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There could be a number of things that are keeping you from hitting six-figures in your design business, but today I’m sharing the three most common mistakes that I see designers making!
If you’re ready to scale your business, hit six figures, and grow your business baby into the dream you started out with, today’s episode is for you!
Money is a tool/commodity
Mistakes that are Keeping You From 6 Figures
Mistake 1: Designers spend a lot of time on the wrong things in their business.
This is the biggest mistake that I see designers making! You’re spending time at your desk working with clients, answering emails, etc. But what’s moving the needle forward in your business that actually requires your attention? It’s likely that your focus is on the wrong things in your business.
I want you to look at the data and see what’s helping your business grow. Here’s how you’re going to do that:
- Know your goals
- Know the metrics that matter
- Know the actions that will generate the results you want.
If you know those three things, then it becomes much, much easier for you to work on the right things in your business so that you will be productive, purposeful, and profitable.
Mistake 2: You’re allowing your mindset to hold you back.
There is power in your mindset in your business. I see so many amazing business owners that are doing great work, yet there is something that’s holding them back from hitting six-figures—mindset.
A few mindset thought patterns that are holding people back include:
- Believing that you have to do it all and can’t ask for help.
- Believing that you can’t afford the help that you need.
- Believing that growing to six figures HAS to be hard.
Rather than being focused on the lack of whatever it is, you can flip your mindset to think of it as “I don’t have it yet, but how can I get there?” When I stopped telling myself no, I was able to flip my mindset and create the resources I needed.
I was able to view problems as opportunities of growth versus excuses. So ask yourself, are you focused on the problem or the solution?
The way you view things has the power to hold you back or give you support.
Mistake 3: Having offers that are not scalable.
If you’re burning out on 1×1 client work, offering too many services, or distracted by digital products, you won’t generate the revenue you want to hit that six figure goal. In order to generate the rev you want, it is crucial that you have an offer that generates money to hit your revenue goal.
Most people buy into the belief that the more services and products you have help you hit 6 figures. I see so many designers do this and it pulls their energy and focus between offers. This is caused by trying to speak to too many different audiences—it’s a lot to handle internally.
This overwhelm is hard for every part of your business and for clients. Let’s scale it back to a signature service.
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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, strategist 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 all about, what’s keeping you from hitting six figures in your design business. Now, if you tuned into, uh, I think it was two episodes ago, 2 22, I was talking about how to build a wildly profitable design business and under 20 hours a week. And we talked a little bit about why it’s so appealing to build a six figure business. And we also talked a little bit about how it’s okay to not wanna build a figure business, and whether you are tuning in today because you are a longtime subscriber and this is the latest episode. And so you just started listening or you were specifically drawn to this topic. I want to assure you that there’s no one size solution, one right goal or one best or most correct way about achieving your goals.
Um, and so what I’m sharing today is based on my personal experience, my lived experience, it’s also based on the years that I’ve spent coaching fellow graphic, ranch and web designers to build six figure design businesses, what works and what doesn’t. Now, before we get too deep into today’s conversation, I just wanna clue you in and invite you to join me for an upcoming free training that I’m gonna be teaching on this very subject. So I’m gonna be an, a fun, totally free live class. I’m gonna be talking about how to hit six figures in your design business without the 40 plus hour work weeks. So together we are going to wa goodbye to 40 plus hour work weeks for good. And we’re gonna focus on how to practically hit six figures in your design business. What will serve you? Well, what actions are not serving you well and how to go about really receiving the support that you need in order to make that happen.
So if that is something that sounds interesting, and you wanna join me for this, you can go to be as for Bonnie design.com/free to get all the juicy details. And I also should mention if you’re tuning in and are concerned about joining us live, if you can definitely try to join us live, because live is always such a blast and the energy and the chat is always unmatched, but your time is valuable. And so of course there will be a replay available, and that will be sent out to those who register before the live training. So if you want to be on that, that replay definitely sign up now. Okay. So with that being said, you’re probably tuning into today’s episode, because like I said, maybe you are a long time subscriber and you just like hit play and didn’t really pay attention to the topic or more likely you are listening to this because you wanna hit six figures.
You are listening because you, you want to work like 20 hours a week or less, or you want a combination of the two. You want to be able to earn six figures while working less than 20 hours a week. And with that being said, I wanna let you know that no matter what you, it it’s worth it. You want something for a reason. And so if you, whether that’s you wanna hit six figures or you wanna work less than 20 hours a week, or you want all of the above, that is valid, that is worthy, and that is worthwhile, but it’s also a okay to want less than six figures. And it’s okay to want more than six figures. I want us to be able to normalize women, making however much money they want and however much money they need. This is not a space where, uh, you’re gonna find someone shaming you, because you don’t want to make quote unquote enough money.
You’re also not gonna find anybody shaming you because you wanna make quote unquote too much money money. The way that I view it, money is a tool. Money is neither good, nor bad it is. It’s just a, it’s just a commodity. And you can use it in ways that are good. You can use it to support your family. You can use it to give to charity. You can use it to do whatever you want to do to pay down debt, to buy your first home, to buy your second home, to help someone you care about when they need it to give, to causes that you believe in to create a financial safety net for you and your family. As you grow old together, I want for you to feel the freedom, to do whatever you want to do with however much money you want to make.
So let’s normalize women going out there and building the businesses they want to build that support the income goals that they have, whatever that looks like with all of that being said today, we are gonna specifically be thinking about how to hit six figures in your design business and the mistakes, the actions, the thoughts that are keeping you from that, that goal. And I share that because in the years that I have worked with fellow graphic brand and web designers, I’ve seen so many people want to hit this goal. And like I said earlier, it’s not because it is the goal. It’s not because it’s like what all the cool kids are doing. I believe that that people want to make the money that they want to, for a reason. So with that being said, I can speak from personal experience about what it takes to build a six figure business.
And also I can speak from the experience of having taught other designers, how to do the same. So I’ve seen a thing or two about what works and it doesn’t and what actions serve you well in that journey and which ones don’t so much. So with that being said, a couple mistakes that you might be making that are keeping you from hitting six figures in your design business. And actually, before I get into that, I should adjust. I should just remind you that if you, if you’re a long time listener of the podcast, then this will sound familiar. If this is your first episode tuning in, then I want to encourage you that what we share here, what I share, if it does not resonate with you, just leave it. I’m sharing with the intention, with the hope that this serves you well with the intention that this will be of service to you.
And this will help you grow your design business with intention. But if what I’m sharing doesn’t resonate or it doesn’t serve you well, that’s okay. You don’t have to take my word as gold. You don’t have to, you don’t have to fall any of the advice that I’m sharing, because I want to remind you that you can trust yourself that you are safe with yourself and you know yourself better than anyone else. So with that being said, these mistakes that I’m talking through are based on the experiences. That just the information that I’ve got gathered in the years that I’ve worked with so many designers from all over the world, but without being said, um, you get to choose what information serves you. Well, all right, let’s get into some of the common mistakes that you may or may not find yourself making that are unintentionally making it harder for you to hit that income goal of six figures or more.
So mistake. Number one that I see, I see designers spend a lot of time and energy working on the wrong things in their businesses. I like to think of this as you are a busy designer, but you’re kind of broke. Like, we’ll just, we’ll just say, you’re like, kind of, Brokish like you, you spend all of this time at your desk, working with clients, answering emails, creating content, working on a updating your portfolio, you know, consuming the courses and the programs that you’ve joined, listening to the webinars, the YouTube channels and the podcast. You’re doing all the things, but you don’t have the security of knowing where your next project is coming from. You still find yourself experiencing those months where the money just isn’t there. And it’s not where you want it to be. You find yourself like, kind of feeling like you’re spinning your wheels, but you’re not seeing the dramatic kind of growth that you think you should be.
And where, where you’re getting stuck here is that your focus is actually on the wrong things in your business. It’s not about being productive. It’s about being purposeful. It’s not about being busy. It’s about being intentional with where your time is going and only spending your time on the actions that are driving the results you want to see. So even though there’s so many people out there who are telling you how to grow your business and the quote unquote, right. Things to do, if those actions aren’t actually serving you as you pursue your goals, and they’re not actually helping you get closer to your goals, then I say, don’t do them anymore. Like if someone’s telling you, let’s take a Instagram as an example, if someone is telling you that in order to get more design clients, you have to have this really, um, on brand Instagram feed.
And you have to post a certain number of times a day and you have to show up, right? Because people buy from people. And so you have to show your face there, but it’s something that you don’t love. And it’s something that you’re spending a wild amount of time to do to create that content or to remember to show up. And you’re finding that actually all the clients that you’re generating, like literally none of them are coming from Instagram. Then that tells me, Instagram is not necessarily where your time or your energy needs to be right now. And I’m not saying that Instagram is bad. I’m not saying that you should like abandon ship if you don’t want to. But what I’m saying is that’s a specific example of an action that you think is helping your business grow. But when you look at the data, you find that it’s not helping your business grow because it’s not generating to your or bottom line.
It’s not contributing to your bottom line. It’s not helping you bring in the sales that you want to. So with that being said, if you’re working on the wrong things in your business, what are some of the right things you can be focusing on? What are some of the, you know, the helpful actions that you can take? I would say, know your goals, know the metrics that matter and know which actions will generate the results that you want. If you know those three things, then it becomes much, much easier for you to work on the right things in your business. So if that you will be productive, purposeful, and profitable, the second mistake that you might be making, that’s keeping you from hitting six figures is all to do with mindset. Your mindset is holding you back. And I could talk about this all day long.
I could talk about the power of mindset in your business and the power of mindset and how it helps you show up as your best self, not just in your business, but in your life. And I have seen so many designers who have amazing offers who have dedicated audiences and have engaged clients and are they have all these things that are working in their favor, but what’s holding them back from the kind of explosive growth that they wanna experience is their mindset. Some, and this, this varies, this, this looks different for every single person, but couple common kind of mindset, perspectives, beliefs, thought, patterns that I see pop up over and over and over again, look like believing that you have to do it all believing that you can’t ask for help, right? Believing that. Well, I’m the only one who can do it this way.
I’m the only one can do it as well as I want it done, or as good as this and it. So I, I have to, I have to do it all right, because, uh, it’s my business. And it, it would be selfish of me to ask for help or, you know, I, I, you know, like there’s so many different stories that we tell ourselves, but the core of is believing that you have to do it all. Another thought that kind of piggybacks off of that one is, is that you can’t afford to ask for the support you need. You can’t afford the help that you need. And I will say that when it comes to investments, yes, we can look at the data. We can look at the amount of money in your bank account and say, you know, what’s there and what’s not there.
And we can compare that against the investment that you want to make. But when you keep telling yourself over and over again, that you can’t afford a VA, you can’t afford an assistant. You can’t afford a coach to show you what to do so that you can save time, energy. What you’re actually telling yourself is that you cannot trust yourself to generate the money you need in order to do what you want to do and, and access and support that you want. So when I look back on my journey all the times that I was telling myself, oh, I can’t afford that. If I would’ve just flipped my mindset, if I would’ve, instead of being so focused on lack on what I didn’t have on the money that I didn’t have on what I couldn’t do, instead of that, if I would’ve flipped my mindset and focused on thinking of this in an expansive way of, I don’t have the money yet, but what actions can I take to generate that money?
Or I know that this is something that feels intimidating, that feels scary, but what opportunities could this investment bring me? What, what could I do with the time that I’m able to open up when I receive the support that I need? Right. If we think about, if we think about approaching things from this place of, of, of expansion versus this place of, of scarcity and lack, things become wildly different. So when I stopped telling myself, oh, I don’t have the money to, to do this. I don’t have the money to invest in the support or to, to, you know, bring on an assistant or something like that. And I said, okay, the facts are, I don’t have the money right now to do this. What actions can I take in order to, to generate the money that I, that I need? What can I, I want to invest in this program or this course, what actions do I need to take to go out and create that?
When I focused on doing that, everything changed for me because I was able to practice to actively retrained my brain, to view problems as opportunities for growth, not as excuses to stay, put, to stay where I was. And I started viewing it all as a chance to build my self trust and to build my experience with getting scrappy and going out there and generating money on demand and generating work when I needed it. And when I wanted it so that I could hit my goals and I’m not gonna like romanticize it and say that it was always that easy. Like I just snapped my fingers and I, you know, made 10 K like, you know, I had, I had to work for it. I, I made mistakes. I had to, you know, I had to put myself out there and pitch, and I heard a lot of nos, but then I started hearing, you know, a yes, and then a couple yeses.
And so what I was doing is I was focusing on expanding on seeing what’s possible on I identifying what opportunities I could pursue in order to achieve the outcome that I wanted, versus keeping myself small, playing small keeping things, the way that they were, even though I knew the way that it was the status quo wasn’t serving me. And so with that being said, another mindset that you might find yourself resonating with is believing that growing your business to that six figure, mark has to be hard. This one I hear so often. And if that resonates with you, please know that you are not alone. We believe we tell ourselves that growing a business has to be hard. And granted, growing a business is not without challenge, right? There are absolutely those days where I wake up and I’m like, wait, why, why did I decide to do this again?
When did I think this is a good idea? And I know so many of us have had those kinds of days growing a business is not easy. It is full of challenge, but it does not have to be that way. I’m actually reading this, this book. And honestly, I’m not sure I’m gonna share the name of the book because I’m still figuring a, what I think of it. I don’t know if I like it that much, so I don’t want to like, share it with you and for you to go spend your hard-earned dollars on it and be like, well, this isn’t great. Um, so come back to me later. Maybe, maybe I’ll have a book recommendation for you later, but one of the, one of the concepts that was mentioned in this book is you get to kind of choose your, a challenge. You get to choose what challenge you have.
Like, we all have challenges and we all have problems. Are you going to focus on, you know, the fact that the, the, the problem is there and that is the challenge, or are you gonna focus on the solution and, and creating the solution? And that’s gonna be the challenge that you choose to engage with. And, and, and I’m probably doing a horrible job of explaining that. So, like I said, you know, don’t get too interested in that. But what I’m trying to say is that when we believe that things have to be hard, we’re telling ourselves that the toil, the struggle, the, that like hustle and grind kind of mentality, that that is a necessary part of our journey. But, and this is a big butt. What if it didn’t have to be hard? What if it could be full of joy? What if it could be full of ease?
What if it could be light and expansive instead of hard and challenging and heavy. And I’m not saying if that feels, if that feels like way too good to be true, then I encourage you to sit with that. What if just entertain the idea of hitting six figures with ease in a way that feels fun in a way life giving? What could that look like and how much different does that feel from the way you have been doing it? Where it’s been hard. It’s been a lot of dead ends, and it’s been a lot of struggle. And it’s been just like packed with challenge. And it, you’re just not seeing the results you wanna see, right. Mindset. Wow. Right. Mindset don’t sleep on it. It has so much potential to change the way that you’re experiencing something. And your experience didn’t change. Your situ didn’t change the, you know, the circumstances that you’re facing that didn’t change.
What changed is the way that you are viewing those circumstances or that experience. And that is where the power lies your mindset. Is this tool, the way that you view things has the power to either hold you back or give you the support that you need to open up your eyes to see the potential that is right in front of you. With that being sad friend mindset is absolutely something that you wanna be thinking about. If you are on your way to hitting that six figure mark, and you want to make sure that you’re doing it in a way that really aligns with how you’re defining success and, and how you’re bringing your whole self to this journey and, and feeling, feeling the, or really seeing the growth that you can experience, not just professionally, but also personally. Then finally, the third mistake that I see so many designers make that keeps them from that six figure.
Mark is having offers that are not scalable. You are burning yourself out on one, on one client work, you’re offering too many services. You’re getting distracted by shiny digital, and it is not helping you generate the revenue that you want in order to hit that six figure goal. This is so key because if you tuned into episode 2 22, you heard me talk about this a little bit in order to generate the kind of, of revenue that you want, whether that is, you know, like five figures, maybe that’s four figures, five figures, six figures, seven figures. It is absolutely crucial that you have an offer, a way to generate money, that you can rely on to hit that revenue goal. Now, a lot of people, a lot of people buy into this belief that more services, more products, more opportunity to generate that money. That’s how you hit six figures.
I disagree because I see so many designers doing that, following that advice, trying to diversify their offerings. And what that does is that drags them in all of these different competing places. And it pulls their energy and it pulls their focus from this offer to this offer, to this offer. And not every offer that they have is the right offer or the best fit for their audience. So they then find themselves trying to speak to different facets of their audience and show them a different an offer. Or they’re trying to speak to two completely different audiences. And it becomes very confusing. It’s, it’s very, it’s, it’s quite a lot from a lot of perspectives. It’s a lot to be handling internally. It’s a lot to manage energetically. And then from your marketing, when you’re with your audience and you’re trying to generate clients or customers, and they’re so confused about what you do, because there’s so many different ways they can work with you, and they’re already coming to you overwhelmed because right.
We’re all living with a certain level of decision fatigue day in and day out. And then we make it harder for them to figure out how we can work together. So many people just click away from your website or they don’t book a call with you, or they don’t end up signing on when they see the proposal because they’re overwhelmed with the options. So my piece of advice is to eliminate the overwhelm that you are experiencing by trying to market three different services, and also eliminate the overwhelm that your potential client is experiencing, trying to figure out which one of these they need to go for. And instead focus on setting up your business so that it can scale to the six figure mark. And you can deliver on that offer. Right? What I said a minute ago is you’re probably burning yourself out on one, on one client work, or you’re offering too many services.
Maybe both it is important if you want to build a sustainable business, no matter what that, that revenue level looks like. You need to make sure that you’re protecting yourself from burnout. And especially with one-on-one client work burnout can be absolutely something that you experience. So I encourage you to focus on how to structure your offers in a way where you are able to eliminate the burnout that you’re experiencing, that you’re able to focus on how you are able you to not only talk about this work, not only, you know, like highlight it and market it, but also the fulfillment that goes with that actually sitting down and doing the work and, you know, working with your client and delivering whatever that final, that final transformation is that you, that you do you. So with that being said, I highly recommend focusing on how your offer can support your income goals, but also how can your offer support the way that you wanna feel in your business?
Because for me, this whole idea of having a six figure business and working less than 20 hours a week, it’s not about the money. The money is great. Don’t get me wrong. It’s about how I feel in my business. It’s about the impact that I can have in the lives of the people that I work with. It’s the, it’s the, the good, the good that I believe I can do in this world. And my business is a tool that I use to do that good. And it also brings fulfillment into my life. And it does that in a way where it’s not robbing me of my precious time. And I just wanna see the same for you. I do wanna mention a minute ago, I was talking about, you know, burnout. This is something that I got into with, uh, Lucinda Nixon, an episode 2 21.
So actually just a couple weeks ago. So if you haven’t tuned into that, Lucy does such a fantastic job of sharing some practical ways that she avoids burnout and her design, but business and things that have really helped serve her well. So if you are finding yourself, regardless of, of, you know, whether you are interested in hitting six figures or not, if you wanna make sure that you’re protecting yourself from burnout, that’s an episode to definitely check out. All right, friends with that being said, those are three simple sets. And actually, I should say mindsets slash actions slash mistakes that I see designers making that are actually sabotaging their efforts to hit that six figure goal without the 40 plus hour work weeks. So to recap quickly, if you are struggling to hit six figures in your design and 20 hours a week or less, it’s possible that you’re working on the wrong things in your business, it’s possible that your mindset is holding you back and it’s possible that your offers are not scalable.
So if you wanna change that, if you want to kick those mistakes to the curb for good, and while we’re at it, you wanna kick that 40 plus hour work week, the concept of that in your business and your day to day, goodbye forever. I wanna invite you to join me for a free live training, where I am gonna cover how to hit six figures in your design business without the no on stop endlessly long work weeks. I’m gonna be sharing in the 10 years that I’ve been in business. Some of my biggest takeaways on how to build this kind of profitable business in 20 hours a week or less, and what worked, what didn’t, and what actions you can take to, to pursue this goal for your yourself. And I would love to see you there. So you can head over to BS for Bonnie design.com/free to get all the ju of details and to save your seat.
And as always everything that we talked through today, the, the full show notes with the link to this free training, uh, the link to the, um, some of the other podcast episodes that I mentioned, all of that is going to be included in the show notes for today’s episode. So you can head over to brand strategy, podcast.com, click on the latest episode link. And that will take you where you need to go friend as always. I appreciate you tuning into the podcast, your continued support when you subscribe, rate and review. That means that we’re able to get out in front of more business owners, designers, and creatives, just like you. And we’re able to show more and more people how it possible to pursue a business that honors their definition of success. So I’m just grateful that you’re a part of this. I would appreciate it if you haven’t yet be sure to, uh, rate review and subscribe on apple podcasts. That would mean so much. And if what I shared today, if you wanna say, hi, you have questions or something resonated with you, feel free to reach out. You can find me on Instagram at Bonnie joy, Marie, and I always love getting to connect with y’all. So friend again, thank you so much for tuning in into today’s episode, and I will be cheering you on from Waco.
Thank you so much for joining me today. Friends, before you go, I would be so grateful to receive your feedback on the brand strategy 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 bra with purpose and intention until next time I’m cheering you on from Waco.
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