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 October, 2017

19,410 page views (-620 from September) *I had Google Analytics turned off for 6 days by mistake…so this number is actually higher

32,952  Youtube channel views (+2,114 from September)

190,865 Youtube minutes watched (+22,853 from September)

Email subscribers:  23,213 (-249 subscribers from September)

Expenses

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

Sales copy: $250 for 50% down payment for Instant Video Pages sales copy

Aweber: $213 – This is my list building software that allows me to email everyone when there’s a new interview or review

Sales graphics: $200 – Prepayment for Instant Video Pages sales page graphics

Paypal fees: $106.63

Prize money: $100 – Brett’s half of prize money for Pop Under Pro

Facebook ads: $64.83 – I’ve been experimenting with FB ads on my JV promos, doing giveaways of IM products, and testing other niches

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

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

Screenflow Update: $41.14 – I purchased an update for the software I use to edit my videos

Monthly phone fees: $30

ManyChat: $30 – A service that I use to build a Facebook messenger list

Food Blogger Pro: $29 – A course I purchased on setting up a food blog, something that I’m interested in

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

Amazon S3: $19.08 – I use this to host images, bonuses, and videos

Jvzoo seller fees: $17.50

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

Total expenses: $2,106.88 (-$5,148.01 spent compared to September)

Revenue

Synd Buddy: $1,885.08 from review

Funnel Secrets: $1,514.56 from review

Traffic Trapper: $1,398.43 from review and interview with Art Flair

Vid Skippy 2.0: $1,275.63 from review and interview with Mark Bishop

XLeads360: $1,193.37 from review and interview with Adrian Isfan

Traffic Studio: $1,191 from review and interview with Waqar Azeem

Ignition: $1,112.43 from review and interview with Brendan Mace

Video Marketing Blaster: $1,065.58 from review and interview with Ali G.

Quotamator: $1,050.70 from review and interview with Brett Ingram

Channel Authority Builder: $943.37 from review and interview with Cyril Gupta

WP Freshstart 4.0: $881.83 from review and interview with Ankur Shukla

Webby Vid: $791.78 from review and interview with Radu Hahaianu

Instant Funnel Lab: $703.58 from review and interview with Glynn Kosky

Pop Under Pro: $648.95 from review and interview with Mark Hess

Affiliazon: $568.05 from review and interview with Kurt Chrisler

Fruitful: $546.50 from review and interview with Ben Murray

InstaEasy: $460 from review and interview with Luke Maguire

DropMock Kinetic: $234.50 from review and interview with Lee Pennington

Viddyoze 2.0: $174.10 from review and interview with Viddyoze team

Ascend Pages: $169 from review and interview with Andrew Darius

Convertri 2017: $148.50 from review and interview with Andy Fletcher

PicAnimate: $134.50 from review and interview with Andrew Darius

Video Ads Traffic: $134 from review and interview with Adam Payne

Video Traffic Genie: $115.75 from review and interview with Paul Venables

AdReel: $111 from review and interview with Ryan Phillips

Easy VSL 2.0: $95 from review and interview with Mark Thompson

Social Traffic Jacker: $92.50 from review and interview with Tony Hayes

Azon Profit Builder: $90.50 from review and interview with Ankur Shukla

Thrive Leads: $86.50 from review and interview with Shane Melaugh

Fan Marketer: $79.98 from review and interview with Dan Green

WP 1-Click Traffic: $76.41 from review and interview with Ankur Shukla

vRankerPro: $75.20 from review and interview with Andy Black

OmniXPress: $71.95 from review and interview with Radu

Vid Curator FX: $66.50 from review and interview with Ben Murray

OneSoci 2.0: $64.20 from review and interview with Lee Pennington

Passive Profit Builder: $59 from review and interview with Mosh Bari

InstaSuite (CLOSED): $57 from webinar with Neil Napier

Instant Spokesperson: $48 from review

Backlink Machine: $45.55 from review and interview with Ankur Shukla

Viddictive: $45.20 from review and interview with Mario Brown

Promoyze: $44.40 from review and interview with Andrew Darius

Arbitrage Underdog 5.0: $43.57 from review and interview with Tom E.

WP Suite: $42 from review

WP Tag Machine: $38.46 from review and interview with Ankur Shuka

InstaGenius: $37 from review and interview with Cindy Donovan

Fan Contact: $35.95 from review and interview with Andrew Darius

Commissionology: $35.50 from review and interview with Michael Cheney

PBN Builder: $34.96 from review and interview with Joshua Zamora

Repwarn reseller : $33.50 from review and interview with Walt Bayliss

Video Chief: $32.40 from review and interview with Joshua Zamora

Designo Pro: $31.72 from review and interview with Todd Gross

Profit Sorcery: $30.80 from review and interview with Ed Brooks

Drop Mock Video: $29.60 from review and interview with Lee Pennington

VSource: $27.50 from review and interview with Mark Bishop

Vidgeos: $27 from review and interview with Josh Ratta

Viral Autobots: $24.50 from review and interview with Luke Maguire

Video Agent X: $23.50 from review and interview with Peter Beattie

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

Converzly: $21.50 from review and interview with Justin Burns

Ad Respark (CLOSED): $20 from review and interview with Devin Zander

Mail X: $19.96 from review and interview with Han Fan

Adsvisor 2.0 $19 from review and interview with Abhi Dwivedi

IM Newbie: $18.90 from review and interview with Kevin Fahey

Send Engine: $18.50 from review and interview with Petru Iacob

Video Ad Rival: $18.50 from review and interview with Peter Beattie

Instamate 2.0: $18.50 from review and interview with Luke Maguire

eCover Authority: $18.50 from review and interview with Chad Eljisir

Viral Loop: $18.50 from review and interview with Cindy Donovan

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

WP Traffic UP: $16.13 from interview and review with Mark Hess

Flick GIF:  $14.96 from review and interview with Andrew Darius

Credi Response: $14.94 from review and interview with Cryil “Jeet” Gupta

Press Play 2.0: $13.50 from review and interview with Mark Thompson

Pullii: $12.92 from review and interview with Stefan Ciancio

Your Profit Store: $11.98 from review and interview with Radu

Sellosity: $11.75 from review and interview with Sean Donahoe

HydraVid (CLOSED): $9.98 from review and interview with Walt Bayliss

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

Absolute Jacker : $9.51 from review and interview with Ariel Sanders

Pimpr: $8.58 from review and interview with Mark Bishop

Visibily: $8.50 from review and interview with Neil Napier

Social Kickstart: $8.50 from review and interview with Mark Thompson

UltraVid: $8.47 from review and interview with Radu Hahaianu

WP Profit Builder: $7.50 from review and interview with Sean Donahoe

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

2016 Traffic and Conversion Summit Notes: $4.96 from review and interview with Tim Castleman

Total revenue from interviews and reviews: $20,487.98 (+$5,185.09 from September)

Profit Canvas Unlimited: $1,719.91  – My commission from a private webinar Brett Rutecky and I did

Affiliate Income Secrets: $350 – My product teaching how I make money from affiliate marketing

Autonars: $290.99 – My earnings from a launch I did with Brett Rutecky in June, 2017

Google Adsense: $131.19 – Earnings from Youtube and Adsense

Social Traffic System: $93.75 – My earnings from a launch I did with Brett Rutecky in September, 2017

Mail It: $75.38 – My earnings from a launch I did in August, 2016 with Brett Rutecky

Social Robot JV commission: $32.79 – This my cut from a launch I did with Joshua Zamora in early 2015

Resell Rights Weekly: $27.94 – This is a website that has a ton of products that you can use as your own

Keyword Suggestions JV commission: $26.99 – This is my cut from a launch I did with Radu in September, 2015

Review Wizard: $15.28 – My earnings from a launch Brett and I did in February, 2017

Group Traffic Profits: $13.96 – My earnings from a launch I did in December, 2016 with Brett Rutecky

Profit Canvas Pro: $9.21 from a product Brett Rutecky and I launched in 2015

Total from OTHER streams of income:  $2,787.39 (-$19,192.62 from September)

Total Revenue:   $23,275.37 (-$14,007.53 from September)

Well I finally hit my 1,000th episode of the Mike From Maine Show!

It’s pretty amazing to think that I’ve been doing this since September, 2012.

In the beginning, it was normal for me to make $0 to $25 per interview. I fact I was averaging about $25 per interview for the first one hundred interviews.

Luckily something inside me made me push on and keep building my email list, reputation, and audience up to a point where it’s completely normal for me to make anywhere from $300 to $2,000 for a single interview and review.

“What are you going to do for your one thousandth episode?”

I had a bunch of people ask me if I was going to do anything special once I hit once thousand episodes. I thought about it for a bit, and for me it’s an achievement for sure. I’ve proven beyond doubt that this model works as a way to ethically promote products in the Internet marketing space.

However I’m not one to make a big “show” out of things. I know that may sound funny as I’m the host of a, well, a “show”, but as an introverted person I don’t love being the center of attention. In fact it’s quite possible that I interview OTHER people so that the attention is on THEM and not me 🙂

That being said, hitting the thousandth episode mark has definitely made me think about the future of the show. Will I do 1,000 episodes more? If I hit 2,000 episodes I’m very interested to see what the state of Internet marketing will be at that time.

Am I where I thought I’d be at 1,000 episodes?

Quite honestly I thought I’d have a larger audience by now. However I NEVER thought I’d make $77k in a single month from this. It’s amazing that I went from having a goal of making $3,000 per month to being “disappointed” if I make less than $20,000.

It’s not just about the show

Some people think that I make money from doing “interviews”…and that’s just such a super small part of this. The interviews for me were a way of connecting with some of the biggest marketers in this space. I was able to take those connections and leverage them into a skill set where I am valuable as a JV manager.

One of the big “breaks” for me was when Joshua Zamora reached out to me in April 2015 and asked me to launch a product called Social Robot with him. All I had to do was let fellow marketers know about the product and ask them to promote it. Because of my connections, I was able to add $20,000 to my bank account in a single month…pretty amazing.

And from then on I was recruited by people like Radu Haihaianu, Lee Pennington, and of course, Brett Rutecky, who together we’ve gone on to sell more than $1,000,000 worth of software.

Where would I be without the show?

If I hadn’t started the show in September, 2012 I honestly don’t know where I’d be today. I’d probably be teaching English at some crappy school in Turkey…and hating my life.

But by getting out of my comfort zone and talking with real people in my niche I was able to build a business that has generated almost $1,000,000 for me and my family. I’m so grateful to everyone who has helped bring me to this point.

Thank you to those of you who came on my show even when I couldn’t bring you any sales or get you much exposure.

Thanks you to those of you who have bought products through my links and watched my show even when I didn’t know what I was doing.

And thank you to my wife, who didn’t quite understand how I was making money online, but trusted me when I told her that I was on to something even when it wasn’t making much at the beginning.

Oh, and here are some pictures from October 🙂