Category: affiliate marketing

affiliate marketing, entrepreneur journey, Internet Profits, Make money online

Know your numbers

Sophie Sion

If there’s ONE thing Dean has taught me, it’s this: KNOW YOUR NUMBERS.

If you, dear reader, don’t track your numbers, don’t worry – I was the same.  When I first started building this business, I’m ashamed to say I didn’t really treat it like a business…

But then I met Dean, and he taught me otherwise.

As painful as it was, I began tracking figures.

  • Clicks
  • Leads
  • Sales
  • Ad spend

At first there were way too many zeros on my tracker sheet… I cringed every time I looked at it… but I’m a good girl who generally does as she’s told (especially when it’s her multi-millionaire mentor who tells her to do it), so I continued to track nonetheless.  

And in time, there were not so many zeros and that felt really good – but this is not the point I think will help you in this post.

The important thing I learned from tracking my numbers is that it allows me to make business decisions based on facts rather than emotions.

Oftentimes, we think something is working – when in reality it’s not.  And vice-versa, we might feel super discouraged and feel like failures, but then the numbers show us we’re in fact succeeding.

Numbers don’t lie.

I had an epiphany moment a few weeks ago that illustrated exactly this point: I was thinking of my strategy for 2024, and as usual, dozens of ideas were whizzing through my brain…

And then I stopped myself in my tracks and looked at my 2023 numbers.

Before making any decisions for 2024, I needed to know what 2023 looked like.

And looking at my tracker sheet, it was plain and simple: my Facebook ad is giving me an astounding ROI; throughout the year it has been running continuously, bringing in leads and making me between 350 and 400% ROI!

This is a perfect example of me thinking I’m not doing that well, but looking at the numbers and opening my eyes on the reality that I’m doing great.

If you haven’t been tracking your numbers, I highly suggest you commit to doing so in 2024.

It’s not hard at all.  All you need is a spreadsheet.  You can use Google sheets, an Excel spreadsheet on Word or Open Office; nothing fancy!

I’ve made a habit of entering my stats every morning.  I log in, look at the number of clicks, leads and sales I have.  I enter these, along with my ad spend for the previous day.  Takes me 5 minutes max.  

At the end of the month, I check that it’s all totalled up accurately.  There’s a sheet where the year’s totals are all added too.  

It’s easy and it makes a huge difference.

So… after looking at my numbers, I decided on my 2024 plan!  And guess what? 

I’m simply going to do more of what works.  And I’m going to take it to another level!

Here’s what I’ll do:

  • double down on my ads: I’ll try running a new one alongside the one that’s already working; I’ll try duplicating my winner and run it to other audiences; I’ll try increasing my ad spend
  • double down on my follow-up: the ads bring in the leads, but the follow-up builds the relationship and brings in the sales; I’m committing to writing many more emails this year, and to build 5 star relationships with my customers

And that’s it.

I’m going to do less to do more.

I’ll record how all this is going here, and I’ll share it to YouTube, of course.  But my focus will be on this, and this only.

What’s your plan for 2024?  Do you track your numbers already?  Let me know in the comments if you’d like me to show you a spreadsheet example – I’d be happy to do so if it helps!

affiliate marketing, entrepreneur journey, Internet Profits, Make money online

My biggest enemy…

Sophie Sion

Do you drive yourself crazy at times?

I DO!!!  I could really, really kick myself some days.  In fact I could probably do worse than kick myself, it’s that bad!

This might be something you do too, so let me share my latest silly Sophie stuff…

Here’s what happened:

Just over two months ago, we had an incredible live event at Internet Profits.  Dean shared what he would do if he had to start all over again from scratch, knowing what he knows now.

Amazing event it was!  And I came out of it all on fire, inspired, full of energy and ideas.

This was an Internet Profits partner only event, so I won’t reveal too much; but let’s just say Dean shared a framework with us that included sharing the journey, from day one.  He talked about how this could be done too if, like myself, you were not starting from scratch but already having success.

So all fired up and enthusiastic, I went full steam ahead and created a new blog the very next day, wanting to mark a new beginning.

I wrote all about it over here, in this post: New direction! It’s exciting!

My train of thought for starting a new blog was that this site is on wordpress.com, and that that’s not the best way to do it… I now know that it’s a lot better to have your own hosting on a platform such as Interserver.  

So I went ahead, bought a new domain, bought my own hosting, and starting over again.

Now this is all well and good, but a couple of months down the line, I’m realising that this is just the kind of thing I do, without thinking much… and it’s NOT the best decision…

Let me explain: I’ve had THIS blog here, sophiesion.com, for a few years now.  It’s not perfect.  It’s not hosted on the “right” platform.  BUT it’s a record of my journey.  AND it’s getting views, followers, and quite a few of my readers even opt in to my email list (thank you for your trust by the way).

So yes, of course, I can start all over on another site, but I reckon it’s a shame!  Why lose some of you faithful followers?  Why lose a big chunk of my records?  It’s silly!

Dean probably doesn’t realise this, but he helped me come to this conclusion.

You see, he’s launched some very exciting new “stuff” in Internet Profits (more about this later, I promise); I’m privileged to be following it all closely, both as a member of the team and a customer.

He’s launched a new tool that’s not open to the public yet; part of this includes the option to build a blog… so I wanted to migrate this site, sophiesion.com over there.  

It’s a bit of a long story, but trying to do all this basically made me realise “hold on a second Sophie, you’ve actually got some good stuff on this site!  Why on earth are you starting again on sophiesionbyde.com???”

So there you go – I’m back here, recording the journey and sharing everything I learn with you all, my faithful readers.

I’ll probably copy and paste the few posts I made on sophiesionbyde.com, just because a few important things happened over the past couple of months.  But I’ll stick to this blog from now on.

As the end of this year approaches I am struck by how I am my own worst enemy, over and over again!!!  It drives me seriously insane!

I am ALWAYS trying to do too much, always.  I think I need more, or something else, or something new.  It’s not that I buy much stuff, it’s more that I add more and more and more work onto my plate… and it’s completely unnecessary!  

Do you do this too?  How long does it take you to spot it and stop yourself in your tracks?

I’ve gotten better at spotting it, but I’m still wayyyy not good enough!

Anyway… onwards and upwards!  I’ve rectified this now, phew! 

If you have a tendency to do more and too much all the time, just like I do, I’d love to hear all about it in the comments.  Maybe we can hold eachother accountable in 2024?  Form a kind of “business minimalist” movement?  (Now you see, I’m doing it again!  I’m already thinking of how I could create a new Facebook called “minimalist affiliates” lol)

affiliate marketing, Internet Profits, Make money online

New direction! It’s exciting!

Sophie Sion

Quick update: I have a new blog… an here’s why this might be interesting for you:

So, almost a month ago, we had a live online event at Internet Profits and Dean shared some pure gold with us.

“What would I do to go from 0 to full time income online, if I had to start from scratch all over again?”, was the theme of the day, and it was fascinating.  Full of great insights and ideas.

One of the central pieces Dean shared with us was the importance of recording the journey, wherever we are at on the journey…

And this rekindled my desire to do just that!

Now why not use this blog, you might be thinking?  And believe me I would have happily done so!

But, you see, when I set up this site, I kind of messed up.  I hadn’t realised the importance of having my own hosting and I went with WordPress dot com.  Nothing against it (please forgive me WP!) but I know it’s important to build an asset that I own.

So… I bought my full name domain, www.sophiesionbyde.com from Namecheap, and then I headed to Interserver to buy my hosting (only $32 a year!  Couldn’t believe how much cheaper it was than what I pay for this blog here…) and there you go, I’ve started publishing over there!

This site will remain online – I want to keep what I’ve published so far; I’ll just have to find a way to transfer it so that it’s self-hosted too, but I’ll do this later.

Anyway, if you want to continue following my journey, and getting all my best tips and tricks along the way, then I’d love it if you followed me on www.sophiesionbyde.com!

Just before I go, I can’t resist sharing that October was my biggest month ever in terms of profit!  More than 5k!  Yes, in PROFIT!  And to think I was all down in the dumps and discouraged in my last post… glad Dean told me to carry on, he was right as usual!

How’s your business going?  Let me know in the comments!

 

PS: ? here’s my latest video on Internet Profits – watch it if you want to know how you can do this too! ?

affiliate marketing, Internet Profits, Make money online

Lows and highs… a spontaneous post :-)

Sophie Sion

Having a mentor is worth gold.  Truly. Worth a LOT of gold.

This is a completely spontaneous post following a conversation I had this morning.  If you’re discouraged on your make money online journey, this should help.  It helped ME so much, I just can’t not share it.  In fact, when I’ve finished writing this up, I’ll go and shoot a YouTube video about it… and heck I might even turn it into an email and a Facebook post.

Building your online business can be so lonely.  Seriously lonely…

And if you’re doing affiliate marketing, you’re exposed to so many lies that you’re probably second guessing and doubting yourself every five minutes.  It’s seriously crazy out there in the high ticket niche: incessant Facebook posts claiming the author made 30k in ten minutes doing nothing… by the time you’ve read 3 or 4 of these, you start panicking and thinking “what on earth am I doing wrong?”.

Anyway, back to the conversation I had that you need to hear about.

Here’s what led me to it in the first place: I handed over my August stats to my mentor and they were “bad”. 

Well – not ALL bad.  The clicks stats were good.  The leads stats too.  The cost per lead stats were even better.  The overall growth of my business excellent…. But the profit stats… not so great.  In fact, for the first time in ages, the number in the “profit/loss” column was red.  And we all know what that means.

Yep, it happens to me too… I made sales in August, but not enough to cover my expenses and make profit.

So when I hit send to hand over my results to my mentor, I had an attack of panic, imposter syndrome, doubt, discouragement and second guessing.

Next thing I knew I was messaging him saying “I feel bad, my results aren’t good this month.”

I did feel bad – really low in fact.  It’s not like I’ve slacked, taken a month off and haven’t been working in August.  Nothing in my actions justified these “bad” results.  So not for the first time, I began to think things like “I’m not cut out for this” and “I’m stupid” and “I’ll never make it in a BIG way”, etc.

Not very nice things to go on in my head on a lovely September morning really…

And do you know what?  I felt so low I nearly didn’t reach out to my mentor.  Crazy, isn’t it?  Because the low moments are precisely those when I need a mentor – when everything is plain sailing, he doesn’t hear much from me!  

But somehow I felt embarrassed and ashamed at all this… and then I kicked myself in the butt and had the courage to message him.

Well you know, I’m so glad I did.  Because he told me things I didn’t know, that made me feel SO much better.

Apparently there’s a thing online my mentor calls “the summer slump”.  Now I hadn’t had a chance to experience this yet, because the last few years have been atypical: no one travelled much in the summers of 2020, 2021 and 2022.  But this year, 2023, life is almost back to “normal” (whatever that means lol!) and with the return of open borders and travelling made possible again… well, it seems the summer slump is back for us in business.

It was such a relief to hear this, and to know I’m not the only one who saw a decline in sales in August. 

I felt instantly better… less alone, less “stupid”, less discouraged.

This is just one of the ways that having a mentor is worth gold: a mentor has walked the path you’re walking and they know what it’s like.  In fact, the mentor is still on the same path, just further down the road.  So he/she KNOWS how it feels.  

It’s easy to get help with technical stuff – plenty of free information out there will show us how to do things.  

It’s not so easy to get help when we face roadblocks, fears and doubts.  

I’m a pretty tough girl under my innocent smile… tough and extremely tenacious.  I’ve been through hell in my life and that’s taught me that everything passes, so I NEVER give up.

But I know many people don’t have my crazy stubbornness, and stop when things get rough.  The discouragement can be overwhelming and the doubts paralysing. I totally get it!

That’s where the mentor comes in… he’ll keep you going… he’ll restore faith in yourself… he’ll tell you what’s normal and what’s not… he’ll let you in on things no one talks about… and instead of stopping, you’ll get up again and go, with renewed faith and fire inside you!

So that’s it dear reader.  I hope this helps!

If you want access to the same mentor I have, your first step is to click here to get my free training and emails.  You’ll find out, in my emails, how you can partner with me and my mentor… and before you know it, you’ll be on your road to success and freedom.  

affiliate marketing, Internet Profits, Make money online

I’ve done it again :-(

Sophie Sion

I know, I know… I disappeared again for a few weeks!  So sorry!  But I’ve been working hard, that’s why!

And I went away for a few days too…

Want to see a picture?  Took my mum, youngest son and nephew to the Swiss mountains for a few days; my sister joined us on day 3.  The views were spectacular. 

I mean, look at this…

The weather was mostly grey and overcast, but it was still incredibly beautiful!

My mum has Alzheimer’s, so it wasn’t exactly a holiday, but I won’t go into the sad details, it’s just too depressing.

 

Back to business and the news is good 🙂

Did I ever tell you that in Internet Profits, we can send our results in once a month and have them reviewed by Dean himself?

Well, if I didn’t, I have now.  These monthly results reviews are worth gold.  To have a multiple 7 figure earner look at my strategy and results once a month – and give me feedback on all this – has made a HUGE difference to my progress.

Do you track your numbers?  If you don’t, I highly recommend it!  It’s an eye opener at times.

Anyway, as I was preparing to submit my numbers for July, I went into a bit of statistical deep dive.  If I spread out my numbers over the last 18 months, I’ve been making an average of just over 1k a month.  If I look at the last 12 months, I’m averaging nearly 1.5k a month.  That’s in profit, of course. 

As I write this, I’m attacked by self-doubt and imposter syndrome.  I see all the MASSIVE income promises I get in my inbox weekly, and I think “I’m only making 4 figures a month…”

And then you know what?  I stop myself!  I refuse to go down that rabbit hole.

I make what I make, and I’m so incredibly proud of myself.

I have such little time… I don’t have my own office.  There are constant interruptions.  My kids don’t go to school – I’m responsible for their education.  Until April this year, I looked after my dear Dad.  It was full on.  And then there was the horror of seeing him go downhill, suffer terribly and finally pass away.  And now there’s the grief.  I don’t talk about it much, but it’s there, all the time.

So yes, I’m proud of these 4 figures I make each month.  Immensely proud.

 

In other news, I spoke with a great marketer and copywriter called Bill Mueller.  He reviewed my emails and had only great things to say about them, that made me blush big time.

I told him I really wanted to improve on my emails and how they convert…  he asked me about my numbers and when I showed him my stats from my ads and my ROI, he said “how much better than that can it get?”.  This made me laugh and I thought he had a point!  It made me realise how much I underestimate how well I’m doing.  After all, three to four hundred percent ROI is not bad, right?

So my August aim now is to scale my ads and get that email list of mine bigger – much bigger!

I won’t do anything crazy – I do believe slow and steady wins the race.  But I’m gradually increasing my ad budget and testing new audiences.

Unless Dean tells me not to, of course.  I always follow his advice above all else – and it serves me well.

 

Anyway, that’s the news for this week.

Well, almost!  YouTube still being my first love, I continue to publish on there, of course.  You might want to check out my latest video: 5 tips to unlock your affiliate marketing success ?

 

 

That’s it from me for today… if you want to get started, here’s my free training: just click here to grab it :-).

Have a wonderful Sunday!