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What's Your Number?

Lesson 11 from: Turn Your Talent Into a Business in 12 Steps

Beate Chelette

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Lesson Info

11. What's Your Number?

Lesson Info

What's Your Number?

So scram time what's a little and what's a lot so I have put on page number sixteen in the workbook if you don't have the workbook make sure you get the workbook because we will continue to use it throughout what's a very comfortable number for you like connie you already shared that that a number for you one hundred fifty thousand dollars the first year first year okay what's a number that you think is probably to hide a name for for your business I don't want to put a limit no but I'm asking you why won't you give me a number a million dollars okay what's the number that's going to make you really squirm where you go like hair right as far as higher love oh hi we don't go uh uh ten million dollars okay very good genesis a number very comfortable seventy thousand what's the number you're comfortable uh that's probably a little high sounds a little out outlandish you want to know a high number you say yeah the first number is comfortable number the second one is one way think that's pr...

obably a little bit tight and the third one is going to go oh, I see I'd say fifty to seventy two hundred thousand okay so fifty issue comfortable with yeah hundreds probably too high and have one hundred fifty thousand going to make you squirm yeah ok alright hundred fifty compared to ten million all of this it's a mindset right on what what what what you're aiming for I always want you to aim high so it's good to know where you are at there's a study out there that says to the number that most people are comfortable with its actually sixty five thousand dollars in the united states I'm not sure how that is in other parts of the world but they said that the happiness factor does not go up above sixty five thousand dollars that is a lie out of my own personal experience I can say very truthfully when I take this great trip in the british virgin islands on this big forty two foot sailboat the catamaran it feels really good to be above sixty five thousand dollars so don't be afraid to aim for that high number because if you like sailing trips in the british virgin islands and I only recommend this for everybody uh who likes boats and being outside or whatever the equivalent you know being in europe are going hiking in the himalayan mountains whatever that is for you but make sure that you include that in your number because that's what you work for it so you can afford a life that's fun for you and that's great reminder because karen in and julia are squirming at thirty thousand dollars wow so wow wow okay well we gotta love that way so I'm glad we brought this up let's talk about you um I'd say sliding scale but for this year one hundred would be my goal okay comfortable and that's everything you know not have you made any money with the company it okay so can we talk about the number where you are in right now said no comfort but it doesn't matter it's totally fun okay so where you at right now in terms of my entire piano yes like how much income so far oh maybe two thousand okay okay all right we got work to do yeah absolutely yes barbara similar a little bit little number what's my my comfortable number um uh I would say I mean like right now where I am right now fifty thousand sounds okay comfortable okay um I've liked for this year are we projecting one year we're projecting I did just in general like you get to define your number um she's um let's say probably too high five hundred k and another okay storming one million I don't know. Okay. Okay. Very good. All right, jan tell us um, little number hundred thousand okay that might afford me one vacation a year. Okay, right um uh high would be a million for a year, right? That's the interval we're talking about and screaming would be twenty or twenty million or more galina you look like you're not sure uh I just have to take into consideration the international part where um like the business I want to target is targeting people not here, so I don't know if it's going to affect my income. That's called an excuse. You just avoided my question, um, for my personal needs not what I didn't care, but I just want to know you. Sixty thousand uncomfortable, uh, going high, probably two hundred and the million is no, I'm just thinking, why do you think I asked you about what's your number? Because you like to know numbers a can answer off course, I like to know numbers, but it's more than that it's about you need to know what your numbers, and I learned this when a friend of mine who sold this business before mine and he he made seventy million dollars in his cell of this company, and when we were at the rooftop in lisbon at this fabulous party, and he looked at me, he says, you, my dear, he says your business, this next, I'm like, who would buy this company? And I was next, and he said to me on that rooftop, well, never forget that he says, you just have to know what's your number, I'm like, what do you mean, the number means if someone would give you that amount right now, and you'd walk away from whatever you created what would that number b and that's important to know the number because it's a satisfaction number we always have to note that number because if I don't know a fifty thousand or thirty five thousand dollars like we just heard or one hundred thousand two hundred fifty or half a million a million twenty million whatever makes you happy whatever you're aiming for you got to know what makes you happy what makes you comfortable and what makes you super ultra happy so I want you to keep these numbers in mind because that's what we're aiming for and the reason we need to know this is because way have to figure out how much money we need write itself this is the part where the workbook becomes absolutely crucial in let's just take our workbooks and growth of this really quickly I have actually created for you the startup expends worksheet and we are going to and I'm going to see where this is in the workbook it is on day two in segment number three just go there right now with me on page number thirty eight and I'm going to show this to our audience life out there so this is really the crucial part this is why you I must get the workbook it's all done for you so I've taken you through here you know I've put down the items and I put down the number so that way you can actually calculate and this goes on german engineering for three pages all right so this is your homework for you this the after the segment I want you to spend some time with this and really look at this it's like how much money do you need that kind of you know comes last after kind of know how much expenses you have so the number you're comfortable with is the number that you start with to add the expenses on top off because it's a number you want to end up with right before I gave total okay business what I want to bring in versace no you know what I'm gonna get and I'm glad we clarified that so ideally the number you pick for income is the number that's between what makes you comfortable in what is probably too high s o do not settle for your low number you know definitely built a business based on ah higher number because I want you to aim for more I don't want you to we're not building this to be comfortable we're building us to be great yes so when we were evaluating our numbers it was the number for how much you would sell the business for and it not it wasn't like yearly income there's a whole bunch of numbers we can talk about it so can I have my number there very good so one number is a number that makes you ecstatic happy where you say if I reach the ten thousand twenty that the ten million twenty million that's it I'm done I'm moving to an island I'm drinking beverages was with little umbrellas straws in it for the rest of my life, right? We could do that um the other number is for where I am right now because it's important to have goals right it's important to look forward to something it's important to say well, this is where I am right now but this is what I'm aiming for so if I'm building a business I mean, if we dream it we may as well dream big miss your dream you get to do whatever you want so I don't want you to just feel like there's the reality police standing behind you and that is to march girl you know you cannot do this I want you to go like, you know what if I want this and if I want to have fun with this two hundred thousands way more fun than a hundred thousand is it not is a one million dollar more business and what more fun than ah hundred thousand dollar business? You bet why? Because you get a lot more people that can come and work for you and to all the stuff you don't want to do which we also going to be talking about so create you get to create this anyway you want there is nobody out there that says all photographers must be starving all artists must be starving. All musicians have to be broke and ran around in bad tank tops I had to throw that in there you notice they like to have these terrible if your musician please you know, so the numbers are what's a number that I would sell my business for how do I? Because that's a number that's evaluation you want to build your business up to so if you say somebody gives you twenty million dollars, then you would have to build a business that has evaluation off, you know, if twenty million dollars to get that much and you get to evaluation of twenty million dollars, you need to have a business that generates at least, you know, probably right now used to be you could get for a really good company, and we're not talking about technology or internet right now, but regular sort of companies used to be about three times revenue right now, the brain business tanked, it was you couldn't even get one time revenue. Sometimes some of the internet companies you don't even have a monetization model and they're being sold it is crazy evaluations even though they've never made made made a scent off ofthe prophet, right? But because they built these huge communities and people think that valued at ah billion dollars or at hundreds of millions of dollars so and that just shows us again that everything is possible right built it the way you want it and you want to be outside of your comfort zone because I'm telling you to because I want you to reach for something that's outrageous and I'll be curious to see if we have some numbers from our life audience we dio we've got d says one twenty five to fifty and then half a million to a million makes him squirm. Another person says ten billion twenty billion forty billion on him and then another chatter says those numbers make me squirm little skillet to say the two hundred thousand make them comfortable gail says after five yes, sorry about that and then gil says on the low side eighty two hot on the middle, one fifty and squirming and a meal million on about some person was simply called out there one forty billion aim high person and then blew verb studio says bad tank tops I love it beyond humor is so helpful in this money process yeah, try to keep it related to the subject. Yes, yes that's said, you know, I talk about that in the marketing uh a segment about how you can be a funny german too, but not yet so um so this is the way we're going to talk about this so we take a number that is outside of our comfort zone because again when we built it would build it so we have to reach because we don't have to reach what's the point then you add all the expenses on this on the start of expense worksheet you calculate all these expenses like how much you're going to spend on advertising how much you going to spend on um sign it sprinting, travel entertainment trade shows because you're gonna have to go place you're gonna have to meet people you're gonna have to exhibit gonna have to print promotional materials you have to do hand out you have to build websites have to pay programs you have to pay copywriters advertisers and you're gonna have to you know, there's some rent involved even if it's out of your home there's you know there's a portion of it goes toward rent theirs utilities, fixtures, equipment, furniture there is other people salaries, you know, freelances people that you hired to do certain services. So I literally want you to go all through all of this and create a scenario you know, a business scenario and then you take all of your expenses and you add that to the number you want to make and that's your starting point for how much money you need per year for your business and when we looking for funding or money, we now need to figure out how much port how much of this portion can we generate in cash so that we can cover twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, seventy percent off what we're spending and how much of it is doing it to get from outside funding to fill the gap does makes sense that's how you arrive at the number you need do you have any questions so far on that you're thinking that's good she's already calculating tio I don't know what it would cost for certain things because I haven't I haven't gotten that far yet okay, so should I just put some numbers? What should I do know I want you to do the research also you're so we noticed this serious come back the next day and we'll have this done is that which well I mean this couple things you can do so let's let's just say if you were to do advertising you build a website let's say building a website you are with smog mark, right? Yeah. So what's it cost you a month? Um right now it's uh how much is it it's? Um I think it's right now I have a share it's forty dollars per minute pretty yeah forty dollars a year but I wanted to go up to business plan okay so I don't actually have my person it's not professional work website I used to have one, but I don't have one right now because I can't afford it. We're not worried about what you can afford right now we're only we've put it we're treating it like a business so crucial in this process is I want you to think here with me for a second if you treat this business like something that's sort of inside of you that's hidden that's hi that's that's sitting sort of in the bag that only ever so often can come out and play the business cannot step out and play a business is a entity it's a living in a breathing thing and you wanted to built it in a way that it is away from you that it takes shape in a form as its own entity and you feed it it's like a baby, you know you feed it you you nourish it, you chlo that you teach howto walk, you push it out a little bit, you get out of the comfort zone, you take it too, you know that the playground you haven't played with other people and you know those that are nice they can stay the other one sweet we break up with so business is an entity it's an entity it's not you're not building this just for you, you building this because it is its own that's how you build a business and a lot of people do you know it's like that they hover over at how can something walk or live or brief? If you if you constantly smother it, you want to let it go and open it up so that we can, you know, get some air in here and, you know, and you want to give you the opportunity to discover on its own where the money is going to come from and who wants it and likes and see now why? Why was, you know a little concerned about the your name, something business at first? Because that means you already hovering over and we haven't even started. So this is, you know, something really, really, really to think about there's, nothing wrong with saying, you know, I want that because all I want is is, you know, creative business where I can put in all I want to do is make twenty, fifty thousand dollars, I take two hundred fifty thousand dollars I divided by twelve twelve month I divide the twelve months by, um, you know, to have two hundred thousand voted by twelve that's, what you need to make per month and then you see how many hours a month do you wanna work? And then you know how much money you need to make per hour to hit that goal that's the target it's a simple calculation and we we will go about we will talk about this some more as well. So what we just said, you know, how do you set the prices while the prices are being determined by how much money you need to make? If you want to make fifty it's a different number than when you want to make a hundred, then you wanna make two hundred fifty thousand dollars makes sense and that's where the revenue streams air coming in you see how it all connects now. So when the revenue streams air coming in we have passive income my membership side for my russian community for nine dollars, ninety nine I have a hundred people in there generates x amount of money in the revenue stream. I have my one on one coaching for people. They're coming here to have the language barrier to help them, you know, get into the culture to teach him americanism. If, jeez, I want to write things that everybody every russian should know when they come first to the united states that's one of one of those five thousand dollar packages and that includes x, y and z you know, second revenue stream what's, another revenue stream what's another and that's how you add up that number and you play with those numbers until you get through that number that we just determined is your number that's your business bottle easy, right? In a little bit of calculation involved? Best friends, the calculus? Why, like number so much? Because we don't want it to be this this thing somewhere out in space where you're not sure as to what it is that you're doing, what I want you to do is be really clear and say, you know what? I'm going to start with one revenue stream, and in six months I'm going to set up the second revenue stream, and then I'm going to set up this revenue stream, and this is how I'm going to grow my business that's the requirement for you to actually get money from anybody because they say they asking you, how you going to grow your business and only when you know how you grow your business? Can you ask somebody to give you any money for it? Because just because you said so is just not a really good argument, I think sometimes with setting these numbers it's one making a commitment to making yourself accountable, but then there's also a fear of failure of not reaching those numbers okay and what's that mean if you don't meet your numbers on what you've got, you have to assess what you're doing you have to assess how you're doing it um have you done your research properly? You might have to go back and rethink things right? And I'm so glad you said that because what most people do is they beat themselves up now big guy like you a failure you know, you should have known because you couldn't you what made you think they could make for twenty, fifty thousand dollars? Your dad only made fifty. Your mom only made thirty five you know they made it work. What makes you think that you deserve that? Why would you deserve that over anybody else? The biggest issue with us not making money its most of the time our own limitations because somebody out there makes it there's the talk and I know photographers because I've been in the business that make seven figure incomes why do I know this? Because I paid them. So don't you tell me that's not possible that an artist can make a lot of money. Do you think beyonc is worried about her her income? Well somebody's gotta be singing that song somebody is the next pick you know jewelry designer that tiffany is going to be picking up somebody's got to be the next big thing why not you is there a law that it can't be you somebody has to step up so that's why I want you to really work with those numbers and question yourself it's like well if you are content with only thirty five thousand dollars think about that twelve month at thirty five thousand dollars that's not a lot of money for you too you know really build a business and you can't even pay anybody from that so you need to think about what you're worth for yourself and you know how do you how do you how'd you get out of that where you say you know world looking this and it took me a long time to do that I mean don't you think that I was born like well maybe um but it took me a while to get to that point to say what is my number and when I knew what my number wass and then somebody actually was willing to give it to me outrageous lee fab jules it's possible but you know this thing and I'm not saying that everybody needs to be a multimillionaire I'm not you know I'm not advocating people just going for korea's you define it the way you want it but you know make sure you define it somehow and if you want a hundred thousand dollars be happy with one hundred thousand dollars until you change your mind and it's ok to change your mind too so once you get to being a multimillionaire oh you know my friend allie actually said to mrs what's a number that makes you squirm like a hundred million that makes me squirm you know, twenty five that doesn't even face me who would have thought on I made it on thirty five thousand dollars for years as a single mother with a child so I'm curious to see who we get feedback on this absolutely d one says talking about numbers this way doesn't make numbers sounds so daunting and as a result I can now see that I need to and can raise my numbers so that's that that's an awakening and there is a question lindsay wants no so for our low number should it be a minimum of our actual living expenses plus the money that we want for fun add our start up expenses to that and then that becomes that minimum number to aim for is that what it is yes clarifying yes alright, I like those answers and you know again this is so exciting for me to see how it clicks immediately right? And this is the part about building the business that really fires me up and that gets me so excited is it's not that difficult it's always just knowing what it is putting it together, understanding it, giving you permission to fail it it to go back revised the numbers to say this wasn't enough this was more this was too much. Maybe I can start with six revenue streams that I'm making a million dollars each. Maybe I need to start with one that makes fifty and then built it up that's how you build business and it takes time, it takes time, and when you don't hit the number, this is what you say. I didn't hit it yet, it's not that I didn't hit it meet myself up, I didn't hit it yet. What do I need to do to go back and tweak that? You know, where I am, I missing? And then we look at the numbers again and the data, and we do the analysis and we said, oh, I get it, I was missing, and this is really the opportunity because so many people responded to this, which I didn't like us much, and I like this one much better, but not a lot of people responded to that well, business isn't about necessarily you liking or not liking sometimes it's about what the market wants you to be, and then you give them that because you can still do you know, a lot of these passion projects when the time is right for it makes sense, there's a lot of echoing to going on just about how you think about how money relates to time uh, lindsey says I could spend five hours writing a book or five hundred hours writing a book. What matters for my income is the quality of the book and not how long it took me to write it and then also not equating that our two to money in a way, you know, that's that mentality it's a shift it's a shift it's a shift, right? And I'm glad you brought up the example off the book because with having written a book myself, this was the most difficult thing I have ever done because it required me to actually sort what's in my head very difficult do not be surprised if the book becomes a vehicle to get you to what your business really will be, because a lot of times what we think is thie idea is just the first step toe word, the idea. So now you know, as an author, if I meet somebody and I have a book, the way they look at me is completely different, even with all the, you know, actually it's that I have on my resume, but now they're like, oh, I can actually read what she has to say because the thoughts are out of my head, so don't be surprised if that's not the end game if that's just one step of it and that's that you know remember why I told you to push that business out and that it sort of takes shape that's what happens is if you let it it's almost like you're looking at it you know from the outside you go wow it's kind interesting what's happening here I didn't even think that you know it's not about you necessarily you are building it and you're feeding it but think about it as an entity does that help you in your in your thinking to really look at it as an outside and it is it's hard to do when you take passion because passion it's kind of it's inside of you and separate from that and start treating it as a business and not how you're saying not inside a part of you it's just difficult to shift yes yes because there's so much attachment and the attachment usually comes from you know and I'm going back to what jenise was talking about earlier is I've given myself so much time I've put restrictions on it it's been really hard it's you know it's it's uh you know I have said bags have feelings about it it's emotional it's um been my last attempt to do expire z because we're putting a lot of restrictions on ourselves is there a law out there that says that you only have so much time? Could you revise that if you wanted to leave that open yeah, because you might because maybe you didn't have all the information available at that time yet maybe you know, the grieving and the process off even allowing yourself to think about success on your own you know, that really is true because it took well it's I'm still not over it. So um and it's been difficult very difficult so um but I did I I don't want to be at my current job forever and that's one of the things that's motivating me because I'm not what I'm doing I'm something else entirely and my creative person and I'm I was helping my husband in a capacity that was not creative um in the way that I wanted to be and now that he's that he's no longer with me, I think that I have an opportunity now to expand a little bit more and to learn more and to, you know, just grow so and also to start this business and get to work I want to be right now I'm not there yet and I think I'm time is catching up on me I'm just course we're not getting any younger, but um I don't want to be still old I can't do anything either, you know? Well, you saw the numbers that I started with, you know, who can start a business on those numbers are not I think you said fifty I said yeah, I said then that what was it was like fifty five percent off start of in the tech sector r people over fifty twice in the number ofthe people in their in their thirties, which is what we would expect there are no rules especially entrepreneurship there no rules and sometimes the experience and you know, the compelling story that comes with it is you know it was sells it okay, we have two more questions over there, so I just wanted to just bounce off of this idea about attachment and cycle back to an earlier point about having your business having your name be attached to your business a ts some point I I took a photography course we're business photography course that was saying as a photographer to definitely include your name in the business because people are in some ways by an an an experience with you and especially people who are not particularly creative there's that attraction to you know they want to grab a little bit of your your talent or your creativity so there's that but then that s o so I went that direction, but on the other hand, I do feel as a creative person that I didn't get very attached to my images and to the process and and so yeah, I could I'd like tio speak a little, you know, we're here a little bit about how to attach and not attach at the same time? Because I love this idea of like you said, uh, business league needs to step away and play, but then there's that. Oh, but it's it's me it's part of me, ok? Yeah. So part of it is that we will in the future segment talk about human capital and the reason we need to detach from the business is because thie human capital segment talks about other people taking portions of the business, especially the stuff we don't want to do. But it still has to be job descriptions that we can easily fill with people that are existing in the market. So you need to hire people to grow a bit, does it better than you at something, and please let's, not clone ourselves because of business full of men. Emese is terrifying. So be attachment to the idea. Oh, or the business, I think it's good to be passionate about it, but passion and attachment of two different things. Passion is it means something. It's meaningful there's an investment personal investment in there. Attachment is, but I wanted to be this. What if it doesn't want to, you know, especially with children, sometimes they just don't want to, and then it turns out that there better at something else you know, like heavy not all wanted our children to go take a swimming ballet, basketball, self defense, karate whatever claws and they just did not want to and then they found something else that they love so much more and we go like, well that's what his life is like this business is like this too let it let it figure out for itself what fits it and you know and that's the detachment I talk about is it doesn't mean that you can be passion about it I don't want you to be passionate about him but I want you to have the detachment that you can still see it objectively because the numbers tell the story that's why we need to put us much numbers in it as we possibly can because we need those numbers out so we can we can we can interpret the story and it may not be a story you like. It may not be the story you set out. It might be a better story but I promise you one thing that when when businesses take off they take on a life of their own there's a reason why I went entrepreneur sell their businesses to corporations why they generally only stay about one year if they even make it through that year you know, and I went after I sold my company and I was hired by corbis, a senior director, off everything entertainment. They actually gave me a job which included a couple of their divisions, and I, you know, everybody had warned me, and they said, you know, you're not gonna make it a year, and I stayed there for thing was to and to me the experience was so interesting because, you know, I can practice this detachment. I looked aside. Wow, this is really amazing. This where people really go through and that's the reason why I even could write the book that I brought, because otherwise it would have never been able to relate to that experience. But you need to let certain parts of it just do what they need to do and recognise that and with a detachment often times you can't see it because you disappointed it's not doing what you want, how disappointing what if what's happening is really so much more exciting and all for so much more growth. And you're not seeing that because you're on top of it. Yeah, it makes sense.

Class Materials

bonus material

Beate Chelette Workbook
My Creative Business Plan
Fix Your Life Workbook

Ratings and Reviews

SIMPLICITY
 

HI BEATE! I love your German straight forwardness being German myself. ....watching your creativelive course i had to almost laugh when u talked about the job test when u where still in school. i had exactly the same experience. i wanted to become an artist, goldsmith, or photographer. same reaction of the woman of the "arbeitsamt" with the same great idea to offer me apprenticeship to become a secretary in a dusty office. %) not really ME! i would love to see you to accept my invitation on linked in because I love your kind of teaching ... very direct - down to the point, without loosing time! i respect your work and i am very glad that creativelive found you to share your knowledge with creative people who are very good in their creative area but maybe not so much on the business side. YOUR COURSE IS AMAZING! congratulations and a big "THANK YOU!" KRIS P.S. BOUGHT THE COURSE !)

a Creativelive Student
 

They must have not had the review feature up yet when this course originally broadcast, because no other way I could be the first person inspired to leave a review. This is simply the best actual business building course I've come across in a long time. It teaches you how to build a business, not just market one. Every other course I come across that presents itself as "business" or "entrepreneur" this or that is really just a marketing course for small businesses. Now don't get me wrong, marketing is certainly key if you want to be successful, but there is a lot more to successfully running a business than marketing. Lipstick on a pig, comes to mind. This is a course that will teach you how to become a successful entrepreneur, with part of the final day focused on marketing, which is the right balance given the responsibilities and requirements of a true business venture. So much out there is really just teaching people how to market themselves as if they were an employee without any company around them.

Chad Robertson
 

As an analytical person with creative spirit this was the perfect class for me. Beate has the passion of an artist coupled with a sharp, almost engineering intellect. I sometimes find with courses, online or not, that topics discussed do not apply to my journey. Not the case here. Everything was useful and the course materials provided invaluable. Highly recommended.

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