How I Had My Best Income Month In Biz When My Life Fell Apart
Many of us hold the belief that we can only make good money when we're at our peak. But recently, I had my best income month right after my personal life fell completely to pieces.
So how did I do it? What is the secret formula for succeeding in business even when life gets tough?
I'm going to break it down for you, including my lessons from the past few months.
My Best Income Month For 2019 (And How I Managed It)
Most of the time, amazing income months don't just happen. They do take work, even if it's small, consistent steps.
This was definitely the case for my best month. Some personal stuff had come up around mid-late August, so I fell back on the batched content I had completed.
When that ran out, I started to reshare some of the most popular content I've created over the years.
Prior to that, I had been incredibly consistent since the middle of the year. Every week, I had stuck fairly closely to the marketing schedule and activities I've explained in detail previously.
Outside of these efforts, I showed up on Facebook most days, including in my main Facebook groups. Otherwise, I didn't put too much into social media - instead, I focused on following up on clients and people I knew were interested in my services.
So here you have it - my best income month, including the dates:
The most exciting part? This is just short of my income goal of $9100/month. In fact, if a client hadn't taken a few weeks off from content, I would have hit about $9700AUD before fees.
FAQ
You must've have worked a heap of hours to hit that income, right?
Not particularly, no. I worked approximately 20 hours a week for that period of time.
In fact, I had a bunch of other things going on, including going on retreat for 2 days and being a bridesmaid at my best friend's wedding! So I was far from glued to my laptop for 10hr days.
Was this because you had dozens of clients?
Again, not particularly. About $5K of the income came from 5 of my regular clients, and another $1200 was a client paying up-front for a VIP slot.
The rest was made up of small web copy jobs, a couple of 1:1 marketing support appointments and a corporate wellness talk.
Can I make this amount as a practitioner? Or is it only because you work as a freelancer?
That really depends on how you charge as a practitioner more than anything.
My health writing and marketing services work out to around $150-200AUD/hour. If I worked my max of 25 hours per week at those rates consistently, I could bring in $15-20K+ a month.
Have a look at how much you're charging, and how many paid hours you could potentially work as a practitioner (aka the hours where you see clients, not when you're doing admin!).
There's a pretty good chance you could make $8700 in a month if you're not undercharging and have at least 15hrs/week open for clients.
Could you achieve this again, or was it a fluke?
There were a few less common aspects that added up to this amount.
One client was back-paying for 2 months of content.
I usually only do 3-6 paid wellness talks per year, so that's not a huge percentage of my overall income.
As one of the web copy jobs was about bringing it into line with TGA restrictions, I charged a premium rate.
But that being said, unusual jobs and forms of income come up for me most months.
Some months I receive affiliate money from someone.
I occasionally pick up recipe creation work, or sell a service in an online auction.
Every now and then, I do some mentoring work with someone who wants to go into writing.
This month, I should be getting just over $100 back from my tax return.
So although it's not a combination of guaranteed income every month just yet, I do think I could continue to bring in between $7-10K most months. In fact, that's my goal!
Psst - tune in next week to learn how I plan to keep this up consistently.
What I learned from my best income month of 2019
So now that I've moved into a new month, what did I learn when I reflect on the events of the previous one?
Hours of work does not always equal income. In fact, I was working longer hours and earning less money at several points throughout the year. I'm better off sticking to my 20-25hr work week and making sure I'm being paid well for that time so I can deliver quality.
The more time I take for self-care, the more money flows to me. Over that period of time, I had a myotherapy appointment, a naturopathy appointment, a 2-day retreat, a hairdressing appointment, 3 date nights, no less than 4 brunch dates with people and at least 2-3 cafe dates solo.
Combined with everything else I do most months, that means that I spent more time on myself than I did in my biz.If you look for opportunities, you'll find them eventually. One of the paying opportunities of the month was because I saw another writer wanting to pass it on to someone better versed in the health realm.
Another was because I spoke at a HR Summit (for free) last year, and they wanted me to speak to their employees as part of their mental health awareness week activities.Follow up on whatever comes your way. It often pays off in the long run!