October Income Report 2016

In October the numbers are starting to feel a little different…what I mean is that as I have transitioned out of the day job and added additional staff the business is starting to continue to become more formalized. The added costs and effort we have been putting forward since leaving my day job seem to be starting to show results and there are plenty of growth projects which have taken a lot of time and money but have not added a dollar of revenue (yet) 🙂

The business has been very fun to operate lately with a lot of focus on taking care of the base systems by digging into every little failure and systematically improving the systems while at the same time putting a LOT of effort into new projects which I will be sure to share more about.  (more…)

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June Income Report

June was one of the most eventful months in my online businesses history.

It is the month where I worked my last day at my day job and have now moved back to my hometown to pursue online entrepreneurship full time!

Lots happening in my life and online business in June… some good some less than ideal (see ankle/move story below) but all part of the adventure!

My Business Focus Points:

  1. Passive Income Website Portfolio
  2. AuthorityWebsiteIncome Blog
  3. SEO & Expired Domain Services:
  4. Amazon FBA Business
    • Brand #1
    • Brand #2
    • Brand #3
    • New Web App Project
Key Successes
  1. Email Opt In Sequence – (100 signups per day for FBA Business) –I have recently changed the sequence of driving people to Amazon to first send them through a squeeze page where they receive a marginal discount (5-15%) in exchange for their email. This has increased my opt in rate for that business to 100 per day!
  2. FBA Business #2 Now Live and Selling – Finally some promising progress on this partnership after several months of challenges and set backs we are now moving forward with the site holding solid with traffic and driving sales of our product on Amazon.
  3. SEO Consulting – Although I will continue to do this on a very limited scope I have enjoyed working
  4. Quit Job, Moved Houses and Setup in New Office With No Loss in Work – Lots of moving parts in June along with the usual Summer family/friend social commitments but we pulled off the move successfully and I am now setup in my new office crushing work.

My New Office Setup...

clever-office-new-office

My office is located in a co-working space in Collingwood Ontario called TheCleverOffice with some great waterfront views, fast internet, complimentary coffee/tea and a co-working community with tons of support it has made the migration to being setup and productive extremely efficient!

If you are ever happen to be in the area or want to work in proximity to me and my growing team feel free to find out more about the co-working space here.

Key Failures
  1. Tearing My Ankle Apart – Not exactly business related but still worth mentioning… the night before the moving truck came with several things left for me to move around I was playing baseball and tore my ankle up good! Definitely added a little complexity/pain to the move but it is what it is.

    WARNING CLICK TO REVEAL – Gross Picture for those weirdo’s (like me) that like seeing pictures of nasty bruises…

  2. Amazon Affiliate Challenges – The partnership Amazon Associate accounts I am apart of have had substantial problems with getting closed down by Amazon. This has hurt the performance of both partnerships. What is odd is that my personal account continues to not have problems. These challenges has me rethinking what had been my original plan to double down on the business model of investing in affiliate sites and turning into FBA businesses.
  3. My Email Marketing Sucks – My email marketing is terrible! This is nothing new but with the number of subscribers I am now getting across all my businesses my automation and follow up sequence is embarrassingly bad! Time to improve!

2016 Business Goals

Below is my businesses main goals for 2016
Picture1Download 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

Picture2 3 Goals in 2016 for my Website Portfolio Business
  1. Systematize Top 20 Sites in Portfolio
June Update – Top 20 sites is likely too many with my teams current setup. I have made good progress on the content side but need to tie it all together into a more coherent overall strategy.
  1. Buy 1 Site Per Month
June Update – I have continued to add 1 site to my portfolio a month but always looking for more sites that seem to be in my sweet spot… ~$100/month sites with someone looking for a quick sale.
  • GOAL = 1 Website
  • ACTUAL = 1 Decent Website Purchased
Picture3 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

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

 
  1. Sell Websites Strategically for $100k Total
June Update – Still on track with good performance from group that took over the site.   PRIMARY GOAL - OVERALL INCOME FOR WEBSITE PORTFOLIO ABOVE $10k/MONTH Picture4 June Update – The loss of the Amazon affiliate accounts for the partnership businesses have hurt this months amazon associate income!

Part 2 - Authority Website Income Blog Profit/Loss

Picture5 3 Goals in 2015 for AuthorityWebsiteIncome.com
  1. Post Once Per Week
June Update – Posting 1 great post per week is continuing to be a challenge but with increased time I hope to be able to achieve/surpass this over the coming months!
  • Plan = 4
  • Actual = 3 Picture6
  1. 10x my Outreach
June Update – Success! Although most of the people I spoke to this month do not directly have a site to promote me I did connect with over 30 readers of AuthorityWebsiteIncome on Skype or Google Chat to discuss SEO or what improvements could be made to their site. This took a lot of work but really helped me understand more about the great readers of AuthorityWebsiteIncome.com. Everytime I survey this audience I am blown away by the calibre of the people that follow this site!
  1. Site Redesign – Completed!
June Update – Continuing to tweak but I can call this one complete! PRIMARY GOAL – GROW TO 30k VISITORS PER MONTH June Update – 19,182 uniques’ which represents a +124% year over year increase. I believe if I can achieve my weekly posting plus my 10x outreach I can achieve this goal bye the end of the year! Picture7

Part 3 - Services Business Profit/Loss

Picture8
  1. Systems Overhaul/Refresh
June Update - Big plans in August!  
  1. Improve email marking and sales automation
June Update - Big plans in June!  
  1. BrandBuilders.io Becomes The Go-To Resource for Done 4 You Amazon FBA Private Label Websites
June Update - Lots of exciting progress with this business. Many growing pains are resolved and the growth rate is keeping pace with the teams growth rate. PRIMARY GOAL – STAND ALONE SYSTEMATIZED SERVICES BUSINESS IN 2016  

Part 4 – Amazon FBA Business

Picture9
  1. Sell FBA Business for 30x with 3+ Solid Months
June Update - Money is in the bank, progress with the transition is going well with some setbacks (such as the amazon associate account getting hit).
  1. Launch Brand #2
June Update – One affiliate site is doing very well right now and could be a great fit but this project has been put on the backburner until I turn around Brand #3 with investors.
  1. Launch Brand #3
June Update – First sale in Amazon has occurred. This was about 3 weeks behind the original schedule and the loss of the affiliate site hurts but overall the business now has momentum going into the summer.
  1. LE– Hijack Monitoring Service
June Update – We crossed over the 100 user threshold and have been getting some great feedback with most other metrics remaining healthy! What I am most happy about this project is the team setup. With highly skilled developer, manager and advisers this business although not yet profitable is working well with all key metrics for a SAAS business strong… lifetime value, acquisition cost, churn, engagement etc… now we just need to grow faster! Picture10

Overall Income Update

Original Monthly Net Income Target (original goal $15k/month reliable income by age 35)
  • Target Net Income = $9,175
  • Actual net Income = $25,304.01
2016 Average Monthly Net Income = $30,034 (stretch goal is 30k average for the year) Picture11 Gross revenue is a vanity number for my business and I do not share it. Picture12

(note Amazon FBA Income May Be Off By A Little Here – FBA Affiliate Site Income Counted in Passive Income Portfolio – Total FBA Business Income ~$10k)

Final Comments

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Income Report Dec 2016

Well I wish I could say this every month! Record numbers for the second month in a row!

Certainly the year-end push helped with my passive income portfolio but I hope you take away both the good and the bad from this post (plenty of both).

When I started my income post my numbers were TINY and as the number increases I understand they can start to break from what is achievable in front of people. However, what I hope people take away is that no one of my businesses is CRAZY numbers and picking any one of the businesses and tackling it first is very much achievable!

Never shared before – I share the simple process I credit the majority of the businesses success to. I think it is the single greatest reason that I have been able to build a team which can execute all this work so well with me only working a couple hrs a night!

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

  1. Passive Income Website Portfolio
  2. AuthorityWebsiteIncome Blog
  3. SEO &Expired Domain Services:
  4. Amazon FBA Business (see latest updates here)

Key Successes

  1. This Website Redesign (let me know your thoughts & opportunities to make it better!) – It has been long overdue and I finally have a site that looks ½ decent… not mind-blowing awesome but at least decent. Also I finally have some really solid opt-in bonuses and the site organized to make sense with its current topics.
    1. My New favorite page – https://websiteincome.com/start-here/ (Thrive can do awesome stuff easily)
  2. Amazon FBA Results – Not surprising December was a great month for the FBA business. The income results are still growing in January so excited to continue to watch.
  3. PBN Procedure Improvements – Doing an analysis on all customer feedback from 2015 for my 2016 Done For You PBN Service I saw content quality to be the biggest issue. My project manager followed my very boring system for implementing a new procedure expertly and the results were dramatic… 25% of the writers were fired, new writers hired and no comments about article quality being anything but great since.

How To Get A Lot Done When You Only Have 2 Hrs a Night!

A common question on this site is how with working only a couple hrs a night is it possible to get everything done and keep so many balls in the air (portfolio of sites, this blog, lightningrank services, FBA business + others)?

The fact is it is the process described below executed repeatedly over years and years which has resulted in building up an awesome team with robust procedures and all measured/tracked weekly.

My Process for Getting Work Done:

  1. Identify need/problem (me, project manager or one of my team leads)
  2. Create a quick procedure for it (me, project manager or one of my team leads)
  3. Assign it to a team member or hire 3-5 people on UpWork.com (project manager or team lead)
    1. Give the 3-5 people a similar test assignment with no interview and minimal training (project manager or team lead)
    2. Review quality of work done and communication and then fire all but the best
  4. Assign the (potentially new) team member to execute the created procedure and work together to improve it (project manager or team lead)
  5. Manage the change to the new procedure (project manager or team lead)
    1. Input the new procedure into the procedure database (list in a google doc)
    2. Communicate the new procedure and the basics of the change to the affected team members
  6. Begin executing the procedure (new team member)
  7. Improve & Track Desired Results of the New Procedure
    1. New team member to send out weekly update with basic update to entire team including myself focusing on the metrics of both what has been done and how it has impacted the key end result the new procedure was put in place to improve (new team member)
    2. Key metric(quantitative or qualitative) for the new procedure added to the team lead or project managers weekly business scorecard which gets reviewed at the weekly 1 on 1 meeting I have (most important 1hr I do all week)! (project manager and myself)

I realize those were probably the most boring 255 words in this websites history but very likely this simple process deserves the majority of the credit for this businesses steady and meaningful growth.

Key Failures

  1. Planning & Priorities – A lot of irons in the fire is the normal and although I certainly didn’t feel overwhelmed I did find I was pushing the pace I was working at a little harder than normal which resulted in me cutting down my critical planning time. Giving up some planning time occasionally is ok but eventually I find myself doing stupid work that provides minimal value and neglecting what really matters. December as a consequence of actually having more time to work I became less efficient with the work I was doing (ie entering blog comments for a lower performing niche site) The business continues to run if I did nothing but the issue is I am uniquely positioned to do many of the activities that are needed to push it forward so I can’t spend my time on stupid stuff!
  2. PPC – Why I can’t crack this nut is still a mystery! I enjoy numbers, enjoy testing, enjoy procedures but for whatever reason I still struggle to get PPC working in any part of my business. Part of the problem is I set something up and then re-visit it 2 weeks later. I believe more focused and frequent testing is required.

Below is a summary of my progress towards my goals for 2015.

Next months income post will have my goals for 2016 and I am very interested to hear what changes you would like to see to these income reports!

2015 Business Goals

goals 2015

Download This Easy to Edit and Printable Goals Template – FREE

Part 1 – Passive Authority& Niche Website IncomeProfit/Loss (Main Goal Achieved)

one

5 Goals in 2015 for my Website Portfolio Business

1. Build Six Figure Website(Failed in 2015)

DEC UPDATE – NOT ACHIEVED – Built a solid website that gets a nice amount of traffic and income but it is about 10x smaller than I wanted. It makes 500-600/month (more in the busy months). Definitely very profitable after investing about $6k to get it going a year ago but not as good as I wanted.

Every month traffic increased with the exception of December (typically low month for this niche)

aud overview

Oct Stats

  • Traffic =32,588
  • Income = $612

2. Continue Building Smaller Profitable “Niche” Sites (Failed in 2015)

DECUPDATE – A few of the sites I started have built up to be valuable sites. Most of the sites I only very briefly focused on did not do well.

3. Systematize Top 20 Sites in Portfolio (Achieved in 2015)

DEC UPDATE –The content machine is humming along. 3 great writers turning out 10+ articles per week each for my money sites along with niche specific PBN and PBN links being built is continuing to improve rankings and search results. So far the simple combination of quality Content + quality Links = Success

4. Buy 2 Sites Per Month(Achieved in 2015)

DECUPDATE: For only the second month of the year I did not purchase any websites!

  • GOAL = 22 sites purchased by Nov 2015
  • ACTUAL = 26 sites (+1 in Nov)

# site 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)
  • 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

If you have an Amazon Affiliate site you are looking to sell fast please let me know!

 

5. Improve Monetization of Existing Sites(Achieved in 2015)

DEC UPDATE – Success in the numbers! Beyond just the seasonal push with my Amazon sites my student loan and six figure site had a record month!RECORD month for my niche website business!

PRIMARY GOAL – OVERALL INCOME FOR WEBSITE PORTFOLIO

 

Near doubling of my affiliate sites in Dec!

Near doubling of my affiliate sites in Dec!

Part 2 – Authority Website Income Blog Profit/Loss

two

My commitment on this site is to provide once per week posts from me in 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(Achieved in 2015)

DECUPDATE – With a late push as part of the redesign and counting some additional non typical articles (such as my start here page) I was able to just hit my goal.

  • Plan = 4
  • Actual = 7

post published

2. 2 EPIC Posts Published(Achieved in 2015)

NOVUPDATE –SUCCESS!

 

3. PRIMARY GOAL – GROW TO 30k VISITORS PER MONTH(Failed in 2015)

Definitely didn’t hit my goal in 2015 here… plan to certainly keep pushing in 2016!

Very interested in hearing from people in what they would like to see more of in 2016!

overview

Part 3 – Services Business Profit/Loss

three

  1. Create Stand Alone Business(Success – See LightningRank.com)
  2. Rework and Customize Systems(Progress – But More Improvement in 2016)
  3. Systematic Customer Acquisition(Failed in 2015)

PRIMARY GOAL – STAND ALONE SYSTEMATIZED SERVICES BUSINESS

Although not as far along as I wanted I will still call this one a success! The good news is that the framework is now in place with ActiveCampaign and Zaxaa to continue to improve!

Overall Income Update

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

  • Target Net Income = $8,125
  • Actual net Income = $31,525.81
  • 2015 Average Monthly Net Income = $15,937
  • Gross revenue would be a vanity number for my business and as such is not shared
net income

(note Amazon FBA Income was wrong for NOV – not corrected here (it made more than shown)

15k

2015 business goals

Final Comments

Average income hit my goal in 2015…just realized this! That is a very satisfying feeling knowing I have been working towards that number for many years!

That is enough celebrating… time to get back to the grind… reliability of income was poor $2.2k income in Feb! Lots of opportunities left un-explored. Lots of goals missed! Results will be better in 2016.

But overall I am thrilled with the year, the progress of the business and most importantly the people I have had the opportunity to work with has been very rewarding!

Here is to you! Thank you for reading what can often be simply an internal analysis of my own business!

Your pushing and proddding and question asking keep me motivated to show you everything except my passwords in my online businesses.

I will continue to show you both the good and as often as possible the bad as well!

Big plans for 2016 stay tuned!

2 requests…

  1. Let me know how you would like my 2016 income reports to change?
  2. Let me know what you think of the new site design

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Record Income Numbers – November 2015

Building something substantial is pure and complete enjoyment…

What do I mean? Well watching my 2.5year old son build things sometimes physically(pushes chairs and the plastic kids table around to make a very wobbly but fun slide) and sometimes imaginary (pirate ship) it is clear he is never more engaged than when he is building something.

I believe many of us are the same way when it comes to our businesses. Building a new process or new business can result in our highest levels of engagement, productivity and fun!

November was a month where I was Building!

Often with my limited work hours I struggle to get past sustainment but November I was able to put time into building out new strategies!

(more…)

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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:

(more…)

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