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MythOfSisyphus

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September Revenue Goal: $165,000

Actual Revenue for September: $158,217 (Down 18k from previous month)


Annual Revenue Goal: $1,750,000

Revenue so far: $1,201,933 ($548,067 to go)


Average per month required: $182,689

So September was a bit off where I wanted to be at this stage but the target is still achievable (just). October will hopefully see a spike in revenue and November is traditionally a very good month, as is most of December, however the Christmas period hurts sales at the end. Hitting this target will basically mean that the business is capable of earning around 1 million (profit) a year going forward which is staggering considering where I was only a few years ago. I'm also looking forward to a couple of weeks after Christmas driving along the coast with my family and planning what will come next.

What went wrong:

Some of our search engine rankings for major keywords went downhill. Some investigating revealed that we lost positions on a few different keywords to the same competitor. They look to have outsourced their SEO to someone or some company that is using a bunch of spammy blogs to create artificial banklinks. I won't be doing the same, however I will be putting a focus on SEO and doing what I can to get the rankings back.

We also had some delays in restocking products due to switching the supplier for our bestsellers. Some variants of the products we supply were new to them and took longer to deliver. Hopefully they'll be faster moving forward.

What went right:

The campaign manager I hired to work on our adwords campaigns has done well so far by attaining roughly the same revenue as we had previously but cutting the monthly ad spend by around 3-4k. No impact on revenue, but there's a full time wage worth of savings there.

I negotiated a new shipping rates contract with Australia Post which didn't seem to be great value initially, however they have just announced that there will be price changes to their standard delivery costs very soon (which I am assuming means a price hike)

I finished reviewing resumes and interviewed for a new picker/packer who should start in the next week or so and once trained up should free up an extra 2 days a week for me to focus on more important matters.

The loose ends of transition from a sole trader to a company have pretty much all been tied up now (this was quite a time sink for me over the past couple of months)

Thanks to the tax man and mortgage brokers I no longer have that pesky issue of all that surplus cash sitting in the bank that I was learning how to invest ;)

Plans for October:

Apart from a sale or 2 and some good marketing there's not a lot I can do to impact sales over these last few months of the year. I basically have to hope that the hard work I've done throughout the year pays dividends. So this month will mostly be about long term planning...

  • Getting the new employee hired and trained up before things get hectic around here
  • Rearranging what little room we have left in the backyard office and storage facility to make space for said employee
  • Contacting suppliers about new products to stock early next year
  • Focusing on SEO to regain rankings on the more competitive keywords in my niche
  • Continuing to focus on social media


October Revenue Goal: $180,000
 

ericaung

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September Revenue Goal: $165,000

Actual Revenue for September: $158,217 (Down 18k from previous month)


Annual Revenue Goal: $1,750,000

Revenue so far: $1,201,933 ($548,067 to go)


Average per month required: $182,689

So September was a bit off where I wanted to be at this stage but the target is still achievable (just). October will hopefully see a spike in revenue and November is traditionally a very good month, as is most of December, however the Christmas period hurts sales at the end. Hitting this target will basically mean that the business is capable of earning around 1 million (profit) a year going forward which is staggering considering where I was only a few years ago. I'm also looking forward to a couple of weeks after Christmas driving along the coast with my family and planning what will come next.

What went wrong:

Some of our search engine rankings for major keywords went downhill. Some investigating revealed that we lost positions on a few different keywords to the same competitor. They look to have outsourced their SEO to someone or some company that is using a bunch of spammy blogs to create artificial banklinks. I won't be doing the same, however I will be putting a focus on SEO and doing what I can to get the rankings back.

We also had some delays in restocking products due to switching the supplier for our bestsellers. Some variants of the products we supply were new to them and took longer to deliver. Hopefully they'll be faster moving forward.

What went right:

The campaign manager I hired to work on our adwords campaigns has done well so far by attaining roughly the same revenue as we had previously but cutting the monthly ad spend by around 3-4k. No impact on revenue, but there's a full time wage worth of savings there.

I negotiated a new shipping rates contract with Australia Post which didn't seem to be great value initially, however they have just announced that there will be price changes to their standard delivery costs very soon (which I am assuming means a price hike)

I finished reviewing resumes and interviewed for a new picker/packer who should start in the next week or so and once trained up should free up an extra 2 days a week for me to focus on more important matters.

The loose ends of transition from a sole trader to a company have pretty much all been tied up now (this was quite a time sink for me over the past couple of months)

Thanks to the tax man and mortgage brokers I no longer have that pesky issue of all that surplus cash sitting in the bank that I was learning how to invest ;)

Plans for October:

Apart from a sale or 2 and some good marketing there's not a lot I can do to impact sales over these last few months of the year. I basically have to hope that the hard work I've done throughout the year pays dividends. So this month will mostly be about long term planning...

  • Getting the new employee hired and trained up before things get hectic around here
  • Rearranging what little room we have left in the backyard office and storage facility to make space for said employee
  • Contacting suppliers about new products to stock early next year
  • Focusing on SEO to regain rankings on the more competitive keywords in my niche
  • Continuing to focus on social media


October Revenue Goal: $180,000

Hey mate,

How was your initial capital to start this business? I am not sure you posted this in this thread.

Thank you.
 

MythOfSisyphus

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Hey mate,

How was your initial capital to start this business? I am not sure you posted this in this thread.

Thank you.
Around $4000 AUD

It seemed like a lot at the time.
 
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ericaung

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September Revenue Goal: $165,000

Actual Revenue for September: $158,217 (Down 18k from previous month)


Annual Revenue Goal: $1,750,000

Revenue so far: $1,201,933 ($548,067 to go)


Average per month required: $182,689

So September was a bit off where I wanted to be at this stage but the target is still achievable (just). October will hopefully see a spike in revenue and November is traditionally a very good month, as is most of December, however the Christmas period hurts sales at the end. Hitting this target will basically mean that the business is capable of earning around 1 million (profit) a year going forward which is staggering considering where I was only a few years ago. I'm also looking forward to a couple of weeks after Christmas driving along the coast with my family and planning what will come next.

What went wrong:

Some of our search engine rankings for major keywords went downhill. Some investigating revealed that we lost positions on a few different keywords to the same competitor. They look to have outsourced their SEO to someone or some company that is using a bunch of spammy blogs to create artificial banklinks. I won't be doing the same, however I will be putting a focus on SEO and doing what I can to get the rankings back.

We also had some delays in restocking products due to switching the supplier for our bestsellers. Some variants of the products we supply were new to them and took longer to deliver. Hopefully they'll be faster moving forward.

What went right:

The campaign manager I hired to work on our adwords campaigns has done well so far by attaining roughly the same revenue as we had previously but cutting the monthly ad spend by around 3-4k. No impact on revenue, but there's a full time wage worth of savings there.

I negotiated a new shipping rates contract with Australia Post which didn't seem to be great value initially, however they have just announced that there will be price changes to their standard delivery costs very soon (which I am assuming means a price hike)

I finished reviewing resumes and interviewed for a new picker/packer who should start in the next week or so and once trained up should free up an extra 2 days a week for me to focus on more important matters.

The loose ends of transition from a sole trader to a company have pretty much all been tied up now (this was quite a time sink for me over the past couple of months)

Thanks to the tax man and mortgage brokers I no longer have that pesky issue of all that surplus cash sitting in the bank that I was learning how to invest ;)

Plans for October:

Apart from a sale or 2 and some good marketing there's not a lot I can do to impact sales over these last few months of the year. I basically have to hope that the hard work I've done throughout the year pays dividends. So this month will mostly be about long term planning...

  • Getting the new employee hired and trained up before things get hectic around here
  • Rearranging what little room we have left in the backyard office and storage facility to make space for said employee
  • Contacting suppliers about new products to stock early next year
  • Focusing on SEO to regain rankings on the more competitive keywords in my niche
  • Continuing to focus on social media


October Revenue Goal: $180,000

Any updates for October??

Cheers,
-Eric
 

MythOfSisyphus

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Any updates for October??

Cheers,
-Eric
I'll post an update within the next week with the final tally but currently sitting about 6k short of the monthly target with a day and a bit to go. I'm confident I'll reach the 180k
 

MythOfSisyphus

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October Revenue Goal: $180,000

Actual Revenue for October: 183,624 ($25k Up from previous month)


Annual Revenue Goal: $1,750,000

Revenue so far: $1,385,558 ($364,442 to go)


Average per month required: $182,221

October went pretty well and ended roughly where I expected it to. Sales in December suffer because of the Christmas week so November will need to be a pretty big month to get me over the line.

What went wrong:

  • No major issues but after the Adwords campaign performing quite well in September, October was relatively poor with an increase spend but stagnant returns. I'll meet with the campaign manager next week to address this.

What went right:

  • Sales continued to trend upward.
  • Hired a new employee and they've started pretty well which has freed up an extra 2 days a week for me to focus on other things
  • Most products remained in stock throughout the entire month
  • I managed to actually post to our social media pages quite regularly and should be able to continue to do so


Plans for November:

As November is the busiest month of the year I don't have anything major planned. Just hoping to stay on top of the day to day things and put out fires wherever they start (that's basically 50% of my job now anyway). I have around 50 small tasks on my radar that I'll try and get through including doing an overhaul of the slightly dated website.


November Revenue Goal: $200,000
 
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_abuelreem_

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October Revenue Goal: $180,000

Actual Revenue for October: 183,624 ($25k Up from previous month)


Annual Revenue Goal: $1,750,000

Revenue so far: $1,385,558 ($364,442 to go)


Average per month required: $182,221

October went pretty well and ended roughly where I expected it to. Sales in December suffer because of the Christmas week so November will need to be a pretty big month to get me over the line.

What went wrong:

  • No major issues but after the Adwords campaign performing quite well in September, October was relatively poor with an increase spend but stagnant returns. I'll meet with the campaign manager next week to address this.

What went right:

  • Sales continued to trend upward.
  • Hired a new employee and they've started pretty well which has freed up an extra 2 days a week for me to focus on other things
  • Most products remained in stock throughout the entire month
  • I managed to actually post to our social media pages quite regularly and should be able to continue to do so


Plans for November:

As November is the busiest month of the year I don't have anything major planned. Just hoping to stay on top of the day to day things and put out fires wherever they start (that's basically 50% of my job now anyway). I have around 50 small tasks on my radar that I'll try and get through including doing an overhaul of the slightly dated website.


November Revenue Goal: $200,000


i know it's your busiest month, I am just too anxious to know what November numbers are.... any updates?

amazing post by the way...big ups
 

MythOfSisyphus

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Thanks. The month started off pretty slow, even slower than October so things weren't looking good but it picked up a bit about half way through the month. Black Friday weekend was huge with Friday almost doubling the revenue record for a single day. Currently sitting on 191k for the month so should hit the 200k target.

Will provide a full update in a few days.
 

MythOfSisyphus

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November Revenue Goal: $200,000

Actual Revenue: $200,818.99 (up 17k from previous month)

Annual Revenue Goal: $1,750,000

Revenue so far: $1,586,377 ($163,623 to go)


Average per month required: $163,623

November started off a lot slower than expected and I had pretty much resigned myself to not hitting the target, however I underestimated the growing popularity of Black Friday/Cyber Monday in Australia. In fact, I only decided to have a sale a few days before black Friday. I won't make the same mistake again next year and will plan ahead.

On the Friday alone we did around 17k in sales which was almost double the previous best day and over the entire weekend we did around 44k.

Having said that, the downside is that sales have slowed a little since then and December isn't looking promising. Sales really die off in the last week so in order to hit the monthly target I need some really solid sales in the first 3 weeks. It's not looking good so far though.

What went wrong:

  • With the most experienced of my 2 employees on leave myself and the new employee were under a constant barrage of orders and emails in the last 2 weeks. We've really only been able to catch up in the past few days.
  • I didn't anticipate the impact of the BFCM sale and could have capitalised on it even more had I planned properly
  • The warehouse we should be moving into early next year has been delayed due to some construction issues with the foundation. Still hoping to be in there around March but this will put a hold on expanding the product range as early as I had planned.

What went right:

  • Sales hit an all time high
  • The Adwords campaign continued to improve with ad spend down 1.5k and revenue up around 4k (Although it's difficult to gauge if this is actual improvement or just the impact of the busy season - time will tell)
  • Had a new logo designed by 99designs and was extremely happy with the result. Now to look forward to the horrific task of rebranding everything early next year.
  • I started to feel a little more confident in organising and delegating to my staff and contractors. It's been a tough adjustment from solopreneur to manager.

Plans for December:

  • Working hard on handing over some of the customer service tasks to my employees so that I won't need to be as involved while I'm on leave for 2 weeks after Christmas. I'm currently documenting how to handle the most frequent customer requests/complaints so that it will cut down on the number of requests that filter through to me.
  • I have a meeting tomorrow with a social media marketing expert who hopefully will be able to get our paid social campaigns on track.
  • Apart from that I'll probably shift my focus to next year with a few major changes coming up including a new website, re-branding of the business and new warehouse.

December Revenue Goal: $163,623
 
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MythOfSisyphus

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NOTE: I'm taking off on Holiday straight after Christmas so I don't know if I'll get time to do a full update for the end of year until mid Jan. I'll at least try and give the final tally at some stage.
 

MythOfSisyphus

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Hit the monthly and overall target a few hours ago while on a cruise around the bay. And only 3 days to spare. It's been a good year.
 
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jcvlds

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Hit the monthly and overall target a few hours ago while on a cruise around the bay. And only 3 days to spare. It's been a good year.

Congrats!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
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zeros-only

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NOTE: I'm taking off on Holiday straight after Christmas so I don't know if I'll get time to do a full update for the end of year until mid Jan. I'll at least try and give the final tally at some stage.
Awesome! And congratulations. I've just gone through you progress thread and do you know what really struck me (other than the impressive numbers)...it's the interesting fact that stuff like redoing your logo, and the website redesign are being done when the business is well on it's way and churning thousands of $ a month in contrast to how some focus on stuff like that in the beginning, wondering whether the colors are right etc....Great lessons in your progress thread mate! Thanks for letting us take a peek into your cash machine!
 

MythOfSisyphus

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Awesome! And congratulations. I've just gone through you progress thread and do you know what really struck me (other than the impressive numbers)...it's the interesting fact that stuff like redoing your logo, and the website redesign are being done when the business is well on it's way and churning thousands of $ a month in contrast to how some focus on stuff like that in the beginning, wondering whether the colors are right etc....Great lessons in your progress thread mate! Thanks for letting us take a peek into your cash machine!

Cheers.

Theres definitely a fine balance between action faking and rushing into something too fast. I've seen plenty of failures on both side of fence.
 

MythOfSisyphus

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2018 FINAL UPDATE

December Revenue Goal: $163,623

Actual Revenue: $173,788 (Down 27k from previous month)

Annual Revenue Goal: $1,750,000

Final Revenue: $1,760,166


WooHoo!

Made the monthly target pretty comfortably in the end but to only hit the overall goal by 10k over was ridiculously close. To be honest though, I wouldn't have been upset or disappointed if I missed the goal. The point wasn't the final figure or the goal itself, but to get the business to the point it needed to be at to reach that goal.

If the business stays at the point that it's at right now without any further growth then I'm making enough money to put away a few million in assets and investments over the next couple of years and then potentially sell the business for around 3 million or so which gives me more than enough FU money for my family and I to live off for the rest of our lives. Not that I think I would want to, but retiring at 40 is an option now.

What went wrong
  • Not much at all really apart from sales slowing down as they do over the Christmas period.
  • A minor issue is that the new hire is struggling a little and not quite packing as fast as is required and still makes some small mistakes.

What went right
  • Hit the monthly and overall revenue target.
  • Things ran smoothly in my absence. I only need to do around 1-2 hours of work answering a few customer emails while I was away. I'm now handing over a lot of the customer service to my employees so that next time I'm away I'll hopefully only need to do a few minutes of work.

Plans for this year

I haven't set any overall financial targets or goals for this year and I don't know if I will. However I would think around 2.6 million in revenue would be a reasonable target although I'm expecting that growth might become a little tougher to sustain this year.

Plans for the business include launching a new logo, a new website and moving into the new warehouse which will help me expand the product range a little faster. At the moment the backyard warehouse is pretty much full capacity.

I'll also be looking at expanding the product line a little further to include some other products in a slightly different but still related cosmetic niche.

Anyway... thanks to everyone who followed my success last year and contributed to the thread. I'm not sure yet if I'll keep providing regular or formal updates this year but I'll definitely try and keep the thread alive and keep you updated on my progress. While the business is going well, I haven't reached that final FU money stage just yet so I'll keep you all updated on that.
 
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jcvlds

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2018 FINAL UPDATE

December Revenue Goal: $163,623

Actual Revenue: $173,788 (Down 27k from previous month)

Annual Revenue Goal: $1,750,000

Final Revenue: $1,760,166


WooHoo!

Made the monthly target pretty comfortably in the end but to only hit the overall goal by 10k over was ridiculously close. To be honest though, I wouldn't have been upset or disappointed if I missed the goal. The point wasn't the final figure or the goal itself, but to get the business to the point it needed to be at to reach that goal.

If the business stays at the point that it's at right now without any further growth then I'm making enough money to put away a few million in assets and investments over the next couple of years and then potentially sell the business for around 3 million or so which gives me more than enough FU money for my family and I to live off for the rest of our lives. Not that I think I would want to, but retiring at 40 is an option now.

What went wrong
  • Not much at all really apart from sales slowing down as they do over the Christmas period.
  • A minor issue is that the new hire is struggling a little and not quite packing as fast as is required and still makes some small mistakes.

What went right
  • Hit the monthly and overall revenue target.
  • Things ran smoothly in my absence. I only need to do around 1-2 hours of work answering a few customer emails while I was away. I'm now handing over a lot of the customer service to my employees so that next time I'm away I'll hopefully only need to do a few minutes of work.

Plans for this year

I haven't set any overall financial targets or goals for this year and I don't know if I will. However I would think around 2.6 million in revenue would be a reasonable target although I'm expecting that growth might become a little tougher to sustain this year.

Plans for the business include launching a new logo, a new website and moving into the new warehouse which will help me expand the product range a little faster. At the moment the backyard warehouse is pretty much full capacity.

I'll also be looking at expanding the product line a little further to include some other products in a slightly different but still related cosmetic niche.

Anyway... thanks to everyone who followed my success last year and contributed to the thread. I'm not sure yet if I'll keep providing regular or formal updates this year but I'll definitely try and keep the thread alive and keep you updated on my progress. While the business is going well, I haven't reached that final FU money stage just yet so I'll keep you all updated on that.

One of my favorite threads of 2018. Huge congrats, and thanks for sharing so much with us


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

SIDI

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2018 FINAL UPDATE

December Revenue Goal: $163,623

Actual Revenue: $173,788 (Down 27k from previous month)

Annual Revenue Goal: $1,750,000

Final Revenue: $1,760,166


WooHoo!

Made the monthly target pretty comfortably in the end but to only hit the overall goal by 10k over was ridiculously close. To be honest though, I wouldn't have been upset or disappointed if I missed the goal. The point wasn't the final figure or the goal itself, but to get the business to the point it needed to be at to reach that goal.

If the business stays at the point that it's at right now without any further growth then I'm making enough money to put away a few million in assets and investments over the next couple of years and then potentially sell the business for around 3 million or so which gives me more than enough FU money for my family and I to live off for the rest of our lives. Not that I think I would want to, but retiring at 40 is an option now.

What went wrong
  • Not much at all really apart from sales slowing down as they do over the Christmas period.
  • A minor issue is that the new hire is struggling a little and not quite packing as fast as is required and still makes some small mistakes.

What went right
  • Hit the monthly and overall revenue target.
  • Things ran smoothly in my absence. I only need to do around 1-2 hours of work answering a few customer emails while I was away. I'm now handing over a lot of the customer service to my employees so that next time I'm away I'll hopefully only need to do a few minutes of work.

Plans for this year

I haven't set any overall financial targets or goals for this year and I don't know if I will. However I would think around 2.6 million in revenue would be a reasonable target although I'm expecting that growth might become a little tougher to sustain this year.

Plans for the business include launching a new logo, a new website and moving into the new warehouse which will help me expand the product range a little faster. At the moment the backyard warehouse is pretty much full capacity.

I'll also be looking at expanding the product line a little further to include some other products in a slightly different but still related cosmetic niche.

Anyway... thanks to everyone who followed my success last year and contributed to the thread. I'm not sure yet if I'll keep providing regular or formal updates this year but I'll definitely try and keep the thread alive and keep you updated on my progress. While the business is going well, I haven't reached that final FU money stage just yet so I'll keep you all updated on that.

Just awesome. Thank you for sharing.
 

MythOfSisyphus

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One of my favorite threads of 2018. Huge congrats, and thanks for sharing so much with us


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

My Pleasure. I just wish I'd had more time to update more often and also to contribute to the forum more.
 
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yungmillionaire

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Just dropped by to say thank you so much for sharing your progress.

Considering you are doing B2B sales, I have a couple questions:
1. How do you decide how much inventory to hold?
2. Why not use a pre-order system so that you do not have to hold inventory? So for example, you bring a sample of your product to a customer. If they like it, they order 500 units. Only then, you order 500 units from your supplier and ship it to them. This way, you are cash flow positive.
 

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Just dropped by to say thank you so much for sharing your progress.

Considering you are doing B2B sales, I have a couple questions:
1. How do you decide how much inventory to hold?
2. Why not use a pre-order system so that you do not have to hold inventory? So for example, you bring a sample of your product to a customer. If they like it, they order 500 units. Only then, you order 500 units from your supplier and ship it to them. This way, you are cash flow positive.

Based on what i've read, shipping times are critical to his customers. If he waited for a customer order before ordering product from his suppliers, his customers could potentially go elsewhere due to delivery times.

An example would be that that if you headed to your local store to buy some bread that you desperately needed (I guess most people leave it to the last minute), and they didn't have it in stock, you wouldn't wait until the stock was available, you'd go elsewhere. If customers were good with inventory management I guess this would be less of an issue, but if they are following a Just In Time style of inventory management, then shipping times are crucial.

Regarding inventory holding, MoS mentioned earlier that he knows what sells welll based on his experience. He manages stock based on these historic trends. He still has issues with OOS items. There may be a better way, but clearly his method is working based on the results.

Sorry @MythOfSisyphus for hijacking a bit, but just wanted to try to add some value!

Please correct if I've missed something.
 

MythOfSisyphus

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Just dropped by to say thank you so much for sharing your progress.

Considering you are doing B2B sales, I have a couple questions:
1. How do you decide how much inventory to hold?
2. Why not use a pre-order system so that you do not have to hold inventory? So for example, you bring a sample of your product to a customer. If they like it, they order 500 units. Only then, you order 500 units from your supplier and ship it to them. This way, you are cash flow positive.

You're welcome. I don't really let anyone apart from my wife in on the details of the business and how it's going so it was pretty enjoyable to be able to share it on here at least.

1. In the very beginning it was very much just guesswork (and still is for new products) however I now use a shopify app called inventory planner which is amazing. It uses past sales history data to (pretty damn accurately) predict future sales. I can go in and set how many months or days worth of stock I want on hand for each particular product and then it will tell me exactly how much I need to order from my supplier. Most of our manufacturers take around 1 month or more to fulfil an order so I always try and have around 3 months worth of stock on hand for every product (less for some, more for others but generally 3 months for 90%). This means that we stay in stock almost 100% of the time for almost 100% of our products which being a B2B seller I think is important. When businesses know they can always get what they need from your website I think it's a big advantage to have over the competition. The extra month or 2 worth of stock gives some extra time in the event that a shipment is delayed or something goes wrong as well.

2. @SIDI pretty much nailed it with his explanation. I simply wouldn't be able to run the business without holding the inventory. The average customer orders once every couple of weeks and they usually need their products pronto. We actually provide express shipping (1 business day to most addresses in Australia) on every order for this reason and our competitors have starting copying this. I even take a slight hit on the shipping costs to do so. If they had to wait any more than a week for their products they'd probably just go elsewhere.

The other reason is that the business doesn't really have any cashflow issues. There's always more than enough profit to not only re-invest in new products and expand our range but also to take out of the business to pay down personal debt and hopefully soon start investing in new ventures.
 
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MythOfSisyphus

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I had a few people ask for progress updates so here goes (I'll try and do at least a couple more before the end of the year)...

Progress Update:

The business is still going quite well although month to month revenue hasn't changed a lot since the heights we hit late last year. Having said that, this is pretty standard as in previous years sales are fairly consistent from Jan through Oct before jumping massively in November. At the moment an average month is around 195k in revenue.

Despite not setting a solid goal revenue-wise for this year I believe I said that around 2.6m would be a pretty good result. It's currently sitting at around 1.7m so it's highly unlikely that I'll get there. Having said that, the business is now 4 years old and still experiencing pretty solid year on year growth so I can't complain.

Changes This Year:

The re-branding, while a pain in the a$$, went really well and the new logo and products with it look fantastic. Looking back, branding is something I would take more time to completely nail in the very beginning to avoid having to go through this process a couple of years into the business.

The move into the warehouse still hasn't eventuated as the build took far longer than expected. The warehouse is now basically finished but I still need to wait on some formalities before I get the green light to move the business in. This delay has probably cost me quite a lot of money by preventing expansion into as many new products as I would have liked and looking back I should have either purchased or rented an established warehouse. Lesson learned.

A couple of months ago my second employee (who handled shipping and inventory control) resigned. This however turned out to be a blessing in disguise. The new employee has been much faster at packing orders, rarely makes mistakes and always shows up on time. So I now have 2 extremely dependable employees who I can trust to do 90% of whats required to keep the business moving day to day. I also have a team of contractors that I rely on for many of the other tasks.

I recently branched out into a new type of product that's not exactly in the same niche we're currently in but a very closely related one that many of our customers buy from. The manufacturer would only agree to a minimum of 1000 units and they have an expiry of 12 months. This was at a cost of around 65,000 AUD so a pretty big risk to take for an untried product.

But, in business everything is a risk, and it's all about playing the odds the best you can. I figure if it falls flat and I only sell a few hundred units then I lose maybe 30k and learn something. If it does really well and we sell out ahead of schedule then I'm potentially making an extra 100-200k a year in profit. The end result will most likely be somewhere in between so that kind of risk sits pretty well with me.

Lessons Learned:
The idea of taking smart risks is something that's really hit home with me the past year. Almost every decision I make in managing my business has risk involved and I've found that being successful comes down to how you decide to play the odds. Not everything comes off but if your potential upside is always bigger than the potential downside then in the long run you come out on top despite a few losses.
 

_abuelreem_

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I had a few people ask for progress updates so here goes (I'll try and do at least a couple more before the end of the year)...

Progress Update:

The business is still going quite well although month to month revenue hasn't changed a lot since the heights we hit late last year. Having said that, this is pretty standard as in previous years sales are fairly consistent from Jan through Oct before jumping massively in November. At the moment an average month is around 195k in revenue.

Despite not setting a solid goal revenue-wise for this year I believe I said that around 2.6m would be a pretty good result. It's currently sitting at around 1.7m so it's highly unlikely that I'll get there. Having said that, the business is now 4 years old and still experiencing pretty solid year on year growth so I can't complain.

Changes This Year:

The re-branding, while a pain in the a$$, went really well and the new logo and products with it look fantastic. Looking back, branding is something I would take more time to completely nail in the very beginning to avoid having to go through this process a couple of years into the business.

The move into the warehouse still hasn't eventuated as the build took far longer than expected. The warehouse is now basically finished but I still need to wait on some formalities before I get the green light to move the business in. This delay has probably cost me quite a lot of money by preventing expansion into as many new products as I would have liked and looking back I should have either purchased or rented an established warehouse. Lesson learned.

A couple of months ago my second employee (who handled shipping and inventory control) resigned. This however turned out to be a blessing in disguise. The new employee has been much faster at packing orders, rarely makes mistakes and always shows up on time. So I now have 2 extremely dependable employees who I can trust to do 90% of whats required to keep the business moving day to day. I also have a team of contractors that I rely on for many of the other tasks.

I recently branched out into a new type of product that's not exactly in the same niche we're currently in but a very closely related one that many of our customers buy from. The manufacturer would only agree to a minimum of 1000 units and they have an expiry of 12 months. This was at a cost of around 65,000 AUD so a pretty big risk to take for an untried product.

But, in business everything is a risk, and it's all about playing the odds the best you can. I figure if it falls flat and I only sell a few hundred units then I lose maybe 30k and learn something. If it does really well and we sell out ahead of schedule then I'm potentially making an extra 100-200k a year in profit. The end result will most likely be somewhere in between so that kind of risk sits pretty well with me.

Lessons Learned:
The idea of taking smart risks is something that's really hit home with me the past year. Almost every decision I make in managing my business has risk involved and I've found that being successful comes down to how you decide to play the odds. Not everything comes off but if your potential upside is always bigger than the potential downside then in the long run you come out on top despite a few losses.
Awesome progress... congrats
 
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Genius01

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I had a few people ask for progress updates so here goes (I'll try and do at least a couple more before the end of the year)...

Progress Update:

The business is still going quite well although month to month revenue hasn't changed a lot since the heights we hit late last year. Having said that, this is pretty standard as in previous years sales are fairly consistent from Jan through Oct before jumping massively in November. At the moment an average month is around 195k in revenue.

Despite not setting a solid goal revenue-wise for this year I believe I said that around 2.6m would be a pretty good result. It's currently sitting at around 1.7m so it's highly unlikely that I'll get there. Having said that, the business is now 4 years old and still experiencing pretty solid year on year growth so I can't complain.

Changes This Year:

The re-branding, while a pain in the a$$, went really well and the new logo and products with it look fantastic. Looking back, branding is something I would take more time to completely nail in the very beginning to avoid having to go through this process a couple of years into the business.

The move into the warehouse still hasn't eventuated as the build took far longer than expected. The warehouse is now basically finished but I still need to wait on some formalities before I get the green light to move the business in. This delay has probably cost me quite a lot of money by preventing expansion into as many new products as I would have liked and looking back I should have either purchased or rented an established warehouse. Lesson learned.

A couple of months ago my second employee (who handled shipping and inventory control) resigned. This however turned out to be a blessing in disguise. The new employee has been much faster at packing orders, rarely makes mistakes and always shows up on time. So I now have 2 extremely dependable employees who I can trust to do 90% of whats required to keep the business moving day to day. I also have a team of contractors that I rely on for many of the other tasks.

I recently branched out into a new type of product that's not exactly in the same niche we're currently in but a very closely related one that many of our customers buy from. The manufacturer would only agree to a minimum of 1000 units and they have an expiry of 12 months. This was at a cost of around 65,000 AUD so a pretty big risk to take for an untried product.

But, in business everything is a risk, and it's all about playing the odds the best you can. I figure if it falls flat and I only sell a few hundred units then I lose maybe 30k and learn something. If it does really well and we sell out ahead of schedule then I'm potentially making an extra 100-200k a year in profit. The end result will most likely be somewhere in between so that kind of risk sits pretty well with me.

Lessons Learned:
The idea of taking smart risks is something that's really hit home with me the past year. Almost every decision I make in managing my business has risk involved and I've found that being successful comes down to how you decide to play the odds. Not everything comes off but if your potential upside is always bigger than the potential downside then in the long run you come out on top despite a few losses.
Great update!
Wow, if your doing 195k in average month currently, then your November/December monthly sales will likely be way beyond 200k, probably closer to 250k than 200k per month.
FU money edging closer and closer.

Really inspiring thread, had to read it all over again just now.
Thumbs up!!
 

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