Keeping The Juices Flowing: How I Tripled My Income, Including Saying No To Clients And Yes To More

When you find your authentic marketing voice and channel that into your marketing, you stand out and you attract your ideal client. And those are the ones who are fun to work with and remind you why you are doing what you are doing.

Like many of you, I escaped from corporate America. I cant believe Im celebrating 11 years of business! You know, at one time I thought I was going to be eating Ramen noodles forever and here we are I havent starved. And Ive had a successful business for 11 years.

It started after being laid off three times in two years. And that really pushed me into taking that leap of faith. Many of you have your own stories as entrepreneurs about what got you into starting your own businesses, whether you took the leap yourself or were given a little kick in the behind by the universe.

When you are committed to having a business you love, you experience a lot of transformation. The key to success and happiness in being your own boss is for your business to evolve as you evolve. Sometimes you evolve and the business needs to catch up, other times the business is wanting to evolve and you need to catch up. The latter is what I experienced the end of 2008 and the beginning of 2009. I was stuck. I wasnt feeling inspired and I knew something HAD to change.

It was time to step things up, but all external messages (like the war on the economy and all its foot soldiers) challenged my big thinking.

However, against all odds, I tripled my monthly income and I'm putting in less hours. When I sat down to look at all the steps I took to get here, I realized it was important to share my journey.

Here are just a few of the things I did to triple my income and take more time off:

I said no to dozens of clients (and in turn produced my highest grossing month ever!) It was those small projects that took lots of time and were not leveraged.
I committed to a 3-day-per-week work schedule (and starting making 5 figures a month) I got VERY conscious about how I was spending my time and asked myself, Is this an income generating activity?
I invested in myself (which paid back in dividends). I got a mentor to eliminate the learning curve and ensure I took the quickest route to my goals.
I owned my value at a new level and raised my prices (AND attracted more clients).

Some of these may sound completely counterintuitive, especially when youre feeling pressure to make money and stressed out about your business. But each of these things produced a quantum shift for me, and helped me build the successful business I enjoy today.