How to Make More Money this Year (and have fun doing it!)

Welcome to the In Between Podcast, a show for women navigating the space between where they are and where they want to be.

This is your go-to holistic business podcast where we dive into strategies, mindset, habits, and of course, making a meaningful income so you can live your dream life.

I'm Astrid, a multi-six-figure luxury wedding photographer and a former corporate marketing girly.

And I'm Alexis with 10+ years in tech as a senior brand partnerships manager and business coach. Think of us as your business besties cheering you on as you level up. Let's get into it.

Hello friends, and welcome to The In Between Podcast. This is one half of the podcast, Astrid.

And the other half, Alexis. And today on the show, we're going to be talking about how to make more money in your business in 2025. And not just revenue, we're going to be talking through auditing your expenses, all the fun things. We're going to get into the nitty-gritty, and I'm really looking forward to what we've prepped for you. This is going to be really tactical. We're diving into several different areas of ways to make more money this year, and this is applicable if it's your side hustle or even if you have a business idea. We're going to give you a lot of ideas of like ways to monetize a business as well. And then obviously if you're already a full-time entrepreneur, we're going to talk through lots of things to help you amplify your business this year and make more net profit, which is something Astrid is super nerdy about and we love that for her. We need to be on top of our expenses.

I am so excited for this episode and this topic. I think a lot of times this is like the not so glamorous part of business.

Yeah.

Is actually looking at our expenses, looking at our net profit, but then also taking a step back and thinking, how can I grow the business and make more offers and make more money ultimately? And so we just want to work smarter and not exactly harder necessarily. Because sometimes we're just adding a million services and then not really evaluating what we're already doing. So we're going to chat through all of those things, how we approach pricing, how we approach different ideas to make more money in your business.

But before we do, quick life updates, quick in-betweens, rapid fire, because we have a lot to cover today. Do you want to do life updates first?

Yes. Okay. Life updates rapid fire is I am in between a— not in between the in-between, but a lot of different travel things. So my brain—

Wait, we haven't talked about the fact that we prerecorded the last couple episodes and we just relaunched the podcast this week.

Yes.

And everyone's like really excited and we were so nervous.

We were so nervous and the feedback has been amazing. So thank you for everyone that's tuned in, that's tagged us, that's shared it. And I know that we have a lot new listeners on here too. So to all the business owner girlies out there that this is your first round of our new season, we love you and we're so happy that you're here.

Yeah. Thank you so much for the support and the outpouring of just like cheering us on. Anytime you do something new, It can be kind of scary, especially when you're pivoting and people get used to what you used to offer or what you used to do.

Yeah.

And when you do choose a new lane, it can be, you know, it can be a little scary. You're like, is anybody going to be excited about this? Like, is this going to resonate? And so the fact that so many of you were so supportive and so kind and joining the mastermind waitlist, like that has blown Ashford and I away. Another thing that is new, we were like, Is this going to land? Are people going to want this? And just seeing the interest has been amazing. So thank you, thank you, thank you from the bottom of our hearts. And sorry, back to you with life updates.

No, it's all good. I'm glad you brought it up because honestly, the number one update is that I feel like everyone fueled my fire for another round 2 of the podcast too. And even prepping the notes for today, I was thinking of all the people that have signed up to the mastermind waitlist and I'm like, This is for them. I love it. So excited. Uh, but yeah, rapid fire, just planning a lot of travel. So my brain just feels like I am in different countries and cities right now trying to wrap up a lot of things, but actually made the call today to accept the invitation to go shoot at New York Fashion Week.

So yeah, you did.

Yeah, I'm so excited. So excited. And thank you for motivating me. I was gonna turn it down, but, um, yeah, I'm so excited. So doing that, planning my birthday. Shooting in Miami next week. Planning a— I have a wedding in Tuscany, so trying to wrap up all the travel craziness. And yeah, just excited to honestly walk outside next week. It's been so cold here and I bought a walking pad. I don't know if I told you that.

Oh my gosh. I want to buy one too. Send me the link.

Oh my God. It's the best. I'm going to send it to you. But that's the only way I'm getting my steps in because it's freaking 0 degrees outside. So looking forward to that.

Oh, that's amazing. I need to get on my walking pad journey. And I'm so proud of you for New York Fashion Week. That's something that you put on your vision board last year, something that you were really interested in. And the fact that over Christmas time you got the email, it technically manifested last year, but it's happening this year. So I'm—

That's so right. Thank you so much for reminding me.

Really, really proud of you. And all the work that it's taken to even be considered for something like that is amazing.

Thank you.

Okay. Life updates for me, very similar to Astrid, planning lots of travel. And I'm going to be traveling a lot this year on behalf of Circle, which I'm really looking forward to, but it's a lot of logistics. And so planning to interview a lot of our top customers, leading Circle's brand at a lot of events. And Overall, just planning lots of virtual events and virtual partnerships as well. So really busy on the Circle front. And then on the personal front, I bought a new car. I'm going to tell everybody I bought a new car.

Yay.

I bought a beautiful 2014 Mercedes-Benz GLE 350. And I have been waiting for this car for many, many years. I drove my Toyota Rav4. She was a 2013. Her name was Cecilia. Cherry red, cloth interior. I drove her for 11+ years and she brought me to a lot of amazing places and carried a lot of memories for me. But I was also very ready to upgrade my car. And so last year, I saved a ton of money. Matthew and I as a family saved a ton of money and we were able to make it happen. We made the purchase. first weekend in— sorry, second weekend in January. And yeah, I just feel so grateful every time I look at her. Also, you guys, she has brown espresso interior and she's black on the outside.

Obsessed.

The two-tone espresso martini vibes is just— I love her so much. So, thank you for letting me geek out about that. But, not that material things are a definition of success because I was successful without the car. But also working your ass off and saving a ton of money to buy your dream car is a whole thing. And if any— if there is a material item that is your definition of like, I've worked and sacrificed so much for this, I'm so proud of myself, I want to do— I want to celebrate that by buying blah, do that. Like, don't underestimate the power of material items as like a way to celebrate yourself because I think sometimes we like downplay that or we think it's bad, but I am here to validate that if you want to buy your dream car, save for it and make it happen.

I'm so proud of you. Also, the discipline that it takes to not upgrade your car in that amount of time. Like you had been riding with your other car since 2013, so more than 10 years. Yeah. And that's amazing. Like not a lot of people do that nowadays. Like we're changing our cars every 2 years, 3 years. And you stuck it out and you were rewarded by your hard work.

Thank you.

Beautiful. She should be tax deductible for the amount of content you're going to shoot in it.

I know.

Literally.

I know. I should have. I wish. But okay. In-betweens.

In-betweens. Okay. This one's more on the personal side/mixed in with business, but I am in between just a lot of work, which has pulled me away from some personal time in this season. And honestly, I'm okay with it, like, in the sense of I don't usually have this pace of work and like 12-hour days back to back to back to back. And like, I miss my boyfriend. Like, I just want to have a cuddle night. I just want to like watch movies and go back to a regular I'm done at 5 PM. Um, but that's okay. We're both in busy seasons. He has stuff going on too. Um, but it's just one of those things that whenever you have a side hustle or whether you have a full-time business, you have to sacrifice some evenings sometimes to get those projects to cross the line and to make those deadlines and, um, keep your word and then be able to then benefit on the days that you do take vacation and travel and all this other stuff. And so, um, yeah, it's just been like just hard a little bit on that front of wanting to have those evenings to hang out with my partner and then I can't, but it's momentary. So I'm proud of myself because 3 years ago I feel like I would just not stop all the time. So busy season just never— it was always busy season. There was never a low season. And so now there actually is some ebbs and flows.

Good. Well, I'm glad that you are both in the same season at the same time. Which can sometimes make it easier and your partner's even more understanding because they're in it as well. But I hope that you guys get some cuddle time and some, some hang time soon. And it's always worth it. It's just when you're in it, it can be really hard.

Yes, absolutely. What about you?

Okay. What am I in between right now? I am kind of similar to you. We've been Every evening, like after work, I'm on my laptop working on things with the Deep Reset content, the podcast, the podcast launch, the mastermind launch, and then also work on top of that. So it's definitely been a busier season, but I'm finding myself in between realizing that I'm not stressed by it.

Mm-hmm.

And I think that As we grow and our capacity expands, our ability to manage stress shifts as well.

Mm-hmm.

And so maybe this, you know, when I was kind of nearing burnout in September, October, would have felt like a lot. But because my habits are in check, I'm moving every day, I'm drinking my water, I'm journaling, I'm really on top of managing my mindset and my thoughts. I'm actually really enjoying the work instead of it being a source of stress for me. So I'm in between like learning how do I maintain this? Like how do how do I keep tapping into this level of capacity and this lightness that I feel even though there are a lot of tasks and there's a lot of things to do? I can choose to view it as an opportunity and as things I'm grateful to work on versus like. I'm so stressed. I have to do this. I have to do that. I have to do that versus I get to do this. This is the work I've worked my whole life to be able to do. And it just shifts our posture towards the work. So I'm in between leaning more into that.

I love that. I think mindset is so huge to be able to approach that and be like, okay, yes, I'm going to bed late and I enjoy the work that I do. If I was doing something else, I would be wishing that I was able to do this right now. But I think being able to manage your stress is huge. And a little note on that, so I have the Oura Ring, and for any of the girlies out there that are considering it, this week, for example, like, it was telling me on Tuesday I had like 6 hours of stress, which normally, like, I will have like 1 or 2 hours on the high stress zone. Tuesday it told me that, and it told me right away, like, increase your activity. For better recovery. And so I did that. And then the next day, like, I had similar workflows and like similar workload, and it went down to 2 hours of stress. And it's like, oh, and then it tells me like, stress is a normal part of life, but you're recovering well. And so it's like all those things, like your sleep quality and your movement and all of that is so key. And I personally love having the data to back it up and be like, oh, look how much better this helped me from one day to another. So I love hearing how much. You've really taken care of yourself in this season and it's really inspiring as well.

And I just want to keep doing it. I just want to keep this vibe and trajectory for the rest of the year. And also, I have been sleeping on mouth tape. I just started mouth taping this month and my sleep is so deep. I'm sleeping 8+ hours. I'm not waking up in the middle of the night as often to go to the bathroom, which is disrupting my sleep. You mouth tape?

So I have it, and the 2 times that I've tried it, I've like woken up in the middle of the night because it just feels uncomfortable on my— I have like the Skinny Confidential one. I don't like that. Okay, well send me the one that you have. But the one that I tried with Skinny Confidential, like in the middle of the night it's like itchy and just take it off. And so then it disrupts my sleep and I get worse sleep. Yeah, because I had to wake up and take it off.

Yeah, so I realized I don't like the ones that cover my whole mouth. The one that I have is shaped like an H. And so it's like a line and then it covers just in the middle of my lips and then a line. And it still keeps my mouth shut, but it's not as like claustrophobic. Here's a massive piece of tape over my mouth.

Yeah.

And I am loving it. And you can still talk and you can still like get your drinks of water. Um, it's the brand VO2 out of Austin. Okay, big fan.

Well, I can't wait for our next trip together where we do our full routine and we're going to bed with our age tape on our lips.

And we literally can't talk. We're just like humming.

Like, hmm, hmm.

Matthew, Matthew like thinks it's ridiculous. And he's, what does he say? He's always like, all right, I love you. Good night. And I'm always like, hmm, hmm. And he's always like, oh my gosh. But anyways, okay, let's get into today's topic. How to make more money in your business in 2025. Okay. So in order to talk about this, yes, we can get into all the different ways you can monetize, make money, increase your pricing, lower your expenses. But at its core, I think that we have to start with setting a revenue goal.

Mm-hmm.

So how much revenue do you want to make this year? And then if you could break that down by quarter to month. Get that number and Q1 can be a little lower. You can ramp up. Q2 can be a little higher. You know, your busy seasons, you know, your workload and your flow. And so based on that, um, that revenue goal, I think it's helpful to ask yourself, okay, from that, how much do I want to pay myself as well? So this might be my revenue goal, but then what I pay myself is obviously different. Um, so getting those 2 numbers and having that be really, really clear for you, can help you figure out how you want to implement any of the advice we give you from this point forward. And then also taking a look at your pricing and packaging. So if you want to make $100,000 this year from your business in revenue, if you look at your pricing and packaging, how feasible is that? How, how much would you have to work? How many clients would you need? How many products would you have to sell? And if you look at all your revenue streams, how, how much of each item or revenue stream would you need to sell in order to hit that? That's another indicator that sometimes we might need to raise our prices in some areas, lower our prices in another, and kind of look at the economies of scale of like, okay, if I, if I sell this much at this price, this is how much money I'm going to earn. And then that will definitely inform your marketing plan. So if you're like, I need 8 one-on-one clients on retainer for 6 months at a time, twice a year. So I need 16 clients paying me X. Okay. How am I going to secure 6 clients at a time or 8 clients at a time? And then play with your pricing from there. So that's a really helpful place to start because if you can get to the place where you know that, I think it can help you make a lot of important decisions and also be honest with yourself of like, okay, everyone wants to make $100,000 or half a million dollars or a million dollars.

Yes.

But what amount of effort and what amount of marketing and fulfillment and customer service would you need to have in place to be able to hit that number and still enjoy your life?

I love this so much because without an actual clear goal, that ties back to the realistic side of things of what you're offering right now, it can feel like we just have this line of a goal that we can never achieve. So maybe it's your second, third year in business and you want to make $100K or $200K, and maybe right now you're making $50K. So what would feel like a feasible goal for you? I think that would be fantastic. And then the other part of that too is like, It helps you realize what products or services you might need to let go of, or is it realistic? So if you're selling, say you make beautiful mugs and they're $25 each and you want to make $100K this year, that's totally possible. But perhaps like only direct to consumer, unless you have a huge following, isn't feasible. So maybe your strategy is like, okay, who can I wholesale this to? Is there a business that like, gifts their clients mugs or that would want this. And then I now have a client that is ordering 100 mugs a year. Then that's more feasible than saying, I'm going to make $100K, sell 101. And at the end of the year, I'm disappointed because I didn't make that. So love that point. The second tip that I have for making more money in your business— Wait, really quick. Yeah.

Do you know what your revenue goal is for the year?

Yes.

Do you want to share?

Okay, I'm going to call myself out here because I have a dream goal and then I have a more realistic goal.

Yeah, that's okay. Have a base goal and a stretch goal. Yes.

So my base goal is $300K.

Hell yeah.

And my stretch goal is $500K.

Slay.

We shall see. I still feel, I will be honest though, my business in revenue makes $200K a year about. And for the past 2 years, yeah, ever since I've gone full-time, it's been stuck on that. And I don't want to say stuck on it because I'm very grateful for it, but I do like to see the growth in numbers continue. And so I think for me, a big win is just not getting $200K again, but increasing that more. And so I think whenever, yeah, I'm in that season of I feel like I've given the most I can and I'm getting strategic with other ways to make revenue. Yeah.

That's amazing. Well, it's also, thank you for being honest too. It's also, Like that leveling up of like you grew the team this past year, you've invested a lot as well, and now you're kind of doubling down on how do you then maximize that and make more revenue. Um, mine are— my revenue goal is to hit $100,000 as a side hustle. Um, the past several years as a coach, I've bounced between like $40K and $60K and I've never gotten up to $100K and I really want this to be the year of the $100K side hustle for me. So I know what my numbers are and what I need to hit and I think there's some other revenue streams I would, I need to introduce this year to be able to hit that as well outside of one-on-one coaching just because one-on-one coaching equals time for money, which I love.

Yeah.

And I love one-on-one services and I love the ability to go so deep with my clients and It's not as scalable and it's hard to— I don't know. There are several coaches I know that do $100K off of one-on-one work, but it's their full-time job. And I'm like, I just don't have the hours in the day for that. And also to be able to enjoy my life as well.

Yes.

I don't want the goal to be in pursuit of something that doesn't really support the longevity of my business either. So Absolutely. I hope there's this being transparent.

Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for asking that because it's definitely something that it helps to know those numbers. It helps to also hear like, okay, where are you coming from and where you've been? And for everyone to hear our thought process too, like, hey, I've been stuck at this, or what's actually feasible for me, or actually this isn't scalable. So let's look at other options. We've gone through this and we go through it every year whenever we're reevaluating. Another thing that I evaluate every year and that I would recommend if you want to make more money in your business is evaluating the true value of not just your time, but how much time it takes for you to deliver your product or your service. Because that can also— you might be feeling like, oh my gosh, I'm working a million hours and I Can't like make that revenue goal that I have. And so yes, if I add services, I would make more money, but I literally have no more time. So this is where we take a step back and we say, okay, for example, I'm a photographer. As a photographer, if I have, if I'm doing a session, I will have time of the consult call. Then I'll have another hour of, or like half an hour of a planning session with a client and a call. Then I'll do their mood board and like really creatively plan all of that. So that's about another half hour to an hour. Maybe I have to drive to their session round trip, 3 hours. So that's 3, 4, 5, 6 hours already. Shoot about an hour or 2, we're looking at 8. And then when I come back, then, you know, sneak peeks usually takes me about 1 to 2 hours. So we're up to 10. And then, um, I have to finalize all of their editing and that usually takes me about 2 to 4 hours. So we're up to 14 hours, but our brain, because we're charging 1 hour, we say, oh, okay, I charge $700 per hour per session. Like, oh, that's too high. Like, let me just charge $200 or $300. But if I really look at my time and it's that $300 divided into 14 hours, I don't even know what that is, but it's not something that I would be okay with making. Hold on, let me do the math. Do the math.

$21.42 an hour.

Yeah.

And that's a good wage, right?

But it's not what I want to make right now and it's not what I feel like my expertise is valued at right now. And so that is something that I've walked through a few different people that I've coached too of evaluate how much total time it actually takes you to serve the client. And I promise you, you will not feel guilty for charging the prices that you charge. And at the same time, then you're able to charge more. So you'll, you're going to get more time back because you're going to naturally take on less clients rather than charging a less amount for the same service, but taking on a ton more clients. So that's an easy way to expand your revenue and expand the time that it's going to take to expand your revenue.

Yeah. Let's talk about net profit.

You want to go first?

No, you go first. This is your zone of genius.

I wouldn't say it's my zone of genius, but— Sorry.

It's something that you're passionate about.

I am passionate about it. I'm still learning a lot on it. Yeah. I think net profit, it does not feel and look glamorous, but again, it's a part of owning a business. And the main thing is being able to grab all of your sales. And then take out how, like, all of your expenses and like, that's your actual net profit. And so that includes paying yourself, gas, subscriptions, outsourcing, client gifting, all of that good stuff, like your accountant, all of that, and then getting that net profit. And so if you're reevaluating your pricing and being able to increase that net profit, then that's where we really need to evaluate. Subscriptions. And okay, I'm going to be very transparent because a year ago I was in a pickle in my finances with my business because I was overwhelmed with editing. I stopped catching up on my finances. And then come January, I wasn't getting as many bookings as I normally did. And I was like, okay, the cash flow's like leaving. Like what happened here? So I evaluated my my expenses and I pulled up all of my credit card transactions and I realized I had a session in LA, which my client paid for and they paid for my flight and they paid for my hotel. But I had so many expenses with Ubering around. I had some— the food was way more expensive there as well. We went to some really nice restaurants with the clients and I treated them to that too. And so it's the associated cost. with taking some of those travel sessions that unless it's going to fully benefit the business with more marketing or it's direct, like a couple that I'm actually shooting their wedding, it's actually not worth it even if they're paying those things because it's eating my cost or eating my profit. And so analyze like, where are some of those things that your profit is going to and it's being extra expenses? Subscriptions, maybe you have like a ton of them in your business and you're like, this is going to help. And it's, you know, we get marketed so many things that it's like, this is the solution and it's going to ease everything. And here's all the social media apps. Like, no, are you actually using them? And if you're not, cancel them. And so just, just take a look at them. And I promise you, the hardest is the first time that you sit down and evaluate it all afterwards, the maintenance. It's like, okay, you're not avoiding it anymore. You know what your numbers are. And it's easier to look at one month's worth of expenses and be like, okay, this is what I want to tweak rather than like 6 months or a year. And you're like, oh shoot. Yeah.

I mean, being able to have a spreadsheet going through your, your revenue and your expenses every single month is massive. I started doing that in 2022. So I didn't, I started my LLC in 2020. And the first 2 years was like Wild West. I was like, I don't really know. And I also had a lot of financial avoidance as well. Like I was kind of scared to know how much I made. I was scared to know how much I was spending. And yeah, I think that's a common thing sometimes. You're like, I'm just really passionate about what I'm doing, but it's like, how much money are we making though? Like, and is this worth our time? And how much money are we spending too?

Yeah.

And so I love, I love your focus on this. I think it's massive. And I really think the more that we can get comfortable, especially as women, knowing, knowing our finances like the back of our hand, being comfortable talking about it, you know, at least with our accountant or with your friends. Like I, Ashton and I talk a lot about money. We talk a lot about, you know, what we're spending, different things that are happening with money. And I think just being able to have friendships where you can discuss those things, it's inspiring, it's motivating. It's like, okay, wow. All right. Like I'm going to increase my pricing or you know what, after this I'm going to go home and I need to assess like, what are my recurring subscriptions? And I don't know about you, but I've definitely paid for subscriptions long after I should have been using them. Like, oh, I don't use this anymore. And I've been paying this for 8 months.

Oh my gosh.

Like, and so when we don't have that visibility, we end up making, um, unfortunate decisions, but it's like, we're not even actively making the decision. It's just so passive that we just forget that it's there.

Yeah.

Yeah. So you talk about—

One more thing on that real quick is just a little tidbit of a nice reminder to not compare yourself to somebody else's business because amount of sales that they might have is not actually net profit. So if you are making $50K, $40K this year, but then you only spent $10K and you were able to keep that $30K, that is Amazing. And sometimes there's people making $200K in their business and then they're spending $230K on it and they're in debt and they're outsourcing everything and hiring a million people. And it looks glamorous and it looks fun, but the net profit isn't there. So do not compare yourselves.

Yeah, girl. I've seen behind the scenes of a lot of different launches in my day and it's like, oh, we did a half a million dollar launch. We did a million dollar launch. Okay, well, if you did a half million dollar launch, you spent 300K on ads, and then you hired a team of contractors to help you with the launch. That was 120K, and then you have all these other expenses with your tech and all that, and you made $30,000. Which hey, making $30,000 is amazing, but your revenue said we did a half million dollar launch, but your net profit was 30K, and you're like hmm, the math ain't math in here. Well, it is, but not necessarily in your favor. So. So just be mindful of that. And I do think that it's important to spend money to make money. I'm not saying don't invest in your business, don't invest in ads, but I do think it's important to look at your bottom line.

Absolutely. Next up, what we'll chat through is being able to charge more, which we've already talked about here of like, okay, we've set a goal, we freed up your time. And we know our net profit. So now how do we charge more for the service? And so some great things are investing in higher quality training. So I have invested in some really great photographers that are featured in Vogue and like, I really admire their work and the way they run their business. And it's really been a game changer, especially this past year to do that. I also invested in someone that trained me on how they run their team. Whenever I was learning like how to do that with my own team. So another thing is like higher-end gear. So for me, um, you know, having high-end gear of, uh, like actual photography lenses and all of that is important. Maybe in your business it's your materials. Like, are you offering a luxury tablescape or mugs? Like, how can you differentiate yourself that people really are willing to pay for quality? And on that note—

Oh, you go.

Go for it.

I was going to say—

Just going to play with our little fingers.

On that note, if you do any kind of online work, online coaching, online content, anything like that, please upgrade your camera. I'm going to say this in the most gentle way possible. The people that get on with their Zoom camera or a really bad webcam, it's like the authority that you take away by not Having the right tools, it really is there. So like if you can get a mic for $60, $100, whatever you can invest in, get an external camera. I use one that's $300. Some people use some that are $5,000. Mine's the Opal C1. I plug it into my USB-C into my laptop. It travels with me. I go with it everywhere I go. But every single call that someone has with me, crisp video, crisp audio. And I'm not saying that about me. I just upgraded my tech this past year, you guys. So I'm not like, upgrade your tech, but where you can invest in upgrading the experience that someone has with you, it really does go into the price that you can also charge as well because the experience is elevated.

Oh my God. Yes. I am so happy you brought that on or brought that up because Experience with your clients is everything with being able to charge more. Like, we love to travel and we will sometimes pay more because we're like, okay, we know that hotel is going to be clean. It's going to have a great aesthetic. We want to take photos. We're going to do all that stuff. Like, we are willing to pay more. I am willing to pay more for my peace of mind that I don't have to worry about bedbugs or anything like that than save the money. And so whenever it comes to your business and your clients, If you're trying to appeal to higher-end clientele, which will pay more, then you have to offer that high-end experience. So simple things that will add to it, like the camera and having tools, as well as just professionalism, like being able to have great communication. How's your branding? Like all your contracts, like all of it, making it a seamless experience that feels high-end, uh, will also help you and allow you to charge more because people will refer you to their than high network of friends. A few other things too is add-ons. So if you can offer quick turnaround times, like maybe you do audits on businesses and their workflows, well, instead of it being a 2-week turnaround on your audit, hey, I can get it to you in 48 hours if you really want to like lock in on your goals and your system workflows, quicker turnaround time. Or maybe it's all-inclusive. Like I now offer my top package is a destination wedding weekend where it's all inclusive. We'll do rehearsal dinner the day of and then the brunch the day afterwards. And there's no time cap. So if you just want me there, just like, you don't have to worry about it. And it's like basically capturing all the main events. I'm there for you and it's going to cost you.

Yeah.

And so, but you never know who's going to be willing to like buy those higher end packages until you put it on there. And that's another tip too, is always have just a wild offer that you're willing to offer at that price because you'll surprise yourself when people do it and you're like, oh, okay, people are actually willing to pay for that. And so the last thing that I'll say under that section is upselling yourself from one-time clients to maybe quarterly or yearly. How can you have more retained clients? And so in my case, I am primarily a wedding photographer and hopefully they're getting married just once, but I also do a lot of branding shoots. And so now I have a lot of yearly contracts with different businesses where now they don't have to think about, oh my God, yeah, we got to get new content next quarter or this month. Who do we hire? Well, we liked Astra. We also like this other one. I lock them in from the beginning when they reach out in January and I say, hey, I also offer This yearly thing, here's a discount that you could get, and we pick their dates and then it's done.

So yeah, I like that too, because then the client is only making one decision. They're hiring you for the year versus they need quarterly photos, they need biannual photos. Oh, who are we going to get next time? Oh, this is actually locking— you're doing it as a service because you're— they're locking you in for a longer time, but they only have to make the decision once. Which then also locks in the payment once in a way. So they're not thinking about that either versus if they want to rehire you again and again and again, it's another contract negotiation. It's another price negotiation versus locking that in from the beginning. Okay. Now we're going to switch over to specific tactical ways that you can make income by selling your expertise. So a few things that obviously I'm a coach, I've been coaching for 5 years now. So coaching, executive coaching, life coaching, nutrition coaching, business coaching. You can put pretty much any word and put coaching in the back of it. Um, but I do recommend getting a certification if you can actually take a coaching program. If you can, there's a lot of amazing ones out there. Read reviews, vet them. But if you are passionate about a specific topic and you want to help other people with that, I think coaching is one of the most rewarding, transformative, vehicles that you get to go on with someone. It's truly life-changing as a coach, and it's also life-changing as a client, as well as consulting. So I know Ashard has a lot of experience with this. I have experience with this as well. But what I like about consulting is you are not necessarily doing— actually, there's 2 different types of consulting. There's true consulting, which is you are telling the client what they should do. And then there's implementation consulting, which is borderline agency services, but I've done a little mix of both. And with consulting, you can productize your services. So I am going to help you not hourly. And I actually just helped a client move away from hourly. She was charging hourly and I was like, ooh, okay, how many, similar to you, how many hours are you spending on this? And then we actually built out a, a, uh, product package per, you know, tier that she wanted to offer. She's like, oh my gosh, I'm going to make so much more money this way. I was like, yeah, absolutely. So can you productize your services, um, and look at yourself more as a package of like, I offer ABC, or if you want this package, I offer, you know, XYZ and have different tiers of those packages as well. But highly recommend not charging per hour. I think it's just a slippery slope. And I also, I almost like take people, the authority of having like packages is just like, okay, this person knows their shit. Like I'm, I'm in versus if they're charging me hourly, I'm like, are you an accountant? Like, I don't, I'm, I'm, I don't know. It's just like more rare to see that, I guess, in this space.

Yeah. Well, and one thing on that too is. The more that you become an expert in your field, it doesn't seem fair to pay 1 hour in exchange for your 5 years, 10 years of expertise and the amount of time you've taken to put into it. Which is why I love the consulting aspect where you're like, okay, you want my ideas and my creativity? Cool. You can book, like, let's have a session and you're going to walk away with all of my ideas, but it's going to cost you X. And it's not a 1-hour value. It's valued at all the years I've spent developing this skill.

100%. Such a great point. Um, a few others are selling templates or tools that you use in your business. So if you have people asking you, how do you do this? Like, Astrid, how do you manage your finances? Alexis, how do you manage your, your habits and your goals? Like, what are you using? I want the tool that you use. You can sell that. You can templatize it, you can sell it, you could give it away as a freebie to grow your email list. Also online courses, memberships, cohorts. This is the world that I live in every single day. Um, online courses are, I would say, one of the easiest ways to scale and like be able to make a lot of money without necessarily needing to be on. Like you are not, you know, sitting down at your, your computer every single day. Talking to these individuals, you can truly make online course sales while you're sleeping. And you also need an appropriate marketing funnel to support that online course. I think the biggest scam in this space is like, if you build an online course, you're going to be rich. Well, yeah, I think that there's great money in online courses. And at the same time, you need to have a marketing funnel and an audience to be able to support that. And I'm really bullish right now on community, obviously working at Circle, but memberships and cohorts are amazing. Memberships are ongoing. People are paying for access to your community or your membership month over month, quarter over quarter, or annual subscriptions. And then cohorts are really, really popular, especially over the last couple of years. If you are someone that likes to be all in for a short period of time and then rest, I think launching a cohort, a 5-week program, an 8-week program, you take people through a very specific step-by-step program. And then once it's done, you have this amazing alumni group. Everyone's getting results, but then you can step away for a little bit until you want to run the next cohort. Big fan of this. Also, a couple of ideas is if you have an audience already, there's a really unique If you guys are familiar with a man named Sahil Bloom, he is an author. He's an he is a content creator. He also has an amazing newsletter as well. But he had built this insane like he built a newsletter of over 700,000 in less than two years and started writing on Twitter in 2021, grew his Twitter following to multiple millions, and so he has an audience. And people were like, "Ooh, how do you? How do you run your newsletter? How'd you grow your newsletter? I want to learn." So what he did is he partnered with a guy named Nathan Berry, who founded Kit, and they started an agency called Paperboy. And what Sahil does is he funnels leads to the agency, and then the agency helps fulfill and help people with their newsletters, grow their newsletters, manage their newsletters. Manage the sponsorships of their newsletters, but Sawhill is the lead engine. And so if you have an audience and there's a business out there that you feel passionate about, that you could either co-start and co-run an agency and you get rev-share model, or you get rev-share from all the leads that you send to that business. That is a very profitable way to one, build a long-term relationship with a company that you don't have to run. And also you get to Um, show more value and give more value to your audience by, um, putting vetted products and vetted companies from you in, in front of them as an option. Um, and then obviously we could have a, we should have a whole episode on brand partnerships because that's my whole job. Um, but obviously like if you have an audience of any kind, sponsorships, working with brands, pitching brands, we could have an episode honestly on pitching. As well. That's really fun. And then events. So can you charge for webinars, in-person events, any, like any kind of ticketed experience that you could bring together? Um, yeah, I just ran through a lot of those very quickly, but those are some fun ways to make more money in your business. Yes.

And also like messages. If you have like a specific request, you're like, hey, this is my business. I run a social media agency. I, create mugs, whatever it is, and you're like, I need help.

You're really on the mugs. That's the third time you've brought up mugs.

I saw these really cute mugs before we jumped on here. This girl, this girl, okay, pause for a second. This girl, like, if you were to write a handwritten note, she like will put them on mugs or will put them in little cute, um, plates, like ceramic plates. And then it's like in the actual handwriting of the person that wrote it for you. And so anyway, it's top of mind because I saw it, right?

Like, you know, have a mug company. I'm like, what's What's going on with the mugs?

You're like, I don't want to own a mug company right now.

No, I'm dead. Keep going.

But I forgot what I was saying. I don't even know.

Oh, message us if you have a specific business, a specific business example that you want our input on, how to grow it, how to monetize it, how to blow it up. Let us know. We're still going to have our Ask A&A episodes. So we would love to give you advice on all the things.

Absolutely. And last thing I'll say is if you're feeling bored, um, I've recently been experimenting a lot more with AI, ChatGPT, all that good stuff. And as I was creating my new year goals, I went in and asked ChatGPT and I was like, hey, act as a business expert. Um, I am a wedding photographer. I make this much. What do I need to do and offer to make $500,000? a year? And it spit out, and I said, and put it in a 6-month plan, and it just spit out a whole thing. And so just a reminder that AI exists and you can tap into that expertise anytime that you want, and you can switch around those different prompts to be able to get new ideas. You don't have to spend a million hours on the internet trying to get those ideas either. So yeah, hopefully this episode has benefited you, has Spark some new ideas of what you can offer and how you can make more money this year. And, um, I'm just stoked because I love that we're supporting women in business and we're doing it by being transparent with our own experiences and growing our businesses. And now we get to cheer you on. So if you benefited from this episode and you had some great takeaways, we would absolutely love to hear from you. Um, please tag us or message us on Instagram @inbetween.pod. Or you can message me @astrajohannaphoto.

Or you can message me @alexistechmiller. And this is the last episode that's coming out before we kick off our mastermind. So if you are curious about the mastermind, the link is in the show notes to this episode. On the landing page, we'll have all the details of what's included. It's a 6-month mastermind with an in-person retreat aspect to it as well. One-on-one coaching with us, group calls with the mastermind. So all the details for that are in the link in our show notes. We love you so much. We know that there's loads of podcasts out there. Thank you for listening to this one. We appreciate you so much and we'll see you next week.