Yesterday, I posted an update explaining my plans to both double my income in 2021—and diversify to at least 5 separate income source.
This is the first post explaining the goals and vision that will go into accomplishing this.
To get things started, I want to focus on my work with Optimist, the content marketing agency that I started in 2016.
Making Less
I want to take a pay cut.
That’s probably not the thing you’re expecting to read in an article about doubling my income.
But, for the last 4 years, the majority of my income has come from one place.
Our content marketing agency has grown from zero to a service business generating about $1.5 million in revenue each year.
And, as it’s grown, so has my income.
As I shared in the first post in this series, my income went from $50k to about $130k in the last 4 years.
This has, of course, been great for me personally.
It’s allowed me to pay off debts, buy and renovate (and re-sell) a home, build up my savings, and live a comfortable life.
But it’s also meant focusing nearly all my time and energy on running Optimist day in and day out.
As the company has grown, I’ve had to wear more hats—and keep more plates spinning.
So, as I plan out the upcoming year, I also need to think hard about what my role at Optimist should look like now and into the future. And the message is pretty clear.
In order to focus my time and energy on other revenue streams, I’ll need to reduce my involvement and time commitment with Optimist.
Now this shouldn’t come as a huge shocker to other entrepreneurs.
It’s a pretty natural progression that comes with growing a business.
I’ve spent the first few years growing the company by pouring myself into the work. As we’ve taken on more new clients, I’ve gone from spending 5 or 10 hours per week on Optimist to 40, 50, or 60 hours per week.
It’s been stressful but rewarding work.
Now, we’ve outgrown a size where I can continue to hold on tightly to every client engagement.
I need to find ways to slowly take my hand off the wheel. I need other people in the company to take on jobs that I’ve done for too long and could be done better by someone with more time and attention to focus on the details.
Cutting My Work in Half
My goal for Optimist in 2021 is to cut my work by 50%.
Although the amount of time that I put in now varies dramatically based on the time and needs of specific clients, my ideal scenario is to get down to just 15-20 hours per week spent on Optimist, including both running the business and client-facing work.
Of course, this won’t be done in one fell swoop.
My main emphasis is on:
- Replacing myself as the primary client contact
- Letting others own the strategy
- Automating repetitive work.
As it pertains to my income, I’ll need to pay someone to do the work that was I used to do. And, given our structure (a collective vs a traditional agency), I think it’s only fair that I reduce my income as my role and involvement shrinks.
Setting Goals for 2021
I’m not moving on from Optimist entirely.
In fact, I’m still planning to focus on running the business itself, hiring, marketing, and client strategy.
And, truth be told, I probably won’t take a pay cut that leaves me earning just $50k from my work on Optimist. (At least not this year.) Nevertheless, I know that I need to take these steps in order to create space for the other projects I’m pursuing. I also want to create space for the other talented people on our team.
But, that’s still my goal.
And in order to achieve these two goals—cutting my workload in half and reducing my income accordingly—I’ll need to accomplish at least 3 other key goals.
1. Build a system of SOPs for client strategy
Over the last 4 years, I have been extremely lazy about a key part of our business.
For too long, I’ve held information—processes, strategies, workflows—in my head and guarded the work as if I was the only one capable of performing these tasks.
This is, of course, monumentally stupid.
Not only has it created bottlenecks in our process and led to my own personal overwork. But it’s also handicapped my ability to onboard new talent or offload work that I was too busy to handle.
In 2021, this is changing.
My #1 priority for Optimist in the first quarter of the year to build and document a clear standard operating procedure for all of the research, strategy, and planning tasks that I have previously held inside my own brain.
To do this, I’ll need to spend time documenting and systematizing the work that I do:
- Onboarding clients
- Documenting goals
- Defining strategy
- Creating calendars
This will become a training and onboarding tool that allows me to easily grow our team and upskill folks into a strategy role.
2. Hire 3-4 content marketing strategists to replace me
The bulk of my work time is spent on developing and managing client strategy.
My #2 goal for Optimist in 2021: I don’t want to be the best content marketing strategist on our team.
As I already shared, I’ve held onto the reins here and acted as though my own knowledge and experience was uniquely qualified to construct our clients’ content marketing and SEO strategies.
This is wrong for many reasons.
But, the point is that it’s now time for me to let others take the lead and take ownership over our work for clients. In some cases, this will require training and development. In other cases, I’ll bring in qualified and experienced strategists who can step right into the role.
But, the point is that every client we service should have a content marketing strategist and each content marketing strategist can likely work with 4-5 clients at a time.
This means it will take approximately 3-4 strategists to replace me on all of our existing clients.
I’m hoping to fill these roles by the start of Q2.
3. Build a scalable sales workflow
We receive about 6 inbound sales inquiries per month.
I need to hand off the sales process to someone new on our team.
Ideally, I’d like for a strategist (either any of them or a particular one) to be the person fielding inbound inquiries and handling sales conversations.
My goal with Optimist has always been to eliminate the gap between the “account” and strategy + creative. In other words, I don’t want someone whose sole job is to sell to clients and then move on, with no obligation to deliver on the actual outcomes discussed in those conversations.
I’m committed to maintaining that structure, which means that at least one of the strategists I hire will need to be comfortable having a sales call and discussing money, agreements, and goals with the client.
Like with delegating my strategy work, I’ll also need to document this process:
- Fielding inbound inquiries
- Scoping work and budgets
- Preparing proposals
- Setting up and kicking off new client engagements
A Year of Doing Less
Probably the most challenging part of this goal will be mentally preparing myself to let go of some of the jobs that I have done since the beginning of Optimist.
I need to feel comfortable and confident that I have the right people in the right roles and that they’re prepared to take the wheel—and drive Optimist forward.
But, on the plus-side, I think that all of these changes are entirely necessary.
Not just in terms of achieving my own personal work and income goals, but for the future of Optimist.
We need a more scalable business model—and that means removing myself as a bottleneck.
While the agency has hovered around the $125k MRR mark for the last year, I think that these changes could prepare us to scale significantly beyond that level.
By doing less personally, I’m hoping to enable more great work to get done.
That’s a good feeling.
Want to see how I work through each of these goals throughout the year?
Taking bets on whether Optimist scales to $250k MRR or I fall flat on my face?
