We can’t truly enjoy our businesses and the lives we get to live because of them if we can’t experience and enjoy financial safety. Other than the obvious money in the bank, what is financial safety and how can we better cultivate the feeling of being safe in how our coaching businesses support us?

I’m going to share with you some thoughts, ideas and practical tips to enjoy more financial safety in your coaching business.

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*I’m not a financial advisor, obvs!

What is financial safety?

Financial safety has two elements – there’s the physical side of it, basically having enough money in your bank to pay for what you need that keeps you physically safe. Then there’s the feeling of financial safety. These things don’t always match up!

Not having your physical financial needs met is a serious issue that needs addressing as soon as possible. It’s not called financial ‘safety’ for nothing.

I’ve experienced, and seen in others, a lack of financial safety both from the physical side and the feeling side and it’s not a pleasant place to be – it really does impact the joy you get to feel from your business and it’s just a horrible feeling of anxiety, so working on this can make a huge difference to how you feel and how you get to show up in your business.

Even if you have enough in your bank account, if you don’t feel financially safe, it can lead to a lot of anxiety. This can obviously have a very negative impact on your nervous system and mental health!

Money mindset

If you haven’t come across the term money mindset yet, it’s a great area to research and work on. Just like all areas of life, we can pick up beliefs in our childhood that can be unhelpful as adults which stick in our subconscious and influence our feelings and behaviour.

Your money mindset can sometimes leave you feeling like no matter how much you earn it’s never enough to feel safe. It can block you from allowing money in and impact your behaviour with money.

Many of us were brought up with people working 9-5 jobs as the norm. I used to work for the local council in a ‘safe’ job where each paycheck was pretty much guaranteed. I struggled to feel safe for a long time in my business because I couldn’t ‘guarantee’ each monthly pay – however, this challenged me to change some things in how I did business and how I managed my business finances in order to feel more safe. Plus, I always came back to the truth – which for me, is that I’d hate my life if I worked in a ‘normal’ job!

While I’m a big believer that not everything is a money mindset block – for example, I have no desire to grow my business to 7 figures and I don’t see myself as blocked for not wishing to do so! I do think that delving into your money mindset as a business owner and looking at your feelings and behaviours around money is really impactful.

Denise Duffield Thomas is the Queen of all things money mindset related so do check her out if you’d like to learn more around money mindset.

Working out what you need to feel safe

Alongside the mindset side of things, there’s also a number of things we can do in a practical sense to help us feel more secure and supported financially via our businesses.

Know your ‘keeping the lights on’ figure – how much does your business need to make in order to metaphorically keep the lights on? How much do you need to cover your expenses and pay yourself what you need to survive? When you know what this figure is, you can make a plan to hit that each month.

Know your cashflow – I live and die by my cash flow spreadsheet, I literally can not overstate the importance of this for my mental health! It allows me to see where and when my income will drop off a cliff. I like to have at least 6 months of my ‘keeping the lights on’ figure covered. That is generally enough to keep any financial anxiety at bay.

Build an emergency fund – This is more of a personal finances thing, but building and maintaining a personal emergency fund can also be helpful in feeling financially safe

Create recurring income streams – While recurring income streams aren’t the be all and end all, they can help you create a sense of financial security if you know that there’s the expectation of income coming in month in and month out. Check out this post on creating recurring income as a coach for more on this. As I say in this post, having a good cash flow can be as or more helpful than recurring income so bear this in mind!

Things to consider at different stages of business

What you might want to consider around financial safety will be different depending on what phase of your business you’re in:

✨ If you’re at the initial phase of building your coaching business then it might be about having financial support from a partner, continuing to work in another job or having savings to cover what you need while you get your business set up and launched.

🌱If you’re in the growth phase of your coaching business then it might be about working out how you can hit your ‘lights on figure’ and building that to 6 months of running costs in your cash flow.

⭐ If you’re in the established phase then it might be about creating a money plan so you’re paying yourself well, giving yourself bonuses, paying into a pension pot and investing it. If you haven’t been getting financial advice from an accountant by now then I’d definitely start!

Your relationship with your business

It can be common to feel like you and your business are one entity – especially when you’re a coach! But I prefer to think of myself as being in a relationship with my business. And just like any other relationship, I deserve more than the bear minimum, I deserve princess treatment!

Sometimes a lack of feeling financial safety is about trust – trusting that what works now will keep working, trusting in your own resourcefulness should things stop working, trusting in the Universe / God to keep showing up for you.

The biggest lesson from my own experience around this is trust. When I really lean into that feeling of trust, I know I’ve got my own back and that I’m resourceful enough to deal with whatever happens. I trust that the Universe will keep sending abundance my way.

But having some practical measures in place really helps too!

I’d love to know if you’ve found this helpful, let me know in the comments!

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