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 March, 2015.

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50,296 page views (-50,053 from February)

29,284 Youtube channel views (+3,424 from February)

196,503 minutes watched (+64,973 from February)

Aweber subscribers: 6,599 (-9 subscribers from February)

GetResponse subscribers: 6,421 (+873 subscribers from February)

Total email list subscribers: 13,020

Expenses

Accountant: $600 – I had to get my taxes done

oDesk Virtual Assistants: $466.23 – I have some workers helping me with daily tasks that don’t need me. I’m trying to outsource more and more daily.

Lead Pages: $197 – I’ve been using Lead Pages for a while now…and it’s one of my top tools

GoToWebinar: $150 – I use this for live webinars and training

Aweber: $69 – This is my list building software that allows me to email everyone when there’s a new interview

Facebook ads: $65.31 – Ad money spent for misc. FB ads

GetResponse: $65 – This is the autoresponder I use for my buyer’s list

Traffic Planet Hosting: $50 – The hosting account that I recently switched to. It’s super fast and I’m very happy with it.

Wistia: $46.78 – This is how I host my sales videos and course content. Normally I pay a lot less, but I had some spam traffic that unfortunately I have to pay for.

Improvely: $29 – This is a tool that I’m using to track the lifetime value of leads

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

Schedule Once: $19 – A tool I use for scheduling coaching calls

WuFoo: $14.95 – A tool that allows me to take applications for my coaching program

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

Sendgrid: $9.95 – This integrates with Easy Webinar 4.0 and allows me to send reminder emails to my registrants in a timely manner

Amazon S3: $3.67 – I use this to host images and videos

Total expenses: $1,815.83 (+$431.65 compared to February)

Revenue

Webinar Fusion Pro: $2,305.57 from review and interview with Dwayne Golden

Affiliate Arbitrage Blueprint (CLOSED): $2,106.68 from review and interview with Zak Loveday

Solo Ad Arbitrage 2.0 (CLOSED): $1,551.02 from review and interview with Andrea Fulton

Video Ad Rival: $1,347.53 from review and interview with Peter Beattie

CPA Vid Krakken (CLOSED): $990.50 from review and interview with Saul Maraney

WP Dollar 3.0: $941.58 from review and interview with Abhi Dwivedi

Zero Bounce: $880.07 from review and interview with Ankur Shukla

AmaSuite 4.0: $848 from review and interview with Chris Guthrie

Five Figure Secret (CLOSED): $840.75 from review and interview with Bill Hugall

Five Figure Funnel Profits: $765.21 from review and interview with Thomas Owen

Funnel Trax (CLOSED): $758 from review and interview with Mark Thompson

Dark Post Profits 2.0: $594 from review and interview with Chris Record

Click Back Rewards: $583.88 from review and interview with Brett Rutecky

Buzz Ignition (CLOSED): $573.20 from review and interview with Neil Napier

Digital Software Lab (CLOSED): $563.32 from review and interview with Josh Ratta

Seamless SEO 2.0 (CLOSED): $543.22 from review and interview with Radu Hahaianu

List Building for 2015 (CLOSED): $527.49 from review and interview with Fergal Downes

CPA Niche Jacker (CLOSED): $492.93 from review and interview with Jon Smith

Lead Monster (CLOSED): $465.66 from review and interview with Karthik Ramani

Commission Vance (CLOSED): $428.91 from review and interview with Yair Dolev

How To Get Free Traffic From Affiliates and JVs: $388.87 from review and interview with Reed Floren

Arbitrage Underdog RELOADED: $318.57 from review and interview with Tom E

Video Maker FX: $242.60 from review and interview with Peter Roszak

Digital Millionaire Mastermind (CLOSED): $202.94 from review and interview with Alex Jeffreys

Online Wealth Academy (CLOSED): $202.50 from review, interview, and webinar with Mikael Dia

Zapable (CLOSED): $202.50 from review and interview with Chris Fox

Tube Sniper Pro 3.0 (CLOSED): $202.24 from review and interview with Joshua Zamora

2015 Traffic and Conversion Summit Notes (CLOSED): $197.40 from review and interview with Tim Castleman

The Fiverr Handover (CLOSED): $181.05 from review and interview with Fergal Downes

CTA Bar (CLOSED): $175.30 from review and interview with Sam Bakker

My Squeeze Page Builder: $158.80 from interview with Jayson Benoit

Tee Profits Recipe (CLOSED): $147 from review and interview with Demian Caceres

Explaindio: $124 from review and interview with Nick LaPolla

How To Get Traffic From Facebook Ads: $117.71 from review and interview with Reed Floren

Weird Niche Content: $107.88 from review and interview with Mark Bishop

Local Reputation Hero: $72 from review and interview with Matthew Ianotti

Vidlify (CLOSED): $71.64 from review and interview with Radu Hahaianu

Crowd Search Me (CLOSED): $69.75 from review and interview with Daniel Anton

HydraVid: $66.94 from review and interview with Walt Bayliss

Screencast Pro: $54 from review and interview with Joey Xoto

Ultimate Traffic Monster (CLOSED): $52.56 from review and interview with Naidy Phoon

Easy Profits Explosion (CLOSED): $49.65 from review and interview with Stefan Ciancio

IMNow Webinar (CLOSED): $48.50 from review and interview with Keith Lynch

InstaHook Video Backgrounds: $47.60 from review and interview with Brad Scott

Video Jacker: $47.50 from review and interview with Chris Fox

Tee Blueprint (CLOSED): $41.02 from review and interview with Manny Hanif

SEO Catalyst (CLOSED): $37 from review and preview

WP Profit Builder: $33.84 from review and interview with Sean Donahoe

Vidneos: $33.50 from review and interview with Ben Murray

TreasureCoach Linkedin (CLOSED): $31 from review and interview with Maksym V.

Kindle Money Mastery: $30.46 from review and interview with Stefan Pylarinos

Socialite Pro: $28.50 from review and interview with Luke Maguire

Fresh Store Builder (CLOSED): $28.50 from review and interview with Carey Baird

Tee Cash Boot Camp: $25.90 from review and interview with Andy Berard

Simple CPA Siphon (CLOSED): $24.47 from review and interview with Stephen Gilbert

Kindle Sales Rank Superhero: $24.17 from review and interview with Mike Balmaceda

Hero Tower (CLOSED): $23.50 from review and interview with Ross Carrel

1K Whirlwind (CLOSED): $21.28 from review and interview with Barry Rodgers and Andrew Brocklehurst

Operation Solo: $17.97 from interview with Anthony Tilley

Creative Post: $17.55 from review and interview with Guillermo Mata

iPocket Video: $16.20 from review and interview with Joey Xoto

Funnel Vision (CLOSED): $14.97 from review and interview with Dr. Ben Adkins

Smart Blog Networks (CLOSED): $13.62 from review and interview with Simon Warner

Kindle Marketing Magic: $13.31 from review and interview with Mike Balmaceda

Bing Brings You The Bling: $11.86 from review and interview with Rob Stafford

Solo Ad Business Blueprint (CLOSED): $11.60 from interview with Kate Rosenberg

Mobile Lead Monster: $10.80 from review and interview with Kevin Zichermann

Solo Ad Professor: $8.77 from review and interview with Paul Nicholls

Ad Factory (CLOSED): $8.10 from review and interview with Russ Schneider

Long Tail Pro: $7.60 from interview with Spencer Haws

Solo Ad Escape: $7.48 from review and interview with Kevin Fahey

Inner Circle Solo Ads 3.0 (CLOSED): $4.50 from interview with Rob Stafford

Total revenue from interviews: $22,204.49 (-$2,148.98 from February)

Private Coaching students: $3,994 – In this program I teach how to make money from affiliate marketing, list building, and product creation. If you’re interested in joining you can APPLY HERE.

Affiliate Income Secrets: $1,602.22 – My product teaching how I make money from affiliate marketing

Traffic Planet Hosting: $150 – This is the hosting that I use for all my websites

Resell Rights Weekly: $59.38 – This is a website that has a ton of products that you can use as your own

Kindle earnings: $18.20

Total from OTHER streams of income: $5,823.80 (-$1,399.03 from February)

Total Revenue: $28,028.29 (-$3,548.01 from February)

Total Profit: $26,212.46 (-$3,979.66 from February)

March was definitely a STRESSFUL month for me. 

In my February income report, I talked about how I needed to make almost $50,000 in March and the first two weeks of April in order to pay off my tax bill. Well, I did it…but it took a lot out of me.

I was STRESSED in March. I got headaches. I was worried. But fortunately everything worked out fine 🙂

That being said, I never want to put myself in that position again. In 2015 I’m making estimated tax payments every quarter so I’m never in the same position again where I have to pay out such a big amount.

Zero Cash Flow to “Play with”

I’m a big fan of testing out different methods of making money online and investing BACK into my business. I haven’t been able to do that for a while now as all my cash has been earmarked to buy my apartment. Well, I’m REALLY close to being able to start “playing” again, and I’m excited about it.

I’ve built up a loyal audience who purchase through my affiliate links, and I want to reward them by investing some of those profits BACK into my business so I can LEARN, APPLY and then TEACH by showing real case studies of my results. It’s something that’s been missing from MikeFromMaine.com for a while now, and I want to bring it back.

The $10,000 Solo Ad Experiment

I need your input.

I plan on spending $10,000 testing out different solo ad sellers. I’ll be sending traffic to a funnel that I specifically created in order to make my money back in the quickest time from this investment.

I’ve been planing this out for quite a while now. And I’ve been running the numbers over on paper, but without a REAL test I won’t be able to tweak anything and improve on it.

So here’s what I’m thinking:

Spend $10,000 on traffic. At an average of around $.40 per click I should be able to get 25,000 clicks. If my squeeze page converts at 50%, that means that I’ll get 12,500 new subscribers on my email list.

These 12,500 new subscribers will see a $17 offer ,with a $27, $37, and $47 upsell.

If 1% buy the $17 offer that means 125 people will buy. That equals $2,125.

Of those 125 who buy the front end offer, if 20% buy the $27 first upsell, that means 25 people will buy. That equals $675.

Of those 125 who buy, if 10% buy the $37 second upsell, that means 12 people will buy. That equals $444.

Of those 125 who buy, if 5% buy the $47 third upsell, that means 6 people will buy. That equals $282.

If these numbers are correct, that means that I’ll immediately make back $3,526.

These 12,500 new subscribers will then be invited to a webinar where I sell my coaching program. That sells for $1,997. If only THREE people join, I’ll add $5,991 to the $3,526, thus equalling $9,517…which almost covers the full $10,000 ad spend.

Now there is ONE number I am VERY interested to figure out:

How much is ONE subscriber worth PER month acquired through these methods?

The industry standard is that you should earn $1 per subscriber per month. However, that number can vary based upon multiple factors including the origin of the subscriber (did they buy something…or are they just window shopping?), the offers you promote to them (it takes 285 $7 sales to equal just ONE $1,997 sale), and the marketer’s skill and experience.

If we assign a value of $1 per subscriber per month to these 12,500 new subscribers, then I would spend $10,000 to acquire them all day long. But I’m pretty sure that their value is LESS than that. How much less?

Let’s assign an estimated value of $.30 per subscriber per month. In that case, this list would make $3,750 in the first month. Then, probably $3,000 in the second month. And then $2,500 in the third month. Only in the FOURTH month would it start making a profit over the original $10,000 spent.

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Ok, so that’s ONE way of testing out the traffic. There’s a couple more that interest me as well.

Sending Solo Ad Traffic to an Automated Webinar

I’ve been toying with the idea of skipping the previously mentioned sales funnel, and simply sending traffic to an automated webinar instead that sells my $1,997 coaching program.

If I spent $10,000 and got 12,500 subscribers…only FIVE would need to sign up for me to make my money back. Plus, I’d only need to do the presentation ONE time and the subscribers could watch it when it was convenient for them. It would definitely be the most PASSIVE way of doing things.

Sending Solo Ad Traffic to a LIVE Webinar

It makes sense that doing a LIVE webinar would have the highest conversions. However, I’d need to coordinate it so all my traffic was delivered on a Tuesday, so I could have the webinar on a Wednesday, and then do phone calls with the prospective coaching students on Thursday and Friday. In my experience, people forget about these things very quickly, and if you don’t talk with them promptly then they will lose interest. It’s just human nature.

The industry standard says that about 30% of webinar signups actually attend the event. So, if I got 12,500 people to sign up, that would mean that 3,750 would attend. When doing a webinar for 200 people, on average FOUR new students sign up at $1,997 per person. If those numbers hold true, that would mean that with 3,750 attendees, 75 new students would sign up for a total of $149,775 in sales.

Now, I know that number is super high. And another variable is that it’s based on doing a webinar to a list of people who have bought something from me or someone else, so the numbers are skewed. But even if I did one-third, I’d be signing up 25 new students, bringing in $50,000 in revenue, and $40,000 in profit, plus building a list of 12,500 subscribers.

It’s all a GUESS until I actually take action

I’ve been running these numbers over and over again on paper for the last 6 months. It’s driving me a little crazy 🙂

Maybe ALL of them will work. Maybe NONE of them will work.

But the truth is that I won’t know until I try.

So, here’s the plan of action:

I’m going to buy $3,000 worth of solo ad traffic and send it to my funnel to test things out. I’ll do a webinar for these subscribers and see what kind of a response I get. This will at least give me an idea of what my numbers should be if I start scaling.

So that’s it for this month…it’s time to take action!