I’ll look back on 2016 as a year of negative business metrics but positive life experiences.
I started the year wanting to be a successful online business blogger. Now I couldn’t think of anything worse. All that hard work!
My passive revenue reports show my business made less money than it did in 2015.
But I’m now delighted
I’m happy because I’m not relying on one source of income as much as I used to. Other income sources are holding out and new ones are being introduced. The reason for this was mainly Udemy. Udemy was responsible for over 50% of my business at one point and having too many eggs in one basket was never going to end happily.
I’m earning less but I’ve had such a great year. I’m making enough money to survive and grow as a human being so, on this important level, I’m winning!
But what am I going to replace the Udemy profits with? What am I going to do to grow the business? How can I continue to help the readers of my website with money making ideas?
The answer to the above questions is … Amazon FBA.
2017 will be about Amazon FBA
My Amazon FBA experience in 2016 has been littered with costly mistakes and I suffered from lack of motivation at times.
However, although the year of Amazon FBA fails (detailed below), I now have an income stream that’s delivering me $1000/month. This is totally passive. And I’ve only got one product. Imagine if I had ten?
What went right in 2016
In general, I take a lot of steps to fill my life with positivity. And, in general, it’s working …
Chiang Mai
I spent most of the last three months in Chiang Mai, thanking the universe for the wonderful life that I have. I also spent most of the year in Thailand. Things were particularly good as winter came to northern Thailand. The weather cooled down as the rainy season gave way to beautiful clear skies. Many old friends returned to Chiang Mai and I met many new amazing people as well.
I am increasingly aware of the beauty within my life and of the best things that money can’t buy.
Getting back into self publishing
After slight negativity with Amazon FBA, I asked myself what I would enjoy doing? I enjoy creating things. I enjoy making things happen rather than evaluating and judging what other people do.
So I resolved to do something I would enjoy. I decided to write a book about about location independence. I spent a month writing it and I loved every minute.
I absolutely love self-publishing (even though it’s hard to make money doing it). I’ve written eight books in three years. I’ve nearly sold 10,000 books and made almost $15,000. It’s not about the money. It’s about building a personal brand and getting customers’ email addresses so that you can sell them more at a later date. And I enjoy it.
I explain more about my passion for self-publishing in this video.
I’m launching a course on self-publishing soon to help people start 2017 as Amazon bestselling authors. You can do it!
Not listening to ‘guru’ advice
This is going to sound strange coming from someone who’s been blogging for over 10 years now. But … I’m going to listen to less business advice in 2017.
So much of the advice I took from ‘gurus’ in 2016 was incorrect. What do I mean by ‘gurus’? Entrepreneurs that have bigger businesses than me.
And there’s the important point. People who don’t have a similar type of business to yours could so easily give you the wrong advice. They’ll give you the advice that is right for them at that moment. They don’t – they can’t – know your situation.
We are all unique human beings. And the businesses we create are all unique as well. This is another reason you should be careful of the advice you take. I’m not blaming anyone here. The ‘gurus’ aren’t handing out crap advice on purpose! This is just life.
My future businesses
2017 is going to be the year I work less.
I’ve been in business of over 10 years. And, for most of that time, I’ve been interested in “bootstrapping” businesses. I grew my business from zero (OK maybe I invested $200 initially!) to six-figures.
My blog articles, my books and my courses have reflected the desire to help people grow businesses with minimal investment.
However, in the last few years, my business has been doing well and I’ve been living in cheap parts of the world. The result is I have capital in my business that I want to invest.
So my future businesses will be about, for example, turning $10,000 into $100,000 – rather than growing something from nothing.
What went wrong in 2016
Udemy fail: pricing change
For me Udemy went wrong, very wrong in 2016. The problems started in April when the company introduced a new course pricing strategy and stopped deep discounts. This was the third major pricing policy change in less than three years and proved a sales disaster. My sales dropped by 50% and never really recovered. Three months later, Udemy reversed the policy and some instructors sales reverted back, however, mine didn’t. So I’m making less money from Udemy organically and I don’t know why.
Amazon FBA fail #1: losing money on review sites generally
There were many mistakes in my Amazon FBA journey through the year. Firstly, I wasted a lot of money on various review promo sites. When you’re launching a product in America especially, it’s advantageous to get reviews on Amazon. You can incentivize these reviews by offering the product at a discount to groups of shoppers. Not only did I mess up the promo codes and lose some inventory to rival sellers. Amazon also changed their attitude towards these promo tools and got rid of 80% of the reviews I’d spent so much money acquiring.
Amazon FBA fail #2: ZonBlast
Similar to the above but more costly and less beneficial was wasting $2000 on ZonBlast – a promo tool used to increase rank that you should avoid.
Amazon FBA fail #3: error on product’s packaging
This mistake was the worse of all (although it had a happy ending). I noticed an error on my product’s packaging on my worst day in business ever. The cost to return and repackage all my inventory was about $3000. I also lost ranking while my product disappeared from Amazon for a few weeks.
(And despite all my Amazon FBA fails, I’m still making money. That is why I’m persevering with this business model.)
ActiveCampaign fail: besieged by bots
Email marketing is the backbone of my business’ marketing efforts. In 2016 I moved from Aweber to ActiveCampaign so I could segment my lists better and make use of some more advanced email marketing techniques.
Unfortunately, ever since the move my lists have been besieged by bots and I have been unable track where subscribers are coming from or gauge open or click-through rates.
I really hate to be negative and writing articles about my bad experiences with ActiveCampaign and ZonBlast, for example, is not what I want to spend my time doing.
So I apologise for moaning. I’m thinking of moving to ConvertKit in 2017 rather than wrestle with ActiveCampaign’s (lack of) support. I’ll try to be more discerning and hopefully in future the tools and services I’ll use will, at least, do what they say they will.
Where will I be in 2017?
I’m writing this from a very cold London and the beginning of 2017. There’s no doubt that, for whatever reason, England, especially at this time of year, holds a lot of negativity for me. Time is going very slowly and I’m counting the days until I jump on the jumbo jet that takes me back to Asia in a few weeks’ time.
However, life starts outside my comfort zone and Thailand has become a huge great comfort zone for me now.
What am I going to do to stretch myself in 2017? Meditation retreats and plant medicines. Hold me to it!
That’s my first target. Other targets include:
- Releasing one product in the same vertical that I’m in on Amazon FBA
- Releasing another product in another vertical on Amazon FBA
- Launching a course on self-publishing
You can do it!
Thank you for reading my last income report of 2016. I hope, as always, telling you about my journey helps you with yours.
What do you think about my decision to go for Amazon FBA in a big way in 2017? Please feel free to make a comment or ask me a question here. Happy New Year!
Peace!
Excellent Rob, sometimes a few mistakes along the way are for the best. It sharpens the mind and keeps you focused (providing you have the will and desire to succeed also!)
If you don’t mind me asking why did you move from Aweber? I’m on the lookout and Aweber seems to tick all the boxes for me.
Keep up the good work and all the best for 2016!
Haha just realised what I wrote – All the best for 2017 obviously! Im still in slow mode after the holidays…
Haha, I’ve done that a few times lol!
Yes, mistakes are great educators however much we hate to make them!
I don’t mind you asking Tom. If I could live my life again, I would never have left Aweber to be honest. I never had so many bot signups with them and Active Campaign has been a bit of a disaster! The reason I moved was to tag signups to my free courses at https://robcubbon.com/freecourses with the course that people signed up to.
A good honest report on 2016 by Rob Cubbon. As he highlights it isn’t always sunny and roses in the product, internet marketing space. Life goes through lots of changes and many products and ideas fail or come up very short. But the lets keep going attitude is what makes is successful. Trying lots of different things and ways of doing business also makes for success. I often find listening to the gurus to be very discouraging. I don’t know how they do what they do and make as much money as they claim they do. It just never works seems to work like that. My success has come from pushing out my own products. Great post Rob,
Hey Bruce, you’re right. Gotta keep going. Gotta keep creating products.
Sounds like a good year all in all!
Did Amazon clamping down on reviews change much? Would you still recommend FBA to someone starting out or is the barrier to entry too high? Any plans to do an FBA course?
Does that mean you’re going to Peru?
Cheers
Joe
Hey Joe, as for Amazon’s reviews policy, yes it has changed a bit. The future is to find product niches that don’t need a lot of reviews/promoting.
Lots of people are asking me at the moment for a course or a resource for Amazon FBA.
There are a lot but I can’t recommend any now. The situation changes so rapidly and you can also get some very bad advice.
The best advice I ever get is from successful FBA sellers in my niche. Unfortunately, these people don’t make themselves known and be wary of people saying in FB groups that they’re successful.
But really it’s the FBA Groups on FB where you’ll get the best advice.
Maybe going to Peru. But there are retreats in Portugal and England as well! 🙂
Thanks Rob. Perhaps I will take a look around Facebook.
Didn’t know that about England. Good luck!
Joe
Thanks for your honesty Rob, and it is good to hear your successes too. You sound happy and optimistic about 2017. Mistakes are awful at the time but the learning is so valuable and can save you heartache in the future.
Thank you, Janet. Yes! If we all had 100% success, none of us would learn anything. I’m thinking of saying “I wish you failure” to people but it might get taken the wrong way!
Great review, Ron. Had the same problem with Udemy. Looking more into Amazon Video Direct. I guess I should be publishing ebooks. I find formatting them such a pain. Happy New Year!
Hey Scott, I came across a useful tool recently that promises to make formatting ebooks considerably easier (epub and kindle). They are in pre-launch but you may consider signing up for when they launch to try them out. https://papeair.com
Thanks Mike. Lots of people on Fiverr and Upwork as well!
Hey Scott, Amazon Video Direct has NOT been good for me. A lot of runaround. Lots of minutes watched (22,000) but no revenue ($50/month). Not worth it!
As always, I thank you, Rob, for your honesty and helpfulness. I’m in the midst of moving from AWeber to ConvertKit. It’s a huge hassle! I almost gave up. But the team there is very helpful. The features seem excellent. My goal is to completely switch by the end of the month.
(BTW you’re probably in a price category where the’ll do the move for you!)
Yes, it was a huge hassle to go from Aweber to Active Campaign and it was a huge disappointment when I got there. Good to know the team at ConvertKit were helpful. Active Campaign has bad support as far as I’m concerned. Hope you’re well, Louise, and best of luck with the move 🙂
Great article Rob. Very refreshing to see some honesty in the IM world, which is very rare. I’ve taken a LOT of courses and honestly, I haven’t gotten that much out of what the “gurus” are advising (or more likely re-hashing). My wife is thinking about delving into Amazon FBA so I’ve been watching your progress before letting her dig into it any further. She was doing quite well with her Thai cooking classes on Udemy until they “jumped the shark”. Skillshare is only slightly better but now I see they’re making some big changes too, which may or may not be so good. Keep up the great work and “chok dee”!
Oh wow, Bill, you have a Thai wife, I think. I bet you eat well! Sorry you’re wife saw a drop in Udemy earnings same as me. Skillshare doesn’t have as big an audience but it’s still worth doing. But, yeah, who knows what’s going to happen. Chok dee!
Merci so much for this sincere article, Rob. You are definitely right saying that we have to find our own path despite the obstacles.
Yeah, Udemy made also a huge mistake, and in this way, it made us reflect on multiple revenue streams, that’s what you have done and I can only encourage you to persevere with Amazon FBA.
Sincerely,
Olivier
Oui, Olivier, multiple income streams. Diversified Business! It’s the way to go. All the best for 2017.
Rob – Your honest and open way of communicating speaks greatly of your positive nature. I am sure retreats in Thailand have had their best influence on you. Thanks for sharing the tools your experience with them so that others can avoid those mistakes. I live convertKit.
Gaining expertise on Amazon FBA is the future. The platform can scale massively if you arrive at a hit product. I can see you launching a much bigger hit product I think the near future.
Enjoy the Pub life I the U.K. For your short stay and wishing you a wonderful and fulfilling Year(s) ahead.
I love your books and life stories. Have all of them purchased on amzn.
Best
Shravan
San Fran., CA
Hey Shravan, thank you so much for your comment. I may migrate to ConvertKit. Trying to enjoy pub life in UK but looking forward to Thai-life more. 🙂
Nice, Rob! Like everyone, I love your honesty. It is good to read what you write. You asked us to mention whether or not we would be interested in a new self publishing course, and I could not say for sure. It would depend upon specific content covered. I am not interested in Amazon FBA, by the way. I feel I have decided upon my next four or five marketing campaigns, but I would always be happy to look at anything you do, after having taken one of your other courses. I really get a lot out of the way you teach and I think it wouldn’t hurt to repeat ground I’ve already covered. I would prioritize you as one of my top choices for instructors, if I did need training of any type., So, I don’t think that really helped you, but that is my honest input, since you asked. Again, thank you for reporting on your process. We all seem to deeply appreciate it! (& For whatever weird reason, I oddly love the miserable weather in England. I seem to thrive on it. It makes me feel good! Could that be more bizarre? I wish I could bottle that and send you some! 😉 Roz
hehe, thank you, Roz, yes I know some people like the weather in England. I’ve tried but I definitely can’t be one of them.
Well done for mapping out your marketing campaigns.
The self-publishing course will cover coming up with the ideas for a book, writing the book, formatting and techicalities for Kindle, paperback and audiobook, editing, launching, marketing, and, how to make money from publishing.
Basically, if you don’t want to write a book, then the course isn’t for you. 🙂
Hi Rob, great inspirational article and thanks for being so frank!
I am in London on Tuesday – fancy meeting up for a sandwich somewhere central?
Wishing you all success for 2017!
John
Sure, John, I’ll drop you a line. Thanks.
Brilliant 🙂 J
I know nothing about Amazon FBA! I must look into this. I have tried with Amazon products before, marketing, promoting, setting up dedicated websites, but sadly it has never worked for me and I haven’t sold a single thing! I really hope 2017 is good for you and I hope it’s the year I find the way forward!
Enjoy the journey!
Hi Mandy
Happy New Year to you! Fancy stumbling across you on this site. I have tried Amazon FBA
and can recommend it IF you get the right product at the right price!
Would you be interested in a JV with me (remember Hilary and I stayed at yours for a holiday a few years ago?!) with FBA, As I state elsewhere on this site I did Amazon FBA last year and have some good & bad experience with it. I’d be happy to work on this jointly in 2017 with you. If not then, no worries and goodluck to you if you prefer to go it alone with FBA. Let me know if you would be interested! Best wishes 🙂
Great to see business collaborations going on in the comments here! 🙂
Hey Mandy, I certainly do hope 2017 is your year too. Amazon FBA is really all about finding the good products in niches that aren’t too competitive.
Hi Rob
Happy New Year 2017 to you!
I like the look of your self publishing book venture with Amazon.
I was also interested to learn of your Amazon FBA “faiures”.
I gave up with Amazon FBA as I didn’t have a great product for a great price!
It was an average product and sold at such low cost my profit was non existent (I broke even in the end!). I did sell product (mainly to Amazon EU customers which wasn’t what I had planned) and I can
see the potential with FBA with the right product at the right price. For now though, I’m concentrating on creating & selling my own product!
Best wishes Richard 🙂
Hey Richard, I actually think that Amazon EU has a great future. There’s less competition than in the US. It’s a totally different business to selling my own products like video courses and e-books, though, as you know. 🙂
Rob it’s so great to see you still having success with Amazon FBA! I love your income reports and your transparency. Great read!
I think your Udemy results may come down to more competition for your niche. As their instructor base grows, you’re competing with more and more courses. So if there’s another Photoshop course that is selling similar content for the same price or cheaper and has a higher rating, Udemy is going to promote that one. I don’t think it’s anything you did wrong per say.
But that’s why it’s good you’ve diversified. That’s always my goal as well.
I love your decision to go full force with Amazon FBA! Will be watching to see where it takes you.
Hey Lisa, good to hear from you. I loved your last post although I’m sorry for your hassles you had on your membership site.
I think it’s the competition on Udemy but I’m not 100% sure. For example, I received nearly $3000 organic sales on Udemy last January. So far this January, $500. I know January’s not over but I’m not expecting much more. Udemy are a strange company sometimes – or maybe I’m being paranoid lol.
Yep, Amazon FBA (and maybe Zazzle) for 2017. Happy New Year, Lisa – thank you so much for popping by.
Great as always Rob.
Plant medicines – eh? I think I heard it described that before 😉
It’s really interesting to hear about the Udemy change (back) and the effect on instructors.
Wishing you a great year. I plan to be in Thailand (May) and London June/July. I wonder whether we will be in the same place at any time.
Thanks, David, yeah, would be great if we could meet up. Not sure when I’ll be where though. So we must keep an eye on each other via Facebook. 🙂