How I Got Out Of A Financial Rut
If you read the post The Problem With Intention a few weeks ago, you’ll know that in April I had a financial dip – my worst month in business since I started. That month had been a bit of a wake up call, not only to some unproductive habits and thinking patterns I’d gotten myself into, but also to what I really wanted. With the prospect of a new house on the cards, I needed to make up a £6,000 shortfall in May and there was no time to overthink anything. I pulled my socks up, put my big girl pants on, and May was my best month to date. Here’s what happened…
A quick disclaimer before we dig in – I’m about to share the actual numbers from the last two months. I’m sharing these because I think it’s important to the context of this story, because I don’t want you to get into an overthinking spiral making up all these gigantic figures I must be earning, but also because I think as women we need to be more open about money. For me, seeing others share their numbers has always given me to dream bigger, and the very fact I felt the need to be apologetic about my income in this post shows me the importance of being honest about figures. But, I need you to be honest with yourself. If you know you’re not in a headspace to take this information the way it’s intended and use it as a comparison stick to beat yourself with, then I want no part of that. Please close the window now and circle back to this at another time ❤️
So. In April I turned over £1,911 all payment plan payments from existing clients, but with £2,295 in business and living costs, that equated to a loss. In May, I turned over £8,833 with £2,280 in costs, a profit of £6,553. (Important to note that my costs have been £950 per month higher than usual as I’ve invested in a graphic designer – you don’t need to be spending that much each month!).
So, what did I do to bridge that gap?
1. Look for the low hanging fruit
(63% of the month’s income – 12% Kit sales, 11% chased invoices, 40% new clients)
I kind of hate that phrase but it paints the picture. The first thing I did was look at what I could do quickly, and the quickest thing to do is never go out and find brand new customers for a brand new thing. I had a waiting list for 121 coaching and enquiries I hadn’t followed up yet, and the only reason they were on a waiting list and not signed up yet was because I had decided that. So, I brought the waiting list dates forward and got people booked in sooner.
I also had the Purpose Kit to put on sale, which was supposed to have been launched a month earlier so had been pretty broadly marketed and trailed already. I knew people were waiting for it, so I made sure it went on sale as quickly as possible and stopped dilly dallying around with it.
And, as unglamorous as it is, I chased some invoices. Around £1,000 was brought in from just that.
There’s a lot of talk about the ‘inbox time suck’ and how your best work isn’t happening in your inbox, however, if you’re looking for low hanging fruit in your business, responding to or following up on enquiries is often the most efficient thing you can do.
2. Bring an offering forward
(16% of the month’s income)
I had been planning to offer one-off one-to-one calls once my schedule was freer, but with this financial pressure providing some cold hard perspective I realised that my schedule was actually already freer than it had been in several months. So, I brought forward the one-off offering, putting it live on my website, and advertising it in my newsletter and on Instagram. As a bonus I also found this in depth one-offs really rewarding and enjoyable, so I’m so glad I brought them forward and now opened them up to being an ongoing offering.
3. A time efficient solution
(20% of the month’s income)
The trouble with doing 121 coaching is that there’s only so much of you to go around – once my schedule is full, that’s it! I have wanted for a while to find a way that’s more accessible than working one-to-one, whilst still maintaining the experience. So, I experimented with an online workshop – a live broadcast where I could talk through a topic, share slides, answer questions and interact with attendees as if we were all sat around a table together.
This was the biggest gamble of everything I brought out last month as it was completed untested – I’d done nothing like it before and hadn’t done any pre-marketing about it at all. If you follow me on Instagram you likely saw me talk about it a lot – that’s because 74% of the sales came in the final 3 days, so I had been panicking that my gamble wouldn’t pay off! But, like with my Checkpoint calls, I found I really loved the workshop format, I had great feedback from the attendees and it’s something I want to do more of (only next time I’ll crowdsource the topic).
What did I learn?
In amongst all of this I’ve paid attention to some bigger lessons that came out of the work of the last month. They are lessons that are pretty primal, that on the face of it don’t seem groundbreaking, but that lived experience proved to be very true.
A BIG GOAL SHARPENS FOCUS
Last month, overthinking and umm-ing and ahh-ing over decisions didn’t happen because there just wasn’t time. I had this very clear goal, a number I had to hit, and once I had that everything unimportant melted away. The big goal showed me what was really important to me, and things that I thought were important (like not taking on extra 121 clients), turned out to be not important at all in comparison with the big goal!
Not that I think any of us should be using a huge, live or die financial target to get us going every month, but finding the thing that’s more important than overthinking or procrastination gives you a huge focus and helps prioritisation happen intuitively and naturally.
YOU DON’T HAVE TO RUN YOURSELF INTO THE GROUND
On the other side of May, I’m surprised at just how unexhausted I feel. Although I took on extra clients, I didn’t stuff extra days full of calls. On any given day last month I probably didn’t work for more than four or five hours – yes I would finish something up on a Sunday morning, but I’d go for a walk in the afternoon. I followed my energy, worked to deadlines and generally just felt in flow, which I’m putting down to that greater focus – when you’re not busy overthinking something, you can be really efficient with your time!
STOP THINKING ABOUT IT AND JUST BLOODY DO IT
I realised as I was writing about the Checkpoint calls and the workshop above that I kept saying “I’d been thinking about doing this for a while”, and that in both cases I really loved the new offerings. We can agonise over the right time to do something, the right format or system to use, whether it’s the right thing I really want to do. But you can’t really know until you do it, and either way you’ll regret leaving it so long. While I don’t think flooding the market with launch after launch after launch is a good idea, if you’ve been thinking about doing something in particular, just bloody do it.
I FEEL BETTER WHEN I’M WORKING
Distraction possibly has something to do with it, but I feel emotionally and mentally better when I’m working. I had got to a point where I was considering lots of existential questions and felt like it was bad that the thing I loved doing the most was my work (more in depth blog post on this is in the works!), but I learned this month that maybe that’s ok. That this work is fulfilling, makes me feel purposeful, keeps my brain positive, leaves me satisfied when I go to bed at night. May was the first month in a long time where I hadn’t felt quite so tumultuous.
JUST SAY WHAT’S FOR SALE
I think we all worry about talking about our wares so blatantly – we feel we need to soften our sales pitches or apologetically mention our new offering in tiny letters at the bottom of our newsletter. But this month I didn’t have time for the slow sell – particularly with the workshop. I’d noticed other people I follow talk openly about their own offerings for sale, and realised that it never prompts me to unfollow or think badly of that person – if it’s not for me I skip forwards, if I’m interested I listen. So why did I think it would be any different for me?
So when selling the workshop and the Checkpoint calls, I stopped trying to sneak the sales pitch in inside a Trojan Horse of other content. Instead I went on to Stories saying ‘here’s a new trend I’ve noticed, if you’ve noticed it to and are worried about it, here’s a workshop for sale that can help you’. And it worked – every time I mentioned the workshop without the smoke and mirrors, it sold. No one told me to shut up or that I was being too salesy. It was liberating.
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If you’re in a financial rut, my biggest advice would be to calmly take the power back from your overthinking brain. Our brains are wonderful but boy can they sabotage us sometimes! Remember that you are in control here, it’s within your power to make things happen – but you do need to make them happen. Rather than spend half an hour worrying what to do or writing a detailed plan, spend half an hour writing a sales page for that thing you’ve been thinking about or chasing up enquiries. Don’t give your brain a chance to butt in – remind it of that big, clarifying goal and move on to the next thing you’re drawn to. The biggest disservice you can do yourself is to let yourself feel powerless. Solve the problem in front of you, then the one after that, and before you know it you’ll be half way up the mountain.
