Episode Transcript
[00:00:04] Speaker A: Content, you can go back to the first two months. So I will share the page that's got all of the resources. The first two months particularly, we went quite deep with Profit First content. So the first one was really what is Profit First about?
Why do you want to know about it? How is it useful for do in your business? The second session, we go into the specifics, so we actually talk about how I work with people and I share literally my kind of strategies for implementing Profit First in your own business. About an hour long. There's lots of resources as well, and I'll share that with everybody who's here today. The third session we've done last month was all about budgeting.
So I don't know if any of you do your own budgeting, but we've done it on Xero. But it's pretty much relevant for QuickBooks, Sage, whatever kind of online system you use. But I think that's quite relevant, to be honest, with what I'm going to share today, because having a budget is really important in my eyes to going into the New Year as a business owner. That's one of the things we will look at. So right, so I'm going to get started and just share my screen.
Right? Can everybody see my screen?
Yeah. Okay, so let me just get rid of the toolbar at the top.
I've just lost one of my tabs.
I'm just trying to open the right tab. The toolbars in the way on Zoom. Right, here we go.
So everybody see the slide? Okay there? Yeah, perfect.
Hi, Claire. How are you?
We start from here, okay?
Yes. I've just really talked about a bit of background in terms of what the Profit First club is. So for some of the people that have not seen it before, I'm just going to share with you what the kind of the resources and everything looks like. Just in case you want to catch up on some of the previous recordings, you can watch it on YouTube. But what I've done is created a notion kind of hub where you can access previous webinars.
So you can see here, we've got the previous webinars. We've got a little bit about how we work with people on Profit First, but the main thing, to be honest, is going to be the recordings for you. We've also got some resources, so we've got a nice little, what do they call it, like infographic, just kind of summarizing the Profit First principles, which is, I think is quite a nice summary for people, really.
My toolbar keeps on getting in the way of my screen.
Yeah. So that's where you're going to find most of the resources. Right, okay, perfect.
I can see all of you on the camera now, so can you just put your hands up? If you normally do some sort of planning for the New Year in your business, is it something you normally do do you do any sort of business planning? So I thought you would do Claire and Alex.
Steve, did you say you don't normally do any planning in your business for the New Year?
[00:04:05] Speaker B: To a degree.
Things changed a couple of years ago and we're just getting back to where we supposed to have been. I went into full time employment for a while and the wife continued to run the business and it's more ticked over than been planned and grown, if you see what I mean.
[00:04:23] Speaker A: I see, yeah.
[00:04:24] Speaker B: But that's what we're planning for next year because I've had him noticed now, so I'm going rejoining the business to take things forward.
[00:04:32] Speaker A: I see, yeah. That makes complete sense.
Yeah. And I think there's an element of what I'm going to be sharing today. I think Claire be a little bit familiar with this because we're both in the EC and one of the things we talk about is creating a business on your terms. And your terms is really what do you want out of it personally? And that can change depending on your life and where you are in your business. But ultimately, I think we always have to go back to what it means for us and our sort of family. So there's going to be a little bit of thinking involved in this session, so there can be some practical tools you can kind of take away. I'm also going to basically cover what I've learned and what I do in my business. So this is actually a new tool that I've created myself. The name might change, but I've called it the Four X Four business Review.
And where this has come from is that I think a lot of people get overwhelmed and one of the terms I've kind of heard is toolitis where there's too many things or there's too many ideas. And I think we've all been to training events, workshops where there's kind of just too much noise, there's just too many things on our to do list and we really don't know where to start. And just a personal story. Where this come from?
It come from I was actually in the sauna when I come up with this idea, and when the going gets tough in the sauna, because you need to stay in for really up to 20 minutes for the health benefits to sort of kick in. And there's a lot of studies I could bore you, all of you, with the stories of the sauna, but if you long story short, it can decrease your chance of having a cardiovascular problem by up to 50% if you have a regular sauna so many times a week. But when it gets hard, which is usually after ten minutes, because your core temperature increases and your heart rate increases, and it's just really hard work, I start doing box breathing, and I don't know if any of you have heard of box breathing, but it's an SAS technique where you breathe in for 4 seconds, you hold your breath for 4 seconds, you breathe out for 4 seconds, and then you hold your breath for 4 seconds. And I just kind of made the connection with business can get a bit overwhelming sometimes. And what tool would be handy where we can kind of just reduce the overwhelm, concentrate on what is the next thing I need to do in my business. And that's where this was kind of born. So I've called it Four X Four. Business review. So what I want you to think about, don't know if you've all got a notepad or something you can write on is just start on the top one because this is quite workshopy doing, it is where you're going to get the benefit. So just write down, just spend a good 60 seconds. What are four goals?
It could be personal or business or a mixture of both that you'd like to achieve. Don't worry about a time frame, don't worry about the next twelve months. Next three months it could be ten years. Whatever comes to your mind, what are the kind of bigger picture goals? And I think personal ones do really help and just jot some ideas down. It doesn't have to be four, it could be two, it could be three, it could be five. But I've just used that as a reference point, really.
Normally I put some kind of relaxing classical music on in the background, but it comes through quite tinny through my laptop.
And just as a little bit of background with people here, I think Alex will be familiar with the concept of thinking time. I don't know if you've come across it, Claire, but there's a guy called Keith Cunningham from America, a Texas kind of millionaire, super successful. He's about 70 years old now and he's toured the world with Tony Robbins as one of his main business people in his business mastery. And he's got a book which is probably one of the most thought provoking books we'll ever read. And it's called the road less stupid.
And a lot of it is about thinking time. It's about putting in the thinking to kind of don't make the stupid mistakes to course correct before we sort of dive in and take action. And I know Nigel in the EC talks a lot about thinking time, but Keith Cunningham really goes deep into that area. Definitely worth a read. So can you do the same for four projects now? So with the projects, some of them might be connected to a goal. And I'll give you an example. I've got a goal to write a business book. I actually want to write ten business books in next ten years, but I want to get my first one over the line before the end of the year. So that is a goal. That's a big top level goal for me. You could also say it's a project because it's pretty much a project, but sometimes you won't draw a parallel because you might have a goal to have a holiday home, but that's not necessarily a project. If it is the same thing, don't worry. It's more about how can the rubber meet the road, what are the hands on things I need to do? Because a goal is a bit wishy washy top level. It's not about how, it's more about why a project is more specific.
So when you jot down your projects, it's probably worth doing one or two bullet points in terms of what are the milestones you could take to move those projects forward. Doesn't need to be perfect. If I'm doing one for my book, bullet point number one would be to get my book structure, my index sorted so I know what each chapter is.
Number two might be to get to draft it. Number three might be to get a proofreader. Number four might be to get it published. Just put any milestones you can think of for those projects.
Okay, perfect.
Obviously you guys can come back to this. I have created a kind of PDF template that I can share and I'll give a bit more context in a second. The next thing you don't really need to put any thinking behind. I think there's four main financials that all of us kind of need to worry about.
And so if you just want to jot down. So your revenue is one, your gross profit is another, which is heavily connected to your cost of sales. If you buy goods, your net profit is the third one, and the fourth one is your cash in your bank, really. So bear in mind, I'm an accountant and a business owner.
I could give you loads of accounting jargon with all different numbers to look at. But to be honest, they are the four most important things for most business owners to look at. And the reason I share this is this tool is something I recommend you kind of do once a quarter. It's just a realignment it's a review of what's important to you in your business, what are your bigger goals, what the projects you're working on. You could do it monthly, but I would recommend at least doing it quarterly. And the financials is really something you should look at at least every three months. You should know in your business, really, what your turnover is, what your gross profit is, which can be the same for some businesses if you're not buying and selling things, what your net profit is, what your cash in your bank is. And to be honest, we can all relate to those metrics. They're quite easy to understand. It's just having up to date financials. The final one is what are four KPIs that you think? I don't know how familiar everybody is with the concept of a scorecard, but a scorecard in this context of running a business is if I was on a desert island or I was on a beach, that's probably a bit more exciting. I'm on a beach, I don't know, I'm in Florida, I'm in Disneyland, my favorite place in the world, and I need my team to give me some KPIs to show me if the business is running successfully, if it's doing everything it needs to do. So it would basically tell me, it would keep score, it would tell me if my business is doing what I need it to do. And that's individual to you guys, it could be number of new inquiries, it could be money in the bank, it could be books created, it could be marketing activities, it could be events attended, it could be quotes sent out, proposals sent out. But what are the four sort of KPIs that you think spring to mind? If you've got six put six down, that's fine, but I just use four as a kind of reference point. What are the things that give you an idea if the business is heading in the right direction? Something you could look at most weeks to tell you if the business is doing a good job.
And there are some other tools. I will share a couple where there's more in depth analysis we can do. But the reason why I've kept it four areas is I want it to be simple so that as I mentioned, this was Born is inspired by box breathing, which is concentrate on the and next thing on my list, how can I focus? And I think these are the four main areas for most businesses, what are the goals I'm working towards? And classic Stephen Covey start with the end in know if I don't know where I'm heading, how can I kind of work backwards? And then from those goals, what are the projects that I want to focus on that are relevant to me to help me get there? Am I keeping on top of my financials because we can't ignore financials. And what are the kind of KPIs? What are the things, the activities I need to do to show me are going to drive those financials? So for example, if someone wants to increase their revenue, normally they're going to have to have more sales. And to have more sales, you're probably going to have to have more proposals sent to your customers. To have more proposals, you're probably going to have to have more leads. To have more leads you might have to spend more on your marketing. So without overcomplicating it's thinking a little bit before the financial side of things, the final thing I want to share on this slide is inspired I give credit to Strategic Coach, which is a coaching organization run by Dan Sullivan. There's a book called Who, Not How. And if you work on your doing, you're used to thinking how, how can I do this? How can I do that? How can I implement this latest new marketing thing? How can I learn about AI? How can I sort my bookkeeping out? How can I go home and do whatever I need to in the house? So who not how is a shift in mindset. It's who can do it, not how can I do it? And when you're a small business, cost comes in, resources comes into play and I get that, that we can't just pay everyone to do something, but you should have a who list, and a who list is when I can afford it or when resources allow. Who are the people I'm going to offload things to my business to help me focus on the things that are important to me. So I would jot down who are the who's? That could be people that enable your business to kind of potentially grow or move closer towards your goals. In the longer term, if you've already got a team, it could just be someone in your team. It could be, how can they step up if you haven't got a team? It could be subcontractors, it could be I need to in many ways, as accountants, we are a who to certain people.
It could be a marketing agency. If you're marketing, it could be someone who's good at that thing. We don't need to be brilliant at everything as business owners, and I think it's kind of one of the biggest mistakes I think a lot of business owners make is trying to do everything forever in their business and sometimes there's some very cost effective solutions to find the right who. OK, perfect. I'm just going to pick people's brains, if that's okay.
I'm going to pick on you first, Claire, because you finished your Apple. Now.
Any kind of any takeaways, any thoughts, any insights from what you've jotted down?
[00:19:31] Speaker C: Yeah. So I've had a project for a thing that I've wanted to launch for ages, and I just keep putting it off and putting it off and putting it off.
And the story about me putting it off is I don't have the right team to be able to take it forward because I don't have a team. I'm on my own.
So every time I kind of go, what do I want to work towards next year? It is like I want to launch this thing, but then I don't do any stuff to kind of get there. And I think for me, breaking down the financials for it and knowing I get to pay out to make back what I want to, there's no point in me saying I can't pay out 300 quid to make 20K back. It's just a ridiculous mindset, isn't it?
That's come up for me again, particularly in the who do I know, who do I trust that can do the side of it that I can't do?
And it's about swallowing the fact that I need to pay them in order to be able to launch the thing that I want to launch.
But that's the goal. It's the project, it's the financials, the KPIs. It would be how many people have opened the lead magnet, how many people have opened the emails, how many people have signed up?
[00:21:14] Speaker A: Yeah, I see.
Yeah. An interesting thing I've just thought of with this, with the whole who, not how and I get the resources thing, that in an ideal world, as entrepreneurs, we want to get ahead of ourselves, we want to go faster and we want the money to do everything really quickly. But you can see the Profit First logo in the top right corner, and I think that's a nice reminder that I like taking opposing views, because who not how is great, but there's also the backbone of Profit First, which is why I've created this. And Profit First teaches us to be more innovative, resourceful, creative. So throwing money is a good way and a quick way of finding a who, but actually, how can we be more creative to find the right who as well? And it's just having that thought process, I think.
Anyone else want to share anything? Alex? Steve, any thoughts or insights a little.
[00:22:14] Speaker D: Bit similar to Claire in that probably as I went through it all, I thought actually, most of this is sort of probably what I was doing writing last year, and I don't feel there's there been enough progress, I guess.
And some of that, I would say, is so I do have a team, but there's been a lot of challenges, a lot of changes, and I guess I try to keep things quite lean. So then I think you feel like, yes, you end up always asking yourself, what do I need to do to solve this problem?
How do I solve this problem? Because you sort of put running quite a tight ship with your staff and you don't feel like you can sort of ask any more of them.
I feel, yeah, there's been progress, but it's not being at the rate I've needed. So it's a lot of the same questions. And I guess my question then to myself is, what's going to be the step change that actually makes me achieve those things this year? That's what I need to ask myself and think about.
[00:23:28] Speaker A: And a lot of what I've got more things to share, but a lot of this is really just to ask the right questions and first and foremost, to ask the right questions and then off those questions, to formulate some kind of plan, really. So it's just to aid that sort of process.
Anything you want to share, Steve?
[00:23:52] Speaker B: Yeah, for quite I've joined the EC as well, so I heard about you in the first. Yeah, for me, what I need to do once I get back in the business, really, is get all the systems and processes into place, I think just fell a bit behind on things like when do we order stock, how do we choose what we order? Are we ordering the right quantities and not having too much money tied up in stock? And then things like invoice payments, make sure they're spread out so we're not burning cash, we're not coming to an issue where we've got a low cash flow, a problem with cash flow problem.
You got a load of hit big bills in one week when not much a week after and it's just trying to marry all that out and get all that sorted really. I mean the long term plan is to launch a new product and service within the area and alongside that also work on something that we've really underutilized and that's our website.
We could go nationally but as well as just locally and that's got to be through the website and there's a lot of work that needs to be done on that. So it's just breaking all down those little pieces and decide and breaking up the time and who's going to do what and how we're going to do that between us.
[00:25:10] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think this particular thing is not a holistic approach to tackle all of our problems in our business. I think it's a useful kind of thing. When we want to refocus, it could be called the four times four refocus. It's more like because we can get stuck in the weeds, we can get dragged into certain directions and this tool for me is just a way of kind of not going too far off compass and off direction just to bring us back and say what's the big picture then? Sort of to drill it down. But in terms of helping us of all these challenges, I think there's lots of things we need to do as business owners in our armory. This doesn't touch upon marketing and I still think profit first is a very good backbone for everybody, particularly when it comes to the cash side of things.
Okay, so this here, I don't know if anyone's ever done this before. Again, I'm going to give reference and credit to Strategic Coach on this one, although it's not unique to them, it's a human psychology thing, but it's inspired from another book called The Gap and the Gain by Dan Sullivan and Benjamin Hardy. But I just want you all to spend just at 60 seconds, just reflect and I've got an image here of an example of what this process can look like and you can get their tool from the Strategic Coach website there. I'll share the link afterwards, but just spend 60 seconds to think about what are you proud of in your business, what's been a success, what gains, what wins have you had in the last twelve months? I think is a really good way of kind of reflecting on the year we're in before we head into 24 and that can be personal stuff as well. Whatever comes to mind.
I know you've probably got quite a lot Claire, to win because judging by the local EC meet, you're normally making quite a lot of momentum every month.
[00:28:04] Speaker C: Trying. Yeah.
Wow.
We opened our secured dog field in May, so that's like probably the biggest achievement. And we've got really loyal repeat customers, so that's really cool. And we've taken capacity from an average of about 18% a week up to 46% now.
Really chucked with that?
I have had my first ever five consecutive months of five K in the business, which I would always have months and then a couple of bad ones and then a really good one and a couple of bad ones. And now it's just like I've got consistency in terms of that revenue now, which is brilliant. And I'm constantly well, not constantly, but I've just really thought about what I want my life to look like and now I am strategizing how I do my work around what I want my life to look like.
So I've completely changed the way that I work with people. Before it was like I'll go out of my way, I'll take up my evening, I'll take up my weekend, I'll do everything for everyone and I'm not doing that anymore. It's like, this is the life that I want to have and my customers get to fit in around that and if they can't fit in around that, then they're not my customers.
Yeah, that's probably my biggest win, I would say, this year, from a personal point of view.
[00:29:50] Speaker A: Yeah, we'll touch upon that when we get talk. I know Nigel's talked about it, so I won't talk too much about it, but I'll do it from a personal perspective in terms of your terms and creating your sort of dream life. And I've been in the master plan, so I'm very familiar with that and I think you're absolutely right. I mean, my wife Becky has been growing a sort of small Nail business and She's Got, like, an outbuilding in our garden and she Just works stupid times just scattered throughout the just and I get it at the beginning, we're pleasers, aren't we in our business in many ways and We Just Want To Concentrate on the Revenue. But bigger picture, we need to design a life, really, and the businesses around our life, not the other way around.
Any wins anybody else wants to share?
[00:30:40] Speaker D: Yeah, I think from my perspective, we have increased both revenue and profits over the year and I've got some new people in the team, they've really good values fit, so just need to develop them.
And also we did sort of expand the marketing we did really at the start of the year. And to be honest, if we hadn't had done that, I think we would have really struggled. So we did Facebook ads, which I wasn't really sure if they were going to work, but it turned out really well and we're doing something slightly different next year, but it's been really good. But I think probably the biggest thing personally was I bought my business probably about just over four years ago. And I think it's really only in the last probably 18 months or like, this year that I've sort of felt that I'm no longer, like, an imposter in my own business.
And I felt bolder and braver and able to make decisions. So, yeah, I think I was a pleaser quite a lot, as you've just said, and it's about trying to do that, and we've got an opportunity next year to do that even more, change the business, because we've got an opportunity to change our premises. So that could have a really sort of shift in terms of how we position ourselves.
So, yeah, so I think there's been some good progress, but obviously, as usual, there's always so much more you could have done.
[00:32:17] Speaker A: There's always something else, another challenge, isn't there? There's always something to fix. And that sounds amazing. Thanks, Alex. How about you, Steve? Any wins you want to share?
[00:32:28] Speaker B: Really? For us, it's just the fact that I'm managing to rejoin the business. We've managed to sort things out to free up the funds so we can do that.
And it'll be probably towards the end of February that I actually join full time, but in the meantime, I'll be working part time. And in between that, we've just managed to free up a little bit of time between us to give ourselves a little bit of time off, rather than me covering her in the shop all the time. And if I can't do that, she's having to work seven days and that kind of thing. So we've managed to work things out a little bit and give ourselves a little bit of time.
[00:33:05] Speaker A: Yeah, brilliant. And the reason this is quite powerful and I would recommend the book, the Gap in the Gain, is because as business owners, there's always more work to be done than what we can do.
I think there's a Lion King song, isn't there, about that, but there's always more to be done than what we can actually physically do. And I don't know about you guys, but sometimes you look back and you, oh, this is brilliant. A few years ago, I would have done anything to be where I am now, but when you're there, it doesn't necessarily feel like that. You still feel like, I know there's a bit of comparison and you look at other people and you're like, oh, they've got this or their revenue, is that, or they've got this team or they look better on social media. So I think actually focusing on where we've come from is far more useful to us as business owners than where we're not. And a lot of successful people get stuck constantly in the so called gap that enough is never enough. And. Actually, it's one of the reasons why your terms is quite powerful, because you can identify what enough is from a personal perspective. But this positive focus. I get the team to share three wins every single day. And at the beginning, it was kind of maybe forced positivity at the beginning. So they were like, oh, do we have to do this? But now they're itching to share their wins. If they don't share it, they actually feel something's missing. It becomes part of your psyche.
Before I go to bed, I have a reminder on my phone to jot down my three wins. And the positive focus is a tool you can kind of just use for the week to say, what are maybe the five big wins I've had this week? Because your to do list would never end. So it's just a good way of focusing on the positive. I won't make you do this now, but before the New year, it might be a good thing to consider doing is I learned this off Jim Rohn.
We're probably familiar with Jim Rohn, but he was Tony Robbins mentor. It's where Tony Robbins learned a lot of stuff from, and very wise, his stuff is amazing. I recommend The Ultimate Jim Rohn Library on Audible, but he says at the end of the year, he always goes through his calendar every single day and looks at where his time went. And if you don't kind of block time in the calendar, it might not be as useful, but I would encourage you to do that. I think it's one of the best ways for kind of managing your time is to block time in your calendar. But also the benefit is you can see where your time went and you can see what meetings you went to, and you learn what not to do next year by looking backwards. It's really helpful to go into the new year with a bit more clarity, what meetings you should take and what you shouldn't, when not to waste your time, maybe.
And some people actually do this each week. Some people do this as part of their weekly planning, where did my time go this week? And that's not a bad thing. But certainly at the end of the year, it's quite powerful in terms of planning. I don't like annual planning per se because I think it should be a constant rolling activity. But at the same time, we can't ignore the power of the calendar year. There is something in our psyche with New Year celebrations, the end of a year. You can't ignore that process. So take advantage of that because it does definitely create an emotional drive.
But you should be planning more often. And we're going to touch upon some areas in a second. I would use the four x four quarterly or something like that. Doesn't have to be that tall. So going on to your terms, I'm not going to dive too deep into this.
But Terms stands for your time, energy, resources, money and sanity. So it's kind of what energy? What do you want to give into your business and what do you want to get out of your business? So how much time do you want to work in it? Is it to work Monday to Thursday, Monday to Friday? Is it to work 20 hours a week? 40 hours a week? But a lot of people don't have intention.
Like my wife. I don't think she's thought about her terms because she's growing a business, and that's quite normal. I think that we just get carried away and we're excited at the beginning, but then we get a little bit drained. So if you haven't done this, I would think about what an ideal week looks like for you. And actually, it's an amazing exercise to do.
I meditate and I visualize, and I don't think that's for everybody. But if you can get an idea what an ideal week looks like and an ideal life, and you visualize on that and that's really powerful, that's a really useful thing to kind of bring it to reality. But if you don't plan what your ideal day looks like, your ideal week, it's probably not going to happen.
It's not just going to by chance. And what you'll realize is some people closer to their ideal life, or particularly a working life now than they realize, because there's some things you can say, actually, I could do this right now. What am I waiting know? I don't have to work this day of the mean.
Nigel shared a story.
I don't know where I've come across it with. I think it was his dentist friend.
And Nigel was saying how the EC don't work.
Mean. Just on a personal note, we have in my team, they can work where they want, when they want. So if they don't want to work Fridays, they don't have to work Fridays. There are some kind of parameters within that. But the dentist friend of Nigel said I couldn't possibly not work Fridays. And Nigel said, what are you talking about? All you need to do is stop making appointments on a Friday. And that's how simple it was.
So I just definitely deserve some thinking time going off a little bit. I'm a big believer in journaling and thinking, and I would spend a little bit of time thinking about what does success mean for you? I've not put it on the slide, but that's quite powerful. What does success mean for you? Because it's not just financial. It could mean freedom. It could mean being around the right people in your life. So I think it's a good opportunity in the new year 2024 to think about these things, and that's why I'm sharing that now.
And another thing, I didn't get this from the EC, but Sony and EC shared it at the last convention, I think, or maybe the convention a year ago was getting your family involved with your vision. Asking your family, your partner, what does an ideal life look like for them? Because it's okay me creating an ideal week, but if I don't get Becky involved, there could be some problems later down the line. So definitely getting your family and your partner involved is key, really. And for some reason a lot of us don't like doing this or we feel bit it's personal, but actually it's for our family, I find, most of the time.
So what I've just shared with you, the four x four business review is my own kind of little system I created. But another useful tool, and Alex will be familiar with this, and it's called the EOS System.
So I'm just going to load up my I've lost my screen.
It's called the EOS system.
When I find it, I've lost my tab. Sorry, guys, I won't be a second. Try and find view, exit, full screen.
There we go. Can you all see this document I'm sharing here? Yeah. Okay, so the EOS system is based off a book called Traction. There's actually two versions of Traction. I think one's called Get a Grip, and one might just be called Traction. And it's a little bit more relevant when you've got a team because it's how to scale a business the right way. And it's based off these segments here. So they're saying every business needs to consider these things. They need to consider their vision. And we've done a little bit of that today with the four x four. They need some data, which is really the scorecard I talked about in terms of metrics, financials. They need to get their processes sorted. Steve, you mentioned processes.
Traction is more about meeting cadence. Solving issues is a plan. It's like Rocks is making a plan of action. Really. Issues is a specific area of the EOS system because a lot of the time it's not the shiny new object that's going to give us the results we want. I don't know about you guys, but sometimes we think we're going to get this new thing that's going to transform our businesses or we're hoping there's going to be something, but actually, most of the time the success is solving your issues.
I think there's a book, I've not read it, but I think it's called The Obstacle is the Way. And it's the idea that if you can remove your blockages and your bottlenecks, that actually that frees up a lot of your momentum and people people's key. And that could be if you're just you, it could be who you deal with in terms of subcontractors and that sort of thing. So this particular document, I won't go in deep on the EOS system, but this particular document is called the Vision Traction Organizer or the VTO. And I think it's a very useful tool. If you just type, I'll share the resources but it's just EOS VTO download. You should be able to find it, but I will share it.
This is a really useful one page plan. I'm not going to make everyone do it now, but I use this and I create it. I review it once a year. Well, I do a big review once a year, but I also go back to it every three months.
If you've not got core values in your business, I'm pretty sure Alex has probably got core values because of the Dan Bradbury Mastermind Group.
I would definitely document those, even if it's just you, Claire, in your business.
One of the problems that people grow in a business is they can't find the right people who match their values or match their attitude or their skills or their experience. If the earlier you can document what's important to you as a business owner and what values you want to demonstrate with your customers, with people in your team. When you grow a team, the easier it will be when you have other people involved because you can use these values for subcontractors as well as people in your team. So just to share our values, we've got an acronym which makes it a bit easier and it's back, but it's Bakk and the B stands for Batteries Included.
So, I mean, Alex has got a team.
There's some people, Alex, you probably found this, that got their own energy and they're south starters and they're kind of problem solvers and they kind of got batteries included and you've got some people you need to kind of energize them yourself.
So Batteries included. Above the Line Thinking is our second one. And if you're above the line, you're showing accountability, ownership and responsibility. If you're below the line, you're showing blame, excuses and denial. That is really helpful because even when something goes wrong in my business, I ask myself, am I above the line? Because I could easily blame other people and say it was their mistake. But what I do because of above the Line thinking, I look at myself and say, what could I have done differently? Was the process a proper process? Was it documented? Did I train my team? Ultimately, we are ridiculously in charge in our businesses and kind of everything comes down to the decisions we make. So Values core focus is not to lose track of what is your main focus on your business. We could all spin off and do other things in our business, but what is the main thing we're good at that we really add value and we want to be known for in our business. Ten Year Target it's a long way away, but this is where you can dare to dream and get excited. A lot of people don't know what's possible in ten years because they're limited by their thinking. Today you're limited by where you are now, but you're not going to be the same person in twelve months time and you're not going to be the same person in five years time. So ten years is quite a long way away and it's worth documenting what you would like to achieve in your business in ten years. And then it's self explanatory. You can see some of the other boxes. I'll let you all kind of use this if you feel is useful to you and then you can bring it down. The traction is what we do in every quarter, so we can have a one year plan. A bit of cross reference with my four x four, but this is more as an annual tool. The four x four, I think, is a summary you can do every three months.
I know Alex, you're probably familiar with that, but is there any questions on this particular document from anyone?
No. So don't worry if it's overwhelming. There's lots of stuff. The idea is if you're doing 50% of this, you're ahead of most business owners because you're thinking about these things. That is really the kind of big takeaway with what we're aiming for. And I do come back to this every three months because we follow the EOS system. So with my team, with certain people, we actually review that every three months.
We're doing for time. I'll just rush through this.
We've talked about that already, I've mentioned this, but if you're going into the new year without a budget, I don't think that's a good idea, to be honest. And I'm not just saying that as an accountant, but having some numbers gives you clarity in what you're aiming for in your business.
Marketing is far more exciting to most business owners, but having a budget, by putting numbers on paper, you're far more likely to achieve them because you've got an idea what you're aiming for. It's a bit like going to the gym, getting in shape and having an idea of what weight you want to lose in the next three months. Having a budget is key, and I will share the video to the zero budget process that I went through last month with everyone.
I've talked about scorecards, really, but when it comes to your scorecard, you want a little bit of balance. So you want your scorecard to have a holistic view on your business, but you don't want it to be too busy. You could have 15 metrics, and if you have 15 metrics, you're probably not going to use it. So I would generally recommend three to seven kind of KPIs for your weekly scorecard. I might do a separate session to go into more detail on scorecards, but in essence it's just what are the drivers or the activities or the metrics that show the business is on track every week and you want it to be ahead of the curve. So really you've got inputs and outputs.
If you've got cash flow problems in your business, that's an output that's a result of something that's happened already, if you see what I mean. It's a result of not charging enough, not getting paid early enough, not having enough marketing. So we want to be able to manage as much inputs as we can, because then the results will speak for themselves.
The other thing is definitely worth considering if you don't do this. And the inspiration comes from zig. Ziglar. Tony Robbins.
There's also someone called Brendan Burchard, who's got an app called Growth Day, which I really recommend. People checking out growth Day, brilliant app. And it's all about personal development. And for me, if you don't focus on your personal development, your personal well being, you're probably not going to grow your business. Or if you do grow your business, you're probably going to struggle because you're going to run out of energy.
And it's a lot more draining if you don't look after yourself first. So one of the things that Zig Ziglar talked about in maybe the 70s was reviewing your life. Tony Robbins calls it the Wheel of Life. I think we've done this in the local EC. Meet Claire recently.
Carrie talked about it, but it comes from Tony Robbins the Wheel of Life. And if you don't do it already, growth Day is an app to log this. So you can actually have metrics. And it's things like, on a scale of one to ten, what would I rate my relationship in the last month? How much attention have I gave my partner? And have we found time to do stuff together? Have we gone on dates? Have we had little breaks?
If you've been really busy that month and you've not had time for that, you might give it a lower score.
On a scale of one to ten, what would I give my finances for the month? I'll just share something with you all, just so you've got a visual with something to look at.
So if we do Wheel of Life, tony Robbins so we've got some images here. Let's pick on that one.
Zoom in so you can see on the right hand side. It's up to you what you measure and what you track. So do a little bit of research, but really the main ones are health, family, relationships, spirituality, finance, career. And it's something you need to keep on top of, really, because what you pay attention to, you put your energy towards, really.
Okay.
Some of those are not. So we talked about the budget. I've talked about this already.
I talked about the concept of thinking time. I would definitely encourage you, if you've not done it before, to think about what are the three biggest problems in your business.
Think what are the biggest challenges, what the obstacles that I feel are holding me back in my business. And book a meeting with yourself. I know it sounds a bit crazy, but block time. Book a meeting with yourself and spend maybe up to 40 minutes, pen and paper, just getting your thoughts on a piece of paper. In terms of what's holding your business back, it's all about asking questions.
Your brain cannot ask a question without trying to think about the answer. It's just a kind of human condition. So by writing it down, you will start thinking about, how can I solve this problem? And what happens when people don't allocate the thinking time?
The questions don't get the effort, the obstacles don't get the effort they deserve. So what you'll find is you're doing other things, so you'll be doing your day job and then for 60 seconds, it might cross your mind and then it goes. But if you can block the time and get a piece of paper to kind of think about and get it all out, it can be quite transformative, um, because of time. I'm not going to go too much into time management. I mean, the big thing I will say is just get intentional with your time, really.
Stephen Covey talks about high importance and urgency. I don't know if anyone's come across that, but basically not everything on your list is equal. There are some things that are highly urgent and they're important, and that's basically putting out fires. You have to solve those problems. But where you want to be spending your time is things that are super important in your business, but they're not urgent. So that's the stuff that we tend to put off. That's the things that there's no urgency, there's no deadline, but they're super important. The more time you can spend on those things, generally, the bigger progress you're going to find you're going to make in your business. So in the EC, that's really the 90 minutes of the day.
Important but not urgent. So Stephen Covey time matrix system is definitely something I would look into. If you're not familiar with that, I've talked about this already.
Planning your thinking time, even if it's once a week, book a meeting with yourself.
I like to do it in a different place. I like to do it in a coffee shop. Because what I find, if you're in the same four walls, you kind of think the same because you've got these memories, these experiences, it doesn't inspire the creative juices, really. So I would definitely think about getting yourself into a different environment when you do the thinking time.
Talked about who not how.
One of my big takeaways really would be, don't think hard work is the only solution to grow your business and go into 2024. I think if you're going into 2024, thinking, I got to really work hard and I better put a graft in. I'm not saying that can't reap rewards, but in my experience, being around successful business owners, they think smarter, they don't work harder. So I would definitely always look for the opportunity and that's where the thinking time comes in, really. It's a big part of that.
Again, I'm throwing a lot at you guys. I'll do a recap of some of the tools in a second.
Another thing, so these are all kind of mindset tools for you to go into 2024 and to use your own way. But in my experience, and I took this from Keith Cunningham, the guy who kind of invented thinking time. Give him credit for that.
Success is very rarely through the door that says shiny on it. So if we're looking for the new AI, the new Genie AI, the Know chat, GPT or whatever it is, it's very rarely that this new shiny thing is going to give us the success we want in our business.
How do we put on muscle in the gym? Consistent effort, sticking to the basics. And in my experience, most people I see, they do the basics really well. So I think it's quite an interesting mindset approach. If you're going to 2024 is just think about what's holding me back rather than trying to find these new things that these new shiny ideas.
Okay, final thing I want to add I've touched upon is Stephen Covey talks about this. You are the golden goose in your business.
I went to a mindset course for the EC three weeks ago. Terry Gormley run it, and he trains Premier League football players on mindset. And this is one of his big takeaways. You do not need permission from someone else to look after yourself. And I know this seems not very business related, but basically we are the golden goose in our business. We basically produce the golden eggs. I know I talked about who, not how and to get other people involved, but we are the most important person in our business. We are the golden goose. And if you rinse the golden goose like a machine, it's not going to go on forever. So we need to really look after ourselves. And I go to the sauna three or four times a week. I go to the gym so many times a week I would block in your personal well being time, whether it's meditation, whether it's exercise, going to the sauna, whether it's socializing, and don't feel guilty about it, you do not need permission from someone else to give yourself time. It's not a luxury for me. It's essential. If I don't do those things, it has a massive impact on my business. I definitely would put yourself first going into 2024.
It should probably be the first thing in your calendar. In many ways, I think, and in my experience, it's a lot easier if you get a routine. So Monday mornings I always do the sauna. And the reason why I do that on a Monday morning is I don't know about you guys, but as a business owner, how you start the week is how it goes. In my experience, if you start really busy running around, putting out fires, it's like that for the rest of the week if you start with a bit more intention and actually, how can I reduce the urgency and the overwhelm and the panic? How can I kind of work on my terms? And I start a Monday morning on that basis.
So here's some of the things I've shared, talked about the VTO, the four x four review.
So just as a recap, the VTO is an annual thing and it's bigger picture, and I will share the recording of this and some documents. The four x Four is, I think, a very useful quarterly tool. And it's very simple. So it's something you can pick up quite easy.
Definitely. You want an annual budget to go into 2024.
The annual budget is probably my biggest takeaway, to be honest, if you don't have an annual budget, and it took me a few years before I started doing that properly.
We talked about the weekly scorecards, we talked about personal reviews.
And the final thing, which I didn't really touch upon, is I would look at your numbers monthly. Quarterly is a minimum, but there's no reason why you can't look at them monthly.
And when you look at finances and I do a lot of financial coaching with people, we don't have to overcomplicate it. We don't need to be an accountant, we don't need to be a bookkeeper.
So really all you need to do is look at those four financials I shared on the four x four review, and that's turnover, gross profit, net profit and cash. If you know those things every single month, you can't go too far wrong when it comes to your finances.
Well, that's me doing a lot of talking. I am going to share the recording and some resources.
Yeah. Any sort of questions? Because I know there's a lot of stuff I sort of shared there.
No, all good. Okay, perfect.
Yeah. So for any of you guys, I know Claire, you've popped into some of the previous ones. But Steve, if you want some more Profit First related stuff, I'll send you the link to the previous recordings and we go a bit deeper into Profit First.
I will do a recap on Profit First at least probably a quarter, and come back to it.
But the recordings there. And although we call it the Profit First club, it's a central thread to everything. But we're going to touch into other sort of business areas. I want to build a library of resources, essentially for people. Okay, thanks, guys. I appreciate your time. And I'll send the recording and the resources across.
Cheers.
Keep it.
