I’m all about the DIY and frugal approach to things. I sign up for freebies and free courses. I use google for a lot lot lot of things. I listen to podcasts and have a meditation app.

 

But at one point, you realize that you can only go so far alone (even with Siri by your side).

 

You can’t learn everything you need to know from google. At least not in this life time. You won’t bust through all my mindset blocks on your own. You’re not going to get super awesome at new things through pure osmosis from listening to podcasts.

 

If you want to go far and go fast, you need to invest in yourself. You need to invest in your business and your dreams.

 

 

Investing in your business can feel scary. Especially when you're not yet making a ton of money, spending money can put us on EDGE and feel like it's a bad idea.

 

But, when done right and strategically, investing in your business can SAVE you money, save you TIME, totally change your relationship with things you HATE in your business, and actually MAKE you money.

 

I have invested in my business at various stages throughout the years, and believe me - each time it was scary (I am frugal and DIY AF). I wanted to share my big investments and the impacts they had on my business.

 

#1 My first big investment was hiring an accountant to do my taxes.

I HATE doing taxes. They stress me tf out and make me hide in a netflix cocoon for days. Hiring an accountant not only freed me from SO MUCH stress, it also saved me WAY MORE MONEY than I invest in it. The ROI is just nuts.

 

#2 Quickbooks - now that I have it, I canNOT imagine life without it.

But committing to that $40+ a month was so scary to do! I had so much resistance to investing in it. And...my excel spreadsheets were kind of working fine...?? OMG QUICKBOOKS CHANGED EVERYTHING. I no longer hated bookkeeping. I actually DID my bookkeeping. It saves me a TON of time each year at tax time. AND I am now super on top of invoicing and paying my GST. QB has saved me time AND money.

 

#3 Advertising!

This one can be SO scary for businesses. Spending money to make money...we kind of believe it, but also the fear of spending money we feel we don't have really makes us not quite believe it. Advertising is one thing I have done since the beginning of my business and has been monumental to my success. From the start - before anyone knew whotf I was - I was selling out events because of my advertising. I can't say enough how essential this investment is to your business's bottom line.

 

Investing in yourself is the best investment you can make. You’re worth it. And your business goals are worth it. Go to that conference. Hire that coach. Sign up for that course.

If your biz is one that creates and sells products, you're going to have two types of business expenses to deal with.

 

Fixed costs are the ones that are always there - whether you sell a ton of products or sell none at all. These are costs like your internet, your equipment, your studio/office/store rental. Your fixed costs are important because you need to cover them month over month.

 

 

With product-based businesses, you also have another type of cost, which isn't as as simple to deal with. These are called variable costs. Your variable costs are those that vary depending on your production. They go up when production goes up and down when production goes down - they're the costs that are tied to creating and selling your actual products (materials, shipping, transaction charges, etc.). These can be a bit more complicated to deal with when setting your prices because, well, they're always changing!

 

To price your products, you need to know both your fixed costs (the expenses you have in your biz no matter how many products you are selling) and your variable costs for your products.

 

Your fixed costs will tell you the min $ you need to make per month to break even, which is the first part of your pricing formula. To cover these, you want to consider realistically how many items are you going to sell in a month and then divide your fixed costs by that. Any products you sell on top of those, that becomes profit (happy dance)!

 

And then your variable cost per item is the next part of your formula (since you want to cover costs of a product in the price as well).

 

Then sprinkle more on to turn that pretty profit.

This profit sprinkle can either be your time cost (the amount of time it takes you to make an item at the hourly rate you want to charge) or it can be a markup. A standard mark up is 50% (or a 100% increase on the costs).

 

A formula

product price = (fixed costs/number of products realistically sold in a month) + (variable costs - how much it costs to produce that item) + mark up or time cost

 

Let's look at an example:

fixed monthly costs = $250

cost to produce an item (materials and transaction fee) = $25

time it takes to produce the item = 3hour

hourly "rate" = $25/hour

realistic sales goal = 25 items/month

 

Pricing formula using time cost for profit:

($250/25)+$25+(3*$25) = ($10)+$25+($75) = $110

 

Pricing formula using 50% mark up for profit

(($250/25)+$25)*2 = ($10+$25)*2 = $70

 

 

Struggling with pricing your services?

 

You are SO not alone.

 

The thing is, pricing is a complex thing with many factors to consider. Especially when you're selling services - you might not know how much time a project might take or how to charge your client.

 

 

The best way to price service-based projects is with a project fee (NOT an hourly fee). After all, no one wants to pay hourly for things since they don't know how many hours something will or should take.

 

So, how do you set your Project Fee?

✨The easiest formula is number of hours * rate per hour. Based on the number of hours you expect the project to take, use that number multiplied by your rate.

✨Use a different hourly rate for different parts of the project (project management vs. strategy vs. revisions)

✨When setting your hourly rate, consider your level of experience and the market price. Take a look at what competitors in your area are charging and then adjust for level of experience. Also consider what is a minimum per hour you want to get paid.

 

My general rule is if I am learning something new and spending time looking at youtube tutorials, etc. I don't charge for that time. If I have to redo a bunch of stuff because in my learning it I didn't get it quite right - I don't charge for that time either. Or, if it's mostly active work but a lot of learning along the way then sometimes I'll charge half my rate.