What I’m talking about today is what I do when money is tight, or my income starts to drop in my business.
This is a really juicy one because it’s going to help you to come out of an income slump, and know what to do if the money has dried up and you’ve got no resources left or you’re getting lower than you’d like to comfortably be in terms of your buffer in your business.
It’s going to be a great and practical episode.
Here for the links referenced in the show notes?
Episode 243: Q&A: How often do you set a fast money target? tashcorbin.com/243
30-Day Business Blast Udemy course: tashcorbin.com/udemy
Let’s get started!
Before I talk about the strategies that I use when income has started to dry up or I’ve started to see a dip in my income, I want to tell you that I know when my income has started to drop very quickly.
I pay a lot of attention – not only to my overall finances but also to my daily income – because I know how important that is for my business.
If you’re not tracking your income every single day, I want you to take that one strategy away from this. One strategy – track your income every single day.
What gets measured, gets improved.
You cannot shift your money mindset if you’re not aware of what that money mindset is. One of the fastest ways to tap into it is actually to track your income each day.
Let’s get into the episode now, because I wanted to make sure we got that one out of the way.
I want to share with you a little bit of an insight into what’s happening behind the scenes for me in my business. It is for these reasons that I’ve had some increases in my business expenses and a bit of a decrease in my income over the last few months:
Tash in Bali cost saving behind the scenes
- We moved to Bali
- I’ve taken on an online business manager to take a more senior role in my business
- I’ve made some big commitments in terms of overhauling my website, my social media, and also my Facebook ads recently
Another little insight as well: When I was about to leave Australia and move to Bali, I auctioned off some spots on retreats. And so for the last three weeks that I was in Australia, instead of doing a big launch of one of my signature programs, I was facilitating retreats that I had sold previously thinking (once again) that whilst I had a retreat going on in my home, I could still totally be in a launch for something else.
No, Tash, no.
This is not how business works and it is not how I work.
I know when I’m facilitating a retreat, it is a full-time commitment for me, and therefore I missed one of my critical launches this year of one of my programs.
What am I actually doing about it? How have I started to lift the income in my business?
1. “Is this actually part of the plan?”
I always ask this when I see a dip in income.
There’s a big difference between a dip in income because you decided not to launch that thing you were going to launch and not thinking through the repercussions (#me)… And actually being in launch of something and promoting free lead magnets, therefore not expecting a lot of income right now, but knowing you’ll have a surge in your income when the launch actually kicks off and the doors open on early bird for your launch.
I make sure that I check in with myself: “Is it true that my income is actually drying up, or is this just one of the down spells in preparation for a launch that is going to get more results for me?”
That’s something I get clear first and foremost. Is it part of the plan?
Something we do in the 100 Days of Colour program – which I absolutely love and adore – is we do our money stats.
We look at what your expected income is for the next weeks, and you stack it all out so you can see what’s:
- Expected income
- Reasonable to expect income
- Unexpected income
What are the gaps that we need to fill with unexpected income, or what changes do we need to make to your strategy so that you actually do have some income coming in? This leads to part two…
2. Do you actually need to address part of your business strategy here?
Have you set yourself up so that the only thing that you’re offering is under $100, and you don’t actually have the reach or sales with that to hit your income goals?
Is there something that you need to address or adjust in your business strategy?
One of the things that I’ve done is I’ve actually gotten rid of one of the courses/programs that is part of my business because it wasn’t bringing in enough money to justify the energy and effort I was putting into it.
I’ve taken that effort and energy from that and put it into something else that actually does make great sales and is a really good part of my business model.
Maybe there are some strategic things that you need to change up.
You might need to increase your prices because you’re working really hard and you’ve got lots of clients coming in, but you’re not actually hitting your income target.
Maybe you decided to go off and launch something, and it hasn’t worked properly and you haven’t got the results you were expecting. Are you, therefore, going to need to adjust your strategy moving forward to make up for that income deficit? Are you able to ride it out, keep going with the plan and say: “Well that didn’t work as expected, but I’m not going to change what I’m doing”?
Have a think about your business strategy and how it can be adjusted.
It’s definitely something that I do first and foremost after making sure I need to address something.
3. Look at your mindset
Am I:
- Wandering around going: “Money’s tight, money’s tight, I need to hustle!”?
- Chasing people around the internet?
- Feeling really desperate?
- Starting to get really focused on making the money for no reason?
- Actually feeling like I’m aligned to that energetic, rich abundant Tash, who is calm, centred, high vibe, and feels amazing?
- Just going crazy and being effervescent and vivacious all over the internet, thinking that that’s me being high vibe, but it’s coming from a space of desperation?
Check in with your mindset.
I have a lot of tools I like to use:
1. Always pulling out the journal and doing a bit of journaling and checking in with myself.
2. Having a consistent emotional freedom technique or tapping practice that I do as well (I might do some EFT in the mornings in the shower and see if I can tap into what’s going on).
I also have an EFT practitioner, a kinesiologist, and a hypnotherapist that I work with, so there are lots of strategies I can use.
I also do regular journaling with the fabulous Carol Brennan.
There are practitioners that I can draw upon as well to help me if there’s a mindset thing going on because a lot of the time I find that I’m able to deal with mindset stuff in terms of maintenance practice, but if something big is happening and I need to dig underneath it, I can be quite reluctant to do that.
4. I do a fast money challenge
You’ve probably heard me talk about the 7-day Fast Money Challenge before.
I find that it’s a really sexy 7-day process that works. It shifts my energy around money, it shifts my results, it creates more income for me, it gets me focused on income generating and business-building activities instead of faffing about around the edges of my business.
It makes me do the things that I know work for me.
I will talk a little bit about the Fast Money Challenge at the end of this podcast as well for those of you who are interested because we’ve got a new and improved Fast Money Challenge for you! Woohoo!
(By the way, I have a great episode of the podcast on how often you should set a fast money target. Read, watch or listen HERE)
5. I increase my focus on long-term business growth strategies
This might seem counter-intuitive to you…
If I have a short-term cash flow issue, how is focusing on the long-term actually going to address what’s going on?
Firstly, it stops me from getting into this situation in the first place.
Secondly, often by focusing on the long-term stuff in my business and doing things like making sure I’m consistently posting content, making sure I’m being consistent with the activities that I’m actually supposed to be focusing on, it can focus me down on the things I know that work, but I’m not giving any time or energy to.
As I spoke about with those two retreats that I ran (no regrets in my business and no regrets on the things that I do), the reason why I actually did the auction of those retreats was that I had a bit of a money tussle with my landlord back in Australia, and he changed his mind about an agreement that we came to leave the property on July 15th, and he said: “No, you have to stay until August 15th.”
It was a bit of a knee-jerk reaction from me to go: “Well, I’m going to make some money out of this time then. I’m going to run two retreats.”
But actually, what I had planned for that time when I was in Bali, was to do a big launch of one of my signature programs.
I didn’t think about the implications then of focusing on being on retreat and not having the time and space I was planning on having – being in Bali – to run that launch.
Of course, that launch ended up being thrown out the window.
If I had just focused on my long-term strategies and nailing that next launch, and brought myself back to earth instead of offering those retreats, I actually would have been better off financially in my business, and I wouldn’t have had such a big downturn in my income.
I got the short-term income, but long term, I actually sacrificed a bigger return on investment for my time in my business.
I think it’s really important for us to have this conversation, and I’m happy to talk to you about how I feel about the things that I do and the mistakes that I make because often we only see the “sun shining” parts of those experiences.
If I’m being honest with you, those retreats were super fun. It lit me up and it was such a fun experience for me. I love the ladies that came on retreat with me, and we had an amazing time. But, on the other hand, the things I had planned for long-term growth in my business didn’t happen.
When I’m on retreat, I give myself 100% to those ladies, and I love doing that.
I know that I’m better for them if I focus down in the way that I serve them.
Particularly for me, after I’ve done a Fast Money Challenge and I’ve addressed the short-term stuff, I very quickly get on to doing some actions that are going to grow the long-term results of my business.
For example, I will check in on the social media strategy for the next few months and make sure we’re all up in advance and sorted for content. Blogs, these podcasts, Facebook posts, Facebook lives etc. Are my team clear on what the strategy is moving forward? What is my long-term strategy for growing my mailing list? For growing my reach? For increasing conversions?
I might:
- Start rewriting email sequences that I know are starting to get a little old and aren’t necessarily converting well
- Improve the sales page of my programs
- Look at my free lead magnets and how effectively I’m promoting them right now
- Look at my ads strategy and see if I’m really growing my mailing lists with great, fresh, warm leads who are my ideal clients
Those things will actually have a bigger impact on my cash flow long-term, and I want to make sure that I’m giving them the priority that they deserve.
Those are the five things that I do when money is tight or my income has dropped in my business. I hope that’s been helpful for you as well!
(If you want to find out more about money and mindset, I recommend checking out my Udemy course 30-Day Business Blast. You can find out more at tashcorbin.com/udemy)
Thank you so much for joining me for this episode of the Heart-centred Business Podcast!
Until next time, I cannot WAIT to see you SHINE.
