2.2 Four Steps To Quarterly Planning

In this episode, Safa Harris and Ashley Dreager dive deep into the importance of strategic planning for business success. They discuss how to break down long-term goals into actionable quarterly plans, emphasizing the significance of regular check-ins and data-driven decision-making. The conversation covers everything from setting annual objectives to implementing weekly tasks, providing valuable insights for entrepreneurs looking to scale their businesses effectively.

Key Takeaways:

• Planning should start with a long-term vision, then break down into 3-year, annual, quarterly, and monthly goals.
• Quarterly planning allows for flexibility and pivoting based on changing market conditions.
• Regular check-ins (weekly, monthly, quarterly) are crucial for staying on track and making necessary adjustments.
• Tracking metrics is essential for making informed decisions and avoiding reliance on "vibes" or intuition.
• Effective communication with team members about goals and projects enhances motivation and performance.

Timestamps:
 
0:58 - Introduction to the concept of planning 12 months ahead 
2:12 - Breakdown of long-term vision into actionable steps 
7:25 - Importance of tracking and management in executing plans 
12:59 - Discussion on accountability and motivation in business 
19:21 - Four steps for quarterly planning and implementation 
30:30 - The significance of regular check-ins and metric tracking

Referenced Links:

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Transcript

Intro: 0:00

Welcome to the business millennials podcast. This show brings you strategic insights through raw and unfiltered real world advice to accelerate your business growth for longterm success. I'm Safa Harris, and I'm Ashley Drager. We're the founders of scale and thrive co a full service marketing and business development firm, helping visionary companies scale sustainably. Expect us to have the uncomfortable conversations that no one else is having. We'll break down what it really takes to grow and scale your business beyond six Seven or even eight figures as well as inspiring interviews with diverse leaders across marketing, product development, sales, and more. Be a fly on the wall. As we conduct strategy sessions with business owners, experiencing issues such as plateaued income, burnout and generally dropping the ball, giving you the tools and resources to break through your own roadblocks, but also personal development methods to grow you as a balanced conscious leader amidst business growth. Let's jump into this week's episode.

Safa Harris: 0:58

Oh,

Ashley Dreager: 0:58

I,

Safa Harris: 0:58

talked about how Like you need to be a year ahead and when you're trying to do some big things in your business like Create space for yourself or

Ashley Dreager: 1:07

mm.

Safa Harris: 1:08

off or have like that golden Three day workweek or three hour workweek or whatever craziness the Internet's telling us So how how do we do that? How do we plan 12 months ahead of time?

Ashley Dreager: 1:23

well, we often work in quarters. with our clients. So that is a really great way to kind of put things into more of a bite size container that still gets a lot of progress made because I think it's a fine balance, especially for clients to not feel overwhelmed by looking at that big picture and all the stuff that to get done, but also not getting stuck on just one step of it, kind of like looking at that quarterly plan, because that's something that we build into all of our strategies too. So I think that's a good practice to have in place, best practice for your business.

Safa Harris: 2:12

so obviously well, maybe not obviously but the way we work and the way we set it up Everything starts with a mission and vision, right? What you're trying why you're trying to do it what you're trying to do and what you want this to look like To make that happen and that's usually like pie in the sky biggest dreams five ten years From now then you're like well, do I make that happen? And then we're like, okay Well, let's see. Let's put like a milestone in there of like in three years This is how it's going to look then you have a little bit more manageable less pie in the sky Definitely achievable like I can see milestones in the next three years of how that's going to happen And then you bring it down even more granular into a year. It's like okay at the end of the year I'm going to hit these four You I say between three and seven, big things, like these are my goals that I want at the end of the year, like when I'm sitting down in November, December, I'm going to be like, yeah, we hit these, this, these, and these, we didn't hit these, but these are the reasons why, this is what we're going to do differently next year, this is what we're going to do, but if I hit these three to seven, I'm going to get closer to that three years, I'm going to get closer to that pie in the sky, if you stop there and you're like, okay, this is everything I need to do this year, Are you going to start and actually do anything? No, you're going to be like, oh my god How am I going to reduce my churn by 25? How am I going to increase my revenue by 50? How am I going to? Get myself out of the day to day When those are my big chunks, like where do I start? How do I prioritize these? so From those annual goals. We then break it down into quarters and we don't even go well Lots of quarters out we go. Okay. So the first quarter after we've set these goals We are doing these three projects and these three projects are going to help us hit these yearly Milestones or get us closer to these yearly milestones and these three have to be done first because one there are either the lowest amount of effort with the highest level of impact or the are going to, they're like, they have to be done before something else. Has to be done. So they're they are a dependency on something else that has to be done to hit milestone of the annual goal. So we'll plan out those three and be like, okay, once those are done, the next quarter, we can look at all of those things. This is kind of what's left that has to be done to keep us moving forward to those annual goals. And then, We'll see how this quarter ended, how close we got, what numbers we hit, what all we did, and then we will go and re evaluate the next quarter and try it again. But we have an idea what's coming because we've kind of done a high level planning of like, Get these done. Then we can do those next, but it all starts at the top. And then you just pull back, pull back, pull back. Well, not pull back. You go in deeper, deeper, deeper, you get closer. The pullback is going to the annual. Um, and then when you're just looking at the 90 days, you go even, Smaller than that because 90 days is still like a big period of time. That's three months and if you're like, okay Well, my plan is to reduce my churn on my membership by 5 percent or whatever It may be you're like, okay. Well cool. That's a good goal for a quarter. But what am I doing right now to do that? Okay, well this month we're going to implement a survey for our clients and then we're going to set up on automation So it goes out and then at the end of the month and we're gonna go check on it And then from there we'll be able to see oh, well, they want to see more of this So then we're gonna start implementing those things and putting those things in place and doing all of that So even then it's like okay. Well this month I'm doing this And then that's your project for that month. And then you do the tasks for that month. And those tasks are like, this is all I'm doing this week. And then like hats, how you get project. And that's how you get momentum and get going. But it all starts at the top and you get. More specific, more specific, more specific, till you're telling yourself exactly, this is my goal for the week. So if you, like our, in our last episode, if you have the plan of, in 12 months from now, I want to take 3 months off, or 12 months from now, I want to only work Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and have all of this team, you put that as your annual goal, and then you're like, Okay, from there, what do I need to do first? First would be, I need to do an audit of my, by business, figure out my day to day, all of that, and then create SOPs and hire and do all of those things to get there and prioritize by what needs to be done first.

Ashley Dreager: 7:25

I just have to say that I love that this is your specialty. Because you're also really good and natural at the tracking and the management of it too, because it's, you know, it's having this plan and outlining all of this is great, but then it's, there's more on the back end. It's kind of like a, I don't know, I think of like a duck, like on the surface of the water, everything, you know, Nice and cohesive. And then under the water, their feet are like paddling super fast. They're like, there's a lot going on behind the scenes to get everything in motion and to keep it in motion. So I just had to mention that. Hmm. Mm.

Safa Harris: 8:12

of a duck too, which is like nicer. But what you see at the top, like with the duck or the iceberg is one that's like the marketing, that's the brand, that's the success you see in the business. You don't see everything else that has to go into it. that's kind of where, like, the unethical marketing comes in, right? They're like, oh, you can have all of these really nice top of the iceberg, just the nice pretty duck part, not the moving feet, not the rest of the iceberg that goes into it to make it happen.

Ashley Dreager: 8:44

Yeah.

Safa Harris: 8:45

So yeah, so we, we've brought this down from like a super high level to just tasks, but you still have to do those tasks. You still have to

Ashley Dreager: 8:54

Yeah.

Safa Harris: 8:55

have to like allocate resources. If you're getting help to do it, you're still having to pay to get that done. You're still having to put like time, money, effort, blood, sweat, tears to

Ashley Dreager: 9:05

Mm hmm.

Safa Harris: 9:07

and do all of those things. All the pieces that go into hitting those large milestones of I increase my revenue by 50 percent and I can teach you too. In my 90 day course, yeah, but like to do all of that, it's going to take you three years because they had to build and do all of those things. There's no shortcuts.

Ashley Dreager: 9:27

And how much money?

Safa Harris: 9:28

more to the iceberg. Exactly. And how much

Ashley Dreager: 9:31

Mm hmm.

Safa Harris: 9:32

team members, how much effort, like it's all there. It's all the rest of the duck.

Ashley Dreager: 9:40

Mm hmm. Heh heh heh heh heh heh heh. Tiny little webbed feet. Heh heh heh heh heh heh. Um, Heh heh heh heh heh heh. I

Safa Harris: 9:52

you have

Ashley Dreager: 9:52

know.

Safa Harris: 9:53

to the episode to understand this inside joke about the duck.

Ashley Dreager: 9:57

So,

Safa Harris: 9:58

you know the whole part of the duck

Ashley Dreager: 10:00

The only,

Safa Harris: 10:01

for your business?

Ashley Dreager: 10:03

it just makes me laugh because I, I heard of this analogy in driver's ed that that's how you should be as a driver that the passengers in your car should see the duck, but in your mind, you should be the feet of like analyzing

Safa Harris: 10:19

Yeah, yeah,

Ashley Dreager: 10:20

and stuff. And I'm just, I don't know. I feel like that analogy works for. For so much. So yeah, yeah.

Safa Harris: 10:38

is for like the the legs to not be you all of the time well how are you going to make that happen if your goal is not for um to do whatever it is like how do we keep that moving and going and it's yeah you can plan it out and you can bring it into manageable pieces you can look at it week to week you can track all those things and set those goals and look at those numbers to come up with those goals And all of those things. Um, but it's how do you keep that momentum going? How do you get started? And part of it is, it has to be self motivation, right? Like, I have to get this done if I want this for myself. If you're, when you're working for someone else, It's like, well, if I want to get my paycheck, I have to do it. And like, yeah, it's like sometimes when it's your own business, like, well, I have to do this so I can make money. But a lot of times if it's like a goal that isn't necessarily Like if everything's fine, and you're just trying to push to the next level, or you're just trying to make, oh, let's make this a little bit nicer so it's a little bit easier for us, whatever, it's, that's not a have to do, it's a, it's a should do. Like how do you keep that motivation and stuff going? I think we have a hack and a cheat code because we keep each other accountable and motivated. And, um, I was talking to some people the last week and. It was like, well, I hired someone because I would then feel bad if I didn't do my part for them to be able to be successful. Like it, I don't want to be that client that's like, Oh, well, I didn't do it. Or I didn't do that. I can't do that. I like, you don't want to be that client. So you're like, well, let me get my butt in gear and get this done so I can give it to them so they can do their jobs and we can keep things moving. But like, especially when you're working for yourself, it's, and it's just you and your business, like that self accountability and that self motivation. is really hard and I know for some people it's like, oh, it's in my task list. So like, I'll just do it. I'll, I get it done. But that's hard.

Ashley Dreager: 12:59

Yeah, especially if you have kids at home and you're not like in a structured office schedule, right? You're trying to work like in pockets of time. I think that that's why the coaching space has done really well too. Because of this large boom of new businesses and most businesses start out solopreneur as they're growing. It's got that, that accountability built into the package of with the structure and keeping things moving.

Safa Harris: 13:32

But even then it's like, sometimes you'll go into, you have like dedicated office time and you're like, Oh, that's hard.

Ashley Dreager: 13:38

Oh yeah.

Safa Harris: 13:39

or you just don't get started. Don't get it done.

Ashley Dreager: 13:41

Mm

Safa Harris: 13:41

And I've had, I've seen a lot of people, um, hire coaches be like, Oh, I want the accountability of the coach. But even the coaches just, they're going to tell you what to do. And then you have to go and do all the work of figuring out all the pieces and parts that have to be done and then do it. then if you're going to get sidetracked by client work or whatever, it's the whole like working in your business versus on your business time thing, you have to make time to do that and like have your CEO day, da, da, da, da, you're going to keep going back to the coach and be like, Oh, I didn't do it. it didn't get done. I got sidetracked by this. I have kids, whatever, whatever. And then it gets into the point of, I didn't see the results working with this coach.

Ashley Dreager: 14:23

hmm.

Safa Harris: 14:23

see results working with this consultant and to give coaches a free pass because there are a lot of not good practices in the coaching space. Like we've had conversations about this before. We can have more of them, but there's definitely problems there that I think stem from a lot of what we talk about of like having root cause solutions and all the work and the expectations of what it takes to get it done. And if they're not setting that properly, be like, Hey, yeah, we're going to do this work together, but you're going to have to like dedicate to 20 hours a week to do this. And if you can't do that, I'm not going to take your money,

Ashley Dreager: 15:06

Mm

Safa Harris: 15:07

usually just take, still take your money and you won't do the work that needs to be done because you whatever reason it is. And it's like, oh, well, I didn't get results from the coach. Well, you didn't do what you needed to be done to do it. And I'm not doing this as like a shit, like I get it. We oftentimes end up in places where we don't get what needs to be done done. Like we figure it out. We do alternate or we bring someone else to do the work in to do the work. And to get it done, but it's like, Oh, I didn't get results. Well, one, the coach didn't set the expectations up front that this is going to be a lot of work and you're going to have to do all of those things. And weren't really set up there for sort of for success, but on your end, you also didn't do what. Anyway, I think there's a couple of things that you can do. 2. Don't only give yourself as much work to do that you can actually do and it might be slower but it's going it'll it'll still keep you moving and then a coach set proper expectations of how much work needs to be done and business is hard and it takes a lot of

Ashley Dreager: 16:18

Yeah.

Safa Harris: 16:19

and yeah you can plan out Like the best of them, but if you can't execute and get it implemented and get that done, then it's not going to matter.

Ashley Dreager: 16:30

Yeah, that's why it's so important to be doing these 90 day quarterly check ins and planning because that way you can make sure that you are only putting on your schedule and taking on what you realistically can do or want to do. We've done it. We have throw done it.

Safa Harris: 17:01

that has to be done? Okay. Well, how do I make it a priority? Or how do I outsource this to get it done? Or I just throwing this goal away because I really don't want to do it and I just put it on my list because I think it should be there and I really actually don't care. then you just throw it out, which you're allowed to do as well. A lot. All the time. Yes. So that's why it's like if you're gonna make this whole plan for the entire year and give yourself to ask for the entire year and then something changes within you that one it didn't get done you don't want to do it like you're it's just it's easier to do it in smaller pieces and it allows for you to pivot. So, say, just 2023, grand big plans for 2023 coming off of 2022, right? Market completely changed. Business models had to change. Price points had to change. How your marketing had to change. If you're like stuck, well, I made this goal and this is what I got to do. How's that going to work when you need to do different things to achieve those same goals now? Because something external to you changed, but if you're checking in 90 days, be like, Hey, I tried all those things and they didn't work out as well in the Q1. So what are we doing Q2 to

Ashley Dreager: 18:25

Yeah.

Safa Harris: 18:26

this going given these factors?

Ashley Dreager: 18:29

So we have four steps for you to implement every quarter, just four. So we've broken it down to very bite sized pieces for you, but it's very good practice to have. And if you work with us, or if you work with an OBM or a DOO, they should be doing this within your business as well, every quarter, right? That's a pretty good expectation that they should be doing this. Um, So, like Safa just said, the first step is to reflect on the prior quarter. Because you have to know where you are, what happened, to be able to plan moving forward. Right? You can't plan your next road trip if you don't have a starting destination. Laughter.

Safa Harris: 19:21

That's where like the annual goals and everything comes in. Yeah.

Ashley Dreager: 19:26

So the reflecting on what went well, what didn't go as planned, and really just getting in tune with both of those so that you can problem solve, find the gaps, optimize,

Safa Harris: 19:43

where you can track your progress on your goals to see what happened and then also looking at your metrics because your metrics are going to tell you what's not working that one either kept you from your goals or a problem that's arising that you didn't even have on your So you can take that information and then move into the next step.

Ashley Dreager: 20:06

which

Safa Harris: 20:07

reflecting.

Ashley Dreager: 20:08

you may realize that you haven't been tracking metrics and that should be a project. On your next 90 day,

Safa Harris: 20:13

Correct.

Ashley Dreager: 20:14

your 90 day plan. So setting the priorities for the next 90 days, right? I think earlier you mentioned three to seven for the year.

Safa Harris: 20:24

year. Yeah. So it's three to seven for the year as milestones. And then from the three to seven, all of those milestones take things, projects, whatever, to happen. And you take three of those projects from within the milestones and put it towards a quarter. So that could be like a launch, a new offer, and then like do XYZ to reduce XYZ. Or make something better that. So those would be the three for the next quarter. Okay, so might have three quarterly projects, which is going to be increasing revenue from your existing clients. You're going to have launch a new service offering, and then you're going to have, um, decrease your client acquisition costs, like how much it takes for you to make a sale. So you're going to, you have those three plans for that for the entire quarter. And you're going to say, okay, so for the first one where I'm increasing revenue for my existing clients, what all do I have to do to do that? of the results I need is I need to review all of my clients. need to find what are ways that I can upsell these clients. What are like three good ways for me to upsell on my existing services? And then everything together to actually those upsells, make those sales, and increase my revenue buy 100, 000 by just way of these upsells. that's a revenue for your existing clients. You're gonna, that's your goal for that quarter. And then you're gonna be like, okay, well, month one, I'm gonna sit and do account reviews and see what opportunities there are for upsells. And then that's your project for that month. And then your next month, you're like, okay, well, I'm gonna create, three upsell packages for these existing services. then three I'm gonna, and then three I'm going to sell them and make this live to go to market. And you can, like, I just broke that down into like, oh, goal, three action items. We spread it out over three. Or you can be like, oh, well, this month I'm doing just this and we're going to hit all three. And then your next quarterly goal was, okay, we're going to launch a new service offering outside of the upsells. Right. And you're going to do the market research, you're going to find what your top potential new services are. And then from there, you're going to develop your pricing and your delivery process. Like how are we actually bringing this to market? What needs to be done? You're building that IP out and then you will deliver that service to new clients.

Ashley Dreager: 23:24

But you guys can see how breaking that down by month and then by project can make it much more manageable to implement. I mean, when you're saying that, I'm just visually like imagining ClickUp with

Safa Harris: 23:38

Mm

Ashley Dreager: 23:39

each of these. And then from there you can do the subtasks and all of the details and collaborate as needed. So it's, it makes it much more manageable to see what your focus should be day to day. When you have all of that in your systems, it planned out, outlined, communicated.

Safa Harris: 24:01

Yeah. So like if you. If your high level year goal was like increase my revenue by this much and then you've pulled these two objectives that we just talked about for this quarter, be like, okay, I'm going to increase revenue. How am I going to do that? Doing by upsells, I'm doing a new offer. And then that's

Ashley Dreager: 24:19

Mm hmm.

Safa Harris: 24:20

like, it breaks down that way. And then you get through the quarter and you're looking back at these, it's like, oh, well, I didn't get as much as I wanted on that upsell revenue or. offer didn't successfully sell. So let's go back to the drawing board and pivot and change and you're looking at a quarter. So instead of going through the entire year doing all these projects, whatever, getting to the end of the year and be like, Oh man, we actually lost revenue. You

Ashley Dreager: 24:50

Mm hmm.

Safa Harris: 24:51

to course correct your business by doing these quarterly reflections and replanning

Ashley Dreager: 24:57

Yeah. Yeah. And you had mentioned having quarterly team meetings too.

Safa Harris: 25:04

Yes. So, especially if you have a team, even if it's just one person, once you lay all of these things out, you can take that to the team and be like, hey, this is what we're working on. This is the goal. And the work that you're doing is not just grunt work.

Ashley Dreager: 25:21

Mm hmm. Mm

Safa Harris: 25:22

is what we're going towards and this is going to be the benefit for the business. This is what is going to be the benefit for you. These are my goals for the company. Let's all go and do it together. That's like a big part of like your leadership skills of like, Hey, we're all. Because as a leader, you're not telling, hey, you're not managing people. It's like, hey, do those and get those done. You are getting everybody on board to move forward and go forward with you.

Ashley Dreager: 25:48

hmm.

Safa Harris: 25:48

now you're saying, hey, like this is our goals for the year. This is what we're doing this quarter. All your work that you're doing is going to make this impact for the business. And then it will X, Y, Z look like this for you. And this is what the impact will benefit all of us. And this is everything we're doing and getting everybody on the same page and moving forward. And when they can understand those things, can see what the work that they're doing. It's like, Oh, well, like you just had me do research on, I don't know, like Like, that's just a research project to me. But if they're like, oh, well, we're going to be delivering a new project on TikTok and I've been wanting to learn TikTok and this might give me the opportunity to start doing more TikTok implementation work, they're going to be invested

Ashley Dreager: 26:41

Mm hmm.

Safa Harris: 26:41

because they can see the vision.

Ashley Dreager: 26:44

Yeah.

Safa Harris: 26:45

will understand everything they're doing and everything will keep moving forward. I think that's really, really important. And I think that gets lost for a lot of people. 1, it is work to like, set up a meeting, have it show all of these things, have it in a digestible way, like 1, have it in a digestible way for you just for yourself to see and put the time aside to present it to the team. It's going to be worth it. That work is going to be worth it to do it. So I think it gets left out a lot because it's just another, oh, this was busy work, whatever. It's fine. Like everybody's doing the work. It will make a big, a big, big difference just on team morale and honestly the quality of the work that you're getting and the buy in from the

Ashley Dreager: 27:27

Mm hmm. Yeah. And helps with that critical thinking aspect too. Mm

Safa Harris: 27:34

if they know the bigger picture of what the task is supposed to lead to, they'll know, it's like, oh, I'm supposed to do research on TikTok, but why am I doing research on TikTok? Okay, we need information for this to be like a service offering. Okay, so what kind of information is needed? To be able to take it to the next step. If they understand the big picture, they're able to put the pieces together and understand, well, I should be putting all of this in here to have the result that's actually needed versus just like TikTok is a platform based in China.

Ashley Dreager: 28:15

Exactly, exactly. So then moving into number three, we have this as defining actions to achieve your goals.

Safa Harris: 28:27

yeah, so that's actually doing the project plans. Like, you have prioritized, you know what it is, you know, so you've set the achieve 100, 000 and upsell revenues, and you know you need to create the, three EPSEL packages, everything is. So you've hit, those are your results. Those are your key results. This is what you're trying to do. So you take that and you're like, okay, well, what do I need to do to actually create these packages? Like, I did an audit. I know what these three packages are going to be, like, what are all the steps that needs to be done? It's creating those actual action plans and doing the work in your project plan and the steps.

Ashley Dreager: 29:09

Yeah.

Safa Harris: 29:10

Uh

Ashley Dreager: 29:11

Yeah. So the project plans being one thing, um, it could be maybe team training or hiring sales conversations, sales conversions, I mean, and then, uh, marketing activities. So all, all things to consider

Safa Harris: 29:35

All the operations in your business that need to happen. So, just like, for one of your things is launching a new service offering. Okay, yeah, you did the market research, you figured out what the offer's gonna be, and then you developed the pricing and delivery process, and then you tested it out, and it worked great. Okay, so now, what happens to keep that going to hit that annual goal of doubling your revenue? That's going to be a marketing activity. How is that all going to link up with your day to day operations?

Ashley Dreager: 30:05

Yeah. And then on the marketing side, you can do all of this again just for the marketing arm. So, um, but then, uh, scheduling your regular check ins is our step four. So it's kind of like a half step because you may already have this cadence in your business. Um, Mm hmm. Mm

Safa Harris: 30:30

quarterly, right? That's what these four steps are. You're checking in quarterly, but you need to also check in monthly and weekly to make sure things are still going the same way, like things are actually getting done. You're hitting your markers and your Your um, milestones within those projects like things are happening Um, so usually depending on the business and the size of the business usually like a weekly like ceo check in of like Okay, let's look at all the kpis. Let's make sure everything is moving forward. Let's just make sure There's no roadblocks or anything that's happening and setting that up and looking at your reports and looking at the progress because even then if you're You Say you've gotten to the point of your increased revenue from existing clients and increasing that from them and you've gotten to the point where you've created upsell packages and you've gotten to the point of actually upselling the clients and you're not seeing those conversions and you're like three weeks into this you're like, okay, well, We're just spending a lot of time something's not clicking. Let's figure that out And and that's part of like you're already working there It's like my cuz my goal was I'm gonna do 100, 000 in upsell revenue. Well, that's not happening So am I gonna keep trying this when this is obviously a red flag am I making a change right now? Before I'm three months into it and nothing's happened and I've put a lot of time effort and resources into it

Ashley Dreager: 32:03

hmm. Mm

Safa Harris: 32:05

sometimes I think monthly makes sense. It depends on the kpi what your goal is Because you may not so like if you're doing a new marketing initiative, you probably need to give it a little bit longer than a week, but if you had like 10 sales calls and not a single one of them converted, you need to be looking at that weekly. But if you're doing a push on like Instagram, you probably just want to make sure you're looking at that monthly or whatever it may be,

Ashley Dreager: 32:30

hmm.

Safa Harris: 32:31

numbers. So both of those are good check in points

Ashley Dreager: 32:35

Do,

Safa Harris: 32:37

quarterly.

Ashley Dreager: 32:39

This is why it's so important to be tracking your metrics, because if you're not tracking your metrics or you don't have a way to easily get a pulse on the business, it could be really hard to figure out if anything is even going wrong. Right? So like you said, course correcting is super important to be able to do, and you can't course correct if you don't know that you're off course. The metrics are what's going to tell you that.

Safa Harris: 33:08

Yeah, because what often happens if you're not tracking the metrics and you're not making those data driven decisions, you're going on vibes.

Ashley Dreager: 33:18

Mm hmm.

Safa Harris: 33:20

This feels off. There's something not right here,

Ashley Dreager: 33:26

Mm hmm.

Safa Harris: 33:27

Well, what's actually wrong? Where is actually the problem?

Ashley Dreager: 33:33

Yeah.

Safa Harris: 33:33

Where is this root cause? What's the root cause of the issue? The numbers are going to tell you instead of like, Oh, well, could be these three things, or I think this is wrong just because this is what I'm seeing. everything, the rest of the iceberg,

Ashley Dreager: 33:52

Mm hmm.

Safa Harris: 33:53

Like, what all is happening And also, if you don't have a pulse on it, if it's something that's happening over here and your focus is over here, and like, You're just paying bills, paying bills, and it's actually a cash flow issue, and you're not tracking those metrics, you're gonna miss it. Until it's like glaring and beeping at you like a red fire alarm,

Ashley Dreager: 34:16

Mm hmm. Mm

Safa Harris: 34:18

crap, I was so focused over here. I missed this, the numbers could be doing that mental capacity work for you. Of keeping track and a pulse on everything

Ashley Dreager: 34:28

hmm.

Safa Harris: 34:29

your focus is.

Ashley Dreager: 34:31

And that's where a lot of burnout can come from too. Because if you're just chugging along blindly, not knowing if it's really even making a difference, then, you know, just, just because you're putting in the time doesn't mean that business is automatically going to say, Oh, well, she put in this many hours. She put in, you know, this much time. It's been this many years. Success is here. That's not how it works. Right? Like it, you got to know if you're in the, going in the right direction.

Safa Harris: 34:57

if you're putting the effort in the places where your business needs the efforts and the numbers will tell you that. And then also it's, if you are tracking those numbers, instead of being like, I need to have a pulse intuitively on all of these things on my business, like you can't be focused on. Financials, operations, marketing, all of that to a granular, granular point where you're actually seeing what's happening and knowing and being like, Oh yeah, that's not wrong. That's not right. I need to fix that. If you're spreading your mental capacity that far on everything all the time, you are going to burn out because there's

Ashley Dreager: 35:41

Yeah.

Safa Harris: 35:42

like that's humanly possible to keep track of everything. And then from even there, you're putting effort that's spread out. So in the first scenario, you're putting effort in the wrong places. Second scenario, you're putting a little bit of effort everywhere, which is too much and like not enough in like the places that you need to be. And then you do just enough, have the numbers track and tell you, and then you focus on one place, put all the effort there and then go on to the next and move forward, that helps your brain.

Ashley Dreager: 36:23

Mm hmm. A lot. So do these quarterly check ins. To recap the steps, we've got reflect on the quarter, the prior quarter, set your priorities for the next quarter, define the actions to achieve those goals or those priorities, and schedule your regular check ins on the quarterly progress.

Safa Harris: 36:48

Yep. Yeah. Mhm.

Ashley Dreager: 36:49

If you guys need help with this, we do offer free audits too. So if you need help kind of getting yourself onto the right path and figuring out what some of these projects should be, we do offer those free audits. Like I said, we will help you bring it from a macro level, those long term goals onto a more micro level to those short term goals to help you figure out what those planning steps and those milestones should be. So we'll link that in the show notes.

Outro: 37:16

And that wraps up another episode of the business millennials podcast. We hope you found this conversation, thought provoking, inspirational, and helps you make a larger impact with your business. Growth is not just about profits or revenue. It's a journey of personal development, contribution, and bettering ourselves in society. Our challenge for you take at least one key lesson from our time together today that you can apply not just to your business. But your relationships, creative expression, wellbeing, and personal evolution to, we appreciate you tuning in. If you enjoyed this show, we invite you to pay it forward, share it with an entrepreneur, creative student, or community leader who needs an infusion of insight or inspiration right now. And make sure to subscribe on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. So you never miss a single episode. And if you like what you heard, leave us a five star review. See you next week.