I didn’t post a progress and income report for April, so as you probably can tell from the title of this post I’m gonna do a two-in-one. March was a good month that gave me some serious inspiration and momentum, but then my life got crazy and took me away from my Internet home business (and blogging) and changed everything. So, April and May pretty much reflect that. I’ve managed to still make some money simply based on the things I’ve done in the past to build my business – which is awesome! Here’s my income report for April and May.

My online income for April 2008:

• Home business program earnings: $107.59
• Affiliate commissions: $286.46
• Grand Total: $394.05

My online income for May 2008:

• Home business program earnings: $135.05
• Affiliate commissions: $484.52
• Grand Total: $619.57

As you can see, April was somewhat pathetic in terms of my master plan goals. Over these last two months, I dropped two home business programs because I just wasn’t seeing the point anymore since they weren’t turning a profit and I didn’t have the time to build them further. My NMOC sites and affiliate marketing stuff managed to make some pretty good money in May. I’m pleased with those numbers, but my overall progress is not at all where I want to be. However, I’m going to focus on the positive and keep moving forward! Since I’m struggling with a lack of time to work on my business and my blogs I’m gonna spend the day reevaluating what I need to do to stay on track here. I’ve come to accept that my goal of posting here three times a week is simply unrealistic at this point… so I’m going to shoot for once a week right now. Stay tuned… this is my real life journey and I refuse to give up.

Another aspect I re-focused on in March was remembering the key principles of The Law of Attraction. I know some people view LOA as little “out there” but for me it’s part of my inspiration. The difficult part of LOA is when you have limiting beliefs about the things you are trying to manifest in your life. I’ve struggled with my limiting beliefs about money that I acquired during childhood and have been working to release them using positive affirmations… but things were slow and go. So, the first weekend in March I bought Joe Vitale’s Money Beyond Belief. It uses the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) and so far I love it! Believe it or not, I started seeing results within a week.

Now, if you remember in February my online earnings came very close to $300. My end of first quarter goal from My Master Plan was to reach $500. Well, I didn’t quite make it to $500 BUT I came soooooo close! I’m extremely pleased with the income I generated in March because it was just about $200 more than the previous month and I can feel the momentum I started building to propel me into April. Here’ s the breakdown:

My online income for March 2008:

• Home Business Program Earnings: $126.94
• Affiliate Commissions: $197.85
• Advertising: $45.00
• Google Adsense: $118.00
• Grand Total: $487.79

Woo hoo! You’ll notice I included a payment from Google Adsense. I don’t talk about Adsense much because I don’t concentrate my efforts on it at all. Somehow, through the various sites I have it on, I’ve managed to build my income from Adsense to about $30/month, so I’ll get a payment from them about every 3 months. Nothing major, but nice when the money arrives. How was March for you? Are there any areas you can re-focus on to amplify your efforts? I’d love to hear from you!

I was recently informed by Margaret of EyeSpi20.com (one of my Entrecard advertisers) that the blog comments function was malfunctioning! (If you’re reading this, Margaret, thank you again!) Come to find out I had left out a closing HTML tag on a modification I made to my newsletter sign up form. This was making it impossible to comment here and was resulting in a Get Response newsletter sign up error! Undoubtedly, more than just Margaret encountered this unintentional error so please accept my sincere apologies for that whole mess. It’s been fixed and things are functioning properly now.

So, now to the meat of this report… did I make my goal of $350-$400 last month? It disappoints me to have to report that I didn’t. I suspected I might fall short because I just haven’t had the time to put into promoting any affiliate products and such, so I wasn’t too surprised. I did, however, manage to increase my earning by a little bit over January, so that was slightly encouraging. I’ve already started this month off by promoting the Niche Annihilation Method, so I hope that finding the time and opportunity to do more affiliate promotions will push me forward towards reaching my earnings goals. Here’s the breakdown of my online income for last month:

My online income for February 2008:

• Home Business Earnings: $127.13
• Affiliate Commissions: $167.88
• Grand Total: $295.01

Not too bad considering February was also a short month, but I’m definitely not satisfied. I’m going to work harder this month to push forward towards my goals and to get my posting up. How did you do last month? Did you reach any new milestones? I’d love to hear from you!

Because of all of the above, I didn’t have much time to devote to promoting my home businesses or any affiliate programs. I did get a few sign ups for both My Power Mall and Lawn Chair Millionaires, which is really great. I also found my commitment to post on this blog three times a week impossible to keep last month. I was lucky to post once or twice a week, so I’ve just got to get better at sticking to my blogging schedule. All in all, January didn’t make a bad showing in terms of my income. If you remember, part 1 of My Master Plan included a goal of increasing my online earnings to $500 per month by the end of this quarter. Here’s the breakdown of my online income for last month:

My online income for January 2008:

• Affiliate Commissions: $109.23
• Home Business Earnings: $70.22
• Private Ad Sales: $100.00
• Grand Total: $279.45

Not bad considering I didn’t do much besides move websites and make a major change in my day job. My goal is to reach the $350-$400 range for my online earnings this month. If I do, I will be right on track to reach $500 by the end of March. It’s definitely doable, I just need to keep my commitments and work on getting more traffic. This month, I plan on telling you all about what I’m doing to accomplish my blogging goals and gain more traffic to my sites.

And finally, I changed my blog theme… again. I know, I know – if you’re one of my long time readers you’re probably remembering a little promise I made a month or so ago not to change it again until I got a professional redesign. All I can say is I’m sorry… I’m just a sucker for a sexy new WordPress theme! “My name is Epiphany and I’m a WordPress theme junky!” I really, really like this new one a lot so maybe I’ll keep it for awhile. But I’m not gonna tell you that I’ll keep it forever because nothing turns me off quicker than seeing another blog rockin’ my theme. I’d love to hear what you think of this new theme and how you’re doing with your online earnings.

I commit to making this blog my primary focus in 2008!

I’ve had this blog for over a year, but I have fallen short of my blogging potential in so many ways! First and foremost, I wasn’t committed to blogging. I had no posting frequency established and I hadn’t taken any real effort to optimize this blog. I’ve begun changing all of that! Here are some of the things I’ve done recently:

• I’ve committed to posting at least 3 times a week. Are you wondering, “Why not daily?” I admit that posting daily is ideal and I will eventually get to that point (hopefully sooner than I think). Right now, however, my other obligations make it difficult to post every single day.
• I’ve begun commenting on other blogs. I turned into a blog junky a long time ago! I genuinely love reading other blogs, but I didn’t always make comments. I’ve now begun making comments to contribute to the blog community which will help people notice me, my blog, and hopefully result in more traffic here as well.
• I’m becoming more active in blog communities. My three favorite communities are MyBlogLog, BlogCatalog, and Cre8buzz. I’ve found so many great blogs by being a part of these communities and they give me the chance to participate in some lively discussions too!
• I’m optimizing my blog for search engines. I did a little of this in the beginning, but I’ve taken a fresh look at things and made some changes. I think I’m gonna do a more detailed post on this topic in the near future.

What about my other 2008 goals?

I haven’t forgotten about them either! I’ve already begun delving deeper into the business side of things. I’m a member of the International Association of Home Business Entrepreneurs, which gives me access to a multitude of resources to help me understand and build my business. I’m also taking an online course on how to start your own business at MyOwnBusiness. org. It’s geared more towards small businesses with a physical location, but I’ve already found some good general business info too (and its free!).

Now, as far as my personal and spiritual development goals… I’m doing a few things. I joined HigherAwareness.com and it’s awesome! They offer personal development plans, tools, and resources to really help you grow as a person. So much of what I’ve found already has provided me with fresh insight. I’ve also got a great meditation DVD to help me become much better at meditation. I’m looking into obtaining more information on  The Sedona Method as well. Overall, I am just open to change and becoming a better, more authentic me.

OK! So, there’s my Master Plan for 2008. What do you think? I’m really looking forward to achieving every single one of my goals, especially to watching this blog grow. I’m super excited about what this year has in store for me, my friends and family, and my business. In terms of Numerology, the number 2008 translates to a fresh beginning and the number 8 is already a spiritually symbolic number. So, this has the makings for a very powerful year!

So, now I’m shooting for about half of the $75,000 I originally set as my 2008 income goal. And, with what I’ve mapped out in terms of the growth I hope to see from both this blog and my overall online earnings, I plan on making $100,000 within the next 3 years. This will work out perfect for me because I want to quit working my day job in 3 years so I can be in business for myself.

So, what’s the master plan?

I’m glad you asked! I’ve basically taken the five goals I set for 2008 and broken them down. What I did was start with my ultimate goal – launching my dream company Global Epiphany – and then I worked backwards and mapped our smaller goals that will lead me to my ultimate goal. I want to be making at least $10,000 per month online before I quit my day job and I believe I can accomplish that within the next 3 years. For this first year, I’m shooting for a growth in monthly earnings by $500 per quarter. I’m currently making around $200 consistently per month. I’ve had months where I’ve made much more, but that was a result of a successful affiliate product promotion. I’m trying to build a more reliable income, so that gives me realistic room for growth.

Here are my revised income goals for 2008:

• 1st Quarter (Jan-March): Build online earnings to $500 per month
• 2nd Quarter (Apr-June): Build online earnings to $1,000 per month
• 3rd Quarter (July-Sept): Build online earning to $1,500 per month
• 4th Quarter (Oct-Dec): Build online earnings to $2,000 per month

Internet Home Businesses of Focus:

My Internet homes business programs are ones that will generate residual income. This is the type of income I can build upon each month. These require their own promotions and some require me assisting anyone who joins my team in succeeding as well. Most of these will simply require more advertising and promotional effort on my part.

• My Power Mall - This is going to get the top spot for my focus. Why? Because the founder has the same vision as I do – to help others achieve financial freedom while changing the world. Ya gotta love that! I’ll be making an update post soon with more details on what I’m doing for this one.
• SFI – They just launched a new advertising co-op, so I’m hoping that being a part of that will help me grow this business. I’ve already set up two niche sites with SFI affiliate product promotions and I have my SFI team training site in place. These will require occasional updates.
• Leisure Audio Books - This program is great because audio books are so versatile. I’ve already got a nice sized team and LAB provides phenomenal training all on their own. And, I’ve got a separate audio books niche site setup to capitalize on the 2nd powerful part of this program (audio book sales).
• Plug-In Profit Site -Although this one has the power to put people in to 2 out of 3 of the programs above (and 4 others not mentioned), I find it more challenging so I won’t be promoting it aggressively (just through the links and promotions I already running). I think it’s a fantastic program, but it’s in the “home business” niche which is fiercely competitive. I also find that many people who join want to “get rich quick” and it just doesn’t work like that.

So, that’s part 1 of my master plan. Remember, I’ve got big plans to grow this blog so that will be a serious priority for me this year. I also want to give some attention to the business side of things (as opposed to just advertising and promotions). And of course, I’ve got plans to continue my personal development and become a better me (yep, I just keep gettin’ better each year! LOL). Stay tuned…

So, I sat down and finally read through his Make Money Online ebook. I don’t know why it’s taken me so long other than my usualy plight of juggling way too many things at one time. The ebook is 100% free when you subscribe to his newsletter and it’s defintely the most useful free resource for how to make money blogging that I’ve ever read. I totally recommend it. He provides some great insight and really useful tips on how to take your blog to the next level.

I’ve actually been meaning to get more serious about my blogging anyway, but it always seems like I can’t get around to it as often as I’d like. Between managing InspiredEpiphany.com, my other niche sites, my “day job,” and being a single mom… well, lets just say I’ve got my hands full. And writing has always been my passion, so I often feel like I should be blogging instead of tweaking my Adwords campaigns or putting together my affiliate promotions. John Chow’s November income report inspired me to prioritize my online activities with blogging at the top of my list for 2008!

Here are my 2008 goals:

1. I’m going to make $75,000 in 2008 from all of my online endeavors. I know that may seem like a modest goal compared to John Chow’s figures, but it’s a nice goal for me. It breaks down to $6,250.00 per month, which is nice chunk of change. This will come from a combination of blogging, reviews, advertising, affiliate promotions, and my home business programs. I’m fortunate enough to actually be making some money online already but it’s not even close to that level. I am always grounded in gratitude, however, because I do feel blessed with the progress I’ve made since embarking on this journey in October 2006.

2. I’m going to make blogging a serious priority. John Chow has show me the way! I’ve added some righteous plugins to this blog to make it more interactive for you readers and just better overall. In addition, I’m going to commit to posting a minimum of three times per week, commenting more on other blogs, and becoming more active in MyBlogLog and BlogCatalog.

3. I’m going to commit to focusing more on my residual income programs. This past year, I think I gave too much of my time and effort to affiliate promotions that were just for product purchases. While many of these promotions did well, once the commission was paid that was pretty much it. I’m going to focus on the home business programs that generate a consistent monthly income that I can build on throughout the year.

4. I’m going to delve deeper into the business side of my business. I know that sounds funny, but if you think about it for a second you’ll realize that you see tons of websites and blogs on how to make money, hot opportunities, how to monetize your blog, or how to become a super affiliate. But I rarely find info about things like what a realistic advertising budget is if you want to make $75,000 a year and how to make the most of it. Or things like how to compute your ROI and what a good eCPM is and why those things are important. All of this is important for long term success.

5. I’m re-committing to enriching my personal and spiritual growth. As much as I’ve grown this past year (which I am proud of, by the way) I am very clear on the fact that my life lacks balance. I need to spend more time on me… and more time on the things that will bring me peace and joy (no, the $75,000 per year isn’t gonna do it on its own). I’ve found that it’s important to engage in a lil honest self reflection for my own betterment. And more importantly, I find that my connection to God has to be nurtured (like any relationship) in order for me to continue to be inspired and motivated towards my overall success. Hey, that’s just me.

So there you have it… those are my commitments and that’s what I’m shooting for. I am so excited about this coming year. 2008 feels like it’s going to be really special… it feels to me like something big is going to happen this year and I am anxious to watch it all unfold. I hope all of you have a safe and happy New Year. And, John… if you’re reading this… thanks for being the inspiration to my epiphany.

In honor of the restoration, I decided to give the Inspired Epiphany blog a face lift. So, what do you think?  I tried to pick a template that was a little bit more clean and I got rid of some of the clutter too.  I hope you find the new look appealing. 

It should be restored in the next few hours….