Stop Trading Time For Money

In this episode of the Sales Mama podcast, Sausha discusses the importance of shifting from a time-for-money mindset to a more strategic approach to sales and business growth. 

She emphasizes the need for entrepreneurs, especially women, to break free from traditional conditioning that limits their potential. Sausha shares insights on how to leverage time, understand revenue versus cash collected, and create scalable business models that allow for financial and personal freedom. 

The episode concludes with actionable steps for listeners to escape the time trap and build a successful business.

Takeaways

• Sales is essential for business success.
• Trading time for money limits income potential.
• Leverage your expertise to charge appropriately.
• Working smarter, not harder, leads to success.
• Conditioning can hold women back in business.
• Revenue does not equal cash collected.
• Fear of success can hinder growth.
• Scalability is key to business sustainability.
• Create multiple income streams for stability.
• Action steps are crucial for breaking free from limitations.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to SalesMama Podcast and Sales Mindset
04:48 Shifting from Hustle to Leverage
11:52 Breaking Free from Conditioning and Fear
19:43 Action Steps to Break the Time-Money Trap

Don't just listen. Take action. Screenshot this episode and tag me on Instagram @salesmamaschool or @sausha.davis so I can celebrate you making moves.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Hey, welcome back to another episode of the Sales Mama Podcast. I am your host, Sasha Davis, and it just still blows my mind that I have been podcasting since 2018. For those of you who don't know, I used to have a different podcast. It was called Manifest Like a Mother because I'm really big into manifestation and law of attraction, and you are the creator of your own reality. So I was just talking to somebody on a networking event. She's like, Oh, how long have you been podcasting? I'm like, a long time. Before podcasting was cool. And I feel the same way about sales too. There's this new hype around high-ticket sales and setting and closing. And really, it's all just sales. It's just bundled differently now. That's really all it is. It just has new packaging, new marketing. If you learn sales in any capacity, you're just shifting that high-ticket sales to the online space, still having sales conversations, still having sales appointments, still setting sales appointments, still closing sales appointments. So if you have any type of sales experience, you will kick ass in the online space in high-ticket sales or starting and growing your own business because sales is what makes the world go round. All right. But today, what I want to talk about is the real cost of trading time for money. So many of us are leaving our corporate jobs or who have left our corporate jobs to pursue something bigger than ourselves. And if we don't know how to do something better, if we don't know better, we can't do better. And so what ends up happening is people, myself included, years ago, would take that same frame of mind of, oh, I just got to do more, I just got to post more, I just got to work more, if I just hustle harder, I can make more money. And we're still in that trading time for money mindset. And that we have got to stop because when you start to leverage your time, that is when you really start to make money. And when you charge for your expertise, that's when you really start to make money. Perfect example. I was talking to a gal who runs a virtual assistant agency today. And she was talking to me about how, you know, she charges like$20 to$25 an hour. I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa. That is entry-level virtual assistant as a W-2 for working for somebody. If you are in fact getting two or three times as much done in that same hour, you should not be penalized for it. You should be rewarded for it. And so you should be charging$40 an hour or$60 an hour because you have the skills, the strategy, the expertise, and you know what you're doing without having to have your hand held throughout the entire process. So think about that. How much time and energy and effort and education have you poured into your resources, into your expertise? And then we got to start charging for that and add tax. So what I want to share with you today is how we can stop trading time for money. And I was one of those people who worked a bajillion jobs. At one point in time, I worked like four jobs. And this isn't four sales consulting gigs. This is like four hourly paid positions. And so I shit you not would start work at like 5:30 in the morning because I was a supervisor at one specific company. And then I would work till 1:30 or 2:30. I'd have about a half hour off before I'd have to go to my next job. And since you can't work seven days in a row, at least most places don't let you work seven days in a row, I would have to switch. So I would do two jobs, you know, one morning here and then an evening here. And then the next day it would be a morning over here and an evening over there. And I would switch that off and on. And then I ended up getting my corporate job, excelled in that, then I left that. And then I started my own thing back in 2017. Yeah, 2017. Okay. But I used to be that person that worked 14, 16 hours a day. I worked all the time, all the time. And I wore that like a badge of honor. Look at me, I'm so busy. Oh, look at me. I'm working all the time because I had placed my self-worth and my productivity in how much I can get done. And I had that mindset of if I just do more, I will be successful. But I will tell you that I am more successful now and I have made more money now working between the hours of nine to two, sometimes nine to three, nine to four. And don't get me wrong, it's not perfect. I am an entrepreneur through and through. So I could work 24-7 doing this if I wanted to. But that's what creates burnout. And I need to create time for myself and my family and my hobbies so that I live a happy, fulfilled life. But I love working. I love working and I love what I do. I could talk about this stuff, tall boo in the face. But I digress. I no longer work that many hours because I don't have to. You can build a business that sustains your life and your family. You do not have to build yourself a cage, which is what ends up happening with so many women, is we will take our mindset and our frame of how things worked in the past and we'll just take that and replicate that into our business. And that does not help us. That takes us from one box and then we put ourselves right back in another box. But I'm I'm here to call it a cage because we've caged ourselves in and we don't realize how we are limiting our own success because of that. Okay. And so when I realized that my income had a ceiling because my time had a ceiling, that's when everything started to shift. So if you decide that you only want to work 15 hours a week, 20 hours a week, 30 hours a week, which I recommend most people work 30 hours or less, and then we can leverage our time from there, what ends up happening is they're just like, oh, well, I'll just do a little bit more. I'll just do a little bit more. But the mindset shift here is we're not going to work more hours, but we're going to start to figure out how we can leverage our time and our income. So how can we continue to scale without having to add more hours in the day? Okay. So if you're somebody who charges per session or per hour or per call, you are capped. You're absolutely capped. You can only take so many calls in a week, you can only work so many hours in a week, you can only take so many sessions in a week. And so we need to start thinking about how we can max out our income instead of maxing out our hours. And that's it. So we need to take our max hours and our rate, and that is your max income for what you currently have set up. And I want to change that. Okay. So I want you to think about your max amount of hours and then the amount of money you actually want to make. Okay. And then we reverse engineer from there. And if you're in the service space industry, which is typically the people that I work with, so coaches, consultants, service providers, sales professionals, things along those lines. And it can be within the professional services space, the health and wellness space, the online space. If you are selling a high-ticket, a high-ticket product or service, I'm your gal. Okay. So then what do we have to do? We have to figure out how we are charging for our time. So is this actually what we should be charging? And a lot of times I find that people are undercharging when we start to think about you have to pay for your own taxes, you have to pay for your own overhead, you have to pay for your own profit and your own retirement. And a lot of people are just like, oh, well, this number sounds good. No, we have to price for profit and knowledge, education, experience, all of those things. Okay. And so take that into account. And whatever pricing you are making now, I want you to really think about that. If you're charging X amount per hour, X amount per session, or X amount per month, are you actually profiting from that? Are you actually paying yourself? And a lot of people find out that they are not paying themselves. They are barely scraping by. So we really want to look at profitability here and what it's costing you in terms of money, but then beyond money. So think about your kids, your health, your sanity. A lot of times, if we don't have the right systems and processes set up, we will drive ourselves freaking crazy and we're never going to be available for our children. And my children are in the other room right now. I stepped aside, I said, hey kids, I'm going to go record a podcast for 20 minutes. Try not to kill each other. Have some snacks. That was basically it. So I live a very integrated life. And it's okay if my kids see me working. I'm not ashamed by it. And I want to practice hard work. I don't want people to think that I'm out here, you know, trying to take handouts or shortcuts because that's not it. It's working smarter, not harder. And I put a lot into what I do and into my clients. And I want my kids to see that too. Okay. And so I don't want you to start resenting the business that you have built, which is what ends up happening. People are afraid to scale beyond a certain level because they don't want to give up their time, their time with their family, their vacation time. They don't want to give up their sanity. And a lot of times it's that that fear is the thing that's holding you back. And I'm here to tell you that you can do things differently. Okay. And you will see those certain people. So don't be led astray when you see those people that are successful on social media or successful on paper. A lot of times that's all a bunch of smoke screen. Okay. I have been there too, where things look very successful on the outside, but on the inside, you're like, what the fuck am I doing wrong? Okay. So just take everything that you see with a grain of salt. That person that has a million followers, they may be only making$5,000 a month or less. I mean, I've worked with people who have 50,000 followers, 100,000 followers, 200,000 followers, and they are making almost no money. So followers don't equal dollars. The other thing that you will see out there is people will say, I made this much money in a weekend or I made this much money in this launch. What they're actually saying is that's how much revenue they have drawn in completely. That's not cash collected. A lot of times people will not share their cash collected. I am very big on cash collected. Yes, I've made tons of money in terms of revenue, but what happens if that person falls off on a payment plan? What happens if that person downgrades? What happens if that person completely ghosts you? You no longer get that additional five or$10,000 or whatever it was that they owe. You get that first initial non-refundable deposit and then the rest of it is gone. Okay. So when you see these people that are like, make a million dollars in a month, just be cautious because sometimes they also might be spending$100,000 in ads to get that million dollars, which that's actually not a bad ROI. But I've actually seen people where they're like spending$10,000,$15,000,$20,000 in ads to make$30,000 or$40,000, you know, and that's not really the place that you want to want to be with like a whole stack of paper here. I need to clean my desk. So some of these people will look really exhausted, but they'll put on a bit, or they are exhausted and they're putting on a big show so that they can draw in more clients. You'll find a lot of times that these people are business coaches. They are mentors. And so for myself, I don't necessarily want to share my results. I want to share what my clients are doing because that's the real big thing. Yes, I'm good at making money. Yes, I've made lots of money. Yes, I've helped several companies make money, but I want you to see how I have made other people successful, not just myself. Because yes, that's great, but I want to see that it works for other people too. Okay. So that's where it's important to have testimonials and videos and all of those things to showcase what you have also done for other people. Okay. Now let's talk about why most women stay stuck. A lot of us were, you know, we were raised to work hard, to be available all the time, to overdeliver and to sit down and shut up. You know, I remember just growing up, there's so many things that I remember hearing, do as I say, not as I do. Kids are meant to be seen, not heard. You know, oh, just just do this thing and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then you get into corporate and I gotta remember this one time. I had an idea, and they all looked at me like I was an idiot. I was like, oh, let's do this one thing so that we can save more time and more money and end up making more money. And they all just kind of looked at me like I grew a fucking second head. And so I let it go, but then shit, you not, two weeks later, another person came up with that idea. This person happened to have a penis, and he says the exact same thing that I say. And they're like, genius thing in the whole world. Like, are you fucking kidding me right now? Okay. So we are conditioned to play small and to just put our head down and work harder and do more. And I'm here to tell you to take up space. Okay. Take up space, be bold, be loud if you need to, be the person that you are meant to be and don't let other people keep you playing small. Okay. So this whole philosophy of like, oh, work hard, be available all the time, bend over backwards. No, don't do it. Okay. And I know that this can feel really counterproductive, counterintuitive, and that sometimes stepping back makes you feel like you're a lazy pile. You are absolutely not. I used to feel that way when I would like stop working. I'm like, oh, I should be doing something. Or even now I have a hard time sitting down to, you know, just even watch a Netflix show. Like, for example, my husband just got home not too long ago, and I literally sat down for like 10 minutes. And as soon as he pulls up into the driveway, I'm like, I gotta get up and I gotta act busy. I gotta do something. Because it's like conditioned in me that I cannot rest. And so that has been something that has I have been actively working on for quite some time. Okay. And so that lie that if I'm not doing something, or if I'm not doing something all the time, or if I'm not the only one that does it, that it won't get done right, that is a major block that is keeping you bottlenecked. Okay. That is a huge block. And a lot of times the other fears that come up are fear of failure, fear of success, fear of being seen, fear of pissing people off. I have done that several times, which I didn't even know I was pissing people off until I go to do the things that I want to do. And then people are like, fuck Sasha, I can't believe she's doing this. She thinks she's better than everybody. I'm like, what? Literally just trying to better my life for myself and my family and my clients. Nothing to do with anybody else. And now that I have done enough personal development, I know that it says more about them than myself, but still, it still shocks me at how how emotionally unintelligent some people are. Like they just have no interest in looking outside themselves. Okay. So I digress. So, anyways, when we start to have all these fears and blocks and beliefs, we start to spiral. Most people start to spiral. What if nobody buys? What if I don't get this done? What if this happens? What if that happens? And so staying busy feels productive. So what do we do? We check our inbox, we rebrand, we create stupid content or we avoid the things that we actually need to do because that feels that productivity feels safe, but it's not the same thing as being profitable. Okay. You can actually work way less and be way more profitable when you focus on the revenue generating activities, RGA. Okay. So what is the shift? What does this actually look like to scale your business? The first thing that you need to do is detach your income from your hours. Yep, yeah, you have to. This, unless you are an employee or some type of 1099 contractor, if you are a business owner, you have got to find a way to detach your income from actual hour, get out of the dollar per hour mindset. And this is so challenging for people because it has been ingrained in us from day one. So, what I want you to start thinking about is group programs, courses, membership, tiered offers, MRR is what we call it. Monthly reoccurring revenue is the other thing that I want you to start thinking about. So, how can I, instead of just thinking about a one-time fee for this client, what is the lifetime value of this client? And a lot of times it does take a little bit more legwork up front, but on the back end, you can end up making so much more money and changing so many more lives when you just take the time, okay, to think about how you're going to help these people going forward. And you don't need to do it all at once and you don't need to do all of them. Okay. Some examples though that I want to give you is if you are in that one-on-one space, moving things to a DIY product, PDFs, group programs, and high-level, you know, masterminds, or maybe you do in-person events, maybe you do conferences, maybe do workshops, maybe you do retreats, maybe you do networking events. Each of them serves somebody at a different capacity. And so once you start to see who your people are and how you can help them, you can start to modify your products and services to call in more people and be able to scale your revenue. I do think that you should still have one signature product. You should have an upsell from that and a downsell from that. And that should be like your core. And then you should have things on top of that. So once you kind of hit your income level at your core signature product, then we can start to add in some more DIY ones. Okay. And if you're somebody who's like, I'm not sure what works, I'm not sure if I should do this, or if I'm not sure that I should do that, experiment. That is the beautiful thing about you being a business owner, is you are not married to one specific thing. But I will tell you that once you figure out what that one thing is, you want to go all in on that one thing until you hit your goal and then you can add in one more thing. And I think this is where a lot of people go wrong because when I have my vision planning sessions with new sales mama school members, they will have so many products and so many services. And it's like, I am in sales, I am in business, and you're overwhelming me with all of the things that you have. Okay. And I do have customization within my sales mama school, but I'm not like, you have this and this and this and this and this and this. I make a recommendation, one or two recommendations on where people should start based on what they have told me. And so it's all sales mama school, but depending on where they're at in their business, it may be sales mama school level one, level two, or level three. They're called root rise and reclaim. Okay. And so depending on what stage of business you're at, we'll determine which level of sales mama school I will recommend for you. And then within there, there's different payment options. There's a three month, there's a six month, there's a 12-month, right? And we always want to start with the one that we think will be the best fit for people. So I typically start with like a six month and then I can go up or down from there. You know, if the six month is not enough, boom, let's go up and we'll we'll do a pay in full for a year. If, you know, if the six months feels like too much, it's like, let's bump down and do three months and see how much we can get done and then we can renew. So we have places for people to go. They're not locked into just one thing. Again, you have creativity within your business, but everybody starts at sales mama school. Okay. They all start at the signature program. So think about that for yourself. What is the signature program that you have that you can start to funnel in, teach it once, and sell repeatedly? And I still show up for Tuesday, Thursday calls. I still do some one-on-one. I still do some coaching and some mentorship, but I have the model set up so that it is scalable, so that I could have 30 or 40 or 50 new people start tomorrow or even more, and I have the capacity for it. You already have the knowledge. You're just not delivering the most efficient and profitable way possible yet. All right. So that's what we need to do here. So your your action steps for today from this podcast, from this episode is to track your hours and track them versus your real income for just one week. I want you to see the actual dollar per hour number. And then I want you to identify the thing that you see and say to every single client that is going to be your first scalable offer. Okay, what is the thing that you are always repeating, always repeating, always repeating? And so some of the things that I'm always repeating is if you don't have sales, you don't have a business. If you don't have sales, you just have an expensive hobby. Like we need to have systems, we need to have automations, we need to have scalability, we need to have profitability, and we need to make sure that we're talking to people in a way that they buy. So I also talk a lot about buyer personality, which is where sales mama school comes from. It is sales training for women. All right. Next, what I want you to do is book a revenue audit with me so that we can find the gaps in your business and figure out where to go from here. So that's salesmama.biz slash revenue-audit. It's a 15-minute call. There is no pitch in this call. I give you at least one action step that you need to do to plug the gap. And then from there, if I feel like you would be a good fit for sales mama school, we will set up an additional call where we can talk deeper on what it looks like to work together. Okay. But I want you to know that you did not start this business so that you could be chained to it, so that you can be caged within it. All right. You started this for freedom. I know you did. Financial freedom, time freedom, emotional freedom, all of the freedom to do the things that you want to do. So let's freaking build that thing. Okay. The revenue audit is the first step that you need to take to get out of this time for money trap. It's exactly what I teach inside of Sales Mama School. Again, my signature program. And thank you so much for being here. I loved having you. If you enjoyed this episode, I would love for you to leave a comment, take a screenshot, share a review, share it with a friend. Maybe they'll enjoy it too. All right, catch you guys later. Bye.