How working with a coach got me to a $50k month

Transcript

For the month of June 2020, I hit sales in my business of $50K. In this episode, I’m sharing some of the un-sexy truths about this result, but also how this amazing month has shown me, what is possible for me, and indeed what it could look like for you. I’ll be sharing the breakdown of exactly what this result looks like, including the true profit and mindset shifts, as well as the investments I have made to get to this point. I also share how you can use money mindset to help achieve the results you want in your business.

You’re listening to the Clare Wood podcast, where we talk all things business, finance, marketing, and mindset for entrepreneurs, sharing practical tips, and actionable advice to help you take your business to the next level. Introducing your host: me! I’m Clare Wood, I’m a numbers geek, a travel lover, and a reality tv addict, and I’m here to empower you to create an extraordinary business and an amazing life, because I believe you don’t have to choose between the two. Now let’s dive right in to today’s episode.

Before I get into the episode, I need to apologise for this voice, it’s off what it usually is. I haven’t been well and if you’ve been following me on social media you’ll know I actually lost my voice for a full 6 days. I was unable to coach, parenting was hard not being able to yell at my children. My voice is slowly coming back.

Today’s episode is all about my $50K month of sales. I did go out to my Instagram following, and ask if they had any questions about this result, and they came back to me and asked lots of practical questions. How did you do it? What was the revenue figure? What investments did you make to get to this point? So I’ll answer all these at the end of the podcast.

The power of working on my money mindset

I want to start with the real reason I achieve this goal this month, which is money mindset. I have worked a lot on my money blocks. So what are money blocks? They are your underpinning beliefs about money. They can come from childhood or from your life. They aren’t set in stone. Like any beliefs, you have the power to change them. How cool is that? I have done a lot of work on my money blocks. I am one of 5 kids and I grew up in a household that didn’t have a lot of money and when I did rise to a 6 figure salary in my 20’s, I was so used of having no money that when I did get money, I just spent all of it, which is another money story of mine.

When I started this work on myself, I had a lot of beliefs I had to undo. So I replaced them with new beliefs. I now believe I am ready for success and that it is coming my way. I know that I’ll be a good custodian of money, and plenty of money will continue to come. If you are thinking “Wow, this girl is confident” I would love for YOU to do some inner work too. If you are new to this concept, I would highly recommend you get the book ‘Get Rich, Lucky Bitch’ by Denise Duffield-Thomas, I’ll pop a link in the shownotes. From there you can build your recourses, listen to podcast, money mindset books, and surround yourself with people to uplift your belief system.

If you think someone wanting lots of money is greedy, then that is probably a money block for you. Once you believe that anything is possible, you have opened the window for it. How cool is that! As soon as you make a decision to want something, it has already started to come true, then you start to create dreams, and a potential life around it. You can get super clear on what you want and why. I think this is where I have screwed up the manifesting process in the past. You might remember a launch I did that didn’t go so well, earlier in the year. When I was launching, I was manifesting that I wanted 60 Makers in the program. I thought I was being super specific about what I wanted, but there is always an underpinning reason of why you want something, you can’t tell the universe HOW you want something delivered to you, you just must be clear about exactly what you really want.

So I ask you this, what do you want? What do you really want and why?

A client of mine said to me that her dream was to pay off her mortgage. And I said no it’s not. WHY is it that you want to pay off your mortgage? I asked. As we dug deeper, the real reason she wanted to pay off her house was so she had a big deposit to pay off her dream house that she wanted. You need to get really clear about what you want. Visual it. Fantasise about it. Think about it every day. It’s not your job to work out how you are going to get there. This was something I struggled with. My practical, accounting brain has always wanted to create a spreadsheet of what I could deliver in a realistic way. Don’t get me wrong, I stand by spreadsheets. But the principal of manifesting is that you work out, what you want, and let go of the how. Does it really matter if you get an unexpected refund of $10,000 and that is what helps you buy your dream car? Why did it have to come to you they way you thought, through your business? Manifesting is a skill that can be learned and practiced. It’s like a muscle, you don’t just reach a point and forget about it. The better you get at manifesting, the clearer you get about what you want, the more you can manifest what you really want.

Now to get into some of the questions people were asking me.

Why I charge in US Dollars and not Australian Dollars?

Before we get into this, I do want to specify that it’s actually $52,000 and I’m talking about it in Australian dollars. But, I do invoice in USD. This is something I get asked about a lot. My biggest expense is my coach, and that is charged in USD, followed closely by the various programs I use for my business, which are also in USD. This creates an internal hedge against fluctuations in global currency rates, and the other big reason is, it’s a global currency. I connect with clients right across the world, and the Australia Dollar is not one that is easily known or used, whereas the US Dollar is.

So to answer a few of the question that came through.

Why I don’t feel bad charging a certain price for my services

Does it make you feel bad that you are making money off people that don’t make as much as you? My answer to that is, hell no. I know that my success inspires my dream clients, they look and think, teach me how to do that. They want to know how I confidently increase my prices and continually attract more and more clients. Even the clients of mine that make more money than me, know I am continually living my truth and magnetising more of my dream clients, and they are attracted to that energy.

The second reason I don’t guilty for charging the prices I do, is that I change people’s lives. I have so many stories from people I’ve worked with over the years. But I’ve had clients that had marriages that were going to end due to financial stress, or they are working all the time and together we have turned it around. I’ve supported my clients in turning their un-profitable businesses into a success. I’ve supported clients to believe in themselves, to launch things, to create things, to hit $100K months. And of course, let’s be clear I am not taking all the credit here. It’s my clients that do the hard work, but do play a role in their success and believe I deserve to be paid well for that.

So I want to ask you, do you have a positive impact on your clients and on the world? Sometimes people feel so much guilt around this. Maybe you can’t see what you are bringing to the world. A client of mine was an artist and she would say to me, “… but I don’t change people’s lives”. And I would say to her, “Absolutely you do! You create beauty and happiness and spaces where people can dream and create and uplevel.” I bet any of you listening knows that you do help people and therefore, you deserve to be paid for it.

More money in the hands of good people is for the better. Think about what we do with our money, we invest in other small businesses, we donate to causes we care about, we invest in our children who are the future of the world. So why not you, why can’t you be wealthy. You can.

Let’s get into the practical stuff, that you guys shared that you want to know.

The breakdown of my $50K month including expenses

I’m going to share a breakdown of my results, including my expenses because I remember when people have big months, like my friend Steph Taylor, and I said to her, “Wow, what have you done with all that money?” And she responded saying that “… the big glossy number isn’t always what is left over.” And I can totally relate to that.

• I finished the month at $52,000.
• I put some of that aside for tax
• We had an unexpected back payment of Super to pay, that was about $14,000
• My husband and I both run businesses, he runs a recruitment company and he is usually the primary breadwinner, however under the circumstance of Coronavirus, recruitment has been slow of late. So we don’t have much of an income coming in from him at the moment. Our combined business running costs are about $16,000 a month, excluding our wages.
  • Our business expenses include:
    • 2 x Business coaches, one each.
    • 2 x Virtual assistants
    • Facebook ads, LinkedIn and Seek fees
  • The big indulgence I have made as a result of this month, is that I am now the proud owner of clarewood.com. This has been something I have wanted for years! I believe the .com.au that I had previously doesn’t make my business feel global like it is. I have been having the most drawn out negotiations to try and secure this domain name, and I’m so excited to share it’s now mine. Isn’t it funny the things us business owners lust over.

The investments I made to achieve a successful month

The nest question I had was, what are the investments I made to achieve a month like this. Well, the investments I made were a couple of large ones, made this year, that I believe contributed to this month’s results. The first is the Mastermind I have invested in. I work with a Business Coach called Ruby Lee and she is a specialist working with coaches and as soon as I heard about her, I was so magnetised to her. Her business has massively uplevelled quickly and being in her energy has undoubtly been the biggest impact in the shift in my results. Her energy is infectious and her unwavering support and belief in me, has really helped me level up. And of course, the Masterminders in my mastermind, they are doing such incredible things, and really encouraging me and making me want to step up too.

The other big investment I made at the start of the year, was a retreat with Denise Duffield-Thomas, who is the money mindset coach I mentioned earlier in the podcast. Being in the energy of both Denise and the incredible women at the retreat, where they would talk about earning 7 figures like it was a normal thing, and it really made me want to step up into that space. When you start to normalise big numbers, it makes you want to achieve them in your business.

My biggest long term contribution that affected this month

The next question is what are some of the longer processes that contributed to this result? So, what was I doing several months ago. The biggest thing is delivering and showing up for my clients. The best form of marketing is Word of Mouth, and the more my clients achieve incredible results, the more they share their successes. People are seeing their successes and hearing my clients say how supported they feel working with me, and the results they are achieving. If you want to uplevel, look after your clients. Overdeliver for them and help them achieve incredible things.

The next thing I believe contributed is the ongoing mindset work, and investing in myself, even when it was really scary. Other things that helped, is the way I showed up in my marketing, this podcast has been a big factor, showing up in my email list, showing up on LinkedIn and Instagram. All of these things, you are planting seeds for potential clients, people are always watching you, watching your business. Think about how you can serve your potential clients, and how you are shoing up for them, what problem are you solving with your free content.

Something else I believe has been a contributing factors, is the growth I’ve been achieving in my business. The more I grow in my results, the more I magnetise clients to me. People can see that and they want to be around that. This is why I have been filling my private coaching so easily, and why the Mastermind quietly launched and filled. A business is like building a house, they spend ages on the land, bulldozing and then pouring the slab, and it feels like it goes on and on. Then suddenly you look, and there is a frame there and you think, that shot up fast. With your business, brick by brick, you are laying foundations through your marketing and results you deliver for your clients. When you are spending time on your foundations, and laying strong foundations, it means your house is built on a solid base and you can jump ahead in leaps.

How I juggled scheduling, kids and long hours

What is your schedule like? How do you do this with young kids? Did you work long hours? Yes. One of the things I did was open a Mastermind, I have had to work longer hours to get everyone onboarded, but a big part of that is a lack of organisation and planning on my behalf. I’m not glorifying the hustle. One thing I am looking to do is bring someone onto my team to support me, so that I am not getting caught up in things that aren’t my zone of genius. This is something to think about, what are you doing that isn’t your zone of genius? I know I can offload some of the administrative work so I can focus more on my clients.

How do I do it with kids? I have two young children, 2 boys aged 2 and 5 years. The way I do it is I have a lot of support from my Husband. The way things have worked out with Coronavirus, my business got busier, while his got slower, so throughout this time we have had our kids home full time, and we took turns in looking after them under these strange circumstances. Now that the kids are back at childcare 2 days a week, and we have just hired a nanny to help out 1 day a week as well. One of the big reasons we created our businesses, was to spend time with the children, so one of our big values is we like to spend scheduled time with them to play and do activities, during the workweek as well as weekends. Truthfully, it’s just a juggle, a shuffle, sometimes it works well, sometimes it doesn’t. If you have kids, don’t look at the reasons why you can’t, look at the reasons why you can. Look at what it could look like for you. Think creatively about passive income streams, seeing how you can structure your work better, and spend quality time with your kids, and also uninterrupted time for your business.

What was the makeup of the sales result

I had 3 private coaching clients, who paid for a full 3 months in advance. I launched my Mastermind and 2 of them chose to pay in full for 6 months, in advance. How cool are the clients I am attracting to my business? These, in themselves, contributed to $40,000 of the amount. Then I had $12,000 of regular recurring revenue in my business.

So if you are thinking… but most of it is pre-payments! You are missing the point. I have now had a $50K month, without launching a new course or e-product, and I have some epic new programs coming soon. $50K is now an amount I am energetically aligned to. I’ve done it once, so I know it can be done again. And that will be my target again for July. At this stage, I don’t know how I’m going to get there yet, but I’m calling it in.

Maybe the numbers look different for you at the moment, it doesn’t matter, it’s the same principal. I had a client recently reach a $5K month and she was pinching herself, because when I first told her it was a possibility, she couldn’t imagine it. And now she is smashing the $5K.

I’m more than happy to share all the practical bits and pieces, and I want to normalise talking about money. It’s kind of missing the point. The result I achieved this month came from my self-belief. I am going to be wealthy woman. I’m not sure of the timeline, but I am sure it’s coming. Anyone can be wealthy. Sure, it might take longer for some, but if you want it, and you keep chasing it, it will be yours.

Thank you so much for joining me today, if you enjoyed this episode, please make sure you subscribe to receive future episodes, and I’d be so grateful for a review on apple podcast! If you’d like a copy of the show notes or any of the links mentioned today, please jump over to clarewood.com.au/podcast and remember that Clare is spelled CLARE, have a wonderful week and look forward to chatting to you again soon!