What a way to start school holidays! I thought the weather app was broken when I looked at expected rainfall at the beginning of the week and there was no wavy graph - turns out that there was 100% chance of rain, all day, every day so the graph was actually a solid rectangle. While I felt dismay at this discovery, the kids were stoked knowing they’d be able to rack up stacks of screen time. I can confirm that they were right to get excited because it feels like that's all we’ve done, all week.
I’ve been taking advantage of my time off and distracted children by getting my business (The Design Dept) and book (good news, good story) in order. It was a nice coincidence that this aligned with the end of the financial year because after attending a PSA event on Monday night about money - I need to make some (brave and bold) changes.
One of the presenters and my new pal I met at GSS, Tara Saxon, had a presentation called ‘Charge like you mean it’ - the title alone was enough to provoke thoughts around one's value and self-worth especially if you own a small business or are self-employed. Tara had us fill out an ‘Identity Tax Statement’ which had line items like: Offered a discount before they asked. Took a job below your rate because you needed the work. Negotiate yourself down before the client says no… I have been guilty of most of these offenses. Even after years of working on a value based pricing system for The Design Dept, I still trip up.
What Tara did was ask us to quantify the impact these have on our business, on our self worth. The result is a confronting figure of what your current identity costs you. It’s ‘the price of who you believe you are and what you believe you're allowed to have’. As a certified Money coach, Tara travels the world helping people recognise their own limiting money patterns and helps them to rebuild with unshakeable pricing confidence. It's not just about making money, it's about taking control of your life and not letting others take control for you.
If you’ve read any of my blogs, you’ll probably be able to tell that I'm a pretty confident person. I believe I’m capable of many great and wonderful things but what I've never been good at is monetizing the value I bring. For years I’ve posted this blog for free because I didn’t think people would pay for my rambling thoughts but the reality is that I need to make money if I want to achieve all of the things I want to do - things like write my book and print it locally.
Now don’t panic - this blog will ALWAYS be free. It will always be on my website and emailed to subscribers. Being free means I can write whatever the hell I want, it’s my gift to you, you can take it or leave it. However, if you do LOVE reading this blog and want to share some of that LOVE my way I’ve set up a paid subscription that will have more exclusive content around my book. I’m thinking of sharing chapters as the come to life and things like that.
The catalyst for all this has been getting my email subscribers off Mailchimp! Over the years that have removed so many features out of the free plans and into a paid one that I had to switch providers. If you’re reading this via email today, you’ll notice it looks a little different. I’ve renamed it ‘Good News. Good Story.’ since the Bulletin Board no longer feels relevant. I landed on a company called Buttondown who seems to be the best value for someone who just wants to send a newsletter.
Buttondown also has paid subscriptions so I’ve set up an upgrade to ‘Good News. Good Story. Good Karma. Good on you!’ - it's $100 per year to support this writing habit of mine. $100 might be a bit steep but if you’ve shared 5 minutes on Friday with me over the last 6 years, this might feel like a good idea. I didn’t want to charge some lame $5 a month - shout me coffee - type vibe… I want to go out for a fancy dinner! Once a year, $100. All of this money is going towards my book, writing it and getting it printed in Ballarat. So many people have asked how they can support me over the years and this is how - until I have presales for my book of course!
I still feel uncomfortable asking for money. I’d need a few more sessions with Tara to sort that one out but I’ve got to start somewhere and the 26/27 financial year is as good a place as any. Alongside this new setup, I’ve also started to post on instagram. I need to build my audience if I want people, other than my family and friends, to buy my book and it's recommended that you start promoting six months before the release!
Strangely it still makes me squirm more asking for money than talking shit to camera and posting it online. Luckily the repose has been great - I hit 500 subscribers on the first day! I was sitting on 493 to begin with but getting 7 new subscribers was really exciting. I did get over 500 views of my first video which makes me feel equal parts nauseous and excited. Being a complete amateaur I’ve set myself some boundaries so I could start so I’m only allowed to do one take and do little to no editing - this is due to a lack of skills rather than a deliberate artistic direction but it's achievable.
Starting a paid subscription and building my audience will hopefully lead to more positive results for my 26/27 ‘Identity Tax Statement’. I need to make big changes if I want big things to change. As I mentioned in my first video this could all fail miserably but that will be fun to watch from the safety of your own phone! If you are in a position to do so please sign up for the paid subscription, or even just the free one. If you are a scroller and you see one of my videos pop up please like, share and more importantly comment! You know I love a chat! Thanks to everyone who has encouraged me to take this next step and for you for following along. x
