Income Report: May 2015 Locations: Phi Phi Islands and Chiang Mai

Bam! Back in Thailand and getting things done! Well except for the first week of the month where I was on the island of Koh Phi Phi with my cousin Jacob who came to visit from Los Angeles.  This month I had a full three weeks to catch up on my progress with creating my new membership based info course!

It was a bit of a trade of trying to create something new, without letting everything else slip behind but it'll be worth it in the long run. As fun as it was scuba diving and hang out on the beach, I'm really glad to be back in Chiang Mai where it's easy to focus and I'm surrounded by other entrepreneurs who are also building their business and making things happen.  Here's how I did this month, as always, I have no idea either as I don't even look at the numbers until I start writing these reports!

Kindle Book Sales:

After lowering the price of Life Changes Quick to $4.99 two months ago, sales have continued to rise so I'm going to leave it at that price point for another month to see if the trend continues.  

I've also decided to lower the price for my first book, 12 Weeks in Thailand: The Good Life on the Cheap from $9.99 to $7.99 to see what happens there.

Most recent reviews of 12 Weeks in Thailand:

Most recent review of Life Changes Quick:

PDF Sales from e-Junkie: $99.87

Amazon Sales: $250US +/-

Total Book Sales: $350US +/- 

uDemy/Membership Courses:

Even though I've created a couple uDemy courses and have been making 100% passive income from them these past few months, I still ended up wanting to create my new program completely off of uDemy's platform so I can have more control over it and utilize Clickbank's affiliate system.  I paid $2,000 to join the Membership Site Master course a few months ago and finally caught up to the rest of the members in my mastermind group.

I haven't announced the name of my new course just yet as I want to make sure the first couple of paid members go through the course smoothly as I really want them to get 200x value out of the cost of joining.  I'll be doing a big launch in the next few weeks.

Total Profit from uDemy: $351.47

Video/Google Adsense:

What's a little bit funny is I just realized this month that I make money from my Videos and Adsense advertising. I wasn't purposely trying to hide it from my income reports and i'm not completely obvilous, but since it's 100% passive and because it's not my primary source of income, in these 8 months or so that I've been posting income reports, I've never thought to check my income or report about it until now.

Adense: $8.04 
Video: $60.63

Total Advertising Profit: $68.67

Affiliate Marketing:

I regularly update my recommended resources page with all of the software, hosting packages, books and courses as well as other things I personally use and recommend.  Whenever possible I use affiliate links so I can get credit for referring readers. 

Most months I make a profit from around ten products that I recommend including Drop Shipping as well as bunch of other random things I've reviewed or recommended on my blog.

Total Profit from Affiliate Marketing: Estimated $1,500-$2,800 see screenshot below for some examples of my sources:  Full breakdown Coming soon.

Dropshipping Stores:

My income and profit from my actual drop shipping stores is still my biggest source of income especially since I own multiple stores now.  They are all setup to be semi-passive and I have a VA in the Philippines to take care of my accounting, and a customer service rep in the U.S. to answer calls and provide customer service. 

I also have a few partner stores that I help setup but am completely hands off day to day and now 100% passive income for me. I just get a monthly report of what my income was and make suggestions on how to grow it the next month.  We're still trying to grow it as it is new but already they are profitable.

Store #3 - New Partner Store

Above it the accounting for the new store, which is being run my a friend of mine.  We had one item priced too low so it wouldn't had been profitable after shipping costs, so we emailed the customer, apologized and canceled the order.  It's a part of the initial learning experience but now we've raised that product price so it will be more profitable.

The goal is to scale up total sales, increase our conversion rate, sell more of the items that have awesome profit margins, and eventually sell enough product to get even better pricing as well as lower our transaction charges.  

This month with $4,741.99 in total sales, we made $424.90 in take home profit from this store.

Revenue from Store #1 - My Main Store

My main store made $20,963.81 in total sales
Total Ad spend: $362.23 + $17.64

Customer service: $150

Virtual Assistant: $4.50

Total Profit from my main store: $2,850 +/~+ Credit Card Reward Dollars: $380.30 in travel credit.

Revenue from Store #2 - Larissa and My Store

With the store I'm running with Larissa we're testing out a new platform to sell on in addition to our Shopify store.  So far we've made a few sales not recorded in the Shopify dashboard but the fees are so freaking high that it might not be worth it.

I'm going to see what happens and test a few things then do a write up about it next month if it's profitable.

Gross Sales: $14,869.70
Product Costs: $10,176.00
Shipping Costs: $1,597.00
Credit Card Fees: $296.73Other Expenses: $877.35

Net Profit for the Larissa/Johnny Store: $1,922.63
+ Credit Card Reward Dollars: $272.45 in travel credit.

Want more info on how I started my dropshipping stores?

This month's Total Profit: $8k+/

Plans for Next Month:

I just announced through my email list and podcast that a lucky 8 people will get to move to the tropical island of Koh Phangan, Thailand and live for free at beach resort in exchange for working just 3 hours at day doing the social media marketing for the hotel itself.  The internship is sponsored by the new coworking space KohSpace but I will be flying down at some point to meet all of the interns and provide a bit of guidance.

I agreed to help with the project because it's something that I wish existed when I was bootstrapping and just stating out.  Working for just 3 hours a day in exchange for free food, a coworking membership and accommodation allows you to work on your business in the afternoons whether it's a dropshipping store, a blog or website.

I'm also quietly launching my new course that I so far have only announced on my email list, as I don't want too many signups and paid students just yet. I want to make sure everyone who has signed up so far gets personal 1 on 1 attention.

My goal for the next month is to finish adding all of the advanced content to the new membership site I created, recruit affiliates to promote the course, and then start selling it to the masses.  The price is also going to slowly increase as we get more signups and students as I want to be able to work with everyone personally so I need to limit signups. If you're already on my email list, you'll be receiving an announcement for the first 50 spots, then the price will increase after that.

For now, check out the internship if you're willing to bootstrap for half a year while working on replacing your 9-5 income. It's really a fantastic opportunity so share it with someone who you might think would enjoy living on an island for six months while building their business on the side.

See you next month!

Warm Regards,

Johnny

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