September Income Report 2016

September was a fun month with a lot of work on growth projects, plenty of challenges and adapting to the impact of the loss of my Amazon associates account.

The loss of the associate account in Sep was largely offset by my sites in the education niche but I do expect there to be a more obvious impact in my money site portfolio performance next month.

The Business “Divisions” For My Online Business:

1. Money Site 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 – Sold 2/3
   • Brand #2 – Purchased Website
   • Brand #3 – Product First Focus
   • – Amazon FBA Hijacking and Suppression Monitoring

 

Key Successes

1. Continued Definition of Focus – My why had been crystal clear for a long time with the obsessive focus on building up the business and exiting the day job. I have been doing some work over the last 2 months and I am starting to crystalize my businesses mission/vision/values etc that will all lead into an annual planning process.
2. Improving Systems – It was a good month on making progress towards having all parts of my money site management system fully systematized! The newest addition to my in-house team is working out well and helping to centralize the fragmented systems I currently have.

 

Key Failures

1. Amazon Associate Account Suspension – Just awesome! Here is the story, we are adapting and moving forward! But obviously hurts the bottom line when a profit center goes to zero while the expenses associated with that profit center stay the same. Part of the business and the reason for diversification. The irony is that we had just finished a very detailed process for completing Amazon Associate Compliance Audits.
2. Clear Impact with Spread-Out Focus – Many of my money sites do not get the attention they deserve! Sometimes it is pretty embarrassing to look at them… When I did a thorough review of all the money sites I saw a couple of my very weak performers with the title “Best product name 2014” yup I had 2 sites like that were stuck over 2 years ago when I reviewed my top 40 sites.

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

Sep Update – Ongoing effort on this front and I am looking forward to continue to share parts of the process as they get locked down (such as the Amazon Associate Compliance Audit – which didn’t get finished in time for me to benefit from).

2. Buy 1 Site Per Month

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

• GOAL = 1 Website
• ACTUAL = 2 Okay smaller websites 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
• 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

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

1. 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

Sep Update – Definitely a loss to the portfolio with the Amazon Associate account suspension. Sep should have been a great month otherwise due to some of my sites in the education space.

Part 2 – Authority Website Income Blog Profit/Loss

3 Goals in 2015 for AuthorityWebsiteIncome.com

1. Post Once Per Week

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

• Plan = 4
• Actual = 4

2. 10x my Outreach

Sep Update – Only one podcast interview in Sep.

3. Site Redesign – Completed!

Sep Update – Already Completed

PRIMARY GOAL – GROW TO 30k VISITORS PER MONTH

Sep Update – 17,434 users which represents a 71% 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

Sep Update – What can be measured can be improved… this is certainly showing to be the case with our COGS being much better defined now after our change from Aug/Sep. What we are now able to do is determine the costs for each part of our services and hold a team leader responsible for that teams quality, volume and cost.

2. Improve email marking and sales automation

Sep Update – I need to just carve out some time and make this happen… I am sick of making excuses on this monthly report that it is not done!

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

Sep Update – Great opportunities with Brand Builders continues.

PRIMARY GOAL – STAND ALONE SYSTEMATIZED SERVICES BUSINESS IN 2016

Part 4 – Amazon FBA Business

• Sell FBA Business for 30x with 3+ Solid Months
  • Sep Update – SUCCESS
• Launch Brand #2 – Partner – Product First Focused (Brand Vision Focus)
  • Sep Update – As I continue to explore how to best tackle Amazon FBA and build a business that has serious equity value this Brand has a defined mission and the product although in a small market will clearly be the worlds best!
• Launch Brand #3 – Investors – Affiliate Site Focused (External Traffic Focused)
  • Sep Update – Finally some success! We have successfully turned this business around after it went to 20% of baseline immediately after purchase! With inventory being received and validating the product gets good non-incentivized reviews we made decent sales and have placed a larger more aggressive order which should arrive end of Oct.

• Launch Brand #4 – Partner – Product First Focused (Unique Product Focused)
  • Sep Update – 1,300 units will be shipping mid-late October and we will be attempting to do a retail test with this product. With the issues

 

• LE – Hijack and Listing Suppression Monitoring Service
  • Sep Update – SAAS can certainly be a tricky nut to crack! I was expecting great things in September for LE with the addition of the very very helpful Suppression Monitoring. However, our ability to get the word out about the solution to the pain point has been tricky. LE
    • What is a suppressed listing? Amazon will suppress a listing, meaning you make no sales while it is suppressed, and you will not be notified by them. People usually only notice when they notice a couple of days of down sales and then login to see what happened. LE will alert sellers via text and email as soon as your listing is suppressed!

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 = $27,046.88
• 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

Sep was definitely a month full of challenges and I am very happy with the progress we made and the perseverance the team showed to still drive in the results that we did for clients.

With the substantial ranking jumps clients are seeing through LightningRank PBN services October will be another month of working to fulfill all customers expectations.