my first $570,000 in sales

[Rob Toth]

To satisfy my own curiosities and to better get a look at past decisions and future direction... I added up all past sales (my own sales, I didn't include sales generated for clients etc)... it totals roughly $570,000. I just generated a pie chart for a visual break-down of where those sales came from... and now I'm trying to get an accurate picture of the traffic techniques used for the $570k sales.

I'll later create a "lessons learned" and break down of all this.

A few immediate observations

(1) I don't charge nearly enough for client work because I see how much the retainer fees and bonuses have impacted my own income (a mere 6%) yet I'm well aware of several of the campaigns and business launches that I've helped create (at least 3 of them started from $0 and now earn over $4000 per month, 1 of them $15,000 per month). So in 2011, I'm putting more emphasis into this gear and raising rates.

(2) Affiliate offers, though 17% on this chart, is actually a very small part of my income. It's 17% because it's how I got started (like many others)... my first few years, the only money I was making was (small) affiliate commissions.

(3) I don't have a membership/recurring in here. Which is also a big reason why sales so far have only been $570k instead of $2 mill + that they likely otherwise would have been.

Here's my chart...

Again, I'll dive into the "lessons learned" and other points more with an in-depth article that I'll send to my subscribers (and can link to here if anyone is interested). Namely I'm interested in HOW those sales were generated. Ie: the traffic and marketing techniques used. I've dabbled into many traffic gen tactics but I have a feeling that 95% of all the sales came from just 3 gears.

(===> UPDATE: I posted the chart along with full "lessons learned" article here: http://www.robtoth.com/robtothrant_570k.htm )

[Rob Toth]

For whatever it's worth, if you've been kicking around a while... REGARDLESS of whether your sales are up to $100,000 or $10 million ... this is a very worthwhile exercise.

I'll be looking more and more into my data.

If you want to draft up your own pie chart, it's of course very simple to do. Even if you choose not to mention your own sales figure (which is perfectly fine), the percentages is something pretty neat to reflect upon.

Anyways... back to work. 2011 goal is $1 mill in new sales... time to push the exponential growth into high gear. If I'm not grossing $10 mill annually by age 35, I just won't feel very cool.

[TonyShepherd]

I try to do this at 6 month intervals (but don't always get round to it)

But I guarantee that for anyone who tries it the following will happen:

1. You'll find it extremely valuable and it will increase your revevue when you realise which areas of your business you need to work on.

2. It WILL throw up some surprises. Where the you think the money comes from and where it actually does come from are two different things.

I almost dumped a small section of my biz because it was a pain in the arse quite frankly - then I realised it was still bringing in five figures a year. Not earth-shattering but definitely not 'dump-able'

It's a good exercise!

Tony

[Gavin Stephenson]

It goes to show the money is in creating your own product!

[Ashley Wright]

37% Physical products, is that the same as your info products but physical Rob?

[Rob Toth]

@Tony ... I agree. I'm getting more and more into the habit of watching all sorts of numbers. I can't really preach this topic as I'd be a hypocrite seeing as for the first few years, I KNEW this would be a smart idea (watching numbers closely) but I always put it off or ignored it.

@Gavin... well yes and no. There's no shortage of affiliate marketers who make 6-figure NET monthly incomes through affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing does give you that simplicity. As long as you can find cheap traffic and you can convert for an offer, you get paid and you're done. That's it. No other responsibilities.

With a product, it's a whole different ball game. There are a LOT more variables and some get caught up in the details and never properly launch a product or they get into perfectionism mode and again, never launch it ... or they get married to a product idea that is entirely flawed. I'd rather say there are pros and cons to each.

For me, I get an ego stroke everytime someone writes to me and says how great something I created is. I get a serious satisfaction out of that. So just getting affiliate commission checks isn't enough. I need the recognition and praise (as long as it's well EARNED!). And I also need the creative release of knowing I created my own items. Plus, since I enjoy networking... it's easy enough for me to pull in affiliate partners. Which would be useless if I myself was just an affiliate.

But, again, pros and cons. I rarely do affiliate promotions even to my own list. Hence the low 17%. Don't let it fool you though, I'm sure some even in this forum see 50%+ of their income from aff offers.

@Ashley ...
The physical products weren't mine. They were a license deal. I had to pay a license fee. But yes, the conversion with physical products was certainly higher. And understandably so. To me, an ideal purchase is getting the physical copy shipped to me, while I get the digital version immediately to review. But I too want a physical copy if it's a quality course that I really want to review.

[Rob Toth]

More important than the numbers (as that's not of value to anyone besides me), I think are the observations, lessons learned etc.

Writing that article now.

Well... I'm slacking NOW. But it's already a lengthy article. But should offer plenty of "meat" for anyone interested.

For me, it's useful to write it out and revisit it in a couple of years when I'm sure the count will be in the 5 mill range and see what still holds true or what new methods need to get implemented.

As anyone else will say, the tactics, systems, mindsets, habits, resources etc that you need to build a 5-figure rev company vs a 6-figure, vs 7-figure vs 8-figure (etc) all vary. They have some of the same foundations. But much of the rest is vastly different.

Anyways just wanted to blab for a minute to get away from the article writing.

[Rob Toth]

Just posted a full article and breakdown of all this:

http://www.robtoth.com/robtothrant_570k.htm


Should be of use to some, I'm sure.

[Dieter Stone]

@Ashley ...
The physical products weren't mine. They were a license deal. I had to pay a license fee. But yes, the conversion with physical products was certainly higher. And understandably so. To me, an ideal purchase is getting the physical copy shipped to me, while I get the digital version immediately to review. But I too want a physical copy if it's a quality course that I really want to review.

It does look like the physical products make up alot of your sales, but at what cost? How high was the license fee (in % of the sales). Because this could be a vital point, since you keep 100% of the sales you generate on your own product, but less in this area.

[paulbarrs]

Nice illustration Rob.

Last time I did this (about a year ago) I found that almost 80% of all my income had come through JV's...

Wow. Was *that* an eye opener!


Paul