Quarterly Review for Small Business Owners
[00:00:00] You’re about to jump into a live group coaching call with me. Now, this was a live coaching call from inside my paid group. Coaching membership. This membership it’s specifically designed for business owners who are ready to reach six figures, but they want to do it up. Effectively and efficiently.

[00:00:17] In other words, they want to cut out the wasted time and not get stuck in ineffective tactics. They just want to know what works. They wanna put those things in place and they want it to help them to be able to step back to, to have more time. Well, Part of this membership is that we have group coaching calls where everyone can drop in questions.

[00:00:37] They can ask different things. Sometimes we take a topic and we really study it deeper and we do it in this group format. And so you are going to pop into me answering one of those questions. I hope it’s helpful for you too.

[00:00:51] Hello, gorgeous ladies. Welcome to our group coaching call today. I am taking this call and doing things a little differently because, well, that’s how I roll. And I thought that it would be, well, my thought process is this. We are in a new quarter and this is a great, great time to assess last quarter.

[00:01:22] Make a plan for this quarter. And then get everything working for you and essentially. What I want for you is if there’s any sort of uncertainty, any sort of, Ugh, by the end of this call, I want you to feel like, okay, I have a plan. I know where I’m at. I know how things went last quarter. We’ll see, we’ll see how that part goes.

[00:01:44] Um, but you’re gonna be ready for this upcoming quarter, which is gonna be exciting. So this is interactive. This is an active call today. So you need to. Your notepad, you need to have a pen. Brandy, not you, cuz you are obviously driving. Um but for the rest of you, if you can notepad pen, like I, I want this to be active.

[00:02:05] I want you to let’s just do the work right now together. Um, okay. So we are gonna jump right in and. I’m. I don’t know if I wanna share my screen or not. I kind of think I don’t. I think we’ll just, we’ll just look at me if that’s okay. And some of it, I might, if it, if I feel like it’ll help. Okay. So we’re talking about your quarterly review.

[00:02:29] Okay. I really, really suggest that you get into the habit of doing these pretty obviously every quarter. Um, The whole reason that this is really helpful is if you’re a little off track, it’s going to get you back on track. And what’s beautiful. And the honest truth is that when we don’t check in with ourselves, when we don’t check in with everything weeks, go by then months go by.

[00:02:55] And all of a sudden you find yourself in September, October. And you’re like, I didn’t get anywhere near where I wanted to get this year. Like what I was all pumped about in January that I said I could do that I, I really felt was possible. Now it’s September, October, November, and it doesn’t feel so possible because instead of 12 months, you’re looking at, you know, uh, somewhere around 4 30, 2 left to.

[00:03:18] So if, if quarterly reviews, aren’t something that you’ve done in the past. I highly highly suggest you start doing them now, the way that I do this, just so that I, cuz I’ll forget. I just like everybody else, I will a hundred percent forget that I’m supposed to do a quarterly review. So there are two things that are in my calendar that really help me.

[00:03:35] And these are in, uh, some of our other trainings. So we’ve talked about this before. One of ’em is, is the quarterly review. And it is just scheduled in like the first week of each quarter or the, the, the, for the, for quarter one it’s scheduled before the quarter starts. Right. Cuz I’m goal planning and all that stuff for each of the other quarters.

[00:03:56] I’m it’s like a week after the quarter has end ended and it’s just scheduled into my calendar. It’s gonna pop up. I’m gonna see, like I blocked out two or three hours to work on this. Um, the other thing that I. In my schedule once a month on the same day, every month is to check analytics. And I basically, I just have, like, you can make a, a Google spreadsheet or a Google doc, if you hate the idea of spreadsheets and you just figure out what are the main things that I wanna track.

[00:04:25] And every month on the exact same day, you go and look. So my day. I, I li I did this yesterday. I literally did it yesterday and I went and I looked at my, the, some of the things that I’m looking at is okay, how many people are on my email list total? Then I look at my two that you just decide what you wanna track.

[00:04:42] But for me, I’m looking at my two biggest opt-in funnels and I wanna see what the number is. It’s really great to look every month and see, is it growing or is it not? Is it growing a lot? And then I can assess, I can evaluate and figure out. What do I need to do to ramp this up or, wow, this is really working.

[00:05:02] What the heck is it what’s happening and, and try to solve and, and figure these things out. So I check my, my entire email list to see if that number is going up. And then I check specific segments that I’m really working on and check those. So, those are the things I check with in my email. Then I go to my Instagram and I check the overall Instagram count.

[00:05:21] Am I going up? Am I going down? What’s happening? Um, then I go to my Facebook, same thing. I go to my Pinterest, same thing. I go to my website. I specifically look for active. I think that’s that’s. I have it written down where it’s like, like Facebook. I make sure I’m looking at people who follow, not just people who like, and then, uh, I, for my website, I have, okay.

[00:05:39] How many, how many views am I getting on the website? And. Every month, I just pop them all into my little spreadsheet and every month I can see, am I going up? Am I going down? How are things going? It, and honestly it just gets. Realigned with what I’m trying to do and helps me to start thinking like, oh, I’m really trying to build this part of my list.

[00:06:01] So therefore I should probably work on doing something because it’s, it’s not working the way I want it to, so, Hmm. What could I do? And I start brainstorming, I start coming up with ideas. Um, so I have my quarter or yes, my quarterly things that I check and then I have monthly, the monthly takes very little time.

[00:06:19] I mean, it. 10 minutes, 15 minutes, maybe. So I have it scheduled in on the exact same day, every single month. And it’s just, uh, towards the beginning of the day. And I just pop in, drop in all the numbers and then I’m, it’s just helping me come back. One of the things, when we are creative, Is that we get idea and idea and, you know, shiny, shiny syndrome, right?

[00:06:42] Like you see something new and you start going on this, on this, uh, this path and these steps, they just bring me back. They help me go, wait, I’ve been, I spent all week on this thing that I really thought I needed and maybe I don’t cuz. I’m reviewing my goal. I’m remembering what I’m trying to accomplish.

[00:07:00] And this actually seems to be taking me away from that instead of bringing me towards it. Okay. Let’s talk about quarterly reviews now. So we talked a little bit about quarterly and monthly, but let’s talk about quarterlies. So the first thing that you need to answer is what was your quarter “One goal”?

[00:07:19] Hopefully you knew it. If you don’t that’s okay. We’re gonna figure it out for the next quarter. But what was your quarter? One goal. And then did you achieve it? Why or why not? It’s that simple. Now, one way you could do this, if you’re like, ah, Leah, even though I know on my daily planner every day, I’m supposed to put my, my big goal.

[00:07:36] And like, we’ve talked about this. I didn’t that’s okay. If you did the marketing, if you did the whole marketing training, The marketing training, broke it down by quarter as well. Or if you looked at your like, like if you looked at your calendar, actually calendar it’s over there. If you looked at your calendar, you could just look at January, February, March, these are the things I said I was gonna do.

[00:07:57] Did I do them or not? And then what’s the reason it is important to ask ourselves. Why, so why or why not? Like, was there a legit, like, actually it made sense. I didn’t do it and I’m gonna, I’m gonna fit it in somewhere else. Okay, great. Or is it. Not a great reason. I gotta fix this again. This is purely to just bring us back on track so that, because I want you to get to your goals.

[00:08:22] I want you to actually see the results that you want in your life. And I know personally, I get sidetracked. I get squirreled and, and I go off on something else and I. To help you put some triggers in your business that bring you back. And these quarterly reviews are one of the things that definitely will help you.

[00:08:46] So, very first question. What was your quarter, one goal? Did you achieve it? Why or why not? Okay. So, um, hopefully you’re, you’re scribbling. You’re kind of looking you’re, you’re pulling it up yourself, trying to, to figure out where, where you’re at, if anyone’s super brave and wants to, uh, either just chat with me or.

[00:09:06] Chat with me, um, feel free. I’ll be super excited. Um, okay. So the next part, as you’re starting to look at this goal and seriously unmute yourself and just start chatting with me, um, you don’t have to like, try to figure out how to, how to interrupt me, just interrupt me. Um, okay. So when you’re looking at your goal, ask yourself what went, right.

[00:09:31] Okay. If you didn’t do it at all, maybe nothing went right? Tell you what, if you did, what parts of it went. Right. We have to look at what we did, right. We we’re really good at finding what we don’t do. Good enough. We’re really good at beating ourselves up and saying, I should have, I should have, I should have, but I know there’s some things that you did.

[00:09:51] So what went right in last quarter, even if we’re not talking about your goal in last quarter, what went right? How, you know, I maybe. Did not do well with my business goals, but I sure was more present with the people I love. All right. That went right. Right. So what went right last quarter? What didn’t feel good.

[00:10:10] And here, I’m asking you to tap into most time. I’m going to ask you to, to have answers that are very measurable. You can tell. If you succeeded or you didn’t. Right. When, when we talk about a goal, when we’re gonna talk about setting up your quarter, two goals, you, it has to be measurable. You have to be able to tell if you did it or you didn’t, it can’t be abstract, but in this sense, I’m actually asking you to go abstract.

[00:10:35] I’m asking you to just think about January, February, March. How, how do you, how do you feel it? What didn’t feel good. And what did feel good? So just kind of asking yourself, and this is a whole perspective. Yes, of course. Look at your business, but also look at your relationships, look at your health, you know, looking back to the assessment test that, um, I think that’s in the seven day productivity challenge, right.

[00:11:04] And Jenna does it with you too on your first call. And then I think she does. Maybe quarterly or, or annually with you as well. So end if you haven’t done that, set up a call with Jenna and do it because it is so flipping powerful. So what felt good? What didn’t feel good? It’s time to just kind of look at like, How am I liking life?

[00:11:25] How am I feeling about things? Like, are things feeling good or not? And where, where specifically, where is not feeling good? And then what I want you to do is I want you to look for those little needle movers, not something crazy and huge that you cannot sustain. What is one tiny thing that you do that brings it up one single point?

[00:11:44] Just one point, because the second we say, I am going to accomplish all the things right now in this. You won’t, you you’ll end up not accomplishing any of them. You’ll try. And then you’ll fall off because you’re trying to shift and change everything too fast and too hard. But if we do the little things, it is amazing.

[00:12:05] And this was honestly. I have to say for me personally, that was one of the hardest things to wrap my brain around. I am such an all in hundred and 10%. If I’m gonna do it, I’m going to come in like a wrecking ball and legitimately do it. And then I typically cause a little bit of chaos and destruction and.

[00:12:26] All the things it’s like, have you ever had one of those moments where you get this crazy urge to organize or to clean something out and you just go all in? I mean, you pull absolutely every single thing out of the closet, everything comes out and then. Now that you’ve already, you know, you’re already way too far into it, and now you’ve made a disaster.

[00:12:52] I mean, it is so much worse than where you were at. And then you’re like, yeah, I don’t wanna do this anymore. Right? Like, you’re like really questioning what possessed you. I feel like that’s what happens with we, we notice that something is off in our life. We, we get to that point where we’re like, I’m tired of this.

[00:13:10] I’m done. I don’t wanna deal with this anymore. But then we go way too far, the other way, maybe it’s your health and you haven’t been feeling good and you’re like, I’m not eating sugar or bread or anything. That’s not fruits and vegetables and, and like some kale drink or something. And then we can’t figure out why we can’t sustain sustain it.

[00:13:29] When really, if we would’ve done little tiny adjustments over time, we actually probably would’ve made way more progress and headway. We would’ve kept having these little wins that then created momentum. So when you’re looking at and assessing, and you’re doing your quarterly review and you’re like, what didn’t feel good?

[00:13:51] What did feel good? What did I like? What did I not like about, about the last few months? Be gentle with yourself when you are creating the steps that are going to correct it. If I said, you know, I really feel like, well, one of mine, one of, oh, actually I have, I can share one. My quarterly review. One of mine is I have been really struggling with getting back onto an exercise routine.

[00:14:18] I feel like I was great with exercising for years, years, and years and years. I mean, five, five days a week for years. Really good at. Lately, I cannot get myself to keep a routine. Now, my problem is I, I volunteer and I teach this early morning class that I have to be up around 5, 5 30. If I try to work out beforehand, which I tried for a little bit, I can’t make it till I can’t make it to seven at night.

[00:14:48] Like I like I crash, so I needed a nap, but I don’t actually have a time for a nap every single day. Right. So that wasn’t working. If I try to work out after honestly, I just. Don’t because I already got ready once. Like I had to get fully ready and I don’t wanna get fully ready two times. So I’ve been really, really struggling to find something, but I kept convincing myself that it had to be all or nothing.

[00:15:11] I had to work out every single day with a full, big workout or it didn’t count. So I’ve been really, really working to shift and adjust that. So now my new thing that I’m working on is, is kettlebell swings. I’m like, I’m just gonna try to do. Some squats and some cowbell swings, swings, even if like that’s 10, 15 minutes and I’m done.

[00:15:33] OK. That’s great. That’s great. I’m just gonna try to do something. So I’ve been really trying to bring it back and be more gentle with myself because this whole, all or nothing that I’ve been trying to do for months, I work out on Monday and then that’s it. And then the next week comes, I work out on Monday and then that’s it.

[00:15:48] I mean, it is not working. And so I’m like, I need to be more gentle. I gotta pull this back. What is the smallest thing that I could do to make progress? And so this is my new plan kettlebell swings. We’ll see, we’ll see how it goes. I don’t know. Um, okay. The next question to ask yourself is where can you grow?

[00:16:06] What. Area. Do you feel like you want to grow in? You want to see improvements in, this is just something to jot down and then I would highly suggest you have 18 plus trainings inside of growth getters. I’m pretty sure one of them covers what you are trying to grow in. And if you’re not sure which one.

[00:16:25] Email us like, say, this is what I’m trying to do. Which one do you think I should, I should tap into? And I will let you know. Um, but where do you wanna grow? And then where can you, where can you evolve? And, and so this can be within your business. This can be within your relationships. I like to look at it as like, where do I wanna grow is, is kind of, for me, these are things like personal.

[00:16:49] Like I wanna grow in my business here because I just wanna see what’s possible. Or, you know, I wanna reach this next level or I wanna grow for me by working on, you know, more education. One of mine right now is I wanna get stronger. Like, I feel like I’ve lost all my strength and I’m feeling kinda pansy.

[00:17:06] And I wanna get my, my strength back. Plus my butt is starting to look a little bit too. It blends into my thigh and I would like it to be a little more round. So there you go. There are some things where I want to grow, where I want to evolve is I think about goals with my family. I think about, again, I can’t help, but think about my business goals within my business, but where am I trying to evolve?

[00:17:29] And, and what do I need in each of these areas? Okay. Is that feeling good? That like making sense so far, so. I talked to you about this, but another, at the very end of this, I’m gonna just give you an agenda that you could like, okay, here’s the agenda that you can follow to do this yourself. If you need to do it later, or if parts of it, you’re gonna need to do later, but you definitely wanna check your numbers.

[00:17:52] We talked about this, but what were your total sales? How did your marketing perform? What was your list growth or if social media, you know, whatever your markers are that you really wanna know about. How are they doing? So just kind of checking your numbers, this is definitely part of your quarterly review.

[00:18:09] You want to see and know how things are going. So, you know, it, maybe that goes into your bank account to just look at what are all the, or hopefully into QuickBooks, cuz you have it organized. Um, but you know, okay. Total sales for quarter one, you can write it down and think about, think about what happens.

[00:18:25] Like if this is new, that’s great. We, we have to start somewhere. But think about what happens in a year from now when you get to compare. 2020, you know, two or whatever year, quarter, quarter, one review to the next quarter, one review. And then when you have three years of data and four years of data, I mean, it’s really powerful when you get to have these different things.

[00:18:46] And you’re checking. I love with my monthly. I love looking and seeing. Where it’s all going. And then I love looking a year back and seeing, okay. So I can see, I grew, you know, maybe a few hundred through the month, but I can see that through the year I grew a several thousand and that’s really exciting.

[00:19:03] It’s like, oh, I making progress. I am doing good things. So checking your numbers. Um, And any, just, you just need to know which ones matter to you, which ones are your goals? Are you trying to improve on I’m for sure. Gonna always be looking at my email list, cuz that’s a big one for me. I’m gonna be looking at sales.

[00:19:23] Um, I’m gonna be looking at, um, if, if you do anything where you do, um, um, what am I trying to say? Uh, like a discovery. Discovery call type thing. What I’m trying to say is this. If you do something where they reach out to you, you give them information and then they either say yes or no. Check that you want to be recording that, like how what’s your, what you’re trying to get to is what is your conversion rate out of the amount of people that you need to talk to?

[00:20:01] How many of them become customers? So if I was a photographer and people call me to get pricing, how many turn into. Uh, paid client. If I am a coach and people call me to have a, a like, you know, consultation or a, a free coaching call, how many of those became a client? If I am, whatever it is, if you have something where they reach out to you.

[00:20:25] I want you to track your conversion because that is going, that number is so powerful for figuring everything else out, because based on your conversion now, you know, how many people need to, like, you’re able to reverse that, to figure out how many people you need to connect with in order to get the goal achieve.

[00:20:43] So I’ll use, um, I’ll use photography with like, when I had my, well, I’ll use a couple when I had my photography. They would reach out to me to ask me a question. And my goal was to get ’em on the phone, and then I could see how many, once I got you on the phone, how many of those become a paid client? So, so if I said, okay, for every three people, I talk to one becomes a client and I want four clients a month then.

[00:21:14] Now, I know I need to talk to 12 people in order to get those four clients. And then I always like to give myself like a little insurance policy. So I’m like, okay. Then if I need to talk to 12, my goal is gonna be to talk to 15 because I’d love to have a little bit of a waiting list. So now I’m working on all my marketing efforts and I know I’m trying to get 15 people to, to have a call with me so that I can convert them over.

[00:21:38] Um, when I was doing websites. I had, um, almost a one for one. If they had a call with me, they became a client. I mean, it was probably, the stat was probably a little bit more like 80%, not a hundred percent, but it was almost a hundred percent. If they did a discovery call with me. They became a client. So then I knew, okay, I just need people to get ’em on the discovery call with me.

[00:22:07] I just need to be able to get to talk to them about their website goals and their needs, and then it’s gonna, it’s gonna work. And so knowing that now I know, okay, well, if I only take one, one website a month, I wanna get one or two discovery calls scheduled. And now my marketing effort becomes around getting those, those discovery calls.

[00:22:27] So. If you have any kind of business like that, you really wanna be tracking and figuring out what your conversion rate is. Okay. So that’s the essence of, of just checking your numbers, figuring all that part out. Um, the next thing to just consider is what do you wanna do different and what are you not going to change for this next quarter?

[00:22:46] You just finished a quarter. What are you like, I don’t wanna repeat of that. And what do you want to keep going the same? Cuz it felt really good. So just asking yourself that, doing a quick review, assessing what went well and what did not, were you, did you procrastinate on a few things and it made it more stressful?

[00:23:05] Were you not being as quick in your turnarounds and you wanna work on that for your customers? Um, or did you have a few things that you figured out and you tried and they’re really working and you’re like, okay, that I wanna. Keep with, and this I don’t. So that’s gonna be just the whole, just assessing what went, right.

[00:23:21] What went wrong. Um, next is what are your next goals? Okay. You gotta set your next quarterly goals. So, um, here’s the part, it has to be obvious that you either hit it or you didn’t it. You have to be able to measure the goal. So if, if I say. My goal is to reach more customers. That’s not good enough. Okay.

[00:23:52] That’s not good enough. I wanna say, I want to have X amount of clients in quarter two. I want to see X amount of revenue come in in quarter two. I want to see X amount of growth in this area. Maybe that’s your email list or your social media or your engagement or your sales, or right. I want to see X by the end of quarter two.

[00:24:14] It has to be. There’s no question either. You do. Or you didn’t, but there’s not like a, well, I mean maybe, but it, it has to be a super, super obvious. Um, it’s basically a smart goal, right? So smart goals are measurable. Um, and so you really, really need your goal to be very measurable. Like I can’t do not let it be abstract.

[00:24:35] That is not gonna surf you. So. What is your next quarter’s goal? So hopefully you’re writing that down. Hopefully you are literally right now, like, what is your goal? What do you want to accomplish for, for quarter two? What do you wanna see happen? And as always ladies, we are more than our businesses. So yes, I for sure want you to set a goal for your business, but.

[00:24:58] You are more than that. So do you have a health goal? Do you have a relationship goal? Do you have a goal with your kids and all of them should be measurable? You can’t say for our family, I would like less fighting. That’s beautiful. That’s wonderful. I need it to be something that is measurable. So I want to.

[00:25:24] One night a week where we play games as a family and just have fun family time. Okay. You are going to know if you did that or not. Right. Um, so make sure that it is measurable. It’s not abstract and you can absolutely look at all of your life and not just your business. Um, just beware and be careful that you don’t wanna go.

[00:25:49] Too, too crazy on all the goals, cuz again, this we’re only talking three months, three months. Isn’t a lot of time. And when you’re saying. Oh, I’m gonna do this huge thing in this area of my life and this huge thing in this area of my life and this huge thing in this area of my life, guess what’s gonna happen again?

[00:26:04] It’s gonna be overwhelming and you may abandon all of them. So make sure that, that this, this is, is not gonna be, become something that you resist because it’s overwhelming, which actually brings me to the next thing. That’s really, really important. Um, When you’re setting your goal, as soon as you figure out this is what I want to accomplish, and I would love type in the chat.

[00:26:28] And is your goal,
[00:26:33] your goals right now? What is one of your goals for quarter two? Um, as you know, what that goal is now? You can break it down to what do I need to do each month? Right. So for example, um, okay. Randy says to get 12 days of Christmas done one gift per week goal. I love that. I’m not exactly sure what this is, but I love it.

[00:27:03] So what’s really nice about this is if. If you’re doing. Oh, okay. So one cuz you’ve got, oh, I get it. Cuz there’s 12 weeks in the quarter. So as long as you do one, one per week, then you’re gonna have, ’em all done and you’ll be ready. I love that. That’s awesome. Um, so that is a great goal and she’s either gonna know if she reached it or not.

[00:27:26] Now my next question to you, Brandy would. Make sure. You know, why, what is now, what is the goal of 12 days of Christmas? What is the goal of that for you? So I want you to know why you’re even doing this and just make sure you’re clear on like, and here’s why I wanna do this. So that, and does it align with your big goal?

[00:27:44] Right? Does it align with, with the big thing that you are that you’re trying to accomplish, but that is perfect. That’s so good. Um, okay. So come on. Who else is gonna tell. What, what do you want to, um, what do you wanna achieve in this next quarter? What would you like to accomplish? Do you have a income goal?

[00:28:05] Do you have a number of clients goal? Do you have a, um, sales goal? Ooh. Okay. Brooke has the goal one hour of door knocking three times a month. I love that. And what’s so great about this is again, it’s super measurable either it happened or it didn’t. And so you either know, or you don’t, um, okay. I’m going to revamp my website.

[00:28:33] Okay. So in the next three months, you’re gonna revamp your website. So the next question. When is this going to happen? Because we wanna get it even more, even more tangible. So maybe you say I’m going to schedule an entire day and I would do it at the beginning of the quarter because you never know what’s gonna happen in life.

[00:28:52] I’m gonna schedule one day. To just working on my website. And then I want you to get a little bit, a little bit more deep. What are the main things that are not currently working with your website? What are the things that are feeling like, Ugh, these, these are, these are problems. these are not working. So I want you to figure out what those things are.

[00:29:12] Um, what’s not working for you and that’s gonna give you your checklist of what you’re revamping. Right? I don’t really like my about page it’s outdated or. I really wanna work on an opt in and I wanna get a popup on my website. Okay. So now, if, if those were the things, then I’m. I’m going to revamp my website becomes, I’m going to update my about page.

[00:29:32] I’m going to make an opt-in and I’m going to create a popup for my opt-in. So now I’m getting even more clear and specific on the things that I’m going to do. And then the next step would be now schedule it in now, schedule it and put it into your calendar. Here’s where it’s going to happen. I’m scheduling this half day to work on this, and then I’m going to schedule another one and stack them towards the beginning of the quarter, because then, I mean, just think about.

[00:29:58] Revamp my website. Perfect. Get it done in, get it done in month one, then you can have a whole, whole nother goal. Then you can say, okay, now that I’ve done that, I’m going to get people to my website. I’m going to get more eyeballs there now. How am I going to do that? And then you keep going. Okay. Come on. Who else?

[00:30:12] There’s more of you on here. Come on, tell me your goals. Um, okay, so making so, and hopefully kind of hearing that through, making it really, really obvious if you did it or not now. Um, with both brand and Brooke, my next thing is just, just schedule it, just schedule when, when you’re going to do these things, right.

[00:30:37] So maybe Brooke says every Wednesday afternoon, I am scheduling from two to four that I am door knock. And then this Wednesday happens and none of the rest of, you know, this, but Brooke and I know it’s flipping snowing here. Like, like this much snow is everywhere. It is what I don’t even know what day it is.

[00:31:05] April 13th. You guys, this is not, this is not the weather that we get here. We should be having some like, kinda rogue, really, really sunny, happy, like warm sunshine week where you start thinking, is it bathing suit season, but then it’s not, cuz it’s still going to get chilly, but no we’re in a stink and snowstorm right now.

[00:31:25] So Brooke would probably. You know what I’d like to reschedule door knocking for today? Cause I don’t want to do this. So that’s why if Brooke says I’m going to door knock three times a. She needs to schedule those on the front end of her month so that if something goes wrong, she has a better chance of still scheduling ’em in somewhere else.

[00:31:49] Right. Because if she schedules them all at the very end, because she’s like, oh shoot, I didn’t do it. Then there’s a chance it’s never going to happen. Now. Here’s the other cool thing. Um, Brandy you’re cracking me up. I’ve I love, I love that. I’ve seen you everywhere, everywhere today. Um, OK, so, so the other thing about this is it’s like, it’s like with Brandy’s goal with, okay, I’m gonna do one of these per week.

[00:32:13] What I would suggest to you is I’d be like, schedule it on the front end of your week, block out time. So you’re gonna say, I’m gonna give myself, you know, however many hours, like, let’s say you say on Monday, I know Monday is a big Workday for you. So you’re like on Monday, I’m gonna, I’m gonna block. Three hours of my day to work on this, then your goal is to see how many you can get done.
[00:32:35] Like maybe instead of one done, you get two done. And then you’re like, yes, now I’m a I’m ahead. And then you’re gonna keep doing that. But. Front load what you are trying to accomplish, because we all know it. Life gets in the way crazy happens all the time. And if we don’t front load, we get to the very end of the quarter.

[00:32:55] And here’s the thing like with Brooke, could Brooke still do this? If Brooke says her real goal is one hour of door knocking three times a week. So what, so, what we could say is her real goal is three hours of door knocking a month. So that means nine hours total. Well, Brooke could on the very last day of the quarter, be like, I didn’t do any of, so she’s and she’s all day long and she still reach it.
[00:33:24] Do I suggest that? No, I think she’ll end up in a ball of tears by the end, like, but she could do that. So even understanding that even knowing that, that way mentally we, we can. Stop ourselves from going, oh, well I didn’t do it. So now I failed. No, that’s not true. The goal is really an amount of hours. So if it’s one week, that’s kind of crazy.

[00:33:46] Maybe she’s gonna door knock for two hours straight and then just get ’em done. Or maybe she’s like, I’m going on vacation. I’m gonna take, give myself a break. And so she’s gonna front load and say, so this week I’m gonna do two hours or maybe Brandy says the same thing. I can see that next, the end of the month is insane.

[00:34:03] And so I am going to make sure I am front load. My whole point is, and I think I have drilled it in enough front load, my friends, so that we have a chance to make up for when life does not go according to plan. Cause it’s just not going to right. So front load, what you’re trying to accomplish so that you have room to adjust and to pivot.

[00:34:26] Um, it’s funny. I was, I. Chatting with someone on my team. And she really, really loves a plan. She wants us to have a plan, you know, and she wants to know, okay, this is the plan. I’m gonna follow the plan. And as business owners, it is really nice to have a plan, but I’m just gonna be honest. We also have to be so, so good.

[00:34:47] At pivoting, because I’m telling you if I have learned anything after 13 years of being in business plans, rarely work out the way you want them to. They just rarely do. And so if we’re not ready and comfortable pivoting and acknowledging and accepting when things aren’t going, according to plan. Don’t stay on that until it destroys your entire business in your life because you couldn’t veer from the plant.

[00:35:12] Be willing to just say like, okay, this was my, this, this was the idea I had. This is how I thought I was gonna get there. It’s not working. I’m ready to adjust and pivot. And that’s even with these goals, you’re going to set some goals for quarter two. The very next thing you’re gonna do is okay. How do I get to those goals?

[00:35:29] What, what do, like, how do I get there? Brooke’s goal. Her real goal is to get clients. Okay. Brooke is a real estate agent. Her real goal is to get clients. So I want Brooke to know how many deals she wants to write. In this next quarter.

[00:35:46] And then part of how she’s getting there, she’s already said, and I’m willing to do the hard work. You guys, there is nothing harder for a real estate agent than door knocking. If one ever knocks on your door, be kind to them. It is not fun. People are mean, and they swear at you a lot. So, um, she, her real goal is that she wants clients.

[00:36:06] Brandy’s real goal is that she wants to, I’m gonna guess grow her list. Um, Heidi’s real goal or, or Brook’s real goal or Helen’s real goal, right? Like when we’re looking at all these goals there, this goal, isn’t the big. The big goal is I wanna get more clients. I wanna grow my list. I wanna make more money.
[00:36:28] So how am I gonna do that? Oh, I’m gonna go try, uh, creating this, this promotion. I’m gonna go door knocking. I’m gonna revamp my website. I’m going to go be part of some vendor events. I’m going to, whatever your thing is, know what the big goal is. And now you’re reversing backwards and you’re figuring out what you need to accomplish to get there.

[00:36:49] So, so this way. By by I’m gonna use Brooke, just cuz this one, I feel like will really make sense if Brooke knows that her real goal is I want X amount of clients this quarter. I wanna write this many deals now. She knows. Okay. Well I, I gotta go find the people. I gotta go get them. And so she’s going to go door, knock.

[00:37:09] She’s gonna go door knock and do one of the hardest things she could do to try and go find these people who might be interested in buying or selling. What I want her to do is because she knows the big goal. If the door knocking is not working, she is okay. Pivoting because she doesn’t feel stuck and trapped.

[00:37:29] And like I said, I would door knock. I have to door knock. If door knocking, isn’t working, let’s find a different way to get the results you want. So we wanna know the big goal. Then we wanna know the action steps, and then we, we need to be okay and always comfortable pivot. Good making make it we’re we’re we’re good with that.

[00:37:49] Okay. So, um, so the whole point is we just, we need to know what we need to do to make it happen. I love how concrete all like these have been so good. It’s like, this is what I’m gonna do, and I’m gonna do one a week. This is what I’m gonna do, and I’m gonna do it. You know, this, this many times, uh, uh, a week or a month, or I love that.

[00:38:06] So getting down to what do I need to do to make it happen? Um, and. How are you gonna know if it’s working or not? Right. Like some of these it’s, it’s pretty obvious. I’m gonna know if it’s working because it’s going to lead to a customer or a client or sales, or how are you gonna know if it’s working and are, and, and what could potentially be, be a pivot?

[00:38:32] Um, I was doing a, a private coaching session yesterday. And she said the goal, she’s like, okay, this is the goal. And I was like, I love it. Now let’s brain dump. Every single thing we can come up with that could get you to that goal. We came up with 13 different things that could get her to that goal. Now we can start systematically going through and being like, okay, Let’s start ticking ’em off.

[00:38:56] Let’s pick the ones that we think are, I always say, pick the ones that are your low hanging fruit and that you think have the highest probability of success. Start with those. If it, if it matches both those things, it’s, it’s not too hard and it has a high probability of success start there and then just start working your way down the list.

[00:39:14] Um, but she has options. So she’s not putting all her eggs in this one, single basket of like, This is my goal, and this is the one thing I’m gonna do to get there. We came up with 13 different things we could do to get her there, and now she can systematically just work through them and the ones that are like, oh my gosh, this is working.

[00:39:31] She’s gonna keep doing those. And then the ones that she tries and she’s like, yeah, that was, that was a bomb. She will let go. And she will, you know, that will move along. Um, okay. So you, you now know what this is gonna look like monthly, then you know what? It’s gonna look like weekly. And then I’m telling you, I’m telling you, I’m telling you, you have to schedule it in.

[00:39:49] I have made the mistake enough times of being like, oh, I’ll do it. No, I won’t. It has to be scheduled in even. even if it’s scheduled in and I end up having to reschedule it. And I will be honest that a hundred percent happens. I will reschedule something in a month ago, you know, that I’m gonna do. And when it comes to that week, I’m like, oh, there’s no way I can do that today.

[00:40:09] But I just move it on my calendar to another space. And. I keep being reminded. It’s my own. My calendar is my own little accountability partner. That’s helping me remember like, oh, I’ve gotta do that. I’ve gotta do that. Um, so you know what, it’s gonna look like monthly, you know what? It’s gonna look like weekly.

[00:40:25] Okay. Now here’s one more kind of bonus thing that you can do as part of a quarterly review. That can be really, really powerful. It’s powerful for three reasons. Well, it’s doing some customer experience reviews. Okay. And I’m gonna explain a little bit more about what that means, but quarterly going through and doing some customer experience reviews.

[00:40:49] It’s going to number one, bolster you up. Sometimes it’s just hard. Okay. Sometimes business just gets a little deflating, a little defeating. And when you go and ask your customers what you’ve been doing, right. And they sing your praises and you’re like, thank you. Oh my gosh. OK. I’m doing something good. It, it really is such a BOL.

[00:41:06] So that’s the first thing. The second thing is it will help you become aware of areas where there was maybe frustration or confusion. And then the second that I know that I immediately look for how I. I can place an education step into my process so that confusion won’t happen again. But honestly, The way that I have learned what my customers needed was because I did these, these customer experience reviews.

[00:41:33] I would choose a few customers. I would interview them. I would ask them, I would take their feedback. And instead of getting frustrated or, or taking it personally, I would take it as constructive and be like, Hey, how do I make sure this never happens again? One of my favorite. Things like this is legitimately a goal of mine is that I want my clients to actually verbally say, wow, you’ve thought of everything.

[00:41:58] I know it’s a little cheesy and maybe a little like egotistical on my side. But if breaking makes me so happy when that happens and here’s the truth, I didn’t think of everything. There’s things that I didn’t know about. Like, I didn’t even know to think of it. I just asked questions and as I would ask and they would tell me something, I’d be like, I bet they’re not the only one.

[00:42:19] Okay. How could I, how could I fix. And then I would implement some little step in my process and I would like pop in a little place where I would educate them or I would fix something or I would help with something. Or I would, I would typically, it’s just, you just need to offer a little bit more education.
[00:42:35] They need a little more instruction. It’s almost always what it is, but I, I wouldn’t have known if I didn’t ask, but because I asked and then I would take the feedback and I would put it into my customer experience. I was able to, I mean, I’ve, I’ve been able to. That response in everything I’ve ever done.
[00:42:53] There’s nothing that I have done in business where I haven’t been able to get someone to say, wow, you think of everything, but I promise you, I don’t think of everything I just ask. I just listen. So the way that I found this really works is two ways, two ways, either number one, build in a system right into your process.
[00:43:12] And guess what, there’s an entire training about turning your customers into referral engines and one about getting reviews. And this is that process. This is building like literally building it into the customer journey. So that it’s like just part of the process where at the end, there’s this kind of off boarding experience for them, where one of the things that can be kind of tricky is that you have a client you’re working them with them a lot.
[00:43:37] You talk to them all the time. You’re very engaged with them. And then the, the. The project finishes and you kind of drop ’em right? cause you’re like, OK, moving on to the next one, building in a little system where it doesn’t feel like they got dropped instead, it’s like this kind of like nice offboarding transition.
[00:43:55] And that literally is as simple as you just build a little sequence in your email. That’s gonna send a few emails as they’re ending. That’s like, Hey, wanted to check in. It’s been a week. Just wanted to see if you had any questions. Then a week later, Hey, wanted to follow up, hope everything is going great for you.
[00:44:14] So excited, blah, blah, blah. I would love your feedback. Would you take two minutes and complete this survey? And then maybe you have one more. That’s like, I, I thought this would be really valuable for you and, um, And so I wanted to share it with you. I always am talking to Brooke, cuz Brooke is so sweet and has her camera on so I can actually see her face.
[00:44:33] But like with Brooke, she could, she could have one email. That’s like a week later. Um, oh, you’re in your new home. You’d have one for your, if you sold and one, if you bought right. And so your sold one’s like, it’s just gonna be like three emails. Your first one’s gonna be like, You’re one week into your new home.
[00:44:48] I hope everything’s going well. Just wanted to check and see if you had any questions then your next email. I would love your feedback. Um, would you, if, if you feel I did a five star job, would you please, and then have the link directly into Zillow for you and into, you know, whatever Facebook, whatever review places you really want, but then also tell them, say if I like word it intentionally, if I, if, if you received a five star experience from me, Will you please share your experience here or here, if for any reason you felt like you didn’t please click reply to this email and let me know, essentially, please don’t go send a review if it’s not five stars, right?
[00:45:27] Like, so you’re wording it in a way. Like if you believe you received a five star experience, now you’re triggering in their mind, like, oh, I’m supposed to give her five stars. Um, and then the last email, like Brooke, if I were you go find or make in Canva, some really good, um, Um, like a, a simple, uh, what am I trying to say?
[00:45:47] Um, home checklist, like, like, you know, things that they should do, you know, check your drains in January or your gutters and in February do this and in March, right? Like just some sort of like home repair checklist. I don’t know something like that. Right? Like this, just a little value in like, Hey, I thought this would be helpful for you.
[00:46:07] And then that’s your email three. And then after that, they just go into like, Your monthly emails that you send to everyone, but there’s kind of this nice transitional offboarding. Um, so my favorite way to do this is actually to build it into the customer journey for every single customer where it just loops into.
[00:46:24] Now, can you tell me about your experience? And then I can try to get reviews or case studies or all those things, but. If you haven’t been doing that, you can start now and go do a, some reviews of, um, some of your customers that you had in this last quarter. And some of you actually just had me do this with you.
[00:46:44] I literally put out a, a thing and was asking for, um, you guys to do a quick survey and, and to get some testimonials. And so a lot of you who replied, I reached out to you and was like, I would love to get on the phone with you. I wanna talk with you. And I asked you, I’m like, I want you to tell me what you love.
[00:47:03] And I want you to tell me what you don’t like. I want tell what has helped you the most. And is there anything that I can do to make it even better for you? So I literally did this. Um, so if you. If you haven’t been doing this, don’t worry about it. Like if it’s not part of your current experience, no stress.
[00:47:21] Go back to everybody that you just worked with in the last three months. Honestly, you can totally go back further and craft an email that you can send to each one of ’em don’t bulk email, send it individually. You will not get as good as response. If you bulk email it, um, send it individually. It needs to feel very personal.
[00:47:39] Like you are asking just that one person for a favor. And then, um, Ask them to go give you some reviews, ask them to set up a call with you because you’d love to interview them and, and learn about, I mean, here’s the thing we can’t get better if we don’t know there’s a problem. That’s the honest truth.
[00:47:57] Does it always suck to hear that someone didn’t like something you did? Yes. Yes. It always will. There is. There’s no time when it feels good to have someone tell you what you didn’t do. Good enough. But if you use it. Will it make you better and better and better and better? Oh my goodness. Yes. So I’m really gonna challenge you guys.
[00:48:17] Like go ask, go find out what, what the, you know, and, and I’ll word it very, like I’ll word it in ways. Like. I wanna have a very candid conversation. I like to use the word candid. I’ll say like, I really want your honest feedback. I can’t get better if no one tells me. And then I’ll say like, was there any part that was frustrating at all?
[00:48:37] And a lot of times what’s very interesting is it doesn’t really have to do with me, but it helps me be aware of maybe some of the, um, emotions that they are. And one example I can give a give to you for this was when I was doing photography and I asked these questions. What I realized was the hardest part for mom.
[00:48:59] Was getting hubby on board. That was the most frustrating part for her was, or, or for the girlfriend or the fiance or the wife, or it was getting, she wants him in the pictures. He does not wanna be a part of this. He does not like what she’s trying to get him to wear. He does not like this whole process.
[00:49:16] Why are we spending so much? Her hardest part was him. Once someone shared that with me and I started thinking about it, I’m like, oh my gosh. Yes, of course I immediately was. How do I work this in? And there was a couple things that I started doing right off the bat. And then I added more to them. One of ’em was I acknowledged it right off the bat.
[00:49:35] So as soon as the two of them got there, I’d be like, I’d introduced myself to him cuz you know, I’d never, I hadn’t talked to him. I’d only ever talked to her. Introduced him to myself, to him. And I’d immediately be like, you are amazing. I know you don’t wanna be here. She probably puts you in something you didn’t even wanna wear.
[00:49:52] I know this isn’t how you wanna spend your afternoon, but you obviously love her so much to be willing to do this for her. And I just want you to know that I see it. And I’m so grateful that that you’re here and I’m gonna make this as easy and painless as possible. Then the second thing I did is I started purpose.
[00:50:10] Planning shoots. And in my education saying, I’m sh you know, if, if, if you or your, or your spouse, spouse is super busy and needs to have this go really quickly, we can, we, I can do this where we do all the pictures with him really quickly so that he can go off and get back to work or get back to his day, and then I can finish everything with you and the kids.
[00:50:31] So then I would purposefully plan and, and I don’t think I ever had one leave. But just that I was willing to put him, right. Like it brought his guard down a little bit that I was like, oh, I’ll get all your shots done and you can go. And then a lot of times when they’d get there, I’d tease and be like, make sure you got a game queued up, cuz I’m gonna get you in and out.
[00:50:51] And you can go kind of sit in the corner and watch your game or, or whatever, you know, like I would just acknowledge it and really try to try to. Use what I learned and make a better experience. Maybe you find out that and you wanna be looking for where’s the biggest part in, in your customer journey experience, where, where they get in their own head, where they get frustrated, where things get hard.
[00:51:11] It probably has nothing to do with you. It’s their own emotional stuff, but how can you diffuse some of that tension that they’re feeling is there, is that, um, a place where. Where you can step in and, and show up just at the right time and, and make things easier. Um, okay. So to wrap this all up, um, I want to, let’s see.
[00:51:36] I just wanna make sure, I feel like we really covered the customer experience and why, but I had wrote some notes of. Here’s why you should do customer experience reviews. You will build stronger relationships with those that you interview. Like they will be more loyal to you and your business when you’ve had that bond, uh, you can create testimonials and case studies and show off higher ROI, right?
[00:51:58] Like you get to show off, like they’ve had this incredible results because of working with me. So that’s so powerful. Uh, number three. You’ll learn how to create an even better experience for them. Number four, you’re gonna reduce customer frustration by seeing where there is confusion, and then adding in that educational checkpoint, which is so, so critical for like longevity and referrals and all those things.
[00:52:20] And then the last one you’re gonna build more trust and greater customer retention, and they’re going to become a better referral network for you because you’ve done this work. OK. So that’s why. All right. You can either send out a survey or you can interview a few clients. What I like to do is send out a survey and then based on who responds, then I’ll reach out to them again and ask if I can do an interview.
[00:52:42] But if I have a very, very small client pool, I just might ask every single one of them. If I can interview them and send them my Callen Lee, I’m always gonna look for how I make this as easy as possible for them. So I am always going to do things. I would love to, you know, just take 20 minutes of your time and ask you about your experience.
[00:52:58] I would love to learn from you and just ask some questions and see how I can take care of you even better. This would mean so much to me. If you’d be willing to do it, here’s my calendar pick any time that works best for you. And if none of these work, let me know, and I will open up special times just for you.
[00:53:13] That’s typically what that email would, would sound like. If, if I was writing it, um, And then use, use that opportunity to gather testimonials for yourself, to figure out where you can improve your experience and then, um, how you can build based on what you learned. Okay. So to wrap this all up your quarterly review agenda, I am actually going to share my screen so that you can just screenshot, uh, to make this this easier.
[00:53:41] Where is, where is it? Oh, there it is. Share. Okay. Let’s make this. Way way bigger for you. Okay. Here’s your quarterly review agenda. One check last quarter’s goals and assess two review family health business balance, you know, like how how’s everything feeling are. Do, do you like how you feel? Do we need to make some adjustments, um, and then define several small needle movers to improve the lowest areas?
[00:54:07] Uh, use the, the balance assessment. Tests that I have in the seven day productivity set up a call with Jenna and do it with her. Cause then you can have somebody like you’re talking it through with, um, Record your numbers, right? Sales list, growth, social media growth, whatever it is you want us, you care about.
[00:54:24] You just wanna track those and, and see, then the next part of your agenda is now it’s time to establish next quarters goals. Right? So what needs to happen to achieve them? What does that look like? Monthly, weekly, um, and these become your non-negotiables, right? Like Brooke now knows. Three hours a month.
[00:54:41] She is door knocking and that is a non-negotiable. Um, like you wanna know what yours is and then front stack it at the beginning so that you have the highest probability of making it happen. Do not wait till the end. Um, and then share your action plan with Jenna. Okay. You are hopefully creating your, your agenda, you’re creating your goals.
[00:55:04] And then you’re gonna send those over to Jenna. And then finally that customer experience review. So you could either do interviews or you could do surveys, but the goal is we’re trying to get you even more testimonials and information. That’s gonna help you create an even better experience, which is going to get you more testimonials because now people are going to be even happier.
[00:55:23] Right. So, um, that is your quarterly review agenda. Okay. That is our group coaching call. Now, can I ask you guys one favor? This is a little bit different. Normally we do questions this time. I kind of picked a topic and I was like, I’ve really been wanting to talk about this for a while. And I’m like, we’re at a quarter, like, I wanna talk about this.
[00:55:44] So I would love to know, like, just click reply to any of the billions of emails that we sent you. Um, and just let me know if you felt like this was really helpful. If you like having the questions, I just would love your feedback. Uh, cuz then that helps me to get better. Okay. There you go. That is our call for today.
[00:56:03] Thank you so much. Now it’s time to do it yourself and send it to Jenna. And if you have any questions like this is the goal, which, which trainings would help send those to us. And I will let you know which ones I think would be most beneficial for you also. Okay. That’s it have an amazing, amazing day.
[00:56:20] And I will see you guys in a couple weeks.
[00:56:24] If you loved this episode, would you take a moment and subscribe and leave a genuine review? It makes such a difference. And it just helps me so much, plus it totally makes my day.
[00:56:37] If you’d like to hear your own, shout out, leave me a review. Wherever you listen to your podcast. I check them all. I am Leah Remley, and this is the balancing busy podcast here to help you replace busy with better so that you can have a business and a life that lights you up, you’re worth it.
[00:56:55] And you can do this. And if no one’s told you yet today, you are amazing.

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