Let’s jump right in with this December 2016 income report!
I’m so excited to share with you guys what went on this past month in my business. December was a little bit crazy and stressful, but overall, I’m extremely proud of the fact that, for the very first time, I was able to make $5k as a virtual assistant in one month.
What’s Up With These Income Reports, Anyway?
Ever since my very first month in business, I’ve been sharing my income and expenses 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” online entrepreneur who isn’t making 5-6 figures each month (yet!).
Let’s do this!
December 2016 Income Report: An Overview
December was weird. I’m actually really surprised that it was this month that allowed me to finally hit $5k, because I took two weeks of the month off! From December 19th until after the new year, I took a holiday vacation away from my business. Yet still, somehow, I managed to bring in over $5k of income. Craziness!!
A FEW HIGHLIGHTS:
- I hired a bunch of new people! — After how busy my business was in November (and because I was about to take a vacation), I knew that I was going to need some extra help. Fast forward to just a few weeks later, and I know officially have 9 people on my team! And I hope that all of them will be longterm members. Three of those new members came from my signature VA Internship program that I opened up for a fourth time at the end of November.
- I took my second-ever vacation from business — The past few months have left me more than a little burnt out. It was nonnegotiable that I needed to take some hard-earned time away from my business to relax and rejuvenate a little bit. Now that I’m back, I have to be honest and say that going on vacation was still pretty stressful (even though I followed all of my own advice about how to prepare your business for the holidays!). I’m wishing that I had just a few more days to hang out and do nothing.
Business Goal Setting
My Goals For December 2016: Success or Failure?
- Get a massage — SUCCESS! I finally booked myself a much-needed appointment, and it was blissfully relaxing. I loved it so much that I booked another one for the end of January as well!
- Earn at least $500 that did not come from my services — SUCCESS! Using a combination of passive infoproduct income and affiliate income, I made more than $500 that was not through my services.
- Keep expenses under $1,500 — FAILURE. Not sure what I was thinking here! Didn’t even come close.
- Run a successful Facebook ad for The VA Vault — FAILURE. It’s on my list!
- Get The VA Collective Facebook group up to 250 members. — SUCCESS! We’re now at over 300 members!
My Goals for January 2016 — Let’s Do This!
- Use at least 4 days of the month to work on my own business (not client work).
- Earn at least $500 of passive income.
- Run a successful Facebook ad for The VA Vault.
- Launch my new service and get 3 new clients for it.
- Get The VA Collective Facebook group up to 450 members.
December 2016 Expenses
**Annual expenses not included (such as Tailwind*, hosting costs, and LeadPages).
- Deposit Photos = $29.00
- Employee Holiday Gifts = $410.00
- ConvertKit* = $49.00
- ClickFunnels* = $97.00
- Active Campaign* = $45.00
- Teachable* = $39.00
- Adobe Creative Cloud = $21.39
- NameCheap* = $18.94
- BoardBooster* = $10.00
- Buffer = $10.00
- Zapier = $20.00
- E-Courses & Ebooks = $722.00
- Ads & Marketing = $45.42
- Paypal & Wave Transaction Fees = $112.91
- Team Member Payments = $1,923.81
- Referral Payments = $134.00
Total Expenses = $3,588.58
December 2016 Income Report
- Affiliates = $252.50
- Google Adsense = $9.34
- Passive Income Products + Coaching = $323.00
- Client Work = $4,704.30
Total Income = $5,289.14
Total Net Profit = $1,700.56
December 2016 Income Report: All the Stats & Analytics!
- Number of blog posts = 3
- Monthly blog page views = 7,077
- Email list subscribers = 2,504
- Facebook page followers = 376
- The VA Collective group members = 308
- Instagram followers = 1,831
- Twitter followers = 4,819
- Pinterest followers = 3,544
- Google+ followers = 44
Final Notes on My December 2016 Income Report:
I have to admit that although I did really well on income this month, my actual profit left something to be desired. It’s still a full-time income for me, but I want the percentage of profit from income to be higher. The biggest things that affected that this month were my team member payouts and my e-course spending.
In December, I made the decision to invest in a $2,500 mentorship program run by Julie and Madelaine from Create Your Laptop Life. The first $625 payment was made this month, which is why that portion of my expenses is so much higher than normal (I also purchased one other $97 course in December).
The other big expense in December was how much money I gave out through team member payments. All in all, I’m not too concerned about this. I love my team so much, and they are a huge help when it comes to client work. They were also there for me while I was on my holiday vacation. The cost this month was higher than normal because I paid a few hundred dollars for someone to switch me over from ConvertKit to Active Campaign.
