September 2016 Income Report: How I Launched + Promoted My New Course

Hello friends! Welcome back to another income report! This is my second income report to date (you can read my first income report here) and I’m excited and nervous to lay it all out again for you.

September was been a crazy month, both physically and mentally. My list has grown to almost 1500 subscribers, my traffic is finally heading up again from 5000 to 6000 pageviews, and my Pinterest traffic has spiked since I started looping my pins through Boardbooster.

It’s been great, but not everything was on the up..

WHY SHARE MY INCOME REPORTS?

I started House of Brazen in January 2016 and by my third month I was making money. In June I quit my job to work on my business full-time (yes, without any other financial back-up other than my savings). I quit my job before I was ready and before I was making a liveable income from my blog – scary right!? But I knew that I had to take a chance, and even though there was no guarantee that I would ever make another cent again, I knew it would be okay. And today? I’m make money while I sleep!

I share these income reports because I found them immensely valuable and helpful to the growth of my business, and now I want to pay it forward and show you that it’s possible for you to achieve the same too – if not better!

Okie dokie, let’s get into it shall we?

SEPTEMBER INCOME:

Affiliate Affluence: $377.90
Flawless Funnels: $105.48
Your First Affiliate Sale eBook: $148.06
Affiliate Marketing: $522.29
Ad Revenue: $0

Total Revenue: $1153.73

This post contains affiliate links.

SEPTEMBER EXPENSES:

MailChimp: $20
BoardBooster: $0 (covered by referral credit)
SendOwl: $9 (Grab your 30 day free trial here!)
Deadline Funnel: $37 (Grab your 30 day free trial here!)
SumoMe: $0

Total Expenses: $66

NET PROFIT: $1087.73

The biggest thing about September was that I launched my brand new course Affiliate Affluence which shows you exactly how I went from making $0 to $500 in affiliate income in less than 30 days. Because of that I spent less time on House of Brazen which resulted in a slight dip in income overall.

Affiliate income is still thriving just over the $500 dollar mark, my product income wasn’t too bad, I’m in the middle of changing how they’re promoted so I expected a dip, but the start of this month was my little $7 ebook making over $140 dollars!

HOW I LAUNCHED + PROMOTED AFFILIATE AFFLUENCE

It might come as a bit of a shock to you, but I didn’t actually spend a lot of time promoting Affiliate Affluence in September. WTH!?! I know, I know, that’s kind of the most important thing right? Yeah, it is. But I’m not actually worried about it. I’ll share a little more about it soon, but let’s just say that I’m more of a sales funnel kind of girl. 😂

So here’s what I did do to promote the course..

Sent 4x promotional emails: I sent an email a few days before the course launched to let my HOB Fam (email list) know that the price would be increasing on the 30th and used MotionMail for my countdown timer. I sent another email reminder the next day and then another reminder 12 hours before. And then lastly a Final Call email 1 hour before the course launched. I got a total of 4 sales from these emails.

Promoted in Facebook Groups: As I’ve said in previous posts, I get the most engagement from people who come to my website from Facebook. I promoted the course in the promo thread for each group and wound up getting 3 sales from them. Woo!

That’s literally it. I’d say that’s a solid win from only 2 forms of promotion within a week! 😂

What I learned from launching this course

I don’t want to launch again. Yep, I said it. I don’t want to launch a product EVER again! Why? Because the effort required to make the kind of money all of us dream to make from a launch hardly ever translates and in most cases, isn’t worth it. Seriously. It’s a big call to make I know – because how else are we supposed to make money from our products? – but hear me out.

This is how my launch affected me..

I was stressed to the MAX which translated into petty arguments with my man
I dreaded waking up each day knowing I had to work on my business. WTF!!!
I felt SO disheartened when I didn’t make a sale from an email or post, which NEVER bothered me before!
It made me question whether I was actually good enough to launch this course
I spent less time with my family than ever before, and worst of all, I had no patience for anyone
It made me feel like I was a prisoner in my own business
I felt completely burnt out and exhausted
And after the launch, I literally felt like I’d just been released from prison!

This is NOT what I wanted my business to be. Stress, self-doubt, impatience, exhaustion.. sounds like the worst job in the world! I believe we’re meant to live extraordinary lives and I created my business so I could lead a life filled with fun and adventure, but most of all, so I could spent QUALITY TIME with the people I loved. NOTHING about that launch and my business during that time was congruent with my message and the House of Brazen brand, and I don’t ever want to feel that way in my business again.

Now don’t get me wrong, there are people out their having mega success with their launches. And I know that once you have a team of people to help you with the process it makes it a whole lot easier and doable. But for now, while I’m a one woman show, launching is off the cards until I can run them in a way that doesn’t make me hate my business.

What I’m doing from now on:

1. Focus more on creating automated sales funnel systems. When I first learned about sales funnels, I was hooked. I implemented one when I first started this website and now they’re my moneymakers. I make sales EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. while I sleep (literally while I sleep) because of these two automated systems I set up. I wouldn’t have been able to quit my job if it wasn’t for my sales funnels. And now that I’ve been in business almost 10 months – and especially after this launch – I know it’s best to stick to what you know, and for me it’s sales funnels.

2. Only run a very short 2 – 3 day launch. When Melyssa Griffin wrote about how she ran an 84-hour launch and made almost 50k with only a handful of emails and two webinars, I knew that’s the route I’m going to take. The next time I decide to launch, it will be short and simple, which is how I like it best. 😉