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Shownotes:

Hey, hey, y’all!

We are cruising along in our Easeful Money series this week with one more episode to go!

Today, we’re diving into:

• 5 key steps to take when earning does not feel easeful
• 4 ways to add more ease to your earning!
• And spoiler alert – easeful earning is NOT easy 😉, but that doesn’t mean ease can’t be part of the plan!

Links mentioned in this episode:

• Get Your Welcome Sequence Done with Kronda Adair
• Rachel Pesso Brand & Graphic Design
• Become a DreamMoney™ Supporter to support my first round of capital for my app! I’ll be leading an all new DreamMoney™ Masterclass in September and I’d love your support inviting your community to the masterclass and/or sharing the word about the DreamMoney™ Blueprint and all the financial clarity it can add to their business!

Transcript:

Hey, hey, y’all!  Welcome back to the show. We’re are getting closer and closer to the DreamMoney Launch happening in just a few weeks and there’s a lot going on behind the scenes over here, but I’m feeling incredibly supported and spacious as I go into this thing and I wanted to share a bit about all the prep work that’s happening this way before we get into our episode for today, which is all around adding more ease to earning.  It’s going to be a great topic for us to dive into!!  

First, allow me to introduce you to the new name of what was formerly known as the Money Map.  And let me tell you, renaming this thing has been no small feat.  

Right after DreamMoney came through, I knew almost immediately that I didn’t want to rename the Money Map simply the DreamMoney Map.  Something about it just didn’t roll off my tongue and I was seriously stumped on what to use instead.  I loved the word map because over the years, I’ve used Money Mapping to describe the process of being in your money map and I’ve also referred to my community as Money Mappers.

Trying to find another word that does both of those things proved difficult and of course there’s the consideration of ensuring you’re not infringing on any existing trademarks.  I’m so damn tired of trademarks this year!  So I hired a naming service for $1k to see if they could come up with a name.  I went into that investment with the knowing that they’d either come up with the name, spark an idea for the name, or give me back 5 names I totally hated, which all clarity counts, right?  We ended up with the latter, but I persisted. 

I wanted a name that spoke to the map quality because this profit planning tool really does show you the way.  I thought about “chart”, but that wasn’t quite it.  Plus, even though money charting could maybe work – “money charters” definitely doesn’t work.  So then I thought – why don’t you just let that piece go.  Maybe this new name doesn’t have to be used as an action nor does it need to describe your community, which is when the DreamMoney Blueprint came through.  The more I said it, the more I liked it.  Plus, I simply need a name for this tool until the app launches so I don’t have to be married to it.  

So I went straight back to my attorney and consulted on this name (my sweet attorney).  And she gave the approval!  So my friends, it is with great joy that I announce the Money Map has officially been renamed to the DreamMoney Blueprint – a complete holistic financial system for designing the business that can fund your dreams and build a more just + joyful world!

As I prepare to go into launch to raise the funds needed to build the DreamMoney app, I’ll be selling the full DreamMoney Blueprint for $997 that also comes with an epic 90 day live program with me!  And I’ll be selling the DreamMoney Calculator for $247, which is the new name for Good/Better/Best Goals!! GBB Goals are the foundation for the entire DreamMoney Blueprint and are three unique-to-you revenue goals that every entrepreneur needs for knowing exactly how much you need to earn to support your personal financial needs and dreams. 

So this week, I’m re-recording the whole self-paced course that comes with the DreamMoney Blueprint, which I didn’t want to do knowing I’m going to have to re-record the whole thing again once the app launches in a few months, but I’m taking it as an invitation to elevate all the content with best practices I’ve cultivated over the years since it’s been since 2020 since the last course recording.  So it’s going to be so good to create its best version in its spreadsheet form before moving everything to the app!!  And by Friday, that will be done. I’m recording. Robyn is editing.  And the new course is already looking so good with just a few of the rebrand updates we’ve been making.  And we’ll have new graphics soon too once we get new photos back, which brings me to the second thing happening this…

A photoshoot, which is LONG overdue! I’m working with a new photographer that I’m excited about and we have models coming in to support the community vibe I’m going for!  More to share on that soon.  We have a new sales page being built that will be done by Friday and then everything literally goes live next Monday!  So we are getting everything ready to rock just in time and I’m so incredibly proud of how I’ve navigated this thing.  I thought for sure the timeline would be too tight to try and get new photos, but I made the ask and that’s happening. I hired out the sales page design and build out for the first time in the history of ever and that was so helpful in freeing me up to do other things.  

And promotional partner info is going out this week so if you’d love to help me spread the word about the DreamMoney Blueprint that will help me raise the funds to build the DreamMoney App, definitely add your name as a DreamMoney Supporter in the show notes!  

So today, my friends, we are cruising along in our DreamMoney Series diving into part 3 of Easeful Money.  By now, we’ve covered Deliberate Money and Reliable Money and also talked about the first two ways to create easeful money, which are working from a place of ease and creating money systems.  Today, we’re talking about creating ease around earning and my goals are to offer some mindset shifts, some strategies, some systems, and some energetic shifts too. 

Now, I’ll go ahead and tell you – there’s nothing easy about easeful earning.  And in fact, the online space is weird right now.  Sales are down across the board.  Launch outcomes have been smaller and smaller for most businesses.  And although there might be the select few whose businesses are booming and experiencing an uptick – that is not the grand majority.  A lot of businesses are seeing dips in revenue right now. And a lot of those businesses are well established ones.  

We aren’t seeing the same amount of money float around in the online space as we’re used to.  Covid brought a lot of financial relief and abundance to our industry and with everyone being home, it brought a lot more entrepreneurs into the space looking to spend money.  And for those who were already in the space, it was great!  We had extra money to exchange with one another and for most business owners I know – Covid was actually a really good thing financially.  

But now, we’re on the other side.  We have loans we’re paying back, we likely have bigger teams we took on to handle the uptick of work.  And with sales lower, many people are having to lean out their team and let people go, which is never a fun place to be as a business owner.  I remember the first team member I had to let go back in 2022 that I just couldn’t afford to keep on because I had hired with the intention to scale and bring on more clients, but my mental health needed to not to do that so I ended up being overhired and had to let her go.  

Then at the beginning of this year when the trademark stuff started, I just could not be in a sales headspace, which was not great timing because I had clients graduating from Flow, which meant payment plans were completing and no new revenue coming in. Thankfully I had business savings that could float me for a couple of months through February and March, but I also asked my team to decrease their hours as there wasn’t as much work and then I had a team member step down to focus on their own business, which meant team costs lessened as I didn’t replace them until I could get my head back in the game.  

Then, I started this podcast and started finding myself again, which was exactly what I needed and almost doubled revenue in April and have been slowly increasing revenue ever since bringing on a few new clients about every other month into Flow as well as signing a few new 1:1 clients through word-of-mouth and referral  

But my launches haven’t been performing at the level I’m used to this year either.  The content has been solid.  The connection has been great.  But still – I think a lot of people are carrying debt, they’re investing in programs that aren’t quite what they need so they aren’t getting an ROI, and there’s less money circulating in the online space, which means people are being far more cautious with what they invest in.  

And this can absolutely create concern, but all economies go through cycles and this will shift too. The shifts I’ve made to address these changes are keeping team very lean right now (it’s just me and Robyn over here) and hiring contractors for one-off projects.  For instance, I’ve hired my friend, Kronda Adair to help us get our email marketing system sorted.  I’ve hired my friend. Rachel Pesso to help with the DreamMoney Blueprint sales page. Hire your friends, y’all!!  And I’ve been focusing on 1:1 clients who pay premium to work with me plus creating a more accessible price point for Flow to help meet more people where they are.  I thought for sure my most recent launch would add another $10K in monthly revenue, but it didn’t.  

And there’s not a single variable that’s in my wheelhouse to shift that.  Sometimes that’s just how things go even when you do all the right things.  So, before we talk about ease with earning – know that there are going to be times when earning does not feel easeful.  You may step into higher price points and it takes a few months before your audience is ready to come with you.  You reach out to your network for referrals, but no one comes to mind.  Or maybe you do get referrals, but they aren’t the right fit.  I’ve had one of my clients refer THREE people to me this year.  One never responded to our intro email.  The other was not an aligned fit.  But the third – a complete dream client I’m so excited to work with! 

So, if you happen to be in a spot where sales are low or slow – I want you to do 5 things: 

1. Launch.  A launch is the best thing you can do for more visibility on your work. It allows you to get loud and for people to come closer.  And email communication likely increases too.  And even if your launch doesn’t result in sales, it can result in referrals.  It can result in downsells.  Even a little money that comes in the door can be that pick-me-up you need to keep going. 
   
   I’m launching every other month this year, which was not a plan I created due to low sales – but rather for creating new funnels for people to come into my world.  And now, I’m glad I’m doing it because every launch brings new people in (even if it’s lower numbers than I‘m used to), but that’s how I’m able to keep increasing revenue right now, even if it feels more slow-going than usual.
   
2. Reach out to your network for support.  Ask for referrals.  Let your people know you’re accepting new clients.  Follow up with people you’ve had conversations with.  I appreciate a follow up and I encourage you to appreciate a follow up too.  As long as the person is good people, of course. 
   
3. Lean out your team and expenses.  During tough economic times, we need to be able to scale down to Minimum Viable Revenue.  That means leaning out your tech stack as much as possible.  It may mean letting team members go.  Leaning out can feel like the opposite of abundance.  I get it.  But freeing up cash flow is what’s going to create that feeling of spaciousness.  Instead of focusing on solutions that create a recurring expense, focus on solutions that create a short-term, one off expense.  We want to decrease our recurring monthly expenses as much as possible. 
   
4. Have conversations. The quickest way to cash is conversations. There’s a strategy I learned from Breanne Dyck who runs Visionary CEO Academy that’s called identifying your hand raisers in which you share a social media post offering value and ask people to raise their hand if they’d like a copy of a free tool you’ve created or want to join you in a free masterclass.  Now, of course you’d need to have a tool you’ve created or a masterclass coming up for this to work, but when people raise their hand, it allows you to start a conversation when you follow up with them.  What problems are they experiencing? What solutions are they searching for?  Conversations are the quickest way to refine your messaging for an offer, make tweaks to an existing offer that more adequately meets your people’s needs, and simply connect with people.  If you can help, let people know you can help.
   
5. And lastly, come up with a new introductory offer that walks people through a key part of your methodology.  For instance, if I wasn’t launching the DreamMoney Blueprint this month following Leap Week, I would have offered a downsell focused on helping people map out their core methodology as that’s the first step we focus on in Flow.  Understanding your methodology is what allows you to speak to your work more confidently and clearly. Plus, understanding the key milestones people must reach within your methodology is what allows you to create tighter offers that are laser focused on the steps that create success.  People may not be ready or able to invest in the whole transformation you can provide, but they may be ready and able to invest in just one key step. 

When it comes to creating ease with earning, there’s gotta be a willingness to show up, pivot if need be, and make the ask.  I know for most of us when we think about earning with ease – we want people to just show up on our doorstep with money in hand saying I want to work with you.  If that’s the desire, then how can you create the environment for that to happen?  So let’s dive into energy, strategy, systems, and mindset. 

The first is an energetic openness to receive.  When I was in my first two years of business, I would write affirmations over and over again in my journal as I worked tediously at developing a sales mindset.  Many of those affirmations were around me being a sought after coach that people couldn’t wait to work with and reminding myself that clients were always around me + on their way, that they were plentiful.  Now, this type of mindset isn’t going to make people magically appear, but it does shift your energy when you’re in the place of abundance, which we’ll talk about more when we dive into the A of DreamMoney.  

The second is having offers that are clear and compelling.  And quite honestly – if you only spent your time working on just this piece – you’d reap the rewards.  So many offers I see are clear, but not compelling or compelling, but not clear and confusion is the quickest way to miss the sale.  An offer has to clarify what someone is getting and how it works.  They have to be able to visualize it and clearly know the transformation they’re going to receive on the other side.  The transformation you’re offering also needs to be something they really want.  

What I see most often is that most people aren’t anchoring their offers’ results in the thing their people really want.  What I mean by this is your people don’t really want the transformation of your offer. They want what that transformation then makes possible on the other side.  I call this their LTV or long-term vision.  This is where we need to be meeting our clients.  Knowing your client’s LTV is what allows us to call our best people forward and position our work as a key stepping stone to helping them get what they want.  

For example, my dream client’s LTV is to have a sustainable business that’s generating DreamMoney and allowing them to make their most meaningful contribution.  They envision a future where they’re earning at least multiple 6-figures knowing that 7-figures is quite attainable if that’s something they want.  

Now what I know is if this is the goal, their first step is mapping out their signature methodology that’s foundational for a 7-figure business and then creating their first one key offer that’s delivering that methodology that allows them to take a meaningful step in that direction.  

Where they want to go is their LTV.  In order to get there, they need to have this foundational piece, which is what I provide inside Flow.  

A lot of times I see people shying away from being explicit with their dream client’s LTV.  Because who are we to decide what a client’s long term vision looks like?  Or maybe their long term vision looks all kinds of ways?  How can we get specific?  But when we’re bold enough to say, “this is what you want and this is where you’re going”, it makes your dream client’s long term vision not just feel safe to want, but important to want because we can also anchor it in their values.  

For instance, there’s a client I worked with over the Summer to help her clarify her methodology.  Her work is helping her clients lead well, which can literally mean all kinds of things.  But her clients are entrepreneurs who hold a vision of doing business differently.  That’s grounded in ethical capitalism where everyone wins.  When she clarifies this vision for her clients, she’s automatically going to pull forward those who don’t want to feed into disparity based capitalism.  She can say “I see you” and “me too” and “here’s how we’re going to get there”.  

She’s already clarified a compelling desire for her people simply by clarifying their LTV, but her second step is laying out the key milestones that must be reached in order for them to take a meaningful step in that direction.  For instance, the rest of that sentence is, “I see you.  You want to do business differently where you aren’t contributing to more disparity, but instead engaging in ethical capitalism where everyone wins.  Me too.  Here’s how we’re going to get there… by first X, then Y, and then Z which are key milestones in her methodology, which also just so happen to be the key steps she walks people through in her XYZ offer.   

• She’s clarified her client’s compelling LTV that will naturally pull aligned clients forward.
• She’s clarified the first key milestones that help them take a meaningful step in their desired direction. 
• She’s positioned her offer as where those key milestones happen. 
• From there, she’d also lay out how that work happens inside the offer including duration, number of calls, etc. 
• And then add a price point that’s reflective of the transformation and support provided that’s also based in her dream client’s typical investing range.

This is the foundation for clear and compelling offers! 

And the reason it’s worth spending your time here is because each of those variables matter and need to be massaged.  If one of them is off – it could make all the difference between an offer that sells and an offer that doesn’t.  

The third thing that allows you to create an environment where there’s ease around earning are systems.  One of the things I love about Kronda Adair’s work in the world is her No Lead Left Behind concept.  She’s one of the most brilliant people I know for integrating marketing and automation that’s people-focused and relationship-driven.  One of our first steps together was creating a welcome sequence that introduces people to my world and points them to my core offer, Flow.  That way any new person who joins my list receives a short email series from me getting to know who I am, what I do, who I help, and how I help them.  

But that’s truly just the start because the next automation I want to build out is a sales email series that I can turn on and off, which works perfectly for an offer that’s evergreen like the DreamMoney Calculator or the full DreamMoney Blueprint or you want to drum up more applications for an offer, etc.  I want you to imagine that you had a sales series that resulted in sales every time you turned it on.  Where a click of the button resulted in a few thousand dollars in the door allowing you to leverage all the work you’ve already done!  

Now, the biggest myth to online business is passive revenue because there’s nothing passive about it.  But all too often, we find ourselves creating all these amazing things that never see the light they deserve.  Creating an automation that helps put it in the spotlight is such a great way of adding more ease to more earning.  

One of Kronda’s other goals for me is to create a “best of” email series too so when I’m not in the emailing mood for a month or so, I can turn that automation on to stay top of mind and deliver value for my people, which is why I so appreciate her brain on bringing value, relationship, marketing, and automation all together.  Which P.S. if you want to join Kronda in getting your own welcome sequence done, check out how to do that in the show notes!

Creating more systems in your marketing and automation is one key way to create more ease when it comes to earning, especially intentionally pointing to your offers, which also points to the importance of getting your most potent offers dialed in 😉  

And lastly, the last thing I want to cover (in this episode anyway) is selling consistently.  So many times clients aren’t making the money they want to be making and are focused on delivering value again and again in order to earn the right to sell.  What I want to invite you to instead is combining value with sales.  When you’re creating value based content, mention your work, get it on people’s radar.  Explicitly tell people how they can work with you.  So many times clients come in and feel like money isn’t coming in with ease and when I ask them when the last time was that they asked for the sale or told people how to work with them, they usually say “it’s been awhile”.  

If you want money to come in with ease, you have to ask for it to come in.  We don’t need to create all kinds of value for people to earn the right for others to hear about our offers.  You need to earn the right of building trust.  That I stand behind.  But earning the right to talk about your offers as you’re delivering value?  No. People need to hear about your concepts, your methodology, and how you work with people in your content, which includes emails, social media, podcasts, masterclasses. etc.  

And the reason this is so key is being forthright in your desire to work with people is what bakes consent into the process.  For instance, anytime I lead a free masterclass or training series, I always tell people we’re going to cover XYZ in this training and if you want to take this work deeper, we’ll talk about what that looks like in Flow.”  I’m building the container for what I can deliver outside of a deeper working relationship while also protecting the integrity of my work where the deeper work needs to happen, which is inside a coaching container.  

Creating value while also saying, “if you’re interested in doing this work, here’s your next step or here’s where this work happens” is such an easy way of creating more ease when it comes to earning.  Making the ask is such an easy concept, but it’s also one so many of us can often forget.  We get stuck in the value trap.  You don’t have to earn earning, my friends, which we’ll talk about more in our next episode.  So many things to share on this alone!! 

So when it comes to creating more ease when it comes to earning, one. easeful earning is not easy. There are lots of moving parts with many variables outside of your control. But that doesn’t mean we can’t create the environment for easeful earning to happen, which is where we focus our energy.  

• There are energetic shifts we can make to ground ourselves in the abundance of money, which we’ll talk about in the A of DreamMoney as well as the strategy behind plentiful money.
• There’s the strategy of creating clear and compelling offers that are foundational for more sales. 
• There are systems for creating more easeful earning, especially automation (but you still have to do the leg work first).  
• And there’s the mindset of selling consistently and not putting yourself in the value trap that tells you you have to earn earning. 

If you want people to show up on your doorstep with money in hand saying “I want to work with you”, these 4 things are just the start because there’s also the much dreaded concept for most entrepreneurs I meet called visibility, but we’ll cover that in more depth in a future episode.  

For now, when earning doesn’t feel easeful, I want you to reassess what’s not working.  If people aren’t buying – is it because the offer isn’t clear or compelling? Are you marketing to the right people who will see value in what you’re offering?  Is your price point too high for the perceived value your people are assigning to your offer?  Is it too low?  That’s why pricing can be a tricky thing. Are you having conversations?  Are you making the ask?  

Money is here to come to you with ease. It’s our work to build the channels and those channels will take work.  So if anything, the thing I want you to take away from this episode is when people are touting that earning money is so easy and people are lining up at their door waiting to work with them, look underneath the hood.  

What’s the foundation they have operating in the background? Have they been working for years to build an audience?  Have they been working for years refining their messaging and offers?  Have they been working for years to build systems?  Have they been working for years to build their methodology?  

Ease is the result of time and effort.  I know that’s probably not what you want to hear.  I know I didn’t. I wanted a way to circumvent it and turn on the easy button.  But the minute I threw away the easy button and got to work at a sustainable pace working on the things I needed to master is when earning became a lot more easeful.  

And there are still times when earning doesn’t feel easeful.  But not going down the rabbit hole and instead staying objective and curious is such a powermove, y’all!  Ask yourself the right questions around what needs to shift.  Is it your energy? Your offer? Your lack of systems? Your mindset?  Every season will be an invitation for one of those things to create more ease when it comes to earning.  You so got this!! 

So, until next time friends, here’s to the courage to keep showing up even when clarity is still forming – knowing, trusting, believing the next right step is always on its way.