My 2016 First Quarter Goals + Income Report

Welcome to my Monthly Goal Report! (Formally “The B-Side”)

If you’re new, at the beginning of every month, I share my goals for the coming month, how I did with my goals the previous month, and lately, I’ve even been sharing income reports (eek!) as I work to grow my business and make this my full-time thing. The end of 2015/beginning of 2016 was absolutely crazy for me (in a good way!) so it’s taken me until now to finally update my goals report.

Since it’s been a few months since my last goals report (*ahem*), you can consider this one a “first quarter” goals report, as it will include how I did for December, January, and February + my goals for March.

In my last goal report (December 2015), I shared (for the first time) the income I brought in from TGC. I did it because seeing income reports from other online entrepreneurs like Pat Flynn, John Lee Dumas, Regina Anaejionu gave me the “boost” I needed to get off my butt and make things happen and I figured sharing my reports might do the same for you. Plus, it adds another layer of accountability for me since I’m extremely serious about doing TGC full-time. If you haven’t already, I urge you to read my last goals report for more background.

Now, on to the good stuff:

Income Since My Last Report

1. Think & Grow Chick Daily Success System: $1,900.00
2. Business Coaching: $1,400
3. #GetMyFinancialLife Money Mindset Kit: $1,477.50
4. No Excuses Woman 21-Day Self-Discipline Program: $1,362.00
5. The Get What You Want Workbook: $1,223.93
6. Speaking and Affiliate Sales: $478
7. Launch Your Life Masterclass: $189.00
8. Unblock Your Brand: $167.50

Total Income since my last report: $8,197.43

This may seem like a lot at first glance but note that I made more than this in November alone, as detailed in my last goals report. I anticipated some slow down since it was my goal to chill out in December but I didn’t get to do as many “revenue generating activities” as I wanted in January as it was an unexpectedly busy month.

For starters, I got to speak at the White House and share my business advice to students interested in entrepreneurship which was INCREDIBLE. I also got to do an unexpected speaking event with my friend and fellow coach, Dominique Broadway while in DC. So in terms of PR and once-in-a-lifetime opportunities, January was a phenomenal month. It’s just that all the travel and events didn’t leave me a lot of time to launch products or take on new clients which leads me to my #1 advice if you’re looking to make enough money from your business so you can quit your job:

BUILD PASSIVE INCOME! One of the biggest traps you can fall into as a new entrepreneur is always needing to “hustle” to make money. Though “passive income” is a very sexy idea, most people don’t do it because putting all the necessary systems in place takes a lot of time. When you’re a one-woman show, it often feels like you don’t have the time to work on passive income. It’s a lot faster and more lucrative in the short-term to hold a sale, launch a new product, or do some other promotion that brings money in the door. While that’s all fine and dandy, if you’re aren’t careful you’ll create a business where 100% of the revenue is dependent on you.

I knew the downfalls of this intellectually but with me not doing a lot of “revenue generating” work in December and January, I can see first hand how having a “me”-dependent business is not good in the long-term for my bottom line. The catch, however, is that you have to be okay with not making a ton of money while you put your passive income streams in place. Unless you have a large team, you generally only have time to hustle up money every month OR build your passive income systems – not both. So you have to be willing to forgo revenue in the short-term for automatic revenue in the long-term.

I’m up for the challenge though (of course! :-)) so passive income is what I’ll be focusing on this month. More below:

Last Report’s Goals

1. Get Organized. I still have more to do in this area but I made a lot of progress with getting my business organized. I opened up a new business account at a bank close to where I live, I got a new business address, hired the world’s best virtual assistant (more on that below), and found a bookkeeper to help me with my financial records. The only thing I still need to do is find an accountant because it is tax season. (And ya girl is not looking for any trouble from Uncle Sam…)

2. Outsource an Administrative Team. So far I’ve brought on a Virtual Assistant and a bookkeeper and outsourcing is literally one of the best things I’ve ever done. My assistant is PHENOMENAL! I was bracing myself for a few “bad apples” since I’m new to hiring but I NAILED it on my first try! If your budget allows it, definitely get an assistant, it’ll change your life.

3. Finish My Coaching “Homework.” Partially finished. (If my coach is reading this I know he’s rolling his eyes, haha.) Again, December and January threw me off with all the unexpected opportunities and travel but I made huge progress in February and plan on finishing “my homework” this month.

4. Chill Out and Prepare for the New Year! I really did have good intentions with this but clearly, this didn’t happen as I expected. I’m not complaining though…when the White House calls, you answer!

This Month’s Goals

1. Finish the information page for my new coaching program. I ended up unexpectedly coming up with a new Sales & Marketing program after casually offering some advice to one of my entrepreneurial friends over lunch. She was so elated by everything I taught her off the top of my head – literally, I wrote out an entire marketing funnel for her on the back of napkin – that I realized I should create a formal program to teach other female entrepreneurs the same information. I thought my knowledge about systems, sales, and marketing was common knowledge but according to my friend, it’s not. So I’m really excited to roll out this new program to help female entrepreneurs quickly make sales in their business. If you’re interested, make sure you’re on my email list (just join my accountability group!) as I’ll be sharing more details about it soon.

2. Finish building a passive income stream. I’ve been working on creating a system to automatically sell one of my most popular programs but I’m not quite done with it yet. The stuff I need to do is actually related to the coaching “homework” I mentioned above, so the rest of March is dedicated to getting this done.

Current Challenges

Keeping “all the balls in the air.” Last year, I experienced a lot of burnout after diving into my business full-force. I quickly learned that my life can’t be business all the time – if I’m not attending to my personal care, husband, family, friends, I feel less and less like “me.” So this year, I’ve done a great job prioritizing my non-business life. I workout 6 days a week, I go shopping for myself regularly, I get weekly manicures, I cook dinner every night, I’m showing my husband more attention, I’m flying back home to visit my family more regularly, etc. The only issue is — committing to so many things requires a BEASTLY ability to manage time. Now I’ve been good with time-management for a while but dang…trying to keep all these balls in the air has forced me to operate at a new level.

I’m stricter and even more disciplined with my day-to-day and I’m not going to lie – it’s quite challenging. I now wake up at 4:30ish nearly every day not because I want to but because I have to. It’s not so much that I’m less flexible – because things still come up and I still have to work around them – but I’m just more…ruthless with my time, for lack of better word. I don’t mind it but it is hard to explain to people when they just want to “shoot the breeze” or lollygag and I have to explain to them that I LITERALLY do not have time for that! They think I’m being mean and I’m like, no…I’m being excellent. Operating at this level is requiring a level of focus I’ve never had to keep up before and it’s not easy. But as Dave Ramsey always says, “Live like no one else so that later…you can live like no one else.”

Current Successes/What’s Working

My Virtual Assistant. I know I already said this but I cannot rave about her enough. Because of her I am getting SO much done it’s not even funny. She answers emails flawlessly, designs my graphics flawlessly, keeps my social media up-to-date, reminds me of appointments…I have no idea why I waited so long to get help!

My Weekly Planning System. Part of the reason I’m able to do so much and still make time for non-business things is because I’ve finally perfected my daily and weekly planning system. After much trial and error, I finally developed a method that helps me do what matters when it comes to making progress in all areas of my life. I spend about an hour, hour and a half on the weekend and completely map out everything I need to do for the upcoming week. This has brought so much peace and clarity to my life I can’t even tell you! So if you’re struggling to “fit it all in,” make SURE you spend a few hours BEFORE the start of the week getting everything planned out. If you want to know more about my specific planning method, click here.

Were you looking for The B-side? It’s here but…revamped. After much consideration, I’ve decide to combine The B-Side into my Think & Grow Chick Accountability Group. With the recent growth of the Accountability Group (as of this post we have over 2,500 members!) and the fact that we post our goals in there as well, I felt like it just made sense to combine the groups. Also, as I’ve continued to do these B-Side post, I’ve realized more and more that my business goals are inter-related with my personal goals. I was starting to feel kinda stifled only reporting on my business goals, so now these “Monthly Goals Reports” will reflect both my personal and business related goals!

Your Turn!

Accountability Group Rules

1. 1. • Share your goals, challenges and successes in the comments.
      • The goal of these reports is to be transparent and support each other, so be sure to read all the comments and check out all the participating blogs and businesses! If you have something to offer, leave a comment and help each other out!
      • If you are a blogger, feel free to create a post sharing your goals, challenges, and successes (via the format above) on your blog and link back here.

Accountability Group Facebook Group

Be sure to join the Think & Grow Chick Accountability Group! Since these Goals Reports will come out monthly, this women-only Facebook group will serve as a “hub” for us to ask questions, share what we have going on, and generally connect with each other on a day-to-day basis. You can join now by entering your info below: