Making your first 5K isn’t that easy. It can take a lot of work to build your business to get into the black, but what about your next 5K and beyond. If you are not focused on making money in your business, what are you in it for? Here’s how to make 5K more a month easy (with tips from actual experts!).
“A business without revenue is just a hobby.”
If you want to make 5K, 10K and more, it starts with some strategic thinking. I reached out to several experts with the simple questions: How do you make your first 5K, or how to make an additional 5K per month in your company?
It doesn’t sound like a lot, but getting over those hurdles could mean more cash flow as you build systems that work. If you can make 5K, you make 500K — what are you waiting for?
Here are the 9 tips to make 5K per month:
1. Create a new promotion.
I believe in the value of ‘low-hanging fruit’ — most business owners seem to forget about the audience, clients, customers they’ve already built up. This first piece of advice, from James Pollard shows how easy it can be to ‘find’ an extra 5K by targeting the people who already love you.
“My name is James Pollard and I’m the owner of a marketing consultancy that works specifically with financial advisors over at TheAdvisorCoach.com.
If I had to make an additional $5K per month, I would discount my current offering and send a promotion out to my current list of prospects. Everyone loves a good discount, and if you attach a deadline to the promotion, it gives it the little extra boost it needs to get people to take action.
Another amazing strategy that I’ve used successfully is to send out a “thank you” letter to my current customers, upselling them. I’ve done this via email, but a handwritten note sent directly to them tends to work best.
This is also why it’s important to develop a marketing list – if you ever need “money on demand”, you can create it.”
2. Have no doubt. Make room for money in your life and business.
This next insight comes from someone who has been there. This tip is for anyone who needs to make a few bucks, regardless of what stage we are in business. Let’s face it. We all have to hustle and make shit happen from time to time.
“One of the biggest roadblocks for most people when it comes to making money or making more money is doubt—I’m not good enough, I’m not good at anything, etc.
But really, it’s not that hard. Meaning, getting started is not hard. Paralysis by analysis is real, and far too often we sit and stew to the point of taking no action at all. It’s brutal.
So, do or die, people need to:
1) Ask themselves what they’re good at (we are all at least decent at something).
2) And/or, ask themselves what they enjoy doing (many times, we don’t realize those things can be monetized).
3) Just do something. Somewhere. Anywhere. Find a low barrier/ low-risk opportunity and go.
Personal example:
I was looking for more ways to make money in grad school…I had a full-time job, but it wasn’t enough.
1) I thought I was a decent writer.
2) I enjoyed writing.
I then encountered the roadblock:
“I’m not a writer; I didn’t major in English; I’ve written class projects and a couple blog posts, that’s it.” = “I’m not good enough to get paid to write.”
But, I took the third step and just tried something. I looked to freelance job sites, started bidding on jobs, quickly found there were things I could do to set myself apart from other writers and the rest was history. I outline everything here but happy to provide more details if necessary.
Best of luck! Ryan, Learn more about Rent My Words.
3. Get your partners to sell you and share revenues.
I’m the CEO of Swurveys and my company has faced this exact situation in Q1 of 2018.
In reference to your query on making $5,000 per month at all costs as fast as you can, I can state that we faced this exact issue. My tips are actual items that we took to achieve that goal starting in February and carrying it through March and into April.
Focus on existing and past customers! Push the vast majority of energy to this goal— 80% or more. Go back to them and see if there is additional work you can do for them, if there are other use cases that can use, or if there are other departments that you can work with.
Set goals by everyone on your team towards the goal of revenue. This could be uncomfortable for some on your team, but if things are dire than “all-hands” have to get involved in revenue generation.
See if any of your customers can act as resellers or channel partners. One of our customers was an agency that has a number of clients that make good Swurveys customers and we created a revenue-sharing agreement to have them push to their customers.
I am always looking for other ways for us to generate more (and consistent) revenue. I’d love to see/hear what other scrappy entrepreneurs are doing to achieve this goal in a stressful time in their business.
Sincerely, Zachary Rozga, CEO, Swurveys
4. Narrow down your offering.
Find something in your field that is: 1. Really needed, 2. That you are really good at doing, 3. That is really niche. You can’t be everything to everyone.
As Sid below tells us, it’s important to niche down your offering. It could be the key to you hitting the big numbers. Think small, to think big.
“As a marketing consultant to SAAS companies and previously VP of Growth at Thinkific. I hit my 5k in my very first month, after I left my previous role to become an independent consultant, and have been growing ever since.
The key here is to identify one thing that you’re good at, like a service you can provide, and an audience that needs it. Too often, people try to be everything for everyone. I see folks who offer web design, development, SEO, and a host of other things all at once. They also try to appeal to software companies, eCommerce companies, and anyone who has money.
Instead, niche down. I focus specifically on strategy consulting for software companies. I say no to people asking for help with SEO. I say no to eCommerce companies. This way, I brand myself as the go to person in my niche for my specific service. So software companies are willing to pay top dollar to hire me, and they’ll mention me to other similar software companies.”
Cheers, Sid, www.sidbharath.com
5. Figure out the problem, then offer a solution.
Okay. This one might seem a little ‘on the nose’ but how many of us need a reminder that it really is this simple. Figure out a problem, then offer a solution.
If you want to make 5K a month, you don’t necessarily need 100 clients, or customers either. You just need 2 customers that are willing to spend 2.5K each, or one that is willing to spend 5K!
It’s not magic, it’s math. If you want, or need to make 5K, what valuable service can you offer? Target those who can afford your services and don’t settle for anything less than your worth.
“To make $5K/month quickly, I’d recommend using your 9-5 skills and finding high-ticket freelance or coaching clients, so you would only need 1 or 2 to hit the $5K mark. The key is to find those already make 7 or 8 figures a year so they can afford your services, and to position yourself as one who has the answer to problems they didn’t tell you or even were 100% aware they had.”
Stacy Caprio, Accelerated Growth Marketing
6. Need to make money right away? Consult.
While you are building your business or creating new revenue streams, how do you bridge that gap between almost broke and very successful? Those days, weeks, or even months can be rough. If you need to make money right away, there’s always a way.
One of the best ways any entrepreneur can start making money today is through consulting. You might not think you are an expert in anything someone would want to pay for, but if you’ve done something successfully in business, you can be sure someone else could learn from you.
Consulting can take all shapes and sizes. You can consult on almost anything included in a business. Usually, the more niche you get the better. Don’t just call yourself a ‘business consultant’, — yikes! Figure out the niche you can really help people in. Are you good at SEO, or social media strategy? Maybe you can help with pitch deck consulting? Or personal brand storytelling? There are a lot of business owners that need your specific type of help out there!
“Lend your brain to your customer.
Many entrepreneurs make the mistake of hiding behind their marketing strategy when they could be having a real impact one-on-one.
Some call it coaching, some call it consulting.
It entails putting yourself in front of the business and selling time with you to help your customer achieve their goals.
These services can be charged at a premium of upwards of $800/month. 6 clients per month, one hour a week with each, will get you to $5K quickly.”
Ina Coveney, BS, MBA, Techie Business Expert, inacoveney.com
7. Diversify your revenue streams.
On top of consulting, you could create new products to sell. Think this is impossible? Well, not really. It’s not as overwhelming to create new products to sell in this digital age.
“My best advice for making $5k in a month would be to diversify your revenue streams. With the plethora of platforms available to creators today, there are multiple ways to do this. One I would suggest would be to create print collateral that aligns with your brand. This could be a lookbook, brand book, cookbook, workbook, journal, calendar, photobook, etc. It could even be a book about your brand story or philosophy. Creating multiple products and printed collateral can be a great way to increase revenue, drive sales, and establish yourself as an expert in your field.”
Chelsea Bennett, Public Relations and Events Coordinator for Lulu.com.
If you are interested in diversifying your revenue stream, services such as Lulu.com is a great way to start. It’s self-publishing print-on-demand platform that makes publishing easy and cost-effective. We have a substantial community of entrepreneurs who use our site to raise awareness, share knowledge, make money and gain credibility.
8. Create your own affiliate program.
One of the ways you can start to make 5K a month is by creating your own affiliate program for your services or products. Think about this. If you offered 30, 40, even 50% of your profits to someone else, just for bringing you solid leads, how fast can you get to your 5K?
Creating an affiliate program should be a no-brainer for all of you with products to sell. Without investing too much legwork into the setup, you can get others to share your products with their friends. Think of this as your ‘warm introduction’ + ‘marketing’ all rolled up into one.
When Sam Parr at The Hustle wanted to seriously ramp up his email list, he used what they called the Ambassador Program to do it, and it worked. Give people who already love your product a chance to get something back!
You can listen to our full interview with Sam Parr here:
9. Create your own seminar.
One of the quickest ways I know to make a few extra bucks a month for your company (and possibly build leads) is to create your own in-person seminar each month. I have seen these in-person training sessions help so many local businesses grow.
Think about who your ideal target audience is, what you could teach them, what would make a great seminar topic. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel here people. Do some homework. What seminars have you attended in the past? Which ones are popular? Is there a topic that comes up over and over again?
Figure out something you can either teach or pull local experts in to teach. Any kind of business growth topics always does well. Marketing and social media are also big topics that could fill a room.
How do you make money holding a seminar?
Well, there are a few ways you can make that 5K (or more) just by creating a seminar.
The first way is to charge enough and offer a more in-depth learning seminar that people will pay for. Often companies offer incentives for their marketing teams to educate themselves, so don’t be afraid to try this option. Digital marketing, search marketing, content marketing are all still relatively new topics to cover, so companies will pay to train their employees on these sorts of topics.
Approach One: A Highly Valuable Workshop Seminar
If you go with this approach, you can charge 1000 a ticket or more. Make sure you share really valuable information, book a full day, and offer refreshments and a catered lunch. If you booked 10 people to come to one of these ‘highly valuable’ industry insights sessions, you could make 5K easily after expenses. Plus, you’ll be seen as more of an industry expert.
Approach Two: A Loss Leader Seminar
Another approach I’ve seen work quite well for local business owners is the ‘loss leader’ seminar option. Think about the kind of new clients you want to attract. Are you targeting small business owners? Let’s say, for this example that you are. What do small business owners need to learn about to support their business? Maybe how to write a business blog? Great. That would make a great ‘loss leader’ seminar.
Find a local space that isn’t too expensive, perhaps a local library? Make tickets something anyone can afford and sell out the room You might not make your 5K doing the event, but the leads you’ll get are invaluable.
This kind of approach can work for all kinds of companies. It’s all about your ability to upsell your product. Finding new clients can be tough, but once you’ve given them something of value, you’ll be the first ‘expert’ they reach out to.
Final Comments: Now, go out and make your 5K!
This is just a few ways to make your first, or an additional 5K. Sometimes, it can be hard to get over that ‘hump’ when it comes to positive revenue streams. We can devalue what we do so often that 5K often feels like 5 million!
And, really, that’s the point.
If you can master making 5K, you can master making 500K! It’s all about mindset.
Here at Change Creator, we want to help you get the business you want. We want to help you make more money and save the planet while doing it!
If you have any great money making tips, we’d love to hear them! Comment below!
You can also get some great insider tips in Change Creator magazine. We give you exclusive interviews with some of the leaders in business and social impact. Tips, strategies, insights you won’t find anywhere else.
