Let’s jump right in with this May 2020 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!
May 2020 Income Report: An Overview
If you already saw the graphic and noticed the total revenue number listed there…stick with me!
A part of me feels embarrassed to share an income report with such a low revenue. But part of why I do these is to show transparency, so I’m not going to stop now!
Looking at just the numbers alone, this was our lowest revenue month in almost 2 years (the last time we were at this low of revenue was July of 2018). So yeah…that’s not great!
But on the flip side of that (which you’ll see below) is that our profit was amazing. And what’s even better than that was our PROFIT MARGIN.
And, to be honest, although being able to report high revenue numbers to you guys is great and makes me feel good… What really matters at the end of the day is profit. And profit margin (how much of your revenue is profit) is a big piece of that.
For example, a business could say that it is making $50,000 in profit every month. That sounds great! But if their revenue is $1 million…. Yikes! That’s a huge red flag that the business isn’t as healthy as it should be. That’s only a 5% profit margin! 😳
Large companies like Walmart operate at unhealthy margins like that all the time. But for me, it’s important that my business be lean and financially secure with as big of a profit margin as possible! (Without sacrificing my core values.)
Just for reference, our profit this month was the highest it’s been since October 2019 and we haven’t seen a profit margin higher than this since March 2019. Especially considering the financial issues the business has faced over the past few months (read old income reports here if you want to dig into that), I feel amazing about this and very proud of it!
I don’t care what the revenue looks like…this is a HUGE WIN in my book!
A Few Highlights:
- Received a payroll protection program loan — Back when COVID-19 first hit, we applied for a few different financial services because of how dicey things were at that time. Finally, a few weeks ago, we got approved for a payroll protection loan! We hope to be able to get it completely forgiven, which means that we won’t actually have to repay it or pay interest.
Business Goal Setting
My Goals For May 2020: Success or Failure?
- Keep total expenses under $9,500. — SUCCESS! Huge win on this one!!
- Keep team member payments under $6,500. — SUCCESS! Another great job here!
- Make at least $4,500 profit. — SUCCESS! Honestly, I was not expecting to hit this goal, but we did (and then some!!!).
My Goals for June 2020 — Let’s Do This!
- Get ahead on content creation for The Systems Society.
- Redo my Work With Us page.
May 2020 Expenses
- Ads & Marketing = $0.00
- Team Member Payments = $5,026.17
- Education (Courses + Memberships) = $14.95
- Transaction Fees = $386.64
- Referral Payouts = $25.10
- Active Campaign* = $70.00
- PennyPipe = $9.95
- Adobe Creative Cloud = $22.46
- ClickFunnels* = $297.00
- Quickbooks* = $72.76
- Zapier = $50.00
- Deposit Photos* = $29.00
- Later* = $78.85
- GSuite = $12.84
- Rev = $57.00
- Office Supplies = $26.39
- Client Gifts = $23.98
- Utilities = $140.17
- Website Expenses = $13.16
Total Expenses = $6,335.82
May 2020 Income Report
- Interest Earned = $0.93
- CapitalOne Cash Back Rewards = $54.96
- Affiliate Income = $27.50
- Passive Income Products + Coaching = $608.76
- Done-for-You Social Media Packages = $7,057.00
- Hourly Client Work = $4,950.00
Total Income = $12,376.15
Total Net Profit = $6,040.33
May 2020 Income Report: All the Stats & Analytics!
- Number of blog posts = 4
- Monthly blog page views = 9,671
- Email list subscribers = 7,603
- Facebook page followers = 1,499
- The Systems Strategy group members = 2,574
- Instagram followers = 10.5k
- Twitter followers = 6,264
- Pinterest followers = 27,491
- YouTube subscribers = 194
Final Notes on My May 2020 Income Report:
The past couple of income reports have been pretty depressing, not gonna lie! 😬 It’s been a bummer over here. But I’m happy to report that I finally am starting to feel a real renewed sense of hope and excitement.
Back in January when we lost our biggest client, I felt like that set us back so many steps on the journey that I was envisioning for my business over the next few years. I had to completely change my timeline and goals because of that, and rethink a lot of things in general! It changed the trajectory of everything…but (and I knew I would eventually feel this way) it was truly for the better.
When COVID-19 hit, it screwed us over even further. There was a time that I was worried if my business would survive at all (I’m a little dramatic!). And it took several months to climb out of that hole. But finally, things are starting to feel more normal.
After surviving both of those things, I’m starting to feel like I (and my business) can overcome anything! 💪
It also forced me to think really hard about a lot of things. It made me reassess my workflows, rethink my client load, and figure out what I wanted to do with the student side of things. Now, I feel like I’m in a really good spot, and I’m so ready for what the rest of the year has in store for me!
With more stable profit margins and a good sense of where I’m going next… look out! The rest of 2020 is going to be awesome 💃🏻
