Profit in Flow: earning more, spending less, feeling at ease - Eliza Ludwig

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the_flow_society/?hl=en

Website: https://www.theflowsociety.com.au/

00:02 Hello, how are you i am so excited to have you here. I am Eliza Ludwig, I am owner of the Flow Society and I'm a wealth coach for small business. I call myself a wealth coach because it is about not only the money in your bank, but it's also about feeling wealthy in your life and your lifestyle. So I will jump right in.  

00:26 And get into it. So today I'm going to talk about profit and flow. Again, I'm owner of the Flow Society, hence Inflow. And I know what we're all going through at the moment and we're nervous about business and we're nervous about the future of our business. So today I really want to talk about earning more, spending less and feeling at ease. The key message I would really like you to take away from today if nothing else, is to know that a values aligned business can absolutely coexist with a profitable 1. And actual fact, I think it's vital that they do coexist for the longevity of your business, for your, for your well-being and you know for your financial situation.  

01:13 So the three areas I'll specifically be looking at today, obviously are earning more. And why is that important? Because basically you can't cost cut your way to growth. You can't earn more with just with cost cost cutting you really need to be earning more as well. But then again, spending less is both satisfying and it is generally quicker to achieve than it is than increasing income is. And finally feeling at Lee at ease because we want to be in business for the long haul and we don't want to, you know, burnout i mean, we talk about we hear about burnout so frequently at the moment and it's definitely not something that any of us want because it can take a long time to recover from.  

02:00 And as I said, key message is you can have both. It is pretty important to have both as well. So if after today you really want to get a bit more into all these three elements and really getting your business humming from a profit perspective and also you know to feel good within your business the things you can go deeper on are pricing strategy. I do have a freebie which should be attached, which is around which is called the pricing strategy guide and it will give you some tips on how to look at your pricing strategy.  

02:34 Another thing to look at is your offer mix so what is the offer ecosystem within your business and is that, is that where it should be for you for now? Fixed costs, It's not about having zero costs, but it really is about having the right fit in your fixed costs for where your business is now and where you're aiming for. Then also just sort of taking a step back and looking into the ease element of it.  

03:01 Is the business model really suited to where you are personally? Is it suited to the things that you love to do and you're passionate about? So really making sure that all of that is an alignment. And then finally, a budget why do I say a budget will make you feel at ease? Every time I discuss budgets, people say that, you know, they don't work, they're restrictive, they just make me feel bad because I never achieve it.  

03:27 But if you've really looked into your pricing strategy, your offer mix and everything else within that, the budget sort of just comes out at the end. And it should account for all of the things that you need, you know, when you're out or when you're going out with friends and either you or a friend will say I can't have a drink tonight, I'm on a budget, or I'm not going to have dessert tonight, I'm on a budget. Budget should allow for that fund. Budget should allow for those extras you should know when they are coming up.  

03:58 It's sort of like saying you're allowed to spend 500$ a month or you know, just pulling a number out of your, your, the hat, but then you get to Christmas and you berate yourself because you spent a thousand well, of course you did it's Christmas, you've got to get gifts, you've got outings, etcetera. But just knowing that that time is coming up couldn't in business that could be insurance premiums, it could be staffing, it could be an ad campaign you've got just knowing that ahead of time will really relieve yourself of having to worry about spending extra at that time. So firstly, looking at earning more. Again, as I said, you cannot cost cut your way to growth but more than that, if you don't focus on earning more, you really run the risk of not sharing your talent.  

04:46 We're we've all got, we're all uniquely, beautifully us and we all want to share our talent and the world needs your talent so if you don't earn anything from it, you're unlikely to continue doing it you'll either feel resentful or you'll have to find an income elsewhere. It's also really important so that you don't wear yourself out. Now, what do I mean by that? I mean that people can get so involved in trying to cut more and more costs out that they, that means maybe, you know, they've let go of somebody who's helped them with their graphics or maybe they've got rid of Ava.  

05:27 But that means that they're spending so much time on what those, those, you know, the the things we had outsourced were helping us with that we actually don't have time to earn any money and we've just worn ourselves out. Finally fun. It's so exciting thinking of new income streams i love it it is like I will look at businesses, you know, in my daily life and go, Oh, I know three things that that that, you know, the gym owner can do to make sure that his gym is being used throughout the day.  

05:58 I can think of, I can think of what this chiropractor could do on the weekend with that space again, so they could earn money on the weekend. That is, it's so exciting. Obviously there needs to be some guardrails around it you don't want to just do anything because you can't could wear yourself out. But it is also exciting and empowering to think about what you could be doing. So how do I recommend you do that? Now, I'll just say the obvious is selling more. Now that really requires a great marketing strategy and a great sales strategy. Those are not my Forte.  

06:35 I can refer you to people if that's what you want and I'm sure there are some amazing people in that space within this summer. So I will just say that that's somewhat obvious, but not what I'm going to be focusing on so much today. The next thing to do is to review your pricing. As I said, I have a guide for you to do that. What I will not what sort of was the, the recommendation, the, the generic recommendation a few years ago was just, you know, up your prices, charge what you're worth, all of that sort of stuff and that's all well and good.  

07:11 But again, going back to the sales and marketing strategy, unless those are really working in harmony with your pricing, you might be finding it hard to sell. Also, these things change all the time. What somebody may have spent 6000$ on, you know, having a business coach two years ago, that may not be the case right now. That might be harder for people to afford within business.  

07:35 So it's really around just making sure that the pricing is the right fit for where your current offers are targeted. And then the next step is really reviewing the offers. So a high ticket offer may not be selling as much as it had done in the past so maybe you need to start bringing in some other offers. Maybe you need to bring in a one off consult if you're a service based business, if you are a product based business, maybe you need to, maybe you need to review just the, the, you know, the, the range that you have within your business.  

08:15 Are they still right for your audience and is there something new that they they could be interested in that would be a really good offer for them? And the next one is a review of the mix of offers. So as I said before, if you were solely focusing on high ticket one-on-one coaching a couple of years ago and you're finding that that's not working. And then maybe you've already had a one off consult in your offers.  

08:42 But that one off consult was you didn't have very much of it, but now it's a really major part of your income. Then you really need to make sure that you have the systems in place, the automations you have, you know, all of the all of the, the pre pre information for the people as you're on boarding make sure making sure that that really runs really smoothly so that you can maximise a profit and the customer experience when they get those offers. You may find that you currently you have some offers which are really profitable and some that aren't.  

09:16 That may not be what you want if you know, I worked with the personal trainer years and years ago and she pretty much was making no money on her one to one private coaching clients, but that's where she was focusing all of her marketing that was the main thing she was speaking to people about. She pretty much made no money on it. If she had just changed the mix of that and maybe had one or two clients because they weren't confident to go to a group session, etcetera if she had focused on reducing that as a proportion of her entire income and increasing the proportion of income that came from group classes, so running more group classes, running them at different times than at different types of group classes for instance, that just changes the mix and then the overall profit will be impacted as well.  

10:04 So next, looking at spending less, it is quicker generally than moving the income ship. So if you think of moving the income ship, but it's not to say it once it gets going, once that ship gets going, it is fast and hard to stop. But it takes a lot of stocking to get it going. If you need something now, you need a bit more extra money right now spending less is a great way, a fast way to get there.  

10:36 So I will say my caveat was spending less i've sort of alluded to it, but it's really limited in scope. You basically can't get away with 0 expenses. So you're going to have some level of expense and but it does feel really good when you save a buck. You know, when you get something on sale, there is definitely that that sense of, yes, I got something on on deal so yeah, it is satisfying it's quicker generally than in increasing your income. But ultimately you cannot save your way to growth and to higher profit.  

11:14 How do you do it? So first thing to do is to focus on the scale of savings. So nearly every client I have worked with and people I meet on the street, people I meet at networking events say oh I run a very lean ship and they will proudly tell me that they have stopped a subscription for Canberra and they're getting the free Canva. Now Canberra is around, let's call it 2 to 300$ a year. It's a so saving 2 to 300$ a year is unlikely to be a massive proportion of your profit.  

11:52 If however, you've got insurance, which is, you know, 1 and a half thousand a year and you can save 300$ on that or you know, even more because they sometimes put it up by, you know, a thousand fifteen hundred a year, that's going to have a much larger impact. So really focus on the scale, but always, always, always just in terms of that Canva example, remember the payback. So it's not just about saving the 2 to 300$ a year it is part of it. But we remember that, you know, that's saving time i remember when I was on the free version of Canva, it would take me hours to create one graphic because I'd have to find the free images that were decent.  

12:35 I'd have to find the fonts which were free. You'd go and create something and then they 'd suddenly, say oh well, that's a paid image. It is a faff so that definitely can slow down your business. So remember the payback there. It's not just about the actual cost it is also about the money, sorry, it's also about the time and then also the impact that that can have on your brand and professionalism. So if you want to say save, say on Dubsado, but then your onboarding is really just reliant on you sending an email with dot points and a whole bunch of attachments.  

13:12 That doesn't look very professional and it doesn't really give your clients a great feeling when they've sort of looks like their mum has sent something from the PTA or something and it doesn't really give you that client experience so always keep that in mind as well. And again, that is why I am so intent on making sure that you earn more because, you know, a professional business with a wonderful client experience is going to be ultimately far more profitable and be, you know, a lot, lot more sustainable than a business that is sort of patched together.  

13:52 Thirdly, feeling at ease because you're in business for the long haul. I would not go, I would not take a long haul flight to London if I didn't just love London it's my favorite, city although more, more the countryside now but I'm no longer 21 But yeah, you really want, you know, the reward at the end is really something that you are, you know, you want to enjoy in the whole process. So really feeling at ease is where it all comes together you know, it is not only the profit, but it's also feeling great it's feeling at the end of the day, Dang, I did a really good job and I really helped somebody today or, you know, my client, my, my customers feel so good with what they've just bought for their children or my products are bought by everybody for gifts for others that's how loved and cherished my products are.  

14:45 So that feels great but when you know that you have done it without, you know, feeling absolutely anxious and recreating the wheel every time a new client comes into your world, it will really make your business shine it'll make you shine and your business shine and also your clients and customers. So yeah, feeling at ease is really where it all comes together. It's a ticket to longevity. The other thing is we hear a lot, you know, on the podcasts and probably less so these days, but you know, it's all about you can do hard things and you just got to push through and you got to, you know, you got to, you didn't want to do it, but you did it, all that type of stuff and that's true for the short term, but it can't be your whole story and it can't be your everyday.  

15:32 It can certainly be that way for short periods of time, but you think about like exams at school or even being pregnant if you've, if you've had children it, you don't want to be pregnant forever, You don't want to be studying for exams forever you want to have this period where Yep, things are a little bit different things are a bit harder, but you also want to feel the ease as well. And what better way than if you can feel a bit of ease every single day and not it just be an absolute grind forever and ever.  

16:04 So how do I recommend you feel at ease? Firstly, ensure values alignment so although this is coming at the end of my topic today, it really is the first thing that I always look at with myself in my own business and also with all my clients. There is no use me creating a strategy or you creating offers or you know, buying a business off somebody else if you if it does not fundamentally align with your values. What do I mean by that? Well, as I've mentioned before, I have a goal of helping women in business to get out of corporate.  

16:44 Like that's always been my mission. But when I was only able to serve 4 clients a year, I was very, that was very limited and I wanted to serve more people. So I have recreated some offers so that people who are just starting out, they may not want the full the full project they might just want a little bit of help. So I've created offers that allows me to serve more people and also still earn money.  

17:12 Earn money. So, yeah, so my values are service is 1 and that is a way that I can make sure it's in alignment my business is in alignment with that.  

17:25 Become a time watcher. Sounds like being a penny pincher and doesn't sound terribly positive. I kept trying to think of something that was a little bit more positive. But anyway, here we are we learned it at time watcher. The reason I say that is because it's really important to know how long it is taking you to convert clients, onboard clients, how much work is going on behind the scenes for every sale that you make.  

17:52 Because if that's 90 % of the time, then you are really going to, if you're feeling fairly burnt out, you're going to have to be working harder and harder, but you don't have any time left. So you really need to understand how long all of the processes are taking within your business because I guarantee you there will be ways that you can save time like I just mentioned before, in terms of Dubsado, if that process, that sale process so they can pop in their credit card. As soon as that happens, automatic things come from Dubsado which give them their receipt, which give them all of the documents that they need, give them the contract.  

18:31 That really requires very little from you except for sometimes when these things fall over rather than you spending, you know, half a day writing an email, making sure that the documents are all attached. It didn't send you've got to attach it again. It really is important to make sure to watch your time very closely and make sure that you aren't wasting it. And then just focus on essentials so really limited to, you know, links to that above just making sure that the areas that you are spending your time are in alignment with what's going to make a difference to your clients and and to your business ultimately.  

19:13 So just going back through it again so we talked about how to earn more because it's more effective than spending less. However, spending less is a bit faster to achieve and feels pretty good and then feeling ease so you can stay into business in the long haul. I analyse at Ludwig i have so enjoyed talking to you today. Link below if you want to know any more information and would love to hear how you felt about that. Ok. Thank you so much, guys bye.