Business and Income Report April 2017

April was another very busy month.

Several businesses continue to perform extremely well and the increased team has definitely increased the amount of work we are able to get done.

Balancing tasks between immediate pay-off and long term growth is always tricky. Time will tell if we get that balance right!

My first 2 full time staff were a huge success and I am trying to grow my in house team rapidly adding 3 additional summer co-ops to determine the right size/makeup of my in house team.

This report covers the results of the business during April!

The Business “Divisions” For My Online Business:

1. Money Site Portfolio
2. AuthorityWebsiteIncome Blog
3. Services – Web Development, Content Marketing & Link Building:
   • 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)
   • Content Refined (Your in house content marketing team)
4. Amazon FBA Business
   • Brands 1-6 – All have specific targets for 2017
   • ListingEagle – Amazon FBA Hijacking and Suppression Monitoring
5. Put Outside Capital to Work Efficiently in the Online Asset Space

Key Successes

1. Content Refined Continued Success & Self-Reinforcing Competitive Advantage – ContentRefined.com continues to grow at a rapid rate with ever improving systems/procedures. I think it is becoming clear that there is a gap in the marketplace for a reasonably priced content writing service that focuses on the effectiveness of the content to drive results and not just $/word. As we continue to geek out on the data we are uniquely positioned to collect we will continue to drive a gap between our contents performance and competitors. This is a unique opportunity where our competitive advantage of being a systems/data driven marketing first content marketing service becomes self-reinforcing as we grow (since we get more and more data).

2. Money Sites – With a reorganization of my internal team Kelley has taken over the running of my portfolio of sites and is doing a great job here! Although we didn’t see the earnings jump we really want it was a solid month.

3. BrandBuilders Turnkey Sites – The turnkey sites continue to be in HIGH demand! We sold out in a matter of hours and are continuing to scale again… you can get on the early bird list here.

4. Traveled Drove & Flew With 3 Kids Aged 4 and Under! – For any parents of little ones out there that have pulled off any trip you can relate to this being a success! My wife and I traveled to Florida with our 4yr, 2yr and 4 week old… 8hr drive and 2hr flight… no crying or screaming on the plane (although I am sure I aged from the trip).

Key Failures

1. Singular Focus? Every once in a while I get tempted to rethink if my diversified approach makes sense! I am not planning to make a change but wonder if I am leaving an opportunity under-realized due to my split focus.
2. Vacation Productivity – I was able to keep things moving but was not as productive on my vacation as I had planned!
3. 80/20 – Due to both my decreased hours (vacation / new baby) and increased demand on my time (3 new staff) I have slipped a little in my email response time and realizing I am likely not working in the sweet spot of the 80/20 principle.
4. Amazon Stops Selling Product – One of the FBA business I was growing and was showing promise had all the products pulled by Amazon (all the products in the category, not just mine!).

2017 Business Goals

Below is my businesses main goals for 2017…

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

3 Goals in 2016 for my Website Portfolio Business

1. Everyone Win at the Mortgage Crushing Competition

Apr Update – The site is doing well with a solid increase in traffic. I need to improve my earnings per visitor but happy with the start of the site. To get to the target of this site crushing any mortgage payments I have to stay on it!

• Traffic = 6,233
• Earnings = $31.27

2. Buy 1 Site Per Month

Apr Update – Some interesting sites came my way this month but I decided they were a little too unstable for me to purchase. Although I didn’t buy a couple I was able to get them into the hands of some others who did buy them (I am definitely not a broker but if I can connect someone I will).

• GOAL = 1 New Website Purchased
• ACTUAL = 0 New 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)
• SEO done to the site can be questionable and that increased risk will be reflected in the sales price
• Site being associated with a banned Amazon Associate is still possible to sell (but STEEP discount!)
• Understand that the benefits of the bullet points above means the sales multiple will be lower than if you went a more traditional route

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

3. Scalable New Site Creation Strategy adds $5k to Portfolio

Apr Update – Although the graph looks rough! The results are still promising and we will be working hard to really increase the earnings per visitor. Overall I am impressed with the strategy and the majority of this trend is the result of one site taking a seasonal nose dive.

• Traffic – 26,044
• Earnings – $163.04

PRIMARY GOAL – OVERALL INCOME FOR WEBSITE PORTFOLIO GROW TO $15k/MONTH CONSISTENTLY

Apr Update – Decent results for the portfolio, it fell a little short of the 10k target but still solid results!

 

Part 2 – Authority Website Income Blog Profit/Loss

3 Goals in 2015 for AuthorityWebsiteIncome.com

1. Post Once Per Week

Apr Update – Second month in a row where I fell short on my weekly posting goal. Definitely going to beat myself up on this metric… need to push hard to deliver great posts. Last month I had one very interesting post published regarding a cool new tool that can constantly monitor your websites speed!

• Plan = 4
• Actual = 3

2. Systematic Promotion of my Content and Building of my List

Apr Update – No Progress  – One of the team members joining will have it on her plate to help develop and execute and improved strategy here by the end of the summer

3. Increased Intelligence with Email Automation

Apr Update – No Progress – Need to carve out a dedicated workday to go through this!

PRIMARY GOAL – GROW TO 30k VISITORS PER MONTH

Apr Update – 13,175… Lots of work to do this year to hit this target! I will continue pushing!

Part 3 – Services Business Profit/Loss

1. Systems First Focus

Apr Update – Each business had new procedures created for them!

2. com – Quality and Efficiency Improvements

Apr Update – Work has begun on a complete new backend system for LightningRank management and are testing out new systems we will be ready to offer to existing clients soon.

Visit LightningRank.com for Link Building Services!

3. ContentRefined.com – 20k MRR by June & 40k MRR by End of Year

Apr Update – Maddie is doing an exceptional job delivering fantastic customer support and articles! We (and a new summer intern) are working hard to setup the data tracking to keep pushing the science of content marketing forward. See the post at the start of May here… rank content in Google with certainty.

• Planned MRR = $16,000
• Actual MRR = $25,432

4. BrandBuilders.io Structurally Well Setup & New Offering Launched

Apr Update – Achieved – expect a very interesting case study soon! The TurnKey affiliate sites ready in 24hrs are selling out in a handful of hours every time we launch!

PRIMARY GOAL – SYSTEMATIC GROWTH!

Part 4 – Amazon FBA Business

• Brand #1 – HG – Running Lean and Spinning off Cash
  • Apr Update – Running lean and profitable. The business is still being driven by an affiliate site that drives a lot of traffic (100k/month)!

• Brand #2 – CF – Quarterly Dividends Ahead of Baseline
  • Apr Update – Continuing to run lean and profitable
• Brand #3 – NT – Path To Strong Market Position and Successful Pillar Product
  • Apr Update – Turned around a little last month… still not a great business!
• Brand #4 – CK – Systematic Growth to $20k/month Profit
  • Apr Update – This was our first full month back on Amazon, it started to grow again and getting some decent organic sales now.
• Brand #5 – PC – Successful launch and $5k/month Business
  • Apr Update – We are now selling! Consistent but small organic sales!
• Brand #6 – SE – 4X Value Expansion with Dream Team!
  • Apr Update – The first test shipment is going to arrive in May and the goal is to make our first sale in May!
• com – Hijack and Listing Suppression Monitoring Service
  • Apr Update – Staying flat, churn = new customers right now. Great service I still use to be notified when my listing gets suppressed so I can go in and fix it right away!

Part 5 – Put Outside Capital to Work Efficiently

Apr Update – Expect a BIG case study on this

Overall Income Update

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

• Target Net Income = $10,925
• Actual Net Income = $49,617.53
• 2017 Average Net Income = $46,593.96

 

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

Final Comments

April was a very solid month. Just based on the timing of a few things there are some structural challenges to keeping this pace up for May. I am going to try and keep pushing the business forward while taking care to keep laying a strong foundation of procedures and team members.

April the in-house team doubled with summer students and I am excited to see how I can leverage their brains and enthusiasm to help out the business and this audience!