Lessons
Lesson Info
Creating Financial Goals
So really, this is about how to plan making a fortune. Interested? So let's go through this. (laughs) And so I think the biggest thing here, the biggest thing is being accountable to yourself. Why do people, why don't people set goals in life? You know those people. Anybody? They don't set goals because they don't want to be accountable for what they say. So if I don't say, if I don't set any goals, I don't have to be accountable. Right? And so when you do set goals, that's saying, "I'm serious, I want to keep myself accountable." And then if you have a mentor on top of that to help you keep that accountability, then you're really, really serious. Okay, so really, that's what it is. So how do we set goals and how do we make ourselves accountable to ourselves? First of all, you have to determine your realistic annual income that you want to make. I'm just making up a number here. I don't know your financial situation or whatever. It could be a lot more, it could be a lot less. I don't k...
now, I just picked $80,000, 'cause that sounds good to me. All right, so let's say you want to make $80,000. Right? So you've gotta determine, how am I gonna make that money? What kind of skills do I have? And so if you're into photography, right, you might go, "A, B, and C, okay, "that's gonna get my goal. "So I've got, okay, these are the three things "that I can make money in," or maybe there's just one. I don't know, but you take those three things, and go, "Okay, I'm gonna make that 80, "with those three things." Then, under each one, under each category of A, B, C, you've gotta divide that revenue income goal by how many months where you can make that money, right? So for example, let's say, for example, this is just a little scenario. January through March is a little bit slow with jobs, because it's winter, if you're a photographer, but you know what? I want to teach during those months, and I want to make some money teaching. And so, let's say, okay, I can make $12,000 there, and I've got three months to make $12,000. Right? And so if I go, if I divide three months, what's three divided by 12? 4,000, 12 divided by three? That's $4,000 a month. So through January and March, I've gotta make $4,000 a month. And so what's $4,000 a month, okay, I need to make $1,000 a week. So you know, if you're going through January and March, and you know, "I'm not making $1,000 a week," you are not hitting your target, and you need to bump it up right away. You see how that accountability works? Some people even break it down to the day, and then they break that money that they'd have to make down to a task. And maybe, it's sometimes 100 tasks, and they keep breaking it down, breaking it down, because it keeps them accountable. Now, I'm not that organized to do that, I just kinda do monthly ones, right? That's, like, good enough for me. But you know exactly, right, and then October, you know what? April through October's my wedding, I'm killing it on weddings. I think I can make $56,000 in weddings there. So that's seven months, right? So what's 56 divided by seven? What, that's, okay, $8,000 a month. I've got a profit, $8,000 a month for weddings during that time. And then you can go, so forth, maybe that slows down, maybe near the end, you're doing more family portraits, 'cause they want their Christmas cards or whatever. I don't know, I just thought of this off the top of my head, right? So that's how you divide it up and become accountable. Let's just go... Then, you determine how many jobs you need to do to fulfill that for each month, right? And then you have your monthly goal, but that forces you to do profit analysis. Forces you, right? And so how many people know how much money we're making, actually, on every job and what our expenses are? One person. (laughs) Good, yeah. A few people, right? And, you know, as artists, it's just like, "I don't know. "Shoot, I got 1,000 bucks in my checking account. "That sounds good right now," right? That's how we are! (laughs) That's how we are, right? Anything over 500 bucks, we're doing good! (laughing) So let's break this down a little bit more. Let's do a revenue stream calculation of just one thing, let's say weddings, 'cause I'm really good at that. So let's say you want to make $60,000 a year with just your wedding revenue, and say that's a six month period where you can really hone in and make that money. In California, it's great, 'cause we can do weddings year-round, which is really great. So what is that? During those six months, I gotta make $10,000 a month. Now, if I did three weddings, I've got a profit, $3,500 per wedding. So you know exactly, every single month, I've gotta book three weddings, and I gotta have a profit of $3,500. Or maybe it's a different, maybe you want to do burn-and-shoots or something, and you go, "Okay, I just need to do 10 weddings, "and I gotta do burn-and-shoot, "and I've gotta just get $1,000 per each wedding, "I made my net." Whatever it is, or a combination. But it just makes you think about how you want to plan your business, keeping yourself accountable, right? And when there is a weekly or a monthly goal, you know immediately that month if you're gonna make it or not. So it's very, so you don't do it at the end of the year. "Oh, I guess I lost money." You don't want that to happen, right? You definitely don't want that, so every month, you're gonna know, you're gonna know if you're hitting it or you're doing better than expected, and you need to keep yourself accountable. All right. So create marketing plans to tackle each one of these revenue steams, okay? So if you say, "Oh, I need three weddings a month, "how, what, kinda, during these months," that helps you think, 'cause listen, marketing isn't one of these things where you wake up on Thursday and do a plan, and then all of a sudden money comes in on Friday. No. Marketing takes sometimes years to actually fall into place, so if you know that this is the case, and you know during those months, then you gotta market yourself six months before. You gotta prepare yourself. So being accountable will actually, it will easily create a plan for you. And then you can see where you failed, and where you came up short. "Oh, yeah, I didn't really do anything to promote that. "No wonder why I'm not..." Or you find things that are going well for you. You do it, and you find it. "Wow, that's better than anticipated. "Okay, let's just bust that up 10 times." Or whatever it is, but at least you've created a plan, and either failing from it or actually benefiting from it, you're gonna win both ways 'cause you're gonna gain knowledge on that, okay? All right, so if you're not reaching your financial goals, get help fast. If you tried everything, you were accountable, and you just feel like, "Wow, I'm not "reaching my financial goals," get expert help fast, because it's like a ship with a leak in it, and that water, you don't... You think, like, "You know what? "I got $50,000 saved up, I'm good." You will not realize how fast you are gonna go through that $50,000. That is literally nothing. That's like a drop in the bucket. I estimated that I invested in myself just to get to a point where I could have a full-time living, just, you know, providing for my family. I figure I invested about a half a million dollars into myself, just with all the businesses that I had, and equipment, and losses, and all that kinda stuff. Which is pretty on track, right? What does it take for you to be, I always bring this up, I'm sorry if you are a dentist. Right? It takes about a half a million dollars to become a dentist, and you're gonna make about 150 to $200,000 a year. So I figure that's right on line, right? So that's the going process. There's nothing new under the sun. It's just, with every other industry, it's the same thing as ours, right?
Ratings and Reviews
Laura K.
Scott Robert Lim is one of my all-time favorite instructors. He is humble, honest, engaging, funny, and down-to-earth. Most importantly, he truly cares about his students' success. You can tell he truly wants to help less experienced photographers to grow their business and their skill sets. He is brutally honest in a good/helpful way. In this short class, he provides numerous "nuggets" of information - specific things to think about when analyzing where you stand/where you want to go....things you may be doing that are holding you back...and specific and actionable suggestions for getting out there and drumming up new clients/work. His beliefs/values/ideas all resonate with me. Glad he is still teaching at Creative Live. Hope to see more classes from him in the years to come.
Margaret Lovell
Scott is one of my favorite instructors. Very engaging, and you know how much he loves what he does. He's enthusiastic. My biggest issue is in marketing myself better, which is why I signed up for this course. I'm glad that I did. The material was on point, concise, and Scott provides many actionable tips that can be used right away. I highly recommend this course.
Kaela Comontofski
Great class! First time hearing Scott Robert Lim speak and I really enjoyed his personality and presentation. He was concise but covered a wide range of topics and gave helpful examples. He was knowledgable and although some things I already knew it was said in a way that sparked ideas and excited me to try new approaches.