You have finally managed to have a continuous workflow that keeps you busy during the week.

You love what you do. However, you still struggle to get to make ends meet.

I’m sure that you deserve to earn more. And so do you.

It can be frustrating when you spend all your time working on a project, but this isn’t reflected in your monthly income.

I know that feeling and that’s why I encourage you to make a change.

However, it’s not that easy, right?

I completely understand that.

Maybe you’re scared of increasing your prices, because you can lose clients.

Or maybe you don’t really pay attention how you’re investing your time or money.

And this has a serious impact on your income. You’re losing money every month without even notice it.

And it’s not only about a financial impact. This can make you lose heart over your business.

Are you aware of your financial situation?

There’s a reason behind this question. Most people don’t pay attention to their financial situation.

They can pay for their rent and food, and that’s enough for them.

But they don’t know that they could be earning twice their monthly income.

If you’re reading this it’s because you care and want to earn what you deserve.

I want you to analyse your current financial situation.

How much money do you earn every month/year? I want you to compare this with the average in your industry.

Could you be earning more?

The answer is probably yes. You can always be earning more.

How much money you do deserve to earn?

This can be a tricky question.

At this point you’ll probably be thinking that you deserve to earn more than you actually do.

You should always aim at earning a specific amount of money every month. Also, you need to know how you’re going to earn that money.

For example, if you have different lines of products or services, you need to know how much money you’re going to earn from each of them.

Also, you need to aim at earning more every month. Of course, you may not achieve to earn what you deserve during the first months of your business.

But you have to plan an increase of your income and specifically how you’re going to achieve it.

Remember that your objectives must be measurable and as specific as possible, so you can analyse your results and see what the problem is.

Identify the problem

Once you have done your analysis, you must have an idea of what’s your problem.

These can be the most common problems:

• You’re undercharging your products or services.

Maybe you’re not aware of it, but you could be charging more for the services that you provide.

Also, it may be that you’re afraid of raising your prices because you could lose some of your clients. You should know that:

If you have 10 clients that spend 100 euros every month in your business, you’ll be earning 1000 euros a month. Then, if you double your rates and lose half of your clients, but the rest spend 200 euros you’ll be earning the same. The big difference is that you’ll be working less and earning the same.

Then, you’ll be able to think about what to do with the rest of your time.

• You’re not investing your time and money wisely.

Maybe you’re spending too much time in a task that you should start outsourcing. It could be an expense that you weren’t considering having in this moment, but it could be taking you too much time, or maybe you’re not getting the results that you expect because you’re not an expert in this task.

You should know where your money and time are going and if you’re making the most of it.

• You don’t know how to communicate the value of your products.

Let me tell you a secret. There’s always money for your services and products.

If we have money to spend in a beautiful cup of coffee with a nice sentence on it, instead of having a normal one for half of its price, I can guarantee that there’s money out there for your services and products.

The problem is: are you communicating the value of your business to your clients?

If not, you are making your business a priority for them, and that’s why they’re not buying from you; not because you’re too expensive.

So, what do you have to do to earn what you deserve?

If you have one of the problems that I’ve mentioned above, you could use and apply one of these techniques to make a change.

1. Don’t fear expensiveness.

Again, don’t be afraid of being too expensive, because you’re probably not.

If people like (and need) your services, they are going to buy them. That’s why you should focus on what you’re going to do to make them love your business.

Don’t worry if you lose clients when you increase your prices, because you’ll gain premium clients that are willing to spend more in you, and your working hours will be more profitable.

2. Stop trading time for money.

Do you always charge X an hour? Then I’m afraid that you’re not using the best strategy.

Why?

Because time is limited. If you trade your time, your income will also be limited. You won’t be able to earn more, because you can add more hours to your days.

What you need to do instead is to offer value for an investment.

Your products and services add value to your clients; it’s that value what you have to trade. This value isn’t limited as you can always improve your products, and it’s the perfect way to justify your prices.

3. Start considering subcharges.

This is another common problem. Sometimes we spend more time in tasks required to finalise or submit an assignment than in the assignment itself.

And we tend not to charge for this time.

Sometimes, even our clients ask why we charge for it. That’s why we’re scared of adding it to the invoice.

As I said before, time is limited. If you’re not even charging this time that you need to spend on other tasks, think about how much money you’re losing at the end of the month.

4. Stop giving too much for free.

You are afraid that people aren’t going to buy your products and you add a lot of freebies as a side.

That could be a good strategy, but don’t turn it into a common practice within your business.

You’ll lose money in the long run.

Every freebie must be justified and must be part of a strategy.

5. Plan any unexpected event ahead.

You finish the project you’ve been working on for weeks. You have handed it in and think that everything’s done.

Then something happens, your client gets back to you and you have to spend more time working on the same project and, most of the tie for free, because that isn’t included invoice.

Does that ring a bell?

What you should do is to think about all these situations and unexpected events and try to either avoid them or monetise them to make the most of your time.

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Let me know in the comment if there’s something else that doesn’t let you earn what you deserve.

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