All told, I can link over a million dollars in online earnings over the years all back to the launch of this blog and the audience I built here years ago.

Besides building blogs, I’ve also bought and sold blogs over the years in various niches. I’ve had a six-figure blog exit and a few smaller exits.

Blogging today is much different than it was when I got started over a decade ago but it is still one of the best online business models especially if you don’t have a lot of money to start an online business.

You can start a blog for less than $100 with Bluehost.
Disclosure: As a Bluehost affiliate, I receive compensation if you purchase through this link

How To Start A Successful Blog

The three most important factors that will determine whether your blog will be financially successful or not come down to your niche selection, how you differentiate and your level of commitment.

How To Pick A Niche

Niche selection can be an entirely separate in-depth topic worth diving into more detail but for the purposes of this post, I’ll explain my niche selection process more simply:

I only like to enter niches that I’m interested in.

There are plenty of topics in the blogging space that can be more lucrative than others, but if you’re truly interested in being successful with blogging you have to enter a niche that you have a personal interest in or your chances of success will be dramatically reduced.

I have hired writers in the past to write for me in niches that I don’t care for, and this process can be successfully done at scale, but I’m going to assume that if you’re reading this guide that you’re going to start by working for yourself and you want to know how you can start a profitable blog without hiring help.

How To Differentiate

There are a lot of blogs, but there is always a way to enter a market if you can find a way to differentiate. When I am thinking about launching a new blog I always like to look at what everyone else is doing in the space. How long are their posts? How good is their content? Are there ways I can attack a niche from a different angle?

I’ll give you one example from a consumer technology review blog I sold in a six-figure exit:

Everyone else in the niche I entered was happy with simply creating review content without ever actually physically trying the products they were reviewing. So I decided to contact manufacturers in my niche and get them to send me demo products so that I could review. This helped me appear more like an expert in the space while earning valuable links from some very big websites even though I started out as a complete beginner.

How To Commit To Success

It is so incredibly easy to start a blog, as I’ll show you later in this post but it’s not easy to commit to blogging on a regular basis for a very long period of time.

The crazy thing about blogging is that as you continue to post on a regular basis and start to generate traffic you will find yourself working the same hours on your blog but making dramatically more income later on. The reason for this is because when you first start a blog, it’s hard to get initial traffic. Google takes a while to start sending you traffic but once you start getting the traffic it’s easier to start driving more over the long run.

Why You Should Use WordPress

There are many platforms that you can start a blog on, but WordPress is by far the leader and the only platform I recommend creating your blog with. I’ve personally been using WordPress since 2007 and roughly 30% of all websites are powered by WordPress.

Important Note: I don’t mean using WordPress.com to start a free blog that looks like yourrandomblog.wordpress.com

No. Don’t do that.

I’m talking about using a hosting provider that can host your website and install the free WordPress software for you like my preferred partner Bluehost (follow my tutorial below).

If you were thinking of using a free blogging platform to start out with the intention that you’ll eventually move over to your own domain name “after you find success” is the worst mistake you can make when you’re starting out.

It literally costs less than $100 to get a blog set up and running for an entire year.

Your startup costs for this business are already so small that it makes no sense at all to try and save money by starting with a free blog.

The main reason why you don’t want to start with a free blog is that you’ll end up wasting all of the early efforts on a free blog URL that you’ll just need to start over with on your own domain later anyway and this can set you back from a Google SEO perspective.

Here’s My Step By Step Process For Setting Up A WordPress Blog With Bluehost

Prefer watching a video? Watch this:

Step 1: Sign up for Bluehost

Go to Bluehost and sign up for “choice plus” plan as pictured below. If you ever want more than 1 website, the basic plan won’t work for you. The choice plus plan allows unlimited websites and comes with one free SSL cert as well which is a nice plus. The lowest price per month will be available on the 3 year plan, but if you want to start out by only signing up for 1 year you’re still looking at spending less than $100.

Step 2: Select a domain name

When you first sign up for Bluehost they will give you one free domain with your hosting plan. You can take advantage of this free domain and save an extra ~$10 versus buying the domain from a registrar like GoDaddy. I already use GoDaddy for most of my domain name needs, so in my case I just typed in the domain of something I already had. ListBeginner.com is the domain I selected and I’ll use this to publish some content around signing up for an email marketing platform.

If you are not using the free domain from Bluehost and you’re instead using a domain from a separate domain registrar like GoDaddy, you’ll need to log into GoDaddy and manually set your name servers to NS1.BLUEHOST.COM and NS2.BLUEHOST.COM. To do this, just find your domain in your domain list and click the nameservers field and change the nameservers over.

Step 3: Enter your info and select the package

After you enter your domain name, you’ll need to put in your personal information, select the package information and enter your payment method:

If you want to minimize your upfront expenses, select the 12-month package. Your monthly rate will be $7.95 per month which still comes out to less than $100 for 1 year of hosting. If you go with the 3-year package, your monthly rate will be $5.95 per month and you’ll end up just over $200.

You’ll be offered some package extras as well, but I skipped these because I can add them later if I need them. When you’re done entering your payment information you’ll move onto the next step.

Step 4: Create your password

The password you create here will allow you to access your Bluehost control panel where you can see all of the websites that you’ve created.

Step 5: Select a WordPress theme (optional)

Selecting a WordPress theme is optional and in my case, I skipped this step because you can always go back and select a theme later.

Step 6: Start using WordPress

When you finish picking a theme or skipping that step, your WordPress installation is complete.

Clicking the start building link will take you to your WordPress admin dashboard which will look like this:

I selected that I don’t need any help which then lets me see the WordPress admin dashboard:

Step 7: Set your domain as secure (optional but recommended)

If you selected the “choice plus” plan then you get one free SSL certificate included with your package. This should be on by default and I recommend using an SSL certificate for a few reasons. If you have an SSL cert installed on your website, Google Chrome lists your website as secure:

If you don’t have an SSL cert installed on your website, then Google Chrome will show that your website is not secure:

Having an SSL cert is also a Google ranking factor.

That’s it! It takes about 5 minutes to get started on Bluehost.

Click here to start your blog.

How do you make money from a blog?

Now that you’ve created your WordPress blog, how are you going to make money? During your niche research process, you’ve probably already got a general sense of how other websites in your space are competing and it’s easy to start with one of those strategies first.

Typically you can make money from a blog using one of four different ways:

1. Advertising e.g. Google Adsense

The easiest, but not necessarily the best, monetization method for bloggers is Google Adsense. The premise is very simple, advertisers bid for placements and as the publisher, you earn money from each click. What you can be paid per click will vary dramatically depending on your niche. I’ve had websites in more lucrative niches earn 10x what I make with another website that has comparable traffic levels.

How do you know if a niche is lucrative? You can search Google Adwords to get a sense for what advertisers pay for keywords related to your niche. The more they pay, the more likely you’ll be to earn more money in your niche.

Look at the bid prices on “credit cards” at $7.14 to $17.14:

Look at the bid prices on “celebrity news” at $.02 to $2.00:

Note: The most lucrative niches are typically the most competitive, so keep that in mind when you’re planning out your blog as well.

I’ve picked an extreme example here, but you can search this information easily in the Google Adwords keyword planner.

My very first check online came from Google Adsense way back in 2008 after I crossed the $100 threshold to receive my first check. I still make money from Google Adsense today, but other monetization methods provide me with more earnings. The process is as simple as applying for Google Adsense and once you’re approved, you pick out the size of ad units you want to use and put the code on your website. That’s it.

Placing your ads where visitors are most likely to look will give you the best results as people will be more likely to click those ads. When you get enough traffic (typically ~10,000+ unique visitors per month), you can use other CPC advertising networks to help place advertisements on your website for you. Sometimes you can earn more this way.

2. Affiliate marketing e.g. Amazon Associates

Affiliate marketing is very simple. You refer visitors to a specific product or service and you’re paid when the visitor takes an action that the affiliate program will pay you money for. Typically you’ll get paid a percentage of the sale when someone clicks your link and goes on to make a purchase on your website, but you can also be paid for things like referring someone to sign up for a website and entering their name and email address. There are numerous ways you can make money as an affiliate.

e.g. I’ve made a lot of money from the Amazon Associates program over the years:

Oldie but a goodie

Read my 20 tips on how to make money from Amazon Associates here.

Amazon’s affiliate program is very simple. Refer people to Amazon and if they buy something in the next 24 hours, you’ll earn a commission on that sale based on the category the product is sold in.

3. E-commerce e.g. Selling on Amazon

Selling physical products can be incredibly lucrative and one of the most common ways people get started in e-commerce today is by selling physical products on Amazon. We’ve got a brand that is currently doing six figures per month in revenue but five figures per month in profit. Check out this video where I talk about how to sell over $1 million on Amazon:

How does selling physical products relate to blogging? If you can build an audience and generate traffic for your blog, you can also develop physical products to sell to your audience. The best part is that if you’re generating free traffic from the content you create on your blog you’ve got a marketing channel for launching your physical products that most other competitors on Amazon simply aren’t going to have.

Selling on Amazon is one great channel, but you can also build your own Shopify store to sell physical products there as well.

4. Digital products e.g. Software or courses

I’ve generated millions of dollars in revenue from selling digital products over the years with the vast majority of those earnings coming from software I helped to co-create. I’ve also built information products and sold courses as well. The best part about blogging is the ability to build an audience and when you have an audience it makes things a lot easier.

e.g. The very first software product I co-created back in 2011 is a WordPress plugin called EasyAzon which makes it easier for you to create Amazon affiliate links inside WordPress. We have over 10,000+ websites still using the plugin today.

Check out EasyAzon here

In the case of EasyAzon, I marketed the software to the audience I built here on UpFuel.

The possibilities for digital products are endless and you can really start with something as simple as a $9 eBook if you really want to. If you can build an audience and find the problems that the members of your audience have and they’re willing to pay you to help provide a solution, you can create and sell a successful digital product whether it’s information or software.

How do you select a monetization method?

Every niche is different, but the best part about the four most common monetization methods I shared is that you can incorporate all of them in your blog if you want to. The key is to get to know the problems your audience are facing and to solve those problems. Your strategy can be as simple as creating more content that helps your audience and earning money via advertising from the traffic that you receive or you could dive deeper and create a full-fledged information course.

Don’t get caught up worrying about how you’re going to make money from your blog until you’ve launched it.

Start your WordPress blog today with Bluehost – Click Here.

See my completed website:

I created ListBeginner.com for the purposes of this guide. I’m in the process of building this website into a resource for people that want to get started building an email list but my strategy for monetizing this website is affiliate marketing. When someone visits the website and signs up for an email marketing solution I’ll earn a commission for referring that person.

Building an email list can be an incredibly powerful asset in your business. I’ve been actively adding email subscribers to my list since April 2009 and I can trace well over a million dollars in revenue back to my email list.

I will eventually create some more content for ListBeginner.com along with a mini-course, but I’ll be sure to keep you posted on what the earnings look like for this website.

Subscribe to my YouTube channel to see future updates about my earnings.

Ready to start?

Don’t give up before you get started. You’re guaranteed to fail if you never start.

Even 11 years after I got started, blogging is still a great way to get started online and you’ll risk less than $100 to get started.

Click here to sign up for Bluehost.

The post How to start a blog (and make money too) appeared first on Up Fuel.

Leveraging my past successes (example 1 and example 2) I was able to lean on a lot of my existing knowledge to quickly write and publish the book in roughly a week.

The main reason for publishing the Kindle book was to answer the simple question:

Can you make money with short Kindle books?

In first year I earned $4,534.41 while pricing the book for $2.99 most of the time. Not bad for one week of work but not exactly massive either.

Here’s the original chart I created for my 1 year income results blog post:

In my original results post I shared a goal to publish 50 Kindle books that generated $5,000+ a month by November 2014 so that I could add yet another income stream to the mix.

I never completed the 50 book goal in part because I stumbled upon selling physical products on Amazon and later devoted much of my time to building Salesbacker (SaaS for Amazon sellers) and AmaSuite (research tools for Amazon sellers).

I did go on to outsource book creation for 3 other book titles published under a pen name in a completely different niche but the income results were never really enough to justify spending much more time on it. I made a few thousand dollars or so.

So why am I writing this blog post today?

It’s been 4 years since I published the book and I wanted to share with you what the long term earning potential looks like for shorter self published book titles.

Here’s the income breakdown by year for this one Kindle book:

2012 Income: $1,118.94 (3 months)

Monthly Average: $372.98

2013 Income: $4,755.61*

Monthly Average: $396.30

2014 Income: $3,048.66*

Monthly Average: $254.06

2015 Income: $821.36

Monthly Average: $68.47

2016 Income: $232.05 (9 months)

Monthly Average: $25.78

Total: $9,976.32

The income total here only covers what I made from book sales, but the book has the additional benefit of helping get more people onto my email list and helped to further promote our WordPress plugin for Amazon affiliates – EasyAzon.

*Amazon changed their reporting in August 2014 and so October 2013 to August 2014 numbers may be slightly off. Did my best to recreate the earnings by month.

Why did the income fall off a cliff?

There were several reasons which contributed to the decline in book sales:

1. Stopped promoting the book

When I first launched the book I ran a few free and discount promotions, mailed my email list and pushed sales using outside traffic. This is a must if you want to generate sales for your book especially in the early days. Frankly I forgot about the book while being busy working on other much larger opportunities and for the past 2 years I’ve done zero promotion.

2. Competition increased

Over the past several years more authors wrote their own books covering this topic which lead to more competition for keyword rankings and fewer sales to go around for everyone. I’m sure I brought some of this competition upon myself with the original case study blog post. I don’t have historical data from when I first published my book but if you search Amazon Associates today and sort by books you’ll find a lot of titles published in the last several years.

3. Amazon changed how authors were paid

One major change Amazon implemented back in mid 2015 was to move from one system of payment called KOLL (Kindle Owners Lending Library) to KENP (Kindle Edition Normalized Pages Read). Amazon used to pay authors for readers that “borrowed” the book as their free title as a part of the Kindle unlimited program. Amazon likely realized that they could get by paying authors less and so they instead switched to a metric that’s related to how many pages are typically read for a book and then pay out based on that.

Here’s the difference from KOLL to KENP:

June 2015 I made $59.85 from this book. $27.08 of that total was from the KOLL program under the previous payout terms. July 2015 I made $40.38 from the book. Only $3.48 of that total was from the new KENP program.

By mid 2015 the book income had already dropped well off the years prior but this change accelerated the drop in income.

What is my advice for prospective authors?

Most non fiction authors of “real books” spend months or longer to write a book. I literally spent about a week putting the book together using content and past knowledge that I had already accrued so the process was incredibly simple.

If you’re trying to accomplish what most traditional non fiction authors are doing with their books to help secure speaking engagements or provide some other business benefit it makes sense to write a “real book”.

If you really want to write specifically for the Kindle market can you make $5,000 a month with 50 books? $10,000 a month?

Yah probably, but as someone that doesn’t particularly enjoy writing there are plenty of other great online business models for me to pursue.

BONUS: Want to learn everything I know about being an Amazon Affiliate in 2017?
Click here to download my ultimate Amazon Affiliate Course, along with EasyAzon Core for free.

The post How much money can a self published book make? (4 years later) appeared first on Up Fuel.

How To Get More Amazon Product Reviews:

The vast majority of my product reviews have come from emailing my Amazon customers to ask for a product review.

You can do this manually one by one (if you value your time at below minimum wage) or you can use software to automate this process which is precisely what we’ve done with the creation of Salesbacker (free trial link).

There were other tools on the market that were designed more for seller feedback, but I wanted something that was built for sellers that care about product reviews so I partnered up with a long time friend of mine and veteran startup developer to create this service.

How It Works In 3 Minutes:

We created Salesbacker to help sellers get more Amazon reviews and here’s how it does that:

What Should You Send To Your Customers?

I was invited onto my friend Scott’s podcast to discuss strategies to get more seller feedback and product reviews which you can listen to here, but here is the email sequence that I’ve used in the past.

I’m a big fan of incorporating humor into my emails ala $22 million dollar CD Baby style

Note: The mergetags listed below (e.g. *[product-name]*) will replace the relevant information from your products and customers automatically. You can get access to use this email campaign yourself when you sign up for Salesbacker via this free trial link.

Email 1: Sent after an order is placed:

Subject: Thank you for your *[product-name]* purchase!

Body: Hello *[buyer-first-name]*,

Thank you for purchasing your *[product-name]*. This is the first of three emails you will receive to ensure proper delivery and satisfaction.

*[order-link:Your order can be viewed on Amazon.com here]*

We value your complete satisfaction and strive to offer a high quality product and service. We will personally follow up with Amazon to make sure your brand new product is delivered in a timely manner.

If for whatever reason you have any issues receiving your product, don’t worry, we have you covered. Reply to this email or contact Amazon customer service right away at:

*[amazon-customer-service-link]*

While you wait for your item to be delivered, please find a stranger to high five. It will make their day and you’ll enjoy it too.

Thank you again for your purchase.

Sincerely,
Name
Customer Service

Email 2: Sent 5 days after an order is shipped:

Subject: How is your *[product-name]* working for you?

Body: Hello *[buyer-first-name]*,

This is the second of three emails you will receive from us. By now Amazon should have delivered your brand new *[product-name]*. Remember, if you have any issues whatsoever, please reply to this email or contact Amazon Customer Service (they are very helpful and speedy) at:

*[amazon-customer-service-link]*

We are a growing company and appreciate every purchase. We strive to ensure that all of our customers are completely satisfied, and it is our hope that you truly are.

2 Minute Favor To Ask

If the product has met or exceeded your expectations we would love to hear about it. Please spread the word by leaving a review (it will only take 2 minutes and it is very much appreciated).

Feel free to comment on how the product is working for you, and our customer service. Your feedback helps ensure we keep doing things right. You can create your review here:

*[product-review-link:Write your review here]*
(We will thank you profusely and even find a homeless kitten to hug on your behalf)

Again, if there are any issues with the product, please reply to this email or contact Amazon Customer Service before leaving a review, so we can take care of any issues first:

*[amazon-customer-service-link]*

Sincerely,
Name
Customer Service

Email 3: Sent 10 days after an order is shipped:

Subject: [Last Email] Dedicated To Your Experience!

Body: Hello *[buyer-first-name]*,

This will be our final email to you regarding your brand new *[product-name]*. If you have not already left a review on our product we’d really appreciate you doing that. We take all reviews seriously and want to ensure orders are processed promptly and shipments arrive as promised.

We strive for a high quality product and customer experience. If you have just 2 minutes to spare and are enjoying your product please do leave us a review here:

*[product-review-link:Write your review here]*
(For each review we receive we will find a public place to spontaneously dance in your honor)

Lastly, if there are any issues with the product, please reply to this email directly or contact Amazon Customer Service before leaving a review so we can take care of any issues first:

*[amazon-customer-service-link]*

Thank you and please have a fantastically glorious day. Again, this is the last email you will receive from us so we really do hope you’re enjoying your purchase.

Sincerely,
Name
Customer Service

Overall

I’ve been spending a lot of my time on Salesbacker.com with helping users, working with my co-founder on taking user feedback and incorporating into the product and more.

This is a relatively new company, but we’re growing quickly (much faster than I expected) and it’s been a lot of fun.

If you sign up for Salesbacker let me know what you think and likewise be sure to listen to the podcast episode I recorded with Scott which goes more in depth into strategies to get more seller feedback and product reviews on Amazon.

I will have a lot more to share on the Amazon selling front soon…

Try Salesbacker free for 60 days here

The post How to get more Amazon product reviews appeared first on Up Fuel.

Find any bugs? Let me know in the comments below

The post New Name New Look appeared first on Up Fuel.

Also – after 6 months of being closed we are finally reopening our Amazon coaching group on April 22nd. Have questions about selling on Amazon? We’re hosting a Q&A session on Thursday, April 16th at 6:30 PM pacific.

Missed the other updates? Read these first:
Month #1, Month #2, Month #3, Month #4, Month #5, Month#6, Month#7

March 2015 Report:

[yellowbox]BONUS: Click here to access your free video trainingon how to create a 6 figure plus Amazon FBA business in your spare time.
This step by step guide is the exact formula I’ve used to create my Amazon business[/yellowbox] After taking a small dip in February (and with 3 less days compared to January) we finished even stronger in March with total sales of $36,561.93 – yah that’s a gain of over $15,000 compared to February:

To be completely transparent and for verification purposes I also like to film a quick video walk through of my numbers as well:

I had around 40 percent profit margins on that number (after inventory costs, FBA fees, Amazon ad spend etc) which comes out to roughly $15,000 profit.

Ongoing Monthly Amazon Charts:

36.5% of the way to my goal

My goal has been to hit $100,000+ per month in revenue and with March results I’m 36.5% of the way there. I have another 9 months in the year to make up the other 63.5% of that number.

What’s stopping me from hitting $100,000+ per month and beyond faster?

Selling $36.5k+ worth of physical products with 40% margins gives me close to $15,000 in profit for the month (on a side business!).

You think I’d be pretty pleased right? Of course I am.

But this business could be even bigger if I had more time to devote to it.

In total I spent maybe 5 – 10 hours a week on the business for the month of March.

It will sound like the worst “first world entrepreneur problem” but even though this business made close to $15,000 in profit for the month of March our other businesses did even better (by a lot). So the only solution to keep my family happy so I’m not working too many hours and to continue growing this business will be to cut back on some other things or hire another apprentice.

Perhaps the person I’m looking to hire will be you?

I’ll be recording a more in depth podcast to provide an update on what I need to do about this business very soon and share some updates with you as well. For now feel free to listen to my original podcast here.

Common Question: How did I get started?

The short answer is that I created my own brand of products to sell on Amazon. I recorded a podcast which provides a great overview of the business model and how it works which you can listen to here. But I got started because podcast 17 guest Brian told me about this business model and how he learned how to do it. I went through the same course he learned from and then took action with the information.

Want Us To Help You Build This Business?

I run a mastermind group with a friend where we teach others how to build Amazon businesses (Brian from Podcast 17).

Our coaching group is currently closed but we’ll open the group again for the first time in 6 months on April 22nd, 2015 (Hey that’s this month!). This will be your last chance to join before the group closes down again for an unforeseen period of time.

Here’s A Few Screenshots From Our Coaching Group

Earlier this week I tossed up a quick post asking for people to share their screenshots and here’s what a few people posted. Not everyone is active every single day or even every week so we’re missing a ton of people. But here are just some of who you’d get to rub shoulders with when you join our group on April 22nd:

Full names blacked out for privacy. I only share full names when people have given permission (e.g. this podcast for example)

Here are a couple other earlier shared screenshots:

Brunno quit his job earlier this year – boo yah

and another

Hah Stephen burning me – zing!

Our group opens on April 22nd if you’d like help from myself, Brian and all of these fine folks who I’m happy to call friends and helpful colleagues.

Waiting list sign up here

Thursday, April 16th 6:30 PM Q&A Session

Note: We are most likely going to cap the number of people we let in this time around as our group keeps growing every time. We had ~50 people in our first group, ~120 in our second group and I expect we’ll have even more this time because what do you think happens each time we open the group?

We get better at teaching people. We get better exclusive software tools etc. etc.

Register for our free Q&A webinar to learn more about selling on Amazon

Analysis Of March Results

March was again a lazy month for me in this business as I was focused on the public release of AmaSuite v4 and other projects. Since I have only recently come to the conclusion that in order to really grow this business I’m going to need to hire someone else onto our team or make some drastic changes personally I didn’t really get a lot done for the month of March.

My objectives for March from last month were:

Objective 1: Find two new suppliers

Didn’t do this yet as I’m trying to decide on a new product line and potential extra pillar of products for the company.

Objective 2: Try something to market my product(s) besides relying on Amazon (round 4)

I could say the same thing I did in my last report, but I’ve literally meant to do something else besides relying on Amazon based marketing for over 150 days now. I’m still just getting traffic from Amazon to drive my sales. I’m just going to remove this from my list of objectives for the month because it’s embarrassing. I’ll share when I have some results.

Obviously not every product release works like this, but I’ve got a long list of unique marketing strategies that I can employ beyond Amazon.

My One Thing For April 2015 – (My New Approach)

Objective 1: Find one new supplier

I’m going to make this goal easier on myself and just go for one supplier because we’re going to be very busy with our new group starting up on April 22nd. I can easily contact some suppliers, get some samples and settle on a new supplier before the end of the month so that’s what I’ll set out to do.

My Long Term 2015 Goal:

I’m still confident that before the end of 2015 I’ll have at least one $100,000 month in sales, but because of the other businesses I’m involved with and the lack of time I have available it’s become clear in the first quarter of 2015 that I’m going to need some help if I want to more quickly grow the business. Looking forward to hiring someone most likely in May.

If you have any questions, comments or feedback I’d love to hear them.
[yellowbox]BONUS: Click here to access your free video trainingon how to create a 6 figure plus Amazon FBA business in your spare time.
This step by step guide is the exact formula I’ve used to create my Amazon business[/yellowbox]

The post March 2015 Amazon Income Report #8 appeared first on Up Fuel.

Missed the other updates? Read these first:
Month #1, Month #2, Month #3, Month #4, Month #5, Month#6

February 2015 Report:

[yellowbox]BONUS: Click here to access your free video training on how to create a 6 figure plus Amazon FBA business in your spare time.
This step by step guide is the exact formula I’ve used to create my Amazon business[/yellowbox] Alas, I fell short of surpassing my January sales but with 3 less days in February it was still close. I ended the month with total sales of $21,492.55:

To be completely transparent and for verification purposes I also like to film a quick video walk through of my numbers as well:

I had around 40 percent profit margins on that number (after inventory costs, FBA fees, Amazon ad spend etc).

Ongoing Monthly Amazon Charts:

New Barrier Crossed: $100,000+ in total sales

If I accomplish my ambitious 2015 goal these sales will only look like a small blip

I crossed another new benchmark this month with over $100,000 in total sales. Exciting!

Common Question: How do I actually make money selling physical products on Amazon?

The short answer is that I created my own brand of products to sell on Amazon. I recorded a podcast which provides a great overview of the business model and how it works which you can listen to here. But I got started because podcast 17 guest Brian told me about this business model and how he learned how to do it. I went through the same course he learned from and then took action with the information.

Want To Learn How To Do This?

I run a mastermind group with a friend where we teach others how to build Amazon businesses (Brian from Podcast 17).

Our coaching group is currently closed but we’ll open the group again on April 22nd, 2015. This will be your last chance to join the group before the group closes down again for an unforeseen period of time.

Next month I’ll post more screenshots from our successful students. We had yet again more people pass me in monthly sales. Aaargh – I gotta catch up with the people I’m supposed to be teaching! Hah, in all seriousness I get a lot of personal fulfillment out of helping people in our group and I also learn a lot from them as well.

Waiting list to work with us is here.

Analysis Of February Results

February was a bit of a lazy month for me because everyone takes off for Chinese New Year in February. My suppliers were off for a couple weeks, but now that they’re back I’m going to get more orders in and start work on more new products. For obvious reasons I won’t be sharing precisely how many products I have at any one time but I’ve said all along my strategy has been to have a lot of products.

Ultimately I’m sure as I launch more products some will be fantastic, some will be just alright and some will flop. The best part is that all I’m doing is reinvesting profits to place more investments in developing new products.

My objectives for February from last month were:

Objective 1: Create listing for new product

I’m done with this and have more listings to create in March.

Objective 2: Try something to market my product(s) besides relying on Amazon (round 3)

This is laughable. I’ve had this on my list now for literally over 120 days. I’m still just getting traffic from Amazon to drive my sales. I have a plan in place to execute on this strategy, but as I’ve said before this is just one of four businesses I’m involved in (and it’s not really close to the biggest). I’m going to actually execute on this strategy in March.

My Plan For March 2015

Objective 1: Find two new suppliers

This is a business of finding great suppliers as much as it is of finding a great product to sell. Finding two suppliers is actually a tall order, but I have a few new product ideas and simply need to walk through the steps of speaking with new suppliers again. I have the funds available from the success of the business thus far to drop a significant amount into more inventory so I’ll likely place larger inventory orders for the new products I launch.

If you’re new you don’t have to start with a lot of inventory (my very first order was only 500 units and I originally planned on only doing 250 units) but with my aggressive growth goals I need to get more products out the door quickly so I can focus my efforts on marketing them.

Objective 2:  Try something to market my product(s) besides relying on Amazon (round 4)

I’m actually going to do it this time – really

My Long Term 2015 Goal:

I’m still confident that before the end of 2015 I’ll have at least one $100,000 month in sales. Again, I’d like to hit the $100k mark before November though since the holidays is sort of cheating with people buying anything and everything.

Need help finding a product or market to target on Amazon?

We’ve already created tools to help you find the right product to sell.

Check out a preview and join the wait list here.

If you have any questions, comments or feedback I’d love to hear them.

The post February 2015 Amazon Income Report #7 appeared first on Up Fuel.

At the last event in July 2014 we did a private dinner, but we felt we could provide more value to our members by doing an in person full day event so that’s what we did this time.

This was the first event we’d ever done so I know we made a few mistakes but ultimately I think the event was a success. Here’s what I learned.

How to host a live event

[yellowbox]BONUS: Click here to access your free video training on how to create a 6 figure plus Amazon FBA business in your spare time.
This step by step guide is the exact formula I’ve used to create my Amazon business[/yellowbox] Note: If you’re looking for advice on how to sell tickets to an entirely brand new event that isn’t what this post is designed to cover, but instead I want to point out a few logistical lessons and failures on my end so that you keep them in mind in case you do an event in the future.

Step 1: Determine how many people will attend

We knew back in October that we would be doing a live event in February but what we didn’t know was how many people would be there. Based on our numbers for the dinner we did in July 2014 we had roughly half of the people that joined the group came out to meet in person.  We started conversations with hotels in Vegas based on those preliminary numbers of half the people that joined our group in October 2014 making it out to meet in person in February.

To lock in your numbers you should charge something for the ticket even if you give the money back at the door (which is what our intent was). Our live event is a free bonus for joining the group so it’s a unique situation where we give back the cost of the ticket and charge a relatively low $100 non refundable ticket fee (to get a more accurate count on our numbers).

If we had people “buy” free tickets the tendency would be to take a ticket even if they may not be able to make it to the event (I’d probably do the same thing).

Step 2: Determine your venue

My jokes killed it

We did our event at the Wynn in Las Vegas the day before the main ASM event began, but we contacted all of the other major hotels and casinos near the Venetian (where the main ASM event was taking place). The Venetian said they were full and that they couldn’t confirm if there would be meeting space for us until only 30 days before our event date – which wasn’t really acceptable as I wanted people in our group to be able to plan ahead and know what we were doing so we had to look at other nearby venues.

The most surprising thing I noticed was just how wildly the pricing varies mainly because some venues required a food and beverage minimum. Most places we spoke with had a minimum of over $5,000 (even for a group our size of ~70 people).

We went with the Wynn in part because there wasn’t a massive food and beverage minimum (just a room rental fee) but we still paid for a camera operator and audio engineer for the full 9 – 5 session our live event ran for.

Step 3: Determine your room set up

There are a lot of questions you need to answer from the perspective of both the presenters and the audience such as:

How many and what types of mics do you need? Do you require a stage? Will there be a podium? Will there be a table with chairs so you can run a panel? How will the audience be seated? Will they have tables? Will they have notepads? etc etc

We used a small stage and a podium with a table and four chairs for the Q&A panels. On either side of the stage we had projector screens with our slides (when applicable).

It’s a lot of work to walk through the details but fortunately the event planner I worked with was really good.

Step 4: Market and sell tickets

I mentioned this before, but we didn’t have to go out and market our event because it was a bonus for the people that joined the group.

To make it simple we used Brown Paper Tickets to sell our tickets. Very easy to set up, but they do require that you have your venue location set before you can sell tickets (makes sense).

All we had to do was make a post in our private Facebook group and mail our email list to sell our tickets.

How the event went:

The bulk of the speaking was split between Brian and I, but we also had two Q&A panels where two groups of four successful sellers came up to answer questions about their businesses (we didn’t have enough time or room to bring all the successful sellers up).

We went from 9 AM to 5 PM with a break in the middle for lunch.

I can’t share the specific  topics we covered but based on the feedback I received from our group overall the event was pretty well received. It’s nice to connect and meet people face to face in our group, discuss their businesses and see how we can help each other.

Here’s what we messed up:

This is my favorite part because I can highlight some of the things we failed on that at the time were easily overlooked.

A: Didn’t have the right video cable. When they said there would be an HDMI hookup at the podium I didn’t think to ask if it was a male or female hookup and we had the wrong cable. Had to pay $100 or something to rent a different cable.

B. Rented too many mics. We had 5 wireless mics and a podium mic. 4 wireless mics were for the panels that we did where we brought up successful sellers from our group, but in hindsight they could have just passed the mic down or we could have had 2 mics for the 4 panelists. We also had a 5th mic to use for audience questions but that never works, in a smaller setting because people just ask from their seat so don’t bother with an audience mic.

C. Recorded in an older video format. I’m not a very big video / audio guy so I should have been more clear in indicating that during the initial planning stages. The event was recorded using MiniDV as a format and then I had to borrow someone’s camera to transfer the footage to my computer to edit. Next time I’d rather just record in a digital only format and also have someone else edit.

D. Wasn’t clear about refreshments. I thought we’d just have water and coffee, but when I got to the room we also had water bottles and soda (the water bottles were not really necessary when we already had water carafes in the back with cups). Spent nearly $1000 on soda and water bottles. Not a big deal but worth mentioning if you’re on a tight budget because you will likely be charged on usage.

E. Video guy recorded the presenter only. The video guy asked me what to record and I told him the presenter(s) but in hindsight I should have told him to record the presenter and one of the screens that had our slides when applicable. This was dumb because for the recordings we had to upload the slides which made it a bit more difficult for people watching replays to follow along.

How much did it cost to host an event in Las Vegas for ~70 people and what’s my overall assessment?

Not sure if I can disclose the exact price but it was thousands of dollars. Room rental, two hotel employees to run the equipment and refreshments.

We could have done the event for less money if we recorded ourselves but because we had people that couldn’t make it to the live event I wanted to make sure everything went smoothly.

Overall I really enjoyed the process. I’m used to doing podcasts and other forms of public speaking, but standing up behind a podium isn’t something I do all that often so it was a lot of fun. I think I’ll do it some more…

What’s next?

I’ve already got ideas to make our next event even better and I’m looking forward to it.

We did our event the day before the main ASM event began so immediately following our event were three more days of epic learning and fun. I really enjoyed going to lunches and dinners with people in our mastermind and talking about their businesses.

(Read my post from the last event for more details on how the ASM live event is like).

Bonus: I also got to (briefly) meet Richard Branson.

Boo yah:

Hello Sir

Note: Our Amazon ecommerce coaching group will be opening again on April 22nd if you want to join the wait list here.

The post What I learned from hosting our first live event appeared first on Up Fuel.

Missed the other updates? Read these first:
Month #1, Month #2, Month #3, Month #4, Month #5

January 2015 Report:

[yellowbox]BONUS: Click here to access your free video training on how to create a 6 figure plus Amazon FBA business in your spare time.
This step by step guide is the exact formula I’ve used to create my Amazon business[/yellowbox] I ended the month with total sales of $26,527.41:

To be completely transparent and for verification purposes I also like to film a quick video walk through of my numbers as well:

I had around 40 percent profit margins on that number (after inventory costs, FBA fees, Amazon ad spend etc). So $10k+ in profit roughly.

Amazon also messed up and lost some of my inventory and so that contributed another $2k profit on top of the $10k (but if they find the items they will give them back and I’ll have to give back the $2k).

Why no exact number? Inventory purchases month to month can skew numbers e.g. 30% down payment one month and 70% the next month.

Five figure profit month? Sure I’ll take it

Ongoing Monthly Amazon Charts:

My first sale came on July 28th. To keep it simple I removed July from the chart.

Common Question: How do I actually make money selling physical products on Amazon?

The short answer is that I created my own brand of products to sell on Amazon. I recorded a podcast which provides a great overview of the business model and how it works which you can listen to here. But I got started because podcast 17 guest Brian told me about this business model and how he learned how to do it. I went through the same course he learned from and then took action with the information.

Want To Learn How To Do This?

I run a mastermind group with a friend where we teach others how to build Amazon businesses (Brian from Podcast 17). In fact, on February 4th we just got done with our very first live event. I had a blast presenting and teaching folks how to build their Amazon businesses:

I’m getting ready to say something funny

Our coaching group is currently closed but we’ll open the group again on April 22nd, 2015. This will be your last chance to join the group before the group closes down again for an unforeseen period of time.

Waiting list to work with us is here.

More $5k Club Members

We have several more entrants to the $5k per month club. These three are just the most recent ones I took screenshots of. They all came from our last mastermind group (which opened in late October). Names blacked out for obvious reasons.

*AzonLaunch is our private to coaching members only launching platform that helps a product get initial sales, reviews and can help kick start organic natural sales.

There were actually several more that surpassed $5k in sales that I spoke with, had lunch / dinner etc with in Vegas last week but they just haven’t posted stats yet. It’s so fun being a part of their success even if it’s a small part.

Analysis Of January Results

Double digit growth numbers again over December stats. Breaking the $25k mark puts me closer to my 2015 goal. January also marked my first five figure profit month.

January was a very busy month with the launch of EasyAzon v4 as well.

My objectives for January from last month were:

Objective 1: Create listing for new product

I didn’t do this, but I will in February. Moving forward I won’t be sharing the exact total number of products I have though.

Objective 2: Try something to market my product(s) besides relying on Amazon (round 2)

Hah, this has been on my list for over 90 days. I’m still just getting traffic from Amazon to drive my sales. February is a busy month for the other 3 businesses I’m involved in but I may get to this.

My Long Term 2015 Goal:

I’m confident that before the end of 2015 I’ll have at least one $100,000 month in sales. I’d like to hit the $100k mark before November though since the holidays is sort of cheating with people buying anything and everything.

For the first month of the year I’m already off to a good start at 25% of my goal. I will keep executing on my long term growth plans and have a ton of fun doing it too.

Need help finding a product or market to target on Amazon?

We’ve already created tools to help you find the right product to sell.

Check out a preview and join the wait list here.

If you have any questions, comments or feedback I’d love to hear them.
[yellowbox]BONUS: Click here to access your free video training on how to create a 6 figure plus Amazon FBA business in your spare time.
This step by step guide is the exact formula I’ve used to create my Amazon business[/yellowbox]

The post January 2015 Amazon Income Report #6 appeared first on Up Fuel.

We also run a mastermind group where my friend and I teach others how to build Amazon businesses (Brian from Podcast 17). Waiting list here (Opens April 22nd).

Missed the other updates? Month #1, Month #2, Month #3, Month #4

December 2014 Report:

[yellowbox]BONUS: Click here to access your free video training on how to create a 6 figure plus Amazon FBA business in your spare time.
This step by step guide is the exact formula I’ve used to create my Amazon business[/yellowbox] I ended the month with total sales of $20,326.61:

To be completely transparent and for verification purposes I also like to film a quick video walk through of my numbers as well:

For this month I played with my pricing a bit and was slightly lower so it’s closer to 40 percent profit margins on that number (after inventory costs, FBA fees, Amazon ad spend etc). So $8k+ in profit roughly.

Why no exact number? Inventory purchases month to month can skew numbers e.g. 30% down payment one month and 70% the next month.

As I like to point out, the 2012 median household income in the US is $51,107 and in my third month I was already on track to surpass that which I’ve continued in this month.

This is all still with only one product. What do you think will happen when I start to launch more products?

Ongoing Monthly Amazon Charts:

My first sale came on July 28th. To keep it simple I removed July from the chart.

Common Question: How do I actually make money selling physical products on Amazon?

The short answer is that I created my own brand of products to sell on Amazon. I recorded a podcast which provides a great overview of the business model and how it works which you can listen to here. But I got started because podcast 17 guest Brian told me about this business model and how he learned how to do it. I went through the same course he learned from and then took action with the information.

Our coaching group / mastermind are currently closed but we’ll open the group again on April 22nd 2015. This will be your last chance to join the group and learn from the same course I learned from. Waiting list to work with us is here.

December 2014: Schooled By A Mastermind Member

Martin, one of our mastermind group member posted his Amazon income results and while I knew he was selling on Amazon I had no idea how well he was doing. He absolutely crushed me in December with roughly 20x my sales. Yah not 2x. Twenty times my sales.

To my knowledge this was the first sales stat screenshot Martin posted in our private Facebook group. He started the exact same time as me (ASM3), learned from the exact same course as I did and (presumably) went after a higher competition market than I did. So happy he has found success at this magnitude so quickly.

Obviously his results are not typical, but it goes to show you what is possible.

Analysis Of December Results

I’m very pleased with the 70% increase in sales I saw over November numbers. Breaking the $20k mark is what I was looking to accomplish before year end and so far January is off to a great start as well. I dropped my price a bit so my profit margins were a bit lower but at roughly 40% still who cares. I’ll gladly push more volume, get more reviews and make more money overall than at a higher price point.

My objectives for December from last month were:

Objective 1: Decide on supplier for future product

I’m happy to say that I did place my 30% down payment with my new second supplier for a new product. Moving forward I won’t be revealing precisely how many products I’m selling other than a close range so when it happens I’ll just say that I’m selling more than one. My strategy long term has always been to launch more products and I’m happy to be moving in that direction. I’d like to get to the point where I’m launching at least one new product every single month for 2015. I may need to hire someone to help me accomplish this goal though.

Objective 2: Try something to market my product(s) besides relying on Amazon

Another month and I’ve still done nothing to market my product outside of the Amazon platform. I was very busy with other projects and didn’t have a chance to experiment.

My plan for January 2015:

Objective 1: Create listing for new product

It’s been a while since I’ve created a new listing, but I want to finish that up well before the product even ships out of China. My release date is most likely in February.

Objective 2: Try something to market my product(s) besides relying on Amazon (round 2)

I have some free time in January so I want to focus on this.

My Long Term 2015 Goal:

This business will exceed $100,000 per month before the end of 2015. So I’m confident that before the end of 2015 I’ll have at least one $100,000 month in sales. December I was already 20% of the way there and granted it was a holiday sales month that was still only one product. My plan to launch multiple products will help get me to this mark.

Need help finding a product or market to target on Amazon?

If only there were software tools that could help you with the most crucial part of this business:

Finding the right product to sell

We already have them. These tools will be available publicly again in late January or early February at a discount rate.

Check out a preview and join the wait list here.

If you have any questions, comments or feedback I’d love to hear them.
[yellowbox]BONUS: Click here to access your free video training on how to create a 6 figure plus Amazon FBA business in your spare time.
This step by step guide is the exact formula I’ve used to create my Amazon business[/yellowbox]

The post December Amazon Income Report #5 appeared first on Up Fuel.

Personal Wins In 2014:

My wife and I struggled for years trying to get pregnant (something that a surprising number of other couples face as well).

Ultimately the long journey eventually lead to to two different doctors and several rounds of in vitro fertilization. We finally found success with Pacific Northwest Fertility and I’m very thankful that something – anything – finally worked.

Most couples that struggle with infertility do so in silence, so I wanted to briefly touch on that and if you’re reading this and are going through the same struggle please do reach out to friends and family. It will help.

Now that we have twin newborns how do I work from home?

I’ve worked from home ever since I got fired from my job over 5 years ago, so going into 2014 with the extra responsibility of helping to care for two newborns was a big challenge. We intentionally purchased a home well below our means back in late 2012, but it’s easy to see how an office far away from the rest of the house is something I’d like if I want to continue working from home. I did come up with a solution though.

Here’s how I did it…

Noise Isolating Headphones:

There is a big difference between noise cancelling headphones where they can filter out the same continual noise that comes when you’re sitting on an airplane vs crying babies which varies in frequency and intensity (won’t be blocked out).

Noise isolating headphones help to physically block out other sounds which makes them perfect for blocking out crying babies. When combined with the finest Ronald Jenkees, Blackmill, Lindsey Sterling, Ratatat and other beat focused music Pandora has to offer I was far less distracted than when I wasn’t using headphones.

I bought these V-MODA headphones for under $150

My long term plan is to create true separation between work and personal life

I’d like to be able to walk out of my office and into the house where I physically can’t work. When we move to our next house, I’m going to build an external office like this:

Ever since I saw one of these I’ve been obsessed with them. I may not be able to wait until we move to buy an office like this, so if we find one that is portable I may buy early. Suggestions for a Washington resident? Plenty of fantastic ideas here by the way.

Personal Investing Wins And Plans:

I’m going to stick with WealthFront for my retirement account and will bring my 2014 SEP IRA contributions up to the max of $52,000 for the year (this value is capped based on a percentage of your income).

I’ve also enjoyed using Personal Capital to monitor the growth of my investments. Awesome free tool that’s very similar to Mint.

In 2015 or 2016 I’d like to buy my first real estate investment, but instead of starting off with a rental house I’d like to go straight for an apartment complex. Call me crazy, but in part because my wife is a very large Dave Ramsey fan (he advocates against borrowing money), I’ll most likely need to buy all or at the very least most of the apartment in cash.

Target purchase price would be under $1MM. Before making a purchase like this I’m going to have to significantly increase my commercial real estate knowledge. I’ve learned a lot listening to the Bigger Pockets podcast from my friends Josh and Brandon, but I need to connect with some larger real estate investors (perhaps via trading my online knowledge for their real estate knowledge).

Anyone out there? Let me know.

You may ask why bother with real estate if you’re doing well online? Easy. Diversification.

Amazon Business Wrap Up

I started one new business of selling physical products on Amazon in mid 2014 and besides the $1K blog case study, it’s the only business I share my income results from (the others I have partners involved or just simply don’t feel comfortable sharing). It’s been going very well so far and I expect this business to be a large driver of new revenue in 2015.

I’ll publish my December income report later, but here are my total sales for the five months of sales in 2014 from just one product:

I’m launching more products in January or February at the latest (I’ve already done the down payment on the inventory).

2015 Amazon Business Goal

My goal is $100,000 per month revenue with at least 40% profit margins. I’m confident that I’ll have at least one $100,000 month in 2015 and continual growth throughout the 2015 year. December 2014 was $20,000 which puts me 20% of the way there with only one product.

What do you think will happen when I have a dozen, two dozen or more products? I’m excited to find out.

Amazon Mastermind Wrap Up

We had 47 members join our mastermind group in early 2014 and 119 join our mastermind group in late 2014. A lot of our members are selling on Amazon, but I don’t have concrete numbers on precisely how many there are because unless someone specifically takes a screenshot and posts it in our group we won’t know if they’re selling.

For example, last week a member of our private mastermind group posted his stats in December (they are not typical) and while I knew he was selling on Amazon I had no idea just how fantastically well he was doing because this was literally the first report he posted despite joining the group at the same time I started earlier in 2014.

Boo yah. Amazon has huge potential. ASM is referencing the Amazing Selling Machine course that he, and I and Brian have all learned from.

Relevant podcast episode here and here.

I’m looking forward to seeing Martin again at our live event in February (one of the bonuses we do for our mastermind is a one day live event for just our group which takes place the day before the ASM live event).

It’s very personally rewarding to have played a hand in helping other entrepreneurs start and grow their Amazon businesses in 2014. I’m looking forward to doing this again in 2015.

If you’re interested in joining our mastermind you can join the wait list here

2015 Amazon Mastermind Goal

The goal is 400 new members for the year.

That number is actually a bit low, but that’s because we will most likely cap our mastermind group unless I can bring on another Amazon coach or two because it’s a massively significant time investment to run the group, answer private messages and questions in our Facebook group, run our bonus webinars, create our exclusive software tools, book a venue and organize an entire event etc.

Amazon Software Business

The Amazon software business right now consists of only one primary product – AmaSuite Apps (which is actually a set of four software programs for Mac / Windows) all designed to help you identify products worth selling on Amazon, generate keywords for your listings, ad campaigns and get your first reviews. The software can also help Amazon affiliates as well.

The software has been around since March 2012 and our 4th version is the best yet. We offered early release access to people on our email lists in December 2014, but it’s not currently for sale to the public. It will be available by February 2015 at the latest.

2015 will be the best year yet for AmaSuite and I plan on launching other Amazon software tools that help sellers as well. One tool is already in the works.

2015 AmaSuite Goal

I won’t be sharing a revenue number goal publicly, but am tracking this internally (I have another business partner in this project)

WordPress Software Business

The WordPress software business was the one area that we didn’t do as well as I had hoped to, but we are hiring more developers in 2015 to help ramp up our production. We will be releasing more WordPress plugins that help you generate more revenue from your website (e.g. EasyAzon), drive more traffic and generate more leads in 2015.

Most likely we’re going to focus in on more narrow areas in WordPress to simply be the best in those areas sort of like how we’ve already done with EasyAzon. I’m 100% confident we have the best WordPress Amazon plugin on the market.

2015 WordPress Goal

I won’t be sharing a revenue number goal publicly, but am tracking this internally (I have another business partner in this project)

$1K Blog Case Study

We stopped posting regular case study updates in part because of how busy we were with the other businesses, but this case study has quietly become a success as well.

The original premise was to show how to build a blog that generates at least $1,000+ per month in profit by following the simple formula of putting information out into the market in a way that differentiates yourself from the competition.

In the online survey space, no one was writing about the survey companies from the perspective of which ones actually paid you and were worth trying. All of the other sites were just giving the best reviews to the companies that offered the highest affiliate payouts.

By focusing on what actually works in this space, the site has grown pretty well and in December 2014 it reached $1,424.75 in earnings.

Are taking online surveys the best way to make money online?

No of course not.

But there are people interested in this information so providing a resource that is better than what is currently on the market (as in truthfully showing which companies are actually worth signing up for instead of which ones pay the best commission) was an obvious differentiating point.

It took a bit longer than I anticipated to reach the goal, but the site should continue to grow. We’ll discuss this formula in more detail in a future blog post and most likely a free course updated for 2015 on how you can follow the same steps.

2015 $1K Blog Goal

I’d like SurveyChris to hit consistent $4,000 per month income in 2015.

Business Wins In 2014

I mentioned this in the beginning, but the various businesses I’m involved in either as the sole owner or as a partner have collectively provided another record breaking year (5 in a row now). I remain ever the optimist – you have to be when you’re an entrepreneur – and I’m counting on 2015 being considerably larger.

There are a few other activities that generate revenue that I haven’t discussed (e.g. Kindle, buying and selling websites etc but I don’t have specific goals for those in 2015).

I spoke at an event in October 2014 and that was a lot of fun, but besides our own event in February I’m not sure if I’ll be speaking at any other conferences in 2015. It’s a ton of work to create and prepare a speech. I will likely focus my efforts on growing businesses, but I do enjoy making in person connections.

How I split up my already thin time: “Know Your Rate”

2014 was the Know Your Rate year for me (how much my time is worth). I quickly discovered that with my extra time spent helping out with twin daughters I was years overdue on hiring my first “real employee” – Casey. I prefer to call him an apprentice. His directive is simple:

Help us generate more revenue

He is able to do a lot of the tasks I had to manage before and free up my time to work on the activities that are the most important. I know Casey will eventually want to do his own business, but I would like him to stay with us so we’ll see how that goes in 2015.

How to “Know Your Rate”

This is a simple exercise.

Take your total pay and divide it by 2,080 if you work a 40 hour work week:

$1,000,000 earnings / 2080 hours = $480.77 per hour.

$500,000 earnings / 2080 hours = $240.38 per hour

$100,000 earnings / 2080 hours = $48.07 per hour

$50,000 earnings / 2080 hours = $24.04 per hour

Any activity that generates your business more money than your rate is what you should focus as much of your time on. Any activity that generates you less money than your rate is what you should try to pass off to others.

It really is that simple.

I know exactly what my time is worth and as we head into 2015 I’m still doing some activities that are below my rate, so I will most likely be hiring a few more full time apprentices before the end of the year to free up more time.

Overall 2014 Assessment

The year was a massive success. To go from no kids for years to starting right off with twins was quite an adjustment for a work from home entrepreneur, but to be able to do that and still grow the businesses over last year was fantastic.

I believe 2015 will continue the trend and ultimately I’d like to write more blog posts and publish more solo podcast episodes. The amount that I write on my blog pales in comparison to all of what goes on behind the scenes to grow these businesses.

Let me know what you think of my wrap up and goals for 2015.

The post 2014 Review: How to go from zero kids to twins and STILL grow your business appeared first on Up Fuel.