Lately, I find myself going into each month not knowing what to expect or how it’ll go.
I really need to fix that. 😉
October ended up being decent. Although I didn’t hit my $10k net income goal, I wasn’t too far off the mark.
And I’m hoping that all of these business investments are about to pay off – I also have plans for them to slow down going into the new year. But more on that to come!
So what happened? Read on for the full lowdown.
A Little Freelance Income Report Backstory
I keep a profit-and-loss statement for each month, as well as a rolling total for the year. I enter in income as it is received (rather than as it is billed) and do the same for expenses.
2015 & 2016
Aren’t numbers interesting?
2014
I started looking into freelancing in April, 2014. I launched this site in May and secured my first client in June, 2014. My total income was $16,512 – $3,782 expenses = $12,730 total profit for 2014. During this time, I also worked full-time at my day job.
Additional Deductions
Taxes: 25% of net income
I continue to transfer 25% of my net monthly profit into a separate savings account for taxes. Fully Booked VA was established as an S-corp in May, 2015 and we began payroll practices later that year. (Guess we’re legit, huh?)
Tithing: 10% of net income
I split my tithe to our church and this missionary family in Costa Rica, both of which are extremely important to me. The latter makes a direct impact into the community – in 2014 they opened a daycare to take care of migrant farm worker’s children, so their parents don’t have to bring them with to pick coffee beans, which surprisingly can be very dangerous!
Fundraising update: We’re now sitting a little over $29,000 – not much progress again in October, but I also didn’t do much more to get the word out. We’re all set to travel down there December 1st though – I’m sure it’ll be pretty impactful experiencing everything firsthand.
Our initial goal was for 5,000 people to donate $10 – if you haven’t and are able, would you consider donating just $10 today?
October’s Results
Gross Income: $17,546
A 9% decrease month-over-month.
Business Expenses: $8,603
Normal…? (See the expense section for the full breakdown.)
Net Income: $8,943
(After expenses, but before tithe/tax.) This is an 18% decrease month-over-month.
Income Breakdown
Income BreakdownAs I mentioned last month, it makes more sense to monitor service income as a whole versus what comes from products or affiliate income.
Service income can often overlap (what is writing or what is VA work versus consulting?). And tracking what is “active” versus what is “passive” is good to know too – even if it all takes some time investment.
Here’s what the breakdown looked like for last month:
- Services (Writing, VA Work, Coaching): 37%
- Products (Course Sales): 57%
- Affiliate Income: 6%
- Other: 0%
Services:
It’s no surprise that my service income took a bit of hit in October.
As I mentioned, one of my long standing VA clients needed to part ways for a bit. Although more notice would have been nice, it forced a re-evaluation of my biz as a result.
The consulting client we had on the hook didn’t pan out. Probably for the best though, as my time is pretty tapped out the way it is! It was also hard to anchor our costs against a potential ROI as his goal wasn’t to increase revenue… another topic for another post. 😉
As I’ve also mentioned, my service income should be going up due to my role as the subject matter expert on messaging for The Academy <–affiliate link, which kicks off this month!I’m really looking forward to this and will be tweakingthis site in preparation of what I’ll be teaching students. (Gotta practice what I preach!)
I’ve continued to enjoy one-off coaching sessions. Not to have a big head, but I’m really good at digging into someone’s situation in a short period of time, spotting opportunities and helping clients eliminate distractions. If you’ve been struggling with takingyour bizto the next level (it doesn’t matter what type of online business you have), considerscheduling a coaching call with me to break through your currentchallengeand level-up your enterprise.
Products:
Course sales equated to ~$10k this month, so pretty inline with last month.
As you’ve probably heard, I’m taking30 Days or Less to Freelance Writing Successoff of the (public) market this Friday, so there has been an uptick in sales from that. As I hinted at last month, I’ve began implementing mybig plans of tweaking my sales funnel to increase conversions while still in a pseudo-evergreen format. Stay tuned!
Affiliate:
Affiliate income came in at just over $1k, so again it was pretty inline with last month’s. Due to what happened in October, it should be at least double that for November’s income report though.
I’d still like to ideally see this number closer to the $5k/month mark, but am okay with it taking some time as I only promote quality products that I can vouch for. I recently wrote a post that covers my take on affiliate marketingin a little more depth.
Other:
Nothing really fell into the other column again this month, but I’m going to still keep it around until the end of the year to see if it’s needed.
What’s Next?
Remember when I said, “I’m taking a little break from launching things, whew!” Yeah, that didn’t last (are you surprised?) 😉
This Friday ends the public launch of the writing course and then I’ll go into a few new launches for November. One is going to be a top secret Black Friday sale with my friend Kristin, merging two of our products (in part) into one new one.
The other will be relaunching the Mamapreneur Mastermind. Ariel and I had a “kill it or grow it” conversation and we decided to grow it. We invited our friend Lisa into the mix, who excels at project management and have figured out a way to make it even more valuable, but also scaleable. Talk about a win/win!
I’ll share more details with you soon, but if you’re female and interested in masterminding, you should sign up for a FREE 2017 goal setting webinar we’ll be hosting in a couple of weeks.
My main focuses from now until year end will be:
- Finishing my writing course funnel.
- Relaunching the Mamapreneur Mastermind.
- The top secret Black Friday sale.
- Duplicating the funnel for my VA course (including writing a webinar).
- Building an even more kickass affiliate program for my affiliates.
- Starting on the advanced freelance writing course I want to launch early next year (hop on the waitlist hereto get notified when it’s available).
Yeah… this might take me into Q1. 😉
Expense Breakdown
October’s expenses wereconsistent with the month before. Again, I hope to see things taper off at year-end.
What’d I spend it all on?
- Tools (Subscriptions, Books, Training): 2%
- Advice (Coaching, Marketing): 29%
- Support (VA, Writing, Website): 49%
- Affiliate Payouts: 11%
- Fees (PayPal/Stripe): 5%
- Miscellaneous (Travel, etc.): 4%
Some one-off expenses from last month were paying to have my writing course professionally edited, that big bill from Grayson re: moving back to WordPress and contracting with LeadPages re: funnel stuff.
They’ll likely be even higher for this month. Hopefully the income comes in to match. 😉
2016 Goals Progress (as of 11/1/16)
My ‘A’ Goal: $120k+ NET income; $108,943 – on track!
My 3 ‘B’ Goals:
- Get land loan under $10k; current balance = $17,537 –yeah, this one isn’t going to happen.
- $15,000 in savings; current balance = $10,000 – neitherwill this one…
- 10,000+ newsletter subscribers; current balance = 10,356 – something to celebrate!
I’m continuing to tweak my goals and have already started thinking about them for next year. My overall vision is to have a more predictable freelance business with lower expenses, shorter hours and potentially lower income. But if I can work less and net the same…
Remember, we’re totally in this together!
If you’re currently hustling to build a freelance or online business, we’re in this together. I’d love to support you, if you’re willing to do the same.
Leave a comment letting me know we’re in the trenches together or a place that I can go to support you. Fan my FB page, connect with me on Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest or Google+ to stay in touch! We’ve got this!
How was October for you? Share in the comments!
