I Made $485,000 This Year, and Kept (Or Paid Myself) $210,000 Of That: Here's What I Want to Share With You...
For the past several years I've always wanted to do an "income report" for the year where I share how much I made, where it came from, and all that jazz.
I used to read them a LOT when I was in my earlier career as an online business owner, and I always felt so excited, lit up, and inspired.
But, the reality is when I’ve thought about doing it...
I get swept up in the numbers and usually don't end up writing one.
I don't know that just sharing how much money I made has crazy inherent value.
So I decided that this year I would do something like an income report, but a little different. My hope is that it still supports you as a member of my audience!
I want to take you through my reflections for the year, a look at how my income was made, and hopefully provide you with insight, inspiration, and ideas that you can bring into your own business.
So without future ado, here's my look back at 2022’s income, lessons, and more...
Where I Made the Most (And Least) Money This Year: A Breakdown
I wanted to start by sharing the numbers, I'm publishing right at the end of December, so these two numbers are subject to change a little bit but these are the ways we're projecting to tend the year.
Our Revenue & Profit for 2022...
Revenue: ~$485,400
Profit: $~95,000
Payroll (to Myself): $107,300
Paycheck & Profit Combined: ~$207,000
Where Did the Revenue Come From
~$185k | 1:1 Consulting & Ads Management Agency
~$140k | Membership
~$65,000 | Incubator Quarterly Coaching Program
~$45,000 | Lower Ticket Trainings & Workshops
Other Income: Affiliate, Black Friday, Membership Upgrades, Other
What Were Our Biggest Expenses
Our top 3 expenses were...
Advertising (Google & Facebook): $80,000
Team/Contractors: $56,000
Mastermind Coaching Program (Rick Murleady): $30,000
Advertising
In our business we advertise on both Google & Facebook (with over 90% of our spending on Facebook and Instagram). This is the one part of our business I look at at the end of EVERY year and go "I wish I'd spent more".
Advertising always brings us new leads and sales, so we like it to be 20%+ of our expenses each year.
Team & Contractors
I work with a small but MIGHT and AMAZING team at the core of the business.
We contract the following on an ongoing basis...
An Operations Manager, 60-70 hours/month
This person manages our community, our email processes and reminders, and oversees the coaching programs!
An Integrator & Executive Assistant, 20 hours/week
This person is my right hand for anything I need, is crosstrained on ops management, and also tracks stats, manages proofreading and email, our podcast process and more.
A Junior Ads Manager (In Our Agency), 5 hours/week
This person is integral to our agency and manages communication with clients and Facebook Ads setups for secondary approval!
There are some other expenses for the team such as training, birthday and anniversary gifts, and year end bonuses that aren't noted in these numbers.
Mastermind Coaching Program
This year I enrolled in a mastermind program (The Accelerator with Rick Mulready) and loved it - it's $2,500 a month to be in the program, and I was in for the full year, so a total of $30,000.
It comes with weekly coaching, access to Rick as a mentor, and retreats throughout the year - I crave access to a mentor and live events - so this is an amazing tool for my growth.
I'll be sharing more about this later in the post!
If I Could Redo This Year I Would...
My biggest struggle has ALWAYS been consistency - with emailing my list, with sending out podcasts on time, and with showing up on social media on a regular basis.
If I could redo this year, I would plan my content further in advance and have days where I batch create content - I think that I need to get better at showing up on the "public facing side" of things so that my audience knows what I'm up to - and I'm not simply just doing the administrative and sales work 24/7!
My goal was about 52 podcasts for the year, and we published 39, which means 25% of the time, we didn't publish a podcast as planned, not so good!
That being said it didn't cost us the farm, we came up a little short on our revenue goal, but we still did show up!
I think if I were more consistent with my marketing and messaging, we'd have done more sales, and seen more growth of our podcast.
BONUS REDO: Facebook Ads
I say this nearly every year - I would spend more on Facebook and Instagram ads. I know that when we spend more, we generate more leads and sales - and while it does increase our expenses, it also increases our reach and sales!
If I'm being totally honest - I can be a little tightly pursed throughout the year - and I sometimes pull back on ads when I should be leaning in.
Spending can be scary - for me - and just knowing and owning and acknowledging that will set me up for a better year.
A Business Practice I've Implemented That Is Serving Me
Daily journaling and planning.
Now - as I noted above I am 100% on a very consistent being - I try to be but I miss days - and I'd be lying if I said that I do this EVERY DAY, but most days I wake up and do the following...
Take a moment before I start my day to fill out a 5-minute journal from Intelligent Change.
Take a moment before I have calls for the day to fill out my Productivity Planner from Intelligent Change.
The 5-Minute Journal
This is quite simply a gratitude journal where you reflect on the things you're grateful for and what will make today another day to be grateful for. I love it because it has prompts, and it forces me to start the day in the right headspace.
Gratitude is truly the attitude.
The Productivity Planner
This is a planner that shows you your day at a glance, from calls to commitments, and also has you rank your task for the day by importance.
I think just taking the time to orient yourself into what you're going to need to achieve, be present for, and focus on sets you up for a more productive day.
Together, a 1-2 punch!
By starting my day with the right mindset and a clear picture of where I needed to focus, I found that most days actually felt really good, focused, and fulfilling!
Something I Did Really Well This Year
I wanted to make sure that in the post I didn't just talk about what I did 'good or bad' and speculate what I would change - I wanted to also celebrate what went very well!
For me the big celebration would be launching and growing our membership program, Not Your Average Membership.
Now full transparency, my goal was to end the year with 300-500 in the membership, and we'll end at about 250 active members.
BUT... we did some things very well.
First, we ended up making $135,000 in revenue from our membership in its first full year - meaning we have a six-figure arm of our business that is recurring baseline revenue for us.
Second, we released content EVERY MONTH for our members and our community stayed pretty engaged with us, which I was very happy with!
Third, we launched and promoted the membership EVERY QUARTER profitably and continued to attract and retain new members
Of course there were struggles too - but we also got REALLY good at managing and tracking the membership.
My incredible ops manager was able to create a spreadsheet that we update daily that breaks down ALL the numbers of our membership, from income, to churn, to failed payments - we can assess the health of the membership in one central location.
Overall, I'm REALLY proud of this membership, or revenue, the consistency, and the launches... but most importantly I'm proud of what it's building to!
My Biggest Investment Of the Year
I promised to call back to this - my biggest investment this year was a Coaching/Mastermind program that I joined called "The Accelerator" from Rick Mulready.
I joined because for the past couple years I haven't really done a true mastermind or coaching program that included in person retreats (thanks Covid!) but it was finally time to start seeing people again and forging relationships.
Not only was this my biggest investment of the year, clocking in at $30,000 over the year, but it was my best.
I've made friendships - and I actually have people in my corner from industries that are different from mine.
I've gotten insights - Rick is amazingly accessible and is always quick to tell me when I'm chasing a shiny object, and when I need to refocus!
I've gotten to be in the mix - with 2 live events each year, I actually get to GO OUT and see people in real life and spend a few days a year focusing ON my business, versus working IN it!
I know it's a lot of money, and honestly it scares me to spend it, but I also know that having a true coach and community of peers looking to achieve what I'm looking to achieve is truly priceless.
The Best Advice I Received this Year
Follow your values, not your mentors, peers, or courses...
This was such an eye opening piece of advice that was given to me by a mentor, for context I was asking about how to fill my membership more effectively and the feedback I got was that I should close the doors to our membership and reopen them to boost conversions.
For reference, our membership is always open and that is in alignment with the values of our business - and closing it for the sake of conversions didn't feel aligned.
So when my mentor asked me to do this I point blank said "I don’t think I’m going to do it...” and his response left my jaw on the floor.
Rather than push me or try to persuade me he said...
"Look dude, if you're okay with the numbers and you don't feel good about what I'm suggesting, that is okay! Think on it, think through it, but ultimately nothing online is Dogma, you have to do what aligns with your values and goals - not what someone else is telling you to do!"
It was the first time (that I recall) where a mentor really gave me guidance and not advice I was expected to take - and that felt really good.
So now when I want to do something I may check in with a peer, mentor, or friend (and listen openly) but I know that I can always trust my gut/intuition/self to have a good answer too!
The Most Important Strategy I implemented This Year
No doubt about it, Facebook Lead Ads...
Lead ads are where people opt-in to your content on Facebook versus using a traditional landing page - and it's been a game changer!
(So much so that I sell a 5-day training session for $25 right here!)
We generated 14,500 leads at about $2.50 a piece this year from lead generation ads.
Over 14,500 people said "YES, here's my name and email, please send me information" and it blew our list up like crazy this year.
This also meant that when we launched, promoted (Black Friday for example), or simply wanted to grow our listenership of the podcast - we could simply blast out an email!
If you're not running lead generation ads to grow, you're missing out!
The Thing I WISH I Had Spent More Time On
This one is an easy one for me - and that is managing and cleaning my list.
Generally I like to scrub (aka remove inactive subscribers) from my email list a couple times a year and this year it just fell to a low priority on my list - so I didn't do it!
That means that while we had a lot of people on our list our click and engagement rates were NOT where they should be - we should have set ourselves up for better numbers, but because we had so many inactive people on the list, our metrics weren't amazing.
Now the reality is that it's a numbers game and we still get lots of clicks, engagement, and opens - but it could've been better.
Just having a more engaged list often leads to better data, so I would definitely (and will definitely) focus on this in 2023.
The Scariest Thing I Did This Year...
I know this is a business blog post, but I did something that scared me this year that I think really served me in a way.
I rode a Roller Coaster at Disneyland with a 108 foot drop.
I am TERRIFIED of roller coasters - they just freak me out and feel "unnecessary" when they have a big drop.
But I learned something (that is super obvious I know) and that is that we can try hard and scary things, not die, and learn from them.
Turns out that roller coaster at disney was super fun, I loved it, and I would ride it again.
Yeah - I'd sweat bullets in the line, but then I'd survive and have fun.
Scary and hard things are not things that kill us - they are things that inform us - and that is so important to remember.
What Am I Letting Go of In 2023...
In 2022 I spent a lot of time more stressed than I'd like to admit...
I would stress if I was earning enough, spending too much or too little, emailing my list enough, getting "far enough" in business.
I would often compare myself to others, and that would cause me to question what it is that was and wasn't working.
Rather than using my internal gut, intuition, and compass - I would base my success on where I thought I should be.
In 2023 I'm letting go of the NEED to achieve or BE a certain way to earn or deserve.
In fact, this post is the first iteration of this new way of thinking - I thought that people were going to read this and think things about me like...
He only made $X after being in business for 7 years?
His profit should be way better!
He spent to much on XYZ
BUT I'm posting and sharing it because I won't let this way of thinking stop me from moving forward with my goals.
I'm leaving behind the "not-enoughness" of everything and do and the "fear of judgment" that I often struggle with - it won't be perfect or pretty, but it'll be my new present way of thinking.
What Advice Would I Give To Myself If I Could Travel to January 2022...
This is a prompt that was given to me in a Facebook Group I'm in and I LOVED it - it had me thinking more about what I would change, but more importantly how I have grown over the last year...
I think there are three pieces of advice that I would give myself.
1) Have More Grace & Patience with Yourself
I mentioned this a bit earlier, but I have a habit of being hard on myself and not feeling like I don't measure up well. I wish that my start-of-2022 self could know that it's all going to work out for the best.
The Mantra I Would Give To Myself:
Everything is working out for my highest and best good!
2) Be Smart with Money, But Not Afraid of It
I think if I could go back I would tell myself that it's going to work out, you're going to make good money, you're going to support your team just fine - it might feel tough at times but it's going to work out.
I often found myself (this year) worrying about money and obsessing over it - thinking that if I just "checked the numbers again" things would be different.
I want to tell old me that money isn't the solution to EVERYTHING and it's okay to have ebbs and flows/
The Mantra I Would Give To Myself:
Money comes and goes, but there will always be enough.
3) No Single Action, Launch, Or Sale Defines Who You Are
Throughout the year various things happened, working with an imperfect client, getting a chargeback, or having a meeting go sour...
I would often let my emotions and self worth get swept up in a bad experience.
I wish I could look back and remind myself that a bad client experience, a negative moment, or a bad exchange doesn't make YOU a bad person. No one is perfect, ownership is everything, and you can't win every battle.
The Mantra I Would Give To Myself:
You know who you are, your intentions are good, and bad situations don't make you a bad person.
Putting a Bow On The Year...
I think if I had to put it all together I could sum up the year by saying "It was a good year"...
I was so tempted to think when I first looked at the revenue numbers and noticed that this wasn't the biggest revenue year we've ever had I instantly felt like It didn't stack up, like we hadn't done enough.
But when I dug into the numbers it was actually our most profitable year in dollars and cents!
And when I stepped back further I realized that I had done and achieved a LOT....
I got to travel to California a bunch, I scaled our membership to a six-figure level, I added thousands to our email list, and I released dozens of podcasts.
When I stopped defining my worth and growth by my revenue I got to experience much deeper reflection and growth.