Call 1-818-572-2910 w/ your career, biz and life questions. It's ASK Bernadette!

Hello and welcome to Shedding the Bitch Radio, where you can discuss, debate, and get advice on how to discover and shed the bitches of fear, insecurity, self-doubt, and negative mindsets so you can realize your dreams and life purpose and create and accelerate the riches you want in life. Join us here live every Tuesday at noon Eastern and dialogue with us at 818-572-2910. You can also chat with us at blogtalkradio.com/sheddingthebitch or share your stories on our website at sheddingthebitch.com.

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Whatever the bitch is that's holding you back from living your life to the fullest, it's not worth giving up the riches in life that you deserve. So call in now and let Bernadette Boas know what's holding you back. 818-572-2910. Happy Fourth of July, everyone! Yes, this is Bernadette Boas on this holiday. You may be somewhere outside the U.S., but here in the U.S. we are celebrating Independence Day, so thank you for being with us because it is Ask Bernadette, all your questions answered in one episode. No, I'm kidding. If you have an opportunity to post your career, business, or life question out on our Facebook or Twitter page, we bring them right here the first Tuesday of every month so we can drill into them even further. I certainly answer them out online as soon as you post them. However, we bring them right here on Shedding the Bits Radio, so you have an opportunity to call in, and you can even call in with questions as we are live from noon to 1:00 Eastern time. So you can call 1-818-572-2910. Deborah is also out there. Deborah is also out there tweeting me actually, or texting me as we speak. And she's watching for you as well, and she'll be tweeting all the conversation, the content that we have for you today as well. So happy 4th. Sit back and enjoy. Post your questions. Call in your questions. I'm even on the chat room. So if you were to go to blogtalkradio.com/ Shedding the Bits Radio, find today's program, scroll down, and you'll see a chat room, and I'm also on the chat room. So you have tons of opportunities to be able to reach out and get your question. Maybe you're having an issue at work, at home, with a friend, with a boss, whatever the case might be. We also talk about business ownership, so even today's questions range from mid-year because it is mid-year. So we're going to do a lot of conversation about goals and even mid-year assessing of your goals. And then also your job performance because a number of my clients have been calling me about their mid-year reviews and they're questioning kind of what should they be doing as far as proactively assessing themselves for their mid-year job performance. Then we're going to be talking about— Jack is transitioning from corporate to business ownership and what should he prepare himself for. If you're either considering that transition or you already have made it and maybe you're into the honeymoon stages of having your own business, we're going to talk about that today. All right? So you have still opportunity to call in live, chat in live, and even just post your question. And if we don't get to it on today's particular program, then what I do is throughout the, throughout the month, I collect those questions, stories, or challenges, respond to them, but then keep them for our conversation right here on Chen with Itch Radio. Alright, fun, fun, fun! And before all of you run off to have some hamburgers and hot dogs and go to a barbecue or go to parties or watch the fireworks or just simply continue your day, this is a great way to get it started. July 4th, Mid-Year @Bernadette. So we're going to take a quick break. When we come back, we're going to dive into these questions that you have, and I am well prepared to give you some rich tips all around them. All right, we will be right back.

You are listening to Shedding the Bitch Radio with Bernadette Boas. We are inspiring individuals around the globe to discover, confront, and shed their bitches of fear, insecurity, and negativity so they can create the riches in their career, business, and life they deserve. Be sure to check out Bernadette Boas' book, Shedding the Corporate Bitch: Shifting from Bitch to Rich in Life and Business, available on Amazon and sheddingthebitch.com. We also want to thank our sponsors, TSR Consulting, who offers a broad range of tax services for small to corporate size clients. Go to TSRConsulting.com to learn more. And Parker House Virtual Services, who provides virtual assistants and social media support for small to medium-sized businesses. Email Deborah Parker at deborahparker78@gmail.com for more information. To become a sponsor or advertiser on our program, email us at mediarelations@sheddingthebitch.com. Shedding the Bitch Radio airs every Tuesday at noon Eastern time. Be sure to go to blogtalkradio.com/sheddingthebitchradio and follow the program for all the updates and announcements of our guests and show topics. Now let's return to Bernadette and Shedding the Bitch Radio.

Welcome back everyone to Ask Bernadette, your opportunity to get your questions, stories, or challenges addressed, whether it's about your career, maybe you have your own business, or it's just a life issue or question that you have. And if I'm not the appropriate one to answer it, I'm going to tell you right off the bat. At the same time, I have a whole slew of experts that are at my disposal, so if it's not right now during our program, I will certainly make sure that between 5 years of weekly experts joining us here on Shedding the Bits Radio, we will get you your answer. That is my commitment to you. All right? So our first-up question, it's about mid-year job performance reviews, because that's what it is. It's July 1st, so any of you working on a calendar year versus maybe a fiscal— although if you're working on a fiscal calendar in your business, which means you might start your year this time of year and end it this time of year. Then you're also dealing with performance reviews potentially within your business. So the question basically was, very simply, how do I proactively affect and influence my own job performance? And I am a huge proponent on proactively addressing this, proactively assessing yourself and pulling together the information that you would want to be reviewed on. And at the same time, what I also— my first rich tip to you would be you should be tracking your performance throughout the year. So if you have set goals at the beginning of the year or at some point at work, and there's measurements against those goals, there's a time-bound set expectation, meaning that you're going to have it done or completed or drafted, whatever the case might be, by a certain milestone timeline, then that's a good thing to be looking at. As well as if there was any kind of expectations, risks, issues, contingencies that you made note of as a result of that goal. So you should be tracking all year long how have you done. Have you finished out a project? How did that go? Did you collect reviews, testimonials, assessments from individuals? Did something happen? Did something come up that maybe you didn't handle as well as you would like to, or that you did, and you did an exceptional job at it? Now, you're probably not surprised that a lot of times a good number of employees are surprised by some of the information that is then shared by their boss, their manager, to them during their mid-year or end-of-year. And if you are tracking them and your own progress and you're kind of documenting your own situations that you're finding yourself in throughout the year, then there should be no surprises. So that's why I always advocate to my clients, make sure you're tracking your performance—good, bad, or indifferent—you're tracking it as much as then most likely your boss or manager is doing the same, and you're going to be able to now influence your mid-year or end-of-year performance. So how do you do that? Well, you take that documented proof, so to speak. And it's not a CYA. It's just merely being prepared that if you had a certain set of goals that you were given from your boss or from your big boss or maybe as a team goal, that you're then appropriately able to measure your ability to meet that goal, exceed that goal, or maybe you did miss that goal.. And you can do it as fairly and honestly for yourself initially, and then you can have a great conversation during your mid-year review. So you sit down. You look at your goals. You kind of look at all the things. Okay, so what measurements? How did I do against those? What timelines? Did I have a budget? Did I meet it? Were there any issues or constraints that I had noted up front? How were those handled? How did I handle them? Was there maybe a conflict or some sort of performance issue that came up, you know, during that 6-month or 12-month period? I want to make a note of that. How did I handle it? What did my boss or other, you know, people around me respond? How did they react? What did they comment about it? Were there comments regarding my performance, good, bad, or indifferent? I want to note those, and I want to be as specific as possible.— and what you're basically doing is giving yourself your job performance review. And then when your boss sits down and they have their piece of paper outlining how Bernadette did this past 6 months or 12 months, you're able to have your own assessment of your performance. Now, there could be conflicts. There could be a difference of opinion. And yet what you want to make sure, and this is what I really advocate to anyone when it comes to these reviews because they can be quite stressing and emotional for people. Well, guess what? You get to take the emotion and the stress out of it by putting it in black and white and having a really good sound factual assessment. Because when your boss brings up something, unless they're— and I rarely, if ever, found this— unless they're very very process-driven, very detail-oriented. Most of the time managers just make note of an overall thing. Well, you know, he or she butted heads with someone or created an issue regarding a project or didn't complete something on time. And they lack a lot of the specifics, and you deserve to have the specifics. So if they raise up anything, again, could be something good, could be something challenging, it could be something not so good. Well, you want to be able to say, "I'd love to hear more about that. What specifically, or what specific situation are you talking about? Who specifically was involved? Because I'm not really clear on what it is that, that situation, you know, when it happened, where it happened, with whom it happened." And we all have a different perspective on life, and therefore you want to make sure that you're coming together in the middle and agreeing and understanding each other's viewpoints on those things. Now, I rarely find people overrating themselves. Rarely. Most people underrate themselves. So, but at the same time, if you're finding that you're overrating yourself, that's fine because maybe you did have a great 6 months, 12 months. However, go back and just make sure as you kind of complete that overrating that you go back and really look at it very constructively, very objectively, very truthfully to make sure that that rating is appropriate. Now I'm not telling you to change it. What I'm telling you to do is be able to defend it. So if you're all of a sudden having this conversation about what a great performance you had, and yet your boss comes in and says, "Well, not quite so." Well, just because they say that doesn't mean it's right. So you will then have all of your kind of specifics, your facts, your timelines, your situations that occurred to be able to defend it. And then the two of you, it should be a dialogue, it should be a conversation, it should be a discussion. It might be a debate. It might be a form of negotiation. At the same time, you should be able to walk out of that meeting feeling really good. And at least if you're not feeling good because maybe it was a challenging review, you're at least— it's a fair review because both of you kind of agreed to what that overall status was.. And if you're not happy with it— now, if you're not happy because you're just, you know, your ego is hurt, well, that's another thing, and you want to just handle it very professionally and walk away and be like, okay, I'm going to make some changes. If you're not happy because it is unfair and unjust, then what you should be then pushing for is, well, I'd like to come back to you on this. I'd like us to It takes a couple of days. I really want to, you know, ensure that you have all the facts and all the specifics and that I do and that we then come together in the middle to ensure that this is really the fair and just review I deserve. But your boss is not the end-all, be-all. Just understand that. It has to be a shared, understood consensus.. And even if that means kind of elevating it even further and getting other people's inputs, you may need to do that. I'm not going to spend time there. You're going to, because of the fact that you've been tracking it for the 6 months and now it's mid-year, you're going to be able to have a very professional, unemotional, constructive, fact-based conversation. And then you'll just have to deal with if you do have a kind of an unreasonable boss. And anything that might occur after that. But at least you've done your part, and it really will make your mid-year performance reviews more kind of just okay and unemotional and not as stressful. All right? So thank you, Jack— no, that wasn't Jack. I take that back. I'm sorry. But thank you for that question because, again, it is mid-year. Now, I'm going to transition a little bit. I'm going to create a break because I am video recording this. I want to transition to those of you, being that it is July 4th, it is July, so we have 6 months left of the year. For those of you who didn't even set goals, whether it be at work or in your personal life, and maybe you do have a business, and you didn't set goals. Well, this is the time to do it. So when we get back, we're going to kind of go back to basic 101 SMART goal setting, because again, I believe that every day is an opportunity to reset. And if you haven't established your goals for the year, or at least for the balance of 2017, then this is going to be your opportunity to do it. All right, so we will be right back.

You are listening to Shedding the Bitch Radio with Bernadette Boas. We are inspiring individuals around the globe to discover, confront, and shed their bitches of fear, insecurity, and negativity so they can create the riches in their career, business, and life they deserve. Be sure to check out Bernadette's book, Shedding the Corporate Bitch: Shifting from Bitch to Rich in Life and Business. Available on Amazon and sheddingthebitch.com. We also want to thank our sponsors: TSR Consulting, who offers a broad range of tax services for small to corporate size clients. Go to TSRConsulting.com to learn more. And Parker House Virtual Services, who provides virtual assistance and social media support for small to medium size businesses. Email deborahparker@parkerhouseservices.com. Deborahparker78@gmail.com for more information. To become a sponsor or advertiser on our program, email us at mediarelations@sheddingthebitch.com. Shedding the Bitch Radio airs every Tuesday at noon Eastern time. Be sure to go to blogtalkradio.com/sheddingthebitchradio and follow the program for all of the updates and announcements of our guests and show topics. Now let's return to Bernadette and Shedding the Bitch Radio.

Welcome back everyone! Happy, happy Fourth of July! We are taking your stories, questions, and challenges, and we are providing you some tips, advice, sometimes tough love. I'll be easy on you today. Since it is a holiday. But, and we are really addressing somewhat mid-year things, so to speak. So whether that is about your assessing of your first 6 months performance, whether it is having you set goals maybe that you haven't done before, and then we're also going to get into a couple of other things. Because this is also a time of year where people are transitioning not only jobs,— but they're moving from corporate to business ownership or business ownership to corporate because it is mid-year and they start saying to themselves, "Well, I'm either not achieving what I need to achieve, you know, from that income or lifestyle perspective, so I'm going to go a different way." So the kind of the May through July-August time period, don't be fooled by the fact that it is kind of summer breaks and holidays. This is one of the— most active hiring, interviewing, qualifying stages. Whether or not they bring you on or not, they might wait until the August-September time period. At the same time, this time of year, especially because it is somewhat quiet for a lot of hiring bosses, it's actually easier to get a hold of them if you kind of get creative. In that regard. But you can go and do some kind of Googling and research on that just to help you out there. So I had mentioned before we took a break that we talked and kicked off our Rich Tips, our Ask Bernadette session, talking about doing your mid-year performance review. And then I said I wanted to segue and come back and talk about goal setting to begin with. And that's really basic 101. I talk about it a lot. And I do because of the fact that it's amazing to me still the huge percentage of people who do not set goals. Whether you're a corporate professional, whether you are a business owner, whether you're even just a stay-at-home— put whatever you want behind that— every one of us living and breathing on this earth should have goals for themselves because If you don't, then what is it that you're working for? What is it that you're living for? What is it that you're getting up every morning and going through a 12, 14, you know, 18-hour day before you put your head on the pillow? So goal setting provides you so much confidence and energy and focus and clarity and persistence and determination. As you put those goals not in your head. They may be there, but you need to get them down on paper. So I'm going to walk you through kind of my standard spiel of tips when it comes to goal setting. All right, so first off is to get yourself a journal. I don't care what it looks like. I don't care how big it is, how small it is. You might want to have it to where you can carry it in your purse or your pocket. You might want it to be a decent enough size where you can then go tracking all of your progress or your tasks and activities. Maybe you just want to put it on a piece of paper and then stick it in a bunch of places. It doesn't matter to me. Just have it something that you're able to get it out of your head as to what it is that you want to do and accomplish in your life and put it on a piece of paper. All right? But there's multiple components of a goal. You might hear a lot of quotes that say, "Oh, a goal is just a dream until you, you know, kind of put a deadline on it." And dreams are good things. Dreams are beautiful things. I love the idea that I'm a daydreamer and that I always have big dreams. But they are just that. They're dreams until you actually put some parameters around them. And the easiest way to figure out how to define a goal is simply go out, you can Google SMART goal setting. All right? If there's a coach out there that is in any way, shape, or form working with someone, both corporately, or either corporately or business owners or individuals, they're using the SMART goal method. They might tweak it a little bit for their own kind of method, but it comes down to the same thing. So let's kind of walk through that for you. So SMART, it's an acronym, and it makes it really easy to think about what it is you're trying to do. So your goals, they have to be S, specific. They can't just be pie in the sky, I want to lose weight, and you move on from there and say, okay, there, I've set my goal. It's not specific enough. It's not, tangible enough. What does it mean that you want to lose weight? Is it 1 pound? Is it 10 pounds? Is it that you want to lose pounds? Like, for instance, I've never ever set a pound goal for weight. I've set a dress size. I've set a fat percentage. So you've got— you need those type of specifics around what it is that you're trying to do. And then as we work through the SMART acronym, you're going to see how those details get fleshed out even more as you apply the other components to it. All right, so as specific as you can get. Not, "I want to earn a lot of money." Get as specific as possible. How much? Where is it going to come from? Blah, blah, blah. All right, you with me? All right, so then M is measurable, those measures. So this is where you get that it's not a lot of money or it's not to lose weight. It's specifically what are those measurements that you're going to measure your success over. It's going to be that you want to lose 5 pounds. It's you want to earn $100,000. It's the fact that you want to do it by selling— you're going to earn that income by selling certain things, and you define those very specifically. It might be that you are going to lose weight by doing it, you know, maybe you get stomach surgery. I'm not sure what that's called. I'm having a blank at the moment. But you got my point. Maybe it is from the fact that you're going to start running, or the fact that you're going to start weightlifting, get a trainer, whatever the case might be. So, but your measurements are those things that you're going to come back to your goal and you're going to say, okay, am I on target? If I do want to lose 5 pounds, how am I doing against that 5 pounds? If I want to earn that $100,000, and I'm sitting here on July 1st, and I say I want to do that by December, end of December, you know, that you're going to then come back to this on a weekly, monthly basis and use that measurement to determine how your progress is rolling out. All right, then we move on to A, action, actionable. And that is, what are you going to do? So even with when it comes to losing weight, okay, so do you need to buy new fitness clothes? Do you need to buy a new blender? Maybe you've decided that you're going to go, you know, healthy. Do you need to schedule a doctor's appointment because you decided on that stomach surgery? What are the actions that you need to take in order to achieve that goal? And you list them all out, whether it's 10 or 100 or 2. You'll list them all out in black and white along with that specific goal, along with the measurements. Now you're on to the action. And then the R, people interpret it a little bit different— differently. Some say realistic, some say relevant. Either one. But relevant is what I tend to lean toward, and that's the R of SMART. And that is simply, is it relevant or realistic that you're going to be able to accomplish this goal? So let's go for the weight. If you've never lost weight, if you've never put on a pair of sneakers, if you've never eaten a piece of green vegetable, is it realistic for you to lose that 5 pounds? Now you might right off the bat say, "Yes, because I'm determined." And well, that's great. So then just be grounded in that commitment. You know, be grounded in that perception of yourself. Now, if you have that $100,000 goal, and you've never earned $100,000 in 12 months, let alone in 6 months, you just really need to take a fact check against the actions you're going to take, the measurements you're going to measure yourself against, and that goal to ensure that that $100,000 is realistic. So the questions you're going to ask yourself is, what am I going to be doing in order to earn that $100,000? What do my products and services or business look like that's going to bring me that? Or what type of job am I obviously now going to be pursuing if right now I'm only earning $48,000 a year? Is my finding a $100,000 job realistic, relevant? A lot of times people will say— I'm just going to pull something out of the hat— I want to be an astronaut as a goal. And yet they've never passed a science class. Class, or they get— I don't know where I'm coming up with this— but maybe they get heights, their fear of heights. Well, is it relevant or realistic that that person is going to become an astronaut? All right, that's a little bit off course, but you got my point, I hope. All right, so that's R. And again, that's just to make sure you're grounded in the goal that it is that you're defining. Defining, and you're setting yourself up for success. Too often, too often, people I run into, they are automatically setting themselves up for failure because they've set their goal too high. It's not realistic. They're not committed, and they're not willing to do the work. So set yourself up for success and be sure that you do have it specific, measurable. You have the actions against it. And it is realistic or relevant. Now, T is time. This is where that statement about a dream is only a dream until you put a time limit against it, then it becomes a goal. That's merely saying the fact that until you set a deadline as to when you want to accomplish your goal, it's kind of out there in no man's land. It's just kind of floating around in the universe and you have no commitment toward achieving that goal. So you always want to set a time limit. Now again, this goes back to even the realistic or relevant, the R. And it goes back to your actions and your measures and your specifics. Because, you know, for instance, that $100,000 goal, is it realistic, measurable? It certainly would be. And specific enough and actionable enough that 6 months is achievable.? And if it is, great, set 6 months. If it's not, then look at your timeline, look at your commitment you're making, and adjust. All right, that 5 pounds, 6 months might be very realistic, very relevant, very actionable, very measurable and specific. So your time limit could be by December 31st, at the end of the year, I want to have lost 5 pounds. So again, with all of these things coming together as SMART, you then have your dreams interpreted into goals. And it's really that simple. Sounds a little bit complicated at first, but if you were to sit down right now, take that piece of paper, that journal, whatever, and just write out SMART, put those little specifics, measurable, actionable, relevant or realistic, time limit. And you were to then say, okay, these are my goals and I'm going to— You know, fill in the blank. You may take 15 minutes to half hour to do it initially, maybe an hour. Never found it to be true. You know, even new clients that have never set goals before. After a while, it becomes almost, you know, you could get it done in a minute or two. It's not that cumbersome. And actually, you'll even get to a point where that's just the way you start thinking about the goals. And the dreams that you have to ensure that you are moving towards something each and every day, and that gives you that purpose, that focus, that clarity, that determination, persistence. You will be a changed person if you either start defining your goals and taking actions on them, or you are— you— are committed to them and you start executing against them. You will be a changed person. I guarantee it. All right? Okay. So we're going to take a short break. When we come back, we're going to talk about transitioning from corporate to business ownership. We'll be right back.

You are listening to Shedding the Bitch Radio with Bernadette Boas. We are inspiring individuals around the globe to discover, confront, and shed their bitches of fear, insecurity, and negativity so they can create the riches in their career, business, and life they deserve. Be sure to check out Bernadette's book, Shedding the Corporate Bitch: Shifting from Bitch to Rich in Life and Business, available on Amazon and sheddingthebitch.com. We also want to thank our sponsors, TSR Consulting Consulting, who offers a broad range of tax services for small to corporate size clients. Go to TSRConsulting.com to learn more. And Parker House Virtual Services, who provides virtual assistance and social media support for small to medium size businesses. Email Deborah Parker at deborahparker78@gmail.com for more information. To become a sponsor or advertiser on our program, email us at mediarelations@sheddingthebitch.com. Shedding the Bitch Radio airs every Tuesday at noon Eastern time. Be sure to go to blogtalkradio.com/sheddingthebitchradio and follow the program for all of the updates and announcements of our guests and show topics. Now let's return to Bernadette and Shedding the Bitch Radio.

Welcome back everyone to Ask Bernadette on this Independence Day. Very exciting, very exciting, very exciting indeed. I don't know what you all are doing later on tonight. I'm not sure what I'm going to be doing. I have a couple of pups. You know Charlie, and I have a friend of his, Lucy, with me for a few days. And Charlie is okay when it comes to fireworks and all that kind of good stuff. Lucy, not so much. And where I am in Atlanta, which is kind of right on the cusp of Midtown and Downtown and what we call Buckhead, I'm going to have about 3 or 4 formal, big event-driven fireworks displays going on tonight, probably between 9:00 and midnight. And then, of course, we'll have our neighbors all around us lighting off their own. So it's going to create quite a little bit of chaos, I think. So I'm not quite sure what I'm going to be doing. I just hope all of you have a very safe and very fun-filled Fourth of July celebration. And for those of you outside the US, I know it was Canada Day over the weekend, so happy Canada Day. And anywhere else in the world, just have a fun, beautiful day. All right? I didn't want to forget to say that. All right. We are talking mid-year. We're talking doing your mid-year performance reviews. We're talking about goal setting. We got a question from Jack. In regards to the fact that he's transitioning from corporate to business ownership, relatively new, didn't really provide a lot of details about what his business is and whatnot. That wasn't the point. It was more so what should his focus be for the first 6 months. And I guess because he's doing it in this timeframe, although I think he's done it a few months ago, you know, it is going to take him to the end of the year.— so, looking at it from a 6-month perspective. So, what should his core focus and goals and objectives be as it pertains— well, more so his priorities. Where should his priorities lie? Not his goals, I'm sorry. His priorities lie in the next 6 months when it comes to new ownership. Now, he did mention transitioning from corporate to business ownership. And I definitely want to comment on that, because I know a number of you will talk to me about the fact that, you know, it's been— let's see, it will be 9 years at the end of this year that I've had my own business, and I certainly came from corporate. So, you know, I'll get asked a lot, so how have you adjusted? What were your biggest aha moments? What are any lessons learned or any tips that you might have? So, I actually enjoyed getting this question from Jack. And the first thing, I have to kind of ask him to, you know, appease me and just— I'm going to make sure that there are certain things he already has in place. I don't think it was— and for any of you who are considering it, this would be what I would tell someone. Not prior to going into business ownership.— and if we have time, I'm going to address the what if you're considering it, what should you be thinking about. But more so that you've made that jump, you made that transition, and even in those first 90 days, let alone the next 6 months after that, what should your priority or focus be. I want to make sure to address that. So, Jack, I'm going to expect that you're already into your own business. You have a business plan. You have your financials, which makes up your budget. It also makes up kind of your pro formas. It makes up your financial projections. It makes up your product and service breakdown of kind of your pricing and your costs. And then your projections of number of units you're going to sell or number of clients you're going to gain. But your whole financial performance is in place for a 12-month period. Your budget is in place. And then you're going to have your P&L, your profit and loss statements all ready to go. As each month you're ensuring that you're sitting down. If it's already defined, you're looking at it to make sure it's still applicable and relevant. If it's not, you're ensuring that those are— put into place, and then as you go through the month you are actually updating it with actuals. So at the end of the month you can hit a button, say you are using QuickBooks or whatnot, you can hit a button and look at your plan versus your actuals. And then you are looking at that very proactively, because if as you are into week 1 and you have a 4-week plan for the month, and you are not hitting your marks, you can make adjustments. But more so, you are also looking at it from 2 months out, 6 months out, 12 months to ensure that you're going to hit not only your monthly, but your quarterly, and your half a year, and then your full year plan. So, I'm going to assume you have all of those in place. And a couple of other things I should mention when it comes to the business plan. And I'm not talking, especially those of you from corporate, I'm not talking that hefty business plan that a lot of times corporate has. These can be one-page business plans. These can be two-, three-page business plans. Very simple, but yet very purposeful in how you should be operating your business again. And I don't care if you're working for yourself, by the way. All right? Even if you're a web designer, or say you're a social media person, or say you're a consultant, or you are building a printing company, or you're building a widget company, Regardless, everyone who claims to be a business owner should have a business plan in place. And talk about mid-year, they should be looking at that business plan, because it might state your mission and your vision, your target market, you know, what your products and services are, your marketing plan of how you're going to go about promoting and selling that. List of products and services. It might include your risks and issues that might come up that you have to be aware of. And then, of course, it would— after that, it would have your— kind of your operational plan, your breakdown. Simple. Sounds like a lot, but you can keep it very simple. At the same time, I don't care if it's complicated or simple, you need to have it. It's your roadmap. It's your guide. Is your comfort that you are working on the right things and you're going in the right direction against what it is that you're working to do. Now what I would tell you not to do, and I don't, and then I'm going to come back to a couple of other things, but I don't when it comes to all this planning. This is the biggest mistake I made when I left corporate. So I left corporate in, let's see, let's say January of 2008. Now I was very corporate, very formal, very polished, very process-driven, and I was working at the C-suite, meaning I was always working with the CEOs, CIOs, and I was one myself. So the first thing I went ahead and did is I formed my corporation, and I got my pretty little business card, and then I went and got all these beautiful, like $8,000 worth of beautiful glossy folders and some one-page brochures, and I spent a boatload of money on a website, you know, the Boas Group, that's what it was called originally. And not even 10 months later, all of that had to be scrapped because the Boas Group, how I initially went out in my business, from corporate was not at all congruent with who I was at that time. All right, because you know I've been shedding my bitch at that point. So I was a very different woman from January to November. Not as much as where I am now, but at the same time it was enough to where I just threw away about $12,000, $13,000. So what I would suggest you do is you spend the time and your money on your business plan. Again, you don't need to hire a really expensive Consultants, though, you can get very specific coaches and consultants who can help you with it and not spend the corporate-level type of money to have that type of plan, just so you can make sure that you're on the right track from the very beginning. All right? But don't over— over-invest, overspend in areas that could change very easily and most likely by the time you even finish out that first year. All right? Just a kind of a heads-up type of don't there. Now, going back to kind of what you should be doing, you know, in this case, Jack, for the next 6 months. So, assuming he has all those plans in place, this, again, is a perfect time for him to sit down, look back at his plan, even if he's been in business for a month, let alone for 2, 3, whatever. And see how things are flushing out. See if, you know, he's meeting what it was that he laid out for himself. And if not, where does he need to make changes? Where does he need to, you know, tweak? Where does he need to even start doing something? Like we talked about in an earlier question about even starting to have goals. I'm going to assume if he's starting his own business, he has some goals. If not, he needs to be calling me immediately. But after that, what I would do is, as a new business owner, is to come up with your networking prospecting calendar. All right? Not just your plan, because your plan should be within that business plan. You should have laid out kind of who your target market is and where you're going to go find them and how you're going to go find them and, you know, what means of communication. Is it in person? Is it, you know, in email? Are you going to be pushing out to them? Are you going to be pulling from them? All of that should be part of the plans we already discussed. What I mean here is, depending upon the type of business that you have, I found it very important after the first year, but I wish I'd known it in that first year, to really come up with a plan, a calendar. I used to print out kind of a monthly by day, Monday through Friday calendar, and I would lay out are kind of those social, communal networking, prospecting type of activities that I need to be doing in order to meet my goals and objectives around my revenue or sales projection. So, it could be that there are certain groups that you're going to go and network with. There are certain people, type of people that you want to put on your calendar in a given Monday through Friday. There's certain online, because a lot of networking now and prospecting is done online, even especially with LinkedIn, ProFinder, and some of those other things. So it's not as much, you know, in person anymore as much as it is kind of a combination of all the above. So you want to keep that in mind. Now, the reason why I found this so pertinent to do, and now I advise my clients to do it early, is I also found that I was spending about $475 a month on networking, even if it meant going and meeting someone for coffee and I'm spending $3 on a coffee, or I'm going to a networking event for $10 entrance fee or $25 entrance fee, and then I'm buying a drink, and I'm buying appetizers or whatever the case might be. And after about 6 months, I finally kind of put my head up and said, okay, how am I doing against this networking that I've been doing kind of loosely, I'll call it. And I found out that I was spending about $475 a month, and the conversion of that into really relevant, high-value connections was minimal, let alone the conversion to business. So part of your networking— and prospecting calendar needs to be kind of where you're going to spend your time, but at the same time, what are your goals? Every time I went to an event, I made sure I had a goal. If I was going to get on a phone call with someone, I had a goal. What did I want as a result of that phone call? When I went out to a networking event, I had a goal. How many people do I want to meet? What type of people do I want to meet? What is it I want to share with them, or, you know, achieve— I don't want to call it obtain, because I also learned very hard that networking is not about you pushing your business card and asking someone for business. That's not what networking is about. Networking is about building relationships, understanding kind of how you can help others, but how they can help you. It's about kind of building your Rolodex of peers and colleagues and partners and affiliates and contractors, you know, people that you can kind of pull and resource and leverage as you're going through your business week. So, you know, for me, I all of a sudden realized that I wasn't necessarily selling as hard, but I just felt like I wasn't also identifying the best people in all those situations I was putting myself in. I wasn't successful in finding those people and engaging with them. I would land up with a bunch of cards and a bunch of coffees with people who would never do business with me, who I can't help in any way, and they can't help me. There's a difference of opinions. I hear from a lot of people when it comes to that, some people are like, "Well, I'm an open networker, so it doesn't matter who I meet." Well, it does in your first year when you have minimal money to spend and you want to make sure that that spend of any kind is successful. Be picky in your early stages. Then as you're getting— the money's rolling in and you're able to lay around in money, then you can go and kind of be a lot more open to who it is you're spending your time with and where you're spending your money when it comes to networking and prospecting. All right? Just my viewpoint on that. And then the other thing I made note of is it's really important, just like I said from a networking perspective, but it's important to have a team around you. Now, immediately people will be like, well, I can't afford to— I can't afford to pay anybody to do anything for me. Well, I had a team my first— ouch— my first 3 years, 4 years, I had a team of 21 people, 21 people that we bartered with each other. We simply supported each other. We in some ways and in some form compensated each other. But you can get very creative when you're looking at it as what can you do to help someone else? And when you need the help, they're willing to help you in exchange. And so I had, and it just so happened I also had a brand, Shedding the Bench, and some other things I was doing that a lot of people wanted to be part of, which was a beautiful thing. At the same time though, it did kind of transition over time to where, you know, I want to leverage you when I really need you. So right now, you know, I'm going to be working on 1, 2, 3, and 4, but I might come back to you, and then you feel free to come to me, and, you know, if you need help from me, I'm more than willing to provide you with expectation and boundary support in exchange. So you can get very creative, but a team also means that you have kind of advisors, people you can fall back on. If you're not going to have a— an advisory board within your business. And again, I don't care if it's one person. I had an advisory board as well for many years. Or if you are kind of an enterprise, an advisory board or just a team of people that you can really rely on. They can call you out on what you're doing right or wrong or indifferent. They can be there for support. They can be there for ideas and suggestions. They can be there for connections and recommendations and referrals. But build that team. You cannot do it alone. And especially you solopreneurs, you know how hard it is. Even if you have to because, one, you feel your business doesn't need a team and/or you don't feel you have the budget to bring somebody on, you always just at least you at least want to have a team of people that you can kind of lay back and rely on. All right. Let me see if I had any— oh, and of course, I did have a note that if you were to find an accountability coach, a business coach, a life coach, that you needed to kind of define for yourself what you would be looking for in that type of person. And again, there's professional ones you could pay, and then there's others that are in your network that you might just build an accountability partnership and exchange, meaning, you know, they're accountable to you, you're accountable to them, and you work on a weekly or biweekly or bimonthly basis on what it is that you're— you set goals for, and they help you to kind of stay on track and be accountable. I started with my coach— I mention her a lot— Joan, back in 2009, and it was a much more formal coaching relationship that I had with her. And then over the years since 2009, it's kind of become more kind of mutual in that she helps me kind of stay off the cliff. But she helps me with my goals and my sanity checks. And she helps me with just my plans and punches holes in them. At the same time, then I turn to her and help her with her— she's a writer, a novelist. So I help her with a number of more tactical support in regards to PRing or social media or images. For her writing work. So, and we've been doing that since 2009. However you might, you know, kind of create that type of relationship or arrangement, having a coach in your corner that you can rely on on a weekly basis or every couple weeks or once a month, it— I mean, I'll tell you what, I look forward to my Mondays at 2 with Joan because I know it's going to help me get focused. It's going to kind of pull me off the cliff if I feel like I'm standing on the edge, or it's just simply going to provide me a lot of clarity and focus as to what it is I'm doing and if I'm doing the right thing, that kind of thing. Make sense? All right. Well, I thought we were going to have some time for another question, but I'm not sure if we're going to. And let's see. Let's see. Oh, well, I do want to hit on this. So I'm going to make this quick in the last roughly 5 minutes that we have. So we're not even going to take a break. Deborah will hang out there and continue tweeting with you. But because she brought this up, and I love this subject, and I've been talking about time blocking for a long time. So how can you— so I'll turn it into a question. How can you ensure that you are working on the right things, you are spending the right amount of time on it, and that you are able to get done all those goals, and measures, and actions that you kind of mapped out for your goals. So time blocking in my world, this is the way I've always viewed it, and I coach on it, and I live by it. I look at my calendar. I pull it up. Now my calendar is 7 days a week. Yours is, hopefully, is 5. 7 is fine for me right now, so don't think, "Oh my gosh, she's a workaholic." It's more so because on the weekends I have my writing, and during the week I have anything that's coaching and speaking and all of my client work. So time blocking, Monday through Friday, make your hours. Say I'm working from 9 to 5. Now what I tend to do is I'll look at my goals. And I will assign right up front on Sunday nights, I will assign blocks of time that I'm going to be working on certain things. Now some might be set. So for instance, between 9:00 and 10:00 every day on my calendar, I'm doing something when it comes to social media. Deborah is my guru and my master of all things, but there are some things I need to be doing. And that includes writing as well within that hour. So from 9:00 to 10:00 AM, that's what I'm doing. Every day it's blocked out. I even have in there times for my radio show, and I'll have times that I want to go to the dog park, or I need a break. There's times for the gym because there's a cycling class that I might finally get my butt to at noon on certain days. So you kind of put all those things that are standard. And then you're looking at your goals and you're saying, okay, so I need to work on my website. Now, one big thing that I am huge and very strict when it comes to my clients, and therefore you, about, and that is if you are working in your own business and therefore you're only going to eat what you kill, so to speak, you have to be out there selling, prospecting, that kind of thing, 9 to 5 should be revenue-generating activities only. Now, how do I justify the marketing? In my world, being that I'm building up this brand for not only my coaching work, my speaking, my books, my screenplay, those all require marketing and branding work, which will convert to money, which will convert to income. So those are justifiable. All right? The gym is not, but that's sanity. Now, when I'm not making my objectives and I'm not hitting my marks, any of those things, even the gym, the dog park, comes out of 9 to 5 and goes into the evenings, mornings, or weekends. 9 to 5 is for anything revenue generating, and you block time. You block time for prospecting. You block time for making calls. You block time for going to networking events. You block time for your client work. Work or for those product or service sales times that you need. But your 9 to 5 should always be revenue generating. Now, you may— and we're going to be running out of time shortly— so you may have the type of project or product or service that isn't 9 to 5. So you just adjust accordingly to whenever your client is available. Or your customer is available, that's where you make your revenue-generating time. So you just block out your calendar in advance, hold those things as appointments like you would for the doctors, or you would for your nails, or for your hair, and stay committed to them. But it also will allow you to get organized and focused. Now, what I also advocate people to do really quickly is I also ask them to go back at the end of the week and look to see if they met that time block plan. And if not, then what distracted you? So you get an idea of kind of where your head's at against your plan, and then you adjust from there. All right. Ha! All right. Well, we only have a few seconds left. So thank you for another great episode of Ask Bernadette, and I'll look forward to talking to you right here next Tuesday at noon Eastern time. Happy Fourth of July, everybody. Deborah, have a blast of a time with the kids. Enjoy yourself. Be safe. Be happy. And I'll talk to you next Tuesday, everybody. Thanks. Thank you for listening to Shedding the Bitch Radio with Bernadette Boas. Join Bernadette every Tuesday at noon Eastern as she helps you shift your bitches to riches. And the dialogue is always going on at sheddingthebitch.com.

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