A 30-year-old whose business earns up to $23,000 a month explains how she manages to work only 3 days a week
And in February 2016, her best month yet, Ascher's business earned over $23,000.
Ascher is a clarity coach who helps fellow women entrepreneurs overcome the mental blocks that fall within three "pillars": mindset, because that's what's made all the difference in her own ventures; vision, a clear sense of what they desire for themselves; and a strategic plan of action to move forward step by step.
Ascher works from home, and she's arranged her work with clients into three days a week. She credits her ability to accomplish everything within an abbreviated schedule to a few different factors:
First, she outsourced the tasks she can't or doesn't like to handle. Ascher employed a virtual assistant and offloaded the management of her Facebook ads. "When I was doing that, it was the bane of my existence," she said. "I realized if I really dislike it this much, I'm not going to get the results of someone who enjoys it. This way, I can focus on what I do best: working with my clients and creating."
Also, she doesn't wait around for perfection. "It's always just been a natural inclination for me to do a good job, but not sit on it until it's perfect, which is often a means of procrastination," she said. "I would rather get something good out there than have a project sitting on the sidelines because it's not perfect."
And lastly, she thinks in linear, strategic terms about what she needs to get done. "Usually on Thursday the week before, I look at the week ahead," she said. "It helps me to structure my week and plan it out. I identify everything I want to accomplish, then work back from there. I reverse engineer it and plug these little pieces into my three-day work week."
The best advice she can offer someone looking to build their own business that best fits their life, she said, is that "the journey has to align with the destination. This is something I didn't get for so long. In the past, I've put so much pressure on myself it would be crippling."
After the birth of her now 2-year-old daughter, she realized she was thinking about it all wrong. "I realized I want every minute of this business to feel enjoyable, not just down the road. And when I embraced that, things started to fall into place. More opportunities came, and it felt so much more natural to be living a lifestyle I wanted to be living while building my business, instead of waiting for my business to allow me to live that lifestyle."