Welcome back to the Boss Responses podcast and day two with guest co-host Eagranie Yuh. Have you ever felt like you hit a plateau in your business? Maybe you're wondering if you need to look for different clients or raise your rates, and you're just not sure which is the best option. That's the question we're dealing with today. Do you keep your business where it is or do you take active steps to grow your business and grow your income? Let's go ahead and jump into it and see what Eagranie's opinion is. If you're a freelancer, business owner or anyone who deals with clients, you're in the right place.

I'm your host, Treasa Edmond. I've been dealing with clients and running my business for nearly two decades and in that time I've dealt with my share of doubt, imposter syndrome and not knowing what to say when a client asked a question I wasn't ready for. I created this podcast to empower you with the boss responses you need to grow your business. Each week, my guest co-host and I will bring you five episodes packed with practical insights. Monday through Thursday, we answer your questions, and Fridays we dive deep to explore how our co-hosts embrace their role as the boss of their business. Welcome to Boss Responses, Eagranie. What's the question for?

today. Ooh, this is a good one, teresa. So I've been freelancing for five years now and I don't feel like my business is growing, is hitting a plateau, normal? For clarification, I'm a social media manager. I'm keeping my schedule full and meeting my income goals, but just barely. My rates are pretty middle of the road compared to other social media people I've talked to, and my clients are consistent and they pay on time. I feel like I'm in a rut, though I and my clients are consistent and they pay on time. I feel like I'm in a rut, though I'd love to increase my income and increase my client roster. I'd eventually like to have enough work coming in that I could hire other freelancers to help me manage it. Any tips?

This is a loaded question. There are so many factors on whether or not you've hit a plateau. If, though, you have stalled out and you have a pretty consistent level of client, pretty consistent income coming in, then you probably have hit a plateau, and I know people who hit a plateau at five years, and they cruise on for the next 20, and that's where they wanted to be, so they're happy. If you want to grow more, there are a couple of things that you really need to do. One you need to clarify exactly who your ideal client is, not just a client. You need to know what client specifically you want to work with and how much you want them to pay to help raise that income, because you have a finite amount of time. If you want your income to go up, then your client rates are going to have to go up. Sometimes, the middle of the road is the worst place to be, and have you experienced this?

It's a tricky spot to be in, absolutely.

It is when I started charging those higher rates, I naturally had to up-level the quality of everything I did, which made me better at what I do. My clients loved it more, though, because when they pay the higher rate I don't know it seems like you have less issues with them, if that makes sense For one. They seem to come in expecting you to do the best and they trust you to do it. There's no micromanaging. There's no. Where are we at on this project. You clarify all of the details of the project ahead of time because you're an absolute professional and they trust you to do it. The deliverable goes in Most of the time. They don't even send you back major edits, so that's wonderful. That's one of the benefits of charging that higher rate.

You can stay middle of the road and just really up your marketing and bring more clients in. That will get you to the point where you have to hire other freelancers to help you. The question is can you hire freelancers who can provide the same skill level you can while still charging a middle of the road rate? And that's a big issue, because if you can only hire and I'm not saying people who charge lower rates are subpar, because that's not true you can usually only hire more inexperienced freelancers in that situation, which can be an incredible blessing to them, because then they get to work with you and learn from you and level up their experience. They will also eventually leave you because they'll want to charge more money.

So you have to weigh all of those pros and cons and honestly I think the easiest way to do it is to start with the rates and targeting that very specific client. Find the clients that are less trouble you can spend less time on them. They pay more and then get a couple of those in. Get rid of some of the middle of the road clients that you don't really enjoy working with and then start bringing in workers to at your normal rate, your middle of the road rate. You get a little bit on top of that to pay for the hassle of managing everything and see where it goes from there, and then you'll find a natural path for growth. I think. What about you?

Oh, I mean, there's so much to unpack here, teresa, and I think one of the things that stands out to me is I'm keeping my schedule full and meeting my income goals, but just barely. And so that to me and the way that that is shared, tells me that the question asker isn't totally comfortable with. That would not like that to be the case and we don't have all the information. But my questions would be are you marketing or are you working? Have you fallen?

It's very easy and natural to fall into this situation where you service the same clients and that is where you start to get into a rut because you don't have those new projects, those new people, you're not continuing that learning, and so one of my questions might be are you marketing?

Are you talking to new prospects and sort of cycling some of those clients so that when you do get because what happens if you do the marketing and you get that high, higher rate, you are going to have to drop somebody, and sometimes there's a fear of what will happen there. And I think sometimes we haven't really talked about mindset here, but there's a little bit of a fear in this question that I'm sensing like things are comfortable, things are working and sometimes, underneath that, it's like I know that I want to do something bigger and I'm totally, you know, making an assumption here. But like, what are the feelings that are associated with this and where's the discomfort? Because it is really uncomfortable to make a change, especially in something that is working, and especially having freelance for five years, which is a huge achievement right A lot of people don't don't make it five years, so that's something to celebrate and also to kind of sit with.

okay, what's next? How am I feeling about this? I got to deal with those feelings before I can move forward and it sounds very woo woo. But until you deal with that discomfort and accept where how far you've gotten the business, it's really difficult to move forward. The other thing would be if you're just meeting your income goals, but just barely, do you have a cushion?

Yeah, that's my concern here Do you have money saved up so that if you were to take a leap and if you were to have a little bit of a gap, would you be okay? So if you're not already setting aside some of your earnings for those rainy days, I would start here and make sure, because when you have that buffer you can make better decisions. You can make decisions that aren't financially motivated, you can make decisions for your business that fuel you, your business, your creativity, etc.

Yeah, I'm really glad that you pointed out the mindset issue and also the just barely meeting income goals, because, if you're, one of my tips for breaking through that mindset issue is making it not about you at all but about your business, because it is about your business. You are an employee of your business. So if you were working for someone else and they wanted to uplevel their business, you know the employees are kind of the second factor to consider. The first is what's best for the business, and we need to do that too, and it's so uncomfortable, but it also is incredibly liberating, because whenever you can use your business as a stopgap between you and your personal feelings, that makes a huge difference. At least, it makes a huge difference in my world.

If I were looking at this as my business and it was, my schedule is full and I'm barely meeting my income goals, then my business is not thriving. So that's an issue, right? If your business is not thriving, even if it's at a plateau, that's a problem and you need to figure out what it's going to take to move that step or two so that your business is thriving enough that you can pivot however you want to pivot to higher income clients or to more clients and bringing in people. Yeah, if you're going to bring in other freelancers as an agency model or even subcontractors, your business needs to be thriving, yep, and removing yourself from that situation is absolutely vital to make that happen. Okay, we hope that's helpful.

If you are in a plateau, if whoever you are listening to this, that's helpful. If you are in a plateau, if whoever you are listening to this, take a step back. Look at where your business is, where you want it to be. Making decisions without goals is really a bad choice in a situation like this. So look at where you want it to be and then do what you do what he said and take a step back and look at your own feelings and your mindset and see if that's what's getting in the way. If it is, make it about your business instead and see what you can do to move forward. Excellent advice, teresa. Thank you for being with us today and join us tomorrow for day three with Eagranie.