After March and April, I was really looking forward to writing this business report. In keeping with tradition, I'm going into writing it without knowing exactly how well the month went.
Of course I know that it was a great, probably even a record month, but I don't know the exact amount. I like to keep it this way partly because it's actually quite fun to not find out the total figure until I calculate it all when writing this report, and partly because writing the report first puts me in a position where I can summarize the month without being biased by the amount earned.
For example, in April and March we didn't do that badly financially, but that was a pleasant surprise. I KNEW that things had been tough for us, and tough on our customers, and I was able to write about that without thinking to myself “Oh it wasn't so bad afterall”. This is important to me, because I am constantly complimented on the honesty and transparency that I write with.
Incidentally, in future months it might not be possible for me to write these reports blind, because as we've grown, I've needed to start using accounting software and tracking things as they come in. Oh well, at least I'll be better able to cope with finances!
This Month Felt Good
After spending several months fixing things and having a serious re-structure in the company, May felt good. I'm not going to lie and say everything went fantastically. There were still customers who were made to wait longer than we wanted. There were still articles produced that were subpar, but for the most part, we did a great job.
I know for a fact we broke our record with number of sites sold (54), and we also got our turnaround time back down to a reasonable time (4 weeks). We even had some customers get their sites in 2 weeks.
However, the real reason things felt good were because the machine was starting to operate smoothly again. I have mentioned several times that I have a new Director of Operations, but I've not properly gone into details of the new structure. It wouldn't be fair to the team if I didn't properly recognize them, and our May success was definitely down to them, so the next part of this post will be an overview of how things run now.
This might look a bit complicated to you, but I'm not expecting you to understand the ins and outs of our organization. It's here to illustrate that HPD is far from a one man team, and as we've put this structure in place, things have become infinitely smoother.
The most important part was having clearly defined roles and of utmost importance is only have 1 person in each box. Believe it or not, there are many companies out there where there are two or three people in charge of operations, and this is (as we experienced), a recipe for disaster.
Incidentally, watch out for a “Meet the Team” post coming soon.
Oh and if you're wondering why there's a content manager but not much new content being produced recently, it's because Kelvin was only hired at the start of June, and we are currently working away in the background.
If anyone wants to know how to structure their own organization, even if you are just looking for help growing our a niche site portfolio, then I thoroughly recommend picking up Traction by Gino Wickman. It really is a life changing book for any company leader.
New Service – Keyword Packs
We re-introduced keyword packs this month as well, for those people who want to have our help finding a niche, without having to pay for us to build the site out for them.
This launch wasn't promoted heavily, but we received a few sales nonetheless.
JV With Fat Stacks
I also partnered up with Jon Dykstra from Fat Stacks Blog to offer some article services to his audience. While this went well and we will continue to roll out services (and improve existing ones), Jon doesn't report his Fat Stack income, so I won't be including it in my report either.
Income Report
Without further ado, let's get into the financials.
HumanProofDesigns Services Income
Done For You and Custom Sites: $25,954
Articles: $4,534
SEO: $424
Keyword Packs: $403
Total Services Revenue: $31,315
Affiliate Income
Wealthy Affiliate: $455
Jaaxy: $8
Long Tail Pro: $51
EasyBlogNetworks: $40
Amasuite: $33
RankXL: $214
The Hoth: $930
WebHostingHub: $1,100
Total Affiliate Income: $2,831
Total Revenue: $34,146
Expenses: $13,720
These expenses are a combination of cost of goods, VA fees, Management fees, and affiliate payouts.
Grand Total Profit: $20,426
Great way to bounce back from April!
Hey Dom
I was just wondering how do you compensate your team?
Are their compensations included in those expenses of 13k?
Seems too little to cover all those people no?
Keep up the good work man, loving it !
Those were all the expenses I paid out to my team and writers. I don’t give a breakdown of individual costs or expenses because those things are mission critical to my business and not something I want competitors to have access to. It’s also not fair to my team for me to publically show what I pay them.
OK thanks Bryon I appreciate the swift answer. And of course it’s normal that you don’t share your team’s wages. Thanks again!
Nice one dude!! 20k profit isn’t too shabby!
Thank you for sharing. Just curious to know if you don’t build niche websites anymore as part of your portfolio? I don’t see them in your income report.Have I missed any updates from this case study-
Keep up the good work.
Thanks again!
Hey, I do still build sites but I mentioned at the start of the year that I wouldn’t include them in my income reports anymore.
Yeah great tips. I’m not sure that many people want to bother dealing with accounting until they need to though, it’s just one other thing to learn and adds to the overwhelm.