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If you’re here, you either want to start a business or you want to grow your business — either way, you probably have a goal to make more money over the next 12 months.
But before I get into the actionable ways you can make more money this year, I first want to talk about the biggest mindset issues you need to overcome in order to reach your money and lifestyle goals.
There’s a reason why people win the lottery and then years later become broke: it’s because they don’t conquer their mindset around money.
You could have the best strategy, the best product, or the best execution, but none of that matters or will help you reach your financial goals if you don’t figure out how you feel about money, and change your mindset around it if necessary.
This was the very first thing I did.
I’ve said this before, but You Are a Badass by Jen Sincero completely changed my life and helped me launch my business. It also helped me conquer my money mindset.
Over the last four years, I’ve helped over a thousand different people start and grow their businesses, and there are three big money mindset obstacles that hold people back from reaching their financial goals:
Thinking making money is selfish or evil
If you feel selfish or evil, that money is bad, or that you’re not meant to make more money, then you’re never going to make the money that you want.
When you make more money, you’re not only able to upgrade your life, but you’re also able to help other people, including those closest to you.
When I started making more money, instead of leaving the normal 15% tip, I started leaving 20%. Now that might just be a few extra dollars, but I’m able to pass that on to another person.
Other things I’ve done since I started making more money are buying from local and small businesses and donating to nonprofits, so just remember — making more money is not selfish because you get to use your spending power to support the things that really matter to you.
Believing there isn’t enough money to go around (or that you’re taking money away from people)
This was one of the things that I had to get over.
I see this a lot: we almost feel bad, like we’re taking money away from someone, especially when we increase our prices, but that’s just not the case.
You’re not taking money away from someone and they’re not going to be in a worse position because you’re making more money. There is so much money available in the world, and this is what really helped me wrap my brain around that:
The US population is about 328 million people. In 2019, the US GDP (gross domestic product) was $21.43 trillion. This is a monetary measure of the market value of all the final goods and services that are produced.
If you take $21.43 trillion divided by 328 million people, this means that there is enough money for every single person in the United States to be a multi-millionaire.
I think this belief is one of the biggest things you need to change in order to make more money because guess what? Increasing your prices is one of the best ways to make more money — but you have to remember that by increasing your prices, or even just landing a new client, you are not taking money away from them and they are not going to be in a worse position because they are paying you.
There is literally money everywhere, and there is more than enough to go around.
Assuming people with money are just born into it
68% of millionaires are self-made; they did not inherit their wealth.
So if you have this little voice in your head saying, I wasn’t born into money, my family doesn’t have a lot of money, or I’m just not that lucky…you need to shut that down.
The majority of people who are millionaires are self-made, they didn’t get it from their families; they worked hard and they made their millions.
Here’s how you can overcome these beliefs so you can make more money this year:
Recognize your feelings around money and change them if necessary
Identify how you feel about money. Is there anything that you need to work on so that you feel really good about making more money? Do you need to overcome any of the beliefs that I mentioned above? Because if you don’t feel good about making more money, you’re not going to make more money.
Recognize your feelings around money, work on changing them, pick up a copy of You Are a Badass by Jen Sincero, and work on that before you start diving into the actionable things you need to do to make more money this year.
If making more money is a priority for you this year, you’re going to have to ask for help.
Take responsibility for your time and what you’re prioritizing
Time is your most precious resource, and it’s the one thing that you can’t make more of. If you want to make more money, you have to take responsibility for your time and what you’re prioritizing. So instead of saying I don’t have enough time, you need to start thinking about how can you protect your time so that you are able to work on the things that are most important in your business and the things that will make you more money.
A lot of women (myself included) don’t protect their time from other people. Maybe you fill up your calendar with too many events, or you say yes to every coffee invite or every chat on zoom…but really what you need to be doing is protecting your time from other people and from self-sabotage.
You need to make sure that if you commit to yourself and your business, that you actually do it, and you don’t let other little things get in the way.
You say need to start saying no because you need that time to work on your business plan.
The other big thing that I see is that we don’t ask for help. You’re not going to be able to continue to do all the things forever and have more time to work on your business.
If making more money is a priority this year, you’re going to have to ask for help.
These can be little things like hiring your laundry out, getting a house cleaner, asking your significant other to make dinner; those tiny little things that will free up more time for you to work on your business.
The worst thing that you can do is put your business at the bottom of your to-do list because this means that you are making your business your last priority. So really look at how are you prioritizing your time and make sure it actually reflects your money goals for this year.
If you are really want to make more money, then you need to prioritize your business and make this the year that you act like you are a real business owner.
Prioritize becoming your own boss
There are really two ways to have more money in life: either you spend less money, or you make more money. I’m guessing you want to make more money — and personally, I would much rather make more money than miss out on life experiences because I was counting every penny I spent.
When it comes to making more money, there are two ways to do it. Either you climb the corporate ladder or you start your own business and become an entrepreneur.
The issue with climbing the corporate ladder is a lot of times the opportunities that you get are not up to you. Even though you might be the most qualified, you might not always get the promotion, and middle managers are not the ones who are becoming millionaires, right? It’s the executives.
If you look at executives vs. entrepreneurs though, entrepreneurs actually accumulate more wealth over their lifetime. This is why if you’re thinking about starting your own business, make this the year that you do it.
If you’ve started a business, but you aren’t where you want to be, ask yourself if you’ve been treating it like a real business, or if you’ve been treating it like a hobby. If you are really want to make more money, then you need to prioritize your business and make this the year that you act like you are a real business owner.
Focus on what’s working
One of the best things to happen to my business was getting pregnant with my daughter Lauren. I knew that I wanted to take time off, and I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to continue to launch new things and do all the things while also being home with a tiny infant. So when I was pregnant and preparing for my maternity leave, I decided I was going to focus on what’s working and scaling that — and that was the Advisori Insiders Pro program.
By only focusing on the Advisori Insiders Pro program, that’s how we were able to scale that product to over seven figures; I just focused on scaling that since it was working, instead of continuously launching more products or more services.
So if you want to make more money this year, don’t think about all the things that you can add to your business. Instead, look at what is working and figure out how you can sell more of that.
Things don’t need to be complicated. You don’t need to have 20 steps in your funnel. You don’t need to offer 50 different services. Simplify everything. Simple equals success.
Simplify everything in your business as much as possible
You’ve probably heard it over and over again: you make money through hard work.
For some reason, a lot of entrepreneurs think this means you have to complicate the shit out of everything in order to make more money. But over the last year, one of the biggest things we focused on in my business was simplifying everything. Simplifying things is actually how we were able to almost triple our profits in 2020.
Things don’t need to be complicated. You don’t need to have 20 steps in your funnel. You don’t need to offer 50 different services. Simplify everything. Simple equals success.
This is how you make more money because you’re not working all the time. If everything is complicated, you’ll have so many things going on in your business that you won’t be able to do everything that needs to get done, and then you end up working until you burn out. So if you don’t want to have to work all the time, but you want to make more money, continuously ask yourself how you can simplify things in your business.
Invest in your business and think long term
It can be scary to spend money on your business or invest in things like coaching or courses because that could be money in your bank account, right?
But I want you to flip your thinking on that. Think of investing in your business, whether it’s running ads, hiring a coach, or buying a course, like investing in your 401k.
If you put money in your 401k, you can’t spend it right now, but the compounding interest that you are going to get year after year is going to exponentially grow your wealth.
This is what investing in your business does. If you invest in your business to get leads through ads, yes, you’re spending money, but those leads are going to become your customers in the long term.
If you spend money on a coaching program, like Successful Solopreneur School, what you learn from that program is going to pay off year after year in your business.
So if you want to make more money, invest in your business and think long term.
Don’t focus on how much you’re selling, focus on how much profit you’re making
There are a lot of entrepreneurs who will share screenshots of their stripe account that show they made a million dollars, but this number is only their revenue, not their profit. Profit equals your revenue minus your expenses; this number that they’re showing you is not what they actually get to keep and use for themselves.
There are tons of people out there who have made a million dollars but spent $999,000 on ads. There are also tons of people out there who have had a ‘six-figure’ business but only made a $30,000 profit. So this year, focus on profit.
We just finished up our taxes for 2020. From a revenue standpoint, we did a little less than what we did in 2019. However, we almost tripled our profit. I really don’t care that we made a little less in revenue and sales because we almost tripled our profit — and what’s the money that goes into my bank account? It’s the profit.
So this year, don’t focus on how much you’re selling, focus on your profit margins and how much you’re keeping.
The bottom line
Remember: if you don’t feel good about making more money, you’re not going to make more money. You need to first identify your feelings about money before you can take these seven actionable steps to help you make more money:
- Recognize your feelings around money and change them if necessary.
- Take responsibility for your time and what you are prioritizing.
- Start treating your business like a real business; entrepreneurs accumulate the most wealth.
- Focus on what is working for you, instead of what more you can do
- Simplify everything in your business as much as possible.
- Invest in your business and think long term. Think of it as investing in your 401k that is going to exponentially grow year after year, instead of just keeping that money in your bank account.
- Focus on profit, not sales.
I hope that 2021 is your year to reach your big goals, and I promise I will be here every single week helping you accomplish them! If you found this helpful, leave a review on my podcast or send me a message on Instagram – I would love to read it!
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