2021 Strategic Planning Implementation Workshop

This is my last podcast episode of the year. There were a lot of things that happened in 2020. With all the craziness, all of us were affected by it personally and in our businesses. It tested our resilience and resourcefulness. As we are ready to put 2020 behind us, let’s translate the challenges we experienced in 2020 to our 2021 projects and decisions.

So before the year-end, I want you to plan your 2021. In this episode, I will walk you through how you can plan your life and business for 2021.

This workshop was for my six- and seven-figure clients and we broadcast it live in October, but wanted to gift it to you for the holidays and new year! Enjoy!

“Planning is bringing the future into the present so that you can do something about it now.” – Alan Lakein

List of things to do:

1. Before watching the video, copy and answer the Strategy 2021 Prep Worksheet.
2. Then, copy the 2021 Planning Worksheet.
3. Now, you can start watching the video and answer the questions during the video.
4. Don’t get stress when you can’t finish it in the allotted time given to you. You can always go back later and complete it.

Transcript: Download

Video Transcription provided by GMR Transcription Services.

Jaime:	Happy Friday. It's exciting that we're getting through 2021 and it's only October. So just be really excited that we are ahead of the game on this one. I think pretty much everybody wants to get over 2020 at this point. Therefore, we're like yes, let's do this. So, we can expect about 90 minutes or so. And then we're going to open it up at the end for a Q & A, just so you know. Our goal for today is just a rough outline. I'm going to show you in a second an example of what the definition of done. You guys know me, I harp on definition of done. So, I'm going to show you what it's going to look like. 

If you had it pretty much done but you cannot get it this much, that's okay, that's the whole point on why we have a session. Every single one of you either has a quarterly call or a session coming up in the next two weeks. That way, we'll go over everything else. But this is to get that beginning stages of that rough outline. 

	So, hopefully, you did the prep. I know some people yesterday were like, and I'm doing it tonight. So, thank you for homework the night before it's due. As long as you got through most of it, that's totally fine because we're going to be pulling from a lot of that for today. 

	So, this is an implementation workshop. I give you time to do this now, just so everybody knows. So, we're going to have time dedicated. So, if your operator's here, you can call them on the phone and chit chat, you can make sure you're doing things during the time allotted. If you need more time, let us know. We're going to move kind of quickly. And if you're done early, of course, let us know and post in the chat window, also. That way we can make sure we can move through all of the content. 

	All right, so this is what it could potentially look like. So, this is one of the examples that I'm going to be walking through. Now, this could be intense. But what we're going to do is walk through it step-by-step and really show you how to get this for your business. That way we have the KPIs that we need, and we know what happens when. You're going to be a lot more strategic next year than you were this year. Hopefully, it will cause all sorts of happiness and joy and less stress. Because you know that's what I care about more than just about everything. 

	So, today, we're going to be going over life, first. As you know, I think that's number one. Then we're going to actually breakdown your goals. So, hopefully, you did the prep worksheet and actually went over the pieces of your goals that you've got. Then we're going to go over KPIs, both lead and lag. And if you don't know what that is, that is okay because we're going to cover exactly what that looks like, and what they are, and how to create them. Then we're going to go into the quarterly breakdown. Then we're going to assign it to people on your team, ideally. Maybe you, a few of them, but ideally, we want to make sure that other people are responsible for things besides just you. 

And then we're going to go over the monthly breakdown. We won't go through the entire year because I don't think we'll have enough time today to do that. But you can go ahead and do more of the monthly breakdown. We're going to go through the first quarter of what a monthly breakdown will look like. That way you can at least have chunks. Even if you only get through the quarterly breakdown and who owns what before our next session, that's totally fine, too. I just want to make sure you have it. 

	So, the good news is... As you can see, I keep clicking the wrong button. Go to eventualmillionaire.com/2021, you also got an email with this link. This is the worksheet that we're going to be walking through today. So, if you can go ahead and copy it like you know how to do by now and save it, it's going to be our rough draft. We're going to walk you through all of this today on the call. If you have it, go ahead and post yes in the chat window. That way I know everybody's good. And I'm going to keep on moving on. 

	So, when we talk about life first, it could mean a lot of different things. But what I have in the worksheet for you is a bunch of different questions. If you went back through the prep worksheet from beforehand, I know you didn't have a ton of time, especially for the ones that finished it last night. But what I wanted you to really do is start being reflective. Start going, "What worked this year?" I know there's probably a lot more that didn't work because of 2020, but what worked this year and what do we want more of and what do we want less of? 

So, these questions like how many hours do you want to work? Kinda ridiculously important for how much we put on your calendar for next year. And I know you're going to add things next year, also, so let's try and keep the amount of things you commit to doing at a low number, so that way, you'll actually have time and space to be able to do it.  

So, what vacations should be scheduled in advance? Right underneath that, you'll see here's a little life goals to prioritize next year. In about one second, maybe a little more than one second, I'm going to give you two minutes to be able to write this down. Right now, it's going to be sort of a brainstorm. I want you to be able to make decisions today, the best way you can. Life's usually easy, this stuff is usually a little easier than some of the business stuff. But whenever you need to make a decision, I want you to take a big deep breath, because we don't do that enough as humans. Take a big deep breath and go with your gut. 

So, if there are any seasons to work more or work less, which ones are they? Can we put in quarterly planning weekend breaks? I know a lot of my clients, like I mentioned to you before, will take three days off and bring their operator. Or take three days off and do business planning for them. So, each quarter they recalibrate what we're working on right now. 

Also, in the personal side of things for the brainstorm, this is where we want to start putting this stuff and actually deciding the top, ideally, three things that you're going to be focusing on in life in the next year. If you're going to buy a house, I think 12 of you are buying... maybe not 12. Probably four of you have bought houses this month, which is a little crazy. 

So, what we're going to do is give you two minutes. We also had planned on having lovely music to play. That sounded really crappy when we just tested it again. So, you can go ahead, Erik is going to post in some playlists, but feel free to play whatever you want. We're going to start a timer and that way you will decide on your Life First action items now. [Music]

Oh my goodness. I didn't realize it was so loud, that's going to be lovely every single time. Hopefully, you guys heard that. It totally sounds like schools out. That's going to be the fun we're going to have today. Ready, go!

So, if you didn't finish, that's totally fine. I'm going to give you a little more time when we break down goals if you need to finish some of that stuff. How did that go for everybody? Did you write down things you are committed to? Ideally, explaining to our operators that these are our goals so they can help hold us accountable. Because typically, the life stuff seems to get to the bottom of the list sometimes. I know all of you all too well. And while we are very driven, and that's a wonderful thing, we need to make sure life matters more than the business side. 

So, next up, we're going to break down your goals. As you can see when you scroll down, you'll be able to see the revenue, gross, net, the impact goal, and the feeling goal. I'm going to go over those in just a second. But what I want to ask first, and if you've been with me for a long time, you know I will ask this, what type of goals personality are you? Do you know? 

So, what I found is either you're the type of person that likes a B-HAG, I don't know if you've ever heard of a B-HAG, but most of you might have. It's called the Big Hairy Audacious Goal, which means that you're shooting for the moon, a moonshot. Some of you love that. When you get close to the goal, it makes you feel better. Even if you don't even come close to it, whatsoever, you don't feel bad. That's type one. 

Type two is more of the realistic achievable type of goal personality, which means if they put a moonshot goal out and they don't come close, they feel really crappy about themselves. So, usually the people that have the achievable type of goal will like to have one that they know they can get, and they'll put a stretch goal on top of that. So, which one do you think you are? Go ahead and post in the chat window. 

B-HAGS, baby! I know you, Jen. I think that's what's so important because some people are very, very, very different. Love it. So, when we start doing the actual goal setting, know that about yourself. Love it. Yes, make sure you get the new worksheet, the strategy doc that we're walking through right now. That way you can know what we're looking at. Yeah, some people are achievable, and some people are B-HAG, exactly. And so, if you were to set a too achievable goal as a person that loves B-HAGs, that's not going to be very inspiring. You're going to go, That's boring. Let's do something more. 

And the way that I like to look at goals. You guys know gross revenue, you know net. So, hopefully you already have an idea of what that number is. Most of you will try and double for next year. You can actually triple, technically, also, but that is harder when it comes to your systems and the hiring side. Unless you have a bigger team, tripling can be a little bit harder than doubling. I highly recommend to double. Or, if you want to put an impact goal or feeling goal as sort of your top goal, your priority goal, then you don't have to double. Not that I'm going to make you double, but usually, that's what we shoot for. 

For those B-HAGers, you can totally have it be triple, if you like. Just know that when I actually do the session with you, we're going to really make sure that you're moving forward on your systems, your employees, that way we can make it as easy as humanly possible to triple. 

For example, an impact goal, just to give you a little bit more of a heads up, is like Tom's Shoes. So, for every shoe that company sells, they give one away. I've even had a client that says every time I make a $1 million, I'm going to give another $100,000 to charity. So, you can actually link your net or gross revenue to whatever the impact is. And if you really want to go into this and we can talk about this later. I know we talked about this quite a bit on some of the sessions this week. How do you put your brand behind the impact goal? Can we actually link whatever the impact goal is to what your company does and really shine that? Which will help with the branding side of things, too. 

For net revenue, when we set goals for this, usually, it's a percentage. So, for example, some of my agency clients try and shoot for 25 to 35% net. If you actually look at some of the internet, like digital course kind of businesses, those are more like 50%. And e-com companies, very different, that really ranges. Sometimes people are like 5% up to 40%, depending on what they are selling. If you want to write that down, because net really does matter more than gross, as you guys know. I'm going to give you... 

Let  me actually explain feeling goals, too. So, feeling goals you know how I ask you about happiness, constantly. So, you can put that as a goal as far as feeling goes. The reason we want any goal is for the feeling we will have when we achieve it. So, you want that new car for the feeling you're going to have when you get it. Feelings don't always last forever, as you know. Joy is only so long, but so is pain. So, the idea of a feeling goal is to write something you really want to feel more of in the next year. 

So, if you want to feel capable because this year you didn't feel as capable, write that down. If you want to feel on top of the world, and that's sort of your word, your feeling word for the year, write that down. If you want to feel peace, the opposite of stress, just so everyone knows, is bliss. So, anybody that's feeling a little stressed might want to put bliss as far as a feeling goes, or peace as a feeling goal. So, that way we're actually looking towards something that feels good. Does that make sense to everybody? And if you have any questions, definitely let me know. 

So, we're going to give you three minutes to hash out what you really want to have for the feelings goal. Of course, if you have questions, go ahead and post in the questions box and we'll type back to you guys if you need anything as we go. Ready? And be prepared for that very loud buzzer at the end of it. [Music]

Lovely and jarring again. Lucky us. Make sure everybody's posting in the Questions and Answers box for the questions. That way we can make sure we handle all of them as we're going through. So, most of you are done. At least a handful of you are done. There was a couple questions that came in. One was including the owner's salary. So, make sure you put it... Yes, the net revenue would include after you pay yourself, please. 

And the impact goal could be how much you want to give to charity, if you want your brand to be around self-sustainability, if you want to link something that's more charitable, like Tom's Shoes, a giveaway or maybe you do actual launches that create the impact you want to create in the world. When we get to go a little farther back and do a little bit of vivid visioning, that's where your reason why. Why are we doing what we're doing? Is it just to make money? Well, for most of you, it is not, that I know of. I Know you all quite well and you care about the planet, you care about other humans. What can we do to really make that impact with them and what we can link to be able to do that. 

That's something that might take a little while to get at. But that's something I just want you to start percolating, especially between now and the next session that we have. So, you can really feel like we're creating change. For other people that are agency owners, that I mentioned before, sometimes we have a specific number of clients that are pro-bono, so the more people you hit that is making you a lot of money, the more people you and your team can service on the pro-bono side. And that is your impact goal and your giveback. So, it could be a lot of different things like that. So, hopefully, that answers your question. 

What we're going to be doing now is going over my examples. So, this is going to be one example. I use a digital marketing agency because it has both products and services. If you did the prep worksheet, then you already have your products and services listed. And yours might not be perfect, just so everybody's clear. I know some of you are working out your packages. So, we're going to go over what this looks like in just a second. 

But you can see on the next screen, this is the example of a goal breakdown. So, go ahead and write down the product and service that you have. When it comes to this, I want you to think of the average price. So, for example, if you aren't an agency like this, and maybe you're an interior designer, you have big clients, you have medium, mid-tier clients, and you have small clients. So, even if it's not in a package, we can get an average price for who you consider big versus mid-tier versus smaller. Does that make sense for everybody? 

Then what we're going to do, once you fill out the average price, we're going to figure out what that goal was that you want to hit revenue wise. We won't work on the impact or the feeling goal, quite yet, revenue wise. And we need to figure out what gross revenue we want to hit because we need to know what you are selling in order to hit the numbers that you have. This will help you pare down and understand that the more of one service that you sell, if you get really good with the marketing and sales of one chunk of it, you can earn quite a bit, as you can see. 

So, when we look for this example, the done for you service, let's say its 1500 per month. We're going to break it down. So, we're going to say, "You know what, our capacity, we can only handle 360,000." Again, this is the example. I'm making this one up. But let's say they can hold 360,000 out of the 840,000 that they want total for the year, revenue. That's their goal. That means its 20 clients. And we're going to get into that in just a second. 20 clients per month in order to hit the 360 per year. 

Mastermind's the same thing. Let's say they have a Facebook mastermind at 750 per month. They want to make 180, which means 20 members per month. They sell a beginners course at $1000; they want 125 students for that. So, pretty much what you do is go through. You take the 840,000 that you want to make or whatever that number is. We put how much we think we want for each program, product, service, whatever you have. It's a bit of a guessing game. 

Typically, I like to have paper and pen next to me and jot down a bunch of numbers. Okay, what would I need to sell on Course 1, because this is very flexible. You don't have to sell $125,000 for the beginner course. Maybe you're going to try and double what the Advance Course 2 is going to be. So, this is where we start playing with how many launches we need to do, how many different sales funnels, when we start to think about who you have for an avatar and what services you sell them. The more avatars you have and the more services you sell, the more work you have to do. The fewer services... Again, it will be distributed, which is great. 

I'm not saying only have one specific service. But when we only have one, then you can productize it and you'll have a lot more time and energy, especially to work on that marketing and sales side, which I know most of you would like to work on a little bit more. So, does that make sense, so far? 

So, the way that we broke it up is each sponsorship is about 5,000. Each affiliate's about 5,000 and each one of these, they're going to try and make 25,000 per year. 

Now the other piece I want to say before we give you five minutes to go ahead and do this is gap to goal. So, I know that none of you are starting from scratch. You already have over six figures in revenue or seven figures in revenue. And so, if you already know what automatically, you're going to have come in, make sure you're writing that down too, because you don't have to do the KPIs based on all the old stuff you've had. So, for example, in this example that I have for the agency, it's 10 clients. If they already have 10 clients for the done for you product. Does that make sense? So, that's only 10 new clients per month, assuming we have retention, which can come in a little later. 

What we're going right now is guesstimating how much we need, so that way you guys will have a good idea of what we need to account for for your quarterlies for next time. So, any questions on that? Because we're going to break down that goal in just a second. 

If we don't need five minutes, that's totally great. Go ahead and post when you are done and feel free to share or ask any questions as we go through. Ready, go. [Music]
All right. We've got quite a few done. I'm going to be giving you quite a bit of time for the next one, also. So, you can always finish it up then. Because we're going over KPIs. I know your favorite, favorite part. But I had a quick question. Do you guys know the difference between lead indicators or lead KPIs and lag indicators? Go ahead and post "Yes" if you do and "No" if you don't because I'm going to explain it. Great. So, Jeremy, of course you do. I remember talking to you about this Jeremy. I absolutely love that. 

So, the point of a lag indicator is an output. So, if I tell you to go get 12 new customers, clients, what action do you actually take? Technically you don't know because that's the output. So, we're like, "Okay, great." So, all of our goals, like gross revenue, are all output goals. And then you have to try and figure out what the heck it's going to take to get them. That's the lead indicator. 

So, the point of a lead indicator is the input. So, for example, if I tell you to get 12 new clients or customers, you're like, "I don't know what to do." But if I tell you to go get five or 10 or however many sales appointments that you need in order to convert the amount of clients that you need, that's a little bit easier. Like, "Okay, great. How do I get that?" And you can actually back up those lead indicators quite a bit. 

Now, I know for most of you, when you don't have your sales funnel nailed or even know what the conversion rates are on some of those things, it can be a little bit hard. But that's sort of the point. What we're trying to do is go and figure out what your conversion rates are so we can actually identify what the lead indicators are. That way we can be a lot less stressed when we're trying to predict our lag indicators. Does that make sense? So, the leading is the input. It's the proceeding indicator that proceeds the output. How to produce the desired results. And the lag is the output, the revenue, the profit, the expenses, the clients, the that kind of stuff. Does that make sense so far? 

So, I'm going to go over an example. So, for example, we're going to go over applications versus clients. So, the lead would be application. I know for most of you, you signed up for one of my applications. That's what we use for a lead indicator. We need this many applications, which we know converts to pretty much this many clients. I'm also going to go over the example of emails versus sales. So, when we have this many email addresses on our email list, if we do a launch, we'll technically get this many sales. And there are averages, industry averages, on stuff like this which we can use. But ideally, we want to actually get what your numbers are. 

So, I'm going to go over an example so you guys can see the breakdown of how this works. So, for the done for you, which is very similar to a lot of your service-based kind of things because I know not every one of you is a digital agency in any way, shape, or form. But the lag goal would be 10 new clients because, like we said, they have a current gap to goal of 10 clients already. So, for the year, they're going to have 20 clients. They need 10. Let's say for example, they have a 50% closing ration. So, that means they need 20 sales calls for the entire year. But then we go, "Well, how do we get those sales calls?" 

So, the application, let's say it's a 20% application to sales call, so one in five, that's where you can actually take into account, well this guy wasn't qualified, but they filled out an application. That's the number we're trying to get to. Depending, of course, on your sales funnel and what that looks like. But, ideally, the application to sales calls means that over the year, ideally earlier in the year so you can hit your clients sooner, you need 100 applications to hit your lag KPI of 10 clients. Does that all make sense? 

So, for example, Chad, we would have you actually pay attention to how many phone calls you get and, of course, where they come from, we want to track that also. Let's say you close a certain percentage of every single one you get, as long as you get them back in time. Either they answer on the first call or you call them back within 24 hours, what is that closing ratio? That way, we can start to actually metric how many phone calls you're getting, on average. Does that make sense, so far? 

As we go through, of course, put your Q & A... There's an actual separate Q&A box. I know some of you are asking questions in the chat window. It's just easier for us to be able to put in the Q&A so then we can pay attention to what we've answered versus what we've haven't.

So, for example, the course launch, let's say the lag indicator is 63 students. There's a couple different ways you can get that when it comes to digital. As we go through and as you try to figure yours out, just ask me how to do this. I know a lot of industry averages, in general. So, for example, the lead indicator could be a percentage of email list. So, it's overall, they say one percent of email lists convert, assuming you have a pretty good highly converting offer not highly converting, but average converting offer. Which would mean you need 6,300 emails. 

Or you can have a challenge. I know one of my clients has a three to four percent conversion on a challenge. And they have a cost per lead of around $5. So, they need 21,000 leads in order to hit the 63 at three percent. Well, if we want to pay for those leads, their budget to hit that number of 63 would be 10,500. Does that make sense? So, their lead indicator is 2,100 qualified leads. Now they know exactly how much they need to spend. 

I know not all of you have this information or this data, just so you know. But when we realize, "Hey, I don't have this so I can't predict any of that," that's going to go on your list to get, or have your team get for you for next year. So, if you do a launch and you're like, "Shoot, I don't know what any of these numbers are." The goal of the launch is to actually figure out what those numbers are. Does that make sense? 

Or you can have an affiliate launch. EPL is Earnings Per Lead. So, if you wanted to make 125,000, you'd have to have an affiliate total email reach of 10,000. Making sense so far? I know it's going to be very catered to what you have. So, feel free to ask questions and we'll post answers for you right below. But I'm going to give you five minutes. So, if you have an issue with some of the goal setting stuff, too, you have a little more time. And if you guys need more time than that, definitely let me know. We will post any answers that you have. Ready, go. [Music]

All right. I know some of you don't have the data, so what we're going to do is guess. So, if you're like, "Hey, I know I need to send out 10 proposals to potentially get one closed," I would just overestimate on what those are, just so you know. But the goal is to just starting to figure out what you need to do and what actions we need to take. We can always back it up later, if it doesn't work. Does that make sense to everybody, so far? So, we're going to be moving on unless you have any final questions in regard to that. And it is thundering like crazy here and my loving dog barks at thunder, just so you guys know. I'm giving you a warning in advance. 

So, now we're going on to the quarterly breakdown. And again, the only reason we're putting the lead and lag KPIs is to make sure that we know what to do during the quarterly breakdown, and then monthly, of course, and to be really, really clear. Because if you have a team and we can actually assign some of these lead and lag indicators, then they're responsible for them. You know exactly what to measure them on. You'll be like, "Get 12 clients." They'll be like, "I don't know how to do that." So, us breaking them down is helpful for everyone on your team, also. 

One of my favorite quotes from Tony Robbins is all about mastering time. And I think you've probably heard this before. You'll understand how true it is that most people overestimate what they can accomplish in a year and underestimate what they can achieve in a decade.

Now this planning, this project managing type of goal setting, strategy planning is just a skill set. There's also a great book that I know some of my clients have read called "The 12-week Year," which sort of goes into this process, but a little bit more nitty gritty. That way each quarter we have our own separate goals and we can recalibrate them as we go. Instead of getting to the end of the year and going, Oh, crap, I didn't do any of the things that I really wanted to. We really want to have those quarterly sessions. 

And when we're looking at how much time we want to allocate for this, I always joke that we want to double how long we really think it's going to take because us, as entrepreneurs, think it should have been done yesterday and your team is going to go, Ah, I can't even run nearly as fast as you.

So, as we're going through, I really want to make sure that you feel less rushed and that your team feels less rushed. So, if you go through and add the commitment of how dedicated you are to hit these goals, that's what's going to get you that last little chunk, that more ROI that's going to make the biggest difference. Otherwise, like I've said to you guys before, you're like digging very shallow holes in your backyard when in reality, you're trying to dig a well to hit water. But it doesn't feel like you got any water or even close to water because you didn't. We're doing so many things that the amount of capacity that you and your team potentially have can probably only handle so much. 

One of the millionaires that I interviewed, Nathan Latka has a great situation. He's like, "Okay, we'll you're Company A. Imagine you have two products. Company B only has one product. That means Company A only has 50% of their resources to sell each product. Whereas, Company B has 100%. Who's going to win?"  Does that make sense? 

So, what I want you to start thinking about for these quarters is how can we go more all in to the things you're already committing to, to squeeze as much ROI from them as possible. So, instead of just half doing a sales funnel, going, Shoot, I have another sales funnel I have to do for this other product, how can we do it to a way that will build the foundation, so you won't have to go and clean it up again later? I know the 80/20 rule is wonderful and there's definitely a point to that. And we want to make sure we don't have to touch it again in three months because it broke. Does that make sense? 

All right, so what we're going to be doing is picking three priorities per quarter. And then what we're going to be doing is hashing out what those numbers, those KPRs are going to be. And then we'll start filling in the gaps later. So, let me show you an example. So, for the example that I had, 840,000. This is just the stuff that we had before, the done for you, the mastermind. And so, what we're trying to figure out for lead versus lag is what are we going to do in Q1? Well, Q1, let's pretend, we know we're going to have a course launch. We know we need to have at least five new clients. That way the rest of the year looks good. Because it's the beginning of the year, we need to sell those sponsorship packages ASAP. Does that make sense? 

So, when you start looking at Q1, we're asking the question: What needs to happen in Q1 to set ourselves up for the rest of the year?  Is that making sense, so far? But ideally, only three. And that's where the hard part comes in. Because you probably have a list of 20. But we can't do that. The whole point of the planning is to have your brain rest, knowing that, let's say for example, you're all freaked out over, "Oh, no, I need to get this Course 2 all set and ready to go." Well, if we have the launch in September, you have plenty of time to be doing this whole time. And so, it doesn't have to be rushed. I know this is Greek to some of you because it's hard to have entrepeneurs run like that. But that is the goal. 

And then what we're going to be doing is taking that brainstorm your future list and pulling those things in. So, for example, if you need to hire a new employee because you're going to hit capacity if you hit those numbers we have, that's where we need to add those to the Brainstorm Your Future list and pull them off and we're going to put them in the quarterly goal setting. So, I'm going to go over this, so don't worry. 

So, let's say for Q2, we know that we're going to have done for you because we're going to be definitely be selling that. And we want the rest of the 10 clients in Q1 and Q2. So, we're going to do, Q1 is going to have five new clients and Q2 is going to have five new clients. What we need is 50 new applications each quarter. Then they're going to launch the mastermind in Q2. So, that way they only have one launch per quarter, so that way it's not too crazy. 

And then let's say, for example, they know that they need to hire a new employee because they're going to have another launch and they're definitely going to need it beforehand. So, maybe it's a moderator, maybe it's an integrator. As you all know, hiring takes  a lot of time. So, prepping for that is really, really important. 

And I know you're not going to know exactly what this is. Just so you know, what we want for the timing of a new employee is to give yourself enough wiggle room on the training, because it usually takes three to six months before an employee really settles into the role and you get your ROI back completely. What we're going for though is within three months, they start pulling in ROI for you. So, Justin Crane usually talks about a typical percentage is try and go, Okay, well as long you have three months of their payroll in the bank before you hire them, and that they need to be making the money they want... by meaning taking things off your plate, if they're not a very ROI specific, not a cash specific sales or marketing type role. 

Maybe it's just getting things off your plate within three months, that way they're earning their keep after three months. So, let's say for Q3 then they have to take time to do the new employee training, because that also takes time. And then this example is that they want to take a little bit more time off in the summer. And they're only going to be doing some automated affiliated launches because of that. 

Then for Q4, you guys can have to be determined. I know you definitely will, most likely. So, feel free to throw in the TBD. That's why when we do the quarterly check-ins, that's when we're going to recalibrate and add these things in. Maybe we only know that there's going to be a launch in October, but we don't know exactly what's happening afterwards. And that's totally fine. It's ever evolving and not static. 

So, I'm going to be giving you 10 minutes for this. I know questions will come up. So, go ahead and post in the questions box. If you need anything else, definitely post in the chat window. We're going to give you 10 minutes. If you need more than 10 minutes, definitely let us know. 

And I would love to see what some of yours look like so far, so I can make sure nobody is falling behind. Because I know it's easy to just not type in the chat window and not ask any questions and be like, I have no idea what she's talking about. I don't know how to do this. I can see everybody's names here, even though I can't see your faces and whether or not you're paying attention and watching Instagram on your phone while you're doing this. By the way, don't do that. But let me know if anything pops up and where you're at and if you need more time. 10-minute timer, now. [Music]

All right. And anyone that's struggling, that's why we have the Q&A for afterwards. So, don't you worry. We can bring you up on mic and that way we can hash out some of the stuff. So, at least you get your main questions taken care of today and you can sort of percolate before the session we have before. Don't worry, we only have two things left. We're almost mostly done. 

So, when it comes to who owns this, I know you've heard me say this probably 100 times, you're not alone. If you have a team, we can start trying to figure out who is going to own things versus not. One of the things I know most of you are dealing with is you just have so many things that you're responsible for in your business. And part of it is just to make sure we have a team that is capable of helping you and A player status. But what we're looking for is to go you're not the only person having to hold everything. You're not Atlas having to hold the entire world. Even though, sometimes it feels like it. 

So, what we want to do is start to try to figure out who actually owns this. So, for example, I wrote owner and operator. If you have a big team, we can actually chunk the list. So, you potentially might have more than three priorities if you have a bigger team. But for now, we're just breaking it into the small chunks. 

And then who's going to own what. So, for example, maybe you're the salesperson as the owner. So, you've got to do all the sales calls. That means you'd be the one leading for most of the done for you, the applications, and the lag. But maybe your operator helps with it, so it might be owner and operator. Maybe the launch, for example, is mostly the operator, or maybe your marketing team. And you go, "Hey, marketing team, our goal is to have 12,500 emails before the next launch in order to hit our 125 students." This is where we'll break it down later in the next chunk. But we want somebody to be responsible for it. 

If you aren't sure that they can handle it, that's okay. We can take Q1 and actually train them and do a handoff. So, that way it's in Q2 when they get to own it. But this is where we're going to really understand what you have on your plate. 

Some of you, this will be really fast. And some of you, you have a big team and it will take a little bit. But I'm going to give you two minutes. So, if you have any questions on the previous stuff, we can do that, too. But ideally, it's not all you. [Music]

That's like the exact ring from my elementary school. It definitely reminds me of that. Okay, so, a couple of questions that popped up, too.  When we're doing the quarterly, the whole point of doing next year planning now, is to start to know what you need to do in Q4 to prepare to hit the ground running in Q1. So, for example, we have two months left, thank goodness, of this year. So, when you understand this process, we can sort of build back and understand what we have to do in November and what we have to do in December to start hitting some of these numbers. 

So, we're going to go over the monthly breakdown. Again, I will totally help you on our session, one-to-one, so that we know exactly what to do. But as you saw with the quarterly, what we want to do with the monthly breakdown is to start to break down and guessing what happens when. So, that way, your operator or your project manager, or the people on your team, know in advance and can actually have the time and space they need to do a lot of this prep work. 

So, for example, this is Q1. And what we want to do is just break it into months. I know it's not rocket science. But I know it's hard when you don't have all the data. So, for this one, if we want to guess at 50 new applications. And even you don't know totally how to get those 50 new applications, we just know that that's what you need, we can still split that up. Does that make sense? 

So, if the goal because five divided by three doesn't work very well. We don't have a half of a person. So, our goal is going to be two new clients per month. One for January, one for February, and one for March. That means the leading KPI is 17 apps, applications. Next, we're going to come up to how do we get those. So, just a second, we'll go into that. Let's say, for example, January is going to need 1,000 emails, and February is going to need 1,000 emails in order to hit their course launch numbers. This is all just sort of broken out. Does that make sense to everyone so far? 

But then, this is where the rubber hits the road, right? Because you go, "Okay, that's great. But how do I do that? How do I get to those things?" The reason why I want you to have even these cursory numbers hashed out is because that's what I'm here to help you with. What we want to start doing is start trying to figure out what we already know and get data on that. Or if we're not collecting that data, start collecting as of right now. Then we'll start to figure out other things that we can start testing. 

So, for example, let's say for my digital agency that we used for an example, that they know that they can get four applications per networking event, back in the day when they used to networking. And if you ask for referrals, they get two really well qualified applications, also. 

And for example, maybe we get email leads. Maybe you already get 300 email leads per month. And if you don't, don't feel bad. We can totally work on this, too. And maybe in this example, they already do Facebook ads and they get $3 per email. So, this is the stuff we know. So, what I want you to start thinking about is what you already know. You guys have businesses. You make a lot of money already. So, there's got to be stuff that's working. That's what we need to start pulling the curtain back on. How are we getting these things? What patterns are coming up? And start tracking it. 

So, if you have phone calls where people are just randomly finding you online, but you don't know exactly where... I've had people, one of my clients in Virginia, a therapy office, they ask. Not only on the phone when they call in the receptionist like, "How did you hear from us?" If they say, "Oh, I found you on Google," they ask, "What did you search for? What keywords did you search for?" And people are like, "Oh, I searched for this." And then they start to get that data, which is really huge, just so you guys know. 

So, again, even though there are questions, the whole point of trying to figure this out is to start getting more information so you can predict a little bit better. When the companies that you have get bigger and bigger, especially for those of you that want to franchise, this information is crucial to have your people get what they expect instead of letting them flail around on their own to figure this stuff out. Now, I know this is not easy, otherwise everybody would have it done. But once you do have some of this information, it's way easier because we have what you already know, what already works. 

Then we can put a plan together on the things we need to test. Instead of spray and pray marketing, I call it shotgun marketing, which is, "Hey, let's run over here and sort of do some LinkedIn. Hey, let's sort of do some of this." When we look at the short term, I know a lot of you are just starting in the mastermind, some of you have been in for a while. Some of you are one-on-one clients that have been here for a long time. So, you know that just randomly going out short term and trying to do this stuff without having the weight behind it, usually ends up falling to the low priorities. 

And we don't do it in a way that actually is recorded for reporting, so we know whether it works or not. We don't give it enough time and space, and enough umph because we're trying to do a million other things. I've never heard that before, so don't worry. But what we want is to give you a place on the calendar in the year that you're actually going to commit to it. So, we know who is going to commit to it. And that way we're not so hurried and running around like chickens with our heads cut off. 

So, for example, and this example is to test new application tactics. So, let's say, for example, we want them to test SEO because they haven't done that yet, that's going to take six months to really start to understand. So, that's a long-term gain and kind of a pain in the butt with people that want to have results now. Same thing with LinkedIn outreach. It can take up to three months, potentially four or five months, to actually really get the sales funnel working, with quite a bit of effort, unfortunately. Like these things are not as easy as a lot of the gurus online will be like, "Oh, it's so easy. In two weeks, you can make $1 million." Well, you guys are in business and you know that it does take some work. 

But giving yourself the time and the space to actually be able to do it, or have your team do it, is actually the thing that matters more than anything else. 

So, let's say, for example, they also want to test a new email tactic. Well, the next time we do a launch, we're going to test a new contest and we're going to shoot for 1,000 emails. So, that's when we start to get the information on how would we go about doing that. So, if your team's looking this up, they start to consult with people, they start to try and figure out and read podcast... read podcasts... read blogs, articles, listen to podcasts about contests and how to make the best contest ever. And I have resources for all of those things, of course. 

The reason why we want to start trying to figure out what to test is where is your avatar? Where are they sitting? Where are they already going? I know a bunch of you have already done surveys. So, we have some of this information and this data. We just need to put it in your calendar and in your quarterly plan somewhere, so you can actually do it. 

So, again, this is what I showed you at the very beginning. I know it looked a little overwhelming before and it might still look a little overwhelming, but... Most of my clients don't have it to this Nth degree, but this what we're shooting for. This is what it really is going to look like when your team is bigger, when you really have to get ahead of the game. Not that corporations are great at this either, they also kind of suck. So, we're all doing the best that we have in regard to this. 

But, for example, this is my full-on example. I think on your worksheet, you only have the January example. But the goal is to start moving this stuff around, making sure we're putting in time for your personal goals also. These, I know, are the business ones that are listed. But what I want you to be also be able to do is go, "Oh, and my constraint is 30 hours a week." Or, "My constraint is in January, I'm taking two weeks off." Or maybe we preplan it for the summer to take two weeks off. But then everybody on your team knows what's upcoming in advance. We know when your vacations are, potentially, so that way we can prep a lot of the systems and the processes. So, this is the beginning pieces. 

The systems and the processes will start to fill in the gaps as we go. And that's what I'll help you with also. But we don't want to try and take too many things all at once because then you'll feel stress level nine or burnt out. And that is what we're trying to avoid for 2021 for you. I know 2020 was a doozy. Now that we're starting a new year with more knowns than we did for most of this year, we can plan a little bit more. 

What I want you to do when you're writing down these monthly priorities, because I'm going to give you 10 minutes to go over just January. Don't get me wrong, I'm not? If you could do all of Q1, that would be great. If you can't, that's totally fine, too. But all I want is a rough outline. Throw in some stuff like, "Oh, that means in January, we have to do this. In February, we have to do this." Even if it doesn't have to do with your KPIs. The reason why we break down the KPIs is to understand what goes where. But, if you already know in February, you're going to be doing a launch, even though you have no idea how many emails you need, that's totally fine too, we'll work on that. 

So, as we're going, I'm going to give you 10 minutes to break down the KPIs and start putting in the tactics, start putting in some of the systems that you know you need to do. Even if you have more than three, feel free to put a little brainstorm list and we'll go over that either after on the Q&A or during our session. Any questions? Everyone's like big deep breath. All right, ready, go. [Music]

Schools out! For real this time. So, one last slide and we'll open it up for Q&As. I just want to remind you, do not worry if it's rough. If you don't have all the data, that's totally fine. What I want you to do is before having your quarterly or your next session, submit it to us. You can put it in your client sheet and that way I can take a quick peek beforehand and I can prep. That way we can hit the ground running when we have our call so we can get through as much as we possibly can. 

The goal for me is to have you think farther ahead. So, if you're normally able to think two months ahead, I want you to start thinking six. I've had many one-on-one clients for a long period of time. Sometimes when they first show up, they're like, "I'm like three weeks out. Or I'm like six weeks out, or eight weeks. Or we're looking at our feet." But what the goal is is to pick your head up a little more so you're not running and falling on your face every second. Pick your head up more, be the captain of the ship, be paying attention to those KPIs, having one piece of paper that can tell the health of your business and if you're on course so that you can make decisions without the stress and decisions knowing where you want to be in 6-12 months. 

And longer term, we'll even dial it back even farther. But I know quite a few of you don't have the information you need currently, so get it as best you can for right now. I will help you, that's what I'm here for, to make it a lot easier. And so that we can have that rough outline, at least, for most of 2020 before November. How amazing is it that you guys will have most of your 2021 planning in November of 2020. I know most of you, beside Phil, they probably didn't have them all figured out. Phil's like, "I already have all this." Thanks Phil. I know you're a good student. A+ for today. If you don't, it's a little bit at a time so that way we can make this better. 

I'm going to open it up. I hope it was helpful for you. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Categories: All, Business

Hi I’m Jaime. Each and every week I bring you the top business advice from the people who know best.

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