Income Report for February, 2019 – How I made $392,839.56 in 2018

Every month I publish an income report…why? Good question 🙂

1. Accountability

With all the shiny objects out there it’s easy to spend WAY more than you’re earning. Luckily I realized this early on and I’ve kept detailed records of my expenses ever since. That being said, I know that there are certain expenses that are NECESSARY when running a business. As much as I don’t want to pay for them, I need to pay for my email autoresponder, website hosting, and video hosting every month. It’s just a part of doing business. There are other things that I buy as well, but I try my best to keep my expenses SIGNIFICANTLY LESS than my revenue. If I can do that then I’m ahead of the game.

2. Integrity

On my show I ask my guests a lot of personal questions. One that frequently comes up is “How much do you make?”. I feel like I need to reveal my own income if I’m going to be asking others the same question. It only seems right.

3. Perspective

There are a lot of online marketers out there who fake-it-till-they-make-it. In other words, they fudge their numbers and exaggerate their earnings in order to establish false authority in their niche. My goal is that by watching my income grow slowly over time you’ll realize that there is no get-rich-quick button.

 

Here’s my results for February, 2019

6,900 page views (-1,254 from January)

12,700 Youtube channel views (-2,365 from January)

54,800 Youtube minutes watched (-14,296 from January)

Email subscribers:  11,324 (+1,057 subscribers from January)

Expenses

Launch prizes: $4,687 – This is my portion of the prizes we paid to affiliates to promote Vidyz

Coaching difference: $2,082 – Paid Brett for an overpayment in coaching

Facebook ads: $1,341.19 – I’ve been experimenting with FB ads on my JV promos, doing giveaways of IM products, and testing other niches

Virtual assistant: $800 – I have an assistant help with all my promotions, including copywriting, scheduling, and posting.

Retargeting service: $297 – We hired Kobi Topaz to do our retargeting for our Vidyz launch

Convert Kit: $179 – I’ve been using this as my autoresponder

Aweber: $130 – This is my backup autoresponder

Dropbox: $99 – I use this to host all my files

Zapier: $75 – An amazing tool for automating your business

ManyChat: $50 – A service that I use to build a Facebook messenger list

Internet: $50 – This is what I pay for my fiber Internet in Turkey

ZenDesk: $50 – Brett and I use this for our helpdesk for our launches

Schedule Once: $49 – This is what I use to schedule my coaching calls

Gusto: $45 – This is the company I use for my SCORP payroll

Docusign: $40 – This is what we use for contracts for coaching students

SSL Certificate for Mike From Maine: $39.99

Resell Rights Weekly: $19.95 – Reoccurring membership fee for the bonuses I add from my interviews and reviews

Wufoo: $19 – This is the form we use for coaching applications

Remove Duplicates software: $19 – I bought a software to remove duplicates Fromm my spreadsheets.

Audible: $15.77 – Business books to further my education

iCloud: $9.99 – I use this to store my documents online

Skype: $9.99 for premium – I do all my interviews with Skype and Ecamm call recorder on a Mac.

Vault Press: $5 – A quick and easy tool that I use to backup my website

Amazon S3: $4.32 – I use this to host images, bonuses, and videos

 

Total expenses: $10,117.20 (+$7,739.06 spent compared to January)

 

Revenue

Sendiio: $1,129.18 from review and interview with Joshua Zamora

PlayPix: $833.21 from review and interview with Ben Murray

Traffic Zion 2.0: $616.29 from review and interview with Demetris Papadopolous

AffiliFunnels: $548.14 from review and interview with Glynn Kosky

ChatterPal: $416 from review and interview with Paul Ponna

WP Scope: $334 from review and interview with Cindy Battye

Interactr: $323.60 from review and interview with Ryan Phillips

ArbiMate: $309.47 from interview with Cyril Gupta

WP Affiliate Machine: $260.85 from review and interview with Ankur Shukla

WP Optimiser: $244 from review and interview with Chris Hitman

VidMatrix: $166 from review and interview with Mario Brown

Easy VSL 2.0: $162 from review and interview with Mark Thompson

Proximity: $144.40 from review and interview with Anthony Mancuso

Vidgeos: $140.50 from review and interview with Josh Ratta

Affiliate Funnel Clones: $115.50 from review and interview with Alan Magliocca

Fusion by Dropmock: $113.90 from review and interview with Jamie Ohler

Thrive Leads: $112.25 from review and interview with Shane Melaugh

The Fuego Breakout: $83.51 from review and interview with Jono Armstrong

Video Marketing Blaster: $72 from review and interview with Ali G.

Viddyoze 3.0: $70.30 from review and interview with Joey Xoto

DFY Chief 2.0: $59.80 from review and interview with Joshua Zamora

Page Builder Pro: $55 from review and interview with Mario Brown

Contenu: $51.22 from review and interview with Mark Bishop

Ascend Pages: $46.50 from review and interview with Andrew Darius

Vid Skippy 2.0: $42.49 from review and interview with Mark Bishop

Azon Video Maker: $38.38 from review and interview with Ankur Shukla

Kickass Tuber: $37 from review and interview with Angel Corman

Jvzoo Member: $35.20 from review and interview with Simon Harries

Instazon Suite: $33.50 from review and interview with Cyril Gupta

AdReel: $33.30 from review and interview with Ryan Phillips

Convertri 2017: $29.10 from review and interview with Andy Fletcher

Instant Spokesperson: $24.50 from review

Video Traffic X (CLOSED): $23.50 from review and interview with Walt Bayliss

Insta-Storie 2.0: $22.60 from review and interview with Mario Brown

Press Play 2.0: $22 from review and interview with Mark Thompson

Stream Livve: $21.50 from review and interview with Jonathan Oshevire

Mapify 360: $21.49 from review and interview with Adrian Isfan

Mobilee: $19.28 from review and interview with Jono Armstrong

PBN Builder: $19.20 from review and interview with Joshua Zamora

Traffic Xtractor 2.0: $18.50 from review and interview with Art Flair

Real Specific: $18.50 from review and interview with Shane Brooks

eCom Pages: $16.45 from review and interview with Mo Aguel

Storymate: $14.10 from review and interview with Luke Maguire

Reach Multiply: $14 from review and interview with Cyril Gupta

Commissionology: $13.50 from review and interview with Michael Cheney

Jvzoo Academy: $11.10 from review and interview with Sam Bakker

EZ Magic Video: $9.98 from review and interview with Matt Bush

Live Caster 3.0: $9.96 from review and interview with Cyril Gupta

Flipp Me: $8.96 from review and interview with Art Flair

Video Sumo: $8.38 from review and interview with Mark Bishop

Link2Vid: $8.34 from review and interview with Mark Bishop

Webinar X: $5.99 from review and interview with Neil Napier

Shopabot: $5.99 from review and interview with Cindy Donovan

Smarketly: $5.95 from review and interview with Simon Sela

Credi Response: $4.98 from review and interview with Cryil “Jeet” Gupta

vRankerPro: $.30 from review and interview with Andy Black

 

Total revenue from interviews and reviews: $7,005.64 (-$607.90 from January)

 

Vidyz: $51,364.26 – My earnings from a launch I did with Brett Rutecky

Coaching: $12,350 – My earnings from our coaching program teaching affiliate marketing

IM Insider: $3,745.03 – My earnings from our monthly coaching program

Coaching difference: $467 – Brett sent to make payments even

Press Cable: $462 – Commissions from private webinar with Chris Munch and Jay Cruz we did in February 2018

Profit Canvas Unlimited: $112.07  – My commission from a private webinar Brett Rutecky and I did

Google Adsense: $68.68 – Earnings from Youtube and Adsense

Members Kit: $51.63 – My earnings from a launch I did with Brett Rutecky

Resell Rights Weekly: $41.91 – This is a website that has a ton of products that you can use as your own

Hijax: $33.46 – My earnings from a launch I did with Brett Rutecky

MyMailit: $22.33 – My earnings from our MyMailit launch in April, 2018

Review Wizard: $21.50 – My earnings from a launch Brett and I did in February, 2017

Autonars: $12.29 – My earnings from a launch I did with Brett Rutecky in June, 2017

Insta Funnel agency: $12.29 – My earnings from a webinar I did with Brett

Value Deliver: $9.75 – My earnings from a launch I did with Brett Rutecky

Social Robot JV commission: $8.34 – This my cut from a launch I did with Joshua Zamora in early 2015

Keyword Suggestions JV commission: $4.42 – This is my cut from a launch I did with Radu in September, 2015

 

Total from OTHER streams of income: $68,786.96 (+$49,625.02 from January) 

 

Total Revenue:  $75,792.60 (+$49,017.12 from January)

Total Profit: $65,675.40 (+$41,278.06 from January)

 

Here are the final stats for 2018:

Total Revenue: $458,713.52

Total Expenses: $65,873.96

Total Profit (before taxes):

$392,839.56

My income pretty much stayed the same this year, only decreasing about $2,000 from 2017.

And I’m very proud of this considering this was probably the BUSIEST year of my life.

Why?

My wife and I had our first child…a little baby girl 🙂

We had her in August, so I had to plan my whole year around NOT being super busy in August and September so I could 100% commit myself to helping out with our little newborn.

What happened in 2018?

A lot of this year has been a blur for me. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to do proper income report write-ups for most of the year, and I regret that as this has been a type of “journal” for me as I’ve built my business. I won’t go as far as to say this has been a “lost year”, but I definitely learn better from my mistakes and success when I document them in these reports.

Luckily I still have my calendar and Apple photos to look back on, so let’s look at what happened in my business…and life…in 2018.

 

January: This year we rang in the New Year with my inlaws. Yes, the days of going out to crowded bars for New Year’s eve are long over…and good riddance as they were always over-priced and crowded 🙂

As for the rest of the month we stayed low-key. As many of you probably know, in those first few months of pregnancy you need to be a bit careful, so we hung out close to our house and took lots of walks.

And for my business, I was able to make $23,413.23, which was a solid way to start the year.

February: This month we launched a product called Hijax that lets people put videos over the top of web pages. It was one of our lowest launches, only doing about $40k in sales. However I was still able to make about $7k in profit from it, which is still worth it.

While business was going on as usual my wife and I were going to the doctor’s for regular checkups, and I found out I was having a daughter.

For a month with a product launch earnings were a bit low, but I will came out with $25,722.38.

 

March: This was a good month for affiliate marketing and coaching. I made almost $20k from interviews and reviews, plus I was able to add another $13k from coaching.

I had some time to make one of my favorite meals…a dutch baby 🙂

It was a strong month with earnings of $29,849.05.

 

 

April: This was my best earning month EVER. My partner Brett Rutecky and I launched a cloud-based version of an email autoresponder called MyMailit. We did $350,000 in sales in three days. Of course, I didn’t get to keep all of that, but I kept about $86k for myself.

After the launch was over we took a trip to Cappadocia, Turkey with some friends of ours. We didn’t take one of their famous balloon rides, but we had a nice view from our hotel.

I ended up making a total of $103,119.10.

May: My friend got married in Olympos, Turkey, so my wife and I spent 10-days at the beach. Even while on vacation I was still able to make $21,228.33.

June: This month we opened up our monthly IM Insider coaching program for the first time. This added a nice $3k to $4k in residual income every month. Which was nice for almost the entire month I was in Bodrum, Turkey for a friend’s wedding and vacation.

I was best-man at my friend’s wedding, so I was super-concentrated on writing my speech and doing it right. My wife made fun of me for practicing so much (yes I even practiced while on the toilet) but in the end I got a lot of compliments and I was featured at the beginning of my friend’s wedding video. If you’re curious you can watch it here:

My wife and I rented an Airbnb for the month, and for the last week our inlaws came to stay with us as well. I was still able to run my business simply by doing my review videos every morning after breakfast before going to the beach.

Even with this being a bit of a hectic month I was able to make $21,759.79.

July: It was back to business again and time to make some money before August when my daughter was to be born. We launched a product called Million Dollar Shortcut, which didn’t do amazingly well. I was however able to make up for it by making $15k from coaching.

I ended up making $29,988.17.

August: My daughter was born 🙂 

This was one of the happiest (and most stressful) times of my life. I purposefully planned ahead to not have a lot of work to do during this time. I gave myself permission to take some time off as I knew that there would be a lot of baby-work to do.

Surprisingly I was still able to make $26,153.85.

September: The baby-business continued on. Plus, my mom came to visit for a couple weeks to meet her new granddaughter. Plus, after my mom left, my wife and I took our daughter for her first road trip to a place called Selimiye, Turkey.

I continued taking a lot of time off and didn’t do nearly as many promos as I normally do. However Brett and I did a big webinar promo for Jvzoo member and that made enough to keep me going.

I made a total of $22,841.33.

 

October: We launched a product called Value Deliver. It was another small launch, but I still ended up making around $8k in profits.

It was another month of having a visitor as my dad came to visit in the middle of October for a week. Plus on top of that I went to Dublin for a marketing even the day after my dad left.

The Dublin event was fun as always. It’s nice to be able to hang out with the people that you’re doing business with. Plus we always have a few drinks and share business ideas.

I ended up making $23,634.48.

 

November: This was a strong month both for affiliate commissions and coaching. I made $14k from affiliate promos along with $21k from coaching. We mostly hung around our neighborhood this month and enjoyed the warm Fall weather.

I was able to make a total of $41,274.44 which was my second highest of the year.

December: This is traditionally a slow month as people wind down and celebrate the holiday season. We launched a software called Members Kit at the beginning of the month and then I took off the last couple weeks to relax with my family.

I ended up making $22,855.41.

 

 

 

What WERE my goals for 2018?

Business goals

1. Be easily making $30,000 per month by December, 2018 ACHIEVED

While I didn’t make $30,000 every single month, I was able to make an average of over $32,000 per month for the year.

2. Build my email list to 20,000 active subscribers NOT ACHIEVED

I cleaned the sh*t out of my email list at the end of 2018. I hadn’t done it in a long time and I deleted about 10,000 subscribers who weren’t opening emails.

3. Help at least 20 students launch their first software ACHIEVED

We continued our coaching program and helped students with their first launches.

4. Launch at least 5 products ACHIEVED

We launched multiple softwares and a recurring membership site.

5. Read or listen to 2 business books per month NOT ACHIEVED

I have this goal every year, and I’m yet to achieve it. This year I will.

Personal Goals

6. Get my weight down to 175 lbs (currently 184.5 lbs) and my body fat to 20% (currently 21.6%) NOT ACHIEVED

I did lose a couple pounds to end up at around 182 lbs in January, but I’d like to be closer to 175 lbs.

7. Read or listen to 2 fiction books per month NOT ACHIEVED

I read a few of them, but no where near 2 per month

8. Relax ACHIEVED

I went on a bunch trips, rented a beach house for a month, enjoyed time with my newborn daughter, and even took off the end of the year.

 

So what ARE my goals for 2019?

Business/monetary goals

1. Have a total net worth of $1,000,000

I would be at $1,000,000 by now, but unfortunately the two properties I own in Turkey have decreased in value by about $250,000 since I bought them due to the currency losing value. I only need to save $130k more to get into the “One Million Dollar Net Worth” club 🙂

2. Have an investment portfolio over $500,000

I’ve been investing heavily into index funds through Vanguard. I should be able to have a $500k portfolio by the end of the year if I keep consistently investing.

3. Launch at least 5 products

We have plans to launch multiple product, so this one should be achievable

4. Build my email list to 15,000 active subscribers

I’m currently at around 10,000 subscribers, so if I achieve this it would mean a big increase in income.

5. Read or listen to 2 business books per month

I have this goal every year, and I’m yet to achieve it. This year I will.

 

2018 was a big year for me both in business and for my family. One thing that really stands out though is that I was able to balance my personal and business life much better this year than in the past.

I’m writing this income report at the beginning of April, 2019, so we’re about a quarter of the way through the year, but I truly miss doing these income reports and I’ll do my best to be more consistent.

Thank you so much for reading this, following my journey, watching my interviews and reviews, and of course, purchasing products through my affiliate link. I couldn’t do this without you!

Have a great 2019!

  1. Mike,

    Thank you for sharing this. I’m really motivated by these income reports.

    Congratulations on the delivery of the newborn.

    Talk soon.

    Jamiu.

    1. Thanks, Jamiu,

      I’m glad to hear that they motivate you….that’s my reason for doing them.

      And thank you…it’s great being a dad 🙂

  2. Hi Mike, you don’t know me but I am a customer. I just wanted to take a moment to not only thank you, but to congratulate you. I read most of your report and found it refreshing to (in a manner) share in your successes. Being open and honest is the only way to be, but most importantly I think it creates a connection with your people. I wish you continued success in your journey!

    All my best,

    Kirby Register
    Slam-Dunk Digital Solutions

    1. Thanks, Kirby, I hope that more people will be transparent. Glad you enjoy it.

  3. Hi Mike,

    Thanks for sharing, I’m with Jamiu on this one – your post and income report is really motivating 🙂

    Let me know if you really want to lose those 7-8 lbs, I can help you achieve this in 10 days without starving a day and without setting foot in a gym 😉

    I started a fresh ppc campaign wednesday, today I woke up and saw in my CB dashboard I made a sale! The commission surpassed my spending, so I may be on to something here…

    Letting it run through the weekend before optimizing the campaign, want to have as much data as possible.

    Thanks again, have a great weekend!
    Saemundur

    1. If I really wanted to lose those extra pounds I would 🙂

      Congrats on the commission…that’s awesome!

  4. Congrats Mike!

    ”Help at least 20 students launch their first software”
    Where can we see your offer for this coaching program? Interested to launch my first software.

    1. We don’t currently have this program open, but we might open it one more time before the end of the year.

  5. Congratulations Mike.
    Been following you for a few years now.
    Your great reporting ethos continues, as in previous years.

    It is inspiring.!!

    And becoming a Dad. How good is that!

    Congratulations to you and your wife, and now young daughter.

    Thanks Mike.

  6. Dear Mike,

    Thanks for sharing!
    Can you please share more details about your coaching program?

    Regards.

Comments are closed.

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