January Income Post – Goals for 2017
In this income post I layout the goals for 2017 for my business and what parts of my business will be getting my focus and energy!
January was by the numbers not the start to the year I was looking for but as we were still getting a lot of the orders from a massive November wrapped up it is understandable.
Many new tests are looking like they are winners while several cash cows of my businesses seemed to stumble a bit in January.
The Business “Divisions” For My Online Business:
- Money Site Portfolio
- AuthorityWebsiteIncome Blog
- 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)
- Amazon FBA Business
- Brands 1-6 – All have specific targets for 2017
- – Amazon FBA Hijacking and Suppression Monitoring
- Put Outside Capital to Work Efficiently in the Online Asset Space
Key Successes
- New Website Growth Strategy – Several sites I have been building have been having some great success out of the gate! I am looking to continue testing this out myself and then scaling it!
- ContentRefined.com – I have not had a business grow this quickly to a monthly recurring revenue of 6 figures a year before. The feedback is continuing to be great and the quality of the articles plus the ranking results clients are getting has me very optimistic that the 10 year time horizon we have for this business is solid. Controlling costs as we scale and not sacrificing on quality is the ongoing battle but for this business we are happy to give up some margin to ensure quality content is provided to the clients.
- New Project Idea – There is one substantial new project which will setup BrandBuilders for some explosive growth while at the same time make a giant leap towards working to solve the problem of being able to put outside capital to work in the online space.
Key Failures
- Amazon FBA Account – My most promising Amazon FBA business had its account put under a velocity review.
- Time into Mortgage Crushing Challenge – This challenge is a key focus for this site and I did not put as much time into the project as I would have like in January.
- Slow Restart to the Year – Weaker Profit Month – It is always the case but this year it was a slower start to January with the first ½ of the month being very slow but then the second ½ and start of Feb picking backup to the pace both in terms of new business and effort that I am going after.
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
- Everyone Win at the Mortgage Crushing Competition
Jan Update – This one has been fun to launch, the team at the office is working hard on building their websites. My site is off to a slower start but I am pushing hard on content and using my 301 building block strategy which involves buying expired domains, creating a silo on that domain and then moving it to my money site.
- Traffic = 9
- Earnings = 0
2. Buy 1 Site Per Month
Jan Update – 1 new website was purchased in January. It was a little higher a multiple then I would like but will be a nice addition to a new project I have on the go.
- GOAL = 1 Website
- ACTUAL = 1 Website
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 – Sell Your Website FAST!
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
Update for 2017 – Amazon FBA, SAAS or Larger Websites I Can Close on Quickly As Well – Contact Me Here
3. Scalable New Site Creation Strategy adds $5k to Portfolio
Jan Update – Some great progress here! Several sites have started to perform well that were brand new builds using a unique strategy. The goal of this strategy is to add $5k/month to the portfolio.
- Traffic – 8,6952 visitors (all sites started in Dec or Jan – one example is shown below)
- Earnings – $0 no monetization applied yet.
PRIMARY GOAL – OVERALL INCOME FOR WEBSITE PORTFOLIO GROW TO $15k/MONTH CONSISTENTLY
Jan Update – Great progress on some growth opportunities for what I am building from scratch. It is a LOT OF FUN to be back focusing on building some existing and new sites in my portfolio.
Part 2 – Authority Website Income Blog Profit/Loss
3 Goals in 2015 for AuthorityWebsiteIncome.com
- Post Once Per Week
Jan Update – This is always a tough one but I enjoy it! So this year I am GOING to hit my goal of one post per week.
- Plan = 5
- Actual = 5
2. Systematic Promotion of my Content and Building of my List
Jan Update – For the most part my strategy with my audience at AuthorityWebsiteIncome is to create content and then send out an email to my list… that it and its weak! Need to systematically promote it and work on building my audience.
3. Increased Intelligence with Email Automation
Jan Update – Similar to above the level of automation I apply to my list is very weak resulting in a very sub-optimal experience for people on my list.
PRIMARY GOAL – GROW TO 30k VISITORS PER MONTH
Jan Update – Lots of work to do this year to hit this target! I will continue pushing!
Part 3 – Services Business Profit/Loss
- Systems First Focus
Jan Update – Great progress with all systems fundamentally in place for the services businesses and a good focus out all my staff’s weekly 1:1 meetings to review what system got created, improved or audited each week.
- LightningRank.com – Quality and Efficiency Improvements
Jan Update – With the Google update Jan 7 that impacted none of my money sites and only a handful of clients sites and the importance of relevancy we are uniquely positioned to continue to provide the best solution for people looking to rank their
website with a Private Blog Network.
Visit LightningRank.com for Link Building Services!
- ContentRefined.com – 20k MRR by June & 40k MRR by End of Year
Jan Update – What you might notice is that nowhere on this income report have I ever shared revenue for any services business. The reason I do for ContentRefined is because Maddie and I want the focus to be on providing an exceptional and consistent product. We won’t be able to grow our MRR without doing a fantastic job at providing great value to all our customers and as a result I am less focused on earnings from ContentRefined.
Visit ContentRefined.com for Content Marketing Services!
4. BrandBuilders.io Structurally Well Setup & New Offering Launched
Jan Update – Some great progress on this! There is a deal in the works that will be a win for everyone involved! In addition January saw the pre-launch of the Turnkey Affiliate Sites and some great work towards guest posts at Empire Flippers about how to scale an affiliate site.
PRIMARY GOAL FOR SERVICES BUSINESSES – SYSTEMATIC GROWTH!
Part 4 – Amazon FBA Business
- Brand #1 – HG – Running Lean and Spinning off Cash
- Jan Update – We pushed on this business to make it grow in 2016 but didn’t have a ton of success. The goal for 2017 is to run it lean and have it spin off cash!
- Brand #2 – CF – Quarterly Dividends Ahead of Baseline
- Jan Update – Great progress on this business with it now consistently turned around and performing ahead of baseline after taking an immediate hit when we purchased the business and it was performing at 20% of baseline initially. Now the first payments are getting ready to be sent.
- Brand #3 – NT – Path To Strong Market Position and Successful Pillar Product
- Jan Update – Despite some great feedback and rankings the sales are not what we want them to be. The product is great (by far the best) but the size of the market just may not be big enough. Of all businesses I really like the vision for this one!
- Brand #4 – CF – Systematic Growth to $20k/month Profit
- Jan Update – BIG SETBACK Amazon has put this account under review for a velocity review due to us wanting to get rid of some of our inventory before an order
- Brand #5 – PC – Successful launch and $5k/month Business
- Jan Update – This business has been slower than we would have liked but are happy with keeping our standards high on the product and have inventory on the way to Amazon. The site created to drive the traffic to this product is also continuing to perform well!
- Brand #6 – SE – 4X Value Expansion with Dream Team!
- Jan Update – I hope to be able to talk about this business and the team soon. We have a lot of hurdles to jump through and are working through them but if we can pull it off it has the makings of a huge opportunity. The idea is that this business is the evolution of the affiliate site to FBA model where a team of deep knowledge experts are invested and advise within their area of expertise.
- LE – Hijack Monitoring Service
- Jan Update – Continues to be slow to grow but very useful tool.
Overall it wasn’t a great month for the FBA portfolio with one big setback.
Part 5 – Put Outside Capital to Work Efficiently
I find the problem of being able to put capital to work in this space fascinating and I am looking to be a part of the solution that can address it.
More to come but if you are interested in what I have cooking I am always open to chat.
The simple math of buying an asset at 2X earnings and earning essentially a 50%/year return then add in business model innovation and growth (traffic/conversion) the potential is incredible. Plenty of risks but also lots of opportunity!
Overall Income Update
Original Monthly Net Income Target (original goal $15k/month reliable income by age 35)
- Target Net Income = $10,400
- Actual Net Income = $24,537
- 2017 Average Net Income = $24,537
(don’t worry it looks worse than reality)
Gross revenue is a vanity number for my business and I do not share it.
Final Comments
Jan was a month where a lot of expenses from previous months sales hit and based on my not perfect accounting method it made it look like a bad month. Overall I am not worried, just a slow start to the month and a lot of expenses added together to give me a month that is less then ideal. Looking to bounce back BIG in February!
As is always the case I have no shortage of opportunities in 2017 and I plan to buid my team, work my ass off, leverage systems and maximize all opportunities while having fun (and doing as much skiing with my kids as possible).
Hope everyone is pumped for 2017!
Hi Jon, I, first of all, want to express how interesting and useful your emails are. I really look for them because this is the kind of stuff I want to learn. I am just starting an SEO business hopefully very soon. However, I feel like I have to have some achievements, such as getting some websites up the ranks soon, and maybe some testimonials. I am currently working on doing the SEO for 2 authority websites — one of them is my own and another is for a client that agreed to let me do the SEO on his authority site (I’m not charging anything for this). I would like to get these 2 authority sites, in addition to an e-commerce site hopefully, to the first page of Google and not take forever to do this.
In addition to my SEO business, I hope to make money from my authority site (above under website) pupcorner.com. I am just curious about how long would it take to have users actually think of my site as an authority site? And any estimates of how long it usually takes to start making money off of an authority site and to be considered and authority?
ario
Thanks very much for putting out this information because it is so helpful! Do you offer any training in advanced techniques for SEO, in various areas such as really selecting great keywords, in addition to some special techniques, such as your information about “low hanging fruit” modifying and making it current and reusing it. I love to hear about these techniques as I have not been doing this long enough to know enough but I am extremely interested in this.
Thanks again for doing this!
Barbara DiLucchio
Hi Jon,
Thanks for another great update. JW, any reason you kept your profit goals for 2017 so low when it is clear you are smashing it every month?
Count me among those pleasantly surprised with the dedication and quality behind your Content Refined project. I’m 3 months in and enjoying the content that is being provided… not just articles, but true “web content” with images, graphics, tables, aff product listing, outbound links, vids, etc. I engaged this service as an experiment and with low expectations, but I’m already looking into options for factoring this service into the long term growth plans for the site.
If you’re looking for support in scaling a site… give the Content Refined team a shot.
Thanks
Dave
Hi Jon,
I really enjoy reading your emails because they are so full of really useful and helpful information. I am currently trying to get 2 authority sites Thoroughly “SEO’d” and hopefully get the 2 sites along with an e-commerce site, to the first page of Google in a decent amount of time, what ever that may be, so i can put those as achievements on my SEO business website that I really want to succeed at and make money from.
In addition to the SEO business I have a goal to earn money from my authority website, one of the authority websites is my own authority site that I have been paying money to a company to build and market and help me get my own business going.
one question I have is about how long should I keep working at this authority website
Hi, Jon! Amazing income report. Just want to say you are doing superbly.
One thing, the target you set for each month is low and you hit the more. Why setting pretty low amount? Is there any reason behind that?
Regards