Your website designer sends an invoice for $2,000. You pay it.
Your business coach charges $1,500. You pay it.
Your software renews for another year. You pay it.
Then it’s time to transfer $5,000 from your business account to your personal account as your owner’s pay.
Suddenly, you’re calculating next month’s expenses, remembering three things you want to purchase for the business, and wondering if downgrading your pay to $3,000 would be a more sensible amount.
You’ve already decided what your designer’s work is worth, what your coaching is worth, and what your business needs to operate.
But when the money is going into YOUR personal bank account, the decision becomes considerably more complicated.
You’ve worked hard to create a business that makes money. I want you to experience the pleasure of that money making a difference in your own life, too.
Rather listen? Here you go »
Paying Yourself Generously Starts With What You Believe
You didn’t start your business with a brand-new relationship with money.
You brought your beliefs about earning, spending, saving, and receiving money right along with your expertise and ambition.
Many of those beliefs are from a world where women were encouraged to be generous with their time and talents while putting their own financial interests last on the list.
You can be ambitious about revenue, confident about your expertise, and excited about growing your company, while still having some surprisingly complicated feelings about how much money you get to keep for yourself.
Those feelings can show up in the thoughts running through your mind when you’re deciding what to pay yourself.
I should be putting more money back into the business.
I’ll feel better paying myself more when revenue is higher.
I don’t want to take too much.
Too much according to whom?
Your accountant? Your actual business numbers? Or a money belief that has never been asked to explain itself?
Taxes, upcoming expenses, and cash reserves are legitimate reasons to keep money in your business.
Your ambition to create financial security through your business is equally legitimate.
Your money story should be your ally in paying yourself generously, not the reason you keep negotiating your paycheck down.
The Money You’re Leaving On The Table
Those little negotiations with yourself over owner’s pay can become an expensive habit. Let’s say you intend to pay yourself $5,000 this month. You look at your business account and decide to transfer $4,000 instead.
You tell yourself you’ll make up the difference next month, when a few more client payments come in.
Except next month brings another reason to leave a little extra money in the business. Before long, reducing your own pay has become familiar, even during months when revenue is healthy.
By the end of the year, you’ve paid yourself $12,000 less than you intended. That’s $12,000 that could have gone into your savings, wiped out a chunk of debt, or paid for something wonderful for you and your family.
Your business isn’t just an opportunity to make money. It’s an opportunity to create a life where you have more money, more choices, and more freedom to enjoy both.
What Your Owner’s Pay Reveals About Your Money Story
A few hundred dollars less here, another thousand dollars less there. It’s surprisingly easy for those decisions to add up to thousands of dollars you intended to pay yourself but never did.
Here’s a quick exercise: take a look at your last three months of owner’s pay. Write down how much money actually arrived in your personal bank account each month.
Not what you hoped to pay yourself or planned to transfer. You’re jotting down the amount that actually arrived in your personal bank account each month.
Then compare those numbers with what you intended. And if you paid yourself less than intended, add up the difference across all three months.
How much money would be in your personal bank account today if you’d paid yourself what you originally planned?
Your Business Success Includes The Money You Pay Yourself
I love seeing women create businesses they’re passionate about, make great money doing work they believe in, and enjoy the rewards of their entrepreneurship in their own lives. Paying yourself generously belongs right alongside serving your clients and growing your business.
The money your business creates for YOU is part of its success.
You get to be ambitious about your business AND ambitious about your own financial security.
After all, you didn’t become your own boss so you could spend the rest of your career negotiating with yourself over payday.
You know how you can be confident in the value of your work and still find yourself second-guessing what to charge?
Your money story doesn’t just influence how much you pay yourself. It also influences your pricing, and that has the most significant impact on how much money your business makes.
Take my free Pricing Profile Quiz to discover the pricing patterns influencing what you charge, uncover where you you’re leaving money on the table, and discover how to start making pricing decisions that put more money into your business AND your personal bank account.
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