For Women Consultants, 6 Figures Isn't A Destination, It's A Crossroad

Welcome to today's edition of the Seven Figure Consultant LinkedIn Newsletter for Women in Consulting.?Don't forget that you can get daily updates from Jessica in your LinkedIn news feed?by accessing her LinkedIn profile and hitting Follow .?She will be sharing insights and discussions through the week that she would love to hear your views on.

For a lot of us, if we’ve been a part of the online business world and we have spent time listening to content aimed at ‘female entrepreneurs’, there can already be a lot of baggage around ‘having a 6 figure business’.?

Like 6 figures is the standard that is set for whether a business is really achieving anything, and if your turnover is lower than that, you almost feel like you’re doing it wrong, or you’re NOT doing something inspiring or meaningful.

It's time to move away from that whole paradigm.

And here's two reasons why.

Firstly, in business terms, 6 figures is not really that much of a big deal.?It’s not actually a lot of money when you think about it against the bigger picture.?

In the early stages of the consultancy firm I used to run, we experienced really fast growth and we were super proud of ourselves and even looked into applying for business awards to boost our status as a business.?

We thought our multiple 6 figure business was just so amazing.

And then I realised very quickly that there were start-ups also applying for the same business awards who had made ￡20 million in their first year.?

It was a bit of a wake up call.

And if you’ve been in business for any length of time at all you will probably have felt this too. There will always be businesses that are more successful than yours. There will always be businesses that are LESS successful than yours. We are part of this giant galaxy of other people and businesses, and it just doesn’t always matter how we rank in that as much as we think it does.

So #1?- 6 figures isn’t actually that significant.

It’s NOT a line in the sand.

It’s NOT a validation point that you have to be at in order to take your business seriously.

Six Figures is not a destination, it's a crossroad

The second reason why we need to stop labelling six figures businesses as successful is because it usually doesn’t FEEL very successful.

If you reach six figures by solely trading your time for money, chances are you’re booked up and burned out.

It’s like those old-style kettles that you boil on the hob. And the water is getting hotter and the kettle starts to whistle.

That’s what it feels like in an unscaled business that is in prime ‘booked up and burned out’ territory.

Here’s the maths that prove this theory.

There’s on average around 260 working days per calendar year.?

Make that 230 to allow for a basic amount of holiday – even though many women who are in the ‘booked up and burned out’ phase do not take the time off they actually need and want, because they can’t step away from the business.

Of those 230 days, even when you’re fully booked it’s rare for all of those to be 100% billable hours.

Let’s assume a utilisation rate of 70% to leave space for professional development, training, planning, sick days (although again, a lot of women I speak to don’t routinely stop working when they’re sick).

Depending on your day rate this will equate to a business turnover that sits somewhere in the low 6 figure bracket.?

A day rate of 500 or so, that could actually bring you just under 100K, but if it’s 750, or 1000 it’ll come in between 120k and 200k or thereabouts.

So you’ll see, just as you arrive at the hallowed 100k year, you’re also on the brink of burning out.

It is almost universally the situation that women are in when they approach me.

And the conversation tends to start like this.

‘Jessica. I need you to help my business. Because something has to change. It can’t go on like this for much longer.’

This stage of business cannot be sustained for a long period.?

It feels like being at breaking point.

Because the diary is always so full.

If you have to cancel a meeting it is genuinely really hard to find another slot to book it into.?

Meetings start to get really small – 15 minute slots. Because you need to cram as much into every day in order to cope with the volume of work and the number of enquiries you have.

And team meetings can become 10-15 minute phone calls when you’re driving somewhere or walking to pick up the kids.?

You’re always shoehorning things into your schedule because it’s just so jam-packed.

And the long term impact of this is stress.

You can start to feel resentful of your schedule, and even your clients, because you’re really starting to feel the impact of the fast pace things are always moving at. There isn’t enough time to give your full attention to everything you want to, but more than that – it FEELS like there isn’t enough time. Your business feels claustrophobic and I think often we have this feeling that we can’t escape.?

You set up your business to have more freedom.

Because when the business is at capacity, or even when it’s over capacity – that is at the heart of what is going on when you’re booked up and burned out. You’re right back in your corporate job.

You are at the mercy of your schedule and your clients and your staff, and often also your family and your life outside work. And it’s all demanding from you, all the time.

More. More. More. Everyone needs more of you.

And it doesn’t feel like a great place to be.

It feels lonely.

It feels frustrating.

You feel trapped.

So if you’re rushing headlong towards that 100k milestone, and you’re starting to wonder how you can fit everything into your day without giving up eating and sleeping.

Or?maybe you’re already there.

I can help.

Free Report - The Six Elements of a Seven Figure Consulting Business

I've created a free PDF report called The Six Elements of a Seven Figure Business.?It’s my most popular free resource and in it I outline the 6 areas of unscaled businesses that need to change in order to move past being ‘booked up and burned out’ and shifting into that higher gear that gets you cruising again.

It’s the framework that helps consultant women like you find their feet and get back to leading the business, rather than being buried in client work and back-end business operations.

Sign up here for your PDF report, and I'll show you the six elements your consultancy needs to make the shift from a nice little 6-figure lifestyle business to a serious 7-figure enterprise.

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To find out more about the work I do, visit?jessicafearnley.com ?or message me here on LinkedIn if you'd like to hear more about private coaching and how I can help you transition from booked up and burned out to THRIVING as the CEO of your 7 figure consulting business.