Let’s jump right in with this April 2018 income report! I’m super excited to share with you guys what’s been going on with me lately.
What’s Up With These Income Reports, Anyway?
Ever since my very first month in business (I made a whopping $87), I’ve been sharing my income and expenses for each month, in order to give other online entrepreneurs a good baseline of what a real business looks like during its start-up phase.
My goal with these posts is to give you guys a super realistic look into what type of income and expenses you can expect from being a “girl next door” type of online entrepreneur who isn’t making 6-7 figures each month (yet!).
Let’s do this!
April 2018 Income Report: An Overview
This month, I finally saw the drop off in income that I have been anticipating. It felt good to have realized that this was coming, as it was a bit easier to prepare for. And we have plenty of money saved up from the last few months to help us keep the lights on during these slower months.
I was really hoping that, even during the slow months of this year, we’d still make our bare minimum of $3,500 profit (which is how much we need to take as a salary to survive). But unfortunately that didn’t happen. Luckily since we’re using the Profit First system, we do have enough saved up to tide us over. One of my goals for 2018 was to go 6 months in a row with at least $3,500 profit each month, so I was pretty disappointed that we ruined our 3-month streak.
A FEW HIGHLIGHTS:
- I hired my Q2 intern! — I wasn’t entirely sure if I wanted to run the internship program this time around, as I’ve been feeling a little bit burnt out. Ultimately I decided to hand-pick an intern instead of opening it up for applications as I normally do, and I was really pleased with how easily the onboarding process went (and I also didn’t have to say “no” to a bunch of people, which is never fun). I may open the internship up again for applications in the future, but that won’t be until at least July.
- I launched my 5-Day Client Challenge! — I ended up having to push the launch date on this challenge back a total of 3 weeks, but I finally got it launched on April 9th and it was a huge success! I’m really happy with the quality of the challenge, and worked super hard to fill it with awesome actionable content. If you haven’t taken it yet, sign up here!
Business Goal Setting
My Goals For April 2018: Success or Failure?
- Make at least $4,000 in profit — FAILURE. Not even close.
- Make $1,500 in my passive income sales/coaching category — SUCCESS! This has been a goal of mine for a couple months and I’m sooooo excited that I finally hit it!
- Make $5,000 from social media packages. — FAILURE. Similar to previous months, we are SO close to hitting this goal. I’m going to keep it as a goal until I finally get there.
- Successfully run Facebook ads for my new challenge — FAILURE. I did run ads, but they didn’t do as well as I was hoping they would.
- Go Live in my Facebook group two times — SUCCESS! I did a “catch up” type video and a tutorial on purging your list.
My Goals for May 2018 — Let’s Do This!
- Make at least $3,500 in profit.
- Make $2,000 in passive income/coaching sales.
- Make $5,000 from social media packages.
- Get started on my website redesign.
- Make a plan that will help me stay consistent with blog posts and newsletters.
- Go Live in my Facebook group at least twice.
April 2018 Expenses
- Ads & Marketing = $730.89
- Team Member Payments = $5,857.01
- Books & Courses = $0.00
- Transaction Fees = $332.62
- Referral Payouts = $60.00Â (sign up to be a partner!)
- Teachable* = $39.00
- Active Campaign* = $70.00
- PennyPipe = $9.95
- Adobe Creative Cloud = $21.39
- PeopleMap* = $42.26
- ClickFunnels* = $297.00
- Buffer = $10.00
- Quickbooks = $10.00
- Squarespace = $16.00
- Zapier = $20.00
- BoardBooster* = $10.00
- RecurPost* = $10.70
- ManyChat = $10.00
- Planoly* = $99.00
- Deposit Photos* = $29.00
- Turquoise & Palm Stock Photos = $19.00
- Siteground* = $445.10
Total Expenses =Â $8,080.66
April 2018Â Income Report
- Interest Earned = $10.17
- Affiliate Income = $144.60
- Passive Income Products + Coaching = $1,978.98
- Done-for-You Social Media Packages = $4,144.00
- Hourly Client Work = $4,260.00
Total Income =Â $10,530.75
Total Net Profit = $2,450.09
April 2018 Income Report: All the Stats & Analytics!
- Number of blog posts = 3
- Monthly blog page views = 7,826
- Email list subscribers = 6,997
- Facebook page followers = 1,067
- Grow Like Woah group members =Â 2,158
- Instagram followers = 7,812
- Twitter followers =Â 6,734
- Pinterest followers =Â 7,067
- YouTube subscribers = 91
Final Notes on My April 2018 Income Report:
Overall, I’m pretty happy with how we did this month. We were still able to bring in a 5-figure revenue, and although I didn’t hit my profit goals, we’re not in that bad of a situation.
Mostly I’m disappointed that I wasn’t able to continue my streak of having 6 months in a row bring in a consistent profit of at least $3,500. To me, achieving that goal right after having quit my job in December would’ve made me feel like I was 100% successful at transitioning this business from my (not-so-part-time) “side hustle” to my full-time job.
That being said, maybe I can try to look at it from the perspective that by going through this, I’m giving others a good idea of what it’s really like to own a business. Although I had an AMAZING first quarter, that doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m achieving all of my goals and having record-breaking months one after the other after the other. There are still things that I’m struggling with, and will continue to struggle with as I make this transition into full-time business owner.
The main takeaway I hope you get from this is that, if you’re trying to take that leap, make sure to save a lot of money beforehand. Luckily, we have plenty sitting in our savings accounts in case something goes wrong. I could make $0 the next few months and still not have to foreclose on my house. And I’m so, so glad that we were able to do that, because clearly I wasn’t able to consistently replace that old income right away. There are still things that I need to work on in my business to get to the point where I am, without a doubt, always going to bring in enough profit for us to live on each month.
Good thing I’m up for the challenge!