Freedom Economics

Yesterday, I sat down to run through my business accounts.

It’s a task I’ve been putting off for months now. Simply because I was born with a severe and apparently incurable intolerance to anything resembling “admin”.

But this one needs to get done.

The reason?

At this point, with the number of people I have on my list, writing these emails to you costs me over a hundred bucks alone. Not to mention all the other softwares, subscriptions and courses I’ve forked out for over the past year. And I can claim some not-insignificant tax benefits from the UK government (and I intend to get every penny given how much they’ve nabbed from my pocket in the past 5 years).

But that’s not the interesting part of this email.

The interesting part of this email is this:

As I was going through my bank statements, I started thinking to myself “I wonder how much I spend each month on average” (I very rarely check this – another bad habit).

The answer:

Over the last 12 months, I have, on average, spent just over $2,500 per month. 

This includes my mortgage (which is fairly small now). This includes 4 holidays, one of which was spent at a rave in Croatia where I quite literally, haemorrhaged money on expensive cocktails for 7 days straight. And this includes the aforementioned business expenses.

Which spawned the further question of…

How much do you actually need to earn to feel “free”? (that’s why you’re here, no?)

Let’s unpack.

And the first thing we must do is define what “free” means.

Everyone will have a slightly different definition.

For the people who spend their whole lives talking about “scaling” and $50k months, it will mean the ability to buy whatever new fancy watch their heart desires or get that new car that absolutely will fill whatever void is missing from their life…

That ain’t me.

I shop in Aldi (the UK’s budget food store). I could care less about flashy cars. And anyone from the UK who has heard of Primark will know my wardrobe looks like a tribute to their existence. Lol.

And that is the point:

Freedom, for me, has nothing to do with splashing out on fancy steak dinners (not regularly, anyway).

I simply wish to earn enough money such that I never have to worry about my day-to-day expenses, go out for a few nice meals with people I care about, do a couple holidays per year, and genuinely enjoy the work I do.

So, I propose the following definition of “freedom”:

“Feeling free is having a consistent stream of income which is double your monthly expenditure, while having 12 months of savings behind you and, crucially, with the ability to control your income if you ever need to give it a boost.”

That is how I see freedom:

Control, plus safety net.

OK. How do we get there?

First, you need clients. After all — you, more than likely, do not have a following in the hundreds of thousands, and so you need to delete the idea that you are simply going to exist on digital product sales and sip coconuts on the beach in Bali (for now). Sorry, the maths doesn’t check out.

OK. How many clients do you need?

Two.

You could take on more, sure. But again – this is not about “scaling” or crushing $30k/months. This is about being free, only having to work 4-5 hours per day, and most importantly, enjoying the work you do. That is the true definition of the good life.

Now. It is not unreasonable for your first client to pay you $2,500 – mine did. Lots of people I’ve helped have secured deals over $3,000/month without a single testimonial or case study to their name. Because it isn’t about having tons of case studies. They help. But it’s about positioning yourself as the solution to your prospect’s problem and making them a solid offer to help. That is all it takes.

OK. Let’s assume you’ve landed a client.

From then on, if you have done a good job, you will find it immeasurably easier to both land future clients and charge higher prices. That has been my experience, and others will confirm.

Let’s say you do a decent (but not exceptional) job for said clients, and, on average, they decide to stick with you for 4 months.

This means if you are able to land just 2 clients every 4 months, you will earn a consistent stream of $5,000/month (bearing in mind that landing said clients will become more and more effortless as your authority inevitably increases over time, and this is assuming you do not raise your prices whatsoever – totally unreasonable, but I’m being conservative here).

OK. That’s your baseline set.

And now, because you are earning double your expenses ($5,000/mo income vs. $2,500/month outgoings), if you keep that up for just 12 months straight, you will accrue 12 months savings – your “safety net”. And you will have a sufficient number of case studies that, realistically, you can land a client within a matter of days if push comes to shove – you also have “control”.

Congratulations. You have achieved our definition of freedom.

“But what about inflation and the fact food keeps getting more and more expensive and eroding my purchasing power”.

OK. Let’s address that.

US Inflation today is listed at 2.6%. The UK is at 1.7%. Almost all other countries are below 5%. Now, I do not believe those numbers to be true – all governments, but the US in particular, are incentivised to “downplay” inflation figures (and you need only look up hedonic inflation, and the reason why this adjustment was introduced to see this in plain sight).

So, let’s assume “real” inflation in your country is 10%. Hell, 15%, to be safe.

That means that if you, like me, have outgoings of $2,500/month in 2024, your outgoings in 2025 will be ~$2,800/month.

That equates to ~$3,600 extra spending per year.

OK.

So you now need an inflation “hedge”.

Fortunately, you are building an audience.

And, more importantly, you are pushing this audience towards the one platform you own – your newsletter.

Even if you have zero subscribers now, it is very reasonable for you to grow your email list to 500 people in the next 12 months. This equates to 40 people per month, or just over 1 person per day. Totally reasonable, and I have done almost 6 times that in less time (starting from zero, too).

Now, you want to earn some additional income from this list to supplement your client income, act as an inflation hedge and simply because… it’s fun.

So, let us also assume that you create just ONE digital product (costing $100) every 3 months – workshop, course etc. That is a pathetic cadence, given you can pull together a high-quality workshop in just 4-6 hours of focused work. But I want to be as conservative as physically possible here so there is not doubt in your mind that you can, in fact, achieve this.

OK. Every 3 months, you launch a new product.

For reference, a good conversion rate for an email list launch is ~3%. I have achieved more than 7.5% with clients. But it has been pointed out to me that I am more persuasive than most people. Let’s assume you are only able to achieve 1% with each launch.

With 500 people on your list, this means 500*1% = 5 people will buy. This equates to 5*$100 = $500 “extra” in your pocket every 3 months, or $2,000 per year, purely from the launches alone.

Then you are sending regular emails pitching said “evergreen” products. With 500 people on your list, 5% CTRs and a landing page which converts at 2.5%, that means someone buys every other week (do the math, if you like). In other words, your emails earn you 26 * $100 = $2,600 extra every year.

So you now have an absolute minimum of $4,600 coming from digital product sales each year (and likely a fuck ton more if you have any idea what you’re doing whatsoever).

This completely covers inflation, with some pocket change left over if you fancy treating yourself to a nice holiday to the Seychelles.

Congratulations.

I have laid out the roadmap for you.

You now know what to do to become free.

If you would like to have the systems I have used to achieve this for myself, and lots of other people just like you, you can find them inside my Client Creator course here: https://www.harrybeadle.com/client-creator-b-f

PS. My Client Creator course is currently ludicrously cheap. So much so that I’m actually worried it will not provide a big enough of a “dent” in your wallet to take it seriously after you buy.

Oh well. The offer is out there now. Take advantage while you still can.

Access will soon cost you 3 times as much: https://www.harrybeadle.com/client-creator-b-f