The six-figure business con

Someone mentioned supporting "eight figure business owners" the other day.

EIGHT figures. That's at least £10,000,000.

And I'll be honest with you, my first thought was not "wow, impressive." It was closer to "what the actual..?"

For a start, if they're running an eight figure business, it's unlikely they'll be cruising instagram looking at your reels. Harsh but true.

Because here's the thing that nobody stops to actually explain when they're throwing these six / seven (lol) / eight numbers around.

When someone talks about a six figure business, a seven figure business, an eight figure business, they are talking about revenue. Turnover. The total value of sales going through the door. The top line.

Not profit. Not what's left. Not what actually ends up in your pocket.

Turnover is a useful metric, it's one of three measures used to determine the size of a business (alongside assets and staff count), and if your actual goal is market dominance, then yes, turnover matters enormously.

But for most of the female business owners I speak to, that is not the goal. They don't want to be the 'biggest' anything.

They just want to make enough money to live a good life and feel like the effort put in to get it is worth it.

And yet here we all are, chasing a number that tells us almost nothing about whether any of that is actually happening.

What they're really selling you

The six figure business thing makes me angry. Not mildly irritated, but like properly angry. Because I think it's a lie, and I think it's a lie that sends a lot of hardworking business owners in completely the wrong direction.

It tells you that the goal is a big business.

That scale is the thing.

That if you're not growing toward some impressive-sounding revenue milestone, you're somehow behind or doing it wrong.

But a business doing £100,000 in sales can be exhausting, barely profitable, and entirely unsustainable.

And a business doing £60,000? Well it can be profitable, energising, and more than enough.

Turnover without context is a vanity metric. Full stop.

What nobody seems to be asking is: what do you actually need this business to do?

Not what looks good (or what you think looks good). Not what the cool kids on Instagram are shouting about.

What does success actually look like for you, specifically, in your actual life?

That's a completely different question.

And it has a completely different answer.

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Start here instead

There's a concept I come back to constantly with the people I work with, and it's called "the Enough Number".

Not a six figure target. Not a revenue goal pulled from thin air because someone on a podcast said that's what ambitious looks like.

Your Enough Number, which tells you the profit your business needs to generate, after tax and after costs, to actually fund your life.

And working it out starts with five numbers (not five figure months which will land you in the world of VAT - more on that later).

The first number is what you need. The non-negotiables in your personal life, like rent or mortgage, bills, food, the basics. The stuff Maslow would put at the bottom of the pyramid.

The second is what you want. The things that make life actually good rather than just survivable. A gym membership. A holiday. A massage once a month. Not extravagance, just the things that make the effort feel worthwhile.

The third is fun. A small amount of unplanned spending. Something spontaneous that happens and you don't have to panic about whether or not you can afford it. (For clarity, we're thinking impromptu takeaway or your favourite clothing/bag/perfume brand has a sale and you spot something you have to have. Because life is allowed to just happen sometimes.

The fourth is your future. Pension, investments, whatever your trusted financial adviser (and genuinely, they are the only person who should be advising you on this, not me, not a podcast) has helped you put together. Your future self needs to be in this number.

The fifth is a buffer. The just-in-case. Because the washing machine will break, the car will fail its MOT at the worst possible moment, and something will always need a financial input you didn't see coming. A buffer is not a luxury. It's what stops a bad Tuesday from becoming a crisis.

Those five numbers, added up and worked back through your tax and business costs, give you a revenue target that is based on your life. Not a vanity metric. Not someone else's definition of success.

Yours.

The thing nobody mentions about six figures

Here's the part that really gets me, and it's the part I almost never see talked about honestly.

In the UK, once your turnover hits £90,000, you have to register for VAT.

For a product-based business with significant costs, this can be manageable. But for a service business, a coach, a consultant, a freelancer, where your costs are relatively low and your margins are high, crossing that threshold can hit you in a way that genuinely doesn't make sense until you see the numbers.

So let's look at the numbers.

Say you have a turnover of £85,000, with costs of around £15,000. Your profit is £70,000. Things are going well, you grow, and your turnover reaches £95,000. You're £10,000 better off, right?

Actually, no. Not at all.

Once you're over the VAT threshold, you have to hand over VAT on your sales before you start. On a £95,000 turnover, that's around £15,000 straight to HMRC, taking you down to £80,000.

Then you've still got your £15,000 of costs. So your profit is now £65,000.

For an increase of £10,000 in sales, you are actually £5,000 worse off.

And yes, I know. It doesn't make sense. But sometimes that's just the way it is with tax.

Now add the admin on top. Quarterly VAT returns. More detailed income and expense tracking. More complexity around what you can and can't reclaim, and under which scheme. Most people end up paying an accountant to manage it, which is another cost that didn't exist before.

There was recent data from HMRC showing that a meaningful number of UK small businesses are actively restricting their growth to stay below the £90,000 threshold.

Turning down work. Holding prices. And honestly? That really doesn't surprise me at all.

So when someone tells you that you should be chasing a six figure business, that £100,000 is the marker of success, what they're not telling you is that £100,000 in turnover might actually leave you worse off than £88,000 did.

For a while, at least.

You don't have to want this

Here's what I actually think is going on.

Six figures became the thing because everyone kept saying it was the thing.

And when enough people repeat something loudly enough, it starts to feel like a fact. Like the only valid ambition for all the boss babe hustle queens living the dream (not sure if my sarcasm comes across when I write, so just to confirm, it is definitely in that statement).

Like the pencil case or bag or coat you had to have at school because the cool kids had one, even if you didn't actually want it.

We are all, to some degree, seeking validation from others about what good looks like. And "six figure business owner" got handed to us as the answer before we'd even asked the question.

So I want to say this explicitly:

You do not need a six figure business to be successful.

You do not have to want one.

And if you do want one, if that genuinely is your goal and it genuinely excites you, then absolutely, let's talk about how to build toward it properly.

But it needs to be your goal. Not a borrowed one.

The only number worth chasing is the one that funds your life, rewards your effort, and doesn't cost you your sanity to reach.

Work out your Enough Number first. Everything else follows from there.

If you want to start working out your own Enough Number, I've got a worksheet that walks you through it, link below. And if you want to go deeper, get in touch.

>>> Get access to the worksheet in the DaM Good Business Club. It's free, and you'll get emails from me, details of webinars and workshops, notice of new blog posts and access to some other super awesome free tools to help you in your business too.

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Disclaimer: This post is for educational purposes only and does not constitute financial, tax, or legal advice. Rates, rules, and allowances change, always check current figures and speak to a qualified professional before making decisions for your specific circumstances. The VAT registration threshold mentioned is current at the time of writing, please verify the current threshold before making any decisions based on it.