Income Report – August

It has been 12 months since I broke over the $15k/month mark and 14 months since my peak of $21k…August has set a new record!

I will get into all the details below as always but first…

If you are looking for 1 key takeaway from Aug it is that any book that talks about do more/work less or similar is BS. I have reliably found that opportunity and results come when putting in the work. It is critical we are focusing on the right work (my 80-20 work activities) but taking a lot of action always seems to feed on itself and generate results.

This month is no different with a lot of action taken in July and continued through in August I am happy to report my best numbers ever this month.

In this report I will talk through my monthly results for…

1. Passive Income Website Portfolio
2. AuthorityWebsiteIncome Blog
3. 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!)
   • Market.Source-Wave.com (added in August)

Key Successes

1. Source-Wave.com Marketplace – The Source Wave marketplace has been a great additional revenue and customer acquisition source. It has provided an outlet for inventory on abandoned PBNs and pre-built PBNs while introducing future potential customers to the quality of the PBNs my team builds. In addition the strategies I have deployed has resulted in my service being the number 1 selling service for 4+ weeks. This new sales channel added $12k in revenue but a lower profit margin than other offers.
   1. Check Out my Monday& Tuesday ONLY Sale!
2. Six Figure Challenge Site Hitting 1k visitor per day – Although this project is no longer getting as much focus as I was giving it at the start I am continuing to systematically add content, build a relevant PBN and perform my 301 building block strategy. All of which has allowed the site to continue its growth to the 1k visitor per day mark.
3. New System is Working Well at LightningRank.com (If you are selling online look into Zaxaa!) – I made the move at the end of last month but now all orders are flowing through Zaxaa which is providing a much more seamless process for my team and clients.

Key Failures

1. Training Stubbornness – I have been “proud” being able to say I never took any online course/ebook and learned via great free resources or trial and error. In my ~7 years (read my history here) working online in some capacity this has been a rule I have followed. I am now questioning it… there are many areas that I suck at with online marketing (delivering an ROI on a social media effort, making good looking sites, paid traffic etc). If I were to calculate my $/hr online and a course could help me learn a new skill faster I would be stupid not to buy it. In August I internally said I am not paying for that training (cart checkout procedures within Zaxaa, one time offers, cart abandonment, paid traffic etc) and then spent a LONG time searching online how to properly set everything up….dumb!
2. Hosting Problems Almost Killed a Profitable Website the week after I purchased it! – I purchased a website for $3k that was making reasonable income and I was hoping to simply hold it my passive portfolio. However, I put it on a HostGator account and shortly after ran into a 2 week customer support saga with them for several sites(luckily I have a VA that deals with all hosting issues – I wouldn’t have had the patience for the hoops he had to jump through). All the sites got deindexed and I was concerned I had a dead site on my hands…luckily that wasn’t the case and it eventually bounced back but I did lose some money.

2015 Business Goals

Download This Easy to Edit and Printable Goals Template – FREE

Part 1 – Passive Authority& Niche Website IncomeProfit/Loss

5 Goals in 2015 for my Website Portfolio Business

1. Build Six Figure Website

AUGUPDATE – Right now I am keeping the content machine working with 2 great writers and so far that plus my 301 Building Block strategy seems to be enough to keep the website growing! I believe Sep will see a decline or slow down in growth due to the seasonal nature of some of my traffic.

June Stats

• Traffic =21,886
• Income = $258

2. Continue Building Smaller Profitable “Niche” Sites

AUG UPDATE – Experiment did not work reliably enough (will likely share the details in a future post) and now focusing on higher return projects.

3. Systematize Top 20 Sites in Portfolio

AUG UPDATE –We did not make much progress on this front in Aug, I believe Sep will see some focused effort here where I build cleaner systems for being able to focus in on the specific sites we want to grow.

4. Buy 2 Sites Per Month

AUGUPDATE: No websites purchased in Aug and the deal flow was a little slower than usual. Usually I have 4-5 people a month emailing me enquiring and for 1-2 it makes sense to sell this month only had a couple inquiries.

• GOAL = 16 sites purchased by Aug 2015
• ACTUAL = 19 sites (0 in Aug)

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)
• Sites are medium-questionable quality (questionable SEO, non-native English articles are OK)
• High quality sites making over $500/month often make sense to sell via other channels (EmpireFlippers is a great marketplace)
• Understand that the benefits of the bullet points above means the sales multiple will be lower

5. Improve Monetization of Existing Sites

AUG UPDATE –No progress in Aug…needs to be a focus in the coming month(s).

 

PRIMARY GOAL – OVERALL INCOME FOR WEBSITE PORTFOLIO

 

The appearance of a steep decline is misleading since last month involved a LARGE payment of $3,500 in missing commissions.

From the seasonal dip last Sep I believe I am in a better position to weather with a more diversified portfolio of sites.

 

Part 2 – Authority Website Income Blog Profit/Loss

My commitment on this site is to provide posts once per week from me and one MONSTER of an ultimate guide a little later in the year.

3 Goals in 2015 for AuthorityWebsiteIncome.com

1. Post 1-2 times per week

AUG UPDATE – Back on track with what I hope are some decent posts including my 80-20 work activities, Source Wave Marketplace tips and others.

• Plan = 5
• Actual = 5

AUG UPDATE – Marginally better involvement

• Interview = 0
• Roundup = 3
• Podcast = 0

2. 2 EPIC Posts Published

AUGUPDATE –One mini-epic post has been published with me revealing the 301 building block strategy (Part 1, Part 2)

3. PRIMARY GOAL – GROW TO 30k VISITORS PER MONTH

I have moved several posts to LightningRank.com which will put me a little behind on this goal…but no excuses I still want to hit this goal this year!

Part 3 – Services Business Profit/Loss

1. Create Stand Alone Business

AUGUPDATE –Continued to integrate Zaxaa into my systems and improve how everything works together.

2. Rework and Customize Systems

AUGUPDATE – Not as much progress on this front as I would like, collecting all my SOPs and reviewing them is something I should do annually and it has not been done yet. I know there is room for improvement here!

3. Systematic Customer Acquisition

AUGUPDATE – It was my best month ever for this! Between continuing my PPC learnings, bringing on affiliates and Market.Source-Wave.com I was able to introduce many new customers to my services!

PRIMARY GOAL – STAND ALONE SYSTEMATIZED SERVICES BUSINESS

This goal is within reach, I need to stay focused on systematic customer acquisition and improving my processes.

Overall Income Update

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

• Target Net Income = $7,425
• Actual net Income = $27,917
• 2015 Average Monthly Net Income = $12,304

Final Comments

Obviously an unreal month, many challenges are faced as a result but my team is up to the task and responding well!

Definitely no “secret” August was the result of consistent work on the right activities and taking big action on opportunities.

The question I would ask you is when you have had a break-out month what do you contribute the success to?