If you sell time you sacrifice freedom. The majority of business owners do so because they want a different kind of life. They don’t want to be chained to a 9-5 job, ask for permission to take time off or feel bad if they can’t go to work because their kid is sick. They want more. For themselves and often for their families. And although that is what starts as the original dream, what it turns into can be a nightmare. Business owners often start by trading time for money. They soon run out of time and cap their earnings. Instead of the freedom they first wanted they’ve created another 9-5 job but one without the benefit of paid time off and sick leave. Is there room in your business for you? Or is work taking up all the space? I’m going to talk about how I found my own balance and what really made the difference for me when it came to turning the vision for my business into the reality of my life. I want to show you the things I did that got me time back without financing my financial dreams.
Time is not your only asset
I used to think time was my only asset. That it was the only thing I had to sell. And that to make the money I needed I had to sell all of it to other people. I started my business back in 2018 and there were coaches everywhere you looked evangelising about their lifestyles.
The holy grail of the coaching industry was being paid not to work. Or at least that’s what it felt like on the receiving end of their messaging. I couldn’t understand how people could work just 3 days a week AND pay all their bills. But against all the odds, a pandemic, a global recession and a cost of living crisis I’m within sniffing distance of that goal.
I’m not going to blow smoke up your arse and pretend that my business is perfect. Sometimes it’s got more holes than a hot buttered crumpet but slowly and surely I’m finding each one of those holes and plugging them.
Learning to leverage your time
I work hard. This isn’t about not working hard. This is about leveraging your time, not selling it. I didn’t think that earning £10k a month and only working 3 days a week was a realistic goal – I thought it was a fancy hook used to sell expensive coaching programs. Okay, I was wrong. I’m happy to admit it. So how did I get from £25k per annum to within a stones throw of being VAT registered?
Well it wasn’t one programme. It wasn’t one coach. It wasn’t a secret I found buried in a blog or under a magic crystal. I didn’t manifest my reality and money doesn’t stick to me like static on a woolly jumper. I wish.
It was a series of micro decisions and actions. One at a time. Without giving up. I had to be resilient. I had to be determined. I had to make mistakes. Oh the amount of mistakes I have made in my business would make your eyes water and your flaps curl inwards. I had to ask for help and accept help when it was offered. I had to admit I didn’t know what I didn’t know. Progress was often two steps forward one step back but more often it was one step forward two steps back. But you know what they say, you can’t lose if you don’t quit.
The 8 things I did that made the most difference
Here’s what had to change in order to grow my income and get my time back
My boundaries
My business, my rules. I’ve given refunds and dealt with rude and demanding clients. Bad clients have by far and away been the biggest liability in my business. I had to blink away the pound signs in my eyes and say no to clients who came with red flags. If a client started well and then became a pain in the arse they got cut off. And I stopped charging a “twat tax” that’s where you hike up the price for a piece of work you really don’t want to do but the money makes it bearable. I realised that this was also holding my business back. There’s no price high enough for twatty clients because your work should be an absolute joy and if it’s not giving you joy it’s stealing time you can’t get back.
My beliefs
Jesus, this is a hard one. I don’t think I’ll ever stop working on this one. So many negative and unhelpful beliefs. Around my self worth, my skills, what I can charge, my competence. I could go on and on but I won’t. You won’t get anywhere without first believing you can and I definitely don’t think this is work you can do on your own. Get a coach.
My prices
In 2018 I was charging £40 a blog. You wouldn’t get 15 minutes with me for less than £50 now. Prices are like your bones, as your business grows your prices get bigger. That’s not how it needs to be but it’s often how it is. Pricing is a confidence game. Start your business and be the most expensive person in your industry. I’m here for that. But realistically most of my clients needs convincing, cajoling and sometimes permission to increase their prices and I am more than happy to oblige.
My packages
Again, these have evolved over the years. I mistakenly believed that the more I gave the more valuable the offer. I’ve just recently learned how unhelpful that is. I once paid £3k for a course and there was SO much content in it I could never have hoped to keep up. I got overwhelmed, I couldn’t fit the work in and I didn’t complete the course. What a waste of £3k, but what an important lesson. Overgiving is a big old barrier between you and making a profit. I still slip into overgiving. I look at some of my current offers and I think “ woman, all you’re not doing is going around to their house and cooking their tea for them” but, hey – I’m a work in progress right?
My mentors
Mentor for a reason, mentor for a season. Nobody can be all things to all people and your business has so many moving parts no-one can take responsibility for solving all your problems. A coach who got you here might not be able to get you there. I’ve worked with SO many amazing people but I was changing all the time. And when one mentor helps you solve one problem, they create a new one. And that’s exactly how it should be. One person can show you how to make a shit tonne of cash, the next person shows you how to make that cash pile even bigger. And no coach or mentor can help you if you don’t IMPLEMENT. The responsibility to action what you’ve learned lays with you and you alone. The coach I paid £3k to was responsible for the design and delivery of her course. She had no control over the time I had personally available to do the work. That’s on me.
My offer
The ideal client I was serving at the beginning of my business is not the one I am serving now. The offers I was making to my original clients make no sense to my current audience. The offer evolves as my skills and knowledge do. The offer changes as I realise that actually I don’t want to work in the evening. Or that maybe I don’t want to write for lots of people. Or maybe I don’t want to do courses anymore. The offer has got to bring value to the market place but also to your business. If it isn’t working for you, it’s working against you right?
My actions
With my beliefs I would say that my actions are the two most important things on this list. Beliefs and actions are the difference between achieving your goals and watching the world go by while you remain rooted to the spot. Nothing happens without action. And you can’t take action without a dose of motivation. I used to email my list once in blue moon and then go and rock with anxiety in a corner. Now I email my list every single day and anyone who doesn’t want to be on that list can unsubscribe. I used to believe that my content had to “give value” and then I realised that it already does that and what it actually had to do was earn its keep in my business. Now every post is a sales post but not because I’m all “buy my shit” but because it’s an invitation to solve a problem. An opportunity to change something someone doesn’t like about their business. Mostly it’s about helping people make money as quickly and easily as possible and in order to do that I need to pay my own bills.
My content
My content changed almost as a result of everything else. I stopped viewing each post, email and blog as a begging letter and recognised it as an asset. Positioning, authority and trust is what my content work towards so my content had to be specific, relevant and consistent to support those goals. I’ve built my entire business around my content and I’ve helped other businesses do the same, two of which are now hitting six figures so I know my stuff works. I help people change the way they feel about talking about their business. And that started with me.
So there you have it;
No silver bullets. No magic wands. No Fairy Godmothers. No miraculous come backs from the brink of bankruptcy with the one programme to rule them all. Micro actions, micro decisions, consistency, commitment and vision. Nobody gets to buy my time now. It’s not for sale. The only thing for sale, the ONLY thing that you can buy from me is transformation. That and knowledge and skills that can be applied in real time. If you want to transform your business and your content let me know at clair@upwriteonline.co.uk and if you know someone who needs to read this blog, why not send it to them.