Your business’ purpose should be to generate enough income to support your desired lifestyle. In this episode of Influence by Design, Samantha talks to Tim about the importance of calculating your actual lifestyle costs and then determining the revenue you need from your business, rather than going around and chasing vague targets.
“A million dollars” has become a go-to goal for most entrepreneurs wanting to grow their business by increasing revenue. However, very few successfully hit the $1M mark — in fact, only 4.4% of businesses do —because most set it as an indeterminate target without making an effort to ground it in their actual lifestyle costs and desired business model.
Sam and Tim discuss the value of making tiny, 1% improvements, which can be achieved by simply ticking off 3 tasks every day. If done consistently, these actions compound over time, and you’ll soon find yourself well on your way to hitting your targets (perhaps even exceeding them).
Tune in as Samantha and Tim explore the benefits of knowing your desired lifestyle costs, becoming aware of the requisite profit margins for the realization of this goal, and setting tangible, realistic targets. The insights you’ll gain will guide you as you enhance and model your business so it fits and supports the lifestyle you desire.
IN THIS EPISODE YOU’LL DISCOVER:
- Eight figure entrepreneurs (01:54)
- The purpose of your business (4:55)
- The Million Dollar Plan (7:31)
- Breaking down your numbers so you know how to achieve the lifestyle you want (8:25)
- Solopreneurship and AI (13:35)
- Breaking things down to three tasks per day (17:57)
- Shifting the needle by 1% (19:36)
QUOTES
- “The purpose of your business is to generate an income for you so that you can have the lifestyle that you want” – Tim Hyde
- “When you’ve got a plan, and you can see it, and you can see the steps, it is a lot easier to get up in the morning and say, ‘I’m going to do this thing.’” – Samantha Riley
- “What is it that we want? And then, what is it that we want our lifestyle and our business to look and feel like? They all need to come together.” – Samantha Riley
RESOURCES MENTIONED
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WHERE TO FIND TIM HYDE
- Website: https://winmoreclients.com.au/
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CONNECT WITH SAMANTHA RILEY
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- Instagram: @thesamriley
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- Twitter: @thesamriley
TRANSCRIPTION
(This transcription is AI-generated and may contain inaccuracies.)
Samantha Riley 00:00
Here’s the thing, when you’ve got a plan, and you can see the steps, it is a lot easier to get up in the morning and say I’m going to do this thing. Then going, Ah, I hope that one day I have a million dollar business and having no plan.
Welcome to the Influence By Design Podcast. I’m Samantha Riley, authority positioning strategist for coaches and experts. If you’re ready to build a business that gives you more than just a caffeine addiction, and you dream of making more money, having more time, and having the freedom to be living your best life, then you’re in the right place, it’s time to level up.
Welcome to today’s episode of influence by design. I’m your Thursday co host Smith Riley and joined by my fabulous co host. Yet again on a Thursday, Tim Hyde. How are you, Tim?
Tim Hyde 00:50
I am doing wonderful. I’ve just written the most amazing bio for myself, which is partly true,
Samantha Riley 00:56
which is partly partly true and a little bit of storytelling. Oh, yeah. Well,
Tim Hyde 01:04
you know, creative license, I think that’s an important thing to have as a marketer, you got to be able to tell good stories, right?
Samantha Riley 01:10
Absolutely. Absolutely. We talked about the traits of eight figure entrepreneurs, the last couple of weeks, been very popular episodes, we’ve had some really great feedback. And it’s had us reflecting a little bit and reflecting on those conversations. And also reflecting on chatting with our clients. Just recently, I ran an intensive with my clients. Last week, I spent two days in the room, creating a plan for 2024. You’ve been speaking to your clients as well, getting people ready for you to have a great year next year. And we’re going to talk a little bit about some of that reflection today and around their income goals specifically.
Tim Hyde 01:54
Yeah, I find this is a really interesting one. Because here’s what we know. I mean, it’s talked about eight figure entrepreneurs in the US, and it’s the same administrators or very similar results. That point zero 4% of business owners ever reach eight figures. We can put that number out there. But a more achievable number is always this seven figure now make a million dollar business and 4% Isn’t that reach a million dollars? That
Samantha Riley 02:24
number? I’ve known it for a long time. And it still astounds me only 4%. Okay,
Tim Hyde 02:30
but Well, here’s, here’s the thing, right? Why do I need 4% of businesses all 4.4%? Obviously, because some go on to eight, nine figures and so on. But why is it that only four and a half percent of all businesses out there only ever get to a million dollars? And yet, if you’d ask just about everyone, what’s your goal? What’s the goal for the million dollar business? Like some thing that people aspire to? But never really get to? And? I don’t know, I want to know why. Like, I have some theories, obviously, you know, and I know you did, too. But why do people set this number as a goal of like a million dollar business, when we should probably be setting our profit target that meets the lifestyle that we want? And whether that’s eight or nine or seven or $652? You know, what are we what are we doing this? What are we putting this number out there for? And what does it actually mean to us as entrepreneurs? Because I’m sure if you’re listening and thinking I you know, we’re coming into November in December into December now, you know, what did I do this year? I’m looking at, as you said, with your with your workshop, your intensive, you know, what’s what’s what’s in store for 2024? I can almost guarantee you that a couple of your clients wrote that number down and said, I will make a million dollars in 2024. I would say so. Any real understanding of why that number one and what’s driving me to that number.
Samantha Riley 03:57
I can tell you this for a fact, 100% of the people in the room, when I asked who would like to earn more next year, every single hand went up. So
Tim Hyde 04:07
Well, that’s the nature of entrepreneurship, right? Because we’re correct. We’re hungry for more.
Samantha Riley 04:11
Absolutely, absolutely. But let’s dive into that. Like, why seven figures? Why is it that number? Why do people say I want a million dollar business? You talked about what does it mean? And I think that this is really important to have this conversation straight up. Because you and I have both met many entrepreneurs and business owners before that may be on paper showing the income as a seven figure or an eight figure. But their profit might not be reflective of what it should be for that income level. So in a different way to say lots of money coming in, not so much money going in the pocket. Well,
Tim Hyde 04:55
we’ll come back to what’s the purpose of business. You and I have touched on this so often purpose of your business is to generate an income for you so that you can have the lifestyle that you want
Samantha Riley 05:08
100%
Tim Hyde 05:11
I’ve shared this story with you, Sam private. And I know privately I’m not sure if I’ve shared this on the podcast, but one of one of the people that I hugely respect in the digital marketing space, Ryan Deiss, tells his story from stage that he got home one night, you know, saw that his wife that bedroom light was off, and his wife had gone to bed and he’s sort of gone. Oh, I’ll go in and do some work in the office. And she’s sort of come out and seeing the offers light on interesting Gannett come in and says, you know, Hi, honey, good to see your home, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? 1130 at night conversation, come to bed when you’re ready. You know, and have this very frank conversation with him. It says, Well, what are you, you know, why are you doing this? Okay? I want you to stop kidding yourself that you’re doing this for the family. You’re doing this for your own ego. Okay, you know, because if you wanted to spend time with your family, you just would, yes, okay. But the catch here is wanting to give the, you know, the lifestyle to your family, by doing it for them in the lifestyle that you want them to have? Not necessarily they want to have. But I think this is when we look at whatever goal we’re setting whatever number goal we’re setting, we must need to come back and say, Well, what is the lifestyle? What is the amount of money that I need to earn? To do basic stuff? Okay. But if you fuel in the car, right food on the table, make sure that the mortgage is paid, or wiped out if necessary, you know, and I can have a holiday that I want, right? And I would encourage people to, you know, literally get into your bank account statements and literally go through it and go, What did I spend money on this year? And that’s what I need to live. Okay, paid my bills, you know, I’ve got a phone, I’ve been able to sort of have a bit of fun with friends, etc. But then go, what is it that I want my lifestyle to be like,
Samantha Riley 07:10
in the future? What do I dream about?
Tim Hyde 07:12
What am I working towards? Why do I want that. And I think when we look at, what do I need, and what I want, we can start to kind of then imagine more about what the business needs to do to create them, rather than just some random number plucked out of the air.
Samantha Riley 07:31
I have a planner that I freely give out. And you can get a copy of that Smith rally dot global forward slash plan. It’s the million dollar plan. And I’ve had so many people come to me and say that they’ve been so surprised that that number, it was different to what they thought it would be. And as soon as you’ve got really clear on what that number is, it makes it so much easier to plan. Because all of a sudden, instead of a number that means nothing, you know exactly what that number is. And now we can put a plan in place to do whatever needs to be done to implement that. And I would say, actually, I’m just thinking, I don’t think I’ve ever had anyone say that the number was larger than they thought. Every person that’s done, it has all have all come to me and said that number was actually lower than I thought it would be. Which is really interesting.
Tim Hyde 08:25
Yeah, I think this is thing. And if you know your industry, you know what the typical margins are for your industry. You can go and look this up, right? It’s easy enough to do a chat, GBT search or just do a Google search and say, what is the not typical margin for a consulting firm for a builder for blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But it’s all going to be routed back into what is the lifestyle that you want? Need and you want, and that gives you a number, right? So if you’re, let’s go, let’s just pick a builder out, because I happen to know that one off the top of my head, if you’re a builder, and your lifestyle says that I want to be able to take my family on an overseas holiday every single year, okay, and that’s gonna and it’s going to be a bit lavish. And if you wanted to, you could go and talk to her a travel agent and get us sort of an idea of what this lavish holiday is going to cost you. Let’s say it’s $50,000. I’ve paid all my bills. I’ve got a nice car for myself. And I’ve got some other stuff, right? There’s some discretionary spend, and stick round numbers, right? And this is what I love about that planner resource that you’ve got, because it helps you sort of break that down. And let’s say that your lifestyle costs you 350 grand, okay, which is really nice. Okay, you’re gonna be able to do a lot of things but that sort of money. Not even counting for the fact that maybe your partner your significant other might contribute some towards some of that plan. But let’s say it’s 350 and then you kind of multiply it by one over half because you want to eat out twice a week, rather than once a week and you want to buy, be able to buy the sort of, you know, the next tier of wine on the on the wine list, you know, the $60 bottle of wine rather than the $30 bottle of wine. Okay, so you got to be able to do that. So as I say, it’s $500,000, if you know that, that is now what your lifestyle is going to cost you. And maybe there’s a little bit of future, you know, pay future Sam and pay future team money that you’re putting aside. If you’re a builder, you should be at about 10%. Okay, so you need to know you now know that your goal is to build a $5 million business. And a $5 million business for you might be 10 properties that you’ve got to build and sell, or just properties that you need to become, but it comes more tangible. And then when you come back to actually doing your business planning, well, 10 properties, I need to be able to sell one build and sell one property per month, it becomes like The Matrix and understanding what you need to do to achieve that becomes more real. Okay. As a coach, if you want to do $5 million, and y’all got a $10,000 products or $10,000 program? Well, I need to do 50 clients to make that 5 million. I think the numbers are okay. 50 clients. Okay. And that means I need to sign up one a week. Is that right? That is right, isn’t it? I’ve got my my thick, right. Yeah. All right, that means I need to do one a week. And that means I need to do you know, three, three posts, and I need to have five conversations every single week to sign up one client. All right. But it gives us real tangible activities that we can now do. To know that if I do those activities, I will get that result. And I’ll have the lifestyle that I want. Totally
Samantha Riley 11:54
makes it a lot easier when when you break it down and break it down. And I know that my conversion rate is this and I know that I need to speak to this many people to get that many people on the call it all of a sudden, it makes it a lot easier than just saying I want a seven figure business. And that is the end of it. Now, you’ve talked about the revenue versus profit. And like really getting clear on what our profit target is. You’ve talked about the lifestyle, but there’s something else I want to talk about. And I don’t hear many people speaking about this. And that’s if you want a business at a certain level, what does that business feel like? Because if you’re saying I want an eight figure business, and I don’t want to have a team, then those goals are not aligned. Because I don’t know how you would build an eight figure business on your own. Like it just, I just don’t think you could do that. You would need to have a team. So have a think about. Okay, so if I’ve got a business, an eight figure business, and I’ve got a team of 35 people, is that what I want? Do I want to be managing a team that size? You know, do I want to be working with, you know, that amount of clients? Is what does that business look like? What does it feel like? Is it aligned with what you want those lifestyle goals to me? Yeah,
Tim Hyde 13:17
like absolutely true. There’s that sort of dichotomy. Although ironically, I was at a workshop last week with a bunch of other marketers. A lot of conversation was driven by AI, which is one of the conversation wasn’t driven by what the conversation was about.
Samantha Riley 13:32
I was gonna say, Hang on, I mean,
Tim Hyde 13:35
that, you know, the potential to build a billion dollar sole operator business, leveraging AI is definitely kind of, you know, not too far away. It’s closer, certainly closer. It did raise some interesting questions about what’s going to happen when your AI outreach bot, starts talking to my AI response bot. Oh, 100%.
Samantha Riley 13:55
Like, it’s just gonna be talking to bots.
Tim Hyde 14:00
Right. And it just sort of made me think of the movie Wally, floating around drinking and Slurpees in the little floating seats. And Kenny
Samantha Riley 14:09
Leon has been saying that for quite a while.
Tim Hyde 14:14
This there’s some interesting stuff on the horizon about how we achieve these sorts of goals and how to recreate leverage, but it still comes I think it’s absolutely right, you know, what is what, you know, if, if, if this is a lifestyle at one, that’s the first conversation you need to have with yourself, what is the lifestyle that I want? And then what is the business look like that will deliver that lifestyle and do I want that business? And I don’t want that business. I didn’t need to reengineer that business or reengineer my lifestyle that I want.
Samantha Riley 14:45
Yeah, any one of
Tim Hyde 14:47
these three things can change.
Samantha Riley 14:48
I was gonna say we’re able to do all of it, but this is where you need to have a really honest conversation or discussion with yourself and potentially the people that are close I says to your significant other, or, you know, a business partner to really get clear on that entire big picture.
Tim Hyde 15:11
Yeah. And I think like revisiting it regularly because it changes. You know what you wanted two or three years ago? I mean, I’m going to use my wife’s business as an example. And I know that she did your planner.
Samantha Riley 15:26
Three years ago, yeah, two or three years ago. Yeah, Susie,
Tim Hyde 15:28
I know, she’s done some work with you as well. On this. And I remember originally, I mean, I think she had her lifestyle planned out at about 340k. Right. And she’s like, Oh, my God, I could never possibly do that. And like, someone was generous, and was like, you know, fly up to Queensland every couple of years, or every, every couple of months to visit family, and I want to be able to do that guilt free. I don’t have to think about whether that I’m fun. I’m doing that. Well, that means that I can’t buy new shoes for the kid. Yeah, yeah, kind of take your own. You don’t want to be you know, we’re in a business that we can create whatever design of lifestyle we want, right? You don’t want to have to make those compromises if you can avoid it. And we’re, I think, as entrepreneurs, we’re unique in the ability to create whatever, you know, lifestyle that we want. And she was like, Oh, my God, I can’t couldn’t possibly imagine that that would be so big, so far out of my scope of thinking. And then we did a think so I’m not sure if it’s in your plan or not. But we actually did, what could your business create?
Samantha Riley 16:36
Yeah, that is in my planner. Yeah, it isn’t
Tim Hyde 16:38
the planet. Watch because your business creates. And I think she created this thing with just a couple of staff going. In an ideal world, this business could deliver 1.4 million or something, whatever the number is you came up with, right? And it just put it in context is like, Oh my God, if I can build a marketing machine that could deliver that 1.4 million, my best my 300,000 a lifestyle seems like eminently achievable. Not kind of like pie in the sky dreaming, never to be achieved kind of stuff. It actually gave it real context. And, you know, a plan emerged to suddenly create this thing. Yeah.
Samantha Riley 17:23
And here’s the thing, when you’ve got a plan, and you can see it, and you can see the steps, it is a lot easier to get up in the morning and say, I’m going to do this thing, then going, Oh, I hope that one day I have a million dollar business and having no plan, it’s a lot more difficult to achieve it. As soon as you break it down. And you go, ah, when I get up today, I know that I just need to do this, this and this, and then tick that checklist off. And I can knock off for the day. And I can knock off for the day. Actually, let me just stop you there. I’ve got a client that has because we often work on what are your three tasks for the day? What are your three, you know, projects for the week, we break everything down. And she’s I love it, the quicker I can get up and take my three boxes in the morning, it means the rest of the day I’ve got off. I love that. Because it’s like, well, if I can get all three done by 10am, I’m done. Well
Tim Hyde 18:18
imagine doing that for the whole team. Right? You know, if you have how many? You’ve got 20 Odd staff and your business right now. And you know, but, you know, if you’ve got those people working on your business, even if there’s three people, and you know, there’s you and two virtual assistants. And he has said what are the three things that are going to move the needle in terms of revenue today? And that’s what we’re going to knock off first thing in the morning. Right? You haven’t done three things or one thing you’ve done, you know, nine things and over the course of the year, those nine things times 300 350 You’ve done a you know, what is the other one that number is that’s massive, three and a half 1000 3000 things to move to move the needle towards achieving this, this business vision? Absolutely things but more than three now I believe in minor things that just move the needle? half a percent. Yeah,
Samantha Riley 19:20
absolutely. And it’s amazing. It’s amazing what some of those little things can exponentially turn into as well. Some of the goals I had set this year have far exceeded what I thought they would I love this idea of you know, shifting the needle by 1% or, you know, deciding to do things that are like the 1% Wasn’t this originally coined by a coach of the British Cycling Team, I believe, yeah. And just bringing in this idea of we’re just going to move things by or alter things or or trial things by 1% Each day had them winning medals where they previously were really underperforming. Yeah.
Tim Hyde 20:08
They’re talking about it in atomic habits. And, you know, they think they use this as a case study that these micro improvements, doesn’t matter what it is, okay. I think they went and worked out there was sort of 300 things that may or may not affect their performance from, you know, tire design to wheel size to, you know, what the athletes ate, to what they’ve, you know, clothing was made out of to which route they took to get to the training session each day, or, you know, even what time they turned up and finished, and how long the sessions were, and then picked a whole bunch of different things, they kind of narrowed everything down to about 30 or so key areas that had an influence on the performance. And they’ve gone, how do we improve that that thing by 1%? Not 10%, or 20%, or 30%? Yeah. And we think that’s, you know, it says, we often think it’s the really big rocks that make a massive improvement in their business. And, and conversely, a lifestyle doesn’t have to be. And Bill Gates has said, there’s, you know, we kind of overestimate what we can do in a year and underestimate, well, we can do in 10. And it’s the reason for that is we forget the compounding influence of these 1% improvements.
Samantha Riley 21:23
100%, right.
Tim Hyde 21:24
So we got to look at 2024 as a plan and go, whatever number is, I want to make a million dollars this year. We’ll break it down into those one presents, what are the things that could make an influence? Okay, well, maybe it’s one extra phone call per day to a strategic partner, just to get a
21:44
timely, and
Tim Hyde 21:45
I’ve I put that in my checklist and go, right, that’s my 1%. Today, as I’m going to make a phone call to a strategic partner today. Every single day, I’m going to do that. Tomorrow, I’m going to go, I’m going to put a post up that I haven’t done before, okay. And every single day, I’m going to put a post up, right. And I think you might even you did that in 30 days for 30 days and podcasts are influenced by design. Absolutely. Okay. And you were like, Oh, my God, I cannot believe the transformation in audience size. I could not believe it. Okay, just from 30 days, not 300 days or 360 days. It was 30 days. Yeah, imagine what would happen if you did that every day for 365 days. Same? Yeah,
Samantha Riley 22:34
I would have a meltdown.
Tim Hyde 22:39
Okay, like pros and cons, but it’s totally, it’s just 1% they didn’t wouldn’t have to be, you know, hour long episodes every single day, it could be five minutes, episodes every single day. And that could be the 1% that, you know, gets you towards that goal, that ultimately gives you the lifestyle. Now we do have to balance it. And
Samantha Riley 22:56
that’s what I was gonna say, let’s tie it back to what we were talking about before, what is it that we want? And then what is it that we want our lifestyle and our business to look and feel like they all need to come together? So let’s take that put that podcast in 30 days, did it deliver the results I was expecting? No, it far exceeded the results I was expecting. Is this the kind of business that I wanted to wanted it to feel like by podcasting every day, or setting aside that much time each week to do it? I decided no, not at that time. That doesn’t mean no forever. But at that time, no, that’s not what I wanted. So it’s about really getting clear on what do we want to income to look like? What do we want our lifestyle to look like? What do we want to our business to look like? How do we want it all to feel and then bringing it together holistically? Yeah,
Tim Hyde 23:47
yeah. And that gives you that plan. And that gives you the things that you can then work on to go that’s what I want to create rather than, you know finger in the air. Let’s make a million dollars next year. Yeah,
Samantha Riley 23:59
yeah. So as you’re reflecting, we’d love to see you as part of that 4% If that’s what you feel like you would you know, really want to hit we’d love to see hit your income goals, your lifestyle goals and your business goals next year, but definitely can support you with that million dollar plan that we’ve been speaking about. You can download that again at Samantha Riley dot global Ford slash plan. Great reflections, Tim. I’ve enjoyed this thing
Tim Hyde 24:28
we got to be there’ll be more reflecting over the next couple of episodes Sam as we go into go into our Christmas break. And looking forward to seeing you join us on those episodes. Absolutely.
Samantha Riley 24:39
Ciao for now.
Samantha Riley Outro
Thanks for joining me for this episode of the Influence By Design podcast. If you want more head over to influencebydesignpodcast.com for the show notes and links to today’s gifts and sponsors. And if you’re looking to connect with other experts who are growing and scaling their business to join us in the coaches, thought leaders, and changemakers community on Facebook, the links are waiting for you over at influencebydesignpodcast.com
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