062. Goals Part 2 - What I'm Doing Different This Year That's Changing Everything

Welcome. I am marketing expert and business coach Melissa Kellogg Lueck. And this is the Doing Business Like a Woman podcast, where we are exploring and teaching you how women are reinventing the way business is done and money is made to help you create greater impact and financial freedom one business at a time. Hello. Hello. How's it going? I hope you're having a great day. Start to your day, start to your week. Wherever this podcast finds you. Maybe you're out for a walk, driving in the car. Hello. Hello. I'm so glad that you've joined me here today for our goal miniseries number two. So this is episode number two, or part two. I should say it's episode number 60 something, but. But this is part two of our little mini series about goal setting. And like I said in the last episode, I really wanted to start out the year this way because I know we all are thinking about our goals and yes, maybe we should have been thinking and planning them back in the Q4 of last year, but yada yada, here we are in January and we're thinking about the goals and it's totally fine, right? I think anytime that we are intentionally creating plans and creating intention in our business, that it will serve us. So I don't care if you created your goals last October when you did your Christmas shopping, you early bird, you, or if you're like me and you create the goals later in the year or at the beginning of this year, it's all good, right? So let's just love ourselves where we're at and continue talking about goals. So last time, in the last episode, we talked about what is a goal and how I like to define it as really an aim, like what we're aiming at and gives us direction. Because it's actually, I, I feel like I said this last time so much harder on ourselves to not know where we're going, not know what we're aiming for. And so it creates some direction in our business, in our lives, and we can set goals that lift us higher. And that's what we talked about last time. So if you did not listen to that episode, I do recommend hitting pause here, going back and listening to episode 61, which is our goals part one, and we talk all about the purpose of setting goals because I think about it quite a bit differently than many people do, many business coaches, many goal setting type people. I think about it different and I like to think about how we can create goals that call us higher, that create growth rather than shut us down and feel awful, right? So if you're setting goals in a way that feels awful. I invite you to change because why? Why do we have to feel awful? Right? We can feel challenged and excited and determined and. And just enjoy the thrill of the. The chase of a goal, but we also want it to be something that encourages our growth. So it's not just all about getting to the goal. It's about all the growth that we're going to experience along the way. And I really experienced this so intimately last year in 2022. I really got it right. Like, I really got the enjoyment and the beauty and the just pure love of the journey. And I stopped thinking about, like, okay, when I get there, when I achieve this or that, then I'll be happy and decided, I'm going to be happy now. I want to enjoy my business now. And this is like the mindset hack for stopping the hustle mentality is like, I want to create a business. I want to have a business right now that I enjoy. Because if I'm not. If it's a slog and a hustle fest and I'm worn out and exhausted and burnt out now, then how will I even know that I've gotten to there, like, wherever there is, right? And so I decided I'm gonna have a business and run a business that I love right now, whether I've gotten to the revenue goal I want or not. And then that when I do that, it's going to be make it much more likely that I'm going to get to the revenue goal. Because if we are just hustling and hustling and hustling all the time, it's we. I feel like we start to shut down and our minds almost push away the adding more clients or adding more offers or doing the things that we really need to be doing to bring in more revenue and more clients. Because we're already so tapped out, we think we need more of that in order to create more money, when that's not necessarily the case. What we do need to do is create more value. And when we are thoughtful and deliberate and intentional about creating value, the money is generated and created so much easier. Right? So I'm kind of going on a off on a tangent here, but we really are. I want to encourage you to just consider how you can explore your capacity to create value for your clients, for your customers, and give them what they want, how they want it in a way that is delightful and beneficial to them. And working on those things rather than more hustling is going to create so much more Money and so much more satisfaction, I think for you and your clients in your business. Right. So that's just kind of a little behind the scenes insight into what I've, what I experienced this past year. And it really made getting to that 100k so possible and so much easier than I thought it would be. I mean, don't get me wrong, it was a lot of work, right, but, but it's totally doable that way. So. And if you think about people that are making like I think about this a lot because my, my big goal, right, is to get to a million dollars a year. And if you think about like people that are making a million dollars right now, they have the same number of hours in the day. And I personally know quite a few of them that I would consider my peers as coaches that also have lives similar to mine. Right, right. Where they're moms, they are a spouse, they're not like a 26 year old kid working in their parents basement. Like they have lives and responsibilities and relationships that they also care for. And so how is it that someone like that can make a million dollars in the same amount of time that I make a hundred grand? Right. How is that possible? And really how it's possible is value and increasing our capacity to provide value. And that's how we get there. So it's kind of a little brain teaser of how we particularly each in our individual businesses get there. But that is the blueprint, right, of or the strategy, basically the mindset of getting there. So that's what I'm challenging my mind with this year is like thinking about where my capacity is to create and add more value and serve each one of you in a deeper way and a deeper level to help you get what you most want. And that will help me grow my business at the same time. Right. So it works great. Okay, so back to goals, part two. What I really wanted to talk about today is last time we talked about the having the big goal and then having that simple plan of how that comes together, like as far as the capacity or the room that you have in your business for clients based on the offers that you have, like how many clients you would need to have to get to that number that you want right. Within the current business structure that you have, or maybe you're planning to change your business structure or raise your prices or hire help or however that works, but just having that simple plan of number of clients and the revenue that they bring in to get you to that big goal number, that revenue number. Right. So Once we have that, then what we're going to talk about today is those next steps. And so the next steps from there is I like to have that one big goal and then I like to have three or four supporting goals that are going to help me get to that number. Right? So for example, I'm just going to use myself as an example here. So my goal, my revenue goal for this year is 300k, right? So then I have goals in terms of. And I just split this up into my own categories. You could do yours in your categories that. Because we want to ask ourselves, where do I want to see my growth or where do I need to see my growth to get to that number? Right. So for me, I have a goal, a marketing goal where I want to grow my list that's going to help me support my big goal. I have a sales goal where I want to improve my consults and like my percentage of consults that I that become clients, my closing percentage. I have a goal around my finances with being profitable. And then I have a goal from my operations of really wanting to manage my time better and create a plan for my time and follow that plan. And that's one of my goals too, right. So I have these four supporting goals that all are going to help me get to that 300k. Right? And so then what we want to do is we want to set quarterly benchmarks. So for example, with my marketing goal, I want to grow my list by a certain number for the whole year, right? And so what I did is I set myself quarterly benchmarks. So I just divided that number into, into quarters. And so, you know, based on cycles. I don't even know if it, if it should be consistent or, you know, straight across. As I'm talking to you now, maybe I should have my quarterly goal lower for Q1 and then just gradually increase quarter, you know, 2, 3 and 4. Because I'm going to be experimenting with some advertising, social media ads. And so it might take me a little bit to get dialed in here in Q1. So maybe my list growth will be slower this quarter and then ramp up in the following quarters, I don't know. But anyway, so that's what I did. I have a, an annual like list growth number because that's one of my supporting goals. And I divided it in four and so I have my quarterly benchmark. So then I said, okay, so so I want you to set quarterly benchmarks for each one of your supporting goals, right? And for that big goal too, right? So if you have your revenue number, if it's 100k for example, then you know that your goal, your quarterly goal and based on the cycles in your business, you'll know maybe you know, it's going to be, you know, 40 grand in Q1 and 20 grand in Q2 and 30 grand in the following two quarters or whatever it is. So we set our quarterly benchmarks and so if you think about like how you want to do that for your revenue based on the cyclicality of your business, I find that it's very rare in anyone I talk to, any of my clients or me that our monthly revenue and our quarters are straight across, even the same every quarter, right? So just be sensitive to that and you don't have to judge that it doesn't mean anything is wrong with your business if your revenue goes up and down. Just know that that is something that happens in business and take note of that if that's a trend or something that you need to plan for, which I always encourage my clients to plan for in your annual planning, like we're doing right now, right? So, so just set those goals based on the cycles in your business the best you can. And then, so the, so that's our quarterly benchmarks. And so once you've got those all set, then you are going to break those quarters down into monthly milestones, right? So for me, if we take my marketing goal of increasing my growing my list, then I have monthly milestones that I want to hit each month, right? I need to grow my email list by X number of subscribers each month. And so then I have my strategies to do that. Like I said, I'm going to experiment with a social media ad. I'm going to specifically going to try LinkedIn. I haven't advertised on LinkedIn before, so I'm going to report back on that, but I'll let you know how that goes. And then, you know, what are all the other ways that I want to get to that list growth number each month. And then I have done that for each one of my other quarterly benchmarks for my sales, for my operations, for my finances, right? I set goals within there. And then, so then I have my monthly focus, right? I have those monthly milestones. And then next, then we'll break that up into the four weeks. So each week what do I need to be doing? Right. I know each week I need to be, you know, running this ad and offering my freebie on social media, going out to networking events and meeting new people and bringing new people into my universe, right? That's going to grow my list. And little by little I can see how my goal, my big goal stacks up, how it all comes out. So that's how we're going to do it. And that's the level of focus and specificity that I have not had personally in my goal setting and planning in the past. And I thought it was so interesting over the past few months as I've started to think about what I wanted to do this year, I saw this strategy laid out by two different people that I follow in two different events and I was like, okay, maybe this is a message because I've never put this level of specificity to my planning and I love planning and I don't know why I ever, I never have, have. So I'm trying it this year and I know that. So the, the advice that I'm taking, I am with setting out my plan like this was from 2 multi million dollar female entrepreneurs that I highly respect. So I know that it works for them. This is what they swear by. And so I'm going to try it. And I'm already seeing, just as we're in the first few days of the new year, I'm already seeing how it's really creating focus in my actions, right? Because I know for me and for so many people that I talk to, so many women that I talk to, a lot of times will say, well, I don't know what I should be focusing on, right? Like, I know I've got to get to this, you know, big revenue number, but I have no idea what I should be doing right now to get there, right? And so we kind of run around like chickens without our head trying to figure out what we should be doing. Well, I feel like this plan, as I've laid it out for myself and for you, is going to create that focus and that clarity, right? So then we have this plan and then we say no to everything else. No more shiny objects, no more anything. Let's just focus on trust our plan, have our back, make the decision that this is how we're going to go forward and then each month, what I'm going to do is each month, this is my addition is to evaluate, right? So if I said, you know, my goal for my LinkedIn ad is that it brings in a hundred new people to my list, then I'm going to evaluate that. Is that happening? What's going wrong? What can I change? What do I want to do differently and evaluate those, make changes and then continue on with the plan, right? And I really feel like this is going to give me and my goals and you and your goals so much traction, so much focus and so many data points that we can actually look at. Right? And then let's see how far we get, right? Because at the end of the day, anytime we set a goal and put together a plan, it's all a hypothesis, it's all an educated guess. And so then we look at how it all comes together. Like are we getting the results we want, what's working better, what's working not as great, what do we want to change and then iterate those things as we go. But I feel like for me, this setting my goals and planning up this way has created so much simplicity and clarity and just so much openness. It's. I love having a plan because then that part of my brain is. Knows exactly what's going on. And then my, the creative side of my brain is just like so open and turned on and ready to just pump out all that creativity. I'm not worried about what I should be doing, what I should be doing. I know exactly. And then I can just enjoy the creative flow and come to you with so much more value and fun and just creativity. So. So that's kind of how I'm thinking about this planning and goal setting. And you know, we're at the beginning of the year, we'll see how it goes, right? It's gonna be so fun. But I am really excited about this year. I was so fun watching all of the, I love watching all the TV on New Year's Eve and I felt like there's so much optimism and I just wanted to take all that in and just like mirror that out to everyone that I came in contact with. Just so we make that a self fulfilling prophecy. Right? Like this year is going to be amazing, you guys. And that is a decision that I have made and desire that I have to have a great year to experience so much joy and fun in my life and in my business. And I wish that for you as well. And I really feel like setting these goals, setting up a plan is just going to help you that much more with that. So I would love to hear your thoughts about this and if you're using it, if you have used this type of process and how it works for you. Right. I'd love to hear all about it. Ping me on social media or also I would love, if you have enjoyed this podcast, I would love it and be so appreciative if you would leave a review for us and let us know. Let me know what you think of it. And I can't wait to just continue creating some amazing content for you this year to really help you to get to the goal that you set in for this year. Because I know you can. You have so much amazing value inside of you. And so. So just draw upon that, listen to your inner wisdom and trust yourself. You've got this, okay? And I believe in you and I will see you next time. Have a good one. Bye. If you like this podcast, then you have got to sign up for my free on demand video training, Grow youw Sales Doing what yout Love Where I teach you in depth. My simple process that you can implement right away to harness your mindset and your skills to grow your sales to whatever level you want. So go grab that now. The link is in the show notes and I'll see you next time.