272 - February Profit Report

On today's episode of the podcast I'm diving into my February 2023 profit report and setting goals for March.

I started these profit reports because I believe we need more transparency in numbers, not because anyone is entitled to know, but because I don't think money should be such a taboo topic and we shouldn't be afraid to share our goals and how much money we're spending. The purpose of the profit report used to be just for listeners' benefit, but as I kept doing them they really helped me look at my own numbers, see where I am, and work on goal projections and I would encourage you to do the same in your business.

To recap my 2023 goals that I highlighted in January's profit report:

1. Hit $20k consistent months in the business this year. Last year we did $15k pretty consistently, and $20k in the last two months because Q4 is always my biggest quarter so I can't use that to predict my next year, but I can compare it to the previous Q4 to see that we're trending up. Based on $15k in January and $22.5k in February, it looks like we're on track for $20k months this year but we can't know for sure yet since we just launched the law firm this month which was a big injection of income just this past week. My MRR will be more telling.

2. Get MRR close to $20k/month by the end of the year (which does not include installment plans). MRR is typically hard to grow so this might be a stretch for 2023 since my February MRR was close to $11k. The reality is with the new legal subscription and bookkeeping in the law firm we might be able to get it to $15k and bridge the gap in Q4 with the Profit Rx launch.

3. Average under 35% for expenses for a profit margin of 65%. I was off to a bad start in January as I geared up for the law firm launch. I'm definitely not "catching up" but I'm closer to the goal now in February.

To recap my law firm launch:

• We launched one week ago from this episode and brought in $8,000 in revenue so far and we have a lot more contracts and emails out to potentially interested clients.
• I made a last minute decision to combine my websites. All of the checkout pages for Braden Drake LLC will still live on bradendrake.com but rather than send people back and forth, I put all the info for all my programs on notavglaw.com. At the end of the day, all of our messaging and marketing make sense to have a unified message but for legal reasons the one-on-one services and education services need to be separate.
• My goal is to average one VIP day a week and 3 - 5 trademarks batch booked at the beginning of each month. I'd also like to grow our legal subscription to 25 people by the end of March

To recap the offers in the two businesses:

1. One time offers (not subscription-based monthly recurring revenue)

• Education - $30 Low ticket offers including: Contract Club, Legally Launched, Tax Toolbox, Bookkeeping Blueprint and my book
• Law Firm - VIP Days and trademarks

2. Ongoing monthly support (MRR)

• Education - Profit Rx
• Law firm - Legal subscription and monthly bookkeeping services

To recap my revenue goals and projections for February:

Education

• Profit Rx: $8,000
• Low ticket stuff: $4,000 (including bundle)

Law Firm

• Current client revenue: $1,200

• Tax Returns: $3,000

• I'm not sure why I didn't factor in booking anything from the law firm launch into revenue, maybe just to be conservative with the numbers.

• Total, total: $16,200

Looking back at February, the actual numbers were:

Education $14,400

• Profit Rx: $9,000 in MRR
• Profit Rx: $1,000 in annual payment
• Low ticket stuff: $3,000
• Misc revenue: $1,400

Law firm $8,000

• Monthly bookkeeping clients and one deposit for tax return: $1,500

• Legal subscription and trademark clients: $2,100

• VIP Days and 1 Hour Strategy calls: $4,500

Now let's talk expenses:

• Almost all expenses came from the LLC this month, some of which are ones I use for both businesses (plus I'm still waiting for my law firm debit card)

• $4,000 went to my team, about $1,000 more than I wanted to be. I started the year wanting to be at $2,000 but we still have a lot of clients onboarding and doing one-on-one calls and I think moving forward $2,000 is unrealistically low

• $1,000 in payments to affiliates. Our goal is for this expense to be high because the more we pay our affiliates, it means the more sales and revenue we generated.

• $800 in online programs

• $900 in office expenses (about $700 was for the ThriveCart lifetime payment to be used in the law firm)

• Total, total: About $8,000

For a profit of:

• $6,500 in the education business (before my $4,400 salary)

• $14,000 in total profit in both businesses on $22,5000 in revenue

• 65% profit margin (the primary metric I'll be tracking)

We won't be combining these numbers on tax returns since they are two separate businesses, but for myself as the owner of both who is not looking to sell at the moment, it's good for me to look at them together.

I've decided to introduce an over/under goal section in my bookkeeping spreadsheet. Last year I did $170k in revenue. This year I'd like to see a minimum of $225k with a stretch goal of $300k. I did some math to figure out how much more money I would need to make to get to $300k compared to last year to be on the path to $300k. Year-to-date I'm currently $7,000 under where I need to be to hit that goal.

Looking forward to my March goals/projections:

• Revenue: $25k in March to trend to $300k and start making up for January. It is hard to entirely tell how much of February is just due to the launch versus what we can actually expect to see each month in the law firm. I won't be busting my ass in March, I'm going to see what comes in naturallyEducation $12,000

• $9.000 Profit Rx

• $3,000 Low Ticket Stuff

• Law firm

• $5,000 Bookkeeping clients and tax returns

• $4,000 Legal stuff including monthly subscription and trademark clients

• $3,500 VIP Days averaging one per week and trademark clients

• Total, total: $25,500 for both businesses combined

If you enjoy the profit reports, I'd love for you to send me a DM and tell me what you love about them so I can expand on certain areas moving forward.