Main Street Business

#558 The 1 Year Rule: How The Rich Dominate Business

• Mark J Kohler and Mat Sorensen

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In this episode of the Main Street Business Podcast, Mark J. Kohler and Mat Sorensen explain how to create a comprehensive, actionable plan for the year ahead. They discuss the value of aligning your goals with a long-term vision and offer tips for making measurable progress while staying flexible enough to adapt as needed.

Here are some of the highlights:

  • Mark and Mat emphasizes the importance of having a strategic plan that can lay the foundation for the next 10 years ahead.
  • Mat discusses the need for setting realistic goals and breaking them down into manageable objectives.
  • Mark explains and breaks down the concept of SMART goals: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound.
  • Real-world example of how to set objectives for increasing sales, including strategies like getting more leads and converting leads better.
  • How to address personal issues that may be affecting business performance, such as health or family problems.
  • Mat suggests involving the leadership team in the execution of the strategic plan to ensure buy-in and accountability.
  • Mark advises writing down the strategic plan and carrying it around to review regularly.
Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Main Street Business Podcast with your distinguished hosts, mark J Kohler and Matt Sorenson. Both are best-selling authors and have over 25 years of industry experience, with 10,000 client consultations, making them the leading tax and legal experts in the nation. Together, they'll unpack the most complex tax, legal and financial strategies crucial for saving more, stressing less and building generational wealth. Today they're your personal advisors, ready to break it down for you and make the tax and legal game easier than ever. Here is Mark and Matt.

Speaker 2:

Some of you may go well, I only have $10,000 in my IRA. Well, look out at the national average. The average American doesn't have more than $1,000 in savings. You're in the top 10%. We can be tunnel vision. This is the way my business is. Maybe we need to pivot and maybe change the business model a little bit. It doesn't mean you're a failure. Business is all about change, being able to move with the market, and those are the businesses that are successful. Sometimes you have to take one step back to take two steps forward.

Speaker 3:

You need a little bit of get ready time before you go climb the mountain, so to speak. But I'm telling you there's a whole other group of people out there that have been packing their backpack for three or four years, would you start hiking a mountain already? Okay, welcome everyone to the Main Street Business Podcast. This is Matt Sorenson, joined by the incredible Mark J Kohler. We are excited to be with you today talking about Mark the strategic plan.

Speaker 2:

I think the strategic plan is so, so important, Something that we have both written a lot about. Specifically, me and a couple of my books have chapters on this. It's a part of our annual calendar that we distribute and sell, and Matt said something interesting before we started the show. I said if you you know we were making a list, it's for a training we're doing later today on what are the key things you would tell your clients. If you only had seven things you could tell your clients this year, it was interesting. Matt said I'd want to make sure I connected with them on how to help them grow their business. Like accountants, lawyers don't do enough of that. They're just kind of this technical resource. Yeah, and today's podcast is about breaking that mold.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, and that's the one thing that we've seen and many other professionals like. We're helping business owners every day. We've had the 10,000 consults and we've seen what works and what doesn't. And as business owners ourselves I'm thinking about any of you listening that own a business is I want to know what's your vision Like, what's your vision of where you want the business to be. And I'm talking like 10 years, because a lot of people they overestimate what they can do in one year. They think I can do all this in a year, but they underestimate what you can do in 10. And so, if we really think about 10, I can do all this in a year, but they underestimate what you can do in 10. And so, if we really think about 10, you can do a lot in 10 years, particularly with the business, other areas of your personality, whether it's health, fitness, I don't care what it is but let's just talk about strategic plan for your business right now. In 10 years, you can do a lot.

Speaker 3:

Now we want to talk about your one-year strategic plan, but in order to sit down right now and think, where do I want to be in 10 years? Who am I with? What does it look like and you can think about this for your business, your personal life but like what does this business look like Now? I want to break down five years. What does that mean I got to be at? If I'm going to be there in 10, three, one, one year now which we're going to dive in on and focus on? Mark and I do this every year. Every year, we hit a strategic plan for our companies and go through what are we going to focus on? How do we get to this next level? But I like to take a bigger lens out first.

Speaker 2:

Yeah Well, that's step one and we're just diving right into this because we want to be efficient with our time. We could pontificate and tell you jokes and stories and all those goodies which we try to keep this light, but building your strategic plan is. That is really the. Just having a roadmap is half the battle. Just taking the time to write down what you're going to even try to accomplish this year and making it realistic and we'll go through smart goals here to give some some little tricks of the trade.

Speaker 2:

But the bigger picture is and I like like what Matt just said too is accountants and lawyers. What they do is meet with business owners every day and they're their own worst enemy when they just stay with their blinders on and their heads down, and too many professionals don't think that they have anything to offer or they could offer some business advice, and I think it's really important that you lean on your tax or legal professional a little harder and go come on, you're meeting with business owners every day. What are they doing right, what are they doing wrong? And if they're not willing to give good business advice, you may want to put them in a box and say okay, I'm only going to rely on you over here, but we need to have resources to help build our business. That aren't sometimes these high-paid business consultants and mastermind groups and big old, expensive conferences. It doesn't have to be like that either.

Speaker 2:

We think our podcast really gives you a lot of additional resources that are not just tax and legal. So I'm hoping this podcast today is important for you to take some things away. To take some things away, share this podcast with your family members, your friends, your business partner and go. Oh my gosh, these two guys, these tax lawyers, really shared some insights on how to build our business, and it didn't mean you had to go pay five grand for a consultant for a half a day or whatever it is. So I think this is good. So step one, with that said, step one is I like what Matt said is vision and work backwards. What's your 10-year ideal scene? Write it down. We've had to do that it can be hard the first time we did this.

Speaker 3:

It took me a couple days yeah, it can be tough and this thing can change too, and so, even as this is the perfect time to do it, get in. The rhythm of this is when you're doing your one, your strategic planning. I'm doing mine with my wife here in two weeks in Hawaii. Michelle and I, we're going to reset our vision.

Speaker 2:

You think you're going to get this done in Hawaii.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, very ambitious of you. Yeah, she'll be in a bikini, but I'll focus.

Speaker 2:

All right, you know so we'll be good.

Speaker 3:

We'll be good so, but when you get that strategic plan done, after you have the vision and so, but then I like setting out your goals for the year. Now I want to we're going to again you can use this model for your personal life, your family, health and fitness. It's the same model here that we're going to use, but we're going to focus this on for your business here.

Speaker 2:

Step one and I'll be the little secretary here of our podcaster meeting is write down your vision, and we can spend a whole hour on this. I love Rich Fetke at Real Wealth. Get over to his website, realwealthcom. Rich Fetke does an entire exercise where he has you kind of meditate sit down, what do you envision your life like 10 years from now? Financially, relationship-wise, health-wise? We could spend freaking three hours on that or more. But step one is having that vision so that you can then work backwards from it.

Speaker 2:

And I want to be clear about this. When you say this is what I want my business to look like, we'll focus there 10 years from now. Maybe it's number of employees, amount of revenue, a number of assets under management like rental properties, whatever it is Then you say, okay, if I want to be there in 10, where do I need to be in five? So you may say I want to have 10 rental properties in 10 years, okay, cool. So in five years maybe you should have five rentals. Okay, in three years maybe you should have three rentals. And oh, maybe this year I can buy my first rental, yeah, and so that's kind of the concept is. And then if you just sometimes when you say I want to have 10 rentals, it can be daunting. But if you say, well, I can just have one rental this year, you're on track.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, but I want you to pull back another step before that. When you say 10 rentals to me, like, well, why do you want 10 rentals? Your vision isn't like the inputs here of 10 rentals. The vision should be the output of I have financial freedom, I've built real wealth I can rely on and retire on, and the rental properties are going to be the outcome of this, or the tools to get there. Yeah, the building blocks, the tools, the pieces that give me the outcome I want and, mark, you're always good about this, about connecting the emotion of it to the tangible. I'm usually the analytical one of, like it's 10 rentals, bro, I know.

Speaker 2:

But you're going to feel'm usually the analytical one of like it's 10 rentals, bro, but you're going to feel so good, Mark will be like but why do?

Speaker 3:

you want 10 rentals.

Speaker 2:

You know, and I'm like, what's the feeling you want.

Speaker 3:

I want to feel like financially secure and I'm building wealth and I believe in real estate. I'm going to make the right real estate buys. But I mean, let's break this down here for a second. Maybe this is just an easy example we go with. But I like to think of when I do a strategic plan and the way we do them and when I'm writing them out.

Speaker 3:

I think of you might have five or six things that are your strategic goals for the year and I'm going to say this is my objective. My objective, for example, is to get more sales. Okay, so my my objective is to get more cells. But then I got to have a strategy. Well, what's your strategy to get more cells? Well, my strategy might be I need more leads, because I know that's one way I can get more cells. Okay, that my strategy is more leads, how do I? But then it's like well, how do I get more leads? Well, that's my execution points. My execution point is well, I'm going to research how to do that, I'm going to read up on it, I'm going to go network, I'm going to go talk to other business owners that do that, and then I'm going to go hire someone that maybe does this for me, you know what I mean.

Speaker 3:

So there's the execution points on how you're going to achieve that strategy. That then hits that objective. But you might have four or five strategies to meet one objective. So if my objective was more sales, I've got the strategy of to get more sales, I need more leads. My other objective might be I don't need more leads, I need to convert my leads better. That I'm already getting and that okay.

Speaker 3:

What's the objective on converting more leads? That might the strategy might be training on how to convert better, making sure the leads I'm getting are better. If I'm paying for leads, is there a better place I can get a better cost on those leads, so I get more leads for the same cost? You know, like a lot of these things, you just you start thinking about a lot of people just get to like the tactical execution points. I want you to think about what are the drivers in your business that really move your business forward? That's your objective. What are the strategies to hit it? And there's different. There's a lot. I mean we can get even more strategies on just how do I get more sales. You know it could be I need to kick a website, I need to do a podcast, I need a YouTube channel, whatever it might be, that's going to help me get more sales. And then you start working through all the execution points.

Speaker 2:

I love it. And to tie this into the vision you may say in my business, I want to sell my business in five years. But if we stick with this 10-year concept, you say, well, in 10 years I want to be having $3 million in sales annually, okay, well then that means maybe $1.5 million in five years and okay, that means this year you want to have 250 grand in sales and you're not there yet. Okay. So again, working backwards, you may say I need more sales because of where I want to be in 10 years and that feeling of financial independence or the exit of my business. I want to have a great EBITDA that I could go get a multiple and sell the business or whatever, or I'm going to pass it on to my next generation or who knows what. So, working backwards, I love, matt, how you bring it granularly back to this year. What's that objective that's going to help me reach that 10 year goal? And then breaking it down into which strategy fits you best.

Speaker 2:

The strategy for Matt to get more sales may be different than the strategy for me to get more sales. We're all at different places and levels. And then how am I going to execute it and breaking it down even to each quarter, like, well, this quarter I'm going to find the right team that's going to help me get more leads. In quarter two, we're going to beta test and start da-da-da. In Q3, we're going to start to scale it In Q4, we should really get it. And so you don't want to expect overnight success either. There's so many mindset issues here because we can really undercut ourselves with expecting way too much too fast.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, and I think that's probably the entry point is getting in the right mindset to do strategic planning. And that's why I like getting that 10-year vision, because you can set some realistic expectations of big goals in 10 years and then you work towards that in your one-year plan. But you know where you're going, you know the direction you're going.

Speaker 2:

Can I propose step two before we again, we keep working toward this one-year plan and what it should look like and at the very least, everybody, as you can imagine again, this could be a three-day workshop. We really just want to get you thinking, maybe hit some points that are really going to help you take some action this month of January and don't feel like you've got to have it on January 1st. Well, I missed my window to have my New Year's resolutions or my strap line. No, you got all month. Let's make this happen in the month of January. In fact, in two weeks, matt's going to be in Hawaii, I'm going to be skiing on my honeymoon, so I'm actually speaking at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland. We're going to stay for a week and we're going to do our strap line.

Speaker 2:

This isn't just any tax conference. This is Tax and Legal 360, the conference that challenges the tax industry with the hopes of changing it. This is where tax professionals meet business owners and legal professionals from all over America. Join us in Salt Lake City to experience the ultimate tax, legal and business conference. Come join your tribe, love it so, and it's sometimes you have to get. So I'm going to, oh man, some good techniques in this process, but I'm going to say step two is, after you do your vision of where you want to be in 10 years. Sit back and look in the rear view mirror, look at what you've accomplished. Yeah, take a moment to say you know what? I've finished my education, or I launched my business, or I did get married, or I did this or did that. We can be so hard on ourselves and think that we're losers or this or that. Holy crap.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, like I've bought a couple of rental properties or you know, I've house hacked some deals, I flipped a property, I made some alternative asset investments. Like you have some wins or some stuff you've done and, even if those are going okay or didn't go so great, you learned something and you're better off for where you're at right now to be better at planning on how you're going to attack this next year. And so I think one of the things of looking back on the wins probably the best thing is is like what's the new perspective you have and what have you learned? And I like looking at what worked well and doubling down on that. Keep leaning into that what you did, figure out and worked well. I also think this is the great time, as you're looking back, to think where do I need to pivot in my business?

Speaker 3:

You know, one of the greatest pivots of all time for me, what I heard was it was Instagram. I mean, instagram started out as an app that was about sharing your location with your friends. It wasn't about sharing pictures and photos. It was a whole business and they ran out of money at the very end and they were like crap. We have to go back and ask these VCs for more money. What are we going to do? It was kind of like this app of like hey, we're at XYZ bar post and it just shares your location, and they thought this would be so cool. X, y, Z bar post and it just shares your location and I thought this would be so cool my friends would know where I'm at and dah, dah, dah, dah.

Speaker 3:

And then they added this feature that you could post a picture. And then they realized 99% of people are just posting a picture at their damn house and it was like wait, or their meal. People just want to share photos and they pivoted the whole business to that and so and so sometimes this is obvious and not so obvious, but one area to pivot is what are some of these new products and services that you could be offering? What is this blue ocean I could maybe go to that's not so cutthroat, competitive to where I'm currently operating at? This could be a new location or a new market you touch, or a new service, or a new enhancement to a service. So I think about some of those things to start adding into your strategic plan as you're looking at wins. What am I already doing? What am I having success in? Where should I be pivoting in the business?

Speaker 2:

I love it, and I think so, if you can buy into our methodology here of having your vision, looking at your wins, what you have accomplished, what you're good at this. Sometimes this is called that SWOT analysis.

Speaker 1:

What are my?

Speaker 2:

strengths. What are my weaknesses? And not beating yourself up, some of you may go. Well, I only have $10,000 in my IRA. Well, boy gosh, look out at the national average. You're in the top 10 percentile. The average American doesn't have more than $1,000 in savings.

Speaker 3:

Well, that's over $ hundred K in their IRA, but yeah. I don't hear me, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:

Takes perspective. Yeah, you need perspective. So the third thing here I would say is I'd like to bring up SMART goals. As Matt started, he was saying what are your objectives for this year that are going to move the needle with your business? Well, the SMART acronym, if you've ever seen this, is are they specific? You can't just say, oh, I want more sales. You know, be specific about what dollar amount you want in sales. Is it measurable? Oh, I just want better customer satisfaction. Well, how are you going to measure that? Are you going to do surveys? Maybe it is measurable, maybe it's not.

Speaker 2:

And then, are they attainable? Can I really attain this? I'm going to have 10 million in sales this year? Okay, tiger, slow down. Maybe that's a little out of bounds. Now, are they realistic? To me, attainable and realistic are very similar. I guess you could debate those. But is it realistic, is it attainable? And then T what is the time frame? And that's where I'd like to maybe carve up the year into these quarters. You know what, if I'm going to have X number of sales in the year, where should I be in Q1, q2, q3, q4, and not just praying that it's all going to happen in December, the end of the year. So those are again. You can study up on those folks. Go Google it. There's some different ways the SMART acronym is used, but that's the way I look at it and I think it's helpful as you decide on these objectives.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, now, once you figure out those SMART goals, let's think. Let's come back to objectives. What are the objectives that I have? This could be the goal you set, and then what's the strategy I'm going to implement. And then, what's the strategy I'm going to implement, and then what is the execution point or action items that I have to go up to obtain that.

Speaker 3:

Now, as you're thinking through the quarters through the year, I like that because you think of quarters. As you know, I'm doing my quarterly payroll and paying my estimated taxes, and big companies report quarterly financials. But it's a great way to break your year up too and sequence this out so you can operate towards this. So, if you're thinking of well, I want more sales through the year, well, quarter one might be a lot of my initial research, hiring, engaging people, training, learning. Quarter two might be testing some of this implementation of it, you know, whereas quarter three and four might be kind of like execution, tracking, improvement type stuff. So try to sequence that out through the year and be very specific about what you're going to do. And the last point I would say is track it. Okay, track this stuff Before we go to track.

Speaker 2:

Let's stay on this objective strategy execution. You got the SMART goal or SMART acumen in mind, and I love the way you started this out with those three levels. Think of it this way that first I'm going to make two points. One is you may say my objective is more sales. Well, there might be three strategies that you're going to implement to get that one objective, and then under those three strategies, there might be four or five action items under each strategy, and then you're going to create a timeline. Okay, I can't do 15 things all at once, but I'm going to do these two or three in the first quarter or the first month or two, and you start to work backwards. So, again, one objective might have three strategies and then each strategy might have three or four action items. Well then, a second perspective I want to say is sales your only objective? You might have four objectives. One might be financial, one might be human resource related. You might say I want to hire more people, or I'm going to hire two or three more people. Ok, what's the strategy? I've got to recruit, I've got to do this, I've got training, and then you might have a product or service objective I want to unveil three more products or three more services this year. Okay, what's the strategy for those and that objective? What are those strategy? And then, what are the action items there? And then, finally, you might have a training objective. I need to get more training myself. I want to finish this. I want to do that. That's my objective.

Speaker 2:

Okay, what's the strategy? What are the action items? So this strategic plan is Matt, and I have built them out over the years. It could be 10 pages long, because you might have multiple objectives that create multiple strategies and multiple action items. And then you open up the calendar and go okay, what are you in charge of, matt? Okay, mark, what are you charge of? I remember the good old days where we'd go do this on a golf course or at a retreat. We'd go fishing, we'd go out and try to get away and go do this.

Speaker 2:

And we were so proud of ourselves because a lot of times we say, okay, let's pull out last year's play, yeah, and we go how did we do? And we're like, oh my gosh.

Speaker 3:

Yep, that's nice, and I want to say one thing that's worked between us. We've had a great partnership. I'm lucky to have Mark J Kohler.

Speaker 2:

I'm lucky to have Matt Smart. It's been a great partnership.

Speaker 3:

Yeah and so, but we take it serious and we hold each other accountable to it, and I know that Mark's counting on me to do this, like I've agreed to do this, and some of you might be solopreneur and you don't have that person. You might want to go find that person. If you've got a spouse, get them more involved. Maybe talk to your other friends that are business owners. Let them know what you're doing. Do you have a board of advisors.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, this is where the board of advisors comes in, you know and for even your LLC, like let's put them on the board of advisors. Some of this person that you get some of your business input to this could be your friend, your mentor, your aunt or uncle that's ran a business, or something like this that you're asking questions all the time. But having that person, that is a little accountability check I think is very valuable.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, no, I love it. And so a couple other techniques. Here I'm going to say if number three was actually building the objectives and strategy and execution points with that smart acronym, step four would be writing it down, holding yourself accountable, sharing it, carrying it around with you everywhere you go. Many years, Matt and I both talked about it where the time I really loved to look at my strategic plan was when I was in an airplane. Yeah, I just had this emotional concept of.

Speaker 2:

I'm 30,000 feet above the world, I'm unplugged. Yeah, most planes over my career you didn't have Wi-Fi, but you're kind of unplugged and you were like, okay, how's it going? You know recording some winds. What do I need to do next week or next year? And so find those moments, plan for them, where you're going to go on a retreat with your partner or spouse or board, and it could just be an afternoon at the beach, it could be an afternoon in the mountains or in a park. But carry it around with you, write it down and review it.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, and I think for some of our bigger companies that we have is we communicate these strategic plans to our leadership teams. They're involved in this in certain points. They might be a champion of some of these items, a specific strategy or objective. We might have an executive that's on our teams in our different companies that runs those and is responsible for that, and so sometimes you might want to get their input. Make sure you're getting their buy-in, but also communicate that through your leadership team. For those of you who have a bigger business, because you all want to get on the same page they all need to know where you're going. You don't want to blindside your team about what's happening. Let them know where you're going. We're trying to get more sales. Why are we doing this differently? How come this? We got this new thing going on. What's going on with this? Why are the website changing? Let them know this is what you're planning to do. Bring them in the loop.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I love that. That's all. Part of step four to me is writing it down, sharing it, and now I'm going to propose, if I may. Step five is it's okay to pivot. You know I hate that, whatever statistic, that oh X number of businesses fail in the first three years or five years. Maybe they didn't fail, they just pivoted. You know many of us we can be tunnel vision. This is the way my business is.

Speaker 2:

Well, maybe there's a new law passed in the first quarter of the year and sales are going to be more challenging and maybe we need to pivot and like Instagram and maybe change the business model a little bit. It doesn't mean you're a failure, it's okay. Business is all about change and growth and pivoting and being able to move with the market, and those are the businesses that are successful. And don't beat yourself up if you have to Now. It doesn't mean you like a squirrel. Oh, squirrel, squirrel. You got to stay committed, you know, at times, but sometimes the goals can get bigger Like, oh my gosh, this new law passed, we need to modify, we can do even better with sales, but we're going to have to hire more people and it creates a different challenge.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, love that, let me, let me hit a couple.

Speaker 3:

I want to give some like practical things, some things I'm always thinking about that might be helpful to you. One thing we're talking about this thing, about the main things you're going to try and do in your business. You're going to try and get more sales. You're always going to be trying to do that. Okay. You're going to always try and improve your margin and your take-home profit, which might mean some operational efficiencies. That might mean some technology improvements. Okay. You're always going to be looking at how am I operating, what is my team?

Speaker 3:

And one example, even for the smaller businesses, is sometimes it's like well, I want to get more sales. That doesn't mean hiring a salesperson. That might mean hiring your first employee, that's your assistant. That's going to help run the operations and all the administrative stuff you've been doing as a business owner because you've been IT, you've been sales, you've been delivering the service. But you know the best value you have is actually going and selling the service, not providing it or doing all the administrative tasks in the business. Maybe I need a bookkeeper so I'm not doing the QuickBooks Back to.

Speaker 3:

SWOT what are your strengths and weaknesses and where can you add that value to the business? Now, maybe you are a terrible salesperson, but you're the great person at providing the service. Maybe you're the dentist, or you're the physician, or you're the person that has a specific skill you know that can deliver that service, and I'll go hire the sales people or the marketing people that bring in the customers, and so so. So sometimes bringing in people whether this is a third party service provider or an employees can free you up and I and that should be always a thing on your strategic plan is you, as the business owner, of thinking where do I need to be in the business? And if I'm distracted and not doing the things I know that can add the most value to the business, how do I go get other people to get this crap off my plate?

Speaker 2:

I'm so good and I just want to add something and then share. Another practical point is that sometimes many of you your next best move is to hire an assistant. Really, look at what is the crap that you're doing. That was really not the highest and best use of your time and I, matt and I have done so many presentations on. You know working backwards, if you're paying for this assistant 20, $25 an hour, but think of how many hours are going to free up of yours where you could be making a hundred $200 an hour. You know conceptually doing something more profitable. The other tip I want to give you here is back to that rental example. I remember meeting with this couple and they were like they wanted like 20 rentals in 10 years or something like that and that was their objective.

Speaker 2:

And I was like, okay, okay, that's cool. So that means you're going to have 10 rentals in five years. You're going to dah, dah, dah. And they were like we need to buy three rentals this year if we're going to meet our goal. Whatever it was, I said okay, so I go tell me about your debt load right now. Oh, they were in debt up to 70 grand. You have four kids. Okay, How's your retirement account coming? Have you even put money in your IRA or Roth this year, just to have some basic savings? No, we haven't done that. How's your business coming? Well, we got some challenges. Here I go, but you're hell bent on buying three rentals this year and I go let me make a recommendation.

Speaker 2:

You need to modify your business this way. You need to go get a part-time job We've got. You need to modify your business this way. You need to go get a part-time job. We got to figure out better benefit package for you. We're going to do a debt snowball. You are two years out from buying your first rental and they were devastated. They were like oh my gosh, mark was supposed to tell us how to do this. They wanted to form an LLC and all this stuff. I was like no, no, no. Sometimes and here's my point I want to make it doesn't mean you're not going to meet your 10-year goal or your vision. Sometimes you have to take one step back, to take two steps forward, and that's okay. Sometimes we got to clean house, we got to get out of some debt. Do this and then we're going to come out of the gate stronger two years from now or a year from now. Don't beat yourself up again if you feel like you have to move a little slower.

Speaker 3:

This may be a rebuild year. Yeah, awesome point. Because I think so many people just aren't ready for the goals that they have and they're not realistic about it. And that goes back to the SMART goals. That was not realistic for them. Yes, yes, it may have been attainable.

Speaker 2:

Oh, there's the difference. We could have attained it, but was it realistic, and should I?

Speaker 3:

It was not realistic for them and they would have failed and they would have wasted time, and so you really got to focus on the things that are most important first, even though those aren't the fun stuff. And sometimes getting started in a business is tough. You know, pivoting can be tough, Making some of these big changes in your business. You might have grand plans of growing your business and selling it for a significant amount and but you got some stuff like right in front of you that you're just not dealing with and this might be the toxic employee that you just that does stuff that no one else knows, but you're just holding on to them because you kind of feel like you have to, but it's really dragging your business down and you're just not addressing it.

Speaker 3:

This might be you in your business that's doing all the stuff you know you should get out of, and so I think there's a lot of things that people they just get to the fun stuff. Let's just do a new website, let's just do a new service. Let me just go hire this new cool person. Let me go, you know.

Speaker 2:

You want to go deep? Yeah, yeah, you know I want to go do all this. And then they go home and their personal life is a wreck is a wreck. They're overweight, they have high cholesterol, They've got some blood pressure issues. Maybe it's time to reevaluate that relationship, that key relationship in your life. You know what's funny about this? I was at 360 talking with an attendee and they were talking about their business and then, lo and behold, it said well, I've got to. Really I need to finish my divorce.

Speaker 2:

I was like, okay, see, we're not going to go anywhere in business If our personal life is a train wreck too. It's all connected, it's all intertwined, and sometimes we try to compartmentalize or block it out and just say, well, I'm going to focus on the business, where maybe your kid needs to go to rehab, maybe we need to take a couple months off of the business and let's get our children taken care of, or our spouse or our relationship. That needs to change. Maybe there's a move, maybe you need to sell your home or whatever, and that's okay.

Speaker 3:

And can we say that that's okay. Yes, and that can be your strategic plan, because you know it's going to get you to next year where you can be on point and on focus and start attacking it and not have that baggage weighing you down and all that uncertainty and that drama that can just stay around if it's not addressed. And so don't feel like and we've all had to do that Most successful business people have had to do that at some point in their life. So don't feel like you're getting fricking picked on. Everyone has their crap they got to deal with.

Speaker 3:

So I love that because that goes back into mindset. Are you at the mindset to make these big, audacious goals, set that massive vision? And you can do that in 10 years, but your one or two might be a little cleanup or a little different than you imagined. Yeah, and this is cool too. I like to say this is the times and seasons of life. This is your time and season to clean stuff up, to fix stuff, to get in a position to go kick, butt my last phrase and then I'll leave.

Speaker 2:

It is. It's almost like I'm going to go climb that mountain. I want to go climb let's not even say Mount Everest. I'm just going to go Kill a jar. That's a little more.

Speaker 2:

Apparently, I don't know. You know, I'm going to go climb that mountain and we think, okay, my strategic goal is I got to year and build the backpack, get in shape, I'm going to go acquire all the tools I need to make that journey. And all that Because if you just run out the door, heck, you might run out of water or die before you even get 10 miles.

Speaker 2:

And we see this in Phoenix all the time in the summer, people just run out the door and start climbing Camelback Mountain when it's 120 degrees. Maybe we need to have some timing involved here and some other things. So just running out the door not running out the door doesn't mean you're a failure. It could be very, very strategic to just slow down and prepare. Okay Well.

Speaker 3:

I swear this will be my last call. Okay, that was mine, because you're addressing a. Really, there's a lot of people in that camp that you're talking to right now which are you need a little bit of planning, you need a little bit of get ready time before you go climb the mountain, so to speak. But I'm telling you, there's a whole other group of people out there that have been packing their backpack for three or four years that have been getting in shape and haven't done anything yet.

Speaker 2:

Analysis, paralysis. What's my route going to be?

Speaker 3:

Would you start hiking? A mountain already okay, go do it for you in that camp. I want you to start getting that plan going, start taking action and doing something and being okay failing against some bruises along the way okay, I promise this will be the last one.

Speaker 2:

I would give a workshop to a women's group and, uh, on this topic of taking action, it's funny just generally. Now, this is not, you know, in every case, but the men can sometimes be a little more impetuous and just start hiking, and then the women can be in this kind of analysis, paralysis and afraid, or just want to overly plan before they go take that leap and so. But whether you're a man or woman, I love that they go take that leap and so. But whether you're a man or woman, I love that dichotomy is that some of you it's time, and for others it's not time yet. Know what you're, know yourself, know what you need to do. So anyway, I hope today we went on to just write off two, three quick books that we'd recommend to you that you might be helpful for you to read as you go through this, and then we'll wrap this up quickly.

Speaker 2:

I was going to say Traction.

Speaker 3:

I love Traction Traction's a great book I've read that one Definitely recommend. Scaling Up is another one. These are both books that kind of get into this EOS entrepreneurial operating system type way to structure your business and try to build it Empire.

Speaker 1:

Builder yeah.

Speaker 3:

Empire Builder's a great one too For those of you really trying to buy, build a significant business, and that's that's another great one. That's a business someone would want to buy, or that you could actually retire and be chairman of the board and I'm also going to recommend a podcast here you might have a couple is on the, the mindset piece of this.

Speaker 2:

I just love the life school podcast with Brooke Castillo. She's just amazing. There's so many great podcasts in there where you start to have to really ask yourself some hard questions and and understand where you um, uh, what you want, why you want it and how you're going to get there from an uh, just a mindset standpoint. She's just a master. So I would highly recommend Brooke's podcast and, um and again, I don't know, you've got a couple of business podcasts, yeah.

Speaker 3:

I mean, there's a lot of great ones. The acquired podcast is great. That talks about how to actually build a business. It's not about acquiring businesses, it's just called the acquired podcast how they built this. As a another great one, that gets in a lot of the stories of a lot of famous companies we know and that we're all small businesses guys. Every big business out there was once a small business and that's what we forget. Yeah, well, thanks everybody for listening.

Speaker 2:

Appreciate it. I guess you brought us in. I'll take us out. Appreciate you listening to the podcast and being a part of our journey as well. We hope to be here with you all year long. Get that strategic plan done. Take some time during this month and apply some of these principles that really resonated with you. Thank you for being here and we'll see you.

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Mark J. Kohler

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