May 2017: Income Report $17,414
All good things take time. And time we took. May was not only profitable, but it was a time for us to prepare for our largest launch to date in June. We spent weeks behind the scenes working with our current students, preparing bonuses and other awesome new materials and even working on some alternative ways to bring in more cash. See how May shaped up below.
Why do we do income reports?
In an effort to be as transparent as possible in our own business, we have chosen to make 2017 the year in which we showcase the good, the bad, and the ugly. That means we talk about money on months when we bring home the bacon and on months when we’d rather not discuss finances. We hope you learn a LOT from these reports. We want you to be able to replicate and tweak our strategies to use in your own business. Get inspired, learn from our mistakes, and grow your own online business.
Please note: Links marked below with an asterisk (*) are affiliate links. By clicking and purchasing we may earn a commission on this sale. This comes at no cost to you and is only for products and companies we truly believe in!
May Income
Affiliate Income: $2,340
Podcast Sponsors: $1,800
Course Sales: $13,274
TOTAL INCOME: $17,414
May Expenses
Stripe/Paypal Fees: $483
Affiliate Expenses: $294
Equipment: $18
GoDaddy: $73
Libsyn: $30
SmarterQueue*: $46
Zapier: $220
MotionMail: $10
Dropbox: $20
ConvertKit*: $149
ManyChat: $10
SamCart: -$199 (immediately returned)
Wavve: $7
Gifts: $148
Independent Contractors: $6,531
Facebook Ads: $707
Office Supplies: $83
Meals & Entertainment: $61
TOTAL EXPENSES: $8,691
NET PROFIT: $10,833
Payroll to Abagail & Emylee: $6,522
IRA Contributions: $1,035
Supporting Our Students
It’s funny how an income report doesn’t convey the time or energy you put into something. Sure, we made a healthy profit, but we were also busy taking care of our students. In May, we were supporting everyone going through Rock Your Biz, making sure their questions were answered and they felt like that had a place as they went through our program. We held weekly coaching calls and hosted them all in a private Facebook community.
Creating Magic
Amidst the hustle and bustle, we were also working behind the scenes on our next launch, creating the magic — i.e. all the freaking awesome bonuses included inside the Strategy Academy. Instead of selling and hosting webinars, we were recording new lessons on how to build a website in a weekend and automate your business using systems like IFTTT and Zapier.
We were also planning emails, mapping out a Facebook ad strategy and recording promotional videos for our launch coming up in June. This one had the most moving parts ever.
Podcast Sponsor
A major goal for quarter 2 was to ramp up the Strategy Hour podcast enough that we could take on sponsors. In May, we spent time cleaning up our proposal, reaching out to potential sponsors and landed our first official on-air sponsorship with Dubsado. Goal crushed!
List Cleanup
As we moved closer to our big launch we continued to prepare our business — including the not so fun stuff, like cleaning up our list. Once every quarter or so we go through the list and email cold subscribers to see if they still want to stay, and anyone who doesn’t interact with that email gets deleted. Not only does this increase our open rates and engagement, but it keeps our costs down as we aren’t emailing people who literally don’t open or interact with our emails whatsoever. It does hurt a bit the first time, but it definitely gets easier to delete subscribers after a while.
Preparing for Something Huge
It seemed kinds of weird to not be launching or actively selling something in May, but the success of our Rock Your Biz launch helped us take a much-needed break. We realized early this year that in order to have bigger and better launches we needed to be spending more time focusing on one thing at a time. We were juggling way too many things in 2016 so it felt good to take some time “off” this month.
