So far my winter isn't going great. In fact, I think I've coughed more in the last two months than I have my entire life. OK I may be exaggerating. But in a profession that relies on a steady voice it FEELS like I've been coughing forever. Even so, I decided I needed to sit down and get cozy with my goals for the new year. I knew it would be a mistake to skip this business ritual, even though I've been feeling punky.
You'll have to listen in on today's episode to find out exactly what a great Q1 planning process is, but let's just say that planning during the 'most wonderful time of the year,' can get nasty sometimes!
What I want to talk about today is much more important than a vision board (although I definitely talk about that). Really, it applies to everything we do that can help us define how we want to show up in our business and in our happy life.
You see, being honest with ourselves about the value we provide and the message we want people to know us for is vital. To help you stop chasing numbers that don't mean anything and discover your most powerful asset (YOU), I want to share some things I consider when I plan my profitable Q1.
Join me for this quick episode to learn more! Enjoy, and stay tuned because I have a lot to say about what being a business owner has taught me.
Get your step by step guide to private practice. Because you are too important to lose to not knowing the rules, going broke, burning out, and giving up. #counselorsdontquit.
So far my winter isn't going great. In fact, I think I've coughed more in the last two months than I have my entire life. OK I may be exaggerating. But in a profession that relies on a steady voice it FEELS like I've been coughing forever. Even so, I decided I needed to sit down and get cozy with my goals for the new year. I knew it would be a mistake to skip this business ritual, even though I've been feeling punky.
You'll have to listen in on today's episode to find out exactly what a great Q1 planning process is, but let's just say that planning during the 'most wonderful time of the year,' can get nasty sometimes!
What I want to talk about today is much more important than a vision board (although I definitely talk about that). Really, it applies to everything we do that can help us define how we want to show up in our business and in our happy life.
You see, being honest with ourselves about the value we provide and the message we want people to know us for is vital. To help you stop chasing numbers that don't mean anything and discover your most powerful asset (YOU), I want to share some things I consider when I plan my profitable Q1.
Join me for this quick episode to learn more! Enjoy, and stay tuned because I have a lot to say about what being a business owner has taught me.
Get your step by step guide to private practice. Because you are too important to lose to not knowing the rules, going broke, burning out, and giving up. #counselorsdontquit.
[00:00:00]
[Intro]
Kate Walker: Hey, it’s Dr. Kate Walker. Welcome to Texas Counselors Creating Badass Businesses. It’s that time of year, the time of year where we’re supposed to be planning for a profitable new year. But it’s so hard, we have so much going on. There are holidays, there are families, there are our clients who are having their own struggles. And in the midst of all of that, we’re supposed to pull our head out and think about our business. So I’m here to help you out today. This isn’t going to be a super long podcast episode because I really want you to grab these tools and do at least one thing today that will take your practice to a new level in the new year. So, you ready? Let’s get to work!
Okay, riddle me this: how are you supposed to get your head around your vision, your dream, your plan for the new year if you are just coming up for air in between client sessions and then when you’re finally finished for the day, you’ve got to go home and see family at a party, or wrap a bunch of presents, or get creative for your kiddos’ school whatever? The answer, I am not really sure. What I can do for you today, though, is give you some strategies that should take you less than 30 minutes to implement. Now, those strategies alone aren’t going to do the trick. I’m going to be super honest with you, I always am. But if you take all of these strategies together and you do a little bit every day – wait, let me take that back. No, you don’t even have to do it every day! I mean if you just set yourself a little calendar in between – nope, I take that back. You don’t even have to set yourself a little calendar! I just want you to commit to doing at least one of these things between now and the last day of December.
So, number one is get a vision. Now, the way we do this in less than 30 minutes is number one, you’ve got to clear your head. So when you wake up in the morning, if you hit the ground running and you’ve got kids and people and parents or something going on, then you’re going to have to get up a little earlier. I know, I know, don’t beat me over the head, you know I’m a morning person. But you have to find some time during the day when you can carve out some brain-changing time because you cannot create with a head that is mired in ick and negativity and just all of the things.
So I want you to think about what takes you out of the overwhelm, out of the ugh. Is it a little bit of a walk outside? And you know what, I’ll make this super easy: you don’t even have to walk. Is it going outside and just taking some clean, fresh breaths of air? Is it sitting on your yoga mat and doing some breathing exercises there? Is it taking a nice, long shower or bath and counting to eight over and over and over again? Whatever it is that takes you to a place where you’re able to concentrate, to focus, to get into a space of – here’s the word: contentment, that’s what I challenge you to do.
Then, we’re going to get busy, so I hate to say this is one of those steps that you have to do between now and the end of December because I kind of want you to do this all the time, but anyway, I’m going to move along. So you get your headspace into a place beyond the ugh, beyond the overwhelm, beyond the ick, and however you choose to do that, if it’s going for a walk, breathing the fresh air, taking the bath, all the things that I mentioned, okay, let’s just imagine you’re there. You did it. You did the thing that got you to a space of contentment.
Now, it’s time to dream. Because I can’t help you set financial goals for Q1 if you don’t have a dream for what comes next. Now, some people refer to this as a vision board activity. I don’t care if you have magazines at home and you cut out pieces of paper and pictures and words. There are some fabulous programs that you can go to and create collages on your computer. I think if you have watched my YouTube channel, I think most of you have seen the iMovie that I made that flashes over my head on the TV screen that I made about my vision and my dreams. I want five years from now Kate to be so proud of the work that I do now. So, that’s task number one that I want to challenge you to do between now and the end of December after you’ve done your breathing and your bath and your walk and all of the things that got you to a space of contentment, then I want you to stop and dream a little bit.
I have seen so many of my coaching clients get to a space where they’re spinning their wheels. They’re really locked in a loop because all they can think about is keeping the lights on in their business and at home, and that’s wonderful. I mean, that’s great, that means you’re responsible, that’s really, really good, but – you knew there was a but coming – with that practical nature has to come your why. So if you’ve forgotten what your why is, go to your handy dandy Google machine and Google Simon Sinek’s TED Talk about finding your why. That’s what a vision board is. The vision board is your why. And it’s going to change over time. I mean, I remember I had on my vision board – I can’t even remember what it was now, I just remember it was on there until I tried it. And when I tried it, I was like, oh, I don’t think I need this to be my why anymore. I don’t really enjoy this all that much. So, it went away.
Remember, what you put on your vision board now, it may change in quarter two, and that’s alright. What we’re looking at is just the big, overarching why. And I’m going to ask you to explore that in more than just a financial domain. Because you can have “I want to make a lot of money.” Well, that’s not going to trigger your brain to create a picture. You have to trick your brain into creating a picture.
So I want you to think about personal goals, financial goals, and business goals. And I’m going to break it down even further. So, for your personal goals, I want you to think – these are just three bullets I came up with, but I want you to think about these three things: your health, your friendships, and your wellbeing. So for your vision board, you might show a picture of yourself at your most healthy, whenever that was, when your cheeks were rosy and you know that you felt great because you knew when you took that picture, when you look at that picture, okay, that’s the healthiest me there ever was, so put that up there.
Friendships. At any age, sometimes it can be really hard to make friends. So put on your vision board you with a bunch of people – or maybe not you, maybe you’re just going to take a picture of a group hiking, or a group camping, or a group at a football game, or a group playing cards. Something that gives you that image of something social.
And then, finally, wellbeing. I know for my vision board, actually, I put this on my Trello board, I put a goal to go hear a fabulous speaker once a quarter. A good lecture or going to a conference, hearing a keynote, something live. That was part of my wellbeing. I wanted to make sure I was still going out and networking and meeting people and listening and learning new things.
So, now you have some ideas of what can go onto that personal quadrant of your vision board. Now, you may be asking: Kate, what does this have to do with a profitable Q1? Well, if you don’t feel good, if you don’t have a reason why you’re making this money and earning this profit and bringing in this revenue, it’s not going to last long. What we’re going for here is traction. We need some wheels on this thing so that your motivation stays high even when your mood may be low.
So, the next thing, I’m going to go to business goals. What am I selling? That’s something that can go on your vision board as a person, if you’re thinking about therapy, oaky, I’m selling therapy. Here’s what I recommend though. Here’s what I really, really would encourage you to do. If you listened to my podcast a couple of episodes ago, I talked about looking at your calendar during the week, at the day and the time, and which days are selling, which days aren’t, getting rid of the ones that aren’t, really decluttering that schedule.
I’m going to flip it today. What is your dream schedule? I’ve shared with my listeners before, my dream schedule initially was ten in the morning until two in the afternoon, no evenings, no weekends, and that was great when I had kids at home that were going to school. Now, I only want to work Monday and Tuesday. That’s it. And I will work as much as I need to seeing clients on Monday and Tuesday, but I don’t want to see clients for the rest of the week.
[ad break – 40-hour]
So imagine what that would look like on a vision board. Literally, you could just write down Monday, Tuesday, 10am to 5pm, and putting that on the vision board is going to give your brain something to anchor to. It’s going to give it something to remember, to think about, then you can start to develop the strategies during Q1 that will help you make that happen. Now, a little bit different from what I am selling is what I want to sell. So when I talk about scheduling and clients, I’m talking about in the therapy room, but let’s talk about outside the therapy room.
Let’s say you’re ready to get this show on the road and you want to do some public speaking, you want to go get that adjunct gig down at the local university, or you want to sell some online courses. Put that on your vision board. Put that in writing: courses, teaching, online courses. You don’t have to have it all worked out, that’s the beauty of my challenge to you between now and the end of December. You just have to put it in front of you. I don’t care if you just use sticky notes on your wallo r on your bathroom mirror. We are not talking complicated right now. Your brain speaks a very, very simple language, a very visual language related to motivation and emotion. So if you’re putting this on paper and you’re making sure it’s in front of your eyeballs, your brain is going to register an emotional trigger to that.
A third business goal I like to call legacy is about what you’re going to do later. Yeah, it’s kind of like the why I talked about earlier, but it’s got more of a financial component. So let’s say I’m talking to you and you’re at that part of your career where you’re like, Kate, I’m ready to sell, I’m ready to retire, I’m ready to move on. Well, that’s your legacy. How do you value what you’ve done in order to sell it? Or I may be talking to you and you’re a very practical person and you’re thinking to yourself, oh my gosh, what would happen the day I had to stop practicing? What am I leaving for the person who comes behind me? That could be a professional will or some kind of a way to let people know what do with your practice. It’s very responsible and in most states, it’s part of the rules for licensure, to make sure that you have some kind of a custodian for your records. Well, this is a custodian for your entire practice. What do you want to leave as a legacy with this beautiful thing that you’ve created, this practice, and perhaps an outside of the therapy room practice?
Okay, let’s get to financial. How do busy business owners plan for a profitable Q1? Well, if you’re doing what I’m asking, if you’re finding that space of contentment at least for a few minutes every day, you’re allowing yourself to put these things in a visual place, whether it’s a posterboard and magazines, or you’re going to get on your computer and use a program and make a collage, or you’re taking a bunch of post-it notes and putting it on your bathroom mirror, whatever you decide you’re going to do this visually.
So we talked about personal, we talked about business. The first bullet point for financial are, of course, revenue goals. Revenue goals are simply your income from your primary practice service. For most of us, that’s our client service. Delivering counseling services, the revenue that we bring in. Now, this isn’t the profit and loss yet. This isn’t taking out expenses and all of that. This is a pure, raw number. I want you to write it down. I want you to put it on your vision board, a raw number. And you need to put a time on it. So is it $5,000 a month? Is it $5,000 this year? Is it $5,000 in Q1? I don’t know why I came up with $5,000; you can come up with whatever number you’d like but write it down. Write it down. The language of your brain is visual, so writing down that number, putting it where you can see it, will help you subconsciously continue to strive for that number. So it’s okay if it’s a little bit outside of your comfort zone. Heck, it’s okay if it’s a lot outside of your comfort zone. Remember, this is just your vision board. This isn’t something where you’re going to beat yourself over the head if you don’t hit this number. This is just reminding you, in a very visual way, your goal for quarter one.
Oh my goodness. If you’ve watched my YouTube videos, you know that I kind of love Excel. I almost hesitate to share my Excel spreadsheets with you guys because I know they look a little overwhelming. It’s one of those things like, okay, this is how my brain works. I don’t know if it’s how everybody’s brain works. So, whatever you love, stick with it. If your finances are on a spreadsheet, get really, really good at it. If your finances are on a legal pad, get really, really good at it. But please, please put on your vision board: get organized with my finances.
Not long ago, I did a YouTube video about set it and forget it money, basically quit touching it. How can you best organize your finances so that 20% goes into your quarterly taxes account so it’s ready to go when it’s time for quarterly taxes. How much of your revenue is going into a SEP IRA so that you’re paying yourself first and it’s going towards your retirement? And then how much of your revenue is going for things that break? If you own your own building, are you setting aside money for if the air conditioner breaks? All of this can be automated.
So for Q1, part of earning a profit, having a profitable first quarter, is making sure that you have an organizational system, something in place to organize your finances. I mentioned this morning in the training that I did for our Step It Up members, it doesn’t count if you outsource it, right? You have to learn this before you can outsource it. I’m going to say that again: you have to learn this before you can outsource it, otherwise you won’t know if people are doing a good job. You won’t know if you’re hitting your revenue goals because you’re depending on another person to tell you. It’s not the same. You have to spend some time in your business. Heck, make that a goal: spend some time in your business, in your finances, in quarter one. That’s a great goal. You don’t have to put down an elaborate organizational system if your goal is hey, I just need to learn this. I need to learn how to do bookkeeping.
And then finally, financial goals for Q1 for a profitable Q1: get a retirement plan. If you are in a committed relationship and your partner handles the retirement, then sit down with them. Sit down and say, hey, can you explain this to me? I just want to understand what it means when we invest in a retirement account. If it’s you and you have never, ever considered a retirement account, there are so many great financial planners out there. Get an hour of their time and ask them to explain retirement accounts and how to fund those and how to make sure you’re putting aside enough money. Whatever you decide to do, put that on your vision board. Q1: contact a financial advisor and/or set up a retirement account and/or talk to my partner and figure out what this all means so that you understand what you need to do to continue to fund a robust retirement account.
Okay, my goal today was to make sure that you left this short podcast with one or two things that you could accomplish before the end of December because I know you’re busy and I know that you need to plan for Q1 and I wish I could give you a pass. I wish I could say, yes, I know it’s busy, you don’t have to do it, just relax. But you’re a business owner. You have to get this done. And even if you just get one of these things done – and I’m talking the very basic, like you manage to get one post-it note onto your bathroom mirror, you know what? That’s a win. Good job, go you! So pick one thing and start planning for a profitable first quarter and keep staying badass because you are too important to your community to lose to not knowing how finances work, or having a crappy organizational system or depending on someone else to plan for your retirement or do your bookkeeping, and then one day you’re surprised because you’re wondering, oh my gosh, where did all of my money go?
So pick one thing, get it done by the end of December, and I will meet you in January and we will talk about how to kick ass next year.
This is Dr. Kate Walker, thanks for listening.