The truth behind a 6 figure income as a digital marketing freelancer
If you work in the marketing industry, hang out on Twitter or read lots of social posts about hustle culture, then you’ve probably been subjected to conversations about 6 figure incomes. ‘I made £100,000+ overnight’, ‘make £10,000 easily from your own home’ blah blah it can be quite draining to hear.
This article explores what a 6 figure income really means, if it’s possible to earn 6 figures, how you can earn that much and what the true cost of earning it is. I am a Digital Marketing Consultant but the premise is the same for any industry; marketing, photography, accounting, events, HR etc.
What is a 6 figure income?
Let’s start with what a 6 figure income really means. It’s an income of over 100,000 a year before tax, so a monthly income of over 8,333 each month. It’s turnover that people talk about, in the same way people say they’re on X amount a year in an employed job but have tax taken off that.
Is it possible as a freelancer to get a 6 figure income?
In short, yes but there’s a lot of caveats, hard work and it’s not an overnight achievement. How quickly it can be achieved also depends on many things; your network, your marketing, your skillset, your ability to sell - the list goes on but it is certainly possible even in year 1 to achieve a 6 figure income. Whether you’re a developer, designer, writer, photographer, it’s all possible but the next section will help explore how that can be possible.
How do you earn a 6 figure salary as a freelancer?
I can personally comment on this as a digital marketing freelancer, but the premise of being able to earn 6 figures is the same in different industries. Doing these few things can get you on your way to earning more:
Different revenue streams - Multiple avenues for revenue is key to earning more. If you’re a consultant offering a service, then often to make more you need to branch out of standard consultancy on a one off or retainer basis. Such as:
Power Hours - An additional service to sell in an service where you prepare for a call by asking some questions to the customer, then spend an hour on the phone identifying areas of opportunity and ideas then write a follow up, which is usually like a strategy
Training - Charging a per person fee for training on the skills you have to businesses is a good income stream
Productising knowledge - courses, videos, pdf guides to name a few. It’s often not a natural thing to think of doing and takes quite a lot of time (though a Virtual Assistant can be very helpful in helping pull together this)
Outsourcing to another freelancer - As a sole freelancer it can be pretty difficult to get to a 10,000k+ income in one month when you’re the one doing all the hours. If you’re over subscribed, you have two options; start to turn down work as it’s not possible to do more or get help from a third party to be able to fulfill the work. Outsourcing can come in the form of another freelancer with experience in what you do i.e another digital marketing consultant (if that’s your freelance business) to help with client tasks and management or you can use a Virtual Assistant (VA) to help with different tasks; email management, client onboarding, research, invoices to name just a few
Referral schemes - When people get busy and they don’t do the above, you physically can’t take on anymore so the work is passed on as a referral. I see a lot of work being passed onto others - completely free, which I personally think is crazy. If you’ve built up your business to be so successful that you have 1- Too much work than you can handle and 2 - A stream of new enquiries then you’re doing a very good job so it just seems a little bewildering that you’d pass this on without a charge (appreciate in some circles there’s a what goes around, comes around thinking). Charging a 10% referral to successful work is a great additional income stream. Setting up an official referral scheme to send to your network can bring in additional revenue and works for both parties
Pricing per project and not by day - Generally pricing per product is a way to earn more. A day rate quite often doesn’t cover the value that a customer gets out of it. For example, if you were a Google Ads Consultant and did an audit for a PPC account. The value of this might be an increase of £3,000 every single month from the changes you suggest but if you only charge one day for it, at say £400 then you could be underselling the value significantly. Personally, I put a project price on any piece of ad-hoc work; audit, set ups, training etc. This has worked well for both me and my clients in doing this
Increasing prices - Sounds simple but often with long term or retainer clients, it can be a difficult conversation to have to increase your rates. Having an annual review of performance & rates can help in increasing your revenue
Upselling products & services - Selling in additional services to clients is a big one and not often looked at. If you only offer Google Ads, then starting to run Bing Ads, Facebook Ads etc
All of the above will help you earn more but this already relies on a good bank of customers.
Using lead generation techniques and having a full pipeline is going to give you quicker ‘success’ in achieving 100k+ annually, along with a strong personal brand, a good network plus solid experience & knowledge.
The true cost of a 6 figure salary
So everyone talks about 6 figures and makes it sound simple, but the list above isn’t simple in itself to execute and there’s a price to pay in:
Late nights & early morning - Can’t tell you how many midnight finishes I’ve had then back up early to rush around for a deadline (she says writing this at 11:30pm on a Friday night)
A poor work life balance - missing out on spending time with friends and family
Stress with managing workloads & multiple clients / projects - It’s part of parcel of the job & generally more money means more hours so can be lots of stress
What does it mean to earn 6 figures?
Not a lot. Many will strive to earn 6 figures as a milestone which is a solid goal to strive to but it doesn’t actually mean that much. The more you earn, the more tax implications there are and the money you earn doesn’t say much about your lifestyle
Look deeper than this to find what success looks like.
If chasing money is your only goal, then you’ll be in for a never ending chase and believe me from experience, there needs to be much more substance behind goals; satisfaction of work, a good work / life balance, doing good in the world, flexible working etc are all much better goals in my opinion.
In summary, a 6 figure income is certainly possible as a freelancer but it can be tricky, cause stress and shouldn’t be your only goal in self employment.
Let me know your thoughts in the comments.