As we embark on a new year, many of us feel inspired to set ambitious goals for business growth and life fulfilment. However, as statistics show, most resolutions fail by mid-February as everyday realities set in. How can we make sure 2024 is different?
In this planning-oriented episode, Samantha and Leon provide a blueprint for manifesting your biggest dreams while avoiding the common pitfalls. They also offer wisdom on avoiding Parkinson’s Law, using forecasting to set revenue goals, and product pricing considerations.
Centred around designing your ideal lifestyle first, they provide a framework for setting both life and business objectives. Tune in to gain clarity on bravely expanding while building infrastructure and surrounding yourself with the right people.
IN THIS EPISODE YOU’LL DISCOVER:
- The 9 key lifestyle areas to set your goals. (13:19)
- Dreaming big without limiting beliefs or constraints. (23:54)
- Distinguishing between forecasting and planning. (25:01)
- Leveraging seasonal sales data to set future strategy. (26:33)
- Evaluating product pricing suitability for revenue goals. (30:03)
- Increasing visibility to attract ideal clients. (34:02)
- Scaling bravely before perfecting infrastructure. (36:15)
- Becoming your future self today in mindset and actions. (39:39)
QUOTES
- “Life is nonlinear and unpredictable. You need to be open to adjusting your goals as you grow and learn more about yourself.” – Samantha Riley
- “You can’t scale something before you’ve actually done it.” – Leon Flitton
RESOURCES
10x Is Easier Than 2x by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy
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WHERE TO FIND LEON FLITTON
- Website: https://yourpodcastconcierge.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leonflitton/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/leonflitton
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ChatWithLeon/
CONNECT WITH SAMANTHA RILEY
- Facebook: Samantha Riley
- Instagram: @thesamriley
- LinkedIn: Samantha Riley
- Twitter: @thesamriley
TRANSCRIPTION
Leon Flitton: Don’t be afraid of, pushing forward and growing, but not having a perfect infrastructure setup.
Samantha Riley: Here’s the thing. Even if things were perfect, which, as you said, they’re never going to be, you still will lose clients along the way. And you’re better off to not hold yourself back. Go full steam in that growth, because it’s amazing how quickly you can build that infrastructure along the way.
Imagine it’s December 2024. You’re looking back on the year and you realise it’s been the most successful year of your life. What does that success look like? How did you get there? In today’s episode, we’re not just dreaming about this future, we’re taking the first steps to making it a reality. So, welcome to Influence by design. I’m your co host, Samantha Riley, and joined again this week by my partner in business and life, Leon. Leon. We spoke in the last episode about reflecting back on 2023. For you. what was the biggest takeaway from going through that reflection process?
Leon Flitton: I think it’s realising what we valued the most. So what actually we made most out of going back through that year and actually realised how aligned our values were in what we discussed. So I really think that was, for me, that was what it was.
Samantha Riley: Well, considering we’re married, I’m glad that our values aligned.
Leon Flitton: What about for you?
Samantha Riley: For me, it was actually realising or coming to the realisation that we had way more wins than I thought. Being someone that loves being in business. And it’s really like, let’s just get in and do the thing I can get very caught up in. Okay, we’ve achieved that. Let’s move on to the next thing. And even though I talk about celebrating the wins often, obviously I missed quite a lot along the way. So it was really good for me to realise how many wins we’d had and then to be able to celebrate those, that was my biggest takeaway. So if you’re listening and you haven’t listened to the last episode, episode five, four, nine, where we reflected, go ahead and do that before listening to today’s episode, because having the reflections of your year and the learnings makes it a lot easier to move into this planning.
Leon Flitton: Session, something I think is important is that when we look back, what we do is we realise all the things that happened during the year. So I don’t know if twelve months is a long time or a short time, but so many things happened during the year, and I think that you only remember the last month of it. You forget all the really cool things that happened. And there were some really cool things happened last year. So I think that’s important to realise. You need to look back at the year and go, okay, well, what were all the cool things that happened?
Samantha Riley: Yeah, like, oh, my goodness, January. That seems like a whole year ago. Now, before we jump into talking about how we plan out our year and the way that we plan out a year is something I’ve been doing for the last 30 years. It’s changed a little bit, but generally it’s the same thing. I want to talk a little bit about the energy of this coming year. This is an eight universal year, which is a real accelerator, and this energy is really encouraging you to manifest your biggest desires. So where the universal seven year 2023 was all about going within, working through past traumas, and really having a big self reflection year, this year is a year to be very empowered and come out and to really monetize your genius. That’s what this year is about. So get clear and get serious. Really get this planning in place, because there’s a lot of opportunities to expand and to reach new heights. This year it will probably take you out of your comfort zone, but it’s really going to force you to step up or get trodden on, get squashed. So take your goals seriously this year. Really get clear on what it is that you’re doing, really get clear on what your money mechanism is and get ready to receive. Because if you’re in a place where you’re not able to receive this year, then it could be a tricky year for you. So if you do have trouble receiving, now’s the time to do that mindset work, to shift that belief. That’s all I’m going to say on that, Buckley. And get ready. It’s going to be a fabulous year.
Leon Flitton: Absolutely love that. And I think that part about receiving is very important. So open to receiving. It’s going to be a hard year for you.
Samantha Riley: Yeah, I’ve been there. It’s a funny place to be. Anyway, let’s move into planning for the year. So one of my favourite quotes is from Alice in Wonderland, and it’s if you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there. And I see this a, lot with business owners out there that get to the end of the year and think, oh, I didn’t hit my goals, but there was no goals in place. There was no plan through the year to hit those goals. And really, if you don’t have your gps on, if you don’t know where you’re going, then it’s going to be really difficult to get you there.
Leon Flitton: I feel like that’s the part, like, sorry, I’m going to say the corporate.
Samantha Riley: Saying, when you fail to plan, you plan to fail.
Leon Flitton: That’s the one. Nailed it. But it’s true, right? Totally true.
Samantha Riley: Yeah. That’s one of the mistakes that people make, is that they fail to plan. The other mistake that I see people make is that they just set business goals. They just set a business plan. And what they’re doing is creating a plan for business where their business, everything, is put first, and then they try and build this life in the leftovers or the scraps. And you and I were talking before we recorded this episode about Parkinson’s law. Leon.
Leon Flitton: Yep.
Samantha Riley: Do you want to share a little bit about what Parkinson’s law is and what effect this will have if you plan business first and life second?
Leon Flitton: Yeah. So Parkinson’s law. Now, I’ve come across this particularly in my previous life, and this is where.
Samantha Riley: By previous life, you mean corporate life.
Leon Flitton: Oh, yes, of course. Trying not to say corporate again. Essentially, the work expands to fill the space available. now, I think the best way was when you described it and when you went, if you have a week to complete a two hour task, you will fill that week with that task. But I think you described it better when you said that. It’s probably things like the, procrastination, stressing about all that kind of stuff, and it just fills up with not actually doing any of the work as such and overcomplicating it.
Samantha Riley: Yeah. So what happens is, psychologically speaking, the task increases in complexity, and it becomes more daunting, so that we make it fill the week.
Leon Flitton: You described that way better than me.
Samantha Riley: So I actually see this playing out for myself in that I have discovered for myself that I work a lot better and faster in cafes. I don’t know why. If there’s some psychologists out there that can explain it to me, let me know. But I’d notice that I can do a task in 10 minutes in a cafe, and it might take me a few hours at home. And if I think that it’s going to take a few hours, then it can take a lot longer. So we don’t want to be filling up this extra time with more work, with more stress, with more anxiety about it not actually getting done? We’ve all been there, too. We just want to get the task done. So how can you beat Parkinson’s law so that this doesn’t happen? The way you do it is by setting tighter deadlines and breaking down big tasks into, like, smaller chunks. And I’m a big fan of breaking it down into the smallest, tiniest chunk possible so that you can stay aware of how you allocate your time, because you need to remember that time is our most precious resource in business, so we need to use it wisely.
Leon Flitton: Have you ever noticed those people that, when they got heaps of tasks to do, but it’s Friday afternoon and they’ve got to be out of the shop or wherever it is to get it done, and they just like, smash all this work really quickly and get.
Samantha Riley: It done so they can go home? Exactly.
Leon Flitton: How could you harness that all the time?
Samantha Riley: I remember a client, and this is going back a few years ago, and this particular client was a single mum, so she was super busy. She was got lots to do with running the kids around, just life in general. And she was trying to squeeze this business in, and she had quite a big project to do. And I’d noticed that it just came up month after month after month. This project had stayed on her to do list. And every month we’d have a coaching call and it was still there, and it was still there and still there. And I was just like, all right, okay, I know you’re busy, but we need to get this sorted because you’re not moving forward. So what we did was broke it down into absolutely the tiniest little pieces as possible. And I said, just while you’re waiting for the rice to cook, just do this one little bit. And on another day, just while you’re, sitting at the quick drop waiting to pick up the kids from school, just do this one little bit. And she knocked that entire project off. And I can remember in one month. But the funniest piece of this story is that it happened in the last week of the month where she realised, oh, my goodness, for the first three weeks, I haven’t done anything in one week, just by breaking it down into those little tiny pieces where she could just get a little piece done in a tiny pocket of time. I remember her posting in the Facebook group saying she came screeching into home base at something like 11:00 p.m. On the last day of the month. But she did it. She completed that project. So that’s one of the benefits of actually not just having a plan, but really having a plan that is able to be broken down into these tiny steps so that you can really make sure that you’re ticking everything off.
Leon Flitton: Yeah, I’m sure there’s other, things that you can help with that, like, time blocking or scheduling tasks in your calendar or something like that. So there’s definitely ways of helping with that.
Samantha Riley: Yeah, that time blocking works for some people. For some people, it’s like I just want to tick three things off my list, and the second that they’re ticked off, the rest of the day is mine. I’ve got clients that do that, and that works really well for them. I particularly like that myself because it means that you’ve got that idea that you were talking about before, Leon, where it’s Friday afternoon and we want to get out of there. Well, if we know that it’s nice outside and that as soon as we’ve got these three things off, we can go to the beach. Why not go to the beach at 10:00 a.m. Instead of at 05:00 p.m., yeah, exactly.
Leon Flitton: So it’s going to work for you, though. Some people work for time blocking. Some people work for three tasks.
Samantha Riley: Absolutely.
Leon Flitton: Whatever other style they’re using.
Samantha Riley: So whatever works for you. Just understand that if you want to live your dream life, you need to design your dream life furnished and then slot the business in. So this is, from the high level perspective, as you’re planning out your year, plan out what you want your dream life to look like, then slot in the business.
Leon Flitton: Yeah, I think that’s super important as well, because how many people just live to work? And I’ve always felt a bit ripped off about my corporate career where you had to work five days to get two off, and that never seemed fair to me.
Samantha Riley: Yeah, it’s not very balanced, is it?
Leon Flitton: They balance it.
Samantha Riley: No balance whatsoever. Now, last episode, we did talk about that, about work life balance, and you and I just don’t believe in that whatsoever. And I’ve created a model called synergetic lifestyle, and this is where all the different areas of our life interact with each other. So, for example, we all know that when things aren’t going well in business, then obviously our finances aren’t, um, great. Or if things aren’t going well in our relationship, then we might not be in a good place spiritually, whatever it is. All of these different areas of our life impact other areas. So there’s nine areas to take a look at. And I like to journal, and we did. We journaled on these areas so that we know where we’re at and we know what we want to leave behind in 2023, what we’re going to keep and bring forward into 2024, and also what we’re going to begin to do. So what we’re going to stop doing, what we’re going to keep doing and what we’re going to start doing.
Leon Flitton: Yeah. And we did go quite deep in this and it did actually take. It was a day. It was probably mostly a day, actually.
Samantha Riley: It was, yeah.
Leon Flitton: we journaled separately, but we came back together to talk about it. That’s how I realised that we were quite aligned, which is great, because we’re married and spend a lot of time together, so that’s really good. But it did actually take a little bit to go through it. Like, it was quite, uh. Indeed.
Samantha Riley: It was an invitation process. Yeah, totally. So let’s just cover off the nine areas, because we didn’t talk about these last episodes. So these are the areas that we reflected on. These are the areas that we’ve used to create our plan for 2024. The first is health and wellness. So this is the mind and the body. So think about what you need to live your best life. So when we say health and wellness, I think most people think training or fitness and nutrition, but think further than that. What is it that you need? Some sort of, um, meditation wise to keep your mind working. Now, for some people, this is a silent meditation, or I can’t think of the name of it, like, where you listen to a recorded meditation. But for some people, that would be walking or going down to the beach. I know that you walk every day, Leon, to clear your mind, and that’s where you process your things.
Leon Flitton: Yeah, I think it’s a movement thing for me. Like, it’s the, steady movement and also being out in nature. So that’s my thing. So something why I just sit there. I like to move.
Samantha Riley: Yeah, totally.
Leon Flitton: Whatever works for you.
Samantha Riley: Yeah. And there’s an area in health and wellness that I find really interesting, and it’s something I discovered with my clients years ago, over ten years ago, and it’s something that a lot of people don’t notice or really pay attention to. And this plays a lot into health and wellness for the mind and the body. And that’s where you live. I’ve noticed that when people are living in a place where they don’t want to be, whether that’s an area or in an actual house or apartment that they don’t like, that their mindset is really off. And many of my clients, once they realise this and they move somewhere, to a different area, whether they moved closer to the water or into more like a hills or forest situation, or even just an apartment that’s newer or in a nicer street, their mindset and their health really improve. So that may be something that you want to take into account there.
Leon Flitton: Absolutely.
Samantha Riley: So that’s the first area. Second area is your personal development. Any of us that are in business and entrepreneurs, we all understand personal development well. So what is it that you want to be reading or courses you want to do this year to up your personal development game number three is spirituality. Spirituality is your values, your purpose. And as you suggested, Leon before, it’s really about, are you living in alignment with your human design, the way that you’re designed to interact with the world?
Leon Flitton: Yeah, I don’t really stop mean, I had to think about a lot of these things, but this one really kind of got me, and I really had to stop and think hard about, what it meant to me. And I think when I put the lens of purpose on it, and if you’re living alignment with the human design, I think that actually really hit home for me, that I probably should be concentrating more on that rather than just like the day to day, just going through the motions kind of thing.
Samantha Riley: Totally.
Leon Flitton: They might be going through the motions. What is it for? What’s the higher purpose? So I think that was a key thing for me out of all this love.
Samantha Riley: That fourth area is romantic relationships. And I’ve separated this out like in the wheel of life. I think it’s just like family and relationships. And when I really looked at that, I felt that it needed to be separated, because the way that you interact in your romantic relationships is very different to the way you interact with your family and also your friends and community and your greater, social circle. So, for us, for example, moving forward into this year, we’ve decided that we’re going to be taking a long weekend away every eight weeks on top of our normal vacations. And it’s in every eight weeks because we run our business in eight week cycles. So we do a six week sprint and a two week cooldown, and then we repeat that. So in that two week cooldown, every eight weeks, we’re going to be taking a long weekend away, because we know that for us, when we’re away from the computer, when we’re away from our normal life, when we’re away from, just our normal home life, that things feel nicer, don’t they?
Leon Flitton: Yeah. But when we work together, huh. So we’re together 24/7 no problems with that at all. But what we realised was that it’s behind the computer screen or talking business, which we love. Business, don’t get me wrong, we love business, but I don’t want to be talking about business all the time.
Samantha Riley: We need to be able to defrag and relax and get, our creativity back.
Leon Flitton: Yeah. You don’t want your business to be consuming you. So I think that’s important, particularly if there’s anyone listening, that’s, couples working together. It’s a good idea to actually make time for that. Otherwise that the business book and we just be business business.
Samantha Riley: Absolutely. And date nights. Date nights is really important in there as well. We have our weekly date nights. I’m pushing for more than one weekly date night, but we’ll see where that goes. All right. The fifth area is family. So whether that’s, um, a weekly dinner with your family for us, we have just in the last week, started a group chat with our family. And the reason is that both of our families are interstate and we were never, ever getting to speak to all of them together unless we were together for a family function where we travelled interstate. So I started a group chat and that’s actually been really quite fun.
Leon Flitton: Yeah, it really could be quite a long time between actually seeing them as well. yeah. Really missing them and listening. Just more contact, that’s all.
Samantha Riley: More contact. Totally. Number six is community and social engagement. This is an area where I was chatting with a girlfriend just recently, and you say, oh, we need to catch up more often, and then all of a sudden it’s the end of the year and you’re like, oh, the only two times we caught up was on each other’s birthday. So we’ve decided that we’re going to put it in the calendar, that we’re going to do a monthly catch up to make sure that it’s in there, whatever that is for you. Maybe you already have that. Maybe that appeals to you as well. But definitely after Covid, I value social engagement more than ever, and I’m an extrovert. I’ve always valued it, but I really, really value it now.
Leon Flitton: Yeah, I love that you’re putting it into the calendar, though, because otherwise just get busy before you know, you’ve missed one and ah, two months has gone by and I think it’s super important to be making sure that social engagement keeps going.
Samantha Riley: Absolutely.
Leon Flitton: And they’re your friends and you want to hang out with them.
Samantha Riley: Right, exactly. Number seven is your business and career. So this is the time that you’re spending in the business. Number eight is finances. So this is with that money that you’ve got coming in, what are you spending on? This is your maybe debt management or saving or whatever that is. And then number nine is wealth management which is looking after your long term investments.
Leon Flitton: Yeah, love that. And ah, that’s like that. They started planting tree 20 years ago.
Samantha Riley: Nexus time is right now.
Leon Flitton: Right now, yeah. So get onto that people.
Samantha Riley: Exactly. Now take some time to go through those nine areas and get really clear on what it is that you do want. This is your dream life you’re creating.
Leon Flitton: Yeah, I ah, just sort of bring something up. So when we first started going out sounds like.
Samantha Riley: Sound like high school kids.
Leon Flitton: I’ll get there eventually. But yeah, that was pretty funny. When we first started dating, going out, we sat down to do some planning and you asked me what I wanted and I didn’t know what I wanted.
Samantha Riley: That was really interesting. I remember that. I remember you looking at me so confused and like, I don’t know. And I was confused saying, well, how do you not know what you want? However, this isn’t just a you thing. It is definitely going to say a problem, but it’s not a problem. But it is a challenge that a lot of people have. If this is you start by asking yourself what it is that you don’t want because that’s a lot easier. If I asked you what is it that you want with your business and you weren’t sure, but I asked, well, what is it that you don’t want? That’s really easy to say. Well, I don’t want clients that take up all my time or I don’t want a business where I’m not making enough money. And it makes it easy to flip that script and get clear on what it is that you do want. So thanks for bringing that up, Leon.
Leon Flitton: I was going to say it’s probably typically australian. And me where I tell you what I don’t want all the. So what do you say?
Samantha Riley: it is an australian thing, but yeah, I think asking yourself what it is that you don’t want makes that really easy. So once you know what it is you do want in all these different areas, it’s time to craft that vision together to create something that has a clear and compelling, I guess, map forward for you. Then you can start to take a look at what your life looks like, what it feels like, what it was that you want to be doing or spending your time on. Think about where you want to be spending time. How much money do you need to make that a reality? That’s where the business piece really comes in, because that is how you’re going to be able to create this dream life. So, knowing what you want your life to look like, it’s about creating a business to support that and getting really clear and visualising where you want your business to be by the end of 2024 makes it very easy to reverse engineer that.
Leon Flitton: Yeah, I feel like as well, this is where you need to kind of, ah, say dream big, plan big. When you talk about what do you want?
Samantha Riley: Dream big.
Leon Flitton: Yeah, I think when you talk about what do you want your life to look like, feel like, don’t let your, like your brain put constraints on you about what you can or can’t do. Um, if you want to live in that mansion or whatever it is that’s your dream, then that should be your dream and then working a way to get there. So I just feel like people sometimes hold themselves back like their constraints.
Samantha Riley: Love that. There’s a really good book called ten X is easier than two X and it’s written by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy. It’s a really great book to help you to understand how that really plays out. And ten X really is easy than two X. And yet most of us or most people are just focusing on how do I two X. So grab yourself a copy of that book to help you understand how to really ten x everything and the simplicity behind that. I’m not going to go into that today, but grab a copy of the book. It’s really great.
Leon Flitton: I wanted to bring up something else as well. What is the difference between m planning versus forecasting?
Samantha Riley: Oh, I really like this. And I really liked how we unpacked this before the episode because I think this is really important.
Leon Flitton: Yeah. So, my corporate career, I keep saying that.
Samantha Riley: Here it comes. No, actually, can I stop you there? It’s really important to bring learnings from past experiences into what you do now because it gives what you do depth. So it’s okay that you had a corporate career. I’m glad you left it behind. Anyway, moving on.
Leon Flitton: well, I suppose when I separate, so just to explain what forecasting and planning is. So forecasting involves predicting future events based on the trends and the data from previous years, months, weeks, whatever it is, while the planning is actually creating, the detailed course of action, so to speak, and how to achieve the goals or the outcomes that you want. And the reason I just separated is before we just talked about knowing what your life looks like, and then we talked about how much you need to create that reality. Mhm. We need to be able to forecast something. Say, for example, the business. We need to forecast what the business needs to do to then create our life that we want. Totally forecast and plan.
Samantha Riley: Yeah. Let me give you an example of this. Ah. And I’ll give you this example because it’s a seasonal example. So back in the day when I owned a danceware store, it was very seasonal because our sales followed the school terms. So when school went back in Australia, after the summer break, at the end of Jan, beginning of February, that’s when we did our biggest sales. So we needed to forecast our sales and we would generally forecast a percentage increase on the previous year’s sales. So yes, you do need to track your sales. So we would track our weekly sales so that then we could forecast a percentage increase for the next year. Once we’d done that. So that was based on the past year, the past data, then we could plan using that data, so we knew what the income was going to roughly be, which meant that we could make sure that we had staff on hand ready for those times. For example, if we were hiring a new staff member and they told us they wouldn’t be able to work during the summer or they wouldn’t be available on weekends during the summer, then generally we couldn’t hire that person because we knew that we needed all staff on deck during that busy period. So it helped us to understand not just how to roster, but how to hire staff. It helped us plan our personal vacations. We were always quiet in the winter, so that’s when we would take the kids overseas. We would go to Disneyland, we would go to summer on the other side of the world. So we knew that we could do that. It meant that when we knew what the seasons were, where we were going to be busy, we generally pumped more marketing dollars into marketing during, know, two to four weeks before those busy times because that would give us a bigger trend than putting, we would market all year, but we wouldn’t put that amount into maybe the quieter times. So we would forecast first. Then we were able to plan second. Hope that makes it a little bit clearer.
Leon Flitton: I think it does. And I think this important note there is that. Sam, you’re solar powered. At least you chase the summer.
Samantha Riley: Yeah, I am solar powered. I actually say to my personal trainer, my solar panels are feeling very low today. So that means that it’s been raining or cloudy or cold.
Leon Flitton: So how do you know if someone really loves you is when they go to Alaska and get married.
Samantha Riley: Right, exactly. My whole community was like, you went where? Yes, I’m definitely.
Leon Flitton: I feel very blessed that you’ll do that.
Samantha Riley: I’ve definitely dragged you to summer since then. All right, let’s talk about the areas for your business planning. I think the first place to start is to set your revenue targets. So set your yearly revenue target and then break that down into monthly and weekly. And the reason we want to break it down into those smaller chunks is, as we were talking about before, it is human nature to leave things to the last minute. So if you’re setting a quarterly revenue goal and you realise you’re getting into the last week of that quarter and you haven’t hit your goals, it’s a lot harder to claw back than if you miss a weekly revenue goal and you are able to claw it back the very next week. It’s a lot easier to stay on track.
Leon Flitton: Yeah, absolutely. You can’t monitor and judge, make an analytic decision about where you’re going. If you’re looking at it, like on a yearly or even quarterly basis, it’s just too big a gap. I think that’s why it needs to be weekly, monthly. Also too. Some of the foods are daunting, as you said.
Samantha Riley: Yeah, when you break it down and you look at it and you go, oh, that’s actually achievable. I only need to make two sales this week rather than 24 sales this quarter.
Leon Flitton: Because all that from our previous part of the discussion in this episode, that if you live until the last minute and you get to week twelve and then you go, oh, crap, I need about 20 more sales, it’s going to.
Samantha Riley: Be very difficult to call back. So that’s number one, setting your revenue targets. Number two is getting clear on your product offering and your pricing. So ask yourself, can your current product offer and where it’s currently priced actually get you to your goal? So let me give you an example. If you’ve got a $97 per month membership, you actually need 860 members. If you are wanting to have a million dollar business, that’s a lot of people. 860 people. Like, just think to get 860 members. How much marketing and how many sales calls? How many sell by chats? Do you need to be doing to get 860 people versus if you’ve got a product offering that’s two and a half month, you only need 34 members. So don’t just have a look at the pricing, but there’s going to be a very different offer for a $97 a month product versus a two and a half month product. So start to get really clear on what is that product, what is included, what is the pricing and will it actually get you to your goal?
Leon Flitton: Yeah. That’s a bit scary, isn’t it? 860 members?
Samantha Riley: Yeah. Doable?
Leon Flitton: Yeah. Super automated, I reckon.
Samantha Riley: Would I personally want to be doing that? Not so much. No, not so much. I think that sounds like a lot of hard work. something else I’d like to mention here is success does leave clues. And if you look at the very successful service based businesses and especially coaching business, they usually, until they get to at least a million dollars, only have one product offering. So if you’ve got four or five different product offers, just have a think about how much more difficult it is to run four or five different marketing campaigns because different marketing is going to attract different people and how confused potentially your prospects are compared to just having that one product where everyone knows that’s exactly what you do and that’s what they come to you for.
Leon Flitton: Yeah, you’ve only got a finite amount of energy. and the point you just brought up then was your messaging, your messaging is going to get really diluted m if you’re not saying the same thing over and over again. And that’s what you do.
Samantha Riley: Absolutely. So the third area is your client attraction. This is your marketing piece. This is your visibility piece. I run a, training about how to create your visibility plan. Visibility is a great way to attract clients because if people don’t know who you are, they can’t work with you. So what is it that you’re doing for your organic marketing, your paid marketing, your podcast interviews, your social media? How is it that you’re going to actually attract these clients and get them into your world and understanding what it is that you do and why they need to work with you?
Leon Flitton: So everyone get a podcast and then get a podcast guest in. That’ll work.
Samantha Riley: That will be a great way. That’s a great way to start to build your list. Obviously there’s a mechanism that comes off the back of that to build your list, which we’re not going to go into today, but yeah, how are you going to show up and attract clients? All right, number four, your support team, who is it that you need to support you in what you’re doing? So whether that’s a personal assistant, whether it’s a general va, whether it’s a team of genies like my members in the experts collective have. Um, who are the people that’s supporting you? Um, behind the scenes, your accountant, your legal team, your bookkeeper.
Leon Flitton: What about the people in your circle of influence? Does that come in here as well?
Samantha Riley: Absolutely. Who are the people in your circle of influence? Who are the average of the five people that you spend the most time with? Who are, your coaches and mentors that are going to help you to get clarity on what it is that you don’t know or what that you can’t see? So there’s a lot of people, as a business owner that you need on your support team. You need to get really clear on what that looks like.
Leon Flitton: Yeah, I feel like that it’s really important to know about the coaching part of it as well. So you need to have that person on your side that’s going to be probably open and honest with you as well and keep you on track.
Samantha Riley: Absolutely. We’ve got multiple coaches and mentors. I also know for me that I really struggle to work on my own and if I’m creating something new, I need to bounce those ideas off people. So I am a real extrovert and I really do need that person to bounce off. So I know that if I’m doing any creative work, I need someone around me to be able to bounce these ideas off. So just, start to understand who it is that you need.
Leon Flitton: Love that.
Samantha Riley: All right, area five is operations and infrastructure. So this is what needs to happen behind the scenes in your business so that you can deliver, the programme that people have paid you for. This is definitely your area, Leon. Operations and infrastructure. Do you want to go into this a little bit more?
Leon Flitton: Yes. So the actual thing I want to bring up here is that don’t be afraid of, pushing forward and growing, but not having a perfect infrastructure set up.
Samantha Riley: This is so good.
Leon Flitton: I don’t think that’ll be perfect. There was something, but at some point you’re going to break it.
Samantha Riley: Mhm.
Leon Flitton: That’s good because that means you’re growing. If you’re growing rapidly, you’re breaking stuff. It’s okay. But I think the important thing to note is that, it’s how you deal with those breaks as they go.
Samantha Riley: Yeah, this is a really good point because when I think back, there are times where I’ve held myself back because I’ve been afraid of things breaking. But there’s a couple of things that are your best friend as an entrepreneur, and that’s the ability to say I’m sorry, and let us fix that and just come into everything knowing that you can say those things, you will lose people along the way. But here’s the thing. Even if things were perfect, which, as you said, they’re never going to be, you still will lose clients along the way. And you’re better off to not hold yourself back, go full steam in that growth, because it’s amazing how quickly you can build that infrastructure along the way.
Leon Flitton: Yeah, I think it’s important to, note as well that you’re actually learning as you go with the growth of things. So we’re always learning, and if we’re not always learning, that’s probably another issue we need to talk about day. But if we’re always learning, then things are going to change. I mean, look at social media for the last couple of years, how much that’s changed as it gone. So if you tried to have, an operational infrastructure that was the same as two years ago, it’s not going to work now, right. So it would have definitely broken and would not have got the results, your clients, that you can get if you’d move with the time, so to speak, and change. So things will change as you grow, you will learn and you will be better for your clients, I feel, by having the imperfect action as you move.
Samantha Riley: Absolutely nail it before you scale it. You cannot scale something before you’ve actually done it. Love that so much. The 6th area is mindset, so have a think about where it is that you want to go this year, and who is someone before you that has done it, and who do you need to become to be that person now? So I, know, years ago, I would always ask myself the question, if I was really stumped, what would Richard Branson decide to do now? And the reason I asked that is because I just wanted to be able to make a decision quickly, because that is definitely something that as entrepreneurs, we need to do. We need to make decisions really quickly. And just really coming into that, who do I need to become or who do I need to be right now has helped me to be able to move and make decisions more quickly. So if you want to be a million dollar business owner this year and you’re in the low six figures, or maybe you haven’t even reached six figures, then doing things as you are is not going to help you to get there. You need to think and act as a seven figure business owner right now to be able to get there. So who do you need to become today to be that person?
Leon Flitton: I really like this. And I think it’s super important that you act and the behaviours, um, that you display are the ones of the person that you want to become.
Samantha Riley: The person in the future. Future you.
Leon Flitton: Yeah, future pacing or something they call it.
Samantha Riley: That’s a little bit different, but let’s not get caught out there.
Leon Flitton: Yeah, but that’s definitely a big thing.
Samantha Riley: Absolutely. So when you’re really clear and you’ve got a plan in place, there’s something that I’ve noticed can really unstick, um, people at this point and. Is that a thing? Unstick, um, people? Oh, my goodness. I don’t even know what I’ve said.
Leon Flitton: Making up words now.
Samantha Riley: Yeah, I’ve always done that. My kids at dancing used to love it. Miss Sam, what’s another word that you can make up this week? It was an unknown thing, but anyway, let’s move on. Something that you need to remember is that life is nonlinear and it’s unpredictable. So you do need to be open to adjusting your goals as you grow and learn more about yourself. And you do need to be kind to yourself on days where things just aren’t right. Maybe you’re tired, maybe you’ve had a, really upsetting piece of news. Maybe one of the kids is sick. Whatever it is, you really need to be open to adjusting your goals and really go within and ask yourself if it’s the best thing for you at that time. And I wanted to bring this up because I see this, especially at this time of year, all the fitness trainers, it’s new year, new you. And if you’re going to be fit, you need to go for your run every single day. And no matter how you feel and whether it’s raining or whether it’s sunny, and no matter whether you’re tired or you’ve got lots of energy, it doesn’t matter. Get on those runners and go. Go. And I think that it can be really detrimental to you to push through versus really, truly listening to what it is you need. And I think you need to have a lot of discernment to understand should I not be doing this particular thing today because it’s not right or am I not doing it because I don’t feel like it because I’m just a little bit lazy and going back to old?
Leon Flitton: Yeah, there’s a difference. There.
Samantha Riley: There is a difference.
Leon Flitton: I was always told that, ah, say you talk about the gym, for example, that you’ve got no place being in the gym. You’re tired and exhausted.
Samantha Riley: Huh?
Leon Flitton: Like, it’s just crazy.
Samantha Riley: Yeah. And I guess we’re bringing this up because if you do push through, you can put yourself backwards. We’ve got a friend who has got a very lofty fitness goal and does go to the gym every day. Very inspirational. But there was one particular day where she went to the gym absolutely exhausted, rather than listening to her body and resting, and she hurt herself. And I put her backwards for weeks. So start to really understand that you need to go within and really be honest with yourself and understand that, like I said, life is nonlinear and it’s unpredictable. And you do need to be open to adjusting things along the way.
Leon Flitton: Absolutely.
Samantha Riley: I think one of the things we also do is set a word or a theme for the year. And what I love about this is this word or this theme is, like, the lens to make all decisions through as opportunities come. Because not all opportunities are opportunities. Some of them are things that we need to say no to because they might take us further to our goal. So as an opportunity comes in, is it going to take us toward our goal, or is it going to take us away from our goal? And I think having this word really helps to do that. And this year, the word that we’ve chosen is amplify. Do you want to talk about what amplify is to us, Leon?
Leon Flitton: Yeah. So rather than just know, blow it up or explode it, I, feel like amplify has a little bit more finesse to it because it’s making something, making something bigger or louder, but you’re actually enhancing and enriching the way it is. So it’s not just. I think the finesse is probably the word that describes how amplifying works better.
Samantha Riley: I like that it’s got this connotation of not just increasing in size, but also in quality, in impact and significance. And that is exactly where we want to be this year.
Leon Flitton: Yeah. And if you could actually see the video, we’re actually, like, doing big hand gestures, and you won’t see the video.
Samantha Riley: Because I’m in my pyjamas today. Finally, who do you need to surround yourself with to make 2024 a success? We, did mention a little bit about this earlier, but you are the average of the five people that, you surround yourself with. So who is it that you need to surround yourself with to help you to be in the place that you can achieve your goals this year? And who do you need to help you to read the label while you’re inside the jar? What I mean by that is, who is going to be that coach or that mentor that really helps you to see the things that you can’t see. This is really, really important, and it’s something that I not just help people with, but, live by. I’ve had coaches for over 20 years and multiple each year because I’m always big in how can I achieve my goals the fastest and in the best way.
Leon Flitton: Yeah. we have coaches and we’re super grateful for them, whether it’s the accountability piece as well, which I think is kind of pretty big as well, but the actual making sure you have the right coaches that are going to get you to your goal that you want to achieve.
Samantha Riley: Absolutely. So if you’re listening to this episode on your phone, on whatever app, you’re listening on, love you. To take a screenshot and share your insights from this episode or share your big, hairy, audacious goal for 2024, tag us on your story and share it to your Instagram or Facebook stories. You can tag us at b Sam Riley and at Leon Flinton. You can find all of our socials down below, wherever it is that you’re listening. Leon, what is something that you would like to share to wrap up this episode and make sure it’s all tied.
Leon Flitton: Up with a pretty bow look, I think probably the biggest thing from this is making sure that you’re actually being the person that you want to become in the future. I think, for me, that’s the most crucial thing. So there’s lots of good things over, the last two episodes where this is a review. I know you don’t spend a lot of time looking backwards like you probably shouldn’t, but you need enough time to review, analyse, and move forward. And I just think going through that process is really good way to, get the year kick started.
Samantha Riley: Yeah. I would say for me, the biggest takeaway and why I’ve always planned is because when you don’t have a plan, it’s very easy to get off course. It’s very easy to lose direction, and when that happens, you just won’t get there. So having a plan is crucial for the times where you have decision fatigue. It’s a lot easier just to look at the plan and go, okay, this is where we’re going. This is what I’m doing today, rather than just getting lost, lost in life. Thank you for listening today. We look forward to seeing all of your stories pop up after today’s episode, and we look forward to catching you, next week on another episode of Influence by Design.
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