August Income Report – Record Revenue and Exploding Expenses

August was a great month on a lot of fronts with record numbers (revenue and costs!). However, a few of the risks I had identified with full-time entrepreneurship are starting to be realized.

The schedule flexibility of full-time online entrepreneurship is fantastic and I have been able to adjust my schedule when needed to enjoy the summer with my family.

Many exciting growth projects for Q4 I will discuss here.

In this income post I will try to share what I have learned and failed at over the last month and the performance of the businesses!

My Business Focus Points:

1. Passive Income Website Portfolio
2. AuthorityWebsiteIncome Blog
3. SEO & Expired Domain Services:
   • Domain Finding Service (buy domains that meet my metrics)
   • Done for Your Private Blog Network (let my team build you a personal PBN)
   • LightningRank (get access to the most powerful PBN available!)
   • Brand Builders (FBA Branded Site Creation & Affiliate Site Creation)
4. Amazon FBA Business
   • Brand #1
   • Brand #2
   • Brand #3
   • New Web App Project

Key Successes

1. Growing Team with a Great Hire – A new project manager will be starting with the growing team in house in a week and I am certainly expecting it to be a great fit!
2. Small Website Acquisitions – After talking last month about how to sell your website fast there were a few quality deals I was able to make for some smaller websites.
3. Growth of New Sites/Projects – Seeing the tangible growth numbers of a couple new projects is very promising!
   1. listingeagle.com = 30% month over month growth for 3 straight months
   2. Affiliate Site to Drive FBA Business = 100% month over month growth for 5 straight months

Key Failures

1. Too Many Projects – One of my concerns when I was going to start working full time was the risk that I would try and run with too many projects. Although it hasn’t come to that point yet (I don’t believe) I have certainly had a harder time saying no to projects now than I did before. Many of the projects are very exciting and will definitely pay off in the long run but it is a concern!
2. COSTS! – Another concern was that with the majority of my income coming from at least partially passive income the more time I put into work the more money I will spend for future income. That is definitely the case with RECORD costs in August and no signs of it slowing down in Sep!

 

2016 Business Goals

Below is my businesses main goals for 2016…

Download This Easy to Edit and Printable Goals Template – FREE

(Note – FBA Brand #2 Has Been Replaced With my SAAS Business)

Part 1 – Passive Authority & Niche Website Income Profit/Loss

3 Goals in 2016 for my Website Portfolio Business

1. Systematize Top 20 Sites in Portfolio

Aug Update – Good progress made with a hire of an in house project manager and the creation of the framework she will be building out.

2. Buy 1 Site Per Month

Aug Update – With my how to sell a website post there were 2 decent deals that came from that effort.

• GOAL = 1 Website
• ACTUAL = 2 Great Website Purchased

If any readers are looking to sell their profitable site(s) VERY QUICKLY let me know by emailing me. I can let you know in 12hrs if I am interested and complete the purchase in 24-48hrs – Contact Me Here

I have found the right sellers are those…

• Looking to sell FAST (under 24hrs has been accomplished!) (shorter time for due diligence on my end increases risk for me)
• Not wanting to spend a lot of time on the sales process (analytics and income proof is all I need)
• High quality sites making over $500-1,000/month often make sense to sell via other channels (EmpireFlippers or FEInternational are great places)
• SEO done to the site can be questionable and that increased risk will be reflected in the sales price
• Understand that the benefits of the bullet points above means the sales multiple will be lower

If you have a website you are looking to sell fast please let me know

 

3. Sell Websites Strategically for $100k Total

Aug Update – The unique website lease/sale deal is still on track.

 

PRIMARY GOAL – OVERALL INCOME FOR WEBSITE PORTFOLIO ABOVE $10k/MONTH

Aug Update – With the goal for a big September and then moving into Q4 the passive income portfolio which is improving in rankings/traffic is setup to perform well in Q4.

 

Part 2 – Authority Website Income Blog Profit/Loss

3 Goals in 2015 for AuthorityWebsiteIncome.com

1. Post Once Per Week

Aug Update – Achieved the target of once per week publishing but did not start catching up yet.

• Plan = 5
• Actual = 5

2. 10x my Outreach

Aug Update – Moderate success with a couple more podcast interviews.

3. Site Redesign – Completed!

July Update – Already Completed

PRIMARY GOAL – GROW TO 30k VISITORS PER MONTH

Aug Update – 18,327 uniques’ which represents a +72.5% year over year increase. I believe if I can achieve my weekly posting plus my 10x outreach I can achieve this goal by the end of the year!

 

Part 3 – Services Business Profit/Loss

1. Systems Overhaul/Refresh

Aug Update – We have kicked off a team re-org and change in tracking system which is the first move in completing this system refresh.

 

2. Improve email marking and sales automation

Aug Update – Falling behind in achieving this goal…it is embarrassing how bad I am on this front!

 

3. BrandBuilders.io Becomes The Go-To Resource for Done 4 You Amazon FBA Private Label Websites and Done 4 You Amazon Affiliate Sites

Aug Update – Great month for BrandBuilders again

PRIMARY GOAL – STAND ALONE SYSTEMATIZED SERVICES BUSINESS IN 2016

 

Part 4 – Amazon FBA Business

1. Sell FBA Business for 30x with 3+ Solid Months

Aug Update – SUCCESS

 

2. Launch Brand #2 – Personal

Aug Update – I am exploring how to best leverage my skills/resources using partnerships on a couple new brands. We are working on moving quickly to get in front of the Q4 push.

 

3. Launch Brand #3 – Investors

Aug Update – The first Sea Shipment just arrived (finally) and Sep will be a big month for this business!

 

4. ListingEagle.com – Hijack Monitoring Service

Aug Update – Similar update for June with GREAT metrics and user feedback but our ability to accelerate our customer acquisition has been tricky! Because the service is very useful but not tightly integrated into peoples operations of their business the churn rate has been higher than ideal and a paid traffic customer acquisition plan has been unsuccessful. But 30% month over month growth for 3 straight months is definitely promising.

Overall Income Update

 

Original Monthly Net Income Target (original goal $15k/month reliable income by age 35)

• Target Net Income = $9,525
• Actual net Income = $25,405.88
• 2016 Average Monthly Net Income = $29,635 (stretch goal is 30k average for the year)

Gross revenue is a vanity number for my business and I do not share it.

 

Final Comments

Aug was a good month with record revenue numbers but with all the growth projects on the go my expenses have also skyrocketed!

The most important thing for the rest of this year is for me to stay focused on my goals and manage my growth projects through the critical early phase while ensuring my costs don’t get out of hand.