Expenses Breakdown

Tools:

AccessAlly (Membership plugin for all of my courses) – $79.00
Acuity Scheduling (Done For You Consultations) – $10.00
Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop, etc.) $64.48
Bluehost (Web Hosting) – $30.87
Dropbox (File Storage) – $19.99
FreeConferenceCall.com (Coaching & Client Calls) – $3.00
GoDaddy (Domain Names) – $5.17
GSuite (wp-bff.com Email) – $10.76
Infusionsoft (email marketing, automation, e-commerce & customer management) – $321.43
ManageWP (WordPress Site Management for Clients & WordPress Protection Package) – $88.09
Templates, Graphics, Fonts, Etc. – $54.81
Zapier – $15.00
Misc Plugin License Renewals (for clients to be passed on to them) – $257.90

Marketing:

Facebook (Ads for Website Monetization Master Class) – $493.02
LinkTree Pro (Instagram Profile Links) $6.00
Recurpost (Social Media Scheduling) – $25.00
Websites That Make Money Design – 162.00
Business Cards – $63.12

Help:

Subcontractors (VA Team, Graphic Designer, Web Developers) $1607

Learning/Mentorship:

Online Courses – $1451.99 (Amy Porterfield’s Webinars That Convert plus Templates, Jenna Kutcher’s Pinterest Lab, Udemy CSS course)

Travel:

Thrive Conference/Bluehost Meeting in Austin – $303.83 not including flight and hotel – Hotel was $600 and paid back in December, for the flight I used Southwest points

Refunds for duplicate payments: $58.00

Total Expenses: $5163.40

Net Profit: $3791.78

Biggest Lesson Learned

I’m writing this income report in mid-April, so I’ve learned a lot of lessons in my first three months in business which I outlined for you here in this blog post.

My biggest takeaway in analyzing February’s income report is that I invested over $2000 into promoting Websites That Make Money, from investing in a course to help me improve my webinar game, creating new graphics and content and spending money on Facebook ads.

My goals were to have 500 people register, 150 attend live, and make 10 sales.

Here’s what really happened:

Registered – 368
Showed Up – 114
Watched Full Webinar Live – 39
Watched Replay – 74
Sales – 1

I didn’t meet my goals and I didn’t come anywhere close to recouping my investment in the program with my big, tech-troubled launch. However, instead of deeming it a failure, feeling like I wasted $2000, and moving on to the next shiny new fun project that’s going to be a sure-fire success (like I might have done in the past), I made the decision to leave the program open and promote it monthly with webinars.

In other words, I’m playing the slow and steady game instead of trying to create windfalls – and that $2000 really was an investment in the foundation of the marketing of that program.

So obviously my expenses in February were double what my benchmark expenses are, and while I know I needed to make an investment into Websites That Make Money for the long-term, I didn’t specifically plan to do it in February.

In fact, buying the webinar course and investing that much in Facebook ads was a knee-jerk reaction to the uneasiness I felt about meeting my income goals rather than a planned expense, and if I continue to operate that way going forward, I’m going to see some tough times ahead in my business.

I also can look back on these spending patterns and see that just like I was winging it with my content and marketing, I was also winging it with my spending because I didn’t have a real plan in place.

I still paid myself two paychecks of $2500 in February, which was more than my net profit, however, I planned ahead before quitting my day job and do have money set aside in my business for this exact scenario so that my income remains consistent when my revenue and expenses are not consistent.

Thankfully, I’ve gotten a handle on my anxiety, I now have a spending plan and creating these income reports is a fantastic way to keep myself accountable and on track! So thanks for reading, and I can’t wait to continue sharing this journey with you!

Today’s pep talk is brought to you by Bluehost. Go to www.shannonmattern.com/bluehost and get 36 months of web hosting for just $2.95 a month. That’s less than one trip to Starbucks a month – and if you’re anything like me, you’re at Starbucks more than that!

Then you can sign up for my Free 5 Day Website Challenge at www.shannonmattern.com/5day and I’ll show you step by step how to get started building your new website for your side hustle.