On today's episode of the podcast I'm sharing my August 2023 profit report.
I do these every month to show an example of how you can go about budgeting and understanding your numbers while also giving a real life example of how much it costs to run a business. It is important to note that my business is not indicative of every kind of business. Whether you do or don't have a team and depending on how much you do or do not work, how many ads you run, if you have a product or service based business, those are all factors that impact how much it costs to run your business.
Let's start by recapping my 2023 goals:
1. Consistent $20,000 months by Q3.
We're ahead of schedule! We hit it this month so we are at 6 out of 8 months so far this year. Yay!
2. Get MRR to $20,000 by end of year. It wasn't necessarily a realistic goal to begin with, more to strive towards that.
Definitely not going to happen this year, especially based on ways we've restructured programs and payment plans. It's probably going to replace goal #1 in 2024.
3. Get expenses under 35%.
YTD, I'm at like 41%. Got some work to do. It's crept up a bit more with some big expenses. Probably going to have to pivot to a 40% goal
Here's what happened in August
Delivered first batch of Trademark Quickies and onboarded new clients
Started Fall cohort of Unf*ck Your Biz
Ran an affiliate contest
August projected vs. actual revenue
Low Ticket - $3,000 → $2,200
$1,000 more than last month
But far less affiliate sales than expected. Need to give more notice and we had some link issues.
$1,600 from Contract Club
UYB - $8,000 → $1,350 (way off)
Some lessons learned here. Was hopeful I could maybe do 4 launches a year, but I'm probably going to need to scale it back to 2. The program works best for everyone with at least 15 students. Ideally 20-30.
PRx - $5,000 → $4,600
Tax Stuff - $1,000 → $4,000
Apparently, I haven't really paid attention to how much MRR we have here because we have at least $3,000 from monthly bookkeeping clients and we have pretty good retention.
Legal Stuff - $7,000 → $11,600
$9,000 of this was Trademarks. About spot on, but we did 5 marks for one client
Consults - $0 → $0
Total: $24,150 → $25,129
Expenses
Total → $13.000 (my highest month of the year so far)
Team contractors - $865
Employee wages - $2,600 (Pretty standard. This does not include my wages)
Outside contractor expenses - $1,500 This was the first of two $1,500 installments for a project I hired a contractor to do. Not ready yet to disclose this project.
Owner wages - $2,900 (what I pay myself)
Owner tax - $2,500 (goes to the IRS)
Monthly tools - $850 (I paid a $300 annual expense which arguably shouldn't go in monthly tools)
Insurance: $45 for now (will be going up soon)
Marketing - $500
Meals - $48
Online programs - $453
Client fees - $2,500 (These are the trademark filing fees. I bake this into the price of my trademark services flat fee the client pays and then I pay the fee)
Other expenses: $3,200 (These were travel expenses. I am flying to Puerto Rico at the end of October through beginning of November to speak at the Association of Bridal Consultants conference and then the week after that I'm going to Wedding MBA and am covering the flights for two of my team members who are also coming).
Affiliate payouts - $368
Expenses were 52% of revenue went to expenses this month so a profit of 48% so 8% higher than where I'd like it to be but really I'd like it to be at 35%, not 40%.
Upcoming Expenses
Another $1500 to contractor
$1500 to Vegas hotels and flights
$1000ish in swag orders for Wedding MBA
Upcoming Projects
A potential exciting update with the Contract Club to make it even better, which also means a big expense
Working on Profit Rx
My projected revenue for September
Low Ticket: $1,500
UYB: $1,400
PRx: $4,000
Legal: $8,600 (6 trademarks)
Tax: $3,000
Consults: $0
Total: $18,500
Want to see my actual books (and maybe even watch me update it live) for free? Head to www.bradendrake.com/bradensbooks to see all of my numbers.
