These days, everybody talks about how you should have a wealth mindset in order to create wealth and money. Now, as simple as it sounds, it is not always easy tapping into this state of thinking. Especially if you’re a new entrepreneur and you experienced the opposite of wealth, you might not find yourself in a wealth mindset. You might even roll your eyes every time you hear “mindset”. (I don’t judge, I’ve been there too!)

I’m going to take you through an exercise that will help you shift your thinking and by end of this blog post, you’ll know how it feels to be in the mind of the successful and wealthy. Let’s begin!

I’m an actress and today I’m playing the role of your ideal client or customer. (Turn your imagination on, please!) Whatever your offering I’m interested in buying. Let’s say your goal is to earn 1 million (the currency of your choice) in one year. I’m that client with 1 million in my account and I’m ready to give you all in exchange for your lovely services or products. 

Let yourself escape from reality and live this exercise no matter how unrealistic it feels. Allow yourself to watch this movie where you’re living your wildest fantasies and indulge in yourself in it with all of your senses. Everything that’s crazy, impossible or unlikely is welcome here. After all, it’s your imagination. You have full permission to cut all the scenes you don't like out of your movie. All obstacles, all problems, all the struggle. And you have full right to set high goals for yourself. You deserve it!

Let’s continue. You sell suits for hamsters? I have a farm of hamsters and I want suits for all of them! You translate from Polish to Hindu? I just wrote something in Polish and I need to translate it to Hindu! You are a dating coach for men? I know 100 men who need help finding a partner and I’m going to send them all to you! You get the idea? Create a backstory for my character based on what you’re selling. No matter how specific your niche is or how unlikely someone like me will purchase from you, something has brought me to your website and now I’m ready to give you money. Whatever you are selling, I’m here to buy that for one million. 

Imagine this situation happening. How do you feel? I added my photo to the post so you don’t have to bother to visualize. I’m not an imaginary being from an “ideal customer” questionnaire. I’m here in front of you and I’m ready to do some big business. I’m the opportunity you’ve been waiting for. The channel through your first million will come. Imagine this encounter. Live it in your mind. Are you excited? Scared? What would you tell me? 

First, let’s do some math. How much does your product or service cost? What’s the price tag on your website? (Don’t cheat here, if your service costs 1000, I won’t pay you 1 million for it.) If what you are offering costs 1000, you’ll need to sell me 1000 times to earn one million. If it costs 10 000, you’ll need to sell me 100 times. If it costs 723,45, take a calculator and divide one million with this number and take the higher value for the number of transactions when you get the result (It’s 1383). You can take a paper and a pencil (or notepad, sticky notes, your favorite writing app, whatever you prefer) and put these numbers down so you can see them clearly.

Now, look at the number of transactions that you got (number of times you have to deliver your product or service). Answer honestly, can you deliver your service x times (where x is the number of transactions)? Or can you produce and deliver x products? If x=1000, you need to deliver 1000 products or services within a year to have your million dollar goal met. For a service-based business, that means you need to deliver your service 3 times per day every day for an entire year. Can you do that? Can you offer me your service 3 times per day without burning out? Every day of the year (no weekends, no holidays)? Or do you have the infrastructure you need to create 1000 products or more if your prices are lower? To put it more directly, can you satisfy me as a customer?

(Note: Notice how the number of transactions increases as you lower your price? And it gets harder to fulfil all those transactions unless you have a well-proven system. 

Conclusion: You need a good system in place in order to sell at low price points and have profit. Do you have one?)

While million-dollar years are not unlikely for established businesses, new and small businesses are likely to have a “no” for many of the questions above. Now, what kind of mindset exercise is this, you may wonder. The one that gives you clarity about what you have to do to be able to achieve your high goals.

Here imagination turns into a plan. Between you and your first million there might be a few milestones. 1 000, 10 000, 100 000, 500 000 and so on. For a start think about what would be your first milestone. The one you’ll be able to reach. If your price is 1000, a 5000 milestone will require you to find 5 clients. Does this feel like too much? A 10 000 milestone requires 10 clients. Does this feel realistic or is it a “stretch”? If having 5 clients seems comfortable, aim for 10 in a certain period of time. Have in mind that you need to be able to serve 10 clients in this period and choose the time frame according to that. It’s same for product-based businesses. Get clear about how much you can make and deliver and how many customers do you need to have. Math is a bit more complicated for product-based businesses because there are many more factors to consider such as the cost of marketing, initial investment, the lifetime of a customer and many more. And you may need to adjust your prices correctly. 

This whole process is called business planning and you need to do it right in order to set up good foundations for your business. In every stage of your business you need to be in charge of your resources: money, time and energy. Define your first milestone. What’s your money goal, in what time frame and can you serve the appropriate number of customers or clients in that time frame? If you’re a service-based business and you want to earn 5000 in the next month, you need 5 clients paying you 1000 or 10 clients paying you 500 for your services. Can you serve 10 clients? If perhaps you feel you can serve only 8 in the given time frame, adjust your prices so you could hit your goal with only 8. So, you want these numbers clear: your money goal, time frame, prices you’re charging and number of clients. And optionally, a testimonial/review goal. If you’re just starting out you need social proof to gain trust, so make it a clear measurable goal and remind yourself to ask for it. You might need to tweak these numbers a bit to find a good balance. You might have several products at different price points in which case you should consider the average price per customer, and you might want to be flexible with these goals. Focus on the number of clients or customers and build around that number. (After all it’s customers who give you money.) Numbers give you clarity, but accuracy isn’t that important for now. It’s important to know where you’re at. What happens if you only have 3 clients? Or 12? Numbers make stuff predictable. 

(The analysis for a product-based business is a bit more complex, so I’ll skip it here for now. Again, focus is on the number of customers and the logic is the same, only the sales system has more factors to consider. For the sake of the exercise, simplify as much as possible and give yourself some rough numbers to start with.)

So write your numbers on a piece of paper and put it somewhere where you can see it. For example, I want to have 10 clients this month, each paying me 1000 for my services which equals a 10K month. Make sure you have enough time and energy for each of these clients and don’t bother about given limitations. If you make a 9K month or you need 5 weeks for your goal, it’s not the end of the world as long as you know you’re on the right path. Note that 1K month means you are on the wrong path and you need to adjust your strategy. 

You have given yourself a guide towards your first milestone on your million dollar goal. Congratulations!

One million in yearly revenue is not uncommon these days, so if this is your goal, know that is reachable. If you’re at the beginning of your business journey, you’ll certainly need to scale your business probably a several times in order to reach that goal. You don’t need to know how, all you need to know is your next step and next milestone. When you get there, you’ll find ideas and resources to scale up. For now, focus on your next step.

This was clearly a math exercise. What happened to the mindset exercise I promised? Well, wealthy people openly talk about money issues like this. Established businesses have a good understanding of business planning we touched in this article. If you want to get there, these are the basics you need to master. You! Not your accountant. Your accountant will help you once things get complicated, but you have to have a sense for money and resources in order to run a business successfully. You're the CEO and the creative power behind your business and you're the one who should think about the money. You!

Law of attraction? Yes, it will help you if you can visualize success and those x clients you want to serve. Use all the tools you can find out there. The more the marrier. 

Money blocks? Yes, we often feel bad about ourselves, about money, about receiving money, and this often keeps us stuck. Working on these parts of ourselves helps us heal ourselves from whatever we experienced in the past and make a change in our lives. 

I chose to walk you through the experience of business planning, first to encourage you to take part in a money issue without any shame, and secondly so you can get a clear sense where you are now and where you are going. By now, you hopefully received a little knowledge in maths that helps you navigate your business towards your goals. This knowledge will keep your imagination grounded, so you can take small practical steps. Imagining yourself on a luxurious retreat spending your million will not create you that million on its own. Focusing on doing the little things will. 

Imagine again I’m your ideal client. Or even better, a person who can connect you to your ideal clients. How many clients is your system ready to support? How much money can these clients or customers bring into your business? (Feel free to take the best-case scenario.) Answering these 2 questions will give you a clear image of the capacity of your system. Is there something you can do to improve it? If there is, do it. If a client fairy arrives, so you can be ready to take those clients.

Another thing I mentioned is a website. If a client is looking for you, can he or she find you? How will she discover you? Do you have a website, social media, phone number, email or any other communication channel open and available for your clients and customers to contact you? If I wanted to connect with you could I do that? Can I find all the information I need to do business with you? How would I discover you and make a decision to give you my money in the first place? 

If you have communication channels that are closed or neglected, make sure you open and tidy them up so if the Universe really sends you your million dollar client, this client can easily come your way.

If you answered all these questions honestly, you can probably see where you have problems and how to address them. Use these answers to make a plan and start tackling one by one. You are directing this movie where you create your million dollar business. Set the scene and put all the props in place. 

I hope you found something of value in following through the exercise. And that it shifted your thinking at least a little bit towards the millionaire mindset. Path to wealth requires both mindset and action. Hopefully, right now you have both thinking and actions you can take that will propel you towards the next level of your business. 

Thank you for taking the time to do the exercise! Share your impressions in the comments!