December 2018 Income Report - 540% increase in revenue

Happy New Year and welcome to my second income report!

Last month I made a grand total of $180.45 in income.... however I had $304 in expenses, meaning that I had a loss of $133.55.

This past month looked very different... both on the amount of money made and where it came from. Let's take a look!

Income

In December, I started offering services related to my niche website and, to be honest, my affiliate activity dropped a bit. I still published a few articles for my site, however, I also attracted some new clientele to some of the services I am now offering.

My total affiliate income for December 2018 was a earth-shattering $4.95... simply amazing ;)

My total online services income for December was $1,149.95.

This bring my total income to $1,154.90, which is a 540% increase on my previous months income.

Expenses

I get really annoyed when I see people talk about the topline revenue but don't disclose the expense to get there. If you're wondering why, let me ask you a question:

If you could choose between a $1,000,000 business that costs $999,999 to run or a $100,000 business that costs $20,000 to run, which would you choose?

Assuming that the million dollar business' expenses does not include a salary or any other type of payment for you as the business owner, then the smaller revenue business actually has a higher economic benefit for you.

For me, I will always either disclose my expenses or talk in net figures... which leads me to this months expenses. A grand total of $724.97 of expenses for me this month - a 130% increase.

My expenses this month were higher because I have built a team to deliver my online services :) I also invested in a seperate CRM and marketing automation tool for the online services business.

Profit

Ahhh profit... one of my most favourite words. Every business owner should remember the saying:

Revenue is vanity. Profit is sanity. Cash flow is reality.

My profit this month was $429.93. Considering that last month was negative, this is definitely a step in the right direction.

My Thoughts On December...

Across my sites, I published 6 articles in December plus released 3 Youtube videos. I won't be able to attribute any results to these activities just yet, however it will definitely help over the long term. I have pretty much formulated a content syndication strategy where I get the most return on time... which is super important to me as I have a 14 month old son who I would rather be spending time with, rather than creating content upon content. I will actually create some training around my content syndication strategy soon...

In December, I didn't do much SiteComments... just coming back to what I mentioned before... I am super-conscious of how I spent my time and it is very time-consuming to read an article and craft a thoughtful response for $0.50 every second article. I figured out that selling my online service provided a much higher ROI in both time and money.

I definitely hit my goal of increasing my revenue by 25% and my profit margin is looking healthier. I'm feeling a bit of New Year ambition so I'm going to try to double my revenue next month while slightly increasing my profit margin.

Oh, I forgot to mention that the bulk of my online service income is recurring... meaning that next month I'll be paid a similar amount by those clients plus whatever new business I pick up. My strategy is to use the service to generate cash flow that I can reinvest back into other revenue sources (e.g. affiliate marketing, paid advertising & subscriptions/memberships). If I can slowly build my affiliate income whilst supplementing it with my online services, then I think I can have a fairly robust online business over the long term.

Well, I think that just about wraps up my December. If I remember anything else, I'll come back and edit this post.

How did you finish 2018? Was December a great month for you?