If you’ve hit a ceiling with your earnings and feel like, no matter how hard you try, you can’t make more money, then take heart. The problem may not be you, or your marketing. It may be your business model.

How much can you make?

Say you’re a yoga teacher making $60 per class at studios or $100 per hour teaching one-to-one. If you teach eight classes per week for 47 weeks of the year, plus 2 privates per week for 50 weeks of the year, you would earn $32,560, which is $1000 more than minimum wage.

You can tweak these class numbers or hourly rates, but it’s unlikely you’ll make much more than $55,000, which is less than the median salary in Sydney.

Get creative

Some careers demand a creative approach to making a living. You always have more options than you may think, but creative thinking, courage and tenacity are essential.

A few examples of how you to change your business model and make more money:

1. Focus on your specialty, not your modality
   Your clients don’t necessarily care about the particulars of your qualifications. They have an issue that they want help with. Rather than focusing on your method, instead focus on the key issue that you specialise in helping, and use whatever is in your arsenal – and those in your professional network – to become known as the go-to girl for what it is you specialise in.
2. Run events
   Events seem to be springing up everywhere at the moment. You could run large annual events, or smaller more regular events hosting a variety of wellbeing professionals in a purpose-built venue focused on a specific theme.
3. Sell online
   Think what you do won’t translate online? No matter how obscure your idea, chances are there’s already someone offering it online. All you need is an internet connection, a computer and a bit of imagination.
4. Write a book/produce a DVD
   You’ve got two options these days – self-published or old-school. The former still lacks credibility and involves a lot more work in relation to marketing, but it can also pay off far more than old-school.