Do you know where you are right now on your path to freedom?

There are 4 steps to getting to freedom where 100% of your revenue is produced by your cash cow. This is the space where you can choose who you work with as your design business produces all the income you need without doing any work for it.

Level 1 - Frantic

At level 1 you sell all of your time. Your income is directly linked to your time. If you don't work you don't earn. Designers at this level are frustrated and often tell us that they live hand to mouth. To leave this level you need to get clarity around what you sell. If you keep selling services that directly relate to your time then you will always be at this level. The clarity is to get a balance of the cash cow and star products in your business (here is a link to our training on stars and cash cows).

When you understand the relationship between the star and cash cows then you can begin the journey to freedom.

Level 2 - Confidence

At confidence you have started building your cash cow. You know that it works as each month you are earning non-time based revenue. It comes in every month without fail. At this stage you are earning 20% of your overall desired monthly revenue from your cash cow. The other 80% you have to sell your time to top up the revenue.

To get to the next level you need to build your cash cow by focussing your marketing on selling the right products. Selling products is just a choice, you can choose what you sell. If you want to build a cash cow based business then you need to position yourself in a way that your main focus is selling packages that include your cash cow product. By not focussing on it and concentrating on selling other star products it will just take longer to get to.

Level 3 - Good Times

When you get to good times 80% of your desired monthly revenue comes from your cash cow. Let's celebrate as you have almost got to the top! By being focussed on the type of work you accept you shape your business in a way that you will always earn your most significant income from your cash cow. It will turn up guaranteed every month without fail. Here at good times you can start to relax. You can say no to the customers that you don't want.

Something really cool happens at good times. As you now have a solid revenue base behind you, we find that most designers at this stage start to increase their price. They no longer want the scraps of design work they used to say yes to, and push their prices up. This has a virtuous circle effect. You start by putting your prices up, you weed out the sort of customers you don't want and work with companies that have a design budget. Your portfolio starts to stand out more as you now have the time to deliver better work for bigger brands. This in turn helps you get more of the bigger brands by showcasing your portfolio to them. And they then become part of your portfolio!

To get to the next level we go into scale. We get laser focussed on what you want, who do you want to work with, what blend of products you want (including the cash cow) and niche into that area.

Level 4 - Pay Back

This is my favourite part of the pyramid - 100% of your desired revenue comes from your cash cow. This is an amazing place to be. You can literally not do any work if you want to. Sure you will need to make sure that your cash cow customers are happy, but as it's a cash cow it is little to no work at all.

Any work you choose to do here is just bonus revenue.

So where are you now, what is your desired monthly revenue? Why not chat it over with one of our experts in one of our discovery sessions?