Work Less, Earn More

If you’re an overachiever, doing less doesn’t feel like the answer to earning more OR achieving your goals.   Because doing less feels counterintuitive to both of those things.   And by doing less—working less?!—you might feel guilty. You might even feel bad.   But according to today’s guest, doing less and scaling back doesn’t mean your business and life is going to fall apart. Instead, it could actually be the turning point you need to become more profitable and creative!   Kate Northrup is the bestselling author of Do Less, founder of Origin Collective, a membership site for female entrepreneurs who want to grow their businesses while doing less, and mom of two little ones.   Listen to the full episode to hear: How Kate launched her membership site and got her first members Different launch strategies Kate's tried and what she's learned from them Pros and cons of having a larger or smaller team How asking "what would this look like if it were simple?" can change everything   Learn more about Kate Northrup: katenorthrup.com Kate’s new book, Do Less The Kate and Mike Show Instagram @katenorthrup Facebook @Kate Northrup Twitter @Kate Northrup YouTube @Kate Northrup     Learn more about Gillian: Join Startup Society (promo code: earnmore) Profit Planning Challenge Get in touch!  

As my business grows, it’s going to get harder, right, Gillian?   Nope. In my experience, it gets EASIER—even with three kids AND a newborn.   Now, that’s not to say I haven’t faced challenges. Of course I have! And in your journey to grow a successful business, so will you!   And some of those challenges will relate to HOW you work and WHEN you work as you seek to balance family and business responsibilities.   Beyond the logistics of running a business and parenting, one of the MOST important things that really matters is that you truly enjoy what you’re doing.   Oftentimes, we simply assume that things are going to get harder the bigger our business grows. That in itself can hold you back from growing your business into its full potential.   But if you truly enjoy what you’re doing, you show up every day, get better at what you do, and grow through the challenges that creating and growing a business naturally brings.   In today's episode, I'm going to walk you through a few of my go-to tips and tricks on how to run a business while parenting (and homeschooling!) at the same time. And for those of you who aren’t parents—maybe you have a day job, maybe you’re in school, or maybe you have a side hustle—these tips apply to you, too!   Listen to the full episode to hear: My #1 habit for doubling my productivity every day Whether to multitask or not and how to get it all done when you simply DON’T have the time Simple tips for ensuring you have the energy to show up as the person you need to be to do what you need to do And how to approach that perennial question: should you use technology as a babysitter?   Links: Join Startup Society (promo code: earnmore) Profit Planning Challenge Get in touch!  

Every month, I’m peeling back the curtain and sharing the ins & outs of my monthly revenue.   These income reports are an in-depth and honest look at how much my business earned, what it cost, and how many hours it took me to do it.   I’ll also share which tasks and projects really ended up paying me best so that you can see how I’m optimizing my business so that I can work less and earn more over time. Plus, you’ll get a time report, breaking down the time I spend on each activity and how that created a financial result (or not).   I hope that you’ll be able to learn from my trial and error, as I work to grow my business, my impact, and my income––all while keeping clear boundaries on my time and personal life.   Today, we’re looking back on May 2020.   Listen to the full episode to hear: What my team and I did when my daughter showed up early! Why I wish I would have paid myself an average monthly income from the very beginning and an easy way to figure out your monthly salary How much a new hire is costing the business and why we made that decision Why the entrepreneurial mindset is SO necessary as you deal with the ups and downs of business How our product sales compare to our best month ever—April—and what impacted the numbers this month   Links: Instagram: @gillianzperkins Join Startup Society (promo code: earnmore) Profit Planning Challenge Get in touch!

When you’re selling online, most people assume that a bigger audience is better.   More people, more money, right?   According to today’s guest, a six-figure launch isn’t about your list size and it’s not just about how awesome you are—really! Instead, it’s about how you structure your offer, how you price it, and how you build a relationship with your audience. There’s a method behind it.   Tarzan Kay is an email marketing expert and former copywriter-for-hire who’s been able to generate massive revenue with a small audience. In this episode, Tarzan shares exactly how she did a $151,000 launch last year.   And, naturally, she shares all of her expert email marketing and copywriting tips on how she stands out in a crowded market—and how you can, too.   Listen to the full episode to hear: What counterintuitive pricing strategy to use if your list is small How you *structure* your offer matters and how sometimes it’s about more than your sales tactics What "small list tactics" you can use to maximize your sales when your email list is small Why you shouldn't WAIT to launch—and how it can actually be the best thing you can do to grow your audience   Tarzan’s Links: TarzanKay.com 10 Free Email Promo Sequence Swipes Instagram: @tarzan_kay The Must-Have Tool For Promoting To A List of Less Than 1000 Subscribers   Gillian’s Links: Join Startup Society (promo code: earnmore) Profit Planning Challenge Get in touch!  

Last year I spent over $20,000 on copywriters.   That is a lot of money by the standard of any small business, and it was a very significant chunk of my expenses last year.   You might think that it sounds crazy to spent $20,000 on copywriting services.  But consider this:  if you're earning $50k with a 1% conversion rate, you could bump it up to just a 3% conversion rate and generate $150,000!   That's a really big increase!   By improving my copy-–and increasing my conversion rate–by even a small amount, I can generate significantly more revenue and profit for my business.  So spending $20,000 on copywriting suddenly doesn’t sound so crazy.   In today’s episode, I want to share what  I learned through the process of spending so much money on copywriting services.   I’m going to break down whether or not it was worth it, as well as how to consider whether hiring a copywriter is a smart move for your business. I'm also going to share with you the impact that investing this money has had on my business – good and bad.   Listen to the full episode to hear: How hiring a copywriter can (potentially!) be a great investment but it can also have a lot of challenges 2 BIG copywriting projects I outsourced, and how each of them turned out What 5 big lessons I learned about copywriting, marketing, success, and taking shortcuts Whether or not I will work with copywriters again in the future and what I'll do differently   Links: Join Startup Society (promo code: earnmore) Profit Planning Challenge Get in touch! Episode 16 with Ashlyn Carter  

I’m not the only one who runs a successful business in less than full time. Every month, I’ll share a conversation with another business owner who is prioritizing working less and earning more. We’ll get into the choices they’ve made, the tools they use, and how they organize their businesses to maximize profit and minimize effort. Today, I'm bringing on my friend Lilah Higgins to share with us a little bit about how she runs her business in about 20 hours per week. Lilah is the co-founder of TheForge, a leadership training community for faith-driven business owners, along with her husband, Zac. Lilah is also a leader in the online business space where she uses her fine art training and strategic mind to work with her clients and students to create cohesive and effective brands, helping them find the confidence they need to become industry leaders. And she does all that while being a great mom to her two little kids. Lilah definitely needs to save time wherever she can, especially now that she’s shifting her business to prioritize more fun in her life. Lilah is a perfect case study for how you can strategically run your business in fewer hours, achieve real “success”, and meet your goals without compromising your values. Listen to the full episode to hear:How Lilah knew she was working too much and what she did to cut back on working time so she could prioritize her lifetimeHow and why Lilah’s making a conscious effort to spend more time on purely fun activitiesHow Lilah transitioned from working with 1-on-1 clients to selling digital products… and the impact that had on the number of hours she works per weekWhy Lilah works “on the margins” and how the time she spends working breaks down between clients and productsHer favorite tool for helping her company earn more with less effort Links:Lilah Higgins Brand Design & ArtTheForgeLilah on InstagramLilah on FacebookStartup SocietyGillianPerkins.com 

Selling digital products is a fantastic way to be able to work less and earn more.   If you run an online business or you're planning on starting one, chances are you are very familiar with digital products and all of the benefits digital products can bring to your business.   You already know that once you create the product, you can sell them for months, even years, without having to regularly invest more time and more money into improving them or additional inventory. Digital products are something that you can create in your business to generate profits for a long time to come.   Take courses and membership sites as an example.   Courses and membership sites are two types of premium digital products you can sell, and they both offer amazing opportunities. They both offer opportunities to increase your profits without having to continually increase your work hours.   So how, when both are potentially really smart things to invest some initial time and money into, do you decide which one is right for YOU?   In today's episode, I am going to explain to you the difference between these two digital products and help you figure out which of them is the best fit for you and your business.   I'm going to help you make that decision by sharing with you some of the pros and the cons of each, my experience with them, and which one is best for you, depending on your situation and your goals.   Listen to the full episode to hear: Courses and membership sites have a lot in common -- both good and bad Which digital product is simpler to build into your business Which option can be more profitable And which option is right for YOU   Links: Join Startup Society (promo code: earnmore) Profit Planning Challenge Get in touch!

Every month, I’m peeling back the curtain and sharing the ins & outs of my monthly revenue.   These income reports are an in-depth and honest look at how much my business earned, what it cost, and how many hours it took me to do it.   I’ll also share which tasks and projects really ended up paying me best so that you can see how I’m optimizing my business so that I can work less and earn more over time. Plus, you’ll get a time report, breaking down the time I spend on each activity and how that created a financial result (or not).   I hope that you’ll be able to learn from my trial and error, as I work to grow my business, my impact, and my income––all while keeping clear boundaries on my time and personal life.   Today, we’re looking back on April 2020.   Listen to the full episode to hear: What has contributed to us having our biggest profit month to date The changes to the income numbers that we have seen over the last 30 days What we have seen from the affiliate program that we launched with Teachable for course creators How our Facebook advertising access was unintentionally restricted and the frustrations of trying to get them to fix it How despite working more than I normally would in preparation for maternity leave I have been blessed with being able to spend more time with my family   Links: Join Startup Society (promo code: earnmore) Profit Planning Challenge Get in touch!

There is a dangerous pitfall that we can fall into when we work to optimize our business so that we can earn more and work less. This mistake can steal our joy and force us to waste countless hours each week.   Growing up, my mom was really into healthy eating. She always wanted us to eat our vegetables and take our vitamins, and she tried to feed us as much organic food as possible. Before dinner, she would always put out a giant salad and we couldn't eat our dinner until we had finished it. And we certainly weren’t going to get dessert until we had eaten our dinner.   I don't think that this was a bad thing because, to this day, I am a fantastic vegetable eater, but something that I've noticed is that this eat-your-vegetables-first mentality has carried over into other aspects of my life.   Whenever it’s work or play, I always tend to focus on getting the work out of the way before I spend time playing.   In general, as you would expect, this is a really good thing.   It’s good to focus on strategies that help to achieve as much as possible with little time and effort.   It means that I get a lot done, both because I focus on getting the work done first, and because I'm working towards some sort of a reward – dessert, fun, or relaxation.   This is so important to me because I don't want work to take over my life. I want to make sure that I've plenty of time left over to really enjoy life – to spend time with my family and to do the things that I truly love.   In today's episode, I'm going to explain what this pitfall is, why you might be making these mistakes, and how you can work to reframe your mindset and restructure your schedule to make sure that you're getting the most out of every hour you work all while enjoying the process to boot.   Listen to the full episode to hear: How focusing on the goal of working less can kill your passion for the work that you are doing What mindset shifts you can make to enjoy your work WITHOUT letting it take over your life How to shift your schedule and find the right balance between fun and work Why work is a good thing and why we should embrace it in our lives   Links: Join Startup Society (promo code: earnmore) Profit Planning Challenge Get in touch!  

Copywriting has such an incredible power to allow you to work less and earn more.   If you have put the time and energy into your copy and your website is converting – convincing more people to join your email list and buy your product – that means you don't have to put in the leg work to make each individual sale yourself.   If you set up your website do the heavy lifting for you, you can take some time off and keep making money – even if you're not in the office.   In this episode, we’re talking with the brilliant copywriter and my good friend Ashlyn Carter.   Ashlyn is a conversion copywriter and marketing strategist specializing in wedding & creative industries. She trains Fortune 500 clients in corporate marketing to bring in more than seven-figures. She has worked with creatives like Jenna Kutcher, Beth Kirby of Local Milk, Julie Solomon, Katelyn James, Hilary Rushford, Lara Casey/Cultivate What Matters. Her launch funnels have generated results for clients including upwards of $1M in revenue in a single week. She's been a contributing educator with Creative Live, ConvertKit, and HoneyBook, and has been featured in Forbes, Southern Living, Style Me Pretty, and more.   I wanted to have Ashland on the show so you can learn some of the copywriting secrets that will help you improve the writing that you do to market your business.   Listen to the full episode to hear: How to make your website do the heavy lifting for you so you don't have to work as hard How improving the words on your website can help you convert more customers and allow you to work less The #1 thing everyone can improve on their website to get visitors to STICK and be more likely to convert How to use a "heatmap" to figure out exactly where you need to fix your website's copy   Ashlyn’s Links: Ashlyn Writes Instagram Facebook YouTube   Gillian’s Links: Join Startup Society (promo code: earnmore) The Feedback Form