Why Revenue Goals Don't Work (For Me)
Falling "short" of the elusive (and ever-escalating) 7-figures
Abundance was my word of 2019.
I’d love to tell you I meant abundance in the broadest possible sense, appreciating the bounty already in my life, financial and otherwise.
Maybe I’d sound more enlightened if the intention was to appreciate, on a daily basis, that I had a healthy body! Lungs! A beating heart! Friends and family, a roof over my head, plenty of food to eat, and a new marriage to celebrate after decades of dating disappointments.
But mostly, my theme was about money. 🎵Money money money moneeeeyyyyyy!
Specifically: to surpass one million dollars in revenue by the end of the year. I was going to build the sexiest small business rocket ship to achieve time-and-money escape velocity with my Delightfully Tiny Team. To the moon!
When I first launched into self-employment in 2011, the sexy target was a six-figure, location-independent business.
In addition to greater creative freedom, I also harbored secret dreams of proving wrong everyone who doubted my decision to leave Google. I would do this by hockey-sticking my revenue far past what I ever earned, or could, from a capped salary—ideally in half the time each week.
Maybe not the first year, or the second, but someday. Salaries are steady (pro), but they have a ceiling (con). One of the lures of self-employment was that my earning potential could be stratospheric.
“You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take!” That Gretsky-ism was a family mantra growing up, thanks to my dad’s ongoing encouragement to me and my brother to aim high and take risks. Whether that meant writing a letter to a Fortune 100 CEO or running for president, his enthusiasm and genuine belief that we could do anything we set our minds to was unwavering, no matter how lofty the goal.
By 2019, dream (and ego) inflation hit the small business arena. Six-figure revenue was now merely table stakes. Experts, particularly of the online variety, were now selling the seven-figure dream. Today, it’s eight, nine, and ten. And all before you’re 30!
According to the Census Bureau’s latest data, nonemployer businesses (those with no paid employees) constitute nearly three-quarters of all businesses, but they contribute less than four percent of overall sales. Of those, 1.3% bring in more than $500,000, and 0.2% bring in more than $1 million per year:
0.2 percent . . .
