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February 2016 Income Report: Saigon, Vietnam to Koh Lanta, Thailand

I started these last crazy 29 days in Chiang Mai where I was getting ready to put on the 2016 Nomad Summit along with my buddy and co-organizer Cody McKibben. I knew that right after the conference I was flying out to Vietnam to go to Anton's wedding, then straight down to Koh Lanta to chill out and escape the burning season up in Northern Thailand.

I'll go more into all of that in the video explainer for this month embedded below but trust me when I tell you it's been a pretty busy month! I just arrived here on Koh Lanta a few days ago and am currently working out of KoHub the tropical coworking space on the island. Hopefully now that my life isn't as hectic I'll be able to sit down and actually do some work! But first things first, let's see how I did these past 29 days in February. Here is my income report for this past month so you can follow the journey and see what is currently working and where my online income comes from.





Watch the Video Follow Along: 





Income from the Nomad Summit



Normally I start my income reports with book sales, but this month was the 2nd annual Nomad Summit conference that I organize. The intention was never to make it a for profit business, but thanks to sponsors we actually made a bit of money from the event this year!

Revenue from Tickets Sales including Sponsors: $4,766.62

Minus costs to run the event including renting the venue, coffee, equipment, hiring the film crew, etc.

Total Eventbrite fees: $400.84
Total Expenses: $3,169.68

Since the Nomad Summit was profitable this year, we're able all of the footage from it for free! The videos are being edited and uploaded as we speak so sign up for the email list at NomadSummit.com to be notified when they go live.

But for now check out this kick ass video Ian Robinson made from the event!




Total Revenue from Sponsors and Ticket Sales


I don't actually know what I'm going to do with the profits from the Nomad Summit as it wasn't designed to be a new stream of income, but I think what I'm going to do is use the money to put down a deposit for the 2017 Nomad Summit so we can get a much larger venue next year as we sold out way too quick this year.


Total Profit from Seminars: $1,231.11





Income from Book Sales



This month I'm excited to announce that my latest book, Life Changes Quick has been translated into Spanish! Huge thanks to Javier Cristóbal for reaching out to me and wanting to do that. 

Life Changes Quick in Español:
Amazon 

As always what i'm most excited about, way more than the paycheck is reading the new reviews people take the time to leave for the books after reading it! Thanks so much to everyone who took the time to do so! It really means the world to me.

If you left a review on the Canadian, UK, Germany, Australia, Brazil or other store, let me know so I can check it out and screenshot it here as well!


 


Read the 1st book: 12 Weeks in Thailand
Read the 2nd book: Life Changes Quick





Total Profit from Book Sales: $302.17






Revenue from Udemy Courses



I really love Udemy as a platform to quickly churn out bite sized courses that people can take for $100 or less. It's a great way to offer people short introductory courses or very specific targeted courses like I do with my course called Udemy Affiliate

My favorite thing about Udemy it's almost like a 401k where they almost always match or exceed your promotion activity. This means if you drive $0 in your own promotions they'll happily match by sending you zero traffic. But if you spend a bit of effort marketing your own course like I do through forums, social media, email, etc, they'll almost always match your efforts!



Udemy income
Total earnings from my Udemy Courses for February

Total Profit from Udemy Courses: $623.07






Revenue from Dropshipping Stores



For my main store, I had a pretty consistent month as usual. I've had this store now for over 2 and a half years and it's been a true blessing to have stayed so consistent without that much work after the initial setup months. 

Store #1:

Total Sales: $24,429.44
Total Profit: $2,114.53 +/-





Store #2

Woohoo! Great news, for the first time since I started my 2nd store with Larissa just a little over a year ago we broke over $20k in sales and this was the first month ever where the sales and profit exceed my main store! 

What's even more exciting about this is the fact that we started this store after everyone kept saying all the good niches were taken and that dropshipping was dead. Luckily we ignored all of the nay-sayers out there and dedicated a 30 Day New Store Challenge (which actually took us closer to 2 months)

Total Sales: $26,479.00
Total Profit: $4,977.04

My 50% split with Larissa: $2,488.52




Learn how to start your own dropshipping store today!

Total Profit from Dropshipping: $5,603.05




Revenue from Miscellaneous 




This month I took one coaching call at $162.50, made $57 doing some random freelancing and around $64.74 from Youtube display advertising. 

I'm going to be taking my Youtube channel much more seriously in the next couple of months and make a lot more fun videos. I've always enjoyed making videos for fun but never had time to take it seriously. My goal is to get to 5,000 subscribers by the end of this summer so do me a favor and subscribe to my channel on youtube to get notified whenever the new videos come out!




Total Profit from Misc: $284.24





Revenue from Affiliate Income




Every month I receive random checks, paypal, dwolla and bank deposits, from my various affiliate sources and they are all starting to really add up. The best thing about earning money as an earnest affiliate is that all I have to do is take a minute to create a trackable affiliate link whenever recommending someone a book, product or service to use. 

I show my personal dashboards inside five full length case studies of the top earners I promote inside my course. But here's a sneak peek at a few of my payments from this month, if you want to see more you need to be a paid member of my course: Earnest Affiliate.


The company I used to form my LLC - See my Resources page

Affiliate payments from products sold on Amazon



Total Profit from Affiliate Income: $10,090.47




Revenue from my Affiliate Course 




I've been focusing most of my energy these past few months on building up my own affiliate income so I could be case study for the members of my course while giving the first 100 members of Earnest Affiliate a chance to build their websites and blogs from scratch and catch up.

Recently I've realized, I need to laser focus on what type of members I want inside EA so I can better serve everyone. Expect a ton of updates and big things coming to Earnest Affiliate these next upcoming months now that I'm armed with survey responses on what my members, like, dislike, and what needs to be changed or improved. I've sent a personal email to every member who didn't give the course a 9 or 10 and isn't completely delighted to find out how I can improve it! A big thanks to everyone who loved it so far! 

Check out the course for yourself at Earnest Affiliate and sign up to be a member if you want to learn how to monetize your web traffic earnestly and honestly! 

Here's what Earnest Affiliate members have to say about the course so far:  




Total Profit from EA: $1,332.60





Get Ready.....Go!




Total Profit for February: $19,466.71





Total Monthly Expenses




Having online income is great, but the benefit really comes when you use location arbitrage to bootstrap earnings into savings. Even while traveling around SE Asia going to weddings in Vietnam and scuba diving on tropical islands, I still manage to save 80% of my income most months living and working as a digital nomad.


Living Expenses: 

Rent in Chiang Mai: $342 a month
Rent on Koh Lanta: $421.04 this month

Utilities: $15.62 a month 
Internet/Phone: $16.85 a month 

Coworking Space: $168.35 (KoHub)

Food: $500 +/-
Other/Misc: $400 +/- 

Travel:

Flight: Chiang Mai to Saigon: $133.59
Vietnam Visa: $35
Hotel (Townhouse 23): $20

Flight: Saigon to Wedding: $83.11
Hotel (The Seagull): $165.45

Flight: Wedding to Saigon: $108.30
Hotel (Saigon Backpackers): $33.29

Flight: Saigon to Krabi: $73
Scuba Diving: Free! 


Other

Donation to Muay Thai Isaan
Donation to Donors Choose
Monthly Check to Parents ($1,000)

Total: $2,515.16


Actual Living Expenses: $1,515.16





In Depth Video Explainer:







Watch the video above for a more detail and explanation of this month's income report, expenses and travel plans. 

Hope you enjoyed this month's income report. If you haven't already, I highly encourage you to read my latest book Life Changes Quick as it really explains how I shifted my mindset from broke to successful. 

Best of luck to everyone in your journey's this month! I'd love to hear what you are up to so leave a comment below! 


Warm Regards,

Johnny


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Post a Comment

  1. I'm about to go read the 30 day store challenge again. What do you think makes your 30 day challenge store a success? Do you think it is something about the nature of the niche (weaker competition or something else)? Or do you have great suppliers that give you great margins that allow for healthy profits after ad spend? You seem to have a great success rate in creating successful stores, so I am trying to gain some insight.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hey Php, I think even before choosing the niche we just spend enough time doing proper research and thinking outside the box before diving in and selling what other everyone else is already selling.

      My success is mainly based on trying, trying, failing, trying, and then finding something that works. We ended up dropping 4 of our suppliers because the products weren't profitable enough, shipping was a pain in the butt, or for other reasons. You just need to follow the system.

      Delete
    2. Hey Johnny, when you select a niche, did you consult it with anton or his team? I have recently receive an email that the DSL 4 include 1-1 consultant with him and his team, did you have that kind of coaching when you purchase the course?

      Delete
    3. Yup, I ran my niche across Anton first and he basically confirms that it fits the criteria, and that it has a good shot at being successful. But he also warns you that you never know and some niches he thought were going to be terrible ended up being really successful, so just follow the system, and as long as it fits just go for it.

      Delete
  2. Just read through the 30 day challenge posts. I learned that your niche was kind of untested in terms of having other dropshippers in the niche. Does that mean there were very few people advertising those products in the PLAs? Also, were your suppliers giving you MAP pricing or non-MAP pricing where you had to try to determine the correct pricing?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I think the best thing about our niche is that we weren't trying to copy someone else. Going through our list of 50+ possible niches and researching all of them, the one we settled with fit all of Anton's criteria except the fact that there were no other dropshippers selling them online.

      There were a few other online stores, but they didn't look like typical Shopify stores so it wasn't tested yet.

      But since I wanted to make it big or go home, we figured there would be less competition running ads and we could sell for full MSRP and not even have to sell for the minimum allowable selling price (MAP)

      I go through my niche selection process in my Jump Start course that I give away for free to people who join Anton's course through my link (www.AntonMethod.com)

      Delete
  3. So totally cool that in this age of children moving back in with their parents or having them pay all/part of their student loan debt (much less what they contributed during actual college) that you are actually sending your parent a regular check instead. Plus congrats on crushing it once again on income!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hey thanks so much Igallion. If you've read Life Changes Quick, you'll know that I was pretty damn close to being one of those kids to move back in with his parents if I didn't figure all of this online business stuff out!

      Delete
  4. Great post again Johnny. I like what you're doing with your course.
    Scuba diving for free huh. Are you going out from the coast?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hey thanks Bauke! Glad you think it's a good idea as well! I got to dive for free as a divemaster but I think I'm just gonna pay for it when my cousin gets into town as it's a pain in the pass waking up at 5:30am to setup the boat just to save some money.

      Delete
  5. No comment apart from well done, one day I'll get there I hope!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks buddy! Keep following the journey, and keep doing the steps yourself and you'll get there as well!

      Delete
  6. Hi Johnny,

    Way to kill it this month. I have a question in regards to affiliates. If I wanted to be an affiliate for clothing retailers, would it be best to sign-up for each one to maximize profit potential or would it be smarter to go with an affiliate company who has a portfolio of clothing retailers?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hey Logan, thanks for the support! Inside my course I tell my students not to go looking for products to sell but instead to simply see if brands you already use and recomend have affiliate programs.

      For example if shop most at Saks 5th Ave then hunt down which company they have an affiliate partnership with, in this case it would be FlexOffers.

      Hope that helps!

      Delete
  7. Johhny great post. I have a question regarding a great product I found though I am unsure which avenue to go down.
    I sourced it in Thailand, its great for shipping, (cheap, small), the margins are also quite good. I was selling it on Ebay which was going ok until I was flagged. It seems some Ebay jurisdictions consider my product a ''fashio accessory'' while others (USA which is my main customer base), call it a ''Medical device''.

    I am kind of stuck right now as it may not be drop shipping right now it is a great product for a starting point into ecommerce.

    Would you recommend me opening a Shopify store and try my luck at this method?

    Thanks man!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Amazon? Has way more customers than eBay & u can price higher.

      Can't see how a Shopify store would work for it to be honest. Also I would try not to focus fully on a product that sold in Thailand that everyone can get because they all get swarmed before long and sold by everyone cutting down the price to beat the next person making little money in the end, waste of time, ppl are so lazy here so is best to keep quiet about any products you have locally (I bet u have ppl looking to find your product now lol)

      Delete
    2. Yes I was thinking the same I just checked Amazon and it looks as though this product IS allowed there.
      The thing with this product is its not like a $2 thing from China. I had it priced around $25+ USD. I had very well written product descriptions and I think that helps when someone is buying online from an overseas country.

      But yes I have kept pretty quiet haha!

      Delete
    3. Yeah that helps for sure, opn Amazon especially, eBay is kind of like cheaper sells regardless so you will probably do better on Amazon I think.

      Keep it quiet though yeah lol. I had a product I was picking up last year for around $6, selling for $40-50 between a few small sellers. Soon others jumped on and started cutting price down to get sales, then Thai ppl came and made it much lower, so low that buyers dont care about description because its so cheap compared to other sellers, now it sells for about $8 everywhere lol. Not worth the time anymore. Ppl are stupid to compete on price, a bit of the higher price pie for everyone works out so much better, plus the perceived product value stays high. I wish you best of luck with yours, hope it goes well!

      Delete
  8. Absolutely man lowering the price is not a win for anybody selling. Thanks very much for your replies, good luck as well in your ventures!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Hi Johnny! Thanks for another post about income -- sounds very motivating! But one thing made me a little bit nervous, as I am in the very beginnig o f building my first store (joined DSL from your link):
    "everyone kept saying all the good niches were taken and that dropshipping was dead"
    Does that mean that new stores won't bring much $$$ since all the profitable niches are already taken? Feeling a little bit worried about that...

    Cheers,
    Alex

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hey Alex, glad my posts keep you motivated! Those are the people who have never done it themselves. There are still plenty of untapped niches that I hear about all of the time that I never would have thought of.

      See you inside the member forums and let me know how it goes!

      Delete
  10. Hey JFD - Great report as always! I can't ever decide whether it's the travel, or massive amounts of success I admire more about the way you handle your life... Keep it up!

    Added you to the income report list as always!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hey Carl, really happy to have you continue to follow the journey and share my income reports! I really dig your income report FAQ. Hope to run into you somewhere in the world one day!

      Delete

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