When you first started your business, I assume you were not doing it just for fun. You were also wanting to pay yourself. This sometimes can be an afterthought or not preplanned, and it really set the stage for how I wanted to build and create my business with intention by design.
I left a very high paying corporate career to start and build my business knowing that my business had to pay me. I was the primary breadwinner, and with my salary at the time with IBM, I knew that I needed to make quite a bit of money through my business, or I was going to have to go back and get another corporate job. The need for my business to pay me was pretty important.
There’s a lot of advice out there on putting every penny back into your business, and that you're not going to be able to pay yourself for a couple of years. That’s not true, but you do need to do it with intention. You do need to realize all the money that you make in your business is not going to you. Every business has expenses. Those can look like software, contractors, Facebook ads, employees, etc. Understanding that is really key because I've worked with a lot of people that will say, “Oh, I can't wait to get $10,000 a month in my business,” but they're really thinking about how they want to pay themselves $10,000 a month. If you want to pay yourself $10,000 a month, you're going to need to be bringing in at least $20,000 a month in revenue.
I break down the math in several trainings with my clients in my IGNITE Her Brand Program. If this is something you’re interested in learning, click here.
Listen to the Corresponding Podcast Episode:
Your Zones of Genius
It's important that you start to notice sooner rather than later in your business where your zones of genius are and where they’re not. If you haven't hired anyone yet, really starting to understand where the first place you would hire some is important. This is different for everyone. Where is your biggest challenge? Hire there first. For example, for me, it was definitely in the operations side of things. The attention to detail, the onboarding of clients, the answering of client's questions, the billing process, etc. Those things are not my zone of genius, so that was my first hire.
Take a look inside your business, and start to notice where the places are that are just not your zone of genius. All of those things still need to get done in order to have your business be successful, but if it’s not your zone of genius, the business won’t grow. Hire someone to take that off your plate so that those tasks can be taken to the next level.
I love to use the Gene Keys & Human Design to help uncover my zones of genius. We do that in my Gene Keys 101 Course. Enroll here!
How the Gene Keys & Human Design Helped me Redefine Success
My definition of what success is has dramatically shifted and changed over the course of the last 5 to 6 years. When I was first leaving IBM, I left on a very high paying salary. I kept thinking to myself that if I could at least get my business to pay me $100,000 a year, that I'd be fine.
Then, I started to have success in my business. I started to be around a lot of people that were pushing the idea of getting to 7 Figures. It turned into this rat race to get there, just like it was in the corporate world. That was the next goal, and I'm all about achievement. That's wired in my DNA, which isn’t always a great thing. It can be helpful, but it's not always the best thing to be so driven by achievement. I was kind of missing the whole point of all of this. The whole point in starting my own business.
The point of all of this was doing work that lights me up. Doing work that fulfills me. I got so caught up in hitting those revenue goals that it was preventing me from living out my true purpose and enjoying doing the things that truly light me up. I'm so grateful and thankful that the universe and my soul told me to pause.
It was right about this time that I discovered the Gene Keys and went way deeper in Human Design. It's when I started to actually understand what matters to me. The purpose of me leaving IBM was to create a business that I absolutely loved. That I get to TGIM – Thank God It’s Monday. That I get to be so fulfilled. That's more important to me than how much money the business is making from an achievement standpoint. I know full well that when you show up and you serve your heart out on something you're passionate about, the money absolutely follows, but my motivation was off.
I wanted to hit the levels of achievement that some of these celebrity entrepreneurs had. I had to take a step back and remember that that wasn't why I started this business. Taking that step back was one of the best things I ever did because I got to really understand myself better. I got to understand what matters, what mission I'm on, what work is meaningful for me, and how to grow my business in a way that is in complete alignment with what lights me up. I am not falling in that trap again that the business has to get to a certain level for it to be successful. It's about that fulfillment and the work that I love to do. That's why I left IBM. It's not about the money.
I have that extraordinary faith that as long as I stay true to what fulfills me, who I want to work with, and how I want to structure my business, I know the pay raise will come at some point.
Why Did You Start Your Business?
- Instead, I challenge you to focus on:
- Who am I here to serve?
- How can I best serve them?
- What lights me up where I just pinch myself that I get to do this work.
- Where is my zone of genius?
- How do I intentionally want to design my week?
When you do that, you can continue to focus on building your business in a way that really aligns to you.
I hope that you are inspired to take some action to go deeper in on what you really desire. Think about how much money you want to pay yourself, and start to make that plan to do it. It’s so incredibly powerful.
If you want to learn more about how the Gene Keys & Human Design can help you with this as it did for me, enroll in my Gene Keys 101 Course here.
The answers lie within you. Learn how to get to know yourself better so you can find them!
