Let’s talk about the elephant in the room:

you’re making 5-figures (most) every month…

but you’re also starting every single month pretty much at $0.

 

And every single month, you’re having to (anxiously) ask yourself, How do I get there again? How do I make that amount of money? What will I do if I don’t reach it this time?

And maybe also, Isn’t this supposed to be easier by now?

 

The honest truth is: it is.

Or rather, it’s not necessarily supposed to be easier by now, but it is possible for things to be easier by now.

But again, the honest truth is: it’s going to take some shifts in your perspective and strategy to actually be easier by now.

So let’s talk about those shifts.

What do you need to do to STOP starting (most) every month at $0, and always having to chase new client after new client to maintain your 5-figure months, and START creating recurring income, so now you start each month at $10k, and any new clients you bring in on top of that create cherry-on-top $$$?

Shift #1: Price your damn services sustainably.

I was working with a Sustainable Success Mastermind client the other day on creating sustainable price points.

She has recently pivoted from done-for-you work to coaching (which, let’s be real, comes with some scary mindset pieces all around, including but definitely not limited to MONEY), and as such, needed to figure out what to price her coaching services at.

We of course talked through some of the mindset pieces inherent in that conversation, like the ever-common one of, “but now that I’m not actually DELIVERING anything to my client, isn’t this coaching work less valuable?”

 

Then, we looked at how much money she needed to make per month in order to create a thriving and sustainable monthly revenue base underneath her: one that supports her team, her income, her other expenses, and saving for taxes.

THAT was now her monthly revenue goal.

 

We followed that by looking at HER sustainable schedule. How many calls is her “max” per day? Is she taking client calls every week, or working in A/B weeks (one week on, one week off)? When is she doing marketing, managing and/or meeting with her team, sales calls, etc?

THAT determined the amount of 1:1 clients she could have at one time.

 

Finally we asked: how much would you need to charge per client, if you were to only “have” to fill in HALF of those available spots each month, in order to reach your monthly goal revenue?

It wasn’t a surprise that what she was planning on charging for 1:1 coaching actually only brought her to half of her monthly revenue goal. Which meant if she wanted to meet her monthly revenue, consistently and sustainably, every single month (& not get to the middle of the month and yet again start fretting about, “Omg how do I get more clients before the end of this month?!”)…

She had to raise her prices.

 

Now, naturally, making a “big” jump (whatever that means for you) in a price point can feel unattainable sometimes, so with this client we worked out a plan for moving her toward that price point in a way that allowed her to gradually grow into it.

But if you don’t want to start each month at $0 and want to have that consistent and sustainable revenue already coming in as of the 1st of each month, that first has to be possible, which starts with your price points.

Shift #2: Focus more on recurring revenue than pay-in-full’s or one-then-done payments.

Getting that big 5-figure pay-in-full feels damn good, doesn’t it?

When that hits your bank account, you’re like, “YES! I can finally pay for this and this and this and this.” And you start dreaming of all of the luxurious things you’re going to do with that kind of money (just me?).

But then the next month comes around, you’re still working with that client, but no additional money is coming in from them…because they’ve already paid you.

 

Money management is absolutely a powerful skill to master as an entrepreneur and human, but let’s be real, it can be hard to actually hold onto that money and regulate its use for the entire time that pay-in-full client is working with you.

I KNOW that if you got a pay-in-full this month, you’d meet that monthly revenue goal like *snaps fingers*

I also know that that type of thinking is short-term thinking (sorry not sorry), and it’s one of the biggest reasons you’re starting each month at $0 rather than with a sustainable base of revenue already coming in.

So sure, when you’re going for those “big,” quantum leap monthly revenue goals, encourage pay in fulls if you want to (or don’t—I rarely do).

But if your biggest goal right now is consistent & sustainable revenue, then let’s get your payment plans figured out so you can build that recurring revenue like you want to.

Shift #3: Structure your offers to allow recurring payments.

Shift #2 is great and all, but it’s pretty hard to implement if you don’t also have offers that are structured to bring in recurring payments. And no, this doesn’t ALWAYS mean having a “long-term” offer (like 6 months of coaching, or a year-long membership, or ongoing social/podcast/email/etc. management)—though, that too—it also comes down to your Offer Suite.

p.s. I go in-depth on how to develop a Sustainable Offer Suite in S2E5 of Selling Chocolate. Tune in here.

 

Think of it this way: you want recurring revenue, so that you can lose the stress and never start the month at $0?

You either need at least one long-term offer, (and/) or you need an Offer Suite that focuses on keeping clients rather than always having to go and get new ones.

That could mean re-signs into the same program/offer, if that’s relevant to the type of work you do. It could mean creating a more “entry-level” offer that solves a very specific problem your client is facing, and then intentionally moving them into a longer-term or at least “bigger” offer that solves a more holistic problem. It could mean creating a membership or something similar (though those usually aren’t recommended until you have a pretty large audience). It could mean a combination of any of the above.

 

Here’s an example to think about:

If you’re transitioning from consulting work to courses (probs because you’re burnt out on consulting work), but you’re used to getting significant monthly payments from your consulting clients, and now you’re getting one-time $1,000 payments or 2-3 monthly installments of $333, you’re gonna struggle to actually get to that same revenue level in courses that you used to get in consulting.

But if you used that course as an “entry-level” offer into your world, and then intentionally moved people into, say, a 3-month group coaching container—preferably one that was priced sustainably and that encouraged payment plans, a la Shift #1 and #2—that took them even deeper into a more holistic transformation, you could relatively quickly expand your monthly revenue to the same level as your consulting revenue and have at least 3 months of sustainable income guaranteed in advance. Which would give you time to bring in even more clients without the stress of needing new clients (honestly, this is the best feeling in the online biz world lol).

The same goes for things like one-off projects or VIP Days, by the way. If you’re going to do a VIP Day, try to figure out how you can either create recurring revenue from a VIP Day (like offering a monthly package of 1 VIP Day per month) or how you can strategically use a VIP Day to move people into other offers. If you’re going to do a one-off project (like copywriting for a welcome email sequence), then find a way to create recurring revenue from that one-off project (this ones easy: create their monthly email newsletters) or a way to strategically use this one-off project to move people into other offers. BTW – my friend Mia Francis-Poulin does a great job of this over at The Copy Haus  if you want an example.

 

Now, there’s of course more that we could talk about to make it even easier to build a business where a 5-figure number like $10k becomes your new “zero” every single month.

Like creating a marketing process that is easy for you to manage (or to pass off to a team member), and that generates leads for you every single day (a fave affirmation of mine and my clients is, every time I create content, I get paid).

Or streamlining and simplifying your sales strategy and process so you stop wasting time on sales calls with wrong-fit people, or even with right-fit people that, truthfully, didn’t actually need a sales call to make a decision (you might not believe it now, but even for “higher priced” offers, sales calls are NOT always necessary).

Or even intentionally connecting every single piece of your messaging, so that it intuitively (for your client) and strategically (for you) moves clients from one offer to the next, like we talked about in Shift #3.

All of which, by the way, are things we’ll spend our first couple of months inside the Sustainable Success Mastermind building up and solidifying.

 

Want to create Sustainable Success in YOUR business?

Your Next Step

The Sustainable Success Mastermind is a 6-month intimate mastermind for people who want to create *consistent* 5-figure months while simplifying their business to scale their visibility, impact, and income.

The Mastermind is for people who have been in business for at least 2 years, OR have had at least one $10k month, OR have had a 6-figure year, and who want to move with confidence, stability, and sustainability into your next level of revenue.

It’s the program I wish I had as I was moving from my first $10k month to consistent 5-figure months (a process which took me ~5 months to complete), as well as when I was moving from those consistent lower-5-figure months to “big” revenue months (like my $80k in sales month), and I’ve even now just joined a similar type of community for people like me who are moving toward my first $500k-1m+ year.

 

Why is it the program I wished I had then, and am excited about having (at least a similar idea) for myself now?

Because each of these growth phases inevitably feels like your awkward early teenage years where you had no clue WTF was going on or where you should be or what you needed to be doing or even sometimes how to get to where you wanted to go. And so you either become a lone wolf, trying to figure out everything on your own (guilty, as a business owner), or you try to fit yourself into what everyone else is doing and how they’re doing it and so sort of lose sight of yourself, your goals, and even of what YOU really want as you grow (I was guilty, as a middle schooler).

But inside this Mastermind, instead of pushing everyone into one-size-fits-most strategies, we’re focusing on how you want to build your business.

Which means instead of seeing a ton of people doing things “one way” and therefore having to fight the growing belief that “that is the way to do things and be successful,” you’ll see a variety of business owners building their business their way, and your brain will start to accept the belief that your fastest path to Sustainable Success is YOUR path.

Which means that instead of spending months or years hustling and grinding to figure out how to create those consistent 5-figure months doing work you love doing, in the way you love doing it, and doing so with ease, you’ll move even faster toward YOUR sustainable success, because now you’re not fighting against yourself and your own desires on your journey there.

 

It’s community. It’s clarity. It’s connection. And omg it’s continued expansion, expansion, expansion. Individually, collectively. Specifically, holistically.

It’s you stepping into YOUR expertise, YOUR strengths, YOUR desires. It’s you trusting YOU and YOUR voice above all the noise and distraction that’s sometimes still so easy to get caught up with in this online business world.

It’s you creating Sustainable Success—consistent 5-figure months doing work you love doing, in the way you love doing it—in YOUR business, exactly how and when and where and why YOU want to.

 

The fellow experts in this Mastermind are there to support you. To (lovingly) call you in and hold you accountable to your dreams. To show you what’s possible. To show you the hard stuff and the easy stuff and the discomfort and joy amidst the expansion.

I’m here to support. To coach. To facilitate. To challenge. To consult. To hold the big picture vision for you when sometimes all you can focus on is your very next step.

But above all, all of us are there to mirror. To always point you back to YOU, so you can keep becoming and believing in YOU, more and more and more and more every single day.

 

This is a sacred container. And I invite you to join us inside it, by applying to join the Sustainable Success Mastermind today.