IMer Pat Flynn's Annual Income Report for 2014 hits almost $1million....

36 replies
Pretty interesting. I have followed his blog for sometime. And got this email a little bit ago.

One thing Pat does is that in his Emails to his List he NEVER drops Affiliate Links. He just directs them back to his Website where they buy his stuff there.

My 2014 Annual Income Report and Review - $946,256.23
#2014 #annual #apt #disclosed #flynn #imer #income #pat #report
  • It always amazes me how much in affiliate income he brings in from Bluehost. Who buys through an affiliate link for a product the affiliate doesn't use for his own sites?

    -CG
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    • Profile picture of the author vikash_kumar
      Originally Posted by Charles Goodnight View Post

      It always amazes me how much in affiliate income he brings in from Bluehost. Who buys through an affiliate link for a product the affiliate doesn't use for his own sites?

      -CG
      The sad thing is...There are more good companies which are very good and with some awesome support than hosting compines with EIG like Bluehost and hostgator... But these big affiliates are responsible for keeping these companies booming...though they don't care after you are there with them...
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      • Profile picture of the author Mailnoi
        Originally Posted by vikash_kumar View Post

        The sad thing is...There are more good companies which are very good and with some awesome support than hosting compines with EIG like Bluehost and hostgator... But these big affiliates are responsible for keeping these companies booming...though they don't care after you are there with them...
        I'm in Bluehost and from the day they changed to the "new" servers in in Utah and exploded their sales, the service it's being bad to worst.
        If you contact them by email, any issue can take 4 to 5 days to be solved or even to be replied to you.
        And by phone if you call them better put yourself at ease....they keep you at the waiting "song" for a 20 minutes o more, this is not a problem if you call from USA but foreigners can be ruined by the phone bill.

        Can you recommend me a reliable hosting?
        Thanks.
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    • Profile picture of the author paulie888
      You'd be surprised. When you're in a position of authority like Pat, all he really needs to do is throw up a few banners on his blogs, and because of the authority status that he has people will be happy to click on and sign up for hosting with just about any company (within reason)

      Originally Posted by Charles Goodnight View Post

      It always amazes me how much in affiliate income he brings in from Bluehost. Who buys through an affiliate link for a product the affiliate doesn't use for his own sites?

      -CG
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  • Profile picture of the author nizamkhan
    I've checked His income report (2014).

    BlueHost earnings = $424,800
    Aweber earnings = $22,378.74
    OptinSkin earnings = $11,196.23


    These are just 3 earnings sources from that HUGE list of earning sources.This is just amazing. He is truly an inspiration.


    - Nizam






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  • Profile picture of the author David Keith
    as someone who has consulted with for quite a few companies doing over 1 million in business, what i find most interesting about this is that about 50% of his income is coming from bluehost... an affiliate program that pays out on new recruits. (newbie lvl mostly)

    yet in his post, he describes working on so many aspects of his business that are focused more on the upper tier rather than newbies at the stage of "looking for a web host" or an AR... aweber was also a decent percent of his income. He even mentions being scared to post stuff that was not top tier...only experienced guys would be concerned with that, but he is not making that bluehost / awber income from experienced guys.

    it seems almost strange for him to be spending so much time on the mid to up tiers of his consumers when the lower (newbie) level is making such a big percentage of his income. I cant help but wonder what his bluehost income would be if he spent his time on driving that lvl traffic rather than on trying to reach the more experienced tiered crowd.

    but it was kinda cool to see such a detailed breakdown of one successful IMers business. And i am certainly not trying to be critical here. just pointing out something i found kinda odd.
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    • Profile picture of the author Raymond T
      Originally Posted by David Keith View Post

      as someone who has consulted with for quite a few companies doing over 1 million in business, what i find most interesting about this is that about 50% of his income is coming from bluehost... an affiliate program that pays out on new recruits. (newbie lvl mostly)

      yet in his post, he describes working on so many aspects of his business that are focused more on the upper tier rather than newbies at the stage of "looking for a web host" or an AR... aweber was also a decent percent of his income. He even mentions being scared to post stuff that was not top tier...only experienced guys would be concerned with that, but he is not making that bluehost / awber income from experienced guys.

      it seems almost strange for him to be spending so much time on the mid to up tiers of his consumers when the lower (newbie) level is making such a big percentage of his income. I cant help but wonder what his bluehost income would be if he spent his time on driving that lvl traffic rather than on trying to reach the more experienced tiered crowd.

      but it was kinda cool to see such a detailed breakdown of one successful IMers business. And i am certainly not trying to be critical here. just pointing out something i found kinda odd.
      I've been a follower of Pat Flynn for a few years now. If you listen to his podcast, you will discover he did start out hosting with BlueHost and still swears by it today. However, recently, his traffic has increased so greatly that he's moved many of his web assets to WP Engine and Linode. As always, he's quite transparent about all of this. He also claims to turn down extremely lucrative promotional offers from companies he either isn't familiar with or doesn't personally believe in on a frequent basis.
      Signature

      Web developer by trade with a flare for digital marketing and a taste for fine craft brews.

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  • Yeah, I hope nobody thinks I am saying that working with bluehost is a bad thing for Pat, it's just my feeling that if someone is going to market a product such as webhosting at least use it to show you really do back your recommendation.

    In regards to bluehost...wouldn't recommend it even if I got paid for it. Then again, 440K would be tough to ignore

    -CG
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    • Profile picture of the author David Keith
      Originally Posted by Charles Goodnight View Post

      Yeah, I hope nobody thinks I am saying that working with bluehost is a bad thing for Pat, it's just my feeling that if someone is going to market a product such as webhosting at least use it to show you really do back your recommendation.

      In regards to bluehost...wouldn't recommend it even if I got paid for it. Then again, 440K would be tough to ignore

      -CG
      well, i did consulting for HG long before the eig buyout and a little after. My thoughts on your concerns are more from a practical standpoint than an ethical one.

      the reality is that even now, hg and bluehost are perfectly fine hosts for 99% of the people. Those people will signup and never get enough traffic for it to matter. They will never need to contact support since WP autoinstalls and these folks will be fine.

      The complaints you here are from people who pushed the limits of a $6 hosting account and i dont care what the web hosts name is, if you are paying 5-10 a month for hosting and run decent traffic numbers, you are going to run into issues.

      given that, it would almost be worse to recommend newbie lvl people signup for a $20 a month hosting account....because its better you know. I realize there are better hosts than the eig properties for sure. but for most people, they will be fine with bluehost.

      i am very aware of the issues with eig, but from a very practical standpoint, they are fine for 99% of customers. But when you get into higher level sites, there are much much better options.
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      • Profile picture of the author Curtis2011
        Originally Posted by David Keith View Post

        well, i did consulting for HG long before the eig buyout and a little after. My thoughts on your concerns are more from a practical standpoint than an ethical one.

        the reality is that even now, hg and bluehost are perfectly fine hosts for 99% of the people. Those people will signup and never get enough traffic for it to matter. They will never need to contact support since WP autoinstalls and these folks will be fine.

        The complaints you here are from people who pushed the limits of a $6 hosting account and i dont care what the web hosts name is, if you are paying 5-10 a month for hosting and run decent traffic numbers, you are going to run into issues.

        given that, it would almost be worse to recommend newbie lvl people signup for a $20 a month hosting account....because its better you know. I realize there are better hosts than the eig properties for sure. but for most people, they will be fine with bluehost.

        i am very aware of the issues with eig, but from a very practical standpoint, they are fine for 99% of customers. But when you get into higher level sites, there are much much better options.
        I disagree. I had sites with Bluehost for a few years and their service was terrible. I would have several multiple-hour outages almost every single week where I couldn't load my website at all. In retrospect, I should have left them ASAP, but it took me awhile to come to my senses.

        They are a terrible web host. It is clear that they oversell their resources and screw over their customers just to make as much $$$ as possible.
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      • Profile picture of the author NevinC
        Originally Posted by David Keith View Post

        well, i did consulting for HG long before the eig buyout and a little after. My thoughts on your concerns are more from a practical standpoint than an ethical one.

        the reality is that even now, hg and bluehost are perfectly fine hosts for 99% of the people. Those people will signup and never get enough traffic for it to matter. They will never need to contact support since WP autoinstalls and these folks will be fine.

        The complaints you here are from people who pushed the limits of a $6 hosting account and i dont care what the web hosts name is, if you are paying 5-10 a month for hosting and run decent traffic numbers, you are going to run into issues.

        given that, it would almost be worse to recommend newbie lvl people signup for a $20 a month hosting account....because its better you know. I realize there are better hosts than the eig properties for sure. but for most people, they will be fine with bluehost.

        i am very aware of the issues with eig, but from a very practical standpoint, they are fine for 99% of customers. But when you get into higher level sites, there are much much better options.
        This may be true in the past, but not so for the last year. Hostgator has really gone down the hill. Their servers went down across the board for at least 1 day each time and for a couple of days in 2014, if I'm not wrong. My sites don't get much traffic at all, unfortunately, but were still affected.
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  • Profile picture of the author boydstone
    One thing I like about Pat is he doesn't seem to be the sociopath type, which heavily populates the religious leader and MMO guru spaces, the type who wants your money but more importantly wants to dominate you.
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    • Profile picture of the author Steve B
      How do you know what is responsible for Flynn's BlueHost income? Maybe he is a part owner. Maybe he was the affiliate that signed up several large accounts long ago and he is making high recurring income off them every month. I don't think you can assume anything about his BlueHost income.

      Steve
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      Steve Browne, online business strategies, tips, guidance, and resources
      SteveBrowneDirect

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      • Profile picture of the author David Keith
        Originally Posted by Steve B View Post

        How do you know what is responsible for Flynn's BlueHost income? Maybe he is a part owner. Maybe he was the affiliate that signed up several large accounts long ago and he is making high recurring income off them every month. I don't think you can assume anything about his BlueHost income.

        Steve
        i know he is not part owner. i am pretty well connected in the web hosting industry.

        i know bluehost pays big per sale $$$, not recurring income. they were started in 1996 i believe... they have never paid a recurring income unless he has a special deal. but that is very very unlikely and me to have never heard about.

        i did consulting for hg for many years before the eig buyouts started, bluehost and hg were big competitors. i pretty much know of every affiliate in the hosting industry doing anything remotely close to those numbers and how they are doing it.

        i was not just making random stuff up steve. of course i aint his cpa, but i do have knowledge that makes what i said extremely unlikely to be very far from the truth.

        at any rate, the degree to which he opened his business up was cool to see.
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  • Profile picture of the author patflynn
    Hey guys! Pat here! Been a while since on the WF, nice to see everyone again!

    Thanks to the few of you who emailed me to let me know there were some questions/comments/concerns here on this thread. Thanks for bringing all of these things up. I'll do my best to answer some of the questions here:


    CG: It always amazes me how much in affiliate income he brings in from Bluehost. Who buys through an affiliate link for a product the affiliate doesn't use for his own sites?


    I do use Bluehost for my sites. Primarily my niche sites, and I started on Bluehost with SmartPassiveIncome.com but outgrew it as I needed to switch to VPS, and then a dedicated server for obvious reasons.

    I've never had a bad experience with them. Their customer service has always been top notch for me which is why I don't mind recommending them, and I hardly ever hear complaints from those who I have shared the recommendation to. The few who I have heard from, I've actually offered to refund their money.

    Yes, I could offer a different host, and I could make even more money doing so, but I choose to promote a company I know and have used, and personally trust.

    DK: it seems almost strange for him to be spending so much time on the mid to up tiers of his consumers when the lower (newbie) level is making such a big percentage of his income. I cant help but wonder what his bluehost income would be if he spent his time on driving that lvl traffic rather than on trying to reach the more experienced tiered crowd.

    This is really interesting, and to be honest never thought about that in this way. I appreciate the honest feedback.

    Steve: How do you know what is responsible for Flynn's BlueHost income? Maybe he is a part owner. Maybe he was the affiliate that signed up several large accounts long ago and he is making high recurring income off them every month. I don't think you can assume anything about his BlueHost income.

    I talk all about it here: https://soundcloud.com/askpat/how-di...-with-bluehost

    kindsvader: The $20,000 in legal fees is interesting. Not every online marketer pays that much on attorneys.

    You're right. But not every internet marketer worries about trademark infringement on his own stuff, has to deal with people pretending to be them, DMCA takesdown and other legal work such as this. Plus, lawyers are not cheap! Good ones at least who know what they are talking about. Also, a lot of stuff had to be done regarding canadian spam law this year that took a chunk of change.
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    • Profile picture of the author michaeloslier
      Congratulations on a great year business wise and personally too! I love your transparency and openness.
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  • Profile picture of the author TakenAction
    Pat I am just curious.

    I never know you before this but, it seems that you are a pretty experienced marketer
    I am curious why don't you list build like crazy?

    Majority of your income is driving people to sign up through your blue host link...

    Since you are obviously capable of being able to drive targeted traffic why wouldn't you want
    to do something along the lines of creating a "super funnel" and really skyrocketing your income.

    You know creating a funnel something along the lines of:

    squeeze page> $17 or below (low cost product, convert freebie seekers into buyers)> $47 core product> $197 up-sell> $997 high ticket.

    obviously that is just an example but I feel like that would produce so much more income than driving traffic to a link for hosting or whatever.

    Just curious, thanks.
    Signature

    The best thing you can do is put yourself out there.

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    • Profile picture of the author David Keith
      Originally Posted by TakenAction View Post

      Pat I am just curious.

      I never know you before this but, it seems that you are a pretty experienced marketer
      I am curious why don't you list build like crazy?

      Majority of your income is driving people to sign up through your blue host link...

      Since you are obviously capable of being able to drive targeted traffic why wouldn't you want
      to do something along the lines of creating a "super funnel" and really skyrocketing your income.

      You know creating a funnel something along the lines of:

      squeeze page> $17 or below (low cost product, convert freebie seekers into buyers)> $47 core product> $197 up-sell> $997 high ticket.

      obviously that is just an example but I feel like that would produce so much more income than driving traffic to a link for hosting or whatever.

      Just curious, thanks.
      The short answer is because he is taking a much longer term approach and building fans....not just monetizing things

      The power of creating fans is lost on most of the very direct marketing gimmicky wf crowd.

      But there is a balance and of course.....There is this

      He doesn't want a list of numbers, he wants an email list of raging fans.
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      • Profile picture of the author TakenAction
        Originally Posted by David Keith View Post

        The short answer is because he is taking a much longer term approach and building fans....not just monetizing things

        The power of creating fans is lost on most of the very direct marketing gimmicky wf crowd.

        But there is a balance and of course.....There is this

        He doesn't want a list of numbers, he wants an email list of raging fans.
        I appreciate you trying to speak on his behalf but I wasn't asking you :0

        You don't think you can build raging fans by having a sales funnel like I explained above? lol...

        Excuse me for building raging fans who love my free content so much they will gladly pay for the products in the funnel like I explained above and I will gladly sell it to them.
        Signature

        The best thing you can do is put yourself out there.

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      • Profile picture of the author discrat
        Originally Posted by David Keith View Post

        The short answer is because he is taking a much longer term approach and building fans....not just monetizing things

        The power of creating fans is lost on most of the very direct marketing gimmicky wf crowd.

        But there is a balance and of course.....There is this

        He doesn't want a list of numbers, he wants an email list of raging fans.
        David,
        I have to agree with you. To be honest Pat is on a different Level than most of the Crowd in here.
        People here can take that as a slight or take it as motivation to see a bigger picture like Pat.

        Building and monetizing Funnels is last thing on his List ( no pun intended lol).

        Building a group of followers and admirers and a Tribe is how he does things
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    • Profile picture of the author patflynn
      Originally Posted by TakenAction View Post

      Pat I am just curious.

      I never know you before this but, it seems that you are a pretty experienced marketer
      I am curious why don't you list build like crazy?

      Majority of your income is driving people to sign up through your blue host link...

      Since you are obviously capable of being able to drive targeted traffic why wouldn't you want
      to do something along the lines of creating a "super funnel" and really skyrocketing your income.

      You know creating a funnel something along the lines of:

      squeeze page> $17 or below (low cost product, convert freebie seekers into buyers)> $47 core product> $197 up-sell> $997 high ticket.

      obviously that is just an example but I feel like that would produce so much more income than driving traffic to a link for hosting or whatever.

      Just curious, thanks.
      I don't list build like crazy because like the others mentioned, I'm about providing value and building fans first, to a point where people figure out how they can get on my list and when they do, they stick on it. I have over 110,000 on my email list, so I'm not sure you can call that "not building my list", hehe - and with a 50-60% open rate, including on autoresponder emails, I'm quite happy with this approach. It's a magnetic approach to marketing rather than a push approach, if that makes sense.

      And you also mentioned I drive people to Bluehost. That's not really the truth - it just so happens that the site is put together in a way that no matter where people come in, if they go through the site and explore the content they will eventually be met with an organic promotion of Bluehost, among many of my other resources. The #1 revenue generating page on the site is my resource page (Resources), with over 50% of my Bluehost revenue coming from that page alone. People land on this page because I mention it throughout the site, because it's helpful, and it saves people time.

      As David mentioned, I'm taking a much longer approach with my audience. Instead of pushing offers and pop-ups and trying to get people on my list right away, it's about building that relationship. Now, I'm at a point where people email me asking if I have an affiliate link for various products - and most of the time I don't because I've never heard of or have used those products they are talking about, but it's really cool to know they check with me first to see if they can earn me a commission. They don't have to do that, but they do. I'd take this kind of thing over quick $$ anyday.
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      • Profile picture of the author Doug
        Originally Posted by patflynn View Post


        As David mentioned, I'm taking a much longer approach with my audience. Instead of pushing offers and pop-ups and trying to get people on my list right away, it's about building that relationship.
        Confirmation for me right there.

        IMO too many marketers measure success in terms of $$$'s. One I know of recently insinuated to me and others if you are not making $$$'s all the time then you must be doing things wrong, or at the very least not taking action. Again, IMO don't allow yourself to get caught up in this type of thinking.

        And yes I realize each is in a unique set of circumstances and therefore making more money may need that more immediate attention.

        For me, chasing the money doesn't work. This doesn't mean I don't take action toward that end, but rather, build a foundation underneath the chase.

        Doug
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        • Profile picture of the author Dave Espino
          It's great to see real-world examples, like Pat's!

          Keeps us motivated to do more.

          I admire Pat's way of doing business, give a ton of value, which builds a relationship and then everything else just flows.

          Dave
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          I make several $1000s a month (passive income) on Udemy and here's how YOU can, too...

          Get your FREE UDEMY MINI-COURSE here:

          http://daveespino.com/FreeMiniCourse-Sig

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  • Profile picture of the author David Keith
    Hint, the raging fans and traffic generation are connected.
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  • Profile picture of the author Assetus
    Pat, just wanted to say I found the podcast equipment guide on your site very useful as was completely unfamiliar with much of that technology until a couple of weeks ago. Still going through the whole "getting used to your own voice" phase myself at the moment but will keep practising.


    I've run into some audio products made by people who were either unfortunate enough to have a terrible voice for broadcast or perhaps didn't even try to work on it. I often wondered if guys who seem quite natural at it like you or Eben Pagan did/do any specialist training?


    Really enjoyed the recent interview with David Siteman Garland too-one of my all time fav podcast sessions in the company of Ilovemarketing's Jay Abraham/Dan Kennedy ones.
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    • Profile picture of the author Cool Hand Luke
      Pat, Bluehost is terrible since EIG took over. Random outages, garbage support, a noticeable slow down in page loading, etc.

      I know they make you more money for you than anything else on your site, but if you're really trying to help people, you'd be better off recommending another provider.
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  • Profile picture of the author ProveResults
    Congrats Pat on making almost a $million. Wasn't that long ago you had that 'I'm not a 'millionaire' in your sidebar thingy.

    I'm guessing you're now and that's thanks to how transparent and honest you're with everything I believe.

    Only today I was reading a post on the site from 2009 about how you were going to make a course for your exam site!

    Anyway thanks Pat and hopefully you can break that $million barrier this year which I'm positive you will.

    Regards

    ProveResults
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  • Profile picture of the author tyronne78
    Hey Pat,congratulations on a record breaking year income wise. I was also curious how you were making close to half a million a year promoting BlueHost. Thanks for clearing that up for me and the Warrior Forum community. I'm not surprised you made that amount considering the size of your fan base and the fact that you point your readers to your resource page from time to time. The resource page is one of the most frequently visited pages on a website and highly monetizable one from my experience. Have a good one!
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  • Profile picture of the author techsynergy01
    While it’s not something I’ve done, you also have the option of using a larger cursor. It’s easier to follow on a large screen and I never liked the yellow highlight over the cursor. You can change it in Camtasia Recorder Effects/Options/Cursor or if the ‘Make cursor effects editable’ check box is selected you can change it in the editor.
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  • Profile picture of the author MoneyDan
    Banned
    Certainly is someone to look up to. How long has he been in IM?
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    • Profile picture of the author discrat
      Originally Posted by MoneyDan View Post

      Certainly is someone to look up to. How long has he been in IM?
      He started right around when I started which was in 2008.


      - Robert Andrew
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  • Profile picture of the author smjconet
    I've followed Pat from the beginning and have enjoyed and learned a lot over the years from him and the guests he has brought on. My warmest congratulations to Pat for his successes. He deserves all of it and more. He makes this business seem easy, but if you've followed his career, you'd know just what a truly amazing story his success is.

    He was laid off from his dream job just after graduation from college as an architect, shortly after being hired. He didn't give up, he shifted gears and went on to create the authority course for studying and passing required exams for other budding architect students and graduates.

    He was able to build his online career with this. Pat started out with service to others in mind and has never strayed from that philosophy as his first and driving force.

    In regards to Bluehost, I signed up for Bluehost using Pat's link a few years ago and have never regretted that decision. Bluehost has always given me great service and support. I have bought several more services from Bluehost over the years including SSL services and have been very pleased with their performance.

    I would recommend them to anyone and I am not an affiliate for them or connected to them in any way other than I am a long time customer.

    Pat, I for one am looking forward to many more years of your expert advice and recommendations and guests. You have my sincere thanks for all of it.
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  • Profile picture of the author tchouken
    Congrats Pat on making almost a $million
    You are being an inspiration to me
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  • Profile picture of the author Jason Moffatt
    I didn't know much about this Pat Flynn guy until I started a podcast a few weeks ago and started seeing his face all over iTunes. I listened to a few shows and became a instant fan. Great stuff Pat. Love the way you carry yourself and hold down the fort.

    Cheers
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