How you think and feel about money is far more important than how you earn it. That is why I spend most of my coaching time with my designer clients, working on correcting and developing good money mindsets, as I do on developing great business strategies. If you don’t think and feel like a successful, wealthy designer you will never get there.
Here’s the take-away… You need to think, feel and take actions like a successful, published and financially secure designer in order to help the people who are important to you, and achieve the lifestyle you want. You can’t be focused on change and growth when you are worried about your bank account.
To start you on a clear path, here are three simple money magnets that can help you develop a healthy money mindset.
Magnet #1 – I am responsible for my own success.
If you find yourself blaming other people for your circumstances, such as: “all I ever get are cheap clients, and nobody is spending any money,” you are not accepting responsibility for yourself. Worse yet, you are buying into the idea that you are powerless to change anything. Remember that we cannot always control our circumstances but we can control how we react to them. This concept is simple… Successful designers create their own lives and their own success. You only need to believe that you can step up and create your own.
Magnet #2 – I learn about making money from financially successful designers. If you are taking advice from friends and other designers who are struggling to make ends meet, chances are you will have the same problem. Many times I have had conversations with designers who tell me that they are earning a mere $85 per hour, and a 15% purchasing fee, because that is all their particular area will support. They assure me they have talked to all their designer friends about it, and they wouldn’t dare try to charge more. Funny… the designer that I am coaching in this same city is comfortably being paid fees based on $175 per hour and a 40% purchasing fee.
Magnet message… If you look to mentors who have proven experience on how to make and manage money in the design business, it is way more likely you will rise to their level.
Magnet #3 – Keep your bookkeeping in order.
It’s puzzling to me, but I know many designers who do not keep track of their income and expenses. Frankly, if you can’t take care of the money that you have earned, it is unlikely that the universe is going to bring you more. When you forget to track and bill your time, and leave all of your invoices and receipts in a big pile so you don’t know where you stand financially, you are running blind. Worse yet, when tax time comes around, sorting it all out becomes overwhelming.
Magnet message… When you have a simple system for organizing invoices and receipts on a weekly basis, the task is easy and manageable. There is something truly empowering in knowing how much money you have created. Once you start tracking your income, you’ll often find this income is way more than you are giving yourself credit for. Trust me… it really feels good!
I will be teaching these Money Magnets at
Designing for Dollars LIVE 2014, for two full days on April 3 and 4, 2014 at the Sheraton Four Seasons Hotel in Greensboro, NC
( just before High Point Spring Market)
More information here
Another Money Magnet I teach is developing the habit of talking about money comfortably and clearly with your family and your clients without having any emotional baggage attached. This concept may be harder to grasp than you think, as many of you may have come from families where money conversations were volatile and confrontational, so being a natural people pleaser, you just try to avoid the subject.
This habit carries over into our money conversations with our clients. Your request for a budget conversation tends to be so very brief that prospective clients often don’t give you the information you need to properly create the design project. This habit results in design presentations with unplanned client sticker shock and unpaid “do-overs” for you, which amounts to wasted time and effort.
It’s a fact… when a client says they don’t know what their budget is, you accept that answer because you don’t want to seem too pushy. And off you go, wasting your time guessing what you should for design for them.
The real truth?
You end up not knowing how to help a potential client come up with a reasonable budget that fits the job and their personal financial situation, so you just avoid it.
Another truth? A client with an “I don’t know my budget” answer is actually crying for help.
You can learn to solve this problem quickly and easily when you join me at:
Designing for Dollars LIVE 2014
Two full days on April 3 and 4, 2014, at the Sheraton Four Seasons Hotel in Greensboro, NC ( just before High Point Spring Market)
$397.00 Limited Time Special Price, save $400 |
