Episode 239: What I learned From My First Six-figure Year

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Revelations From My First Six-figure Year

I have finally hit my first six-figure year. In case you missed it, earlier this year I “retired” my husband and became the main breadwinner in our family. I did this by continuing to run my business, but also by taking a part time job at my church. We have some other revenue streams as well, BUT just between this business and my part time work at the church, I will be hitting 6 figures in income for the first time ever.

And whew. If you went back to Amanda in 2017 who was teaching preschool, making pennies, and had no thoughts of ever owning a business — she sure wouldn’t believe you.

She also wouldn’t believe you if you told her she willingly moved back to the cold tundra of Washington, so you know – you know nothing, Jon Snow.

Anyways. Now that I can officially cross make six-figures off my bucket list, I thought I’d share the lessons I’ve learned this year. But first, the most important one: six-figures doesn’t really make me feel any more like I’ve made it. In fact, while it feels cool to acknowledge, there’s definitely a clear vanity edge to it. And I honestly get more excited and wowed about the fact that I’m able to provide for us and allow Russell to pursue what HE wants to. And I’d be able to do that even if I only hit 98,000 this year instead of 100,000.

Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

Join me on Monday evenings at 4:00 pm Pacific time/7:00 pm Eastern time for my weekly YouTube Lives!
Snag the 2025 Chasing Simple Marketing Planner!
This week’s action step: Brainstorm a revenue stream that you can work on adding to your business or finances for 2025, then let me know. We can all do this together ♥♥♥
This week’s book recommendation: Not a book but a book/tv app: FABLE
Find me on Instagram and tell me you completed this week’s action step: @mrsamandawarfield

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Rather Read? – Here’s the Transcript!

*Just a heads up – the provided transcript is likely to not be 100% accurate

In case you missed it, earlier this year, I retired, quote unquote, my husband, and became the main breadwinner in our family. And I say quote unquote because he’s not working for anyone right now, but he’s in school and, you know, he’s certainly not sitting around like you would think of a retired person sitting around.

But anyways, I did this by continuing to run my business, but also by taking a part time job at my church. Just to be clear that this isn’t fully 100 percent the business made six figures. And we also have some other revenue streams as well. But, just between this business and my part time work at the church, I will be hitting six figures in income for the first time ever.

Whoo! If you went back to Amanda in 2017, who was teaching preschool, making pennies, and had no thoughts of ever owning a business, she sure would not believe you. She also wouldn’t believe you if you told her she willingly moved back to the cold tundra of Washington, so, you know, you know nothing, Jon Snow.

Anyways, now that I can officially cross making six figures off my bucket list, I thought I’d share some of the lessons that I’ve learned this year. But first, the most important one, six figures. Doesn’t really make me feel any more like I’ve made it. In fact, while it feels cool to acknowledge, there’s definitely a very clear vanity edge to it.

And it’s, it’s a very clear vanity number. And honestly, I get more excited and wowed about the fact that I’m able to provide for us and allow Russell to pursue what he wants to pursue. And I’d be able to do that even if I only hit 98, 000 this year instead of 100, 000. So the six figures is truly a vanity metric.

And the really cool part of this is that, you know, I get to, I get to help us gain more freedom in our lives. But you’re listening to episode 239 of the Chasing Symbol podcast, and I’m your host, Amanda Warfield. This episode was brought to you by my book, Chasing Symbol Marketing, and you can grab your own at amandawarfield.

com slash book.

How do I find time to create content without overwhelming myself? Where should I even be showing up in my marketing? How do I come up with fresh content ideas? Where should I be focusing my marketing efforts? What is lead generation anyways, and how do I do it? Are launches still a thing? And most importantly, How do I put it all together to market my business strategically?

Can I really grow my business without spending all of my time marketing? These are some of the questions that float around in your head. When you think of marketing welcome friend, this is chasing simple or practical marketing strategy meets simplicity. I’m your host, Amanda Warfield, simplicity focused content, marketing and launch strategist, speaker, educator, and author of chasing simple marketing.

I traded in my classroom lesson plans for helping creative entrepreneurs sustainably fit marketing into their business without it taking over their business, so that they have time to grow their business, take time off, and live the life they dreamed about when they first decided to go out on their own.

When I’m working, you can find me working with one on one clients, such as The Contract Shop and Rebecca Rice Photography on their marketing strategy and copywriting, or helping my students simplify their marketing and launches. And when I’m not, you can find me spending time outside with my husband, Russell, reading in our hammock, watching Gamecock Sports, traveling, or forcing our cats to snuggle me.

If you feel overwhelmed by marketing, you aren’t alone. Many entrepreneurs find marketing frustrating, overwhelming, and simply an obligation. They know they need it, but they don’t enjoy how easily it can suck up their time when what they really want to be doing isn’t is the thing that they started their business to do.

Which is why I’m here. To help make marketing simple and less time consuming, so that you can spend less time on your marketing, and more time growing your business and doing what you love. Each week, I’ll bring you transparent conversations about Actionable steps and judgment free community to encourage and equip you.

So grab yourself a cup of coffee or whatever your drink of choice is and meet me here each week for love, support, practical tips, and advice on uncomplicating your marketing and business. Let’s do this entrepreneurship thing together, shall we?

When it comes to creating your monthly content calendar and sitting down to create your content because you’re batching it, right? The first step is not writing in the monthly calendar. It’s not even writing your categories and important dates on the calendar. If that’s where you’re starting with your content planning, well, all you’re creating is a plan.

But what you need is a strategy. What’s the difference? A strategy is like the inner structure of a building, while the plan is the decor. A strategy is what helps you achieve your goals, and your plan is how you achieve them. Your strategy is where you’re leading your audience, and your plan is what you’re talking about and when.

Without having a strategy first, putting together a plan will simply mean pulling ideas out of thin air. So, how do you start with a strategy? By starting with your goals and working backwards to ensure that you’re moving your audience toward them. What are your yearly goals, quarterly goals, monthly goals, and weekly goals?

And how can you translate them into content your audience wants to ingest? You’ve got to consider those questions before you even begin deciding what it is that you’ll post about. And if you want a simple way to create both your strategy and your plan, grab your Chasing Simple content planner. The planner is my number one bestseller, and for good reason too, because this massive, more than 130 page planner was designed with strategy in mind.

It’s not merely a place to write down what you’re going to post and when. Yes, that’s part of it, but first, you’ll walk through intentional pages full of strategic questions to get your brain moving in the right direction before you even start writing down your topic ideas. In addition to the traditional calendar pages, you’ll find yearly planning pages, monthly prep work, monthly reflection questions, repurposing worksheets, and so much more.

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The first thing that I learned in my first year making six figures is that I truly don’t need to work as much as I thought I did. This year,

most weeks, I’ve worked 10 hours or less in my business. In fact, I think the max I worked in my business this year was probably 20 hours a week, and that was honestly rare. I would say 10 hours was Probably the average most weeks and some weeks I worked even less than that And numbers aren’t final yet.

We’ve still got A month and a half left in this year. So, you know We’ll see how things end up but I made The same or a little more this year in my business as I did last year in my business And I worked So much less than I did. And honestly, what that mostly comes down to is the fact that I had to focus in more and with limited time means I have worked strictly on the most important things and less on the things that weren’t truly moving the business forward.

Now, that being said, I do think that if I was working more hours in my business this year, that I would have earned more in the business. However, I don’t know that I would have earned more than I’m making collectively with both working my business and working at the church. So, there’s that. Um, there definitely

things like my education side of my business that got put to the back burner. I spent way less time on social media this year, which I don’t think that necessarily would have translated directly to more sales. And I mean, as evidenced by in the however many years of running my business. So In short, I think had I spent more time on the business, yes I would’ve made more, but I don’t know.

You know, it’s that whole 80 20 rule where 80% of what you make comes from 20% of what you’re doing this year. Definitely showed me that that rule is true. And the vast majority of my income this year came from my one-to-one clients. And as much as I would have loved. more time and capacity to experiment with things like ads and different things like that to grow the education side more of my business this year.

Um, I just wasn’t there. And there’s always that what if, even though I know, even though this year taught me that I don’t need to work as much as I think I need to, there’s still that part of me that thinks I need to work that. Um, another thing that did fall to the wayside this year that has no impact on the business or the bottom line is just the organization of things.

My files on my computer out of control. And that drives me crazy. Um, so it’s, there are some things like that, they fell to the wayside and working less hours. doesn’t, I don’t want it to come off as, Oh, I don’t need to work as much as I thought I did. Everything’s great. Like, no, there are still things that I’m like, man, I really wish I had time for that, but I just don’t have the capacity.

Uh, there’s a lot of that still, but, I made what I need to make. So that’s the first big, Oh, that I learned this year, the big lesson. Um, another thing that I have learned this year is. That man, I have gotten even more clear on my absolute favorite clients to work with.

And I want to say this carefully because this doesn’t mean that I don’t love working with all of my clients

because I do. I love all of my clients like it. I am so blessed with the clients that I have, but the ones that really, that have me thinking about their business in my off hours are the solopreneurs. That are course creators slash, you know, knowledge, educational, digital product creators. Those are the ones that really light me up, and I think it’s because there’s just something, to me there’s something so satisfying about helping someone who is, You know, they’re doing all the things and They don’t have a whole team.

Maybe they’re outsourcing some things, but it’s mostly them running their business and I Don’t know what it is about that that I love so much, but there’s just something about it. That really just gets me excited and

Yeah, and it’s specifically with those that are course creators and digital products I had someone actually very recently They messaged me on Instagram and they asked me, you know, I wanna, I’ve got an audience and I’ve been doing this, but I, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about creating some kind of product and I don’t know if it’ll be a course or a community or guides or templates or I don’t know, but is that something you help people with and holy cow, yes, that is one of my favorite things to do is brainstorm.

what your product suite and your value ladder can look like, and how it can all work together, and how your marketing can send people into those things through lead magnets that convert and through sales funnels. And for me, it’s the, here’s what it is. Solopreneurs, I’m thinking this out loud as I’m saying it out loud.

Solopreneurs don’t have. This person working on this and this person working on this and this person working on this and it truly feels like we are as a team together working on growing your business and I love coming alongside solopreneurs and really going from either a you’ve already got these products in this value ladder and we’ve just got to figure out how to move people from your content.

To those sales through lead magnets that convert and through updating your website and through setting up sales funnels and welcome sequences And you know all of those things or it’s you don’t have those and we’re gonna create them together and it’s this we get to take your marketing as a whole in your business And kind of work on all the pieces.

And that’s so exciting to me. So, anyways, that’s something I’ve learned this year is I’ve gotten, because I’m spending most of my time simply working with clients and not really doing these other things, I’ve gotten a lot more clear on who my favorite clients to work with are. And hey, if you feel like that’s you and that’s the kind of help you need in the new year and you want to work together, let’s chat.

I have, I believe, one space left. for 2025, I think. Um, and I would love, yeah, I would love to chat more about whether or not we’d be a good fit together, so head over to my website or shoot me a DM on Instagram and we can just casually chat there, and you can ask any questions you have. The next lesson that I’ve learned in my first year of making six figures is that I would much rather have Russell home than working all of the time, no matter the paycheck.

He, and to be fair, he’s only been home, I don’t know, five, six months now, so it hasn’t even been a full year of him being home yet, but it’s so nice. There’s a downside of sometimes I have to go to the church or go work at a coffee shop or something because when he’s home, which is often, I just want to hang out with him.

But, uh, man, what a problem to have, right? Like, it’s It’s just so nice. It’s so nice to have him home all the time. He knows so much more about what’s going on in the business and just how things are running and he, because of that, he can help me brainstorm more. And when I tell him, I think I’m going to do this, and he’s like, XYZ?

He has the capacity to think about those things now, which he didn’t when he was working shift work, of course. And just his presence and just having him. Man, just having him home. He keeps talking about, you know, applying for jobs and finding a job and all these things and I will obviously support him in whatever he does and wants to do, but I’m constantly just reminding him, okay, but only if you really want to, you know, because I, um, yeah, I love having him home and You know, we have had to seriously cut back on our spending this year, obviously, with, um, you know, him not working his job.

Um, and I would do it over and over again. It’s taking steps backwards in , our spending abilities in order to take steps forward into more freedom. for us as a family. It’s really cool. It’s really cool to see play out. And also, speaking of Russell, when I was saying, oh, I’m gonna do this episode, what are some lessons we’ve learned this year?

His input was money doesn’t matter if you don’t have cats. Which I don’t think he actually believes, but he knows that the cats are everything to me. So, um, but that was his input on this. That’s what he learned this year, I guess. So, yeah. Another lesson that I learned is how to slow down on my goals and not act like running my business is a race.

And I say, I say that loosely, the how part of it, because frankly, I’m still kind of figuring the how out, but I’ve, I learned that I need to, and I’ve learned that it makes a difference and that it is important. And the way that has looked this year, because again, working less hours, um, I’ve been doing so many less projects, so much less speaking and just have been so much more intentional about.

What I’m doing in my business, because I don’t have the capacity to speak at all the summits. I mean, for the past few years, I was saying yes to every summit, every bundle, every, every opportunity was a yes. And I don’t have the capacity for that any longer. And so I’m really having to sit down and go, okay, they want me to speak at this time.

Do I have other marketing project going on? Because if I do, it’s a definite no, I can’t, I can’t. I can’t handle running multiple marketing campaigns at this point right now, right? And it’s just something that I just don’t, I don’t have the capacity for. Um, and so that’s the first thing I always think of.

And then the second question is, but does it really align with my audience? Is it a great opportunity? And by great opportunity, I, I strictly mean, do I see myself getting a strong ROI from it? It’s no longer. Enough for me to just be adding people to my list. There was a time when that was the case. If I was going to grow my list, yes, it’s worth my time.

Because my time is so limited right now, that’s not the case any longer. And it needs to be something where I feel like I’m actually going to make money off of it, or have the potential to, in order to actually say yes. And so, That’s something I’ve just had to be so much more intentional. Is this audience a good fit for who I want to be in front of?

And will they actually benefit from what I have to offer? And will they actually be interested in what I have to offer? And the same goes for my projects, right? It’s not just about the marketing and getting in front of new people, but also, okay, I only have the capacity, realistically, to work on one project at a time.

In reality, what that actually has looked like is, okay, what two or three projects do I have going right now? And I kind of just trade off which one’s getting my attention. Um, but what one, two, maybe three projects can I actually work on? And then I spend a lot longer working on each project as well.

Where it used to be, I would start a project and I, you know, it was like, Each month there was a new project was the goal and I just don’t have the time for that any longer and so it’s okay, which project is absolutely the most important and is going to do the most for me in the long run. And so that, again, just more intention around slowing down and not acting like running my business is a race, but instead, a slow, I don’t even want to say jog, a slow nature walk. Yeah, just a leisurely walk or a leisurely hike, maybe is a better word, metaphor, whatever. Um, And again, I say how to, but it’s not really, it’s just, that’s been the reality and I’ve been forced into that. And so just learning how to do that with more intention has been a big lesson for me this year.

And then the final lesson I have to share with you today is that, man, relationships make life better, um, both personally and in business. It has been such a blessing to be so close to friends, and it’s The spontaneous, Hey, wanna come over? It’s just so nice. Man, it’s so nice. Um, but then also, relationships and business.

Um, again, having less time, I’ve had to be a lot more intentional about, well, let’s put this weekly co working on the calendar so we can get together and hang out. Um, And using Voxer and just having people to talk to when you’re like dang I lost another client and it’s you know It’s because of XYZ circumstance and it’s not that they’re unhappy with me But this thing happened and they need to they can’t work with me any longer, right?

Those moments stink Um, it also stinks when someone’s just unhappy with working with you, but just when those circumstances happen and they’re like, I would love to keep working with you, but I can’t right now because of whatever reason. Um, or whatever happens, right? Like, just having someone there to be like, This is going on in my business, and I’m bummed, or to celebrate those wins with, or to have as referral partners and just connecting.

I’ve done a lot more connecting this year, but on a smaller scale, deeper connections is a good way to put that. Whereas it used to be I felt like I was just like trying to connect with other people all the time, and now it’s less It’s a smaller blanket, but it’s a thicker blanket. I don’t know. Smaller hole, but deeper hole.

Um, but just better connections, and it’s just made a big difference. So yeah, relationships make life better, for sure. So, anyways, those are a few of my, um, Just lessons learned in my first year making six figures. Um, one more, one more for you. Your revenue streams truly do add up. I used to, you know, you hear that stat about, oh, the average millionaire has seven revenue streams, right?

And

I mean, it’s easy to be like, okay, great, but like, what is that? I don’t know. It’s easy to hear that, but then what do you do with that? But it’s, it’s interesting how, when you build one, And then you build, once you build the second one, and then you free up capacity and you can build a third, it, it’s easier to add them, but also, it is amazing what a little bit from this one, and a little bit from this one, and a little bit from this one will do, because, again, if I wasn’t working at the church, I wouldn’t, I probably wouldn’t have hit six figures this year, I’m just being 100 percent real, um, I would have had more time, I would have made a little bit more, probably, in the business than I did, But I, I don’t think I’d hit that six figure number and yet a little bit from this and a little bit from that and a little bit from this and it all adds up.

So start thinking about other revenue streams, even if, and again, most of my income came from one on one clients, but a good chunk came from my membership. A good chunk did come from education. A good chunk came from affiliate marketing. And so having these different revenue streams in your business. adds up.

And so if you just, just potentially, and here’s maybe your action step for this week, is to think about one revenue and one revenue, one, yeah, one revenue stream that you could add in 2025 and that you could get started with in the new year. Now, instead of a book recommendation for you this week, I actually have a book app recommendation.

If you have not heard of Fable, it is similar to Goodreads. So if you use Goodreads. And even if you don’t, but you have heard about it, but if you use Goodreads and if like me you don’t love it It’s not that great, but it works kind of thing Fable is a lot more beautiful. It’s a lot more user friendly and what I love most about it is That you can import your Goodreads data into it.

So, earlier this year there was a big push on social media about StoryGraph. If you’ve heard of that one, because it’s a woman owned, all this stuff. Um, and it gives you all these cool like stats and data and things. And I was like, alright, cool, I’ll try it out. But then, all of the information that I already have in Goodreads, it wasn’t there.

Now, caveat here. There may be. at this point because it’s been months, or maybe there always was but it wasn’t obvious, there may be a way to import your Goodreads data into Storygraph. However, it wasn’t abundantly clear and I wasn’t aware of it, so I didn’t ever use it. I, I was like, yeah, I mean, it’s cool, but like, I don’t, everything’s already in Goodreads, so I’m just not, you know, I’m very much of the, if it’s not broke, don’t fix it, I don’t need to try out new things just to try out new things kind of mindset.

However, downloaded Fable when I, in fact, I this is something I literally downloaded today. Um, saw people talking about it on threads and downloaded it to check it out. And it’s beautiful, and it’s got great data, just like Storygraph has. And it’s very user friendly. And, as you’re setting up your project, Profile, it encourages you to import your Goodreads data and it’s all you do is you click import and you log into your Goodreads and then it moves the stuff over for you.

And so everything that I’ve read this year, all 122 books at this point,

All of that, including the dates and my ratings got moved over. To Fable. It also has a whole section for TV shows, which I have not even played around with, but if you also are someone that loves TV, probably would like it too. Um, but I just loved that all that move over, moved over. I will say caveat, I’m pretty sure it only moved over my 2024 Goodreads data.

So all of the years before that did not get moved over. I’m not really worried about that because really all I wanted was All the books that I’ve read, and that I’m, I was not about to import 122 books, right, by hand, because we’re, it’s November, as I’m recording this, I was not about to import all of those books, and yet, I do want to keep track of, you know, hitting my goal, and how many I’ve read for the year, and so, the reality would have been, I wouldn’t have used it because everything was already in Goodreads, and I would have said, maybe I’ll remember in January to start using it, and I wouldn’t have remembered.

So, anyways, that’s a tangent. But that, instead of a book recommendation, a book, and there’s also book clubs on it, there’s all kinds of stuff. I have, again, just downloaded it today, within the last couple of hours. I haven’t done a full deep dive into it, but I’m really, really, really liking that it’s got the functionality of Goodreads, but it’s beautiful, and has even more.

than goodreads does So, alright. That is all I have for you today, my friend. Until next time, I hope that you will go ahead and uncomplicate your marketing and business.

so much for joining me here today, friend. You can find this episode show notes as well as all the resources you need to simplify your marketing over at amandawarfield. com. If you liked what you heard here today, be sure to subscribe to the podcast so that you never miss an episode. And if you could take a moment to leave a rating and review, it would truly mean the world to me.

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