Income Report: Q3 2018

It’s been a whole year since the last TMM income report. Let’s see what happened since Q3 2017…

Note: you can find the full version of this post at brockmcgoff.com.

I know, I know…it’s been a while. I haven’t published a quarterly income report since Q3 2017 (about a year ago).

Rather than going back to fill in the gaps, I’ll just pick things back up at Q3 2018. Let’s get into it!

TMM Revenue (Quarterly)

Let’s start with the big picture:

Now let’s get into the weeds…

Show Me the Money

Revenue from TMM falls into three categories:

1. Advertising (includes sponsorships)
2. Affiliate commissions
3. Selling products

Let’s look at each category for Q3 2018 (note: some of the links below are affiliate links).

Advertising – $16,927 (down 30% from same period last year)

During the same time period last year (Jul, Aug, Sep), I did 3x as many paid partnerships (compared to Q3 this year), hence the 30% drop year over year (YoY).

Honestly, I’m okay with this.

The rest of the advertising revenue comes from display ads you see on this site, plus YouTube ad revenue (Google AdSense).

Affiliate – $7,314 (down 27% from same period last year)

I think this YoY drop is due to two things:

1. Q3 2017 was an unusually strong quarter for affiliate revenue
2. Amazon lowered their commission rates last year, which has caused a steady decline in revenue from that program

Affiliate programs have always been a small part of my business, but I know other content creators who do really well with them.

It’s definitely something I want to focus more on going forward, especially since affiliate income is truly passive.

Products – $1,643 (up 49% from same period last year)

This category includes digital products (The Modest Man Style Guide) and physically products (the occasional sale on Grailed, etc.).

In July, I paired down my watch collection by selling a bunch of them off via Instagram. This is more for fun than for money. It’s nice giving someone a good deal and seeing a watch or article of clothing go to a good home.

The Style Guide is good for about $200/month on average. It’s a solid guide, but I haven’t updated it in a while, and I do almost nothing to promote it.

But again, that’s 100% passive income…the best kind!

Grand Total = $25,885 (down 27% from same period last year)

Passive = $21,095 (up 3% from same period last year)

I decided to start tracking how much of the revenue from TMM is passive (i.e., doesn’t require routine, direct input from me).

Sponsorships are not passive. Display ads are passive. Affiliate programs are passive.

I like passive income. To me, it’s way more valuable than any other kind of income.

What About Expenses?

I’m not going to list out every single one-time expense anymore because, frankly, it’s very tedious. Of course, I do track these in my accounting software (Wave).

But here are the monthly recurring expenses, totaled for the quarter:

• Rent (Studio) – $2,025
• Virtual assistant – $900
• WP Engine – $747
• Phone – $330
• ConvertKit – $202
• LeadPages – $201
• Internet – $120
• Adobe CC – $63
• SmarterQueue – $60
• Bluehost – $60
• Canva – $39

Total Recurring Expenses = $4,747 (roughly the same each quarter)

That leaves us with a Q3 2018 profit of $21,138 (or about $7k per month).

I hope this report is informative and maybe even a little inspiring. If you have questions about any of this stuff, feel free to ask me down in the comments.