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Over the 10 years I’ve been in business, I’ve had hundreds of conversations about the time creatives are spending into their business and the amount of revenue they’re generating. Your time is a valuable resources—you need to protect it. In today’s episode, I’m sharing how you can reclaim your time in your business by building a profitable design business in under 20 hours per week.
Time in Your Business
I don’t believe that the more time you spend in your business increases the amount of revenue you earn. Once I cracked the code on what this looks like in my business, I knew I had to share it with others to see what this could look like for you.
No mater what your goal is, you are in control of how much you’re working in your business. You’re also in control of what that goal is and today’s episode will help you meet that goal!
Important Stats in Women Owned Businesses
If one of your goals is to hit six figures in your business, let’s review a few stats so you can understand the accomplishment you’re striving for. When I crossed that 6 figure mark in business, I celebrated this huge accomplishment. Although I was excited, I honestly didn’t feel like it was all that unique as a business owner. I decided to do a little research into the numbers:
- Only 6% of women business owners ever hit this revenue bracket of $100-250k
- Only 12% of women business owners are generating in the level of $100k and above.
When you look at that, this means you’re hitting a huge goal as a six figure business. Let’s normalize women hitting these revenue goals without clocking 80+ hours a week at your desk.
I’m living proof of this. At the time of recording this episode, I’m clocking just 8 hours a week in my business with a small, but mighty team. I want more women to be able to experience this if it’s part of their journey and goals.
Finding Success in Your Business
There are so many goals you can set in your business, but the most important thing to consider is how you’re measuring those goals. Let’s walk through these steps:
- Know your goal. ex: Having a profitable design business without working more than 20 hours a week
- Know how you’re measuring success. ex: Hours per week to work and the revenue goals.
- Review those frequently to know what you’re hitting.
Now, think about what that goal is, because it doesn’t have to look like everyone else’s goal. You may not want to hit six figures or work less in the office. You may want to simply reduce your hours to spend with kids or family. Whatever your goal, find those measurable components and that’s how you’ll find success. It’s also crucial that you do not divide your focus on unnecessary actions.
Seek Out the Support You Need
If you want to get to a place where you’re able to hit your goals, you may need to seek out support. For me, in order to continue to run my business and still only work 8 hours per week, it means I’ve found support from the following:
- Having an assistant
- Having a community manager
- Having a podcast producer
- Support in home
- Personal support trough therapy
- Outsource grocery shopping
Look at your own resources and needs in your life and business. Support doesn’t mean hiring full-time help—it could start small and grow as you need it to. I see a lot of designers who think they can do it all themselves, but they really need someone, it keeps us stuck on hills of independence that doesn’t allow you to hit your goals.
When you get support, you can show up your best and the most.
Understand Which Actions Will Drive the Results You Need
You may be in a space in your business, where you don’t actually know where your next sale is coming from. You may have an idea of where your leads are coming from, but is the work you’re doing driving the sales you need?
Where I see people getting stuck is not having enough information to replicate results over and over again. We need to know the metrics you need to be tracking for the growth you want to see. Once you find the missing puzzle pieces, it’ll make your results much easier to track and continue to replicate time and time again.
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Review the Transcript:
Hi friend, and welcome to the brand strategy podcast. A show created to equip you with the inspiration, encouragement, and clarity. You need to build a brand of your dreams. I’m your host, Bonnie Bahktiari, brand designer, and founder of the Illume retreat from sustainable strategy to heartfelt encouragement. Each episode is designed to equip you with the tools you need to chase after your dreams, because you deserve a brand that empowers you to do what you love, connects with your dream clients and offers a deep sense of fulfillment along the way. So grab a cup of coffee and join the on this journey. Won’t you?
Hey friends, welcome back to the brand strategy podcast. Where today we are talking about building a wildly profitable design business and under 20 hours a week, I’m really excited to be sharing this topic with y’all because over the 10 years that I business I have had, I mean, I can’t even count on how many conversations I’ve had with entrepreneurs and small business owners all over the world about this balance of the time spent working in your business and the amount of profit that you are able to generate. And I know that for so many of y’all who are tuning in it to today’s episode and have been followers of the podcast, your lives are so unique. And so you’re, you’re too muted. And it could be that you listen to this on your break from your nine to five or on your commute, into your office job.
It could be that you tune into this during nap time, while you’re little one are finally finally giving you a break or after you’ve put them to bed, or maybe you have this on in the background, as you’re sitting at your desk, trying to grow your own new design business and whatever your life looks like. I know that your time is such an incredibly a resource. And if you’ve been a long time listener to the brand strategy podcast, then you know, this is something I’ve actually talked about quite a bit, where I am very protective of people’s time, because I know how valuable it is. And that’s something that I, I want for everyone to feel the freedom to claim their time, their energy and their creativity. And I believe that your business can be a part of that process of reclaiming. It doesn’t have to be something that robs you of your time, your energy or your creativity, but that could be a whole episode in and of itself.
But so before I go on a tangent today, we’re talking about the building a profitable design business in 20 hours or less a week. And the reason why I wanted to talk about this is because when I brought up this topic inside the brand strategy school, Facebook community, which is our private community for my signature program for graphic brand and web designers, I was hearing over and over again that so many people want to be making six figures. But right now on the, the current trajectory that they’re on, it’s taking them like a traditional 40 hour work week, or it’s taking them more or no matter how much time they spend working on their business, they still haven’t hit that, that milestone. And when I look back on the decade of entrepreneurship that I’ve experienced, I am truly amazed to see where my business is now versus where it was when I first started.
And when I first started. And if you tuned into episode, I think it’s two 18. I, I talked about kind of this journey that I went through being a struggling freelance designer to now having this successful and sought after design business. And I have experienced all kinds of trial and error, all kinds of seasons of work and life. And absolutely there have been times where I was, was like, you know, just hustling, like crazy in my business. And I was spending so much time, like changed to my desk. And I was spending all this energy trying to move the needle forward. But my, the revenue that I was generating, the income that I was creating, wasn’t reflective of the amount of time that I was spending on my business. And this is something that I could talk about all day long. I do not believe that you have to spend more time in your business in order to generate more income.
And once I kind of cracked the code on that and what that looks like for me and my business and how I define success, then I was able to really sky my, my business’s growth. And that’s when I started to see this traction. And that’s when I was able to quickly within, I mean, I’d say within the second year, uh, that I was in business, my second full year of business, I was hitting that six figure mark. And so this was something that like, once I figured it out, it, I really started to see traction with it. And so after 10 years in business, I wanted to start to kind of peel back the curtain on what worked for me, so that other designers, just like you are able to pursue that if that is something that, that aligns, if that is something that feels like you want to pursue it.
And I say that because I know there’s a ton of buzz in the online business owner community about making six figures, about 10 K months about, you know, once you hit that, then it’s how to hit seven figures. And then it’s eight figures. And it just, you know, it, there’s, there’s a lot of that pressure that’s put on us and there’s nothing wrong with that. Um, want us to be able to normalize women, making like wild, like super, super audacious amounts of money if they want, and if that serves them. But on the flip side of that, if you do not feel the pull to make six figures, or you do not feel the pull to make seven figures, that is also okay, that’s actually a really beautiful thing. One is no more worthy or more desirable than the other, no matter how much the industry tells us the opposite.
So I wanna encourage you that if you’re tuning in today and just curious about how to build a profitable design business and under 20 hours a week, we’re gonna cover some great stuff. And if you’re tuning in and you’re like, you know what, hitting six figures, that’s the goal? Well, you’re definitely in the right place too. Now, all that being said, I wanna get a little nerdy for a second and just share some facts, some stats, if you will. So when I crossed over that six figure mark in my business, I like, I, you know, maybe, maybe you kind of gathered from what I was just sharing. I felt like that was, for me, that was a big deal. That was something that I was very grateful for. And I celebrated it like crazy Z, but it wasn’t something that I felt like was particularly special or unique in the sense of, I knew I wasn’t the only business to have hit six figures.
And I knew that I, I wouldn’t be the only business to do this. I kind of felt like I like crossed over this, like imaginary, like, you know, milestone into the six figure business owner club. And I was really, really excited about that. But when I actually started to do some research and kind of dig into this more, I actually learned that only 6%. And this is according to the us department of labor and statistics, I believe, um, that only 6% of women business owners ever hit this revenue level. So only 6% of women business owners hit that like a hundred thousand to like $250,000 a year. Like, you know, kind of the, that’s the bracket that you’re in. If you have just crossed over into the six figure business owner, mark 6% of all of the businesses owned by women in the United States. Then when we look at how many women business owners are generating a hundred K, so $100,000 in revenue or more onward of a million plus dollars, only 12% of, of businesses ever hit that.
Mark only 12% of women business owners are generating $100,000 in revenue or more. And so when I hear that, when I look at those stats, that’s a really big deal. That’s amazing. That’s something that, right. Like if you’ve hit that, you’re a part of this, this very small group of the entrepreneurial community. And so just by cracking, just by like, you know, tiptoeing over into that $100,000 mark, you have you’ve beat the odds. That’s, that’s incredible. But also when I look at that and I kind of, I dig a little deeper into those numbers and I look at, okay, so 6% of women business owners are making a hundred thousand to $250,000. And only 12% of women business owners are making over a hundred thousand dollars out of how many millions and millions and millions of women owned businesses that are out there, right? Like that is, that is not enough.
And to be fair, these stats based on the way that the pandemic impacted, uh, the, the small business community in the small business industry here in the us, there was this amazing surge and increase in new businesses, registered and new trademark applications. And, you know, all these people going out and going after it. So I realize that these stats do not include that kind of data, but I do think that it’s really important to, to just and of take note of that and say, if you are someone who wants to be hitting that six figure, mark, there’s absolutely room for you. Like, I absolutely believe that as the entrepre community, as the online business owner industry, as you know, like creatives, we can absolutely hit that goal. If we want to, if we, if we think about how only 12% of women business owners are making that, I think there that’s a massive amount of room for growth.
And so what I wanna do personally, is I wanna normalize women making however much money they wanna make. And I wanna normalize people, define the odds and breaking into those brackets, into those tax brackets, into those, those revenue levels that they didn’t think were possible previously. And I’m living proof that you can do that without clocking like 80 plus hours a week at your desk. Actually at time of recording. When I look at my hours, I still, to this day, I track my time. I wanna know, like every second that I’m sitting at my computer, I wanna know what I was spending my time on so that I can constantly constantly review and refine where my energy is going and where my time is going. And so I was looking at, and I used toggle for this, and I was looking at my toggle report and I’m in a season where I am working.
I am, I’m clocking about eight hours a week in my business. And I will say full disclosure, I do have a small, but might V team. Everyone is like part-time. And so I do have support. And that’s what enables me to be working eight hours or sometimes less in my business. But I know that for me, for where I’m at, I had to work really hard to get to that point. But knowing what I know now, knowing what it took to get me to this point, I want for more women to be able to experience that in a way that serves them well. So how do you go about doing this? And I, although I said that I do have a small bit mighty team helping me. You’re your homework after this is not to go out and like hire, hire a VA or, you know, like bring on a full-time assistant or anything like that.
Your, your homework is not to go do that. Your homework is to, to get still, to get, to go inward, to focus on what it is that you want, why you onto it, and what actions will support you on that journey. So, like I said earlier, you do not need to pursue making six figures in your business. But if you do, you can absolutely do that in 20 hours a week or less. So with that being said, it’s possible to have a business that is profitable without having to clock dozens and dozens and dozens of hours at your desk. And you could be coming from a place where you’re still at your nine to five. And so you do not have another 40 hour work week because you’re basically working one already for someone else. It could be that you are a parent. And so you’re growing your business in between all these little moments that, that you have to, to kind of steal for yourself when you’re not fully present or able to be present with your kiddos.
And I think it’s really important for us to also think about the people who simply want to have more time. You want to try, you want to be present with your family. You want to go out and start a family. You want to have the experiences, life, experiences that you want. And for not every person, I think it’s time for us to normalize that for not every person. Uh, that looks the same. And so if you, and I’ll say those, there’s some, there’s some folks who like the idea of working 20 hours a week or less is like horrifying because they genuinely love the work that they do. And they don’t want to be away from their businesses. And that’s okay. Like, I mean, anything that I share on the podcast, it’s not a one size fits all kind of experience. We all different. And so many different things serve us better.
And so you get to choose what that looks like. And so I, if you’re someone who you like the idea of, of having a really full and really robust work week, uh, amazing what we’re talking about today can still help you. But if you’re like me and you want to be able to reclaim your time so that you can spend your time elsewhere outside of your business and still have the peace of mind and the assurance that your business is still running behind the scenes, the heavy lifting is still happening. The money is still coming in. Your clients, your customers are still getting a great experience, even if you are not like literally glued to your keyboard. So some ways that you can do this, some, some things that have been helpful for me that I wanna share today. First of all, know how you’re measuring success with this.
Uh, what we’re talking about is having a profitable design business without working more than 20 hours a week. So those are some specific metrics you can identify. How many hours a week do I have to work? How many hours a week do I want to work? Maybe those numbers are different. What amount of money do I want to generate, or do I need to generate? So what are my revenue goals that will help influence the sales targets that you set for yourself then from there, knowing how you’re measuring success and what that looks like? It’s different for everyone. And actually a couple of days ago, I was talking with one of my students inside the brand strategy school about what success looks like to her and inside the brand strategy school. That’s actually something that I talk about a lot is knowing how you define success, knowing how your design clients define success, so that you are able to build a business that supports your vision and your definition of success.
So for some of us, success might look like a certain, you know, number of dollars in the bank, or it could be a certain amount of, of, of time that we have available to spend how we choose and spend with the people that matter most to us, it could be being able to pay down debt or getting debt free, saving up, to start a family, or actually having the time to start a family traveling in the world, buying your first home, right? Like I, we could just go on and on and on about what success looks like to you, but it’s important to know that when you want to build a business, that is, that is profitable and that is helping you and, and empowering you to achieve your income goals in the number of hours that you wanna be working each week. I think it’s important for us to keep in mind that that is something that should be exciting and motivating and specific enough to keep you grounded and to keep you coming back to that vision day after day after day.
So even in the weeks where maybe you’re in a season of hustle and, and so there’s, you actually do have to spend more time working that that is something that you still feel that motivation. And you’re still able to remember, okay, this is why I’m working hard right now. This is why I’m doing what I’m doing in order to hit those goals. But it’s not just enough to know how you’re measuring success. It’s important for us to know, okay, these are the targets that we’re pursuing. How are we going to actually achieve those, those goals and how are we gonna hit those targets? So have an offer that you can scale to six figures. And please note that I said an offer, one offer. I didn’t say have a bunch of offers, a bunch of little offers that you scale. And the reason why I say that is when you have a limited amount of time available, it is crucial that you do not divide your focus on unnecessary actions.
And I will say that it is so much easier energetically for you to focus your time and your energy and your effort on growing one incredibly powerful service or product versus trying to grow silo simultaneously like three or more, even two or more different services or products. And I say this from personal experience. And also this is something that I’ve seen my students inside the brand strategy school and inside my group coaching programs in the past experience. So much success with is when we, when we, the distractions and having sometimes having a lot of different offers can just be having a lot of like seemingly profitable and seemingly purposeful distractions. But really what they’re doing is it’s forcing you to market a bunch of different things to maybe, uh, you know, competing audiences or different types of audiences, and it’s splits your focus. So when you have a limited amount of time that you wanna work or where you’re able to work, it’s important that you are putting your effort and your energy and your focus on one offer that can actually help you hit your, your income goals.
So for my students inside the brand strategy school, because that program should shows them how to hit consistent 10 K months by leveraging brand strategy, as their superpower, I’m able to help designers learn how through really one service, you can grow this kind of six figure business, and it’s really freeing to see, but actually when you get into it and when you have the right strategy in place, and when you have your focus on the right actions, that is more achievable than you might think. So that being said, the next piece of advice I have is to seek out the support that you need. Like I said earlier, I currently am in a season where I, I am working less than 10 hours a week, and I’m only able to do that because I have the support that I need to do that. And that support looks like having an assistant, having a community manager, having someone help me edit my podcast.
It looks like having support within my home. Um, so my husband and I approach everything like a partnership. So there’s a division of our household responsibilities and chores and things like that. So that doesn’t fall unevenly on one person over the other. There are other ways that you can get support for me personally, that looks like, um, I, I have a therapist. And so I’m able to receive the mental and emotional support that I need. Uh, I outsource things like little things like grocery shopping. We like do online ordering, and we just do curbside pickup. And so I’m not even my time in those ways. And so there are lots of different ways to seek out the support that you need. It doesn’t have to look like bringing on a full-time employee or hiring a full-time nanny or anything like that. If that is not feasible for you, because of course we do wanna be mindful of our resources and what does actually serve us well in this season, but it could be that the supports you need in order to work 20 hours or last a week, or the supports you need in order to figure out your, your offer, your service, that can help you scale to six figures that could be, you know, joining courses or programs or group coaching experiences or masterminds, where you’re receiving the guidance and the support that you need from the coach or the instructor to show you what actions to take and when to take them to see the kind of growth that you wanna see.
If you have kids, a kid, you know, look like, um, asking, you know, friends to help carpool so that like pickup doesn’t fall, you don’t have to, you know, handle the pickup line every single day. If that’s not something that you’re able to do, or, you know, pick up, drop off all the, all those different kinds of things. There are so many different ideas that we could, you know, kind of sit here and, and brainstorm together, but seeking out the support that you need in order to grow a business that’s profitable, even in a limited amount of time, that is crucial because what I see, I see a lot of designers, especially who think that they can just do this by themselves. And for some people, that’s true if you’re listening to this and you’re like, I, I, you know, I know that I can do this because I’ve done it.
That’s amazing. And everyone is different. But what I find is that when we buy into this mindset that we can do it all ourselves, or we have to do it all ourselves, or we can’t afford to hire one anyone, or, or get the support or the help that we need, what I’m noticing over and over again is that that is actually keeping us stuck. It kind of keeps us stuck in this place where we’re like metaphorically dying on these like Hills of independence where we’re like, no, no, carry on. It’s okay. I can do all of this client work and I can make dinner and, you know, make sure that everyone’s teeth are brushed and GM’s are on. And everyone’s bathed and in bed by a certain time, and the dishes are done. And, you know, I’m, I’m, I’m saying this. And I think that a lot of women can relate to this pressure to feel like you have to do it all yourself.
But what I have found is that if you open yourself up to receiving the support that you need, whether that’s in your personal life, your professional life, or a Merry mix of both, you are able to show up more fully in the spaces and with the people that matter the most. So rather than running yourself ragged and trying to be a, you know, perfect partner and a perfect business owner and a perfect parent and a perfect, uh, you know, daughter or son or, or child, I think that it’s more valuable for us to show up as real people and real people are not perfect and real people do need help. And so when I learned to open up my hands and to stop white knuckling, everything around me and to receive support, that was the most incredible gift that I didn’t know I needed to ask for.
And so with that being said, don’t be afraid to seek out the support that you need in order to hit your goal, whatever that looks like for you. And then the final, final piece of advice that I wanna share is it’s all well and good for us to have a vision of how much money you wanna make and have an idea of how many hours you have to work each week, or you want to work the kind of ideal schedule, what that looks like, and to get the supports you need, and to figure out the offer that you’re gonna use to hit those income goals. But it is crucial to understand which actions will drive the results that you want to see. And what I mean by that is that I see a lot of designers over the years that I’ve been in business. And over the years that I’ve worked as a coach for designers, I’ve actually seen hundreds of graphic brand and web designers all over the world, not be able to scale their business to six figures and beyond because they simply do not know which actions they need to take in order to see the results they want to see.
Let me know if this is at all familiar, but it’s entirely possible here that you have reached this place in your business. And you still don’t quite know the specifics of what actions you need to take in order to generate sales. It’s entirely possible that you have a, you know, pretty good working idea of like where your leads are coming from and what you’re doing to generate those leads. But where I see a lot of people getting stuck is not having enough information in order to replicate the, as results over and over and over again. And if we’re gonna hit the six figure mark, we need to be crystal clear, absolutely crystal clear with what actions drive the results you want to see. So we need to know the metrics you need to be tracking in order to see the kind of growth that you want to see.
And for every business, this is gonna look different. So for example, the actions that you might need to take in order to hit six figures and your business will depend based on who your audience it’s comprised of what you offer. So your service or your product, your niche, your price point. There’s a lot of factors that go into this. And I say this not to make you feel like, oh my gosh, now there’s all this stuff that I have to figure out. I, I do this to give you the, the, that it’s not just enough to have a good idea and to go after it. You need to know what actions support the, the fruition, the growth, the expansion of the idea that you have. So we want the good idea. We also want to know what specific steps we need to take in order, see the inquiries come in, or the sales come in to see the, you know, traffic goals hit so that you’re able to then generate the number of leads so that you’re able to, like, you know, we could go on and on about this.
And I just wanna encourage you with that, that knowing the actions that you need to take in order to see those results is gonna be this powerful piece that kind of helps everything come together. It’s kind of like that little missing puzzle piece where the offer is gold. You know how you’re measuring success. You have what you need, the support that you need, the systems that you need in order order to achieve those goals and fulfill that level of service. But you also understand what kind of metrics matter. Now, friend, I hope that you have found this helpful today. Like I said earlier, I’m coming from a place of, I have been in business for a while now and being a part of that six figure business owner club. So to speak this totally imaginary club that I’ve just made of. Um, I know how this can be a really attractive goal for a lot of entrepreneurs, but for me more than how much money I’m making, knowing that I’m able to do it.
And under 20 hours a week, that is where the magic happens. That is so much more valuable to me than how many dollars are in my bank account. So what I’m doing, I am actually creating a free live training on this exact topic in the coming weeks. I am going to be going live for, like I said, totally free masterclass on how to hit six figures in your design business without 40 plus hour work weeks, I’m gonna be really pulling from my 10 years of business ownership and sharing what I’ve learned, what has worked and what has not worked so that you will be able to pursue the goals that you have in the way that will serve you best. So if that is that sounds exciting and you wanna hang out with me and, and, you know, join me for this fun, free experience.
Then head on over to BS for Bonnie design.com/free. All the details will be available there. You’ll be able to find out, uh, timing date, how you can join the wait list or sign up. And I cannot wait to hang out with you. Then it’s gonna be a blast. If you’ve ever joined one of my live trainings, it there’s so much fun. Honestly, the, the way that folks show up and engage in the chat, the way that we really focus on no fluff content, it is something that I absolutely love doing. And now that I have celebrated my 10th business anniversary, I really want to just pull back the curtain on what goes into building this kind of profitable design business without trading your time or energy and how you can do it in less than 20 hours a week. So with that being said, if you want to join me in this journey to kick the 40 hour work week, do the curb for good, then head over to be as Heroni design.com/free to learn more as always friends.
Thank you so much for tuning into today’s episode. If you have any questions, or if something I shared really resonated with you, feel free to reach out. You can always find me on Instagram at Bonnie joy, Marie. And if you want to head over to the, uh, the podcast website to get a list of all the resources or the, the copy of the show notes, or a recap of our biggest talking points from today’s conversation, then you can just go to brand strategy, podcast.com and click on the latest episode link. And you’ll find exactly what you’re looking for friends as always thank you for your support of this podcast. Thank you for being of this journey of mine. And I hope to see you at my free training in the coming weeks as always I’m cheering y’all on from Waco.
Thank you so much for joining me today, friend, before you go, I would be so grateful to receive your feedback on the brand strategy pie podcast. If you enjoyed this episode or the podcast in general has helped you grow your brand. I’d really appreciate it. If you left us a review in iTunes, your positive reviews enable the brand strategy podcast to continue to grow and reach like-minded creatives. Just like you. Thank you for all your support and encouragement as together. We pursue building rayons with purpose and intention until next time I’m cheering you on from Waco.
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