Let’s jump right in with this February 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!

February 2018 Income Report: An Overview

Although I wasn’t quite ready for how well January went, the fact that it was our biggest month ever wasn’t a huge surprise. I was expecting it to be pretty crazy. But because it was so insane, I definitely expected for us to “make up for it” in February with our revenue more like the $8-9k I was used to in 2017. Usually after a big month, I spend the next few weeks in a prolonged cringe and just kind of wait for the other shoe to drop.

If you scroll down a little and look at our revenue/profit chart, you can see that the general trend is like a staircase. We get 1-2 good months, then it kind of goes downhill a bit. Then we get another really good 1-2 months, then it goes downhill a bit again. Overall, I’m definitely increasing my revenue month over month, but I’m still used to that up-then-down cycle that our income usually goes in.

Spoiler alert: we did really well again this month.

The downside of this is that, if you thought I was cringing hard after last month, then I’m cringing twice as bad now. Again…where’s the other shoe? Time for a not-so-great month, isn’t it?

The tough part about business is that it is so touch and go. One second you can feel on top of the world, and the next you feel like a complete imposter.

I’m not sure if that feeling will ever go away for me.

A FEW HIGHLIGHTS:

• I officially launched my affordable group coaching mastermind, The Biz Bestie Squad! — Definitely my best launch to date, The Biz Bestie Squad has been a hit with my audience, and I’m having so much fun with it! I’m glad I listened to my instincts, which were telling me that I needed to offer some type of 1:1 access to my students, as it’s been surprisingly awesome!  
• I also launched the Build Your Biz Bootcamp — This year, I’m planning to do a lot of stuff that will help me develop my “value ladder.” I tackled two big needs along that ladder in February. One of the things I wanted to do was provide some type of group coaching (which I did with The Biz Bestie Squad), and the other thing was to create a training specifically geared towards beginner business owners, as my audience seems to have more and more of them lately! I want to be able to help all types of service providers, so offering this free beginner course, called Build Your Biz Bootcamp, is (in my opinion) a great addition to my business’ resources.

Business Goal Setting

My Goals For February 2018: Success or Failure?

1. Finish my outline for March’s new free course — SUCCESS! If I didn’t do this, I was going to be in trouble, so I finally carved out some time to get that done. I did end up having to push the launch of this course back 1 week due to us losing power for a few days, but I still did get the outline done!
2. Make at least $3,500 in profit (our bare minimum to keep the lights on) — SUCCESS! *Phew* I was worried about this one, but we actually made twice as much as we needed to!
3. Make $1,000 in my passive income sales/coaching category — SUCCESS!
4. Make $5,000 from social media packages — FAILURE. I was pretty close on this one, and definitely did better than last month, so I’m still happy!

My Goals for March 2018 — Let’s Do This!

1. Launch my new free course.
2. Make at least $3,500 in profit (our bare minimum to keep the lights on).
3. Make $1,500 in my passive income sales/coaching category.
4. Make $5,000 from social media packages.
5. Work on my daily schedule and focus on taking advantage of my energy levels.

February 2018 Expenses

• Ads & Marketing = $432.72
• Team Member Payments = $6,510.02
• Books & Courses = $0.00
• Transaction Fees = $454.23
• Referral Payouts = $214.53 (sign up to be a partner!)
• AffiliateWP* = $34.30
• 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
• Deposit Photos* = $29.00
• Turquoise & Palm Stock Photos = $19.00
• Etsy = $67.00

Total Expenses = $8,306.40

February 2018 Income Report

• Interest Earned = $6.40
• Affiliate Income = $107.90
• Passive Income Products + Coaching = $1,148.87
• Done-for-You Social Media Packages = $4,141.00
• Hourly Client Work = $9,915.00

Total Income = $15,276.17

Total Net Profit = $6,969.77

February 2018 Income Report: All the Stats & Analytics!

• Number of blog posts = 6
• Monthly blog page views = 7,747
• Email list subscribers = 6,900
• Facebook page followers = 957
• Grow Like Woah group members = 2,164
• Instagram followers = 4,791
• Twitter followers = 6,728
• Pinterest followers = 6,457
• YouTube subscribers = 80

Final Notes on My February 2018 Income Report:

So, back to what I was saying about feeling like an imposter… I was actually talking with my husband about this a few weeks ago. Mostly about how I feel so much pressure when it comes to making money. As the sole earner in our family, it’s up to me and my business as to whether we pay the mortgage or not. He kept saying things like “But we just had a $15k month!” I know he was just trying to make me feel better — and that does make me happy. It makes me really happy. But I still crave a consistency that we just don’t have yet.

I don’t think I will feel truly comfortable, or like there isn’t this huge weight on my shoulders, until we consistently are able to not dip into our savings to pay the bills for at least 6 months. I want to feel like “I’ve got this”….not like I’m white-knuckling it, hoping to get by.

And then there’s the terror that always hits me in the second and third quarters. I don’t know about you, but these have typically always been my lowest-earning months of the year. And it doesn’t help that they’re back to back. March-July of this year could be…hard. I don’t know what that’s going to look like yet.

Just because the first two months of 2018 were awesome, doesn’t mean that we’ll consistently keep hitting ~$15k every single month. It just means we had two busy months in a row.

So, right now, I’m trying to keep my composure and not get too caught up in the feeling that we’ve finally “hit it big” or become really successful. We’re not rolling around on the floor covered in dollar bills over here. (I wish, right?) All of the profit we made this month and last month is being meticulously saved up to help us make in through the “lean” months that I know are on the way.