October 2023 Income Report

Welcome to my October 2023 Income Report!

For some of you, that sentence is a total blast from the past… and for others, you might be like “Shannon, what in the world are you talking about?”

To give you a little background…

I used to do a monthly income report on my last podcast, Pep Talks for Side Hustlers, where I’d share how much my business made, how much it spent and all of the lessons learned along the way, and when I closed down the side of my business that taught web design and marketing to DIYers, I stopped that podcast and stopped doing those monthly income reports, because I was like, “How is it even relevant to freelance web designers who are providing 1:1 services for me to share how much money my online course business is making when I stopped working with 1:1 web design clients back in 2019?”

Like, it feels like it’s apples and oranges.

But the unintended consequence of discontinuing that was that I was no longer sharing my own business journey and the lessons I’ve learned along the way… so I was no longer reflecting on them myself every single month like I used to…

…and it doesn’t matter if you’re running a business coaching and mentorship program FOR web designers like I am… or if you’re offering web design services to clients… the lessons learned AROUND the money are universal… and the money part gives CONTEXT to the lessons learned.

Not only that… SO many people told me that they LOVED those income reports, that they were massively helpful to them on their own business journey… but they were also massively helpful to ME to slow down, to reflect on what worked, what didn’t work, what I’m proud of, what lessons I learned….

And when I stopped doing Monthly Income Reports in February of 2022, 20 months ago, I feel like I’ve started repeating some of the mistakes and discarding the lessons.

That’s why I’m bringing them back, starting today, with my October 2023 Income Report.

And then every month going forward I’m gonna share with you how much my business made, how much it spent, and all the lessons learned along the way.

And if you used to listen to Pep Talks for Side Hustlers and my Journey to $500K series… where I shared how I grew my business to create half a million dollars in one year…

I think it’ll be really interesting for you to see where we’re at today and how we got here.

I literally cannot WAIT to share this episode with you because I just got back from our in-person Web Designer Academy Next Level Retreat… and I cannot even explain to you how transformative that experience was not just for our students… but also for me.

Like, after the year I’ve experienced, I just didn’t know how much I needed to spend 5 days in the company of 13 of the kindest, most brilliant, bold hilarious women I’ve ever met.

I thought I was there to lead them through a transformation… but they also led me through one, and I finally feel like myself again.

I feel like I’ve integrated what 2023 brought me to teach me so far, and in today’s episode I’m going to share what I’ve learned so far.

Because since my last update episode back in June, my mid-year review Episode #44… a lot more has happened, some of it has been amazing… some of it has been challenging, and some of it has been heartbreaking.

Here’s why I’m so excited about today’s episode…

So, just to give you a little context if you’re new to the show…

I run a business coaching program for women web designers called the Web Designer Academy where we lead ambitious freelance web designers through the process of packaging, pricing, marketing, selling and running profitable web design projects and running a sustainable web design business – meaning that you have freedom, flexibility and financial independence, and that YOU are running your web design business instead of it running you.

Most of the women web designers that come to work with us feel overwhelmed, burnt out and like they’ve hit a plateau in their revenue.

They typically have tried lots of different things to fix that problem, like changing niches, changing offers, changing HOW they offer their services, implementing tech solutions to try to automate things, a new marketing strategy – and oftentimes each of those attempts to fix the problem is accompanied by the purchase a new online course to help them implement that strategy…

And yet with each new strategy, they still find themselves overwhelmed, burnt out and plateaued in their revenue.

So where we come in at the Web Designer Academy is we take a look at your current business and what you’re currently doing, we look at what your goals are and where you want to be… we uncover the gap between where you are now and where you want to be, and identify what’s REALLY in the way, create a customized plan and strategy to help you bridge the gap using our proven systems, processes and strategies, and then walk beside you and coach you and guide you every step of the way as you implement the strategy and work toward bridging the gap from where you are now to where you want to be…

And I’ve been doing this for almost 8 years now, and what’s fascinating is that what’s REALLY in the way for most people isn’t their niche, their offer, whether they’re doing VIP days or long projects, what tech stack their using or whatever…

It’s usually just a few simple but really powerful shifts that when implemented correctly change everything… because when we’re on the inside of the bottle, we can’t see what’s on the outside, and oftentimes you just need someone who knows what to look for to show you what’s missing and what opportunities they see for you to bridge the gap – just like you guys do for every single one of your own web design clients whether you realize it or not.

And the thing is… I’m on the inside of the bottle in my own business. There are things that other people can see that I can’t see.

For example, someone asked me the other day if non-web designers can join our program.

And I’m like, well, what do you mean?

And she goes, “Can graphic designers join? What about web developers? What about UX designers? What about systems strategists?”

And I’m like, “Yeah, of course – it says on the website that WDA is for freelance web designers and agency-owners who provide web design and related services (graphic design, copywriting, automations, CRO, funnels, SEO, e-commerce, courses + memberships etc.) services using any web design platform (WordPress, SquareSpace, Shopify, Showit, Kajabi, Webflow, etc.) to solopreneurs, small to medium size businesses, non-profits and even large corporations.”

I thought it was clear. It was not clear. That is an example of a simple yet powerful shift that someone else identified for me that I could try out to see if it makes an impact.

One of my WDA students does conversion rate optimization, and she’s given me an entire list of opportunities that I literally would never thought of on my own to test out.

But that’s what her magic is… she’s done this for billion dollar companies at her day job, it’s her area of expertise – to know what her clients don’t know, and test her theories strategically and methodically.

And that’s what we do for web designers. We are on the outside looking in, and we can see what you may not see. 

We look at your actual business, and we give you strategies to implement for your business – not one-size fits all strategies that you have to trial and error your way through that may or may not be right for your unique business and personality.

And the way it works is that when a web designer is interested in working with us, they fill out our application telling us about their business and goals, I review that application and look at their website, and I do an analysis, like, if they came to work with us, how would I help them reach their goals… and if I think I can help them, I invite them to come work with us, I give them all the details on the program and how it works, which if you’re curious about that you can get all the info right on our website or in Episode 39…

And so people come to work with us on their web design business for an entire year, and it’s truly transformation to have us right there by your side to help you make the shifts you need to make and then to support you through anything that comes up in your business after.

And then we also have our Next Level container, which is where students go after they feel complete in our Web Designer Academy container.

And the beauty of Next Level is that it’s a mastermind, where it’s not just me and Erica working with you… you also get to pick the brains of brilliant women web designers some of whom are right where you are, some are a few steps ahead, and some are a few years ahead, and you’re all learning from EACH OTHER.

So you go from having me coaching you and mentoring you in the Web Designer Academy container to build the foundation and start implementing and transforming and making more money and creating more time… and you move into the Next Level container where you’re seeing how other women are doing it, getting a behind the scenes look at what their web design business look like, how they’ve adapted their processes to their businesses, how they solved a business problem you’re up against… what their mindset is, what strategies they use.

And sometimes, just depending on where someone is at in their business, what kind of foundation they have and what their goals are, it might make sense for them to come straight into the Next Level container without being in the Web Designer Academy container first – like, I’ve had 2 instances now where a web designer has come to me and said hey, I really want to work with you but I already have my systems and processes down, I like my packages, all of that is working for me and I don’t want to change it, but I have some other bottlenecks that are keeping me stuck at the level I’m at, and I think you can help me.

And we also host an in-person retreat for our Next Level web designers, and I literally just got home from it last night.

It was 3 full days of business planning, goal setting, coaching, and 3 full nights of laughter, connection and fun.

And I got to listen to these 13 powerful, powerful women talk about how they found me, and where they were at in their business and life when they came to work with us, and how overwhelmed and lost and burnt out they felt, while at the same time being hopeful and excited that maybe there was something out there that could help them.

And each of them shared how they found me and the Web Designer Academy, and what they’ve accomplished since coming to work with us… and you guys, I can’t even. My heart was SO full getting to hear it.

And I didn’t know how much I needed to hear that I’d had such a huge impact on so many people’s lives…

But I did.

Because all year, I’ve felt like I was totally failing.

Like everything was falling apart.

We had such a rough first half of the year… with two failed launches due to decisions I made… and the incident I mentioned in Episode 43 that cost me about $30K overall in lost revenue and legal fees, I used all of my business savings to continue to make payroll as we pivoted and restructured our pricing (which by the way I go into detail on all of that in Episode 44 of the podcast so if you’re interested you can go listen to that…

But we had such a rough first half of the year that right before the Next Level Retreat, I had to make a super tough decision, one that I did NOT want to make, but I had to make…

…which was to lay off my Marketing and Operations Coordinator and take over her role myself.

In 2021, we made $499,500. And the Web Designer Academy was responsible for $324,768 of that or 65%, and so that’s when I hired my first employees to help me support that business.

And then in 2022 we made $426,000. So about 73,000 less than in 2021, but $360,000 of that was from the Web Designer Academy, which was about $35,000 more than the Web Designer Academy made in 2021.

And this year our only offer is the Web Designer Academy and Next Level, and in the past 10 months we’ve received $160,000 cash.

We’ve SOLD more than that, but because we offer a 12-month payment plan, I can't use that revenue until I’ve received it.

So we went from $360K in 2022 to $160K so far in 2023, so our business is down $200,000 from last year… and I still had all the expenses of a half-million dollar business.

Which is obviously not sustainable.

So the writing was on the wall that I was going to have to make some significant cuts to our expenses to get them in alignment with a $160K business, which meant a pay cut for myself and laying off a team member, and just cancelling any unnecessary expenses with MY criteria being that we don’t cut anything that affects DELIVERY of our program. We can cut marketing, we can cut my salary, we can cut operations, but we CAN NOT cut from serving and supporting our students, because that’s why we do what we do.

So it sucked. Laying off someone you care about because you can’t sustain their salary anymore sucks.

And not only did it suck because she was such a lovely human, I had a lot of impostor syndrome about that because I’m like… “I teach Next Level people how to hire a team if that’s what they’re ready for to reach their goals… but now I’m letting one of my team members go… who’s gonna ever take me seriously now?”

And those are TOUGH decisions… they are NEXT LEVEL decisions, and while I was in the thick of the suck of it, all my brain wanted to offer me was “Why would anyone take advice from you? You’re failing, you’re failing, you’re failing.”

So we get to the Next Level Retreat, and the first thing we do is share our wins from the past year, and even though it didn’t feel like I had many wins in the past year, I decided to look at all of the challenges that I made it through as wins… so one of my wins was having the courage to lay off an employee and do it with integrity.

And when I shared that thing that had been weighing on me so heavily as a failure, the thing that my brain wanted to tell me was going to cost me my vision and mission –  as a win, publicly, I ugly cried. I just let it all out and ugly cried in front of all of those women.

And you know what they said?

“We’re glad you’ve gone through it so that when ultimately we have a bad year, we can look to you because you’ve already gone through it.”

I mean, come on! Those are the kinds of humans that are in our programs. They are absolutely incredible.

And so once I “came clean” so to speak, I was able to participate fully, coach them without holding back, and just be myself because I felt like the mess was all out in the open.

And I used to do that every month in those income reports – just put the mess out there in the open… but also reflect on it, and find and share the lessons.

So that’s what I’ll be doing here going forward – even though my numbers might not be relevant to you because your money comes from client work and my money comes from payment plans from Web Designer Academy and Next Level students…

The hopes, the dreams, the goals the fears the successes the failures and what they really mean and what we make them mean… that’s all still really relevant.

And to be very transparent, I’m also writing these income reports for myself.

Because when I don’t look at things, I repeat the same patterns over and over and over again.

I was just looking at one of the last income reports I wrote 2 years ago in November of 2021… and it was like, wait, did time stop? How did I get back here? How has it been that 2 years have passed, and I feel like I’m emotionally back here again?

I think it’s because I wasn’t taking the time to reflect on, process and integrate the lessons learned.

My revenue was growing year over year when I was doing monthly income reports, and it started declining when I stopped.

So we’re gonna test a theory out – when I’m using income reports as a tool to manage my own mind, be transparent and vulnerable and not hide and authentically connect with people, does it result in more trust and more clients? Or not? I’ll be doing them for all of 2024 no matter what, so we’ll see.

And honestly, even as I write that and commit to it, it scares me a little bit… I had the thought “What will people think if this happens or that happens…” which is why I think I need to do it, because I’ve been avoiding things I need to look at, and the more I avoid things the worse they get…

…And the other thing is… if me being real about my business journey is going to make someone not want to work with me, we were never going to be a good fit anyway.

I just need to remind myself of that when I share things that my brain is like, “Are you sure you wanna tell people that, Shannon? They’re gonna think this about you and that about you…”

But it’s not YOU thinking that about me, it’s ME thinking that about me and blaming it on you.

You’re awesome. And I don’t need to “protect” myself from you, I just need to be onto myself and my negative self-talk…

So the format of the income report episode going forward will be important things that happened that month (personal and business), the numbers (revenue, investments and net profit) and then lessons learned.

Okay, so let’s dive in.

Important Things That Happened in October

Scarlett’s surgery.

I used to talk about my doggos all the time on my income reports! So I have a 7-year-old charcoal lab named Scarlett, and she’s the snuggliest, sweetest, most adorable monster ever. We go for a 2-3 mile walk every day, rain shine or snow, and it’s when I get my podcast listening time in and get some movement since I do a lot of sitting.

So one night, we were all asleep in bed, and I just hear her screech out in pain, and we didn’t know what it was at the time but she couldn’t get up from her side, and once we got her up, she’d be fine, but she’d lay back down and not be able to get up, and then I noticed muscle spasms on her neck… so after a few vet visits they think it’s a herniated disc in her neck, and there are a couple of options – strict crate rest for a month to see if it can heal on its own, or spinal surgery, followed by 4 weeks of strict create rest.

So regardless, this crate rest is happening. It's just whether you want to do it now or later.

So we opted to start with the strict crate rest because the spinal surgery on a dog is a significant expense. And if we could avoid putting her through that and avoid the expense, we were going to do that.

But about two weeks and she was just getting worse. Like her pain was getting worse. She was not improving. Her mobility was getting worse.

So we scheduled surgery at the end of September. And so basically for September and October, I was taking care of my puppy. It was like making sure she got all her meds, and that she was staying off furniture. She was using a ramp to get in and out of the house.

The surgery went fantastic. It was like when she came home, it was like she was completely healed.

I'm like, “Oh my gosh, I didn't even notice that she couldn't move that way before. How long has this been going on before?” Like before the actual herniation. And I didn't notice because it was such a gradual change. So in the caretaking of her, like we slept on the living room floor with her on a mattress because she normally sleeps with us and wasn't allowed to get up in bed.

And we don't have kids, so obviously it's easier for us to spoil our dog. But it was a lot… She was on a lot of medication, and the regimen was spread all throughout the day. She was on prednisone, so she had to go outside and pee every two hours or she was like peeing herself in her sleep. So it was pretty intense for taking care of a dog.

And I know that there are so many people listening that take care of children with special needs, with family members that have chronic illnesses and things like that. So, I understand that we all have things in our lives that are longer than a two-month situation with a dog that are challenging that we have to work around. And those are just things that come up that influence our business. It's like not sleeping well and being worried and having appointments and all of those things.

And so that was just a thing. It was a thing that was happening in my life in October that I was navigating as I was running my business. And so I think it's important to acknowledge that business and life aren't separate. As much as we want them to be… Things that happen in our lives influence our ability to run our business. And it's just important to acknowledge that we get to design our business around our life and not the other way around. And I think that's so important. And it's like one of the values that we have inside of our program.

So Scarlett is doing amazing now, which is so awesome because that's my baby girl and it was hard to watch her be in pain, but she's doing really, really good now.

Discovery Calls

We hosted a live Revenue Reset Challenge in September, and whenever we do a live event it’s to give people a taste of what it’s like to work with us inside of our Web Designer Academy program, and so off the back of that challenge we invite people to either fill out our application, or request a discovery call since we vette everyone that joins our program to make sure we’re confident we can help them before inviting them into the program.

I just started doing Discovery Calls for the WDA back in July. Before that, we enrolled from the application only without a call. Now we offer both, and like everything else we’re doing, we’re testing it.

So I had three discovery calls in the first week of October with potential students off the back of that challenge.

People always tell me they hate “sales” but I think discovery calls are so fun! To me, it’s kind of like doing a podcast interview… I get to meet someone new, I get to ask them all about their background and their business, and then where it gets really fun is that I get to spot opportunities to help them and their business, and tell them how I think we can help them, and just really show them what we can accomplish together if they come to work with us.

And depending on where the person’s at in their business, I’ll invite them into the Web Designer Academy container or the Next Level container.

And sometimes, people are like, “Hey, jumping on a call with you was just a formality, I’m already in, just tell me where to sign up.”

And other times, I see people wanting to make a change SO bad… but they’re scared. They just don’t quite believe in themselves as much as I believe in them, and they don’t feel safe to enroll.

And so they do things like say yes, they’re in, and then disappear, or they say they have to think about it, and then never respond to followup – or tell you they really want to do it, but the timing isn’t right, or they can’t afford it right now so they’re gonna wait 6 months…

When what they really mean is they're scared it won’t work for them, and they can’t afford to not get the results they want because of what they’ll make it mean about themselves, like “I’m a failure, here I go again wasting even more money on this business…” stuff like that.

You’ve probably experienced this with web design consultations too – it’s totally normal when someone doesn’t feel safe enough with you to tell you what they’re really thinking and feeling, when you haven’t built up enough trust with the person you’re talking to, or maybe they don’t even know how to articulate how they’re feeling and you haven’t asked them the right questions to get them thinking about it, or when they feel pressure from you like you really need the sale.

And so when you get that feedback from someone, the first place to look is inward:

What did I do or not do to create safety and trust on this call?

Was I too focused on getting a yes because I got so excited about someone’s application because I’ve seen a hundred applications just like this one and have seen people like this blow their own minds with what they were able to create by working with us… and then skipped over the part where I get to ask them the right questions to help them believe in themselves first?

Like, is there a sense of entitlement going on where I’m like, Um, hello, I know I can help you, so you should just believe me and say yes?

What questions did I want to ask but didn’t because I felt like it would be overstepping? Like, that’s an indicator that I didn’t spend enough time creating trust.

So what’s been happening lately is that people will tell me yes on a Discovery Call, but then not enroll… and that’s what I get to figure out how to build that trust, because I’d much rather someone be really honest with me if it’s a no than tell me yes because they don’t feel comfortable saying no – and so my friend Jason Gracia is helping me with some additional questions I can ask to build that trust and lead each call to decision one way or another.

I laid off my Marketing and Operations Coordinator.

So I shared at the top of the episode that I laid off my Marketing and Operations Coordinator. That was a big thing that happened in October. And it was not a swift decision. It required a lot of analysis, and seeking advice from my mentors, thinking about how to have the conversation and integrity, just the logistics of when you have an employee, how do you pay out unused time off, and like just all of those things. And so that was a significant thing that happened in October that took a lot of time and mental energy and care.

And I had to grieve. I was grieving before I did it, and I was grieving after I did it. And it was a big deal. So that was significant…and I think I've talked about that enough.

I finalized planning for my Next Level Retreat.

I also finalized planning for the Next Level Retreat. So it's a four-night, five day experience with three full days of a facilitated coaching experience.

And then of course we have food and we have activities and we had a yoga instructor coming in and all of those things and like the logistics of travel and all of that.

So we spent some time planning that and I noticed one of the things that I noticed is that I could not figure out the food. I just could not figure out the food, and I was spending so much time spinning out on that.

And Erica, our Client Success Coordinator, jumped in to help me because she used to be a culinary arts teacher. So not only was she a teacher and a curriculum designer, she was culinary arts and she used to have to put together menus for large people for school. And so she was like, “Can I just take this over and boss you around on this?”

And I was like, “Yes, please. Please do.” Because I was spinning out on it.

And what I realized was…

I was spinning out on that because I was also working on the layoff plan for the Marketing and Operations Coordinator role. And because that was so heavy, I was and I was like having all kinds of thoughts of like, “This is happening because I have made bad decisions in the rest of my business and had I not made bad decisions, I would have more money to pay her and I wouldn't have to be doing this.”

That's what my brain was telling me. And so because I was afraid of making more bad decisions, I couldn't make any decisions related to the food. And I didn't see this when this was happening, but that's exactly what was happening.

I'd think things like, “Well, what if I do this for breakfast and someone is allergic to eggs? And what if I do this?” It was just this like spiral. And after the fact, when I realized why my brain was doing that, I was like, “Oh, it makes perfect sense why I could not make simple decisions about food for Next Level Retreat.” It's just interesting and important to notice those things…

So Erica planned all of that and it was amazing and it was meticulous and it was the biggest grocery store trip I have ever been on. I'll tell you more about the retreat in the November income report.

I started pitching speakers for the Simply Profitable Designer Summit.

In October, I started pitching speakers for the Simply Profitable Designer Summit. So save the dates: It's happening the third week of March 2024.

So, last year I was… I don't know… worried about inviting the right people…And there's just a lot of hindsight I'm having that I just won't beat myself up for now…

But, I guess the only way I can just describe it is…

Last year, I felt very controlling and protective and restrictive and that was just a self-protection reaction to things going on in my business and my personal life.

And I didn't realize that I was doing that… (until therapy).

Now, after working on that, I'm feeling connected and expansive and willing and resilient.

I'm like, I can handle whatever. Hard things have happened this year. I can handle it all. I'm still here. I'm still running the business. I'm addressing the challenges.

Even when the pull to fix things is to change things. This is a huge lesson that I've learned: When things feel hard, my tendency is to make a change for relief, but the change typically creates unintended consequences. Like, it creates short-term relief and unintended consequences for the future. So the biggest lesson that I have learned is to not change things… and to sit with the discomfort and to work through the discomfort and think about what problem am I really trying to solve by changing this? And do I need to change something just to solve this problem or do I just need to change how I'm thinking? And nine times out of 10, it's like, I need to change how I'm thinking about this.

So how does that apply to the Simply Profitable Designer Summit? Well, basically I was being weird about pitching other web design business coaches last year to speak at that event. Just very bluntly, I will say that I was being weird about it. I don't know if competitive's the right word, but it was like I was hoarding. I was hoarding my audience and being like, “They are MY audience. They belong to me… and I'm not sharing them with any other potential person that they could buy from...” Which is so weird and so not me. And I'm just like, “Who is that person?”

I understand through therapy now why I was doing that. And that's like a whole other podcast…

But yeah, I was being weird and hoard-y.

And this year I'm just like, “There's no way every single person on my email list is going to work with me. Ultimately, all I want for everybody is for them to get the support that they need and be successful. And if it's not gonna be with me, what if it's with one of these other incredible humans that I know that also have the same values as me that also wanna help other people get what they want?” Like, I don't have to try to hoard it all. There's enough to go around, right?

And so with the Simply Profitable Designer Summit, this year I'm like, the more the merrier.

This year, I'm like, “If we are aligned in our approach to serving people, let's do it.” Like I'm all in. So we've invited over 50 speakers now. I think we've booked 25. And if you're listening to this and you're like, “I would love to speak at the Simply Profitable Designer Summit! I have ideas to help designers work less, make more, have more freedom, flexibility, fulfillment, and financial independence.” And it would be a mutually beneficial thing for you to speak, meaning you would get something out of it, like you have an offer that you could talk about – and we would get something out of it, meaning your topic would really serve our audience and/or you have an audience of web designers to promote to, email me! You can send an email to hello at simply profitable designer.com That will come to me and let me know your ideas – and depending on when you listen to this, if we have a spot for you if it feels aligned, we can talk about you speaking at the event.

So I started pitching speakers and while last year felt like such a big deal to figure out who to pitch… but this year, in just a few hours, I made a list, and it was like, boom, all the speakers have been pitched. And then I keep being like, “I forgot about this person. Let's ask them. I forgot about that person. Let's ask them. I talked to this person on the podcast. Let's ask them.”

And so I'm just inviting all of those people and I'm not like being so weird about it… and I feel like myself again.

So those are the important things that happened in October.

October 2023 Numbers

Get the full breakdown of income, expenses and net profit month by month here.

Total Revenue: $16,012.54

Our revenue includes Web Designer Academy payment plans, people who paid in full, and people who converted from the payment plan to pay in full after the 60-day grace period to pay in full and get the pay-in-full bonuses. It includes Next Level payments and payment plans. In October, it includes Next Level Retreat fees (most people paid for next level in July, but some payments still came in October if they opted for the 50/50 split). Affiliates and partnership revenue comes from when I speak at summits and promote, or even some old affiliate commissions trickling in for the DIY or stuff I used to do.

• • • Web Designer Academy (Includes WDA, Next Level + Retreat): $14,920.49
    • Affiliates + Partnerships: $1092.05

Total Investments: $21,540.44

I call what most people call “expenses” investments because every dime I spend in my mind contributes to the growth of my business in some way, shape or form. If it doesn't, it shouldn't be on this list. So I call them investments. You'll notice that this month, that total number is higher than the revenue. 

• • • Team: $17,045.14: Includes my salary, the salary of the marketing and operations coordinator, the salary of our client success coordinator, all the payroll taxes that we pay on top of that. Plus in October, it included severance for my laid off team member, plus paying out accrued paid time off because every state has laws for paying out unused accrued paid time off – and we have policies related to that too. So our payroll in October was more than our revenue…. and looking back, that was consistently happening for many months, and the gap was coming out of our business savings from those good years. And so that's where it became really, really obvious that we couldn't sustain that role anymore. It was just math. I don't like to say it like that because it meant more than math to me, but the ultimate decision was because of math. 
    • Tools I use to run my business: $1222.00: Like Airtable, Acuity Scheduling, ConvertKit, web hosting, all of that stuff.It's a big list. 
    • Education + Training: $0.00: I did invest in business coaching this year. That business coaching program does not have a payment plan like other business coaching programs that I've been in. I had to pay in full for that upfront and it was $25,000 for 6 months ($50K for the entire year) and that really was a huge stretch for me mentally. I used a combination of my business credit card and a line of credit to pay for that upfront. And I have been making my own payment plan payments to myself… which is so funny because what's the difference between opting for a payment plan or paying a payment plan to myself…but it felt different emotionally. And then our revenue dropped so low that I was like, okay, I'm just gonna pay the interest until I get my head back above water. And I don't love that decision… but I have made the decision that debt is a choice to pay something off over time. And I'm not making it mean anything more than that. Because if you listen to previous podcasts, the way that I grew up was a very unstable financial household. And so my whole adult life has been trying to prevent that financial instability from happening in my life, which also meant being vigilantly debt-free in my personal life. And I thought I would create a return on my business coaching just as quickly as I have in previous years… and best-laid plans, but things happened in my business and my life that derailed that. Do I think I'll create a return on investment in my coaching program? One thousand percent. I'm so glad I was enrolled in it during the toughest year of my business or I don't know where I'd be right now… and it's helping me add a TON of value to my WDA students… it's worth every penny invested. Is my ROI happening in the same year that I invested in it? No, the returns are probably going to come next year and beyond. So the time horizon for that for me specifically has been a little bit longer than anticipated. And so I put it on my line of credit and I'm paying the interest. And when we get our head above water in terms of our revenue is more than our investments and we have a good padding for payroll, then we'll start paying that down. I'm cool with it and I've come to terms with it and it's a choice to pay something off over time and I'm down with it. I don't know if you listen to Pep Talks for Side Hustlers, that might sound different than what I said back then, but I'm just so committed to the work that we do with our students that I'm here for that. To me, it's worth it. 
    • Marketing: $669.50
      • Conversion Rate Optimization: $0: We are working with one of our students who is a conversion rate optimization expert. She's a genius. We're implementing a bunch of recommendations. The line item in October is zero, and it's only because the invoice came to a little bit late, the investment for that will be recognized in November. So it'll probably be that November looks like a double payment. And I'm excited to share with you the conversion rate optimization stuff that we're doing, because it's super fun. I'll share it with you in future podcast episodes.
        
      • Podcast Production: $400 
      • Ads $0: We stopped running any kind of paid ads in October after it came, after conversion rate optimization, data analysis showed that our YouTube ads were converting to subscribers, but not necessarily converting to new students. 
      • WDA Engagement + Retention $269.50: We love to surprise and delight our students. And so the budget for that was $269.50, spending on. I'm not going to say what, because I like to keep it a surprise. But if you come to work with us, you'll know.

• • • WDA Next Level Retreat: $723.18: The majority of the spending on that event already happened to book the rental, and the rest you'll see it in the November income report, but to me the Retreat is a budget neutral, a profit-neutral event. So we keep the registration fee for that pretty equivalent to what we think our expenses are going to be, because we also understand that people have to travel to get there and there's child care, you know, a lot of additional expenses related to that. I'm not trying to profit off that event. We're trying to spend what we make on that to create an incredible experience because the value to our business is in the event itself and the transformation people get, and then they stay in the WDA forever and then they tell other people to join us. So that's so much more valuable to me than any profit I could make off of that event.

• • • Line of Credit + CC Interest: $998.58: So like I said, this is interest payments on my investment in business coaching in 2023… So I'm going to be looking at like getting some zero interest balance transfers or something, just trying to reduce those interest payments, because it'd be cool if I could use that money to pay down the balance…

• • • Professional Services: $497.28: That's legal, accounting, bookkeeping, HR, software (I use Gusto and there's a fee for that) and business insurance I didn't have any legal expenses this month. Thank goodness. Accounting will probably be paid for November and December. My CPA, Nacondra Moran, who I've been working with, I'll pay her to reserve my spot with her for my personal and S-corp tax returns. I think it's going to be a little bit hairy because of everything that happened in episode 43 of the podcast, but you can go listen to that. But I haven't paid for that yet. I use Bench to do all of my bookkeeping. Gusto may go down since we have less team members…
      • Legal $0
      • Accounting $0
      • Bookkeeping $230.00
      • HR $92.80
      • Biz Insurance $174.48
    • Office Expenses: $384.76: That's pretty high for me. I usually spend about $50 a month. I'm like, what did I buy? I don't even remember. It was like giant Post-it notes and paper and probably a few books. So I'm like, did I categorize something wrong? I need to look into exactly what that is. But normally that's just like, odds and ends, and there's maybe even some bank fees in there as well.

Net Profit: $-5,526.90

Lessons Learned

My net profit is negative $5,526.90, which comes out of my business savings, the money that I left in the business when I was profitable. So right now, we are operating at a deficit, which is why I made the decision to lay off a team member. So we'll see what the numbers look like in November.

I'm trying to get net profit number at least to zero to start because I'm still paying myself a paycheck right now… and that's a win. Like if I'm getting paid and my team is getting paid and all of our business expenses or investments are covered and we don't have a profit at the end, great. That's step one. Step two is to have that profit number be positive so we can start building our business savings back up. And then step three is to have it be more positive so we can start paying down my line of credit… but it's like a five year line of credit. So it's not a credit card, which is different.

So that's where we're at. Those are our October 2023 numbers.

And I just feel like… it's nice to be transparent, like, “Hey, guess what? Our profit is not in the positive. And also our students are still winning.” Like it's so interesting, it's the juxtaposition between like my revenue and my investments and what that looks like and how that has literally zero to do with the results our students are getting.

And that is something that I think that doing these income reports is really helping me see that even if it was flip-flopped, even if our revenue was higher than our investments slash expenses, that still doesn't have anything to do with the results our students are creating. And so it's the intellectual property we've created. It's the systems that we've set up to support them. It's the coaching, the curriculum, the strategy, all of that stuff.

And so that's one of the reasons why I was like, are my income reports even relevant? Because they don't necessarily show what's possible for someone when they come to work with us, but they're still important and relevant.

And I think for me, they're a little, they're cathartic. They help me like clear up my thinking and it'll help me show up as a better coach. When I'm not like feeling like, “Oh, I'm messing up. I'm feeling, I don't want people to know that I have a negative $5,000 profit…” I can just show up more fully in my coaching and all of that.

So I would love to hear any feedback or comments that you have – shannon@webdesigneracademy.com.

If you made it all. the way to the end… Wow, you're amazing and I can't wait to share future income reports and lessons learned with you!