Starting 2016 off with a bang: My first $8k month by Taylor Manning
Think back to those New Years resolutions – are you on track? Year after year, I had the same things written down and never seemed to accomplish them. This year, I invested in myself and I knew my goals would come to life.
To give you a snapshot of my progress, in October I was making my consistent $2,600 a month through freelancing and working with a few clients I had from Facebook groups. I made a big commitment to hit $4,000 in November and then after having to bring on 26 (yes, 26) clients I knew I couldn’t go another month like that. I didn’t even feel like celebrating the big income increase. I just needed a nap, right?!
Here’s what changed before my first $6,500 in December and $8,000 in January:
1. I invested in myself
2. I repackaged everything
3. I fired clients that were draining me
4. I reorganized and put systems in place
5. I focused on building relationships and visibility
6. I learned about mindset and put it to practice
By investing in yourself, you lift the expectation for yourself and you open the door to allowing others to invest you. Before I had put down $5,000 on a coach, I had NEVER invested in my business outside of $20 a month for email marketing and similar small programs. As soon as I put down that payment for my coach, the possibility of someone paying for high level services from me became so much more real.
When I say I repackaged everything, what I really mean is that I scrapped everything I was offering and put together a program that made my heart sing. What I realized was that I was offering very vague, hourly services that not only confused potential clients but had me working on a much lower level than I was capable of.
I often find my clients are wondering why they are not making any money when they have no program for sale. They are just hoping someone will come along and say, “Hi, can I pay you $x,000 to do x, y and z for me?” No! Not going to happen, lady.. and trust me that if it does, the job is not going to go well. Been there!)
Not everyone is going to be in the position that they have to fire clients. Maybe you have no clients. For me, freelancing was my “9 to 5” at the time and all I was focusing on. We all have thins on our plate that we need to push aside in order to find success. That’s not to say you can’t keep your full time job for security until things take off. However, I bet that if you write down all of your priorities, responsibilities and to-dos you will find a few you can start saying no too.
What goes hand in hand with this is only focusing on things that are helping your priorities or getting you closer to your goals. If you find that you are spending your time on things outside of this then by all means, drop it and run!
As far as systems go – here’s something I want you to think about right now. You have a package or program put together and you’ve been advertising. Let’s image that a client just emailed you and say they want to pay you and get started right now – no questions asked. Do you have everything in place to have them pay, sign a contract and schedule their call or work with you? If not, those are the first things you need to get in place. Let go of all the other “must haves” in online business and get those done.
Every month you should be putting at least one system in place that is going to make your business run smoother and with less effort on your part. This will help you keep up and lean back as your business scales.
The NUMBER ONE thing you can do to grow your business is get visible and focus on relationship building. Seriously. Message people, get on the phone with them and have a community for people who enjoy your work to hang out in. When I first started with this I made it a priority to talk to 5 new people per day. This included comments on posts, messages and phone calls. Then I upped it and adjusted the “rules” to make it harder and more of a stretch. Nothing has built my business the way that relationships have.
Finally, I got my mindset in gear. My coach was a big help with this, as mindset is really her thing, however, the top three mindset practices that got my energy way up were:
• Saying bizarre “what if” statements: For example, “What if I made a million dollars by Friday?!” This isn’t a common suggestion and most mindset mentors will teach you to be specific on what you actually want, but this is what worked for me. Dancing around the house with my dog shouting this over and over.
• Journaling: Start writing down everything: your feelings, your mantras and as many brain dumps as it takes to keep your mind clear. Journaling was something I turned to multiple times a day to get my mind cleared. I make no rules about journaling.
• Listening to money mindset audio books: My absolute favorite and one I am going through for the third time is, ‘Leveraging the Universe’ by Mike Dooly. Download it now and get started.
I promise you that if you take these tools and run with them, your next big month isn’t far away. I believe in you!
Taylor Manning helps women take their offline expertise and turn it into a thriving online business. She talks a lot about inspired action in marketing, doing things a bit unconventional and how to stop waiting and start selling. To hear more from her, sign up for instant access to her 5-day video series, “Get Online and Converting” at taylormanningcreative.com/convert.