Rolling up my sleeves for 2021

Now that the Christmas holiday is behind me, it’s time to create a strategy that will set me on a path to be better than 2020.

I take a big bold approach. If you’ve seen my 2020 Year in Review, there are objectives I have not met. Measuring how I’m doing is important but what I find more critical is the act of doing.

Using Todoist (affiliate link), I can see whether or not I’m being productive. And most of the time I understand I have to be a realist. But there’s no harm in being an opportunist

This is the second year in a row I am using Objectives and Key Results (OKRs). My goals are objectives. But to add substance there are key results for each objective that I have decided as a way to measure whether that objective was a success.

The areas in which I have built OKRs around are:

• Packet6
• This blog (rowelldionicio.com)
• Clear To Send

Packet6

• Increase Sales by 70%
• Target $900k revenue
• Target $450k hardware sales
• Target $350k professional services
• Remaining $100k in courses or other projects

It was obvious there was going to be a decrease in sales in 2020. With a vaccine being distributed, my hope was business would begin to pick up again. I still need to take precautions for health but 2021 would be a year for learning how to do sales.

To increase my revenue to $900k means I’ll need to build salesmanship and resell hardware. I’m a partner for Cisco, Meraki, Mist, Juniper, and Ruckus. I need to leverage my partnerships and technical knowledge with some form of selling. My target for hardware sales is $450k.

Professional services is how Packet6 got started in the first place and is really where the revenue comes in. If I could continue to leverage pro services + hardware, that could be a winning combination. My target for pro services is $350k.

The remaining $100k I would like to earn building training with courses or through other projects.

Produce Consistent Content

• 6 posts per quarter
• 1 video per quarter
• 6k page views per month

A sore spot on Packet6’s website is a lack of content. I’ve been producing content elsewhere but really neglected the business website. The highly technical content I used to write on Packet6 is now being done on my personal blog. My mind now needs to shift towards writing content for decision-makers like CIOs, IT Managers, and senior staff members within organizations. Writing to address pain points is very different from writing technical tutorials. But I can do it.

My key results for producing consistent content is publishing 6 blogs per quarter and 1 video per quarter. With consistency, I’d like to increase the Packet6 page views to 6k a month.

The end goal is to receive more visitors that may convert to clients.

Initiate a Marketing Plan

• 5 social media updates a week
• Grow email list to 1500
• Generate 36 MQLs

A little piece of me always thinks about why I started a business. In doing so that means spending less time on my core expertise – the technical aspect. Packet6 is a small company and doesn’t have enough resources to hire other technical people full time. In the meantime, I need to wear many hats.

One of those hats involves creating a marketing plan to help grow the business. I can probably outsource much of this but I am a person who loves to learn. I’ll at least take a stab at this and create a marketing plan. Then in the near future, have someone else take over this section.

To start, I’ll focus on keeping Packet6 social media updated with at least 5 posts a week. In previous years I was able to grow an email list of potential clients. I’m going to kick start that again with a key result of 1500 new email subscribers. With more eyes on Packet6, I can hopefully reach another key result of generating 36 marketing qualified leads.

Build Proficiency with Python

• Automate C9800 tasks
• Automate Mist installations
• Build a reliability script

Distinguishing yourself from the competition means being uncomfortable. Network engineering is shifting towards network automation.

This creates an opportunity for me to learn Python and build a solution for companies that don’t have the expertise in-house.

Rowell Dionicio Blog

Build a Technical Presence

• 100 active members on the Discord server
• 5,000 Twitter followers
• 200 email subscribers
• 3,000 YouTube subscribers

My personal brand works alongside my side business, Packet6. The latter is B2B. My personal brand communicates with other technical people.

And lately, I’ve been sharing my business experiences such as this post.

Publish Content Consistently

• 6 published blogs per quarter
• 6 videos per quarter

Consistency is key. What helps keep chaos at bay is a system for productivity, healthy choices, and my eagerness to learn.

That’s why I’ve decided to aim for publishing 6 blog posts per quarter along with 6 videos on my personal YouTube channel.

Earn Certifications

• CTT+
• Mist AI
• JNCIA DEVOPS
• CCNP
• CCNP Wireless

I’d like to call myself crazy for adding 5 certifications to my long list of objectives. But it is part of my learning progress in which I share with others. It helps fill a need on the vendor partner side and provides content for the blog.

Clear To Send

The podcast has been my favorite project and what I’m most proud of. There’s been a new episode every week (nearly) since August 2015.

For a few years we haven’t had any serious goals other than publishing better episodes.

As the podcast has developed, we have wanted to make it even better.

Build Exposure

• 1,500 email subscribers
• 25,000 monthly downloads
• 550 Slack members

Most of our listeners find us through social media. We don’t do any form of advertising.

We communicate with our listeners mostly through our website and our email list. More recently it has been our Slack workspace.

Increase Social Media Following

• 5,000 Twitter followers
• 3,000 LinkedIn followers

We will continue to use our Twitter account and would like to expand on LinkedIn. This involves giving value to those who follow and to prospective followers.

Create Three Courses

• CWNA
• CWDP
• CWAP

As a way to sustain our podcasting efforts, we’ve decided to build courses. We were not keen to traditional sponsored episodes and wanted to keep the content highly valuable and easy to consume.

Naturally, the content we record lends itself to certification studies. This is why we will be working on more courses.

My Thoughts

In previous years I had not planned to this much detail. Goals were not written down. And on my second year of doing OKRs, I’m really shooting for the stars. When I look at the list, it looks daunting and unattainable. But I’d be really happy to achieve some of these goals.

Who really knows what 2021 will look like. I at least have a plan of attack and if things do not pan out during my quarterly check-ins with myself, then I can pivot.