My 2023 Income Report

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As we’re all easing into the new year, I wanted to share a behind the scenes look of how I’m planning for 2024 – beginning with taking you behind the scenes to a part of my year end wrap up that I’ve never shared before.

My 2023 Income Report!!

I’ll be frank – I’m nosy, and you probably are too. So, I thought I would share a deep dive into my numbers from 2023 and how they changed from 2022. Then, I’ll share a look at how I use those numbers to make decisions for my business in 2024.

But, before we begin – I just wanted to let you know that the quality in this week’s episode is not the quality you’re used to from the Chasing Simple podcast. In order to ensure my numbers were as accurate as possible, I waited as long as possible to record, which means that my editing team is out of office. I also had to record this on my phone instead of my typical mic (more on that next week), so the quality just isn’t the same.

But the information is incredible, so I hope you’ll stick around regardless!

Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

When it comes to creating your monthly content calendar and sitting down to create your content (because you’re batching it, right? 😉), the first step is not writing in the monthly calendar. It’s not even writing your categories and important dates on the calendar. If that’s where you’re starting with your content planning, well, all you’re creating is a plan. But what you need is a strategy. What’s the difference? A strategy is like the inner structure of a building, while the plan is the decor. A strategy is what helps you achieve your goals, and your plan is how you achieve them. Your strategy is where you’re leading your audience, and your plan is what you’re talking about and when. Without having a strategy first, putting together a plan will simply mean pulling ideas out of thin air. So, how do you start with a strategy? By starting with your goals, and working backwards to ensure you’re moving your audience toward them. What are your yearly goals, quarterly goals, monthly goals, and weekly goals? And how can you translate them into content your audience wants to ingest? You’ve got to consider those questions before you even begin deciding what it is that you’ll post about. And if you want a simple way to create both your strategy and your plan? Grab your Chasing Simple Content Planner. The planner is my number one bestseller – And for good reason too, because this massive 130+ page planner was designed with strategy in mind. It’s not merely a place to write down what you’re going to post, and when. Yes, that’s part of it. But first, you’ll walk through intentional pages full of strategic questions to get your brain moving in the right direction before you even start writing down your topic ideas. In addition to the traditional calendar pages, you’ll find: Yearly planning pages Monthly prep work Monthly reflection questions Repurposing worksheets and so much more! If taking your content to the next level is a goal of yours, the Chasing Simple Content Planner was created for you. Grab yours for just $27 at amandawarfield.com/planner/
Learn More about Chasing Simple Marketing
This week’s action step: Take a look at your own largest streams of income, and your largest expenses.
This week’s book recommendation: Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel
Find me on Instagram and tell me you completed this week’s action step: @mrsamandawarfield

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Have a comment about today’s episode, or a topic you’d like to suggest for a future episode? Shoot me an email over at hello@amandawarfield.com!

Rather Read? – Here’s the Transcript!

*Just a heads up – the provided transcript is likely to not be 100% accurate

As we’re all easing into the new year, I wanted to share a behind the scenes look of how I’m planning for 2024, beginning with taking you behind the scenes to a part of my year end wrap up that I’ve never shared before. My income report. I’ll be frank, I’m nosy, and you probably are too, so I thought I would share a deep dive into my numbers from 2023 and how they changed from 2022.

Then, I’ll share a look at how I use those numbers to make decisions for my business in 2024. But, before we begin, I just wanted to let you know that the quality in this week’s episode is not the quality you’re used to from the Chasing a Temple podcast. In order to ensure my numbers were as accurate as possible, I waited as long as possible to record, which means that my editing team is already out of office for the holidays.

I also had to record this on my phone instead of my typical mic due to traveling, so the quality just isn’t the same. But the information is incredible, so I hope you’ll stick around regardless. You’re listening to episode 193 of the Chasing Symbol podcast, and I’m your host, Amanda Warfield. This episode was brought to you by my book, Chasing Symbol Marketing, and you can grab your own at amandawarfield.

com slash book.

How do I find time to create content without overwhelming myself? Where should I even be showing up in my marketing? How do I come up with fresh content ideas? Where should I be focusing my marketing efforts? What is lead generation anyways and how do I do it? Are launches still a thing? And most importantly, How do I put it all together to market my business strategically?

Can I really grow my business without spending all of my time marketing? These are some of the questions that float around in your head when you think of marketing. Welcome friend, this is Chasing Simple, where practical marketing strategy meets simplicity. I’m your host, Amanda Warfield, simplicity focused content marketing and launch strategist, speaker, educator, and author of Chasing Simple Marketing.

I traded in my classroom lesson plans for helping creative entrepreneurs sustainably fit marketing into their business without it taking over their business. So that they have time to grow their business, take time off, and live the life they dreamed about when they first decided to go out on their own.

When I’m working, you can find me working with one on one clients, such as The Contract Shop and Rebecca Rice Photography on their marketing strategy and copywriting, or helping my students simplify their marketing and launches. And when I’m not, you can find me spending time outside with my husband, Russell.

Reading in our hammock, watching Gamecock Sports, traveling, or forcing our cats to snuggle me. If you feel overwhelmed by marketing, you aren’t alone. Many entrepreneurs find marketing frustrating, overwhelming, and simply an obligation. They know they need it, but they don’t enjoy how easily it can suck up their time when what they really want to be doing is the thing that they started their business to do.

Which is why I’m here, to help make marketing simple and less time consuming, so that you can spend less time on your marketing and more time growing your business and doing what you love. Each week, I’ll bring you transparent conversations, actionable steps, and judgment free community to encourage and equip you.

So grab yourself a cup of coffee or whatever your drink of choice is, and meet me here each week for love, support, practical tips, and advice on uncomplicating your marketing and business. Let’s do this entrepreneurship thing together, shall we?

When it comes to creating your monthly content calendar and sitting down to create your content because you’re batching it, right? The first step is not writing in the monthly calendar. It’s not even writing your categories and important dates on the calendar. If that’s where you’re starting with your content planning, well, all you’re creating is a plan.

But what you need is a strategy. What’s the difference? A strategy is like the inner structure of a building, while the plan is the decor. A strategy is what helps you achieve your goals, and your plan is how you achieve them. Your strategy is where you’re leading your audience, and your plan is what you’re talking about and when.

Without having a strategy first, putting together a plan will simply mean pulling ideas out of thin air. So, how do you start with a strategy? By starting with your goals, and working backwards to ensure that you’re moving your audience toward them. What are your yearly goals, quarterly goals, monthly goals, and weekly goals?

How can you translate them into content your audience wants to ingest? You’ve got to consider those questions before you even begin deciding what it is that you’ll post about. And if you want a simple way to create both your strategy and your plan, grab your Chasing Simple content planner. The planner is my number one bestseller, and for good reason too, because this massive, more than 130 page planner was designed with strategy in mind.

It’s not merely a place to write down what you’re going to post and when. Yes, that’s part of it, but first, you’ll walk through intentional pages full of strategic questions to get your brain moving in the right direction before you even start writing down your topic ideas. In addition to the traditional calendar pages, you’ll find yearly planning pages, monthly prep work, monthly reflection questions, repurposing worksheets, and so much more.

If taking your content to the next level is a goal of yours, the Chase and Simple content planner was created for you. Grab yours for just 27 at amandawarfield. com slash planner. I love a good income report. I love when other people share theirs and I just so firmly believe in transparency in the business space, especially financial transparency, that this was something I really wanted to share with everyone this year, particularly because So often, and this is something I’ve talked about before, it’s something I think we all recognize on some level, even if Sometimes our brains like to tell us otherwise.

Um, so often we’re told this lie that we haven’t made it in our business until we’re making six figures. And I know I fall into this trap even sometimes still, where I start to think, I really need to hit that six figure mark if I want to be successful. And then I have this realization of, No, I don’t. I’m successful now.

I can support us. I can be the main breadwinner with what I’m making and more on that to come next week, but I am making what we need and I’m happy and I have balance and that’s what success is. But it’s really easy to fall into that trap of I’ve got to make six figures. So I wanted to I wanted to just keep really transparent with you and share exactly what I made this year, or last year, I guess I should say, as this comes out January 2nd, but I wanted to share exactly what I made in 2023 so that you could, you know, Just see a picture of what success can look like and it doesn’t have to be six figures.

It doesn’t have to be hundreds of thousands of dollars. It’s great when someone else makes that for sure, like that’s a huge milestone, but um, Yeah, I just wanted to create this episode to encourage financial transparency, financial literacy, um, and just More balance and more simplicity in this online space instead of the constant rush, the constant push, the constant just dogging ourselves to try to make this fake picture of six figures.

Anyways, it’s a whole tangent that I could go down but That’s why I wanted to create this episode for this week and something I’m really excited to share with you. So we’re just going to, we’ll dive into the numbers. So first things first, my total revenue for 2023 and mind you, this is running the numbers.

There’s still a little bit of time left. I waited as long as I could to record, but this number could change, but I don’t foresee it changing drastically. But total revenue. As of recording this for 2023 is roughly 61, 000 and again, nowhere close to six figures, but plenty for what my husband and I need.

And I’m really happy with that number. I didn’t really set goals for 2023, which again, I’ll get into more next week, but um, I did. I was trying to achieve 70, 000 for the year, so I’m pretty darn happy with 61, 000. Uh, that is a, well, let’s just talk about 2022 revenue. 2022 revenue was about 45, 000, so from 45, 000 that’s about a 36 percent increase.

And I’m very happy with that number, especially considering how hard this year was in the business space, um, and how just everyone’s tightening their belts. So I’m thrilled with those numbers and really just, honestly, if I make the same next year in 2024 or this year in 2024, I will, I will feel good. So I’m really happy with that.

Now, my total expenses for 2023, because revenue only means so much, right? You can make a million dollars and still not have a successful business because your expenses are too high. My total expenses for the year were around 30, 000. I, well, 2022 expenses were 22, 000, so I had a 35 percent increase in expenses this year.

Now, That I don’t love. Not thrilled with that number. I did go into 2023 knowing it was going to be a high expense year between launching the book and getting, you know, I had to hire a lot of help for that. Um, or I chose to hire a lot of help for that so I could make it the best possible book that I could put out there.

I Rebranded that was another big goal for this year was finally getting real branding done from an actual designer and I also Had to invest in a MacBook. So there were a lot more expenses that This year than I would have liked but I also knew going into this year that it was going to be higher I definitely hope to see That number could go down next year for sure in 2024.

I definitely want to be a lot more mindful about my expenses especially with some recent life changes that we’ve had which I’ll get into in next week’s episode, but that’s something that Not terrible, but not great and that left my owner’s comp, which, let me just back up, because of the way my business is taxed as a single member LLC, my owner’s comp, my, my personal paycheck is considered profit.

So that’s not included in that expense number. Just because for tax purposes it’s not an expense for the business, it’s profit. So, my owner’s pay was about 27, 000 this year, and that’s roughly all the profit. I basically paid myself all the profit from the business this year, whereas 2022’s owner’s pay was about 15, 000, so I had an 83 percent increase in my paycheck from last year to this year, which is great.

Phenomenal. But, last year, in 2022, my Profit, even though I only paid myself 15, 000, my profit was 21, 000, so I only had an increase of about 27 percent in profit from 2022 to 2023 because I I had more expenses, so my profit percentage increase was dropped, but also my owner’s comp increased so much because I took basically all of the profit this year versus last year.

I save a lot more money because I knew 2023 was going to be a big year expense wise. So I would definitely like to see my profit increase next year, for sure. As those expenses go down, I want to build back up my savings for the business. Uh, I don’t have plans for any major projects currently. So, that, that’s my hope.

We’ll see. Um, but, yeah, I’m, I’m pretty happy with those numbers. The one I’m least happy about is definitely the expenses, but again, it was a calculated decision that I knew going into the year was going to happen. So all things considered, I’m pretty happy with how 2023 worked out. And now that I know my numbers, I now go into looking at my income streams and my expenses.

And so my largest income streams were my one to one services, which are my Monthly copywriting clients, where I do the content marketing strategy and copywriting. My quarterly strategy clients, where I just do the marketing strategy and then they create their own content. And then my VIP day repurposing, my repurposing content VIP days, where Business owners give me their long form content and I turn that into email newsletters and Social media captions and short form video outlines so that they don’t have to create content So those are my three main one on one services.

That was definitely the largest income stream, which is not surprising in any way shape or form because when you’re doing one to one work for someone, it’s more of an investment for them than say, a membership, which is my second largest income stream. I am honestly a little surprised that the membership was my second largest income stream just because I had a major transition with the membership this year, where it got a complete overhaul.

And I’m thrilled with where it’s at, because it was specifically batching focused, and I took my content batching bootcamp course and just put it on its own. It used to be only included in the membership. It’s on its own, you can buy it separately now, and the membership instead of being batching focused is now just marketing focused.

And we have quarterly themes now, which are just, I’m, I’m thrilled to be able to dive into one marketing topic, one marketing strategy each quarter and really dive deep into it throughout the quarter with my members and help them improve one thing at a time. And really just simplify their marketing. So for example, Q4 of 2023, we created new lead magnets and we got really intentional with creating lead magnets that would lead to sales.

Well, Q1, our theme is all about setting up our email list and getting an email newsletter going so that those people that were bringing in from those lead magnets will now they have somewhere to go and be nurtured. And so I’m just. I’m really glad that it is as high in my income streams as it is because it just is something I’m really passionate about and it’s such a, it’s a great way for me to be able to help business owners in an affordable way because that was something this year that I was really passionate about.

I wanted to make the membership more, um, More affordable, so you can join for just 27 a month Versus previously it was a lot more than that and I just really wanted something that was affordable And still saw results. It’s much more action focused and community focused than Education focused, there’s definitely education, but it’s it’s more action focused.

Anyways, I’m just going off on a tangent but all of that being said I’m surprised but thrilled to see that it was number two in my income streams. And then the third and fourth largest income streams were Content Batching Bootcamp, The Course, and The Planner, The Content Planner, respectively. Um, again, Content Batching Bootcamp.

It only became available as just a course in August and so it just goes to show how like a testament to how much people love that course that it rose to number three of my income streams in just that short amount of time. And then the planner, it’s no surprise to me that that’s on here. That is definitely one of my best sellers all year long.

So the 2024 and 2023 content I included them both. Um, just Because, for the sake of, it doesn’t matter which one is which, um, but both of those combined grabbed the number four spot for my income streams. So, what does all of that mean? Well, I like to look at my income streams and decide, okay. What does this, what does this tell me?

What do I do with this? What does this mean for 2024? And for me, well, it just showcases exactly what I should be digging into and putting my marketing energy into because I have so many different revenue streams with all of the different items in my shop. I know that these four things are ones that I should really be focused on marketing to.

So really focused on marketing my one to one services. Particularly those VIP days because currently I am full for ongoing clients, but those repurposing VIP days, that’s something that I will be continuing to really market in 2024. The membership is something that I’m going to continue to market.

Content Batching Bootcamp, the Content Planner, those are all things that I know if I put energy into marketing them, they are going to bring in sales. They’ve proven themselves, right? So that’s one thing it tells me. It also tells me where to not put my energy in. I have other courses that I love, but clearly right now they need work.

They need I’m tweaking with either the sales page, or the object itself, or how I’m marketing it. There’s so many different things I need to look into. So that indicates, okay, I know that these are great courses. I’ve got my A Year In Preview course, which is all about how to plan your marketing content.

In planning your year in business, I’ve got my launch strategy course, which gives all of my secrets away for how I create launch strategies for myself and my clients. I know the content’s good, I’m not marketing it well, clearly. So that tells me that I need to work on those funnels and those sales pages and those offers throughout the year.

It also can tell you if you look at the income streams that didn’t make any money, it can tell you. Um, whether or not you need to work on improving that offer and that marketing, or it may tell you, Hey, time to shut this one down. I shut down a service or an offer earlier this year that I was like, you know what?

It’s not selling and I don’t feel passionate about it and I’m not, it’s fine, but it’s not one of my favorite offers. And so I shut one down earlier this year, took it out of my shop and there’s just, there’s different things that can tell you and you. You kind of have to make those decisions based on your gut because sometimes things aren’t selling because you’re not Marketing it and sometimes it’s not selling because it’s not what your people need and you kind of have to make that decision for yourself But looking at your largest and smallest income streams can help you make those decisions for the new year The next thing I look at are my expenses.

So my largest expenses for 2023 or my one to one services my Podcast editing team. Shout out to Gaffin Creative, my amazing VA, who if you need a VA, let me know. I will hook you up if she has room, but she’s incredible. Um, and then I also had some one off services. One on one services. So I had my book editors.

I hired two different editors to help me with the book. I hired a book designer to design the cover. I hired, um, I hired a brand designer this year who not only I hired her for my total rebrand, but I also hired her to design the 2024 content planner because 2023 was the first year I launched it and it was functional, but it wasn’t pretty.

And now the 2024 one is functional and pretty. And so, Like I said, some of these were just known expenses that I was going to have throughout the year, but without a doubt, one to one services were my largest expenses. Again, makes sense, right? We all know that that’s going to be the largest expense typically, um, if we are hiring one to one services and that’s something that, well, I’ll get to that in a minute.

My second largest expense was my Macbook, um, that was an unexpected expense this year. Like I said, I had planned for expenses, um, and then in January, my laptop, unexpectedly, not really unexpectedly, let’s be real, I kind of knew it was dying, but it bit the dust, um, I borrowed my husband’s laptop for months until I was comfortable enough and then he finally was like you need to buy your own laptop.

I want mine back. So that was an unexpected expense. Thank goodness for all of my savings last year because Yeah, Macs are not cheap, but I wanted something that was quality so that I, it would last another five to ten years. So that’s my hope with this. We’ll see. But that was my second largest expense. My third was a membership I’m part of and then my fourth is Cartra which is the software I use to run my business.

Um, all of my one to one stuff goes through HoneyBook but my shop, my email list, my funnel, everything else is in Cartra and I could not run my business without it. So, when I look at my expenses, I look at, okay, which of these can I cut in the new year? And particularly going into 2024, I’m having to be a little bit choosier, again, just based on some life circumstances that are happening that I’ll get into more next week.

But Karcher will definitely stick around. It makes it’s worth back tenfold, um, if not more, and I obviously will not be getting rid of my podcast editor or my VA, that’s for sure. But I probably won’t hire as many one off services in the new year. There are a couple projects or a couple investments I would like to make if I save the funds, but they’re not fully necessary.

Like. My wish list, I guess you could say. I want to get new brand photos done. I haven’t had brand photos done since June or July of 2021. It’s been a while. Uh, my business has evolved. It’s past time. That’s a wishlist item for sure. We’ll see what happens. And another wishlist item for one off projects would be hiring that brand designer again to maybe create some sub brands for my shop and some of the different courses I have.

But again, those are wishlists and not Needs so we’ll see but if I have to keep expenses low probably won’t happen this year I obviously do not plan to spend a ton of money on equipment this year I Again a wish list item, but not necessary. I may upgrade my iPad when I bought it 2019 I think is when I bought my iPad.

I originally got it so that I could use it for social media. And so I got a mini, and because I wanted to be able to like hold it in my hand easily so I could record stories and things on it, and that worked really well for a time, but then as my phone got better and better and better and the camera got better and better, I don’t like using it for that any longer.

And so, um. The, the purpose of it being mini isn’t necessary any longer and now it gets used more so as a second screen For me particularly when I am like at the library or at a coffee shop working and I’d rather it be larger But it’s again, not necessary. The old iPad works So Wishlist item for sure.

But other than that, I don’t plan to purchase equipment for this year So that’s an expense I’m definitely cutting, and then the membership I’m part of I will be cutting as well. It has been incredible. I love being part of memberships, particularly for networking purposes, like it’s just the best way to network virtually, but this one, it’s one of my top expenses for the year, and it’s just not something that for this year is going to be feasible, but I hope to go back to it in the future when it is more feasible and I have a little bit more, um, wiggle room with my expenses.

So, when I look at expenses, that’s what I look at and I kind of go, okay, will I continue this one this year? What does my budget look like? How much wiggle room do I have with expenses? So on and so forth. So what I want you to do, your action step for this week, is to take a look at your own streams of income and expenses and kind of do that same mental process that I just did out loud for you.

Do that for your own and see what you come up with as far as where are you putting your marketing Time and efforts. Where are you going to cut expenses? What are your wishlist items? What are your must have items for 2024? And just kind of see where that leads you. And it’s a really great way to wrap up 2023 and start to.

Think about and make lists or just mental nodes of what you might be hoping for in 2024 with your business. Now, your book recommendation for this week is Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel. And this one, man, I’m not even sure how to describe it. It,

it kind of fantastical, but it’s not fantasy, but it’s I’m not really sure. She has a really great way of writing books that are real life, but not at the same time. Um, with just like a little hint of, I don’t even want to say magic because it’s, it’s not necessarily magic, but it’s just a little hint of the unreal.

Um, but regardless, I’m, I’m just going to leave it at that. But It’s an incredible book. I will link to it in the show notes if you want to check it out. And again, that Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel. And now my friends, I hope that you’ll go out and uncomplicate your marketing and business.

Thank you so much for joining me here today, friend. You can find this episode show notes, as well as all the resources you need to simplify your marketing over at amandawarfield. com. If you liked what you heard here today, be sure to subscribe to the podcast so that you never miss an episode. And if you could take a moment to leave a rating and review, it would truly mean the world to me.

Ratings and reviews are the number one way that you can support a podcast. And ensure that it sticks around for many more episodes to come. I’ll see you next time. Now go out and uncomplicate your marketing and business.

Episode 193: My 2023 Income Report

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