TUNE IN : APPLE PODCASTS | SPOTIFY
The other day I made a public declaration on Instagram. I said, out loud, where everyone could see whether I actually pull it off, that I’m adding an extra million dollars to my business in the next twelve months.
Instagram gives you about ninety seconds before people scroll, so there was a lot I didn’t get to explain. The why underneath it. The rules I’ve put around it. And the seven years of backstory that made me finally decide to do it.
The goal, and the real why behind it
A few weeks ago I was at a mastermind retreat in Thailand, and I came home with a fire under me. I set a big goal and connected it to a bigger why.
The goal is an extra million dollars in the business over the next twelve months. The why is my house. I’ve always said I’d be mortgage free by 45. I turn 45 next year, and while I probably won’t land it right on my birthday, I’d like to be somewhere in the range.
There’s a second reason too. Nearly twenty years in business means I’ve watched a few things shift, and while I’m not sitting here panicking about what’s ahead, nobody actually knows what things look like three or five years from now. I’d quite like to own my home outright and know my family is solid, whatever happens.
The three rules that make it hard
A goal like that on its own is just a number. What makes it interesting is what I’ve put around it.
It has to happen inside school hours, because quality time with my family isn’t on the table for any dollar amount. It has to be work I actually enjoy, because after this long in business I know myself well enough to know I won’t follow through on something I hate for twelve-plus months. And it has to be profitable, not just revenue, because the whole point is pulling that money out and putting it onto the mortgage.
Plenty of people could add a million dollars if they were willing to blow up their life to do it. Doing it inside school hours, on work I like, with the profit actually landing in my account, is a completely different problem.
Seven years of cruise control
Before 2019 I was stuck in the same revenue range for a long time. It looked like a successful business from the outside. It just wouldn’t move.
Then 2019 happened, and it wasn’t the market. I structurally changed how the business worked because I was about to have my son and wanted to actually be there for him, not just present for an hour a day. So I built the business around a small, fixed number of working hours, and I had no idea at the time whether it would actually work.
It did. Every single year since, the business has landed in the same seven-figure range, within about fifteen to twenty percent either way. Through covid. Through lockdowns and homeschooling. Through a year I couldn’t use my right arm. The number never needed me to be okay, and that’s the part I’m most grateful for.
Why now
My son is at school now, and I’m at somewhere around sixty percent capacity of a full time person. Still capped, but freer than I’ve been in seven years, which is exactly why I’m taking my foot off cruise control.
I’ve spent years talking publicly about building the foundation, the pieces that make sales reliable. There’s a second part I’ve barely talked about, the pieces I’ve built quietly over the last seven years that turn a business that works into a business that grows, without asking for more of you than you have to give.
That’s what this series is.
Click here to listen to the full episode
Don’t Miss The Rest Of Scale Like A Girl
This is a pop-up mini-series with multiple episodes dropping each week, so the easiest way to catch every one is to get on the email list. I’ll send you a nudge the moment a new episode lands.
