Why You Need to Consider Your Hourly Wage As a Business Owner

How much does your business pay you, hourly? Whether you’re working on a pricing strategy or just feeling burnt out by your business, this can be an important thing to consider.

Why Think About Your Wage?

Knowing your hourly wage can help you be more aware of the time and effort you’re putting into your business, and what kind of return you’re getting. Calculating your hourly wage can be a great tool for a perspective shift. For many business owners, even if they work 12-hour days and have just enough to cover bills, they might not see that their business isn’t paying them enough until they’ve figured out their hourly rate. If your hourly wage would make you want to leave your position if you were an employee, that’s a great clue that some new thinking about your pricing is in order!

Appropriate Pricing

Understanding what your hourly wage is (and what you want it to be) can be a huge help in pricing your products appropriately. First you need to understand your money why, or why you earn the money you take in from your business.  This will help you understand if your current prices can really sustain the goals that you have financially. You can learn how to set informed income goals here. Once you understand what your income target is, you can work backwards and see how much of your product or service you would need to produce and sell in order to make that income. 

Take a moment to consider the cost of low prices, too. Look around at what other people in your industry are selling their product for. If you’re giving your goods away because they’re priced so low, you’re not doing anyone any favors. Remember, selling more doesn’t mean you’re necessarily making more. You aren’t making money, you’re reducing the value of what you do in the eyes of the buyers and you’re making your industry fellows unhappy.

Consider Your Time

When you are considering how to price your product or service, you may take into account the cost of supplies, transportation, and other materials. However, you must also take into account the cost of your time. If you were working for someone else and getting paid, you would receive an hourly wage, so consider that just as important in your own business. If you hired someone to help you with production, you’d need to pay them an hourly wage too. If you’re planning to scale up a business you’ll need to be able to hire other people and your prices need to be able to sustain that.

Another thing for product-based businesses to consider when looking at your pricing is your interest in wholesaling. When selling wholesale, you will typically  sell at 50% of your retail price. If, at this price, you’re not covering your costs, labor and making a profit that supports your financial goals, you need to raise your prices. 

Taking your hourly wage into account can help you accurately price your products and meet your income goals. If you’re interested in learning and thinking more about pricing formulas, I encourage you to check out my interview with Megan Auman. Our talk, plus my articles on how artists define their own success and how business skills and artistic sense can coexist, are great resources for anyone with a creative business looking to tinker with their profit model. Enjoy!

 

☮

Angela

Photo: bruce mars 


This blog post is a tweaked and re-published version of the original, posted in 2019 as part of a series for creative business owners. Check out more articles on that topic here

Why You Need to Consider Your Hourly Wage As a Business Owner

Have you paused to consider what hourly wage your business pays you? This might not seem important – maybe you think that as long as you have your bills paid, you’re all set.

Why Think About Your Wage?

The thing is, this is really about pricing your products appropriately. First you need to understand your money why, or why you earn the money you take in from your business.  This will help you understand if your current prices can really sustain the goals that you have financially. You can learn how to set informed income goals here. Once you understand what your income target is, you can work backwards and see how much of your product or service you would need to produce and sell in order to make that income. The next step is to see whether that’s realistic. 

The Cost of Low Prices

Look around at what other people in your industry are selling their product for. If you’re giving your goods away because they’re priced so low, you’re not doing anyone any favors. Remember, selling more doesn’t mean you’re necessarily making more. You aren’t making money, you’re reducing the value of what you do in the eyes of the buyers and you’re making your industry fellows unhappy.

Consider Your Time

When you are considering how to price your product you may take into account the cost of supplies, transportation, and other materials. However, you must also take into account the cost of your time. If you were working for someone else and getting paid, you would receive an hourly wage, so consider that just as important in your own business. If you hired someone to help you with production, you’d need to pay them an hourly wage too. If you’re planning to scale up a business you’ll need to be able to hire other people and your prices need to be able to sustain that.

Another thing for product-based businesses to consider when looking at your pricing is your interest in wholesaling. When selling wholesale, you will typically  sell at 50% of your retail price. If, at this price, you’re not covering your costs, labor and making a profit that supports your financial goals, you need to raise your prices. 

I hope these thoughts of mine have helped you consider how taking your hourly wage into account can help you accurately price your products and meet your income goals. If you’re interested in learning and thinking more about pricing formulas, I encourage you to check out my interview with Megan Auman. Our talk, plus my articles on how artists define their own success and how business skills and artistic sense can coexist, are great resources for anyone with a creative business looking to tinker with their profit model. Enjoy!

 

☮

Angela

Photo: JOSHUA COLEMAN

It’s Okay to Make Money

It's Okay To Make Money: At Peace With Money

If you get my newsletter, you’ll know that this month I’m focusing on breaking down some barriers that often prevent people from striking out on their solopreneurial adventures. I decided to tackle one of the most common stumbling blocks first; the belief that you don’t deserve to make money. There are many iterations of this belief. Maybe it’s not that you don’t deserve to make money doing what you want to do, but that it will be very challenging. Or maybe it’s that you need to do something more serious instead of following your creative pursuit. If any of these statements resonate with you, you probably have some limiting beliefs around how you can make money.

Not without reason, of course! Our society puts enormous emphasis on the corporate world, tech business, and STEM education. It’s no wonder that more creative pursuits and anything else that falls outside that realm is relegated to a list of jobs that won’t make you money. These messages get transmitted to us over and over starting in childhood – so of course our beliefs around how we can make money are biased.

Let’s go out on a limb and start imagining some ways you could make money from your passion. Get creative about the possibilities. What are some ideas you have? Once you open your mind, the ideas may start to flow freely. Making a list of all these ideas can get you going.

It's Okay to Make Money: At Peace With MoneyActioning and monetizing any of these ideas will take follow through, learning, and plenty of time and resources. My real point here is that there are many ways you can make money doing your creative pursuit. So it’s time for us to throw away the idea that you can’t/won’t/shouldn’t make money that way. I want to encourage you and give you permission to make money the way you want – whether it’s through your creative pursuits, or another idea that makes you want to strike out on your own.

Removing this barrier of belief is probably one of the most important things we can tackle, before we get into the nitty-gritty. For more on this subject, I recommend my articles “Artists Define Their Own Business Success” and “Artistry and Solopreneurship Can Coexist.”

And if you’re interested in getting into the details and figuring out how you can make the most out of the money you make, check out my Services page and schedule a call!

Angela

Image Source: Paweł Czerwiński

Integrate Your Creativity and Business Sense

Integrate Your Creative and Business Sides: At Peace With Money

I enjoy busting the myth that artists can’t be business people, and vice versa! I truly don’t think the two ways of being are mutually exclusive. However, I do agree that integrating the two takes some effort. That’s why, in this month of habits, I want to talk about how we can establish habits that address both our business and creative needs.

The most important thing solopreneurs can do to serve their business on a financial level is to look at your numbers once a week. Using these numbers to assess business success, needs, and changes to be made is just good business practice. This should be a regular habit, but it doesn’t need to be devoid of creative energy.

Instead of separating your business-owner side from your creative side, let the two aspects inform each other.  Think of ways to engage your creative side while looking at numbers. Try putting on music, or get the wiggles out beforehand by dancing. If you’re a visual person, record or track your finances using a bullet journal full of doodles, color-coding, and stickers.  Create a fun visual chart to map your progress that you can color in as you save, pay off debt, or work towards a business goal. 

Looking at your numbers regularly doesn’t have to be bland or austere. It’s your business, you decide how you do things! Keep your creative and business sides equally engaged. I believe that’s key to the life of a creative solopreneur. I hope this gives you a little inspiration to start a weekly numbers habit, and infuse your business finances with creative spark! If you need some guidance around this or are interested in chatting with me, look at my Services page and book a call!

Angela

The Creative Exchange

Artistry and Solopreneurship Can Coexist

In our society, we often hear this myth of the “starving artist.” We see art and monetary success as polar opposites. I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Megan Auman, a jewelry designer and business coach. Her two livelihoods alone defy our myth about art vs. money, and Megan’s philosophy follows this same sentiment. While we were talking, she made a couple of points that really struck me that I wanted to share with you all.

Artists Need Money

One great point Megan raised, is that artists can often be found talking about how they just want more time to focus on their art. Pursuing the business aspects of an artistic career is often seen as not aligned with this goal. In reality, however, artists need money in order to support themselves and have time to do their creative work. Megan put it simply, saying “The more money you’re making, the less stressed you are, and the more energy you have to create more work.” Building up the practical side of your business so that it generates income can actually enable you to spend more time doing what you really love.

Creativity and Business Sense Can Coexist

You might have read the title of this post and scoffed. The idea that arts- and business-intelligences can’t coexist runs deep for us! However, Megan raised the point that good business people have many of the same skills as artists. Skilled business people are often creative, good at finding solutions, and able to think in nonlinear ways, just like artists. Business skills are a capacity that can be grown and nurtured. Even if you’re an artist at heart, through self-education and inquiry, you can develop your business skills. The two realms are interrelated and can easily combine to shape your livelihood.

I really enjoyed speaking with Megan because our goals are very similar; we both want creative solopreneurs to have profitable businesses that allow them to spend time doing what they most want to do. Whether it’s their creative work or other pursuits, all of those things take financial security. Business success is within reach, even, and especially if you run a creative business. I encourage you to watch the full interview here and check out Megan’s resources, Artists & Profit Makers, and Market Your Selfie, for more of her wisdom. Many of Megan’s ideas are well-aligned with Profit First concepts! If you want to talk finance, check in and schedule a call with me on my Services page. 

Angela

 

Image Sources: Rosie KerrS O C I A L . C U T

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