really that's the idea, apart from rewarding you for listening to the podcast, because I really appreciate you and I hope this is helpful to you. So that's the Align framework.

Very straightforward Assess your goals. List the steps needed to achieve those goals. Goals list the steps needed to achieve those goals. Initiate daily actions in order to execute the plan. Gauge your progress relentlessly and honestly, week by week, and nurture the fundamental habits that are needed to generate wins. You know you're going to have setbacks and that's okay, but you're also going to have small wins and I want you to celebrate those and you will be amazed, when you stack these things up, what you can accomplish. So that's what I have for you today.

I hope your year is off to an amazing start. I hope that this gets you excited about what you might possibly accomplish in the coming year. I'm super excited for you about what I know you can accomplish and what I've helped people accomplish using this framework, and I'm hopeful that you will feel a little bit of that excitement and go achieve some things that maybe you never even thought were possible. How great would that be for you. It would be amazing for me, especially if you told me about it.

I'd love to hear from you and you can reach me at feedback at latenightimcom. I'd love to hear from you, hear what your dreams are for 2025, hear about what you'd like to hear on the podcast. Just check in with me and say hey, that's feedback at late night. I amcom. I answer every email. It's not a robot, it's really me. Sometimes it takes me a hot minute to get to your email, but I will answer it. So I hope you have a fantastic week, because next week I'm going to tell you about the 10 most critical mistakes that you absolutely must avoid if you want to achieve your 2025 goals. Hey, I'm Mark Mason, latenightimcom. Markmasoncom. I hope to talk to you soon.

Ciao, I hope to talk to you soon. Ciao, content, access, the show notes and more. See you there. Until then, go and make some great progress on your internet business one night at a time.

Hey, hey, hey, if you're new around here, this is the after the show part of the show where I talk about. I don't know whatever I want to talk about. So if you're still here, you know the main content of the show is over and this is just the part where I just talk about what's been going on. And what's been going on here in Dallas, texas, is that the weather has changed from shorts and t-shirt weather to ski parker weather. I know if you're from up North, you you're going to laugh at me, but it went from 65 degrees and sunny shorts and t-shirt weather to 20 degrees and the wind is blowing out of the North at 750 miles an hour or something crazy like that.

And in Texas we say if you don't like the weather, just wait a minute, it'll change. Because this change happened in like I don't know an hour and a half. The temperature just plummeted. So it's a little bit chilly here now. We'll survive it. Hopefully we won't get too much precipitation, because in Texas when it snows or or or God forbid we get ice, we're toast. I mean we, we just we're not set up for it, we don't have the gear for it. Uh, we'll have to hunker down if that happens. So, uh, pray for great weather here in Texas and I'll see you next week. We'll be talking about the 10 mistakes that you absolutely must avoid if you want to achieve your goals in 2025. Ciao.