Episode 13: Are You Earning What You Are Worth?

Dawn McGruer:

Welcome to episode 13 of Dawn of a New Era, the podcast, all about the Chronicles of a Serial Entrepreneur. Myself, Dawn McGruer, founder, and author and speaker. And I am passionate about the world of digital marketing. But today’s episode, I’m going to talk about something that I’m even more passionate than digital marketing and social media. And that indeed is, are you earning what you’re worth?

This year in itself, I have spoken to hundreds, absolutely hundreds of clients who I am super impressed with. I look at the business model in terms of the products and the services, I listen to their energy, and I just am so excited for them. But when I look at their facts and the figures, and I actually drill down and look at the profits of the business, I am so disheartened. I’m devastated that these people are not earning what they’re worth. And in today’s podcast, this is so important, because sometimes we undervalue ourselves.

We’ve all been there where we are, maybe not charging enough for products and services. I know when I started out the pricing was a real tricky one. And also because I was new, I was 21, as much as I knew my staff, I found that people, or it was my own mindset barrier, that I thought people would think, “Oh, well, she’s only been in business X amount, I’ll have to pay less.” People did not think that, that was my own issue. That was my own barriers, and that was something that was holding me back.

I talk about pricing a lot in my podcast and also in my trainings. And one thing that I always say is, price on value and what value you bring to the person that you are dealing with. So your client, what is the goal? How valuable is what you can do for them, be a product or service? So if you think about, are you earning what you’re worth? I just want to share a story with you really, about a client that I met probably about nine weeks ago now.

And this client came to me, had been in business for some time, a year or two and had kind of carved out quite a nice niche. Had so-so brand awareness online, had three products. So it was a service-based industry and this person was selling time for money. And this all looked great on the surface. I had a look online and I was quite impressed. And I looked to the website, some of the social media posts and engagement. And then I said, “Well, what are you actually owning?” And again, the revenue sounded not too bad. And I thought for an SME, this is good. This is a good start and there seemed to be some scaling and growing, month on month. Then I said, “Well, this is great.”

And I could tell in my client’s face that there was a problem, but I couldn’t figure out what it was. I was looking at the figures and everything, and it wasn’t until I had to ask a really difficult question. And I said, “Are you actually bringing home enough money, in terms of what you’re doing?” And quite frankly, I could tell then. And her face shifted. And I knew, what she was doing is she’d fallen into the trap of investing in others and selling time for money.

Now, what happens here is, it’s probably the quickest, easiest way to trade time for money. And it’s probably the go-to, that if you’re in a service-based industry, that you will fall into. But the problem is, is unless you’re working one to many, then there’s only a certain amount of time or finite amount of time in a day, and also there’s only one you. So if you have other overheads or you’ve got other staff and things like that, you need to make sure the revenue coming in, you are taking your money out first, and you’re actually positioning yourself as the most important person in the business, because none of us went into business for the good of our health, we all wanted to be earning the right amount of money.

And she said to me, “Well, what is right? I don’t even know.” And what she was doing, she was taking the amount of money that paid her bills, but she wasn’t taking any additional money because she was like, “Well, why should I?” But the thing here is, is that there are things that you might want to do and it’s not about buying items or being materialistic, but you need to be thinking about your value in the business. So as much as you price your products and services for your client, and the goal and outcome, you have to price yourself for the goal and outcome that you give the business. If you are the main fee earner, then you need to take the average salary.

So I got her go on and I said, “Look, you’ve been in business and you’re actually now earning less than you did in a job. And she hadn’t even thought about it at that point. She was just paying her bills and, business was growing. And she was getting great feedback from clients, and she’d got caught up in this. So as much as she was scaling and growing, she wasn’t scaling and growing her worth in the business. And she wasn’t taking home the money that she deserved. So she started thinking about her planning, looked at average salaries and thought, “Well, this is my position in the businesses, this is the salary I should be paying myself.” And whereas she’d thought about her money just being utilized for paying the bills, this is when we started thinking about, well, what’s your exit strategy? Do you really want to be doing this for the rest of your life until you die? I doubt any of us are in that boat.

And it’s important to think about, okay, you might be new in business, but how are you going to ultimately get out? How are you going to free up more of your time to do more of things you want to do first of all? And then ultimately, if you’re not going to be working in the business, can other people take over from you, will you sell the business? But also, how would you plan for your future? And you have to future-proof your whole existence here as a business owner, because you may not be putting money into a pension. You might not be putting money into Isis or investments and things like that, but you need to be getting some form of money working for you.

So there’s a couple of things here. First of all, I challenge you to go and have a look at, are you earning an average salary that really, really stands out as your worth in your business? Are you earning the money that you wanted to? Can you do whatever you want to do with that money? I’m not saying, as I say about materialistic, but when you are financially stable and financially secure, it does give you a confidence. I’m somebody who has to have certainty. So money, I know from my mindset, is really important. I need to have control of things and I need to know that I’ve got provisions and I’ve got savings. And also, that my money is that I’m drawing out. Okay, yes, I’ve got bits and pieces to pay, thankfully, I paid my mortgage off at 33. That was a huge, huge thing, but that took planning.

So think about how your money’s working for you, and where could you put it, where it would be growing for you? And how could you get it serving you? So for me, I have a property business. I started investing in property. I know a lot of my colleagues have too, and I’m planning for my future, but I’m not putting all of my money in one pot. I’m kind of spreading it out and spreading the risk really, so that I know that I have lots and lots of different incomes that will still serve me if I sold my business or indeed something happened to me.

It’s like when we talk about protecting yourself in the business, and having critical illness, and having health insurance, these are all things that are really important because you are the asset. You are the key, the foundational unit, perhaps. And even if you have a team of people, you have to make sure that if something did happen, let’s say you had an accident tomorrow, could you delegate? Would you be comfortable that you could just walk out of your business for 15, 16, 17, 20 weeks a year? So for me, I’ve built a business with the thought of my future. And I’m thinking about the money I take out, getting it working for me, and also how much time I want to take out the business. And building automated, and recurring, and passive revenues to safeguard that.

So go and have a look. As I say, average salary, are you owning what you’re worth? Are you taking home enough money? Are you safe guarding and future-proofing you for the future and looking at where you want to go? And what is your exit strategy? Now, these are things that I’ve put together all in a little worksheet for you. And these are just trigger points, questions that I feel are important. And if you act now, it doesn’t matter what age or what stage you are in your career, you will start to get a bigger picture because it’s really easy to get embroiled in the day-to-day work and lose sight of what we actually wanted to do. And we’re all working to realize some form of dream. And that could be just having some time out with your friends and family, and that is fine. I’m not saying you have to have these huge, huge goals. It’s whatever fits for you, but you need to be working towards something.

So I hope you enjoyed this week’s podcast. I can’t believe we’re on episode 13 already. And I would love you to head on over and make sure that you give me a rate and review. Just help more people find this podcast, if you found it useful, and also share it with any friends, colleagues, or family. So have a great day. And hopefully I will see you in the Facebook group, which is Business Consort, all about marketing, motivation, and mindset. Do a quick search and come and join us. And you can meet with like-minded professionals like myself, and we can all help and support each other to shine online.