#134 - Plan Your Epic Year - Part #1 - The REAL numbers you need (Encore Episode)

This is the Doing It Online podcast with your Host, serial entrepreneur, 6 and 7 figure funnel strategist and super nerd, Kate McKibben, where every week we're here talking nerdy and sharing the things that actually work to help you do what you do online. But better, easier, and with a ton more profit too. Are you ready? Let's do it.

Hello. Hello everybody and welcome to episode 25 of the Doing It Online podcast. I'm your host, Kate McKibben from HelloFunnels Co and I am so excited to be sharing not just this episode, but the next four episodes with you because this is a special little five part miniseries where I'm going to be helping you to plan out your most epic year yet. So this is actually a special planning process that I use in my own business and I've used over the last several years and it's one that I found super useful and super empowering. I know there's lots of different ways to do planning, but this is one that has really worked for me and it's one that I actually take my amazing Ecourse Empire clients through, using it to map out their goals and most importantly, to turn those goals into actionable and achievable plan plans. Now, we normally do this together in a way more detailed way than I'm going to be able to share in a mini podcast episode. We do it twice yearly in our virtual CEO days. But I'll be working you through the main five steps that you need to cover in these next five little episodes so you can get yourself ready and excited and feeling super confident for the year ahead. Now, like I said, I know that everyone has their own way of planning and goal setting, but just be warned, I'm a facts and figures girl and that is how I do my planning as well. So I like to set my goals and intentions and everything based on real numbers first, not just those sounds nice plucked out of the air round numbers that often get batted around, particularly when it comes to setting like big sales goals or targets or something that's supposed to be really motivating. I think it's so much more powerful if that number actually both mean something and you have a clear path for how you're going to actually achieve it. So for example, you know, a really common goal that you hear people say is that they want to make, you know, a hundred thousand dollars a year, or maybe it's $100,000 a month. Whatever it is, it's always that nice round number. But what does that even mean? And More importantly, what does that mean to you? Because often, you know, the reason we set these big goals is like we want to, you know, hit this income goal because of what it's going to mean, how that's going to impact our lives on the other side of it, you know, we don't just work for work's sake. Usually, you know, we set up our business, we build our businesses, we set these big goals because we want to be able to do certain things in our lives, have certain things, have certain freedoms, be able to experience certain things, you know, leave certain places, have X amount of free time, all of that stuff. And there is actually a specific dollar amount. If you sat down and calculated that all out, that, that dream life of yours, that that costs. And that is what we're going to help you figure out today. And that is what we're going to use to help set those goals so that this number that you select has meaning behind it. It's like when I hit this number, I can do this, I can do this, I can do this, I can do all of these things that I want to do versus oh yeah, that number sounds nice. Can you just see how much, how different that is and how much more powerful that is? And we're not saying that necessarily that this dream life number is going to be your goal for this next 12 months. It might be two years from now, three years, five years, whatever it is, but knowing what that is and walking your way towards it, so much more impactful. That's what I find anyway. So to help you do this, because there's going to be some calculating involved, I've actually created a really amazing, or I think so anyway, plan a spreadsheet that you can go and download right now totally for free. So this is normally something that we share with our equals Empire members, as I said. But I know not everyone is a crazy spreadsheet freak like me. And it just makes it so much easier to map everything out and to see it all really clearly and see how it all comes together. When you have this spreadsheet in front of you, it's like popping the numbers rather than having to try and, you know, grab a calculator and get all nerdy that way. So if you want to grab this spreadsheet, it's going to make this next process, as I said, much, much easier, much, much clearer and much, much more powerful. Go to hello freebies. Co. You'll be able to grab the link there. Feel free to hit pause, go grab it and you know, I'll Wait, when I'm back. Okay, you got that? You ready to go? Awesome. So let's kick it all off with step number one, which is not very sexy, but it's oh so important, is I need you to set your budget. Yep, I can hear you all yawning from here. Right. And this isn't just any budget. This is actually a specific three part process. It makes setting your goals and your plans so much easier and clearer when you follow this process and you do it in this specific order as well. So the first part of your budget, the first number you need to work out and you'll see in that spreadsheet, we've got this all broken out for you. But the first part is what I call your personal baseline budget. So this is where you need to figure out what you actually need to take home from your business to cover all of your current life expenses, all of the current spending that you like to do and want to be able to do, and your plans for the next 12 months. Like if you're planning on, you know, a family holiday or if you're planning on like I am planning on getting married or something like that. Like, you know, sit down, map out what you know, what are all those expenses, what are the rough costs, and figure out yourself a personal baseline budget for the year which will then break down into, you know, a take home salary for you for each month as well. Now obviously business goes up and down and you know, not everyone is a position to be able to take that full salary each month. Some you might take a little less, some you might take a little more, but it's still just good to have that number from the start. So that's the first thing you're going to calculate is your personal baseline budget. Once you've got that, the second thing you need to figure out is your business baseline. So this includes your personal baseline as a salary line item on this part of the spreadsheet. So you get that should just pop that in there for you right away. And then you need to map out all of your business expenses. So this includes tech costs, team costs, any events that you're wanting to attend this year, think about, you know, basically it's what your business is. Right now we've got the, in the third part, we'll talk about things you're wanting to do extra or expansions you're wanting to make, or new expenses you're wanting to add. But for this baseline, we just want to make sure that if your business was to stay exactly where it is, keep Running how it is. You know, this is why we call it your baseline. What does that cost? Now I did forget to say that with your personal baseline budget and it's in the spreadsheet anyway. But just for anyone who isn't looking at the spreadsheet right now, don't forget to add tax on top of that. A lot of people do get, you know, a bit of a nasty surprise come the end of the year if they haven't been calculating for paying salary, tax or wages or whatever. Every country calls it different things. We call it PAYG over here in Australia. So make sure you know roughly what that is going to be. I can't give, you know, I'm not a financial advisor. Every country is different. Hit up Google, you'll be able to find some great calculators to help you figure that out. But just make sure that once you've figured out what it is you need to take home to cover all the spending that you need to do, that you add on top of that the right amount of tax so that you're budgeting for that as well.

Hey, it's Kate here and I've got a bit of a super nerdy present just for you. It's my six figure course calculator. Inside it shows you exactly the impact that growing your list, creating a course and going evergreen can have on your business and exactly how quickly you'll be able to do it too. It's pretty powerful and totally free. Just head to hellofunnels.com calculator and grab it now totally for free. And then jump in and start mapping out your own epic six figure course empire today.

So then you've got your baseline budget, as I said, which includes that, you know, that personal budget as a salary line item for you. And this, this business baseline, this actual, this number is usually that first goal when you're in our ecos empire program that we set you. It's that first goal plus about 20% as a buffer because every month is obviously different that we normally set you for your funnel as a goal for your funnel. So that's how we like to set up our funnels. And one of the reasons why, you know, I think funnels are so powerful is when you have something set up that's reliable and systemized and regular running around in the background that is covering all of these, you know, your, you know, your lifestyle expenses, your business expenses, covering all of that, plus a little bit just for safety, then you know that is, that's business goals right there. That when you Hit that moment, everything just feels so, so different. But anyway, I'm not here to talk about funnels, but it was just more caveat so that you know how my brain works. Anyway, so then we move on to the fun part. So you've got those two baselines now. You know, personally, I believe you never want to be aiming for the bottom or for the minimum of what you want to earn. It's really more just so you have the knowledge. But now it's time to work out what your dream budget is and in your goal for this year is going to be somewhere in between. So I want you to think about the things that you want to achieve in the next few years. You know, is it for your business, is it bringing on more team and what does that cost? Is it moving to a bigger house? How much extra is that going to be a month? Is it planning a big family holiday every year or maybe you want to upgrade your car or you want to update, redo your website or something like that. Like, think about what are the, you know, the big expenses that you want to be able to spend every year. Don't forget savings as well. I think that's really important to plan for. Like what is how much savings would you like to be setting aside and whether you're using those savings for investments or whatever. But you know, how much sort of extra are you going to be wanting to take out on top of what you're already drawing? Do you know this? Obviously let your imagination run wild, but sit there, map it all out. You might have to hit up Google to figure out what some of these numbers are, but this is actually going to give you the cost of what it would cost for you to have and be able, well, how much basically your business needs to bring in for you to have all the things that you want, all those things that you're, you're dreaming of. And quite often people are surprised that it's not as much as they thought it would be. That, you know, by the time you add in a couple of extra thousand dollars a month, maybe for the big fancy house and maybe $20,000 a year for the fancy holiday, once you actually sit down and list all those things out, maybe you're not needing to make, you know, $100,000 or $1 million or whatever that big number is that you thought it needed to be now you should actually have a far more realistic number. Again, don't forget to add tax. Always, always. Anytime you're taking money out of your business or there's profit or Whatever you need to add tax and you need to plan for tax. So make sure that that's, that's added on top. But now you have that number. You know, how does that feel? Like you know, doesn't that feel so much more powerful? And as I said, it might not be the number that you're aiming for this year. Maybe it's not even one you're aiming for in the next 10 years. But you now have a goal post. And now that you have this dream life budget, tomorrow I'm going to show you how to use it to set your goals and sales targets for the next year and then how to reverse engineer that number so you can start turning those goals into actual step by step action plans. So that is it for today. Today guys, go nerd out on those numbers, get your spreadsheet on and then make sure you are back here same time tomorrow if you haven't already hit subscribe so you don't miss a thing and we will dive into part two of the planning out your most epic year yet special. So until then guys, keep doing what you do, lovelies and I will see you then.

Thanks so much for listening to the Doing it online podcast. If you love this episode, don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review. And if you're ready to take your online course sales to the next level with your own six or seven figure funnel, let Kate show you exactly how today at stealmyfunnel.

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