My 2023 Goals

General /

Ok, so this is “part II” let it be. Previously, we worked on the 2022 Annual Review, which is always one of the most important aspects of Goal Setting… Not only “setting” them, but also reviewing what went well and what went wrong… This way we can work and set up better goals fo next year (this year).

You may want to check out my 2022 Annual Review. To be honest, this has been one of my “worst” productive years, and you will see this clearly. Not only my goals were very ambicious, but I didn’t actually work towards those.

Quick Summary: Improve Business Plan, Work more in Marketing, and CREATE more Content!

Content Index

1. Business Plan

  1. Expand Student-Base and Recurring Revenue
  2. Personal Branding vs. Academy Branding
  3. Competitors
  4. Strategic Allies
  5. Improve Working Materials, Office Space, and other Investments.
  6. Video Inspiration (Copying similar content creators)
  7. Overall Re-Structure of Products
  8. Marketing I: Pricing, Discounts, Promo Strategies, Master Classes
  9. Marketing II Bump Orders, Upsells:
  10. Monthly Subscription Focus 70/30
  11. Monthly Subscription Plan Focus:
  12. Inorganic Growth (Ads)
  13. Semester Check & Accountability
  14. Make a Financial Plan (Income, Revenue, Debt, Leverage, etc.

2. Course Creation

  1. Upcoming New Courses
  2. Re-Strucruing of Courses /MiniCourses (Free Webinars, AMA, Q&A, Courses, etc)
  3. Course Standarization (Downloadable Content, Homework, projects, solved problems, tests, etc.)
  4. Update existing Content

3. Website

  1. Redesign, Growth Traffic Strategy
  2. Optimization
  3. Blog Strategy
  4. Unify + Simplify

4. E-mail

  1. Strategy
  2. Content Creation (Newsletter)
  3. Marketing, Ads, Promos, Upsells.
  4. ConvertKit Digital Products

5. E-Book & Content

  1. Free E-books for Authority, Growth & Value
  2. Premium E-Books for Revenue

6. YouTube

  1. Strategy: Playlists, Long Video, YT Shorts, 

7. Instagram + TikTok + YT Shorts

  1. Main: Tik-Tok Strategy
  2. Instagram Strategy
  3. YT Shorts (again)

8. Other Social Media

  1. Facebook (Groups, Pages, Posting, Shorts/Reels)
  2. Reddit
  3. LinkedIn (Strategy)

On Habits, Goals and Processes

Besides being “SMART” (specific measurable attainable and time bounded), I’ll be including some “habit changes” or “process changes”. We can’t ensure goals or results, but what we can ensure is how we structure and work with our process.

Recall from James Clear’s Book (Atomic Habits). There are 4 main steps for creation of new habits: “Cue, Craving, Response, Reward”… But more importantly, the actual steps to improve my working habits:

  1. Make it Obvious
  2. Make it Attractive
  3. Make it Easy
  4. Make it Satisfying…

So yeah, I’ll be working more towards improving my WORKING HABITS, rather than my actual goals… this is KEY for 2023. A good example will be working on the following habits:

  • Set weekly goals and objectives
  • Set monthly reviews
  • Check and balance of social media campaigns
  • Ensure to work and build a reasonable ad campaign for the courses and content.
  • Work towards working at least 7h per day, 5 days a week (by work, I mean actual work and not “working” )

These are some habits that I need to work on.

1. Business Direction/Plan

  1. For 2023, the business must expand student-base and ensure recurring revenue. This is achieved by selling digital products such as: courses, trainings, and E-Books. Sponsorships, Ads, etc… will not be considered for the core fundamentals of the business.
  2. Personal branding as “Chemical Engineering Guy” and my personal name “Emmanuel Ortega” will be strongly favored (Most social media and LinkedIn respectively).
  3. The Chemical Engineering Guy Courses / Platform branding could be considered, but not required, as a separate Branding Name/logo. This is mostly for Business and Consulting. It is quite better to get a Diploma/Certificate of completion by a “formal” or “serious sounding” entity such as “Engineering Academic Services LLC” or something like that, instead of “Chemical Engineering Guy’s Courses”. This will be explored in 2023, but as stated before, personal branding will be the main focus, i.e. increasing LinkedIn organic reach and TikTok/YouTube/Instagram organic reach.
  4. Competitors and Strategic Allies must be defined. Most competitors in my niche are “small” or are not quite big, which is an advantage that we must take into consideration. Most Competitors are already listed in YouTube, Websites and TikTok Users.
  5. List of strategic allies are already setup, BUT, must increase in both: number and quality. Relationships must be worked in order to improve standing as an “Authority” online. Not only that, there have been several “online education” platforms that have offered product distribution, and they should be considered according their and our needs.
  6. As 2020 and 2021 was high on investment, 2022 was low. Now, 2023, we must Invest strong in office space, office material, camera, tools, gear, equipment, software all related towards improving the efficiency and quality of final produtcs.
  7. Inspiration must be obtained by “copying” and improving trends on other similar niches or applications, that is, Mechanical Engineers doing content, Engineer in general, Chemists, STEM accounts, as well as Computer Scientist, Programmers and so on.
  8. Overall Re-Structure of Products: As time passed by, there are lots of products that no longer have the “quality standards” or products created already and/or required by customers nowadays. There must be a Product & Services re-definition. Mostly on the standard content of courses, downloadable materials, video lectures, style, didactic, interaction, quizzes, projects, webinars, solved problems, proposed problems, workshops, etc…
  9. Marketing I: Pricing, Discounts, Promo Strategies, Master Classes: MUST be implemented. Truth be told, I only have 2 main ways of “active marketing” for courses. The first one is Black Friday Offers and Promos, which typically favors the Monthly subscription. The second option is marketing once a product has been finally launched, i.e. “new course + promo”. This is ok, but there must be more active ads (non-paid). I’ll try to focus at least 6 marketing campaigns in the year, to favor Lifetime Purchases as well as the Monthly Subscription Plan. Finally, Master Classes will be used to favor “organic” growth of educational content in the platforms, mostly YouTube. This way the YouTube Channel will not be saturated with individual lectures.
  10. Marketing II Bump Orders, Upsells: There are many tools to improve the user-experience while selling. Not only that, that will increase the average revenue per purchase. These are Order Bumps: simply adding “extra” material to a single purchase: this can be downloadable material, extra problems, or workshops. Also, Upsells have been stablished, but are not quite optimized towards each individual product. This will/must be performed to increase student satisfaction and renew per session.
  11. Monthly Subscription Plan Focus: As with any online service, recurring revenue, or the Monthly Subscription Plan, is the main focus of digital business. Hence, the focus will remain with the monthly subscription. In 2022, we focused our attention towards 80% monthly subscription and 20% lifetime purchases. Right now, we’ll split 70% – 30%, respectively, as students seem to still prefer lifetime access and single purchases. Still monthly recurring revenue is sexy!
  12. Inorganic Growth (Ads) will be a considered key point in 2023, depending on organic growth. If platforms remain stagnant (YT, IG, TK), then marketing campaigns must be included with paid advertising of products. Hopefully, there will be an increase in product sale as well as student base.
  13. Trimester Checks & Accountability. This is a habit that I wanted to implement long time ago, but haven’t work towards it. This time, I’ll be realistic, and do this 1 time a year, or “semester check”.
  14. Finally, Financial Planning. This is a classic example of how entrepreneurs, business owners and freelancers are single-focused towards running the business, but will not actually make the financial steps to ensure we have a sustainable business. Making a Financial Plan (Income, Revenue, Debt, Leverage, recurring charges, recurring revenue, balance sheet, etc) should be done in order to ensure correct operation of the business. Also, important to remark… This year I’ll be trying to separate my personal finances with my business finances, i.e. expenses that are actually from the business vs. my personal expenses.

2. Course Creation

As stated before, Courses are the main CORE of my project and my business. Therefore, expect this to be the most important aspect, all social media will be revolving on this (remind me of that!).This year MUST be the year of Course Launching. At least 6 courses will be launched (promise!).

1. Upcoming New Courses

  • Oil & Gas Training
  • Reactor Engineering
    • Reactor Engineering I (Isothermal Design)
    • Reactor Engineering II (Non-Isothermal Design)
    • Advanced Reactor Engineering
    • Process Simulation of Reactors
    • Catalyts**(based on the new “Short Courses” approach, see below)
    • Kinetics for Reactors**(based on the new “Short Courses” approach, see below)
  • AspenTech Process Simulation Courses:
    • HYSYS – Bootcamp
    • HYSYS – For Oil & Gas
  • Mass Transfer à Continue on my favorite topic:
    • Improve Binary Distillation Course*
    • Improve Batch Distillation Course*
    • Continuous Distillation
    • Process Simulation of Distillation Units
    • Introduction to Separation Processes
  • Other Interesting Topics:
    • How to Read P&I Diagrams
    • Current Trends (Bioenergy, Batteries, Alternative Energies, Semiconductors)
    • Waste Water Treatment
    • Process Engineering Basics
    • Cooking – For ChemE
    • Transport Phenomena with Real Life Examples
    • BP Energy Report for 2023

2. Important re-structuring of courses. The industry is shifting each time towards shorter content, before, a product with 10-15h content would be a “better product” as it will imply that there is more value per money (i.e. you are getting more time). But now, time seems to be an important factor, not always “more time means more value”. The reverse is true, less time, more packed value is now the standard. Hence, I’ll be re-working existing courses to improve this approach. It will help in:

  • Increase the number of courses (Existing courses will be divided into 4-6 curses)
  • Motivate students to finish the courses (i.e. it is easier to finish a 1-2 hour course vs. 12 hour courses)
  • Improve Bundles, packed value for student satisfaction

The list of possible Product Split are:

  • Oil & Gas
    • Petroleum Refining
      • Products & Specifications
      • Atmospheric Distillation
      • Vacuum Distillation
      • Hydrocracking
      • Catalytic cracking
      • Gasoline Blending
      • FCC Units
      • Reformer Units
      • Alkylation Units
      • Cokers
    • Petrochemicals:
      • Steam Cracking Process
      • Petrochemicals: C1-C6 Products
      • Industrial Gases
    • Natural Gas*(new and proposed)
      • Introduction/Fundamentals
      • Market & Geopolitics
      • Product Specifications
      • Exploration
      • Drilling
      • Gas Treatment
      • Gas Processing
      • Dehydration of Gas
      • LNG (liquefaction)
      • Metering & Transport
      • CAD Simulation of Gas Processes
    • Momentum Transport – Focus towards process engineering, i.e. (note that these are mostly worked in my 2nd ever course, “Applied Fluid Dynamics – Incompressible Flow”
      • Fluids in Piping Systems
      • Fittings, Valve and Pressure release systems
      • Pumps and Pumping Systems
      • Incompressible Fluids*(new)
      • Compressors*(new)
      • Fluidized Beds*(new)
      • Agitation and Mixing*(new)

3. Strong focus into Mini-Courses and Master Classes. These will focus towards a more dynamic way of learning, instead of a 12-15h course, these will be split into 1-2 hour courses for the sake of motivation for the student. Some of these Mini-Courses will be “FREE” to increase organic traffic to website and improve authority standing online.

As stated, Course Standardization is a very important issue. Students must expect the same quality of courses through out all the offering. This requires to:

1) Make a standard course template and 2) Define the:

  • Course Curriculum Structure (Intro, Outro, Bonus, Section Intros, Section Outros, etc.),
  • Downloadable Lectures (Printer Friendly and Digital)
  • Downloadable Content (PDF, Images, Files, Workshops)
  • Homework & Projects
  • Solved Problems and Proposed Problems
  • Quizzes & Tests
  • All other aspects required to improve quality

4. Updating of Courses. As stated before, the courses must be first standardized with a template, then applied throughout all the courses. This will most likely require re-recording of lectures, adding extra lecture files and so on. The urgent Materials to be updated are:

  • Mass balanc: 5 Main Blocks: (Introduction, Balance with no Chemical Reaction, Chemical Reaction, Unsteady State, CAD Simulations)
  • Applied Fluid Dynamics – Incompressible Flow (see above)
  • Energy 2023 – BP Report Update from 2021 report.

3. Website

  1. Redesign, Optimization and General Improvement. The current website is ok, it has been optimized for faster loading time, especially the landing page BUT, it must be improved. Currently the initial layout is ok, but there must be a better way to display products initially, i.e. instead of a bullet point list of the courses. Also, the “start here” must be updated and improved, all via video. General improvement such as the “about us” and “courses” must be also improved. Simplified version of the website is strongly encouraged.
  2. Growth Traffic Strategy. There is no strategy, hence, we must plan one. The current strategy is to simply, expect people and student to stumble upon it via google searches and video search in the YouTube platform, therefore, we must increase Google searches with the Blog (see below) and improve YouTube discoverability. Also, other social media such as Linkedin, TikTok and Instagram is helpful as well.
  3. Blog Strategy. Publish at least 12 posts:
      • Common questions for Engineering Students
      • Common questions I get to my e-mail
      • Specific blog post using AI

This way, we can improve traffic to the website.

  1. Unify + Simplify: Currently, there are 2 main ways in which one can access the student platform, 1, via wordpress, the old version, in which I host 2 courses: Mass Balance and Incompressible Flow Course. 2, via Teachable, which is the main course platform. What I need to do is to “simplify” and “unify”. That is, it is easier for the student to be in a single platform, hence, I’ll be removing the 1st platform I created on wordpress. This will require link fixes to this websites.

4. E-mail

  1. Strategy – General strategy is to increase subscribers. This must be done via Landing Pages offering “free” value stuff such as “E-Books” “List” “Courses” “Webinar”.
  2. Content Creation (Newsletter). Truth be told, that the list I use is mostly to send “news” and market stuff”. This must change, more importantly, try to add at least 1 e-mail of value per month. Hence, prepare a 12 e-mail:
      • News of the Industry
      • Personal Stories
      • Industry Trends
      • List of Blog Posts of interest
  1. Marketing, Ads, Course Launches, Promos, Upsells. This is the main way in which we should monetize the newsletter. Use it for marketing campaigns, ensure ads are allocated properly, i.e. send Course Launches, Purchases, Offers, Promos, as well as interesting Bundles and beautiful e-mail showcasing our products.
  2. ConvertKit Digital Products. Finally, this option is open for Mexico. This must be explored, the way in which we could sell digital products via Convertkit alone. This is a must, as teachable is the main source of revenue (don’t put all the eggs in a single basket)

5. E-Books & Content

Explore E-Book Production, especially for ConvertKit and Amazon Platform.

  1. Free E-Books – For growth and value. Most likely for general engineering purposes, i.e. “Best Rules of Thumb” or “How to get a job in the Process Engineering World). Also consider “Check Lists” and “Must have…”
  2. For the Premium E-books, most likely into high value product, i.e. technical or similar. Important Note à Don’t guess… ensure it will be profitable and that the market will require it.

6. YouTube

Don’t DISPERSE attention… YouTube is and will be the main way in which CEG will interact with their students. BUT, it requires attention and adapting to YT Trends.

Strategy:

  • Actually work on Playlist/Series
  • Decrease total video duration to 10-15 mins
  • Cotniue with the Book Reviews
  • Explore YT Shorts, produce YT Shorts specifically and upload TikTok/IG Reels Video
  • Include more Storytimes & Vlogs
  • More Salary Review
  • Industry Review, ChemE News Reviews
  • at least 2 per month full video (total 26 in 2023)
  • at least 2 per month short video (total 26 in 2023)

7. TikTok, Instagram, YT Shorts

The Holy Grail of Social Media, hence, must go and check it out.

  1. TikTok:
    1. actually consume the platform, I’m not quite a fan of the app itself, but I need to understand it.
    2. Get trained on how-to produce tiktok videos
    3. Create a list of ideas that may stick
    4. upload at least 2 per month
  2. Instagram Posts, Stories & Reels:
    1. Still relevant for many, reels are easy, just be copied from TikTok.
    2. Posts -> Irrelevant, most will be covered with reels
    3. Stories -> Most be more active, at least once per week.
  3. YT Shorts:
    1. As stated before (YT Strategy). I’ll explore how Shorts trend vs. TikTok and IG Reels. If they can be altogether, then, simply re-upload/repost. Otherwise, spcific YT Shorts will be created for this specific issue.

Hopefully, the strategy depends mostly on the creation of TikTok Videos, which will permeat through Instagram, and YT Shorts.

8. Other Social Media

Still relevant for many others, we need to work on:

  1. Facebook – Stil used by many, especially “older” public
    1. CEG Page – Increase posts but also, explore adding reels/videos from IG and TikTok.
    2. CEG Group – Be active, especially for polls, student satisfaction
    3. Process Simulation Group – Stil remain active, passive approach
    4. Advertising in other FB Groups – Use this strategy to increase landing page and newsletters in specific niche chemical and process engineering websites. Using free coupons as well.
  2. Reddit
    1. ChemicalEngineering sub: Verify  trends, post more often, reply to other discussions more often, work with polls and upload videos or relevant discussions. No artificial stuff!
    2. Explore other subs: Do not limit to ChemE Sub, go for other engineering-related subs (new)
  3. LinkedIN: Get a real strategy, so far is only posting and adding random people. It must have a better intent. Post more relevant postings, or simply post technical stuff. This is required for the personal branding and authority perception.

Before you go! Check out this promo!

Get access to ALL Courses (See Full Course Offering)

  • Cancel Anytime!
  • 2nd Month has a 30-day Money Back Warranty
  • No questions asked!

* Only for New Students

Aaaand…. its done, it look simple, but as we all know, execution is KEY!

So what do you think about these goals, habits and changes to my processes and stragegies? Let me know in the comments or via e-mail!

Enroll for news on Blog Posts!