I have a rocking ritual for my Mondays that I call “Money Monday.”
Money Monday is a simple mindset shift and practice you can do that will bring powerful results to your business.
I start the week with a focus on revenue-generating activities. Instead of waiting until all my work at Web Marketing Therapy and Wild Web Women is done (it’s NEVER done) I start the workweek thinking about who I should be reaching out to, writing proposals sooner rather than later, following up on invoices, looking at business finances and so on.
Shifting the beginning of the week to a Money Monday theme is very empowering and will yield great results. It’s important to look at your finances regularly to see what’s coming in, what’s overdue, etc. Being intentional with your finances means being intentional about your business.
Here are simple steps to help you start a Money Monday ritual:
1. Log into all your financial accounts.
Every Monday, check your finances to understand exactly where you stand. Pay attention to what’s coming in and what’s going out. I LOVE personalcapital.com to see all my accounts in one place.
2. Look for unpaid or outstanding invoices.
You can’t just send out an invoice and then forget about it. Mistakes can happen, invoices can get overlooked, and before you know it, don’t get paid for your valuable time and services. And pleeease, do not delay in sending invoices. That sends the “I don’t value my work” message.
When I did a recent Money Monday financial check, I saw that one of our clients in another city was five days overdue with payment on a couple of invoices. The same late pay thing happened the month before, so that made me wonder where the problem was within the process. I emailed them with copies of the invoices to check-in, asking if maybe the checks aren’t getting signed, trying to pinpoint the source of the problem.
After a bit of confusion on their end, I was finally told, “The check will be sent out this week.” Someone had clearly dropped the ball.
While it was good to hear the money was on the way, that wasn’t good enough. I was in my summer home, several hours away from my primary residence in Atlanta, and had already driven up to my office in Atlanta to check mail so I had them FedEx the check directly to me. My husband was like, “Really? Wow! Good for you!” And I calmly replied, “It’s Money Monday.”
3. Make revenue-generating activities a priority.
Start by asking yourself what kind of work you want to do and the type of clients you want to work with. Make connections. Make them count. Reach out to people you’re enjoyed working with in the past…start the conversation and see where it goes.
I love the “spinning the plates” analogy. Plate spinning performers somehow always manage to keep the plates spinning as they juggle them. When one plate slows down, they have to get it spinning faster again while keeping the whole juggling act going.
Running a business is like that. It’s part service, operations, self-work, administration, and marketing. What are some little things we can be doing every day to keep those plates spinning?
Before I started my Money Mondays, I focused mainly on the operations part of the business. I’m all about service and taking care of my clients. This is a wonderful thing and it’s why my clients and employees stay. But if I want to keep and grow my business, I’d better be working ON my business at the same time.
The best time to work on your business is when things are going really well.
Don’t wait until you’ve got all your work done (it will never be done)! And don’t wait til you are out of clients to start marketing.
We tend to spend most of our time IN our businesses, but we need to be continually working ON our businesses.
Find what works for you, and then do it.
Shifting my financial focus to the beginning of the week has had a profound impact on my business, and I think it will on yours, too.
