Ok, so let’s jump into what you are here for…
I’m going to break down the 4 Steps That Every Freelancer, Writer, Designer, Coder, Gig Worker, and Digital Entrepreneur Should Take to Recapture Their Time and Establish Exciting Financial Goals
This is a process that you can easily install no matter what your circumstance is….
Step 1
There is so much more to this than I can share in the time we have, but the first step in this process is about mindset and developing an awareness of subconscious forces and choices that hold us back…
These include commonly held but false beliefs such as:
You can count on friends, family, the government, or others to solve your financial problems.
We come to understand this usually results in disappointment.
This is also a surefire way to piss someone off, or worse become even more dependent as you wait for your stimulus dole from an already dysfunctional congress.
Or the belief that it would be a BIG deal if you could make a hundred grand a year salary.
It’s just not enough, especially to support a family AND not feel guilty about spending money.
Or the belief that a higher hourly wage will enable you to make more money.
Look, there’s only 24 hours in a day and we can’t work all of them.
Trading time for money is not scalable!
Or the belief that a college degree guarantees you a great well paying career.
It doesn’t guarantee anything.
All people really care about when they hire you is whether you are capable of getting the job done and providing them with the value they expect.
You and your ideas are what matter in this day and age. Not where you went to college, who you impressed, and what you did in your late teens or early 20s.
Maybe college was the answer two decades ago, but it's not true NOW that you need a degree to succeed.
Or the belief that we should trust our gut instinct to let us know where to focus our attention, or activities.
If you do this, then you’ll end up drifting to wherever you end up, and that may not be where you want to be.
So, it takes making a mindset switch…
For example, get fired up about this!
Do you want to be an indentured wage slave?
Or do you want to be a debt free, autonomous human being?
A big element of the mindset switch is learning how to eliminate, or regulate negativity. This includes people or things in your life or environments that may be affecting you in a negative way:
- unambitious friends
- hurtful family members
- manipulative clients or colleagues
- negative conversations
- thoughts and self-talk
Ask yourself:
- how are they affecting you?
- How are they holding you back?
- how do they make you feel?
- are they for you?
- against you?
- indifferent?
Practice putting distance between, or limiting your time with these people, places, conversations, and thoughts if they are doing nothing other than supporting, or making you a better person.
This is NOT just to leave people behind. It’s so that you can get clarity and belief in yourself to become a better person FOR them.
How about your ambition?
You want to get excited about this!
And believe that it is possible for you to create an abundance of income and cash!
You need to have a strong desire to achieve what you want through hard work and determination.
If you don’t believe, you won’t achieve!
Some powerful words related to ambition are:
- aspiration
- intention
- goal
- aim
- objective
- purpose
- intent
- plan
- mission
- calling
- vocation
- desire
- design
- target
- dream
- hope
When you say those words to yourself, what thoughts do they invoke for you?
My point is that slaving away for some small amount of money that is predefined by SOMEONE ELSE is not reality. It is a choice. It is a habit. It is a LEARNED behavior that has been accepted as normal with the help of a TON of psychological manipulation.
There are so many quotes, but Henry Ford was right:
“Whether you think you can, or you think you can't - you're right!”
Henry Ford
It all starts with what you think and believe.
But don’t let MONEY be the end all…
As shared in another quote from Henry Ford.
“If money is your hope for independence then you will never have it. The only real security that a man will have in this world is a reserve of knowledge, experience, and ability.”
Henry Ford
Step 2
In Step 2 we want to Establish EXCITING Personal Financial Targets.
Let’s take a look at our baseline…
The average amount required to "get by" in the United States is about $4k to $7k per month.
Of course, this varies by geographic location.
But I can’t emphasize enough that this is NOT the goal.
We shouldn't allow statistics to dictate how we think or feel about earning more.
It's impossible to cut costs to $0
Plus penny pinching for everything just makes you feel crummy.
It’s a FACT that living a good life costs money.
SO don't feel guilty about wanting more of it.
Money is meant to be USED.
It's meant to be invested.
And it's meant to be enjoyed by creating life experiences.
So we need to think about…
Lifestyle, Contingencies, and our Future
What do we need to satisfy our short term material desires,
We all want to live in a nice home in a safe neighborhood
We all want to take vacations once in a while
Or buy our kids bicycles and skateboards
Purchase new clothes
Or drive a decent car
long term retirement needs
How much will we need when we retire?
How long will we be in retirement?
How long UNTIL we retire?
How much surplus do we need to invest and grow each year?
and margin for taxes and contingencies?
Must pay taxes
Shit happens that we must be prepared for!
Plan for it!
Our number just needs to be bigger to support this.
Personal Financial Target
No longer should this be a number that is dictated to you, and left to chance or luck.
It should be a number that is defined by you and there is no doubt in your mind that it makes sense.
Once we add up what I’ve just talked about, we would see that dribbling out a median income, or even what would be considered a “good income”, is not going to work.
This alone would require us to earn much more than $50k or even $100k annually to reach those goals.
I’ll share more details in future lessons but I’ve realized that:
You can “get by” on about $60k per year. It’s cutting it tight.
$100k-$120k year will probably get you into trouble with a few nice sized car payments and ability to qualify for a mortgage.
$250k a year is starting to look nice.
$500k a year will increase my pace of investing - if I'm aggressive, disciplined, and live like I'm making $60k-$120k a year.
$2.5 million a year will rapidly increase my wealth over 5-10 years, if I don't start to live like I'm a rock star or MC Hammer
Retiring with $2.5 million at work would be modest.
Retiring with $25 million to $50 million (or more) at work is ideal.
I know that it sounds crazy to think of making $500k to $2.5million a year as modest, especially when we are used to making $50k or $120k a year as a professional, but when you really work out the numbers this is what is really required.
Now, I’m not saying that I’ve yet reached these goals or that we are all complete failures if we don’t. But I am saying that if we REALLY take the time to work these numbers out, that it’s likely that we need to aim for earning more than we think we do. Salaries, Raises, Bonuses, or SAVING - alone does not work.
Confidence
Discovering your own “big number” should give you more confidence why:
you need to command higher rates.
You need to raise your prices.
Or you need to stop trading time for money and billing by the hour. And that you need to say NO to crappy low paying projects or gigs that waste your time and keep you spinning your wheels.
And it should give you confidence that you absolutely need to pursue knowledge and skills in other areas such as sales and marketing, building or buying businesses, developing products, automation and systemization, real estate, investing, and so on.
So let’s move on to step 3…
Step 3
Know Your Business Metrics
Ok so I think that one of the biggest mistakes that we make as freelancers is thinking that we have a “business” when in fact, we just ended up trading a boss or employer, a fixed 8-5 schedule, lack of freedom, and a steady paycheck… for a little bit of flexibility that we call freedom, multiple bosses in the form of demanding clients, and a whole lot of instability because we still trade our time for money. If we are good at what we do, our skills are not always scalable, and we often compete to the bottom with price.
And for those of that have made some shift to billing by the project or productized services, we still get hammered by not understanding key business metrics such as customer lifetime value, customer acquisition costs, conversion rates, and so on.
We all have limited Time and Capacity so…
Depending on what group you are in:
First, do it for yourself, and just stop billing for time.
Instead, make a shift towards productizing services or creating products, or at the very least billing by the project so that you are not limited by the 8,760 hours in a year.
Start learning about business metrics.
And start keeping track!
You will find that your business revenue projections probably need to be 10 to 20 times what you discovered your personal financial targets are - if you are planning to generate enough profit to meet those personal financial goals, plus grow and scale your business.
This should lead you to taking a good look at your pricing.
Realize, you are valuable!
You probably should start thinking about raising your rates immediately.
Calculate the ratio of your customer lifetime value to your true customer acquisition costs.
To do this, you’ll want to account for ALL business related expenses, software, advertising, help, and even your time required to acquire a single customer.
Your customer lifetime value should be at least 3-5 times what it costs to acquire them. This will enable you to reinvest profits and grow your business.Adjust price accordingly so that it is within your capacity to fulfill on the promise of your offers, and meet your established business financial goals.
This is important - Don’t change you, or change your price for the market.
The solution is to find a market where there is a demand for your services and you will often be surprised that they will value you and gladly pay what you ask.
Now my HOPE is that from doing this work, that you are able get some CLARITY, and that clarity will help stop you from getting screwed over by crappy offers, or even worse YOURSELF! We can often be our worst enemy because when we don’t have clarity or confidence we just slip right back to what we are most comfortable with, which could just be accepting whatever comes our way.
Once you have a grip on key performance metrics, it makes it a lot easier to just say NO, or just relax, charge more, and focus only on doing business with people or customers that value you.
The key to making all of this work, is that you MUST also be providing value to your customers. Whatever product or service that you offer them, it must make some positive impact on their life, and you need to be able to scale it by either charging a high price, or selling it to a lot of customers.
Step 4
Ok, so the 4th step in this process is to make sure that your values are in alignment with the income vehicles that you choose.
For example, a regular job may or may not be right for you. Most jobs are not likely to provide the kind of financial results that I’ve mentioned in this webinar, but a job can sometimes be the stepping stone that you need to gain skills, build your network, save some startup capital, etc.
A career can provide a higher level of security through a salary, or even status - but again may not always provide the lifestyle freedom that you are looking for. Careers like Real Estate Brokers, Financial Advisors, Attorneys, or Doctors are known to be high income careers - but they are also VERY demanding and require years of education, dedication, and tend to take up a lot of time.
Entrepreneurship also may not be for everyone, it can be scary and often results in failure. BUT the upside is that you have the possibility to create massive wealth for yourself from any number of sources, and it is very rewarding personally to be able to help and impact people by providing a product or service that is valuable.
No matter what you choose to do - make it your personal mission to help others. I’ve found this to hands down be the most effective way to feel good about yourself, and provide value to the world. In turn it seems like more opportunities open up because you build up a good reputation, you pay attention to the feedback you receive, and you keep improving yourself. The money just tends to be an automatic bonus. The more people that you can help, the more bonuses you get.
It’s also important to have a positive mindset, confidence, and clarity so that you are able to overcome the continuous barrage of objections that you will experience while discovering the right opportunities and working towards your goals. You may even need to take some time to what I call “unpack your junk” and get rid of past issues, fears, or blockers that keep you looping and prevent you from taking action.
Finally, make it a fit! It is important to love what you do, or have a strong desire to do it - but you also need to pick a vehicle that makes sense. You may enjoy designing cat GIFs, or performing as a fire dancer on the street, but in reality those things probably are not going to earn you much money.
In my Money & Metrics course I will be going over a few different tools for “Understanding The Real You” through introspection, personal SWOT analysis, personality tests, and a great Japanese concept name Ikigai where you ask 4 categories of questions such as:
Do you care about the topic?
Does the world need it?
Are you good at it?
Can you be paid for it?
I’ll go into all of this in more detail when we have more time but that is my 4 step process.
- Shift Your Mindset
- Establish Exciting Personal Financial Targets
- Understand Your Business Metrics
- And, make sure that your values are in alignment with the income vehicles that you choose.
I’ve over simplified for the sake of this webinar, but feel free to message me if you have any questions about what I’ve covered so far. It’s pretty easy to understand from a high level, but obviously there are a ton of details to work through in each phase.
We just need to face the fact that we are human. We are complex. We are limited on time and capacity. And sometimes there is only so much that we can do.
So please don’t feel like this is something you need to understand all at once.
