Pay Yourself First
Guest Post by Carly Clark Zimmer
My friend, Carly Clark Zimmer, is a business coach for heart-centered coaches & creatives who feel unclear on how to baby-step their way into a profitable coaching business. She combines smart business tactics with her client's own body-mind connect. And she has a free gift to give you (I love it!) to really help you get clarity and take action, when you feel stuck, energetically...but first, I asked her to share a story about money and her business, so you get to know her and what she's learned...
When I first started my coaching business, I was excited to help people and run a business on my terms. I was eager to grow, so I put nearly everything I made back into my business. I hired branding experts, a VA, coaches, went to business retreats and seminars.
While my business was profitable and growing, I was taking home VERY little money. In fact, the only time I would transfer money into my personal checking was when I had a balance of $11.92 and needed to buy groceries. Even then, I’d only transfer over $200 bucks and hope I could stretch it out for a few weeks.
I found myself with a “successful” business on paper, and still felt personally broke.
But wasn’t that the trade-off for having my own business? I thought that was just the way it had to be.
About two years in I found an amazing accountant. She took one look at my books and said
“So . . . how much are you paying yourself?”
I looked at her with a blank stare.
“Huh? What do you mean? I get what’s left after everything else in the business is taken care of. There are taxes, hosting my website, and advertising expenses, and I have to max out my personal IRA.”
Yes. . . And. . . You get to receive a consistent paycheck too.
This was a revolutionary idea to me! I realized how paying myself just enough, was perpetuating a deeply rooted generational pattern of ‘you have to work really hard, and you only get to have just enough.’
There I was, the coach who coached others on how to find inner and outer alignment in their business, and I was doing the exact opposite and operating from a place of scarcity. I was letting the business run me, and only taking just enough.
While I had already been allocating percentages of my income to tax and retirement savings, loosely following the “Profit First” model by Mike Michalowicz, I had skipped the part about Owners Compensation. After I left my accountant’s office that day, I decided I would start small and pay myself just 5% MORE than what went back into my business.
This may seem like a small change, but it was HUGE for the energetics of my business. It gave me that feeling of freedom that I craved when I first started my entrepreneurial journey. Now when I sit down every two weeks to transfer money into the different accounts, I get to feel like I have a healthy relationship to money in my business because it’s supporting me and my desired lifestyle. And… the rate of growth has been faster than ever!
I had the power all along to do this, and so can you! Start small, and let yourself feel the energetic shift of your business supporting you! My business feels even more fun… which means I want to continue to grow, which means I can help more people!
So if you have your own business, how can you let yourself receive just a little bit more today? And then pay attention to how it shifts the way you show up in your business!
If you want to shift your relationship to your business, get Carly Clark Zimmer's FREE Aligned Embodied Business Planner, just click HERE. It's a simple 5 step guide to help you clearly define what aligned action looks and feels like, and give you the clarity and focus each week so you can start growing your business and put you in a flow state!
If you've been looking for a business coach who believes in being a CEO...on your terms and helping you build a profitable business the RIGHT way, unique to YOU, check out Carly's website HERE.
With Gratitude,
Previous Comments
Brandi Bissell AWESOME article!!🙌💕
April 10, 2020, 09:17am
Katy @Brandi Bissell Thanks, Brandi!
April 11, 2020, 03:24pm