011: Think Like a CEO: Overcoming Scarcity Mindsets in Business

This week's episode of Moneymaker Monday, part of the Blueprint to Breakthrough series, focuses on developing confidence in scaling a business. The episode discusses shifting from a small thinking mindset to a CEO mindset, which involves overcoming fears and embracing opportunities. Key topics include identifying and addressing bottlenecks in time management, pricing, marketing, hiring, and operations. The episode also covers strategies for proper pricing, understanding financials, and paying oneself appropriately. The ultimate goal is to transition from simply running a business to scaling it effectively and profitably with a strong foundation in financial clarity.

This podcast episode is exclusively for members and accountability partners of Blueprint to Breakthrough®. All content provided is for educational and motivational purposes only. Results may vary based on individual effort and application.

For more information and resources, visit www.sarahbethherman.com.

If you have any questions or need support, reach out through the cohort connection channel in Microsoft Teams. Let’s keep growing together!

Chapters

• 2:20 Small Thinking vs. Big Thinking
• 5:17 The Biggest Bottleneck in Your Business
• 7:20 Pricing and Revenue: Are You Charging Enough?
• 13:05 Setting Clear Pricing: Don’t Undercut Yourself
• 16:03 Setting Up Your Finances for Success

Transcript

   📍 Welcome back to this week's episode of Moneymaker Monday. We are in week 10 of Blueprint to Breakthrough, and we are talking confidence and scalability, developing leadership, scaling strategies, and financial clarity.

This week's topic is one that holds back so many people and that's learning to scale with confidence.  Today we're talking about getting out of that small thinking mindset and stepping into the kind of leadership that allows your business brand or side hustle to expand without hesitation. Scaling isn't just about making more money.

It's about thinking like a CEO and moving beyond maintenance mode and making decisions based on data and not fear. This week we're focusing on identifying bottlenecks in your business. The roadblocks that keep you from reaching your next level. And spoiler alert, the biggest bottleneck is almost always you, your beliefs, your mindset, and the hesitation that comes from uncertainty.

But the truth is that confidence in your ability to scale comes from clarity and action. So today, I'm gonna break all of that down, step by step. Grab a notebook. Piece of paper, the notes up on your phone, whatever you've gotta do, this episode's gonna pack a big punch. Scaling requires that you stop thinking like a freelancer or a solopreneur, or even just an owner.

You have to start thinking like a CEO. And that shift doesn't happen overnight, but it does happen through intentional decision making. So we're gonna talk about small thinking versus big thinking. Small thinking is. I don't have the budget to hire a virtual assistant. What if people don't pay my prices?

I'm scared to lose control. What if this doesn't work out? What if someone won't pay what I want them to pay? Big thinking is how can I generate the revenue I need to hire a virtual assistant. How can I charge based on value, not fear. Scaling requires delegation not control. What if this does work? What if they do pay?

You see, every major breakthrough in your business starts when you shift out of scarcity mindsets and into a mindset of opportunity. And believe me, I get it, letting go of control feels like it's just this most terrifying thing you've ever experienced in your life. But refusing to scale because you're scared of the unknown, is actually costing you more than you realize.

Let's talk identifying bottlenecks in your business now. Maybe you're just starting a business. Maybe your business has existed for a really long time. Maybe your business is in the in-between phase, wherever you are. Scaling isn't just about getting bigger, it's actually about getting smarter. And the first step is identifying things that are keeping you stuck or small.

So let's break it down. Where are bottlenecks in your business? Here are your top five most common bottlenecks. First is time. Are you spending too much time on low impact tasks? Are you holding on to tasks that should be delegated to pricing and revenue? Are you undercharging. Are you basing your prices on confidence or fear?

Are you scared to tell people what your prices are? Three, marketing and sales. Are you relying on word of mouth or someone happening to stumble upon your Instagram page or your website instead of building a system that works while you sleep? Number four, hiring and team building. Are you trying to do everything yourself thinking?

No one can do it just like you. I wanna pause before I get to number five on this one right here. Now, one of the scariest things as a business owner is to hire other people because they're not gonna do it like you. It's not gonna be perfect, and sometimes you're gonna screw things up and sometimes things are gonna happen that are far out of your control.

But what I will tell you is that as you learn. To hire people, you have to learn what it means to have grace. You have to learn what it means that someone else exists in this world that isn't just like you and won't do it perfectly, and no, no one can do it just like you, but you're going to have to be scalable.

Number five, operations and systems. Are you running your business on chaos and hope, or do you actually have systems in place? Do you actually have a sales process? How are you selling Your job this week is to identify one major bottleneck that is keeping you from scaling, because next week we're gonna be digging into financials, and I want you prepared to start making data driven decisions, not emotional ones.

Even if your business isn't generating money right now, you've still got to know where bottlenecks would be. Let's address the question of what if people won't pay for my services? This is breaking the pricing fear. This is one of the biggest mental blocks I see when it comes to scaling. People hesitate to raise their prices or charge what they're worth because they are terrified that no one will pay. 

I hear it all the time. What if people won't pay blank? What if I lose clients or I don't get clients?  What if I price myself out of the market? Here's the reality. You will not be for everyone, and even the people that you work with sometimes, they really won't be for you in the end. Sometimes you'll make people mad, sometimes people won't like what your product is.

Good riddance, move on. The goal is not for you to be the cheapest person, the best option, the cheapest price. The best friend of everyone or the perfect provider for whatever your service is. The goal is for you to be the best option for the right client. That's the goal, the best option for the right client, and only that combination.

Anything else leaves out one part or adds in something that doesn't belong.  The people who don't see the value in what you offer. We're never your people to begin with, so let me ask you, why are you afraid to charge what you're worth? You see, I think this fear comes from one of three places. One, you don't fully believe in the value you bring. 

Maybe that comes from something that happened in your childhood or an experience you had while working for someone else or under someone else, or under a different leadership. If you're hesitant to charge higher, ask yourself, would I pay for my own services at this price? If the answer is no, figure out why.

Do you need to refine your offer, improve your customer, client patient experience? Or is it just fear talking?

One thing I love to share is how I'm investing in myself. So other people see that I don't just want other people to invest in themselves. I invest in myself. I live out what I'm asking someone else to buy into. Number two, you assume your clients can't afford it. Here's your hard truth for today, for this episode.

You don't get to decide what is expensive for someone else. People spend money on what they value. If your price feels too high. The problem isn't the number, it's that the client doesn't see the full value yet. And the key word yet. And number three, you haven't positioned your offer as a solution.

It's not just a service. It's a solution. People don't just pay for time, they pay for results. Shift your marketing to highlight the transformation you provide, not just the service. You are solving problems. What is the problem you are solving? So how do you decide what you charge so that you don't regret it later?

I think one of the worst feelings in business is realizing you've worked 40 plus hours on something and you basically made minimum wage because you didn't price it right? So let's fix that step one. What is your time actually worth? Most people set prices based on what they think people will pay instead of what they actually need to make.

So you've got to run the numbers backwards now, I've done this exercise with a few of you on our one-on-one calls. Set your revenue goal. For example, you wanna make $100,000 this year. That's your goal. A hundred thousand bucks . Now I want you to tell me how many hours you wanna work.

For example, you wanna work 30 hours a week, 48 weeks a year. That's 1,440 hours total.  Now, I want you to calculate your hourly rate. Okay? I wanna make a hundred thousand dollars divided by 1,440 hours. That equals $69 and 44 cents an hour. Now, there's a few things you need to think about. You probably haven't done the math backwards. 

I had a client I was mentoring. She's a photographer, and she said, Sarah Beth, I want to make a million dollars this year. I said, amazing. That's a perfect goal for you.

She said, okay, my goal is $10,000 a month. Right now. I'm trying to make $10,000 a month with my photography business. You just told me that you wanted to make a million dollars this year. Did you know that $10,000 a month is only $120,000 a year, and she did not know that. Now you're probably thinking, wow, she didn't even know that.

No, because she didn't think like that. She wants to make the seven figures, but she didn't know that to make the seven figures, she's gotta actually pull in seven figure money every single month. She's gotta pull in 80 grand every month in order to make that.  not $10,000 a month, eight times that.

Now, let's be real. If you're working one-on-one with clients, you can't bill every hour of your time. So some of that time goes to admin, marketing, client management, et cetera, et cetera. But you've got to charge higher per hour to make up for your unpaid hours, and you've got to know what your hours actually are.

Because if you don't know what hours are, how much you wanna make per hour, what you wanna make per year. How can you even give yourself a basis point? Now, I want you to factor in the time you actually spend. Let's say you charge $500 for a service, but when you break it down, four hours is actually delivering the service.

Two hours is on prep communication and revisions, and one hour on admin work for invoicing, scheduling, and follow-ups. That's seven hours total, which means you are making $71 per hour. But wait. Have you accounted for taxes, business expenses, and profit? If not, you might actually be making way less than you think, and that's where people mess up.

They only charge for the direct work, but they forget all the hidden time that actually goes into it, and that's when burnout happens. When you realize you're spending way too much time on something and making way too little. Now I want you to consider making paying you easier. If you want people to pay you without hesitation, let's say you got over your fear of how much you're charging, but now you want people to pay you without waiting, pausing, the hesitation that people make, you need to make it easy, like as easy as possible for them to say yes and to give you their credit card number.

So  here's how you can make your pricing a no-brainer and the easiest process ever. Number one, offer payment plans. Break larger amounts into manageable payments. Figure out a resource for that You can choose Afterpay Affirm. Klarna. Get with different financing companies. Showcase the ROI Make it crystal clear how your service will help them or save them.

Money, time, energy, effort. What is the ROI use clear pricing tiers. Give options so people can choose based on value, not just price. Pre-sell and offer deposits. Lock in commitment without requiring full payment upfront. Next, automate your payments. Set up autopay or reoccurring billing so clients don't have to think about it.

Your goal is to remove friction in the buying process. If people hesitate, it's usually because they don't see the value yet or the payment process feels complicated. Fix both. And suddenly selling is effortless.

Now that we've talked about how much money you wanna make in the year and how many hours, I want you to think about how you charge what you charge based on a few other factors. Okay? So there's some key pricing questions I want you to ask. And if you don't know why you charge what you charge, you're always going to feel uncertain.

So if you feel that. That little hesitation you have on saying the cost of something, that's because you don't know why you've decided that. Like it is important for you to know how much money you wanna make in a year and how much money you wanna make per hour, but you can't second guess your rates. You can't offer discounts when you really didn't need to, and you don't want to ultimately undercut yourself.

So let's get really, really, really clear on your numbers. Because when you are clear, you can articulate what you charge very confidently. So here are five questions I want you to write down. What is your baseline cost to operate? So think software, tools, team overhead, whatever it might be. What is your actual value of your time, not just your per hour, but based on impact.

That's a really big question. What is the impact? How much do you need to charge to be profitable, not just busy, but profitable? And are you pricing based on fear or actual market value? That could be fear in a couple different ways. Fear that you're missing out on more money. Fear that people won't pay that much.

Would you pay x dollar amount for your offer at this price? The moment you understand the math behind your pricing, you take the emotion out of it. Confidence comes from clarity. When you know why you charge what you charge. You stop discounting, you stop apologizing, and you start owning your own value.

Every time I offer a discount, it's really just because I want traction and people opening emails. Looking at posts I have online interacting, scheduling a call with me.  Very rarely do I have clients take advantage of a discount. Very rarely I get desperate for new business, and so sometimes I think I'm gonna offer a discount, then I go offer that discount.

But I didn't really need to offer that discount because nobody actually signed up when I had the discount live. They end up signing up three days later and they never even knew I had the discount because they weren't paying attention to that, or they understand that they can't get that discount anymore because it expired.

You don't need to discount your services because you're desperate. Let's talk about how to make sure you're actually earning money and not just spending money. Now, charging correctly is one thing, but knowing how to handle the money once you get paid. That's what actually keeps your business running smoothly.

I've seen so many entrepreneurs get paid and immediately they start spending on software, ads, supplies, team members, whatever they think they need, and then suddenly tax season comes, expenses creep up, and they're in a panic. So what's the secret here? You've gotta learn to set money aside as you go so that you're never caught off guard.

The rule of paying yourself as you go looks like this. When you get paid, you don't spend it all at once. Every payment should be broken into separate categories. Use the four account system. You should have four accounts, an income account where all your revenue goes first, your profit account, setting aside a percentage for profit immediately, five to 10% to start a tax account, moving 15 to 30% in a separate tax account so you're not scrambling later.

And for an operating expense account, the rest is for your business expenses and paying yourself. This keeps your finances organized and removes surprises because when you don't plan for taxes, savings, and profit or emergencies, you'll always feel like you're living paycheck to paycheck. Even if your business is making six, seven, or eight figures.

You also need to make sure you're paying yourself properly so that you're not just covering costs, but you're building wealth. So how do you actually pay yourself? A lot of business owners treat their personal income as whatever's left over after expenses, and that's a mistake. You should be paying yourself intentionally, not just when you can afford to do so. 

So here's a few things I've done so that I always make sure I pay myself the right way. One, I decide in a salary or a percentage based pay as long as I'm consistent. I set a flat salary if my income fluctuates from month to month. Then I pay myself on a percentage, 40% of net profits, 20% of net profits, whatever that is, don't mix your business and your personal finances.

Have separate accounts. Pay yourself as if you were an employee at the same time or date every single month. Think ahead. If you know you'll have slow months, build up a personal savings buffer so you can still always pay yourself. Lastly, use profits for growth, not survival. Pay yourself first, but set aside business profits for reinvesting in scaling.

The bottom line is financial chaos leads to business stress, but when you structure your money flow intentionally, you always know where your money is going. You're no longer reacting, you're actually in control. Your business needs a savings account, and it should be a high interest bearing one. Now one of the biggest mistakes business owners make is operating with no financial cushion.

Everything they make goes straight to expenses, payroll or reinvestment. And then when an unexpected expense comes in, they're scrambling. The key to long-term stability and scalability is a solid business savings account, but not just any savings account, one that works for you by earning high interest while your money sits.

And this is why I believe you need one first, it protects you from cashflow surprises. Slow months. Unexpected returns. Refunds, unexpected expenses, no problem. You've got reserves. It gives you financial confidence. When you know you have backup funds, you make better business decisions. It keeps you from dipping into personal money.

 Business. Money stays separate. You never are in a panic to cover expenses. It helps you make money while waiting to use your money. If your savings account earns high interest, you literally get paid while you wait. The goal is to always have enough in your savings to cover three to six months of business expenses.

This way, no single unexpected cost or slow season can throw you off track.  Most businesses keep their money in standard checking accounts, earning nothing, and that is wasted potential. Instead, put your reserves in a high interest business savings account where your money's actually earning while it sits.

And an example of this is that if you had. A, let's say you had $50,000 in a business savings account. If your bank offers 0.01% interest, you'll make about $5 per year. If your bank offers 4% interest, which you can literally get a 4% interest just about at about five different banks online, if you literally go look it up, QuickBooks is another great resource.

Theirs is 3%, but let's say 4%, you'll make $2,000 a year just for keeping that 50 grand in a business savings account. That's money you didn't have to work for your business, just earned it by being smart. Look for high yield accounts, that three to 5% interest is an ideal rate. Make sure it has easy access so you can move funds when you need to and separate it from daily spending so it doesn't get used accidentally.

This mindset shift here is simple. Stop letting your money sit. Uselessly. Even when you're waiting to pay expenses, you can still be making money on what is sitting in your account. The last part of today's Money Maker Monday is the scarcity mindset versus abundance mindset. In scaling so many business owners 

stay stuck in scarcity mindset without even realizing it. So let's call it out right now. The scarcity mindset says that there isn't enough to go around. If I charge more, people won't pay.  I have to keep working harder to make more. An abundance mindset says there's more than enough opportunity.

I charge based on value, not fear. I create systems that allow me to work smarter and not harder. This shift doesn't happen overnight, but it does start with awareness. The fear of not enough, not enough clients, not enough income, not enough demand is what holds people back but you don't have to do that.

You don't have to sit there. You don't know that it won't work. That's just a thought in your head and thoughts can be rewritten. Successful CEOs don't make decisions based on fear. They make them based on data, so look at the numbers and actually drive your business forward with the data. Now that we've covered everything this week, your pricing, how you pay yourself, setting up a savings account, making scalable decisions with confidence.

Let's make sure you are actually taking action, because knowing all of this means nothing if you don't apply it. Your action plan for this week, identify the biggest bottleneck in your business. What is slowing you down the most? Fix that first. Run your numbers. Do you actually know why you charge what you charge?

If not, fix it. Open a high interest business savings account. Start making money on the money you already have, even if you only have 50 bucks. Or 50,000, you've got to start making money on your money. Take one. Clear action towards scaling, hiring a va, launching, automating, whatever moves you forward.

Getting a payment plan option, implement one. Change. To remove a bottleneck. One step today equals easier scaling tomorrow.  Your future self wants you to stop thinking like an employee of your business and start thinking like a CEO. Scaling isn't about working harder, it's about working smarter.

You are not meant to stay stuck in the daily grind forever. Your job is to build something that grows, not just something that functions. By the end of this week, you will have removed at least one bottleneck. You'll have taken one clear action towards scaling and gained clarity on your pricing and money strategy.

No more second guessing, just confident data backed decisions. Next week we're diving into one of the most important avoided topics in business financials, not just how to make more money. We're talking about real financial clarity, making those data-driven decisions and letting go of the fear of money so you can actually grow.

Because if you don't understand your numbers, you don't understand your business. That is where real CEOs operate and separate themselves from people who just own a business. If you wanna scale with confidence, you have to know exactly how your money is working for you. So get your numbers in order this week, make those moves, and I'll see you back on our live session in just two weeks, and we are talking financial clarity you didn't even know  📍 you needed.

I will see you guys on the next episode.