572 - Why most women in business aren’t earning good money

Welcome to the Next Level Life podcast with Christine Corcoran. This podcast is made for the powerhouse business women who are ready to ignite their fullest potential. This is where we will dive deep into the mindset breakthroughs and sprinkle in some kick up the butt motivation so you can scale your business with confidence and clarity. Whether you're craving more income, impact or inspiration, this podcast will be your ultimate resource for all things Next level. Listen in as we have authentic conversations with game changing female entrepreneurs as we reveal the secrets of what it takes to rise and thrive. So go ahead, ignite your inner fire and let's get you taking massive aligned action. Are you ready to elevate? Let's go. Welcome back to the podcast. Today I want to talk to you about why most women in business aren't earning good money. And I want to do it in a way that actually inspires and motivates you. Because I want you to know that there is definitely more money to be made and that by working on yourself and working on the certain responses or behaviors within your business supports the growth of your business. But the first things first is you've got to believe that making more money is absolutely possible. We can get caught up in so many stories around our worth, or around what we believe we deserve, or stories around our family and friends, or if we hold onto stories around what we've only been able to earn in the past, then we will absolutely cap ourselves of what we're capable of. And I want you to know that it's absolutely possible. There are so many people making great money within their business and there was a lot of women in business not making good money, struggling to get by, going month to month, really not being able to survive in business long term because they haven't really got the behind the scenes in their business done right. And so you might have gotten into business because you love what you do, you're passionate about what you do. Maybe you want to make an impact. Maybe you just want to have the flexibility to be able to have your own business and do what you want to do on your terms, run your own schedule. Or maybe you want to have a freedom based business where you're living a bigger life and allow that money will give you the freedom to be able to have those extra choices and options. Whatever it is for you, you do not have to justify, for one, you do not have to justify why you want to earn more money. But I want you to know that it is definitely worthwhile considering the behind the scenes of the business and the way that you structure your business to support the lifestyle that you really want to live, your business is a beautiful expression of yourself out into the world. And it gets to be a profitable, sustainable business where you can continue to do what you love, but it actually earns you good money. And I want you to earn good money. And it's so interesting cause I was following this person online a little while ago and she started talking about how she hated how coaches were talking about hitting 10k months. And I was like following along, just kind of like checking out, seeing what it is that she said. Because I was like, I used to be triggered by that. I used to be triggered by people and coaches talking about how much money they were making. But when I really think about it, and the reason why I've started using the 10k months within some of my messaging is because the 10k months should be the minimum. I honestly believe this. Once you remove tax, once you remove all of your expenses, you're not left with much under 10k a month. And that means that sometimes it's better to go get a job, you're probably going to have more money left over. So you should want to be earning 10k months in order for you to continue to thrive in business. So 10k months really should be the minimum, the bare minimum. And then wanting to go above and beyond that is awesome. And if you want that, that's amazing, right? So I got to 10k months, created consistent 10k months within my business. It felt pretty good. But again, it wasn't excess money. It wasn't like I was making heaps of money. And even though it sounds like a lot, by the time you take out tax and by the time you take out gst, by the time you take out all the expenses for you to continue to run your business, there really wasn't a lot left over for me to continue to thrive. So I was like, okay, I'm going to work on 15k months. I started working on 15k months, started hitting 15k and then started hitting 20k months. And once I hit 20k months, that I was like, this is good. Now I feel like I've got excess cash, I've got money to utilize in different ways that I want to utilize it. I can use it to travel, I can use it to invest back into my business, invest back into myself. And that's when it started to feel really good. And then it became the norm. And then I was like, amazing. So now I can go to 25k and I've been hitting 25k. And now I want to work towards 30k and 50k months and 100k launches. But if the money conversation triggers you right from the get go, that's your first place to start. Because if it is triggering you like that one, you want to unpack why that is. Is it because you don't believe it's possible for you? Because it absolutely freaking is. I don't care what your brain tells you, I don't care what your mom tells you, I don't care what anyone else in the world tells you. It is absolutely possible for you, but you've got to want it first. And the first step first is we need to start looking at your business model because we need to make sure that it's actually doable. Majority of the time, when I have clients come into my masterminds, into my programs and we look at this, sometimes it's not even doable based on what they're, what they're actually putting out into the world as their offers. And so we need to make sure that the business model is a sustainable business model, that it's actually doable to hit 10k months in the time that you have available to spend in your business. Now, sometimes we get caught up in the one to one services and so hitting 10k months by doing one to one services can be a little bit challenging depending on what it is that you do. So we need to look at that first. Once we've built out an offer suite that allows you to be able to hit 10k months, then we've got to obviously find the clients in order to buy those services and get it out there into the world. But some of the things that prevent a lot of women in business from earning good 10k months or good money in their business is because they're either fearful of the money, they're fearful of their ability to manage that money, or handle that amount of money in their business. So that's why we always start with the mindset piece first. We've really got to explore all the money stories, all the things that are preventing you from believing that you are worthy of receiving that amount of money, that you have the ability to manage it. And that may come with some education. So you may need to explore some education with regards to money, so then you feel much more competent in the space in order to manage your money more effectively. Okay. The next reason why I see some people not earn good money in their business is because they're focusing on the wrong things. They can get so caught up behind the scenes, doing all the bits and pieces, making everything look pretty, getting everything perfect. And they're not doing the sales activities in order to generate the results. So you have the capability and the possibility of earning good money if you prioritize business growth activities. So what I mean by that is sales activities, being visible, making offers, having conversations that lead to sales, offering your services, communicating and connecting your value with the needs of your customers, and doing the money generating activities that you need in order to continue to make money in your business. Whereas so often we can just get caught up in doing all the busy stuff instead of actually prioritizing the consistency of those habits. That's where the money is. It's the consistency of the habits that are going to generate the results. You need to be doing money generating and growth focused business activities in order for you to continue to thrive. The other thing can be sometimes investing in the wrong things. So sometimes they start out by investing in getting the website perfect, or getting their copywriting perfect, or some of the things that really just don't generate sales results from the get go. And so I'm a big believer of like get your offer right first. Your offer has to be great and it has to be something that you a hundred percent believe in, and it has to be something that you feel confident in being able to sell. Then it's about learning sales skills, like getting out there and actually selling more consistently, making sure that that offer lands with people. So the more you sell it, the more you'll get more competent and selling it. And then you'll have more people going through the program that you offer or the service that you deliver, and you'll have more testimonials, more social proof in order to improve how you sell it. So getting the offer right and then going straight to sales is really, really key. The next one is that I see women in business really undervaluing themselves and that causes them to undercharge and they get stuck in this cycle of just consistently undercharging and then they don't believe it's possible because they're really undervaluing themselves. They've really got to disconnect their self worth from their business and their offer because their offer is a separate entity on its own. And when we look at that offer like a completely separate thing, like your business delivers a service or your business solves a problem and your client receives that result, that outcome or solution of that problem, and that's valuable. So we want to almost take ourselves out of the equation altogether in order for us to See the viability of our business because when you're too stuck in your own head and your own emotions about it, you can often get caught up in making decisions for your business based on emotion instead of what the business actually needs. So sometimes I have to have like full tough love conversations with myself and be like, your business needs you to stop telling yourself you're so tired and going and doing these activities, right? Making sure that you're prioritizing your visibility, making sure that you're following up on those conversations, making sure that you're prioritizing the growth focused activities and getting that stuff done so that when you're ready to go to market with this new offer, it's ready. So it does take courage and it takes that tough love to really back yourself with the discipline within your business. So it's the same thing with your business financials, right? So if you're, if you're too scared to look at your numbers or you're a little bit like avoidant with your numbers, or you're complacent with them, then it can actually cause a lot of drama down the track. Whereas if you're across them, you, you are completely aware of what's happening, what's coming in, what's going out, putting aside your tax, putting aside your gst, you're not stressed about tax time anymore because you're across your numbers altogether. You're reconciling your zero, you're going through all the ins and outs of your business, knowing where your clients are coming from and you're converting clients. You've got a leads list. Like there is so much of the business behind the scenes stuff that people just don't do and they don't do it consistently, which then leads to a lack of money in their business. So you have an incredible skill that you deliver, right? You have something that you're really passionate about and you have a business. And for your business to thrive, it needs certain things to continue to happen consistently, right? Sometimes we need to look at it separately and go, what does the business need in order to thrive? And there are certain activities and I call money generating activity that need to be done on a consistent basis in order for that business to continue to thrive. And they're simple things, right? But we just don't do them consistently. And it's really getting clear. I'm like, like I need to be attracting leads and to be bringing leads into the business. I need to be nurturing them, I need to be converting them and then I need to be creating Advocates out of them so often we can get caught up in our emotions and just not take the action that needs to happen. And so what I like to do there is actually practice neutrality. Like there's certain things that I have to do in my business that even though I don't really want to, even though it's not fun, like I don't love sitting there and looking at all the data in my business. Like I remember going through a Facebook ads report with my OBM the other day and I'm like, oh my God, this hurts my brain. I don't love doing it. I was like, just tell me what's working and what's not working so we can fix it. And so even though it's something that I don't want to do, I'm still going to do it. So I don't actually indulge in any negative emotion around it. Like there's no point in me dramatizing that in my mind. Like I didn't spend hours beforehand stressing about it. I didn't think about, you know, I didn't get stuck in the whole like, oh my God, I really don't want to do this. Like I was like, we're going to do this and I'm going to put on my big girl pants. I'm going to do it. So sometimes we need to have that conversation with ourselves and other times it's actually having the support of a coach to be like, let's look at every part of your business to see what's working and what's not working. Because there is possibly a reason why you're not earning good money now. It could be the consistency of the behaviors that you're doing in your business. It could be that you're under charging. It could be that you have a lot of money stories and you're actually causing a lot of blockages for income and abundance to flow into your business. So we may need to look at that key piece. A lot of women have a lot of hang ups with money. It's just part of our conditioning. We've been taught that out that the men are the providers and that we shouldn't have to worry about it or think about it. And there's been conditioning around money stories from our parents. Like if your father was always the one that took care of the money, but maybe the money caused fights within the relationship. Maybe there's hesitation to actually look at money. Like there's so much, I'm not even going to dive into money mindset today because it's a whole other topic, but when it comes to why most women in business aren't earning good money, it's usually because of their fears or their belief systems around being able to earn good money. Being able to even go past the 75k bracket to earn GST, like sometimes like that comes up as a consistent block that I see where they're like so hesitant because they're like, once I hit 75k, then I'm going to have to start paying an extra 10% to the tax ban and I'm already not making much money in my business. And I'm like, yes, because you need to go beyond the 75k. Don't worry about the extra 10%, it's totally fine. You'll just add it on top of your invoices, you set it aside and it'll go to the tax man. But at least then you're not capping yourself of what you're able to earn and allow yourself to step into that next bracket. Like allow yourself to earn six figures in your business. You should be earning six figures at a minimum. Otherwise, really, when you look at it, by the time you set aside tax, you're pretty much taking taking home only 70k anyway. And the majority of everyday jobs these days are around 70k anyway. So you either work towards earning 6 figures and above or like, what's the point of being in business? Like, you've got to earn good money, otherwise it's not worth all the time, energy, effort and exhaustion and emotion that goes into building a business. So I want you to earn really good money. That's why I'm so passionate about it. That's why I want to teach sales. That's why I teach money mindset. That's why I support you in being able to overcome all the fears and doubts and everything so you can be successful in your business. So from this episode, what I would love for you to do is unpack why you believe you're not earning good money in your business. And I want you to look at the facts first. What are you doing in your business? And what sales generating activities and money generating activities are you doing and not doing in your business? I would start there because if you are not doing those consistently, you need to build that consistency into your business to start seeing the results so we have the data to be able to tell us what's working and what's not working. If you have any questions about anything that I've covered in today's session, please feel free to reach out. I love having these conversations. I'm always in my DMs, so please feel free to send me a DM and just be like, hey, Christine, listen to this episode. Really resonated with me. This is what I think is what's holding me back and let's have a chat about it. All right, lovely. Enjoy the rest of your day and I'll chat to you soon. Thank you for listening. And if you found any value out of this episode, make sure you hit the follow button so you get access to the episodes as soon as they are live. And make sure you come hang out with me on Instagram. You can find me at christinecorcorancoach. Have an incredible week.