Photo by Simon Migaj
My wife is a woman of many, many talents, but cooking is not one of them. I marvel that the same woman who is militant about being creative everyday is somehow baffled by the challenge of a freestyle kitchen session.
Besides her lack of interest in preparing food, I think the fact that she doesn’t spend time strategizing and coming up with a plan is a huge factor in her adversity to cooking. And we all know once you’re hungry, you’re no longer a rational person. You’re a shell of a human, hijacked by your emotions and panicked because your tiny brain thinks you aren’t going to survive.
This exact approach, or lack thereof, is how a frightening number of freelancers and small business owners approach the income side of their economic equation. If this is you, know that I’m not judging you nor am I throwing shade. Just realize that if you don’t spend the time strategizing and coming up with a game plan for your monthly income, you may find yourself becoming irrational, taking on weird jobs or working with less-than-ideal clients because you fly into a panic-induced survival mode.
This can set off a chain reaction of problems. For example, let’s say you agree to work for less than you should because you have no clue how much money you’re earning, you just know you need to earn money. And if you’re earning less, you’ll need to work more. And if you work more, you have less time to for the things that bring you joy. And with less joy in your life, you’re a bummer to be around. If you’re a bummer to be around, you don’t attract your ideal clients who can actually afford what you’re selling. And you’re trapped in this cycle.
When you allow yourself the time to project your income for the month (or months) ahead, you’re allowing yourself to have insights, to make plans for future growth or plans to slow down to keep a manageable pace. After you make the projections, you can observe the results. Which allows you to realize what’s working, what isn’t working, what predictions were right and which ones need to be refined. In other words, it’s a way more chill way to be, dudes. And yes, this is the method I use to make sure I’m on track with my business goals.
How Much Do You Need to Earn Each Month?
This is the first step; it’s the prequel. You have to first calculate how much you need to earn each month. A good place to start is to look at your expenses. How much does it cost you to stay alive on this lovely planet? And what are the other things you’d like to spend on each month? How many box subscriptions does one need to attain happiness and enlightenment? If you still to figure out how much you need to earn, here are some methods to go about doing so.
Make Time to Map It Out
Once you know your monthly income goal, you have to make time to see how close or far you are from that goal, given the information you have at the moment. For the sake of example, let’s say you need $4,000/month to live your best damn life. Here’s what you’ll do during your mapping session.
Pick Your Method. You can go analog with a pen and paper. You can use a fancy calendar app or a quick-and-dirty spreadsheet. Choose a method for mapping out that resonates with you. It’s helpful if it’s a method you feel comfortable using so you’ll keep using it. Set yourself up for success; don’t create barriers to doing the work you need to do.
Do The Math. Once you choose your method, make a list of how much money you know you’ll be earning for the month. List how you’ll be earning it. For example, you have 5 clients who committed to one-hour breakdance lessons at $100/hour. So, 5 hours x $100 = $500. And let’s also say your beautiful face is getting paid $2,500 to be a model for vegan, artisanal, shaving cream or something weird like that.
As of this mapping session, you expect to earn $3,000 ($500+ $2,500), which means you’re short of your monthly income goal by $1,000. If this is where you’re at, I can understand why you have avoided mapping out your revenue. It sucks to have a goal and not achieve it. So process those feels and let’s get on with figuring out a strategy.
Strategize. I think there might be a few options if you’re short of your goal.
Option 1. Learn to live on less. This is a totally viable and reasonable option. It’s all about living with the compromises and understanding the tradeoffs.
Option 2. Do nothing and have good luck and/or good timing. Possible, but maybe not probable?
Option 3. Do things that may help you earn more money. The following is a list of things you can do: Reach out to potential customers who might have previously expressed interest in working with you, try a new marketing channel, try a marketing campaign that makes you stand out, send out an email blast, change your pricing, change or repackage your offering, ask customers for referrals, put a product on sale, sell something you haven’t sold before, ask your friend who runs a popular website to feature you in an article, etc. There is a universe of possibilities here. Go on, get creative.
As an added incentive, knowing your deficit means you need to be specific about the amount of money you need to earn to close the gap. And being specific is perfect because it helps you discern what opportunities to say yes to. And oddly enough, sometimes when you aren’t specific, you fail to see opportunities.
And if you’re reaching your monthly income goal, that side of the coin has plenty of options to weigh as well. Should you keep things the status quo or scale back or raise your prices? Should you take a nap? The possibilities are endless.
Track Your Progress
It’s really easy to make predictions and forget about tracking or revisiting them, especially if you’re worried about not reaching your goal.
At Least Monthly
You should track your progress at least monthly, if not more frequently. Twice a month or once a week are both great time tables for assessment. Daily might be a little too crazy - unless you’re running a restaurant, in an specific industry or in a critical time where meeting daily goals can have a dramatic impact on the long-term survival of your company.
Know When To Change
If you’re consistently not meeting your goals, then think about changing something. The trouble is not just knowing when to change, but also what to change. Are your goals too lofty or are you not hanging on long enough to see true results? Can you move the needle in a meaningful way with small tweaks to your copy or do you need a new marketing strategy? Does one thing need to change or does everything need to change?
Listen, Reflect, Be Open
Remember fifth grade science when you learned the Scientific Method? Here’s a refresher: Make an observation, form a question, form a hypothesis, then conduct your experiment, observe the data, analyze and interpret it and come to a conclusion about your hypothesis. That is basically what I’m telling you to do, just through the lens of earning income.
So much of being a freelancer or running business is about experimenting. We have an idea about a problem that we can solve, we start figuring out how to solve it, how to speak to the people who will buy our solution, how to make adjustments to refine our offerings and reach our targets. Make sure to listen to the market and your customers and to be open that the answers are all around you.