Enhancing Teams and Expanding Business Horizons

What does that look like from a revenue standpoint? Gross profit standpoint? What does it look like from a bottom line income? What are you going to do with that income? What sort of investments are you going to make? We need to be looking at these goals because unless we know exactly what we're trying to accomplish, we'll just essentially be running a business aimlessly, just trying to find success, whatever that looks like. Let's define it, let's be clear so that we can create the steps and the progress and the reporting that we need. Need to make sure that we stay on track to achieving those goals throughout the year. Good day and welcome to the Wealthy Entrepreneur Podcast. I am your host, Bob Govreau. It is a delight to have you join me today because we want to talk about something that I think is really important and this really comes down to strategic planning and what businesses need to be thinking about as we exit one year and we enter into another. And right now, the time of this recording, we're at the end of 2024, heading into 2025, and I want to share with you guys some of the insights of what we're doing. We're an eight figure business. We've had a lot of success over the last, you know, 16 years that we've been in business, but it wasn't an overnight success. I gotta tell you, there's been a lot of grind, as you guys can appreciate, but what it comes down to is always having an effective plan and a goal. Before I dive any deeper into what it is I want to share with you today, I just want to remind you that this is the Wealthy Entrepreneur podcast. This is the place where we dissect the elements that contribute to entrepreneurial success, from mindset and leadership to profits and revenue. Now we're going to talk in this episode around the five top strategic planning initiatives that entrepreneurs need to make heading into a new year. Now, again, I can tell you this, this is something that, that we've done, we continue to do. I've already completed a good portion of my planning for 2025, one that we're going to share as an entire organization. Cool thing that we do every year. You know, we've got 110 people at the time of this recording and we fly everybody in. So We've got about 55 people in Peterborough area, got a bunch in Ottawa, a bunch in Calgary, Winnipeg, Vancouver, St. John's Toronto. So there's a bunch of people, we bring them all in and what we do is we share what's going on in 2025 or our plan for the next year. So the very first area, what I want to talk about today, or the very first strategic planning initiative that we need to be thinking about is what our vision and our goals. Now, vision, if we remember correctly, any of the books that we've read or anything that we've reviewed or any of the videos, a vision is really something that we set that aligns people with a purpose. It aligns people on a mission to accomplish something that they feel that they believe in. It's really pulling together people for a greater good or for a cause that's meaningful for them. And so our vision, you know, does involve some business objectives, but it does typically involve some sort of financial outcome as well. Now, our vision is to empower all the world's entrepreneurs with the confidence of good financial information to make informed decisions and to change the world. Because entrepreneurs, they are the greatest group that is able to innovate, make positive change in the world of any other group. Entrepreneurship and small business owners have the greatest impact on making change in the world. And so we're here to empower all entrepreneurs with this good information. Now, that's a vision, right? A vision is something that's not finite, it's infinite. And, you know, it's something that we may never be able to accomplish, right? I'll. I'll maybe never be able to touch every entrepreneur in the world because, you know, some of them are offline. Some of them are in different areas, different languages. But that's our vision, is to empower all entrepreneurs. That's how big it is, that's how grand it is. It has to be something that people can get behind, and it has to be something that we can continue to strive towards. It's not like a goal. The vision is essentially meant to be everlasting. And yes, we may never be able to accomplish the true vision of empowering all entrepreneurs, but we'll damn well die trying because it means that much to us. So let's talk about goals, right? So, you know, revisit your vision. Make sure that your vision is still aligned with who you are as an organization. What you want to accomplish, go world changes. Maybe the vision needs to change as well. Our goals are really something that are really the support for achieving some of our vision. So some of our goals, for example, we have them outlined for 2025, and at this point, our goals, they start to outline some of our revenues, some of our profit expectations, which then drive down to. These are the goals of every individual. Here's the expectations of every individual on the team, weekly, monthly, annually, that really if every individual takes care of what it is that they're supposed to be doing, that the organization will achieve its goals. And if the organization is achieving its goals, that's where all the individuals will continue to succeed and that's where the vision will be realized. So again, we've got a really great large scale goal for 2025, and we're going to share that with our team when we bring everybody together in December. So I can't share it with you right now, but you should be thinking about it too. You know, what does that look like from a revenue standpoint, gross profit standpoint? What does it look like from a bottom line income? What are you going to do with that income? What sort of investments are you going to make? We need to be looking at these goals because unless we know exactly what we're trying to accomplish, we'll just essentially be running a business aimlessly, just trying to find success, whatever that looks like. Let's define it, let's be clear so that we can create the steps and the, the progress and the reporting that we need to make sure that we stay on achieving those goals throughout the year. So Strategic planning initiative, number one, revisit your vision and your goals. Number two, strengthen your financial resilience. So as we know, 2024, coming off of the back end of COVID overspending of government, inflation went high. Now they're trying and interest rates went high. Now they're trying to cool down inflation, trying not to create a recession, but now interest rates are starting to go down. So financial resilience, really, we're looking at an economic situation of chaos that's been the last few years. And as the tail end of 2024 comes to a close, we're starting to see a little bit of a rebound in opportunity in reduction in interest rates. And we're starting to see some of the buyers come back to the market and start to spend a little bit more money. So what that means is opportunity is on the horizon, but now is a really good time to strengthen your financial resilience. So what does that mean? So, well, now's the time to make sure that we have access to adequate cash resources, lines of credit, refinancing, whatever we need, because opportunities will be presenting themselves and we want to be ready. So we want to make sure that we have all of the available resources we need so we can focus on strategy, hitting our goals, implementing, holding people accountable, making sure that we're achieving our outcomes. Because if we don't have that financial resource, all we're going to be focusing on is cash management and the movement back and forth between cash in one bank and cash in another. So let's look at our safety net, make sure that we maximize it. Interest rates are going down. Let's make sure that we're looking at refinancing opportunities, lowering some of those interest rates, alleviating some capital, giving ourselves a little bit of relief at this point. So let's focus on that as we come to a close in the end of this year, and this is something we should be looking at every single year, is how do we strengthen our working capital resources, how do we strengthen our financial resilience so that we can focus on the important things, not where the cash is coming from. Although making sure that we're profitable and that our cash flow management are on an ongoing basis needs to be there as well. We can look at one time sort of alleviation and let's give ourselves a little bit of a break, right? So that's number two, financial resilience, number three. So this needs to be part of our strategic plan. And I got to tell you, you know, if you're not talking AI and technology and how we can use technology to make 2025 better or our next year better needs to be a discussion point for every single year. So what we need to do is we need to be thinking about our technology and our digital transformation platforms, our AI, what sort of integrations can we make? How can we use this technology to make things more efficient, to make our team more productive, and to make sure that we're taking advantage of all the digital resources that we're able to as well. And this is going to be important, right? So we've got our goals. As part of our goals, we have to look at technology and say, what does technology, how did that, how does technology play a role in achieving those goals? So continuously looking at tech, AI, what it looks like for our industry, what it looks like for our space, but also how we can incorporate it into our business to continue to achieve our ultimate vision. So that's number three, leverage technology and digital transformation. Number four, enhance talent and team development. Now I would also say making sure that we have adequate resources as we're planning our goals out, we need to be looking at part of our plan for the next year too. If we're looking at growing, which we are, right. If we're looking at growing revenue, that usually adds new jobs, new opportunities. What does that look like, how do we play out the map so that we can see where progress goes for us? We're likely looking at having to add a decent amount of new individuals and human capital for 2025. So what this looks like, right? So how, how many people, what's our HR recruitment process? Can we be proactive with it? So not only just that, but how do we then focus on our existing team, make sure that they have all the adequate resources and everything they need. And ultimately, you know, when we're doing our planning and we're working with our team to come up with our goals, we want to make sure that they feel supported, right? If team members don't feel supported, like you're not investing in them, why are they going to invest in you? And so we want to make sure that they have adequate resources and that they have adequate training and support in order to achieve their goals and maybe even go beyond that. Right. And to continue to develop as a leader in the organization and to continue to have opportunities to advance as well. So we want to continue to prioritize attracting top talent, but we also want to prioritize retaining top talent, making sure that they feel like their vision of the organization is something they're aligned with and that they have the skills and abilities necessary to accomplish what it is that's outlined for them as part of their ongoing role within the organization. So let's continue to enhance that talent, let's find it, let's retain it, let's have a focus on this. And never really has there been more of a focus on people than there has been the last few years. And if you are a leader in your organization and you're wanting to build out a business that's going to be successful, you need to focus on your people and how you prioritize them going forward. And then lastly, the number five here is to expand our market presence and customer focus. So two maybe different sort of areas in number five. But let's talk about expand market presence. So now with some of the people coming through, I won't say a recession, but an economic downturn that's happened in 2024. So a lot of businesses were struggling, resources are limited, Right. So we've already talked about financial resilience and how to get get access to, to new resources. But now's the time where the market has sort of shrunk. And if you are willing and able, now's the time to go out and invest in capturing some more market share. So now's a really good time to get a Good marketing platform in place to show what services and products that you have that you guys can deliver and get that into the market. Let's capture more market share as the market and the economy continues to grow, because there's going to be some businesses that are going to exit, they're going to close their doors. And us, you know, the entrepreneurial group that's here, we want to invest in this and we want to capture that market share. So likely, you know, when these economic downturns happen, there really is more opportunity in these moments than there is at any other time. So let's capture it. Let's take advantage of the fact that the market is on the upward swing, and let's make sure that we're focusing on getting our presence out there more and focus specifically not on brand recognition, but on capturing more leads in the market. Right. So brand recognition really focuses on making the company look good. You know, goal, awards, recognitions, they have their place for sure. But what you really want to focus on is capturing more of the leads, more of the market, the individuals that are in there than you have in the past. And this is where that opportunity and that time is going to provide for us. So that's expanding our market presence. And then let's finish this off with customer focus. So, as we all know, individuals have changed. My individuals have changed since 2020, and some for the good and some for the not so good and 2020 and the COVID pandemic certainly created a lot of people to rethink and reprioritize what's going on in their lives, what's important to them. And some of that has taken away from relationships with vendors, relationships with employers, friendships, all of that stuff. So people have changed. And if we haven't changed our approach to our customers in the last few years and also with our employees. But, you know, I'm focusing on customers here. If we haven't changed our approach to our customers, we need to. And really a customer focus, because people need more attention and touch points now than they ever did. And, you know, one of the things that we have to deal with is that everybody has a cell phone. So when they're messaging you, they know that you're receiving that message in your pocket. You know, there's expectations are higher than they've ever been from a customer standpoint on response time, which is a challenge. So we need to proactively look at how we can provide solutions to that and make sure that people are feeling like they're cared for and that they're Being communicated with effectively because I can tell you myself, you know, over the last few years, that has been a challenge, that our communication hasn't slowed down, but the expectations have gone up, which is people have felt that and say, bob, we expect more from you guys and we continue to work through that to make that better. If you're an organization that hasn't changed your approach to this, you need to be thinking about it because clients need a little bit more handholding, a little bit more support. They need to know that you care a little bit more about them. That's more important than it was 10 years ago, which was like, just give me the outcome that I paid for. Now they want to know that you're thinking of them, you're caring for them, that you're proactive and that you're constantly, you know, responding to them and their needs. So we need to continue to focus on that. You know, one of the things that we've done is we've, especially with new clients that are coming in, we're managing expectations better than we ever have. We have a formalized onboarding process which has a six week check in period. Make sure that we're on the same page because so easily we can get misaligned in having online or distant communication. So that's really important as well. So here again, we're looking at finishing up 2024. We're looking at getting ready for 2025. The five things that we need to be focusing on is revisiting our vision and our goals, setting our goals so that we can hit the ground running in 2025. Strengthening our financial resilience, making sure that we have adequate resources available to take advantage of opportunities is going to be very, very important. Leveraging technology, digital transformation, artificial intelligence, we have to be looking at technology to say, how can we use these resources to make our jobs, our outputs, our business more efficient, more effective, better deliverables so that we're not getting lost with our competition. A good friend of mine said, it's not AI that's going to replace your business. It's the individual businesses that are using AI as part of their business that are going to replace your business. We can't ignore it. We have to incorporate this and we have to stay up to trends that are happening in the marketplace. We have to focus on enhancing our talent acquisition. So focusing on continuing to get and attract the best talent, but also on the retention side. So let's continue to focus on retaining training, empowering and making sure that we're supporting our team members to accomplish their goals along the way. And then lastly, let's expand our market presence. There's more opportunity that exists now more than ever because of the economic downturn. It's up on an upswing right now. Let's be there when the market is responding and looking for us to be there. Let's capture market share. At the same time, let's continue to focus on what our client journey looks like so that we can maximize our client experience, enhance our client satisfaction, and continue to ensure that our retention levels stay as high as possible so that when we're growing that the organization is not losing out on the other end. Guys, this is five things that if you focus on these five things as part of your goals, you're going to be set up for success in the next year. And that's what we want for you, right? We want you to have the right information so that you can go out in your business and make a positive impact with your team, with your community, with your customers, your clients, whoever you're delivering for. Because honestly, you guys are making such a huge impact. Let's just see if we focus on some planning, some specific goals, create the roadmap in order to get there and watch you have your best year ever. Because I'm sure and I'm confident that, hey, if we've got to the last few years and we're primed and ready to roll for 2025, this is going to be a fantastic year of opportunity for everybody. If this has been valuable to you, please give me a like give a Follow make sure that anyone who is wanting to hear next week's episode is going to get the notification on whatever platform, Spotify, Apple, whichever it is. Make sure that you're following YouTube, however it is. Give us a little Follow Leave a comment in there. If you've got any comments or feedback or you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment in there. We would be to respond to you and make sure that you get the insights that you need. If you're looking to be part of a more formalized program to say this is great, we really want to understand how to build this out. Check out the Wealthy Entrepreneur Co wealthyentrepreneur Co. That is our website with our coaching platform that will help you build some of these things out. Right? These are important and if you need a little bit more structure than just hearing five insights, check that out. We'd be happy to work with you and set you up for 2025 to be the best year yet. If this is valuable and you know somebody who you feel would benefit from hearing this information. To talk about how to set up 2025 for the best year yet, please share this information. Once again, we are on a mission to empower all entrepreneurs to have the right information, to be empowered with the confidence to make informed decisions and change the world. If you share this out, you're contributing to that mission, that vision, and overall, we're changing the world together. This has been the Wealthy Entrepreneur Podcast. My name is Bob Goverow. It has been a pleasure to have you here. I can't wait to see you next time. Make sure you give us a follow and we'll see you next week.