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Salary is only one way to measure how you pay yourself
A subscriber recently wrote in asking about my business revenue.
“You used to share your year-over-year revenue numbers but I noticed you don’t do that anymore,” she said. “Would you share what you’re making now?”
She shared her numbers, which was thoughtful. I like when things are reciprocal. She also thanked me for being one of the few people in her inbox talking about how the market for courses and coaching has shifted.
Before we get into this, you should know that many smart online business owners are doing well and making a comfortable living on the internet right now (including me).
There are also many struggling, and lots who’ve dissolved their businesses altogether.
Among those doing well, few of them are doing the same things they were doing 3 years ago. Many have shifted into new business and offers. I’ve also made many friends in the newsletter growth industry whose emails are monetized differently.*
Anytime I hear a coach say, “I’ve decided to scale back my team and do something more simple,” I assume there’s a lot they’re not saying, most of it about cash flow.
…but there’s also truth to what they’re saying so let’s not discount that. Many have found they like this downsized version of their business better, that they’re not sure what they were chasing before, or if it was worth it. For example, I know someone who had 20 coaches working under her and spent her whole day managing them. Now she has almost no team, and spends her time talking to actual customers again. Her delivery is all asynchronous now, and she’s on a 3-day workweek. Sounds dreamy to me.
I get why some business owners are saying they like the current version of their business better, even if it doesn’t come with 7-figure bragging rights.
I make less money but I have more flexibility in my schedule and more time to do the work I like most, which is this newsletter. In my previous business, I dreaded my kids having a sick day or a P.D. day. I couldn’t enjoy my time with them when that happened because I was too stressed about how I would ever catch up at work.
For comparison, I just spent five summer vacation days with my kids, playing cards and hanging out on the canal. (They just walked out the door and possibly took my heart with them. Not sure yet. Still hungover from the high I get being around them.)
It wasn’t perfect. I stress-shopped a bit, took CBD oil daily, and leaned on my mother-in-law twice for a few hours of childcare.
I had to remind myself many times a day that Sandra and I already discussed this, and that it was okay for me to not be working. (She’s been my rock through all of this change and steered me faithfully for 7 years. Get on her email list here. Pretty sure she has space for new clients right now.)
Bringing it back to revenue.
I stopped sharing my revenue numbers not because my revenue was declining but because, without context, those numbers don’t mean anything. There were years where I spent $150K on advertising alone, others where I paid 5 full-time salaries.
And to be fair, I didn’t stop sharing my numbers. I’ve shared them in emails and on sales pages to people who were reading the fine print. But I never lead with that anymore.
A level of transparency I can get on board with (maybe?) is sharing salaries. How much a person is taking home is a lot more interesting to me than a business's top-line revenue. How hard they’re working is even more important, but let’s not further complicate things.
So I guess tell you where I’m at, salary-wise. (Or maybe I’ll throw this entire email in the garbage! It feels extremely vulnerable.)
I recently gave myself a $40K pay cut, for a few reasons: >> Support obligations from my divorce have changed so I don’t need as much money. (Please don’t infer what my obligations were based on that number. You would be wrong.)
>> Paying myself $204K/year was putting a strain on the business. We are running a small deficit this year and a pay cut was an easy fix. I don’t want to be creating new offers and launching just so I can pay myself that amount. If there’s extra I can always take a dividend.
>> The business having cash in the bank brings me enormous comfort, even when it’s not optimized and earning the amount of interest it could be.
And most importantly
>> I’m paying myself in time away from my desk, which is more valuable to me than money.
Even with the pay cut, my annual salary is firmly in the realm of “dream scenario” for most people. Side note, It makes dating men really weird.**
It must be said that it’s not as easy to make money as it was when I started my business in 2016. Ask me on a good day and I’ll tell you it’s nothing we can’t handle. I can think of a million ways to make money online, alternative roads to go down if/when what we’re doing stops working. Ask me on a bad day and I will counter with, “Do you think Costco is hiring?”
One day I may become more focused on scaling my business and earning back my 7-figure crown, but that day feels very distant. I’ve just been through a divorce and a pandemic. I just want to feel peaceful and safe.
I want to spend time with my kids while they’re little and still want to hang out with me.
I want to win a medal in sprint canoe.
I want to fall ridiculously in love and get totally distracted from work.
I want to stay in bed until 9am reading novels.
I want summers off forever.
Those are the ways I pay myself now, and I’m paying myself better than I ever have in my entire career. These experiences are more meaningful to me than money, which I already have more than enough of.
So: your turn.
Because I’m nosy and curious, I’d love to know how much you pay yourself. But I’m even more interested to know:
What are the non-monetary ways you pay yourself?
If your business isn’t paying you yet, feel free to share your dream for how you want to be compensated, so we can hold it together.
XOT
*RE: how my newsletter growth friends are monetizing—I’m going to be talking about that more in my next program, which is all about newsletters and coming in September.
**RE: dating men who make less money—Women are socialized to be comfortable with a partner who earns more money, but men? I’ve yet to date one who is comfortable with being outearned, and I’m not sure I am either. I’d prefer a partner who’s on equal footing financially except it makes the pool of available men a lot smaller and I already spend a lot of time worrying, “What if I never love again?” Please email to commiserate if you also have this problem. Let’s start a support group (or maybe date each other?)
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