The Fastest, Easiest Way to Make $100k/year (Guest: Paige Brunton)
Table of Contents Show
I am so excited for you to hear this interview. Recently, I sat down with Paige Brunton to talk about the easiest ways to get to six figures (because most often the assumption is that it involves some sort of passive income stream), and the common mistakes that we see about the switch, when to switch, how to manage your money, how to pay yourself, how to manage taxes. All of the things that are involved in that conversation!
And if you don't know who Paige Brunton is, she runs a couple of signature courses, Square Secrets®️ and Square Secrets Business®️. She also has her own YouTube channel, you should definitely go check her out. She's got boo-koodles of blogs and YouTube videos to scour through.
She'll also be hosting a live FREE training event for web designers, April 15-17, 2024!
So stick around, grab a cup of coffee, maybe a notebook and a pen, or your iPad, an Apple Pencil, whatever you wanna do, and prepare to take notes because this was a really good conversation.
Let's dig in.
[00:01:00]
Unlocking Six Figures: Strategies & Insights
Katelyn: So what I thought we would talk about today is, you know, everybody talks about the big six figure… “We're gonna hit that mark,” –but what's the easiest way to hit that mark? What are your immediate thoughts?
Paige: Uh–such good questions! Sorry, starting off the bat with a good one.
[00:01:13]
The Power of High-Value Services, –Over Passive Income
Paige: Okay, easiest way, I know this is not the way that a lot of people think they're going to get there, but it is genuinely if I think about the fastest, simplest way to get there is through doing higher priced services.
So let me start with this. Let's just start with like numbers.
So if you're going to do $10,000 projects, for example. Now, I know when you started as a web designer, that feels like massively unattainable and just insane and bananas. And yes, okay. It feels like that, that way at the beginning.
So the interesting thing with the web design industry is you increase your price pretty quick. Like it is people think it takes years to like go from I mean, say in a normal job, if you start making like $2,000 a month and they go to $10,000 a month, do you think like that takes an entire career in the web design world? I can take like, I don't know, two years. Sometimes people do it.
If you were to book $10,000 projects, you need what eight in a year to make a hundred grand. Like that is not. That many projects that you need, really. And I mean, if you do them in timeframes that we tend to do these projects in, so that's like a week, two weeks, three weeks.
We're actually taking a significant amount of vacation in that year. If that were like, if you're like, I want to hit $100,000 and then stop and do, you know, $10k projects, then great.
So I would say that, the fastest, easiest method to that milestone is actually to continue with one on one services. Just work your way up to, your skills up –let's say, and your confidence, because it is literally both of those things are like the key to increasing your pricing. Work both of those things up. And just book the price––
––And I can give you, I'll give you an example. When I first, first, first started website design, I was searching like $2,500 project. Someone suggested to me, like, you could totally double your prices. And I was like, you're crazy. …But why not try? So I doubled them from $2,500 to $5,000. Just went onto my website, changed the numbers and be like, we'll just see what happens, and if I get no inquiries anymore and no one wants to book me anymore, then I'll put them back down and no one will know.
And anyways, didn't need to do that because people just booked the exact same thing, but for like twice the price. And so we could talk about different ways that people raise their prices and everything.
That is one way, but truly improving your skills and improving your confidence and really building websites that work fantastically for your client’s businesses and continuing to doing the services is the fastest way. And I know that the way that a lot of people want to do it is through passive income.
And we can talk about maybe why that's not... Yeah.
Katelyn: Yesss.
[00:03:34]
Navigating the Shift to Passive Income: Challenges & Strategies
Katelyn: So that's where I was headed. I was thinking the most common mistake, one mistake I myself made, wanting to do it too early is what I see most often. So what, from your experience, are you seeing on your side of that too?
Paige: Totally. Totally. I agree. So they're the thing that you need to sell lower pricing––
So passive income things often for web designers, it's website templates or courses or some sort of like paid trainings or little group programs or masterclasses or something or CSS snippets or stuff like that. Those are all things that people passive income style things that web signers do.
Average Passive Income Prices:
$20-50 code plugins
$200 templates
$500 – $1,000 courses
GOAL: $100,000 USD/yr
And if you think about the pricing on those CSS snippets, like $20 bucks website template, couple hundred bucks courses, maybe in the higher amount, like up to a thousand or a couple thousand.
So typically when people start with courses, there are a few hundred to a thousand, I would say, is most often.
And the problem with that is, if you think about the numbers on that, a $20 CSS snippet to make $100 grand is…, I have no idea, but an absolute ton.
Even like a $200 template to make $100k grand is…I don't, again, know the math, but a lot.
Passive Income Sales Needed to reach $100,000 USD/yr:
5,000 x $20 code plugins
2,000 x $50 code plugins
500 x $200 templates
200 x $500 courses
100 x $1,000 courses
And in order to make that happen, you need an audience.
And you don't just need, say if you wanted, if you had to sell, let's say a thousand templates, for example…
If you want to just make six figures ($100,000) from $200 website templates, you need to sell 500 templates.
In order to sell 500 templates, you need an audience significantly bigger than that because 1% to 2% of your audience, –and that means like on an email list, not just like traffic to your website or people following you on Pinterest or Instagram or whatever– 1% to 2% of those convert.
So you need an audience of like massive in order to make those 500 sales.
To get those sales, you’ll need an audience size of at least:
334,000 to convert at 1.5%,
to sell 5,010 x $20 code plugins133,500 to convert at 1.5%,
to sell 2,002 x $50 code plugins33,500 to convert at 1.5%,
to sell 502 x $200 templates13,500 to convert at 1.5%,
to sell 202 x $500 courses6,700 to convert at 1.5%,
to sell 100 x $1,000 courses
*Industry average conversion rates are 1-2% of the total audience size
And so this is the thing which people think like, “Oh, I'm going to do passive income and it's going to be great.” –And it is great, but you're forgetting about the like absolute massive slog of time that it requires to build the audience, which we make absolutely no money from at the beginning.
So yeah. That is where people, again, and again, and again, and again, again, massively underestimate.
They like launched the template, have no audience and they're like, it's going to be great. And then they quickly realized like, “Oh, I missed the audience bit.” And that's, that's often the problem.
Katelyn: Yes. So that's exactly what I did. I built a [small] template shop in 2020, because COVID & everything slowed down. I sold ONE.
Paige: Yeah, I've heard it a few times. Like, you're not the only person.
Let me say, it doesn't mean that website template shops don't work. They do! I’ve heard some numbers behind website template shops and –oh my Lord, they do well!
But the audience piece is really vital for it.
Download the report from SQSP Themes for free!
Katelyn: Yeah. I think, was it Omari of SQSP Themes that just did the industry [web design templates] report. That was so fascinating for that. If you're curious about the numbers, I'll try to remember to link that report below. But it's really fascinating to see, like, what the price ranges are, how long it took them to scale... So if you want to know, like, the backside of what this passive income business typically looks like, that's a really good, insightful thing to look at.
Paige: Yep. Yep. And we’re not telling people, “don't do it.”
Like, let us be clear. It is a great thing to do. I definitely think it's fabulous. And I think it's an amazing, I think for web designers, there's like such good passive income options, and I think that's incredible, ––but just know that that's probably not the fastest, quickest way to get to six figures.
Katelyn: Exactly. That's a good point.
So I guess we're not saying “passive income sucks. Don't do it.”
We're saying “passive income is not quick.”
Paige: Yep. Ha! There we go!
[00:07:31]
Mastering Your Finances: Paying Yourself & Managing Taxes
Katelyn: So what about paying themselves along the way if they're feeling like I really need to get to six figures, but I don't know how to actually pay myself with whatever I'm earning at this, like, all the stages in between? What would your best tip be for that?
Paige: Ooh! Okay So, the book Profit First* is very, very good for figuring out why you should be paying yourself.
Okay, so the book Profit First* is all about, like, business owner finance. You would think it's boring. It is not. It is a hilarious book.
And it has in there information on, like, the percentage that you should set aside for paying yourself, percentage set aside for taxes, percentage should set aside for, like, growth in your business, and operating expenses.
And so basically, I can tell you what I started with was like, I think it was 50% of what I made was my money. Then the rest of it was like taxes. It also depends on your country. I was in Europe and so Europe is like, very high tax rates. If you're in a, you know, more tax friendly location, you could potentially pay yourself a higher percentage.
But when I just started, when it was like me as a website designer, it was like 50% of what I made every month was like my money, which was really great. So yeah.
Katelyn: So how did you. –Yeah, that's what I was going to say. Like, so if you make, if you make $30,000 in a year, 50% of that is your paycheck, so that's $15,000. How do you divvy that up throughout the year? What, what did you do?
Paige: Yeah, so I… So this is–– so as you grow your business, the really great thing is that the numbers increase. And so, well––
Okay, so I'm someone who likes peace of mind when it comes to finances and so this is the way I did it. It's not the way you have to do it, but I can just say this:
So I took like 50% every month and I put it aside for like paying myself, within still my business. And then every month I would pay myself an amount of money.
And then I just basically did like the average over time. So I would take like, okay, what's the average of the past, like, so many months, –past six months, for example. Well, to be honest, when you start, it's the past like one month, then it's the average of two months, then it's the average of three months, then it's the average of four months… And so basically I figure out, the average of those four months.
And of course, because my business is making more in revenue every month, as I'm like growing it from the beginning, then it turns out that you are paying yourself out the average of say the last four months, for example, but as your business is growing, you end up having savings within your business to then pay yourself.
So now I have months worth of money just literally sitting in my business bank account. So it's like, if this makes no more money, I can still pay myself for six months. Basically.
And so if your revenue is going in a positive direction and you're doing an average of the months backwards, then that ends up meaning that you pay yourself something, but then you also are building savings for the future at the same time.
That's my little system. That's not really a Profit First* thing, actually. And then once I got to the point where I'd run the business for a full year, I just did the average of the past 12 months. I didn't take like, the past, I don't know, 95 months or whatever it is now.
Katelyn: Right. Yeah. That's actually what I started doing too. I think when I was in, I don't know, one of maybe Nesha's programs several years ago, she had mentioned average the past year, which of course doesn't work when there was no past year. But like you said, I just averaged what I had. And so as, …
And the thing that I think trips people up is that they're like, “well, I'm spending this money, spending this money, spending this money…” But if you're operating with Profit First*, you're replenishing it, hopefully, just as often as you're taking from it.
And so, like you, I have 6 or so months worth of paychecks sitting in that account, and I pay myself the same amount every 2 weeks, which is a sum every month, and because I'm replenishing it, I can change it as that amount continues to grow, or I can stagnate [and know I could pay myself that amount for a longer period of time]. I get to decide, right?
Paige: Um-Hm. Yep, exactly.
Katelyn: So, that's exactly what I do too, that's so funny.
Paige: Yeah.
[00:11:32]
Celebrating Your Progress & Achievements
Katelyn: Do you have any other tips?
Paige: In terms of paying yourself? I would say one thing, it's not necessarily like in the budget necessarily, but it's like every time I do a really big sale or got myself client or something, I would get myself something little and just like a little fun, extra, whatever, that I wanted at that point.
I think that that's always a really good way to, … Cause that's the thing when you're running your own business, like there's no like, ya know, boss, to give you a Christmas gift or anything so I’m like, “ya know what? I’m gonna give myself a Christmas gift when I do something hard in this business, launch something, or… make a really big sale, or whatever. Um, so so that is one thing.
[00:12:07]
Managing Your Taxes as a New Business Owner
Tip when it comes to managing your finances as a business owner, try to get an estimated– estimation on your tax bill.
And this is something which like most I would do. From people who I talked to, it seems like most business owners, the first year that they run the business, they aren't quite saving enough for their taxes.
And I fully did this in the first six months. And then, like, I was saving, but I wasn't saving enough for my taxes. I hadn't read Profit First* at that point.
So basically, if you go to like an accountant or a bookkeeper, even like you can do an online calculator of like, Hey, here's how much money I expect to make in the year. I'm like self employed, whatever. Here's my state and my marriage status and my everything else.
And then it will give you an estimated tax bill. And then you figure out, okay, what percentage of the total amount of money, which I made is that.
Also keep in mind… Sorry this is getting complicated, which it is..
Katelyn: it is complicated.
Paige: So. Yeah, you figure out what percentage of the total amount of money that you made is how much it says your estimated tax bill is going to be, and then you save that percentage.
And so you can increase or decrease the percentage that you've been saving based off what the actual estimation is for your area, your marriage status, and all those things.
So yeah, and do know, the other thing to know is that when it comes to the taxes that you pay as a self employed person, it's like, …
The revenue that you make. So let's say you made a hundred grand this year. Congratulations. Good job!
And then you spent $20k grand on whatever the hell you… Stationary, and travelled somewhere you called a business trip, and a few other things, software and stuff like that, – courses…
Then that comes off your profit. So you're only paying tax then on $80,000 not on $100,000. If that makes sense.
Yeah. So anyways, but yeah, do a calculator or talk to an accountant once, and that is a good use of money for some peace of mind of being like, Okay, here's my aspirated tax bill, if I continue making this amount of money over the course of like this year, for example and then just, yeah, save a percentage, and…
And, another thing, I often, –often, not always– the first year I didn't, but in subsequent years I did, save too much for taxes. [ie: used a percentage for tax savings that was a little higher than necessary, for just in case!]
And then when you find out when you pay your tax bill and you're just like, “Oh, I didn't need it all.” Then I mean, like, go get yourself something fabulous!
Katelyn: Yeah, that actually happened to me this year. So I had a chunk to set aside and he [my accountant] was like, it's already yours. You've already paid taxes on it. Like do whatever you want with it.
I was like, yes!
Paige: That's a really good feeling, which is much better than the opposite feeling of like… ”ooooooh…..”
Katelyn: of like, Oh my God.
That's funny. Okay. So that's, that's actually a really good tip. Cause that's something that people often wonder.
And I think prior to reading Profit First* myself, I was also like terrified all tax seasons, to the point where in the earliest years I would almost go to great lengths to spend as much as I was making so that it would be like even. And I knew that like, I would be reporting that I had spent as much as I earned, so I wouldn't have anything to pay.
**Paige: …**That's an interesting solution to that problem.
I didn’t save for taxes, so I guess I'll just spend it all. And then…
Katelyn: Yeah, in the beginning when it was like, I don't know how to code, I don't know how to do a website. So it was like, “I'll take this course and I know that that's going to offset whatever I make.” So it was like, in my head, it made sense.
But looking back on it now, that's what I was doing. Whether or not I would have said that at the time, not so much.
[00:15:41]
When to Consider Passive Income: Timing & Transition
Katelyn: So when do you think it's smart to add something like passive income? Like, should you worry about it in the beginning? If you don't have any clients, is it something that you could like… work into your schedule. When does it make sense?
Paige: That's a good question! A really great question.
Okay, so let me talk about the actual process of switching from one to one clients to a passive income. And then we'll get into when it makes sense to.
So, clients, what you have to do is you have to do some sort of a, like, a marketing strategy, which is going to get you in front of, like, which is going to get you, let's say, 20 clients, maybe 30, in the year. Like, that's really all the clients that you need.
And so, there are many different marketing strategies that you can use. I'm hosting a bootcamp coming up soon where we will talk about live for like a few days, marketing strategies and finding clients and everything. So we'll put details for that below. And we'll talk more about that after.
But anyway, so basically you want to find some sort of marketing strategy, which works for you to get those like higher priced service based clients. And I think that truly, truly is the best way to start a business and even to start getting into passive income.
Because when you work with those clients one to one, you get to know them so freaking well, and you start to understand like the problems and the things that they would want in a passive income product and everything. And you just learn of problems that you never would have known was a problem had you not actually worked with someone before.
And so
Katelyn: 100%
Paige: There's that. The other benefit of it is it makes you good money now, which is also pretty good. What do you say? Won’t turn up your nose at that.
So that's one to one clients. So your job is basically do your marketing strategy, which you don't need to get in front of that many people. Because again, you're not trying to get that many clients in a year. And then you actually serve the clients.
And yes, the serving the clients bit takes time. So let's say like 20% of your time is like on the marketing strategy and funding clients and 80% of your time is on serving those clients.
Now the difficult period is when you switch over to passive income.
You've now got to build a really big audience. And when you're actually running a passive income style business, you probably spend 80% of your time audience building and 20% of your time actually like doing the thing, creating the product, updating the product, that sort of whatever.
And so the obvious difficulty is when you go from, okay, I have 80% of my time serving clients, and now I need to spend 80% of my time building an audience and like, making, doing a large scale marketing strategy, –that is the hardest bit.
So the in between portion of switching from one style to the other is difficult, –very time consuming because you have to kind of do two major projects at once. And so the switch is the hardest part.
Now, I remember I was chatting to Erica from Big Cat Creative one time and she was saying that when she switched over to doing her template shop, she was like, I think she said she had to I don't know, month, two, three months or something of like savings to just like pay herself for a few months.
And she's like, okay, cool. I'm going to go all in on like marketing in this time. And I'm going to switch over to selling templates. And she's like, if it doesn't work, I can still go back to like, you know, adding a client projects in here and there, and everything.
So it doesn't need to be like a very clear defined I'm switching and I'm never going back. Like it doesn't matter.
So, but do you know, …so in terms of when it makes sense to switch: the point at which you feel like you have the capacity to also start on doing a large scale marketing strategy and building an audience is, I would say that's the first step.
And the mistake which most people make is they go from one to one services to, I'm going to spend months creating this product, and Oh, whoops. I forgot about an audience.
And that's, …
So you want to go, like, serving your one to one service clients, then building audience, then selling product.
And that is if you want to have it actually sell some product, when you go to sell the product. That would be my suggested route and plan of attack.
And the middle bit is the hard bit.
So in terms of when it's like, when do you actually have the mental and energetic capacity to kind of do those two hard things at the same time, I would say.
Katelyn: Yeah, and I think it's going to be the easiest to manage that transition period when you've mastered the first thing you were doing.
Paige: Yep, that also helps. Hahaha!
Katelyn: Because then it doesn't feel so overwhelming. You're not also learning how to do other pieces of it [services] along the way while you're doing this other thing [passive income products].
Can relate, did it myself. I'm sure you probably did too, to some degree,
Paige: Yeah. Yeah. That’s a really good point.
Katelyn: But yeah, it's easier to do when, you know, what the hell you're doing on the first part, before you add on…
Paige: If your business is clicking along, like real easy, that's obviously gonna give you more time to do the audience building.
Katelyn: 100%. Okay.
[00:20:34]
Join Paige’s FREE Live Training Event:
Profitable & Productive Web Designer Bootcamp
Katelyn: So to wrap up, talk to us about the bootcamp and what they can learn if they sign up for that.
Paige: Yeah. Okay.
So the Profitable & Productive Web Designer Bootcamp is coming up on April 15th, 16th and 17th [2024]. And it is basically three fabulous days of amazing live trainings [for web designers].
So I go through, I teach you all about the basics and foundations of becoming a website designer. We talk about like, the different, like, package options and services you could offer.
We do talk about the whole, like, passive income, service based business. Are we doing services? Are we doing, whatever? Like, all the different options you have to, like, make money as a website designer.
We talk about marketing strategies and finding clients is a big part of it.
And we also talk about, really organizing and streamlining the back end of your business.
So we have a variety of different sessions happening there.
We also bring in some fabulous guest expert speakers as well to share their genius. A bunch of past students of my course Square Secrets Business that come in.
And so if you've ever basically wanted to have like, someone who has been hella successful as a website designer very recently, who built their business basically give you, like, answer all of your questions, that's kind of your opportunity inside of bootcamp to do that.
So yeah, we only host it once or twice a year. It is such a good time! We have thousands of people join in. It's really amazing.
If you're even web designer curious, I would come to it. Like, if you're like, I don't know if I could do that. Just, just attend. Like, we're friendly here, as you can tell.
Enter the giveaway inside the Bootcamp, worth $995!
The other thing that happens inside of Bootcamp is we have our Ultimate Web Designer at Starter Kit giveaway. So, we have a giveaway where basically I pay for your CRM system for a year. That's like the tech system that you use to like manage and onboard and sign contracts and get payments from clients and everything. One year of Canva Pro, for a year. [And 1 Web Designer service agreement from Creative Law Shop.]
And so those are the sort of three things up for grabs in the giveaway and giveaway is happening inside of bootcamp.
So again, free three live day event. Always an incredible time. I cannot wait to see you there. We'll put the link below where you can register.
Katelyn: Yes. We will. And it is awesome. I go to it every year. So I will see you guys there.
All right. Thanks, Paige, so much!
Paige: Thank you!
Your Invitation to the FREE Web Designer Bootcamp
What did I say? That was a fantastic interview!
I had so much fun having that conversation. I love to talk about all of the nitty gritty details like that.
So if you're really excited and that got you energized, to dive into some of these ideas and topics, you definitely need to hop into the Profitable and Productive Web Designer Bootcamp with us!
On day two for training, I'll be there with her on the live Q & A.
It's three days of training. Every day starts at 3 PM (Eastern). If you can't catch it live, you can watch the replay in the pop up group, –but the pop up group is there for a limited time.
So you do need to join soon, because the Facebook group opens on April 12th, 2024, and it will close about two weeks later. So, it's very time sensitive and I'm sorry if you're watching/reading this video after that point, but it will open again. She runs it twice a year.
So, you definitely want to register for the bootcamp below or join my email list and I'll let you know the next time it's live, if it's well after April and you've totally missed the boat on this one.
I hope that you've enjoyed the interview and I will see you in the next video. Bye!
