Pat Flynn
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Another month down, another monthly report to share!
It seems like a lot of time has passed since my last report, but I think that’s because I’ve been focusing a lot on creating quality posts on a consistent schedule for you to read. I feel, and I think most of you would agree, that the content here on the blog this past month has been some of the best so far. It shows in the number of comments and in the amount of traffic I’ve been seeing lately. For all of you readers out there, new and old school—I just want to say thanks.
Important Goings-On in October
On a personal note, April (my wife), just entered her third trimester! She’s doing well, and the baby is healthy and moving around…a lot. Just the other day, I put my hand on her belly and felt the baby slowly move across where my hand was. It kind of felt like one of those back massagers you put on a chair, with the balls that move in a circular motion that you’re supposed to lean your back against, but in super slow motion. It was crazy!!!
Online, a lot of crazy good things have been happening too.
GreenExamAcademy
Although sales are expected to slow down a bit for the holidays, I’m super stoked to report that with Google’s recent PageRank update (it’s slowly coming along, it may or may not have hit your website already), GreenExamAcademy is now PR 5! That’s after intheleed.com had to be shut down, which made my new domain a PR 0—so this is definitely an amazing feat. I also rank in the top 10 for all of the major keywords. I’ve got to give props to my VA who I hired from Elance (now Upwork). He did a wonderful job, even after changing the primary domain in his campaign halfway through his 3-month hire period!
Smart Passive Income
If you remember from my last report, one of my plans was to expand the SPI brand to other channels like YouTube and Facebook. So far, branding has been going very well. Starting from scratch, in just a little over 2 weeks, I have gained over 200 fans on Facebook, and 35 subscribers on my YouTube Channel. To top it off, I’m approaching 30k Twitter followers. I’m reaching out to people on various platforms who would of never found me before, and I am seeing more and more traffic coming from these specific channels every day, which is awesome. I haven’t researched the exact numbers yet, but I wouldn’t be surprised if I now have more traffic coming in from social media websites than any other sources, including search engines and links from other websites combined.
I’ve actually had so much fun creating new videos, that I’m kind of getting addicted to it. In the last 2 weeks I’ve put out 8 videos, and I don’t plan on stopping. It’s a great way for me to put my voice and face out there, as well as provide some helpful content to you that would normally be difficult to do with just text on a blog post.
All right, it’s time. Here’s the breakdown:
Please note that these are figures from reports from each individual company for the previous month. It does not necessarily reflect the actual payment which, for some of the companies listed below, come 30 to 60 days later because of potential refunds.
Note: Items with an empty difference percentage were not present on the previous month’s income report.
Overall, things have been pretty consistent the past several months. I expect things to die down with the holidays coming up, since more people will be focusing on vacations and spending time with their families, rather than studying for an exam. Hopefully, things will pick back up in the new year. There is one thing pending that may have a significant impact on my future sales: the company that administers the exam is planning on coming out with their own study material soon. We’ll see what happens.
Things I Learned in October
I’d just like to briefly talk about one very important thing that I learned.
For a long time, I’ve always thought, “why not me.” When someone wins the lottery…why not me. When I hear about someone else’s half a million dollar product launch…why not me. I realized that when I would think this way, I would be basically putting myself down.
No matter what I’m doing online, I shouldn’t dwell on how much better someone else is doing. I think its okay to be inspired by someone else’s achievements, and use that energy for my own productivity and success, but it’s not healthy to wonder “why not me”.
From now on, every time I begin to think “why not me”, I’m going to immediately change that to, “what’s my next step”. This way, I’ll get right back into a productive state of mind. I will no longer worry about what could have been, but instead I’ll focus on what will be. What do you think?
Plans for the Future
This blog’s redesign should be completed very soon. You should see a far more organized website, with more room to breath. If you’re interested in exactly what the changes will be, I’ve created a video entitled: Is Your Blog Optimized? Here Are 5 Questions You Can Ask Yourself to Find Out.
Also, I’m almost ready to debut the Smart Passive Income Podcast. More on that later.
Lastly, since October 2008 was when I wrote my first income report, I thought it might be cool to do an annual income report, so look out for that next!
Thanks everyone, and I wish you nothing less than success!
