In my “day job” as a strategy consultant, I’m tasked with helping Fortune 500 companies optimize their revenue streams and achieve cost savings. It’s only natural that when I come home, that’s where my head is still at. I’ve talked with countless friends about the benefits and risks of different strategies to offset the expenses of blogging (from site maintenance to outfits/gear to conference travel) and develop their blogs into a sustainable revenue stream.
Big commission sites usually don’t pay you until you reach $100 in commissions and ad sales are entirely dependent on the traffic that you drive. As a relatively new blogger, these aren’t profitable avenues – which means you’re investing more money to grow your blog and still nothing is coming in. It can become an expensive hobby.
There’s one answer we always seem to come back to – build your own business and sell your own products. The question is how. I ran my own store bringing in more than six figures in a year. It was exhausting. Like every weekend filling orders and photographing merchandise exhausting. After two years, I shut it down. I then moved to helping other bloggers set up their stores and built an exchange where you could buy from multiple bloggers. The market is just oversaturated – even with unique inventory (and ours was custom-made), it is hard to differentiate in an online world where there are literally thousands of bloggers launching custom stores.
Then LipSense landed in my lap. I had bought a color from another Dallas blogger and became hooked. When she offered me the opportunity to buy at a discount as a wholesale customer, I jumped on it. Fast forward to today and this lip biz what’s funding my site + vacations + vet bills for my pup and more!
So let’s recap January, to show you how truly huge this opportunity is:
- I ran my LipSense business in the evenings and weekends, without distracting from quality time from my family. That time includes video filming and taking photos, responding to client messages, messages from my team, and posting on social media.
- I sold $2,000+ worth of product, most of which was to girls I never met in person, who subscribed to my YouTube channel, shopped on my site, or were members of my Facebook group. That $2,000 netted me $1,000 in profit. Crazy. How many businesses have a 50% profit margin?!?
- I earned a commission check of $550 from the sales of my amazing team.
- The 13 girls on my team who actively sell sold more than $22,000 worth of product. That’s $11,000 of profit (shoutout to Stacey L. who sold $4,000 of that herself!).
- Our team grew by 11 ladies, some of whom joined just for the discount and others who sold more than $1,000 in less than 30 days (and earned $300+ in free product for hitting those goals)!
Worked in my free time, without eating into family time. $1,500 profit. And it’s growing. January sales company wide exceeded the sales of entire YEARS. It’s also boosted my blog traffic, which I wrote about here.
Find out more about becoming a Senegence / LipSense distributor here.