The Rough Plan For 2012

Catching up on the polls on the right side bar. Had them up for around five days, roughly two hundred readers answered, of the just over six thousand unique visitors over that period. So around one reader per thirty visitors voted which is an exciting response. It would be fun to mentally multiply all the votes by thirty to inflate results, but lets not worry about that.

Has MMSL Helped?  (multiple votes possible so won’t equal 100%)

Pretty much averted us divorcing  9%

The sex is much better now  40%

We feel closer emotionally now  25%

There’s less fighting and we get on better now  35%

I think I found MMSL too late to really help  16%

No real changes good or bad  15%

MMSL made things worse  4%

Overall I think that shows a positive response to what I’m doing. For most people MMSL has some sort of positive effect. For 9% of people its a huge result.

In terms of the “What do you want to see on the blog?” question, there’s not much point trying to analyse it as the result was very clear. People want more posting and longer posts, which in my mind just adds up to “more”. Which was kind of a surprise to me in that I already felt posts were overly long!

The other desire is a forum, which is something I’ve wanted for a while, but several commentors voiced concern that it would turn into a massive time sink for me moderating it and dealing with spam. It’s very important to me that a forum stays productive and positive in tone, and I’d rather be smaller and on point, than huge and a quagmire of troll. I believe the solution is a forum that requires a nominal fee to become a member. Again, nominal fee, just a small qualifying hurdle to keep 99% of the trolls on the other side of the fence.

Coming to the “What would you like to see Athol do next?” question, there was a total lack of clarity lol. A very even spread of interest from weekend or day seminars for men or couples, DVDs, coaching and books on tape. Some of that stuff would overlap obviously, a seminar could be taped and made into a DVD etc. The books on tape interest always surprises me, but apparently there really is some interest.

As to whether or not I’m going to offer advice to single women and men, the answer is “not directly”. I plan to stay focused on married men as the primary target, but that automatically drags married women into the mix. So I’m always going to have a lot of overlap with what women are interested in. Even talking about Girl Game helps explain how Alpha and Beta Traits for men work for example. Likewise married people and single people aren’t wildly different biologically… so there will be overlap, but I’m not planning on writing a book about how to pick up chicks in bars.

Besides that, women love MMSL and there’s such an explosion of wet panties for the Captain and First Officer model, that I’d be just crazy to not tap that… er… market.

Jennifer… you guys don’t need to convince me that Jennifer is great. As far as Jennifer is concerned  I’m like that CEO/pitchman from the 80′s for Remington shavers. “I liked her shaved so much, I bought her company.”

I’m actually trying to convince Jennifer about how beloved of MMSL readers she is, as a way of encouraging her to come out and play a little more. She doesn’t understand how I can spend hours a day doing MMSL stuff and there’s a small percentage of people that would rather meet her than me. I understand it, she just needs to accept it lol.

Which comes to an idea floated that I round up a bunch of guys, train them, endorse them as trainers and turn them loose onto the world and take a cut of their earnings. It’s tempting on one level, and would ideally be run from an underground lair equipped with sharks with frickin’ lasers attached to their heads. However for the moment I don’t have those plans. For better or for worse, much of MMSL isn’t just the words, but it is the relationship of Jennifer and myself.

The most important question was the coaching one at the end. I completely expected the overwhelming majority of people to say “Not Interested”, but the breakdown between people wanting something weekly (six votes), monthly (nineteen votes) and just a “one and done” (twenty-six votes) was very useful indeed. Those numbers seem very small, but it doesn’t take that many people to turn into a reasonable and steady income flow. I do have an idea for a “one and done” appointment, that would double as the intro for weekly and monthly coaching.

The one remaining suggestion in the comments was a donation option. This seems reasonable and easy enough. Now I just have to figure out how to do it lol.

Looking ahead, it will take some time to get everything I could do, in place. Right now I have a couple of shorter books I need to finish off and push out the door, and then focus on the 2012 Primer. Then in rough order – the donation button, forum, books on tape, coaching, seminars, DVDs and on into the future.

So 2012 will be crazy busy, but it’s the transition year from “Blog Guy” to “Guy that feeds his family doing something he likes doing, and actually makes a positive difference in the world.”   As I’ve said before, MMSL is a long project for me, it’s a marathon and not a sprint. A few more years to go before I become an overnight success.

As always, I’m touched that so many people care about MMSL and want to see it succeed.