New month, new baby and a new income record! March was a busy month for the business with many new projects on the go.

Between the hiring of 2 additional staff in house and a BIG new project that is all about putting more capital to work in this space I am excited. Expect a very interesting case study soon about the new project and in particular the BrandBuilders.io deal structure.

It is still a challenge to ensure I am giving all projects the amount of attention they deserve especially with the arrival of my 3^rd child and spending more time at home.

This report covers the results of the business during March!

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
   • – Amazon FBA Hijacking and Suppression Monitoring
5. Put Outside Capital to Work Efficiently in the Online Asset Space

Key Successes

1. ContentRefined.com Growth (10% compounding per week!) – Content Refined has continued to grow at 10% per week for 4 months now! Maddie is handling all orders extremely well and we are getting fantastic feedback on both the service and the support!

2. BrandBuilders Deal – The launch of the turnkey sites was CRAZY… they sold out in a matter of hours and we are quickly scaling to be able to handle additional volume! You can sign up for the early bird list here.

3. FBA Businesses – After a few months of struggles with the FBA businesses we have had the start of success on a few fronts with these brands and look

4. Quality of Applicants & New Hires – I posted a job to hire a summer intern and ended up with an incredible number of quality applicants! I am excited about the 3 people I will be adding to my in-house team and their potential contributions to the company and this website/audience.

Key Failures

1. # of Projects and Unrealized Opportunity – With the number of projects I have it is clear that a few have some pretty amazing potential but I am spending time on projects that even if they hit their targets won’t deliver the type of results a small incredible increase in the other projects would yield. This is an ongoing struggle but allocating my time to balance both diversification of risk and optimizing my return on time. My hope is that with the increased staff my capacity will continue to be increased and I will be able to give increased attention to the projects that are morst deserving of it!

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

Mar Update – The team is doing very well in the MortgageCrushingCompetition. Everyone struggles with the same issues of finding time to invest in this project but all sites are looking good!

• Traffic = 4,175 Unique Users
• Earnings = $12.72

2. Buy 1 Site Per Month

Mar Update – This was the first month in a long time where I did not actually add a content site into my portfolio! I did buy an Amazon FBA business and through an entity I will talk more about later we made another productized service acquisition but for me personally, I did not buy any content site!

• 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

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

Mar Update – This project is going well with a LOT of traffic rolling into these sites. The earnings are behind where I want them to be but I made some organization changes that have put Kelley who is a wiz with this stuff in charge of my portfolio with a CO-OP student to help part time.

• Traffic – 40,089 Uniques per month
• Earnings – $351.72 (lots of opportunity for improving! currently behing plan!)

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

Mar Update – The graph looks awesome! Except there is a one-time earnings event in here that will not be repeated. Definitely, have a lot of work to do to drive up the earnings for my sites. Many sites with great traffic but not earning enough from them, many tests are now underway.

 

Part 2 – Authority Website Income Blog Profit/Loss

3 Goals in 2015 for AuthorityWebsiteIncome.com

1. Post Once Per Week

Mar Update – March was not my best month for the site! The posts were not as in depth as I would like and were more mind-set then tactical. I am working to fix that this month! My excuse… baby… but it is a weak excuse since we had ~9months to prepare for me not working much for a few days.

• Plan = 4
• Actual = 3

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

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

3. Increased Intelligence with Email Automation

Mar Update – Good progress last month with proper tagging, now it is up to me to better define the process.

PRIMARY GOAL – GROW TO 30k VISITORS PER MONTH

Mar Update – 17,257… 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

Mar Update – Great continued focus from the manager of the services.

2. LE – Quality and Efficiency Improvements

Mar Update – The ranking improvements we saw from the tests we ran are continuing this month!

Visit LightningRank.com for Link Building Services!

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

Mar Update – We have had an average compounding growth rate of 10.76%(PER WEEK) for 13weeks! Customers are thrilled and we are blowing through our targets. Many long hours are being put in by the team led by Maddie but we are very excited for what options we have for this business!

• Planned MRR = $14,000
• Actual MRR = $22,187

Visit ContentRefined.com for Content Marketing Services!

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

Mar Update – Achieved – expect a very interesting case study soon! The TurnKey affiliate sites ready in 24hrs are fantastic and feedback has been great (selling out in under 24hrs again)!

PRIMARY GOAL – SYSTEMATIC GROWTH!

Part 4 – Amazon FBA Business

• Brand #1 – HG – Running Lean and Spinning off Cash
  • Mar Update – Running lean (don’t have the numbers for this business so not included in the income report)
• Brand #2 – CF – Quarterly Dividends Ahead of Baseline
  • Mar Update – Continuing to run lean and profitable
• Brand #3 – NT – Path To Strong Market Position and Successful Pillar Product
  • Mar Update – This business may be the first one we need to kill… unfortunate and we will test a couple more ideas but our landed cost is simply too high for this product to be really profitable.
• Brand #4 – CF – Systematic Growth to $20k/month Profit
  • Mar Update – GREAT NEWS – we are back on Amazon and selling!
• Brand #5 – PC – Successful launch and $5k/month Business
  • Mar Update – We are now selling! With 2 websites pushing sales we are looking forward to seeing how we are able to compete in this space.
• Brand #6 – SE – 4X Value Expansion with Dream Team!
  • Mar Update – Products are on the boat for the first very small validation order!
• com – Hijack Monitoring Service
  • Mar Update – Continuing to run very lean with little effort on growth. Great solution for people who want to be notified ASAP if their listing goes down.

Part 5 – Put Outside Capital to Work Efficiently

Mar Update – I will have some big news on this front soon!

Overall Income Update

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

• Target Net Income = $10,750
• Actual Net Income = $60,065.61
• 2017 Average Net Income = $45,586.10

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

Final Comments

March was a month where I definitely felt I started to be more active working on my business and not in it. The next phase of growth for the business I believe is clear and that is continuing to get better at managing my team, pushing out more value to my audience at AuthorityWebsiteIncome and focusing on my largest opportunities within my portfolio/investments.

There will be what I hope is a very interesting case study coming soon about how adding a 3^rd option (not just sell/don’t sell) for world class operators who aren’t necessarily looking to sell but want to take some risk off the table. If this might apply to you please reach out to me and I can let you know more details.

It has been awhile since I really had a huge breakthrough of a month.

This month it turns out a few things lined up to really deliver a GREAT month and was able to blow through a barrier!

Despite a few parts of the business not working out as I would like (LE and my Amazon Associates Account) the overall business performed well.

On a personal note it has been a great month for validation of my decision to leave the day job…I finally moved into our new house at the very end of the month, projects I would not have been able to start had a great month and I have been able to get out on the ski hill with my kids! (more…)

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:
   • 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 (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

Download This Easy to Edit and Printable Goals Template – FREE

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

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)

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)

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

 

Part 2 – Authority Website Income Blog Profit/Loss

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

2. 2 EPIC Posts Published(Achieved in 2015)

NOVUPDATE –SUCCESS!

• Epic Post One – The 301 building block strategy (Part 1, Part 2)
• Epic Post Two – In November I published my How to Build a PBN Guide

 

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!

Part 3 – Services Business Profit/Loss

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

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

November was a head down nose to the grindstone kind of month for me and my online business. My team has been busy building my sites and client sites for the done for you private blog network service. I was also deep diving into my standard operating documents to tweak my processes and resolve some problems. (more…)