[00:00:00] This is the final episode of our new year planning series, which I really hope you've been enjoying. Throughout this series, I've curated episodes to help you reach your full potential for 2024. If you have big things on your heart for your business this year, change, projects, uplevels, restructure, reforming, new things, letting things go, whatever that might be, I believe this process that we're going through together is really going to help you get there. Not only that, I also know that this process helps you with your life goals, which we can't forget about. Often as business owners, we focus so much on our business. We very often let go of our focus of what we want from our life.

So everything that you need to get prepared for and ready for ahead of this year is covered throughout this series. We've been exploring the steps[00:01:00] over the past couple of episodes. And today we've been exploring the steps that lie within the coaching framework of Be Do Have. And I've walked you through how to apply this methodology to your life and your business planning. I want to remind you that this needn't stop here. This is honestly something that you can keep coming back to throughout the year. Yes, of course it's a planning process, but it's so much more than that.

It's not a one and done experience. It's something that you need to embody and you may need this reminder. So remember these episodes are here to support you and if you feel like you have gotten further away from where you need to be, come back to these three episodes. The process itself doesn't change anything for you, okay?

It's the application of the process, now and throughout the year, that's going to help you to realize and achieve the vision that you've set for yourself for your business [00:02:00] and for your life this year. And before we dive in today's episode I also want to say, you are deserving of your goals. You are deserving of this vision that you have set for your life.This isn't reserved for other people. This isn't reserved for that person over there or that person over there. You are enough. Doing this work, embodying the person that you need to be, knowing where you're headed is what is going to get you there. In today's episode, we're talking about what to do. Are you ready? Let's go.

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Hello boss. And welcome back to the run your business like a boss podcast. And as I said, this is episode number three, the final episode of our planning series. I'm really excited to walk you through today's episode. Actually, I have absolutely loved each and every one of these episodes, and I hope that you have been diving into the work, not just consuming the content, because as I said in the intro, it's actually about the application of what we are talking about here. It's about doing the work and that's what's going to see the results. Not just listening, obviously to this podcast. So in episode number one, we explored why people don't like to set goals. And we uncovered that very often we can find ourselves in a position where we get to the end of the year and then we look back over the goals that we set for ourselves. And very little of those [00:04:00] goals were achieved. And when that happens enough, we stop trusting ourselves. This is why so many people don't like to set goals, or they feel really uncomfortable about setting goals, or they don't believe that they're going to achieve the goals that they're going to set.

So there's a lot of kind of underlying feelings around goal setting, around achieving the things that we, you know, want to set for ourselves and this is where we're doing things differently this year with this series is that we are approaching this goal setting process and the activation of the goal. So the working towards the goals in a very different way throughout the B model. So if we think about that for a second and think about, okay, well, I'm going to do things differently. I've already set my intention for the year. I know where I want to be by December 31. Okay. Yep. Done that. And I'm really clear on who that person is that I need to [00:05:00] be, what that up level needs to be as an individual and who I just need to be in 2024.

We now need to think about what you need to do, and that really comes down to making a plan. You're probably thinking, Oh, Kristy, this is no surprise, but this planning process is so important. And this is where so many people get it wrong because often, a plan for business owners can come down to either writing a really big extensive plan and then putting it in a drawer and never touching it again, or writing to do lists, weekly to do lists, which don't actually move you forward because they're not tied to the goals and they're not big picture thinking and all the rest of it.

So having this time, if right now, I don't know what things are like in your business, but maybe you're easing into the [00:06:00] year, January maybe a little slower for you and you're going to essentially go full time or, you know, whatever full time looks like for you and your business, but go full time in your business in February. If you've got kids that are school age, then that's very likely, but even if you are back in your business, if you are serious about achieving the goals and the vision that you've set for yourself this year, then setting aside time to make a plan is what's going to be the defining factor of taking action that is aligned to or congruent with where you want to be.

Because writing to do lists is just taking action and that action may not be the action that you need to take to move forward. So one little thing I want to also caveat before I just step you through the process of creating your plan is that you have to be very [00:07:00] mindful of what goes into your plan. If you make your plan too big, If you require too much time to apply to your plan or to apply to this work, you will find yourself opting out. And the reason for this is because you're going to get overwhelmed by all that you need to do. Sometimes when we're in this tunnel vision of thinking about our goals and thinking about the things that we want to do, we aren't taking into consideration the fact that we have a BAU, we have a business as usual situation, right? Like you've got to run a business. So that means that you're servicing your clients, you know, you're doing the back end of your business, your administration, your marketing, whatever you're responsible for, but even if you're not responsible and you have a team member or you're outsourcing, you're still overseeing all of those things in your business, right? So that doesn't go away just so that you can work on your goals. 

[00:08:00] Unless of course you're starting from scratch, but even still, I'm sure you have other commitments. So it's really important as you enter the planning process that you're clear on the capacity that you have to put towards working on your goals. Now, if that means that you can work one day a week on your goals or two hours a week on your goals, you need to make sure that what you're putting into your plan is actually going to not be more than that. Otherwise, you will find yourself slipping back and when you slip back, then you start to feel bad about yourself and then that mistrust that we've been speaking about comes in and you will have the opposite of momentum.

What we're trying to create is momentum, momentum towards working towards your goals. And when you don't have that, you find yourself feeling all the things that are opposite to what you would feel if you've got momentum. 

So it's really important that you set [00:09:00] yourself up for success from the get go by setting a realistic plan knowing that you have to get clear on the actions that you need to take, that's going to drive you towards the vision or the goals of your life and business this year, so that you are not just doing more of the same that you've done in the past. This process is so powerful, which is why I'm setting the stage of what to look out for and why we're going to set the plan, why we're not just going to do what we've always done. Okay. So with that said, I want to just start with revisiting the vision for your business. Now we did this back in episode number one.

So we're really clear on where we're taking our business longterm. Where are we going to be 10 to 15 years from now? Okay. So that's the clarity of the direction of the business. You have also set the annual goal. So what do you want to achieve this year? Great. That's done. Now in order to set your [00:10:00] plan, for me, I prefer a quarterly planning cadence. So what that means is I prefer to reset the plan every three months. Now I might have a clear view of what I'm achieving in the rest of the year, but I'm not planning for that per se in this quarter. And the reason why I prefer the three month or the 90 day plan is because it's short enough for you to be focused in the block of work that you're doing, but it's long enough if there's any slippages to get it done.

So what I mean by that is that if you are working towards a monthly plan, and I know a lot of people love the monthly plan and that's totally fine if that works for you, this is your business. This is. You know, the way that you work, I'm not downing any way. But the reason why I prefer the quarterly is because the monthly, you know, you might find that you get taken out for a week by certain things that were [00:11:00] unexpected with client commitments, or, if you've got kids, it might be sick kids, or maybe you're sick or a sick parent or whatever that might be. And then all of a sudden there's some slippage there, and then that plan bleeds out into another extra couple of weeks. And then it just gets messy. Whereas with the quarter, there is enough time built into that, that if there is some slippage, you can easily bring that back by the end of the quarter.

So I just think there's a little more grace, but it's also short enough that you're deeply focused on the work that you need to do. Okay. So the vision and the annual goal is clear. And so what you want to do is you need to think about, okay, just loosely, I've got four quarters and bearing in mind that we're heading towards the end of January, not quite, but by the time you start, you know, really digging in, it's going to start to get towards the end of January. And so therefore quarter one is really probably only going to be eight weeks or maybe 10 [00:12:00] weeks or something. You know, just definitely not a full 12 week quarter. So also bear that in mind. So think about, okay, I have four quarters and whatever this random quarter might be for quarter one. And I have this amount of time to achieve this big X, Y, Z goal. You don't need to say you're gonna do this in this quarter, that in that quarter, that in that quarter, but just have a bit of an idea about how much time you think it's gonna take to get to where you need to get to. And loosely, what do I think I need to do over the year?

Okay, then we're gonna bring that back and get focused on Q1. Now, you may not call quarter one of the year this quarter, you might be calling this actually quarter three, if you're running by the financial year, but for all intents and purposes of this episode, I'm going to refer to this as quarter one, but you refer to it as whatever. Okay. So we are going to start to think about okay, so what is this quarter's goal? Okay, so we're gonna break down the [00:13:00] big or the medium range goal into your quarter goal and we're gonna say, okay So this goal is going to be, let's say you've got a revenue target in there and you've got know launching a new program or launching a new service and you know streamlining your services or whatever that might be.

Okay. So you then say, okay, well, I don't really want to launch that new service this quarter, but what I do need to do is actually think about what are the services that I'm offering and I need to think about what I'm going to start to wind down and what does the new offering look like? So that's one component. And then if I've got a revenue target in there, obviously you're not going to earn all of that revenue in quarter four. You need to think about, well, what do I need to do to earn that revenue target? Is there things that I need to do differently? Are there things that I need to bring back? Obviously we're talking about marketing here. So you break down that into an achievable milestone or goal, whatever you want to choose to use that as in terms [00:14:00] of terminology. So what that looks like for the quarter and then you break that down into almost like departments. I call them strategic priorities. It's just a fancy word for, basically departments of your business.

So you might say, okay, I've got a marketing department, you might have a program review, so whatever that might be. So that might be one that might be two, that might be three, however many themes or programs of work or strategic priorities, as I call them. And then from there, you can say, okay, under marketing, these are the exact steps that I need to take this quarter to help me to get to building that revenue target. Now it might be that I'm not actually looking to increase my revenue. In quarter one, but what I'm trying to do is to build deeper awareness, increase my visibility, start to get more people into my ecosystem or moving through my ecosystem and thinking about what are those [00:15:00] steps actually look like?

What are the things that you need to do in that area of your business that's going to drive you forward? And I think this is where a lot of people go wrong with setting revenue targets. I don't actually think about who they need to bring in, what they need to do to bring those new clients in, how they need to nurture prospective clients. And they just think that the clients are just going to drop into their business. So really thinking more strategically, I suppose, about how you're actually going to reach those goals and breaking that down into firstly, the vision of the business. And secondly, the annual goal, thirdly, the quarterly goal, and then what are the priorities that need to sit under that? And then the exact action steps. This may feel like a lot of overkill. You might think, Oh, this feels like a lot of work, but trust me. What you are doing is you're doing the deep, deep strategic thinking now, so you don't need to do it every single week, because if you need to do it every single week, you're going to get [00:16:00] lost in the woods.

You're just going to end up doing more of the same of what you've always done. Whereas when you've got this plan mapped out, you can then convert that into your project management tool. So I've mentioned on the podcast before that I use Asana both in my life, so my husband has a project tab together that we use between the things that we're doing at home, as well as for my business.

So you can then take all of the actions that you have set within your plan, plug those into your project management tool, whatever tool you use, and then you can shift those around as you start to think, okay, well this week I'm going to do action one, two, three, four. Those are the things that I need to do.

And they essentially then become the things that you're focusing on beyond your BAU. So you can see here by taking this process, rather than just writing a to do list every week and thinking about your goals or having them in the back of your mind, that this is actually going to be [00:17:00] the do component of Be, Do, Have, right? And remember, if you're being that person, that next level person, you are someone who steps into the work. You are someone who is organised. You are someone who has a clear plan on what they want to do this year. I know this process works. And I know that you do have those big things, as I said at the beginning of the episode, on your heart. And you are deserving of achieving those things. So trust me, take the time to make your plan and to get clear on what you need to do in quarter one, so that you get the momentum and that you build or rebuild that trust in yourself. And you can achieve the big things in your business that you desire this year.

And remember, it's never too late to start something new. It's never too late to start this whole new process to achieve this thing and the beginning of the year is the perfect [00:18:00] time to do it. So thank you. Thank you for joining me for this three part planning series. As I said, we started with the Have, which is what you want to achieve this year. We moved into Be, who do you need to be this year? What are the things that this new level person does on the daily? How do they behave? How do they show up in their business and in their life and for themselves? And then Do. What is the work you need to do? What is the actions you need to do?

What are the things you need to do this year to get to December 31 and celebrate the things that you have on your goal list on your vision for the year? I would love to know. Have you taken these episodes and put them into practice? Have you applied them? Have you started to do the work? Have you started to do the thinking? Have you started to do, well, you won't have started doing the planning, but when you do start taking the planning, I'd [00:19:00] love to hear from you. Take a screenshot. If you have been listening to this episode or this series, take a screenshot, let me know that you are taking action because you know what? I love to know that you take what we discuss here on the Run Your Business Like a Boss podcast and apply them to your business because that's what this is all about.

Thank you so much for listening. I look forward to chatting with you next week. This podcast was recorded on the land of Killen Darbin.

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