what to do when your income is low

a soulful guide to navigating low-income seasons in your business

It’s happened to the best of us.

You’re doing ok, working with enough clients, feeling that you’ve got this, and then…

From one day to the next, one or more clients stop working with you.

Inevitably, your bank account experiences an income dip, your throat gets tighter, your stomach stops functioning altogether and a million thoughts come rushing through your mind…

Knowing that it’s part of the game for self-employed doesn’t make it easier, especially in a world where worth equates with success, success is synonymous with money, and losing clients sounds a lot like failure.

This article is your practical guide to navigate this kind of setback more easily, with a cleared mind and a grounded body.

Photo by David Kovalenko on Unsplash

In the 8 years that I’ve been in the online business world, I’ve had my fair share of experience with income dips and temporary cash flow issues.

What's helped me the most is remembering that I have a lot of resources at my disposal. Inner resources to remember that I’m resilient, and outer resources to find practical, grounded solutions so I can still eat and feed my kids next month.

Here’s my step-by-step:

STEP 1 - Repeat after me: there are solutions

The first thing I want you to remember when you suddenly lose income is that there are solutions, which means that you’re going to be fine.

I know that it’s scary, especially if you haven’t yet determined a so-to-speal “client attraction process”: when you don’t really know how past clients have found you or what made them decide to work with you, it all seems like it’s out of your control.

You don’t know what’s going to happen, you don’t know when it’s going to happen and you’re not sure what options you have. If you’ve been using social media, this is usually where your mind will lead you: hop on there and find the damn clients.

I’m not saying it’s a bad or a good idea, but before you jump into any kind of action, decision, or conclusion, repeat after me:

There are solutions. It’s going to be fine. I’m going to be fine. It’s going to be ok.

There are solutions, I promise.

STEP 2 - Regulate first, act second

When you lose clients, it’s natural to panic.

And so there’s a pretty good chance your nervous system’s fight or flight response gets activated, which means two things:

1. A huge amount of your energy (nutrients, oxygen, etc) is being led straight into your heart so it can beat faster, and into your muscles so you can run faster. Also into your skin, and that’s why you might feel sweaty.

2. Very little is left for the other parts of your brain that are supposed to do the creative and problem-solving thinking, aka your pre-frontal cortex.

That’s why trying to decide what to do when you’re still in panic mode is often a bad idea: you can’t be smart without a clear mind, and you can’t think clearly until you’ve chilled your nerves.

Any thought or solution you’ll think of are probably going to be all fear-based, possibly extreme and potentially involve some sort of harsh self-judgment and self-criticism.

Here are some of the things that have crossed my mind in such moments:

• I’m completely delusional for ever believing that I could make this work.

• I’m not cut out for this level of stress, I shouldn’t be an entrepreneur.

• I’m going to put all my offers with a 80% off discount so I might make some quick sales.

• Variation: I’m going to DM all my subscribers asking them if they want to work with me.

• Despaired Variation: I’m going to apply for any job and leave this circus forever.

None of that is a good idea. Even if you’ve had these thoughts multiple times.

What to do then?

Regulate your nervous system. Here are a few ways to do that:

1. Literally “chill”: put some chilled water or ice-cubes on your skin.

Splashing very cold water on your face or on your neck is often the most effective. It shocks you out of the shock and brings you back into your body, out of your spiralling thoughts.

2. Use your breath to reactivate your para-sympathetic system.

Your nervous system is made of two major parts: the sympathetic system and the para-sympathetic one.

The sympathetic system is the one that goes into fight or flight when your brain becomes aware of danger. The para-sympathetic one sends the signal to your brain that all is good and we can now rest and restore.

When your sympathetic system is activated - for real or hypothetical reasons - it tends to accelerate your breathing rhythm and your heart without your consent. Quite simply, in order to calm down, you’re going to have to reverse the tendency: over-ride your brain’s decision by consciously activating your para-sympathetic system.

A simple tool to do that? Your breath. You always have access to your breath, and it only takes a couple of minutes to regulate yourself back to normal.

Try it with me: Breathe in for 4 seconds… hold your breath for 4 seconds… breathe out for 8 seconds… breathe in for 4… and so on. Do that 10 to 12 times and you’ll start feeling more present.

3. Use the STOP method

If you’re caught into a tornado of self-pitying, self-doubting and and self-loathing, you may want to drop the bag of chips or the chocolate for a minute and try first the STOP method. It’s simple but amazingly effective.

Get up. Wherever you’re sitting to read this, literally, get up. Put your hand up as in a STOP sign and say it out loud: STOP.

I know it sounds silly and you probably think this won’t help you at all, but it really does.

It’s like the ice-cubes, but for the brain.

STEP 3 - What is the real problem?

Sometimes, when we lose income, the real problem isn’t necessarily the money itself, but rather the meaning we attach onto that event.

Both are valid, but I find it extremely valuable to separate the two.

1. How is this affecting you on the emotional level? List the fears that have resurfaced, the stories of lack and failure you’re replaying in your head. Sit with them, journal with them, as this is an incredible opportunities to reveal your money stories further and not let them hold you back as much. If you’d like some guidance here, grab my free 5-day course.

2. How is this affecting you, on the financial level? Count your eggs and your baskets, make a written inventory and see for yourself how much you have left after this income dip. Are you able to pay for your basic needs? Do you have your emergency fund that could help you bridge that gap for a couple of months? What expenses can be lowered, what needs to be paused to help you regain stability faster? How much money do you actually need right now to sustain yourself?

Once you have more clarity about the actual situation you’re in, it will be easier to take aligned steps to solve it, both with short-term plans and long-term strategies.

Important note : I’d like to take a moment to dismantle the shame around not making enough money out of your business. I know how disheartening it can be, hearing about other businesses reaching profitability within a couple of years, and I want to remind you two things :

1. Most businesses take time to grow. More than you imagine. You’re not behind for not having reached your income goals, and there’s nothing wrong with you.

2. Business is cyclical. Financial ups and downs are completely normal. Not having them would be the exception, and anyone trying to sell you a solution that fixes the feast and famine cycles of your business is not being completely honest. That’s why you need a long-term plan, different streams of income and a financial buffer to save your back when the famine arrives.

What makes the difference isn’t avoiding dips entirely, it’s being prepared for them and not panicking when they arrive.

STEP 4 - What’s been working?

If you’re experiencing an income “dip”, it means you’ve already been able to create that income to start with, and that’s incredibly good news.

It means your business idea is working. It means demand exists, and you’ve got things in place that have allowed you to connect and build trust with these people.

If you need more cash fast, it’s not exactly the time to start creating a new offer from scratch, let alone the promised Neverland of “passive income & courses that you can sell in your sleep.”

You see, we tend to complicate things by coming up with new programs and super-ingenious strategies, but if you’ve already done something and it worked, maybe try first by doing that thing again?

Here are a few prompts to help you clarify further:

• Think of the clients you’re currently working with. How did they become your clients? What did you do then that you can repeat now?

• What has been flowing in your business so far? In which ways has it been the most natural to speak about your offers? How can you could amplify that?

• What is an offer you have that you’d describe as a best-seller? Maybe it’s time to bring that offer to the fore-front of your shop again?

Similarly, you’ll want to have a look at what hasn’t been working so well and take that as a hint.

Business is all about experimenting: it comes with trials and errors and the results are different for all of us. If you’ve been putting your time and effort into a strategy that hasn’t moved the needle for you, how much of your capacity could you free by ditching it altogether?

It’s the famous 80 - 20 ratio: Out of all the actions we take in our businesses, only 20% bring satisfying results. Observe what these 20% involve, amplify that, and ditch or reduce the rest.

Some of these strategies I’ve had to ditch : cold-pitching strangers (vs. pitching warm leads), DM-ing people with my paid offers (vs. with a free one), spending hours creating free content for social media (vs. spending hours writing thoughtful and helpful articles like this one).

Oh yeah, and scrolling on IG looking for solutions and customers. That one has never worked for anyone, I heard.

Also read: I quit social media and this is what happened

STEP 5 - Quick-fix cash ideas

Ok, I’ll be honest, I don’t like this concept of quick-fix cash ideas.

For starters, they don’t always work. And secondly, they delay even further the moment that you actually start working on a long-term visibility-building, authority-proving and money-making plan.

So here’s my disclaimer: If you stay focused on the quick fixes, if you spend the entirety of your working hours trying to extinguish the fires, reheating the same meals and serving them to the same people over and over again, soon enough you’ll be riding a dead horse into its grave.

That said, if this income dip you’re experiencing truly is an income dip problem — and not a Help, I’m not making any money in my business one — (post with this title coming soon), this quick list of ideas might come in handy:

1. Tell your friends and community you’re available. Ok, I’m being captain obvious here… But there’s often so much shame in us women when we need anything that I bet your brain didn’t think right away of doing this. Make a list of people you could reconnect with (past clients, colleagues, friends from school), tell them what you do now and ask if they know someone who’d need your services. Send an email to your subscribers and remind them how to work with you right now.

2. Offer a pay-what-you-can session. Think of the setbacks your clients keep having. Do you see a pattern? Can you troubleshoot them out of this? Great, now let them know you’re available for a limited number of 1:1 consult, mini-coaching, healing or Q&A sessions. The pay-what-you can option removes the financial friction for them, teaches you how to trust and go with the flow, and is an incredible opportunity to reconnect with the beauty of virtuous exchanges, which in my opinion should always be at the heart of our sales.

3. Host a mini live workshop. No time for 1:1? Why not teach that thing people ask you about all the time in a mini-workshop format? Keep it super clear and with a tangible desired outcome (at the end of the session, you’ll walk away with /xyz/ ). Make sure you deliver high value with low effort.

4. Buy me a coffee. Sometimes it’s as easy as asking your subscribers to support you. If you’ve been sharing valuable content for free, I’m sure your loyal readers would be more than willing to thank you with a nicely brewed cuppa. Create an account on “Buy me a coffee” and add a quick CTA at the end of your free content.

5. Flash sales on an existing offer. Who doesn’t love a good deal? Choose one of your product or programs, ideally one that you haven’t promoted recently, and give it a nice juicy discount for just a couple of days. No need to sound like a supermarket, make your story grounded and true.

6. Create a bundle of love. Novelty is an effective sales tool, but we’ve already said that being under pressure may not exactly be the time to create anything new. An alternative is to combine some older resources you’ve created and bring them together into a themed bundle. Think “self-care basket” meets exclusivity. Something you can offer for up to 50€ within a 3-5 day promo window.

7. Mini pop-up community. The key word is “mini”: low-commitment for both parties. How would your people benefit from being in a Telegram group? What value can you give them there with ease, and within a short period of time (3 days to 30 days max).

Whatever you choose to do, remember to keep it light. It’s not necessary to build complex funnels, try new tech, nor to send dozens of emails.

Only do what feels manageable, and sell from the heart. You’re here to help, and that’s always the priority.

STEP 6 - Your eyes on the long-term game

Business is cyclical and income volatility is part of the reality for most small, solo, service-based businesses. Even well-established ones.

The idea that feast and famine can be solved entirely is a marketing promise that often lures us into believing that at one point in our business, something magical will happen and we’ll be out of the woods.

Let’s just accept that we are in the woods. But we can thrive here! There’s plenty of shelter, resources, and freedom. But only if we step out of survival mode and keep our eyes on the long-term game.

That implies different things for each of us, but here’s a quick overview of what to keep in mind.

1. Where is this leading? While you don’t need to have it all figured out, nor to have a crystal clear vision before starting (otherwise the vast majority of us would never start), but you do need to have an idea of how you’re going to create enough income to support you. That involves gathering ideas on what you’re going to offer, for what price, and how many people you’re going to serve.

2. Why again? When you’re facing obstacles, returning to why you serve can help you create or sell from trust and service, instead of urgency. Take some time to clarify the mission behind your project, and root it emotionally within you.

3. How can you sustain yourself? Success doesn’t always mean that you can live off of your business entirely. Trying to do that too early will cause so much stress and uncertainty that I would highly advise against it, especially as a sensitive woman. The solution is not passive income (this word is making me sick, people), but multiple streams of income. What freelance gigs or part-time jobs could you easily do alongside building your business? What products could you sell?Are there products or services you use and love that you could become an affiliate for? Diversifying your income allows you to piece together your life in a way that works for you, and nourishes your nervous system and business.

4. Emergency funds + Buffer account. Life happens and will keep on happening. Set aside at least 6 months of expenses for your emergency funds (sickness, unexpected repairs, things like that) and create alongside a “buffer account” that will help you fill the gaps when you’re earning a bit less than usual (around 2000 or 3000€). The goal is not to use them, but if you must, you know you have your own back and you’ll be ok.

Let it be enough

If you’re reading this because you’re in one of those scary income dips, I hope this helped you breathe a little easier.

Remember you don’t need to fix everything today. You don’t need to have it all figured out. You don’t need to be different. What you need is to stay steady, take care of yourself. That’s how you stay connected to your inner power.

And if you want to keep learning how to build your business in a way that feels more sustainable, calmer, and safer for your nervous system, make sure you’re on my email list. That’s where I share short grounded strategies, personal stories, and gentle guidance to help you grow with softness and resilience.

Sign up here (free).

Let’s keep building businesses that fit us and grow thriving communities around the values that nurture all of us.

Jessica