Money isn’t everything.
It won’t magically solve all of your problems. But it does help. It gives you freedom, choices, space to think and breathe. So over the past two weeks, I’ve given some suggestions to increase your income in these challenging times.
The first post was all about mindset shifts to bring in £1-100 more. Next, I gave suggestions to create an extra 1K a month. This post is about moving up a level, and earning an extra £10k – or more.
Give yourself time, space and permission to think big.
Imagine a premium service you would love to offer. Something outside your comfort zone that would have you dancing round the room for joy if someone booked it – because of the money, but also because it would be interesting, challenging, exciting, fun.
If you already have standard package of some sort, what extras could you add in to make it gold standard? What might VIP customers value? What could you offer a brand or company that would really help their bottom line? Is there a recurring service you could add onto a one-off job?
Remember also that what VIP clients or big brands often value most is not extra work but confidentiality, trust, competence, someone who really understands their world and has their best interests, their priorities in mind. So how can you communicate that?
Some suggestions:
A photographer might add additional services such as styling and grooming, drone shots or video images. They might turn a one-off job into a longer contract by offering to return to a garden to photograph it in different seasons, or to document a business over an entire year. A wedding photographer could create new business by following up to see if the happy couple want portraits on key wedding anniversaries – or pregnancy portraits, pictures of their growing family.
A musician might offer to do a private concert in a fan’s home or at a party. Or write a bespoke song for a special event.
An artist might offer an additional service where they deliver a purchased work to the buyer in person, help them decide where to hang/display it, and do a talk about the work in their home, if the buyer wanted to have friends over for drinks to admire their new artwork and meet the artist.
An illustrator of children’s books might offer bespoke portraits of your child or family.
A fashion stylist might offer to visit a client’s home twice a year, do a seasonal wardrobe edit and put together suggestions for key pieces to buy.
A web designer might add an on-going service package in which they also regularly update the side and do the back-end maintenance.
A writer, photographer, artist or maker might run a weekend workshop or high-end retreat teaching others some of their techniques.
A maker might create something larger and more spectacular than usual, or use exceptionally fine materials for a one-off piece. It won’t sell quickly, but it will be great for generating press, and for showcasing their skills.
Why this is powerful.
- It helps you expand, explore, to dream big and think about how you’d love to grow.
- When you value yourself more highly, other people tend to do the same.
- If you add it to your list of services, it puts you in a different pricing bracket. It also makes your standard service look much more reasonably priced.
- It might be fun! We rarely give ourselves time to think about what we’d love to do – and who we’d love to do it for.
- But also: someone might buy it. Potential customers or clients who are looking for something bespoke and special are much more likely to find you if you’re already offering a high-ticket service. And I know from experience that once you have one happy VIP client, they recommend their friends.
Don’t restrict yourself to just £10k.
Invent a service or product to sell for £20k, £50k, £100k if you want to. If you work in a field where budgets come in bigger, just add zeros to fit.
Even if you never advertise these new services or products at all, it’s a great exercise to do. The more we allow ourselves to play with these ideas, the more they feel possible.
Even it’s subconscious, many of us put a value on our own work. And also a ceiling we decide we can’t pass.
I hear it all the time in coaching sessions:
- “People like me don’t make that kind of money.”
- “No one has the budget for this.”
- “If I don’t come in cheap, they’ll use AI instead.”
- “It’s not like the old days. You can’t earn much as a writer/musician/artist/[insert your field here] any more.”
- “I don’t want to be a sell-out, and compromise my art.”
- “If you’re not famous by 40, you’ll never make it to that kind of level.”
- “Only a handful of people get to charge those kinds of prices.”
These are limiting beliefs.
If you catch yourself making these kinds of assumptions, question it. Go forensic.
Is this really true? Is there evidence for it that you’d feel confident presenting in a court of law? And if so, how might a defence lawyer counter your argument? Is it always true? Can you think of any exceptions? What are those people or organisations doing differently?
I did this exercise with in a coaching session recently, with a client who declared that it was no longer possible for anyone to make a living solely from music.
When I challenged this, he conceded that Drake and Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran and Beyoncé are doing just fine. Madonna isn’t starving, Oasis can still afford posh parkas, and Olivia Dean won’t be living out of her car any time soon.
When we dug a little deeper, he could name friends who were quietly making a good living from film and TV soundtracks, from writing for other artists, from playing folk clubs and festivals. He even knew of a prog rock band building relationships with just 600 dedicated fans via Patreon and making enough from this to record a new album.
This moved the conversation from helpless to creative, from what felt impossible to what might be possible for him.
And if you want to do a deep dive, uncover more of your limiting beliefs around money and start changing them, I have a free workbook to help with that.
Creative work can be lonely.
But you’re not alone. Someone, somewhere is making a good living from what you do, or from a similar skill set. Once you have researched what’s working for others, see what you might adapt to your own art, products, services, values, lifestyle.
If you want to explore something more tailored and specific to you and your creative field, book an introductory, £99 coaching session with me.
But if that feels like too much of an investment right now, get together with some creative friends who are also struggling, start a mastermind group, pool knowledge and resources and help each other. They’ll often be able to see the gaps in your marketing, the opportunities you’re missing better than you because they’re more objective. And you can do the same for them.
Find the others. All of us are stronger when we have companions on our creative journey.
You are valuable.
Your creative work is important. You deserve to be paid for your skills, your ideas, your creativity.
So be proactive. Run some experiments. See what works for you. What feels bearable. And what might even be fun.
And if you find something that brings in new income, let me know. I’d love to share some success stories here!
What do you think?