Many entrepreneurs don’t value themselves enough. Is that you? Do you pay yourself what you are worth?
Once you recognize that you have to be in business to make money or you can’t keep serving your client, some of that money has to come to you. There is no glory in saying “I reinvest everything back into the business.” Reinvestment may be smart, to a degree, but you have to pay yourself or you cannot keep working. If you feel like you are getting the leftovers, I’ve got a treat for you!
Think about it, would you continue to work hard, even overtime, for someone else and not ask for a paycheck? No! So why would you expect your business to be any different than any other? Pay yourself!
TWEETABLE QUOTE (click to tweet) “Our business should give us financial freedom.”
Your business should be providing more than just dribs and drabs after all of its expenses have been paid. It should be giving you financial freedom. To do that, it is not enough to “take owner draw” after everything else has been paid. Your salary needs to be an intentional, documented line item in the company budget. Not an afterthought. Just like you include office rent as a line item in your budget, you need to create a line item for your pay; otherwise you may never get paid.
Don’t just give yourself lip service. It’s one thing to say that you will pay yourself; it is quite another to put $5,000 in your cash budget so you can make that direct deposit each month. Plan and do it.
Now, having said that, there may be occasions when your pay may have to be less (the team and your bills take first seat), but if you don’t have your salary planned for, it will always be less. You have to be comfortable with the hiccups of the business and plan to balance the heartbeat. Business is like a heartbeat. When it’s working, it’s going up, down, up, down, up, down. If your heartbeat is stagnant and there’s a flat line, it means you’re dead.
When you’re aware of the heartbeat of your business it’s not as stressful because you say, “Oh, I’m in the down, now I’m going to go up,” and hopefully, over time, the downs get less steep. There won’t be as big a dip. And then the upswing comes. Understanding that inside of building your business, you will have the up and down, you can plan for it.
My client Karen now understands this principle. She was working tirelessly around the clock in her company. Everything she worked for went back into the business. Working with me, she had increased her sales over 3000% and yet she still wasn’t happy.
I asked her, “Karen, what’s wrong?”
She said, “I have been working so hard for so long and I never get a paycheck.”
Now, I understand that feeling. I think we all have been there at some point.
So, we put a plan together to pay her $4,000 a month and put it in the budget so she could feel the value of all the hard work and accomplishment!
Staying in a place of complacency and resignation will affect sales and moral. By putting together a strategy to reward Karen for all of her hard work, she actually worked harder. Now the interesting thing is that all we did was reallocate the money that was already being spent on household needs, but by giving her a paycheck, she was able to measure her contribution.
What about you, are you paying yourself what you are worth? Is your salary a line item in your budget? If not, maybe we should talk! Comment below and let me know that you are worthy of a budgeted salary and you are ready to claim it.
I am Your Partner in Prosperity!
PS If your pay is currently an afterthought in your budget, make a change now. Add a line item with your monthly salary; you are so worth it!
Susie Carder is a dynamic speaker, best-selling author, and successful profit coach who helps top business leaders to create businesses that allow them to live their dreams and achieve financial abundance. Using her Predictable Success MethodTM, Susie helps entrepreneurs to develop the business systems that lead them to substantial revenue, profit growth, and investment opportunities. Strategize with Susie at SusieCarder.com.
