Today’s episode isn’t going to have one specific theme as there are a couple of different things I want to talk to you about. I love creating episodes that give you actionable steps to take and that’s exactly what this week’s podcast will do.
First of all, I talk about something planning for the year ahead. As business owners it can be hard to look at our businesses with and outside perspective and in order to look ahead, that’s what you need to do. Secondly, I look at how you can market your business a little better when it comes to encouraging people to invest in you.
KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST
- Planning for the year ahead is incredibly important as a business owner and in order to create an effective plan, you need to take yourself out of the business to ‘see’ what you’re doing and where you want to go.
- In order to plan your 2020, you also need to review 2019. This means looking at the aspects of what went well and what didn’t, looking at your growth, focusing on what you have achieved and looking at your finances.
- Once you have reviewed your year, you can start to think about what you want to achieve in 2020 and how you’re going to reach your goals. You need to think about what you need in order to succeed.
- Think about when you last mapped out all of your marketing channels, which ones are the most successful? What do you need to do more of in 2020?
THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…
If you want to plan for the year ahead, you need to think how your customers see your business. Although it’s important to be ‘in’ your business, it’s also important to take a step back and think of things from a customer point of view.
HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISS
Transcript below
Speaker 1: (00:32)
Hello, hello and welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. Happy Monday! If you are listening on a Monday. Otherwise, I hope you're having a lovely day, whatever day it is. So today I want to talk about a few different things. I'm trying to like work out in my head what the theme of this podcast episode is or what the main focus is. But there were so many little different things I want to talk about that I kind of think that it probably hasn't got one main theme today. Obviously it's a solo episode, so normally I like to do some teaching or I like to talk about business or that sort of thing. And it's just a really, I like the solo ones because it's a really nice way of just kind of like giving you some real actionable stuff to do. Whereas although the interviews are amazing and honestly I love them so much, it's just sometimes you don't get those actionable steps or you don't get those things that you can do in your business.
Speaker 1: (01:27)
So for me, I think today is going to be a little bit about that. It's going to be a few different things that I want you to think about and it might just be a little bit all over the place. So I apologise. But one thing is I'm glad my voice has come back because I've had a lot of trouble over the last few weeks because we're nearing the end of the year. And to be honest, I've had a really busy few weeks in terms of speaking, in terms of interviews, in terms of just trying to cram in a lot of stuff before the end of the year and it took its toll. It had its effect on me and obviously I got unwell, I got a cough and a cold and not being able to take some time out has really, really affected me. And the other thing is that I'm not very good at is when I travel.
Speaker 1: (02:12)
I'm really not very good at looking after myself. So I do tend to burn the candle at both ends. I do tend to spend too much time on the social side as well as the business side. I don't get early nights. I don't do my morning routine and although I do very little exercise, I have been much better. I have been doing, I think, I don't think I've mentioned this on the podcast, I might mention that on an interview I can't remember. And then I interview at all different, I'm so batched up in terms of interviews. I can't remember whether you've heard that one or not. But anyway, let's go with it and pretend I haven't talked about it. I started working with a personal trainer because I knew that the one thing that I was really bad at was looking after myself and moving. So as you well know, I work from home.
Speaker 1: (02:55)
I love working from home. Obviously we do a lot of travelling as well, so it's actually really nice to be in home when I'm not in travelling mode and I don't move a lot. I literally walk from my bedroom. I might occasionally go downstairs, make a drink, but I sit up in my office and just literally sit at a computer all day. I don't do very many meetings in person. I do have some clients from the agency that we still have that I very occasionally meet, but to be totally honest, pretty much everything I do is on a screen. So in terms of moving and looking after myself, I don't do a lot of it. You know, the other thing that's really interesting is I have an app on my phone called Live 360 and it tracks us all. It sounds really kind of stalker-y, I promise it's not. Obviously, my husband did a lot of travelling and was away and it was useful for me to know when he landed in a country or whatever and when he was back online, we have a teenage stepson, right? Is my stepson, is my husband's son. My daughter's just turned 10 and no doubt at some point in the next few years she'll be getting a phone and it's just good to know that we know where each other are and you know when they're heading home and that sort of thing. But what's really interesting with me is it obviously shows the last time I left the house and some days I don't even, or some weeks, I don't even realise that actually I was in the house for four solid days and I didn't physically leave it. The other thing this means is that don't even get any sunshine or outside space.
Speaker 1: (04:28)
I'm a nightmare. So anyway, I decided that I needed to move more and I got a personal trainer so I have been doing once a week in the gym. I initially started off doing it at home because in total honesty, the resistance to having this at all or doing anything at all was a massive, like I didn't want to do it. I still don't want to do it. If I'm honest, I do feel better about it. But initially that's why I did it at home. I had the personal trainer at home because I didn't want to walk into a gym. I didn't want to be in front of these other people. I didn't want to see other people doing exercise. Honestly, so much resistance. So anyway as it is, like I said, we're doing it once a week. I am now in the gym, which is nice and obviously when I'm away I haven't done any of that.
Speaker 1: (05:13)
I haven't actually been for quite a few weeks now, which is probably the most since I started, which is frustrating because time and busy-ness and like I said, it took its toll so I'm feeling much better, which is great. Although I still am trying to be very gentle on myself, very considerate to myself and this week I'm really trying to make a concerted effort of going to bed early, not drinking wine in the evening, trying to eat some vegetables and at some point, hopefully this week I might actually go to the gym again, which would be lovely. I say lovely. I don't mean that at all. I mean it'd be horrible, but I mean it will be lovely for my body to go to the gym. But the other thing is I never get out. Do you? If you work from home, do you find that like you literally have days and days in the house and you don't even realise you actually haven't stepped outside the front door?
Speaker 1: (06:03)
Because honestly it doesn't feel like that sometimes. Maybe I'm just so focused on what I'm doing, but it genuinely doesn't feel like, gosh, I haven't been out for days and days. So anyway, glad to say I am feeling better. So this week I want to talk, one of the things I want to talk about is something I've got coming up, which I'm really excited about and I always get a bit funny when people get online and go, I'm so excited. I've got this thing to share with you because it's their thing and therefore I am excited if you want to come and join in and what I think it can do for you. But I do find it a little bit irritating if I'm totally honest, this sounds like a bit, a bit of a grump today. I'm not, I promise it's just, I guess I see a lot of it.
Planning for the year ahead
Speaker 1: (06:43)
I see a lot of people promoting and selling online and when they're like, I've got this big announcement, I'm super excited. Sometimes it just gets a little bit samey. So anyway, I've put together, I did it last year and I'm doing it again this year, but even better. Last year I did an episode episode 42 where I talked about how I review my year and how I plan for the following year. And I decided to put together a workbook which went down really well. Lots of you downloaded it and really liked it. So this year I wanted to up my game because honestly, let me just talk on a little bit about why this review and planning is so good. We in our businesses often are just in it all the time. We're fighting through our to do list, we're getting everything done and I've done exactly the same today.
Speaker 1: (07:32)
You know, make sure you email that person back, but make sure you order those things, make sure you organise that thing and you're just literally fire-fighting some of those things. And it's very rare that we step fully out of our business. And I think in the early days, I didn't do this at all. And now almost six years into my business on, I realised the importance of this. And now I make a really concerted effort to make sure I'm doing this kind of thing more often, but we don't often step out of our business to look at it as a whole because we're fighting in it every day. And I've just got a couple of new people on my 90 day programme and one of the very first things we do is our first one to one call is two hours. And we literally, while I make them feel like this humongous questionnaire and then we go through the questionnaire and we'd talk about their business as a whole.
Speaker 1: (08:25)
And what's great for me is I get to understand their business, but what's great for them is that they actually get to talk about it in a much bigger, wider way. And suddenly you can see kind of like little sparks of like, Oh my goodness, I never thought of it that way. Or I've never actually stopped and thought how that looks altogether or how that looks to my customers because we are in it so, so much. And I find it really hard to do my own business. I need someone to help me do this. So I am going to a 2020 planning day in Nashville, which I'm really excited about. Obviously I don't expect you all to just jump on a plane and go somewhere. Amazing. Great if you can, but I'm doing this because my very good friend Mary Hyatt is doing a very small personal planning day and her dad, Michael Hyatt, it was on the podcast a few weeks back, is going to be there and doing some sessions and so is his daughter who actually his other daughter who runs Michael Hyatt and company.
Speaker 1: (09:22)
So this is like an amazing opportunity to sit in a room with some super smart people and think about the business. But I want to to kind of get as many of you doing this as possible, which is why we're going to be focusing on this thing again, where we're going to be doing, reviewing this year and looking at next year. So I've put together a new and improved workbook. It looks more beautiful and it's got all the bits on there that I go through and that I address in my business. So we start off with reviewing 2018 no, not 2018 2019 I don't even know what year it is. So we reviewed 2019 and we look at all the aspects of what went well, what didn't go well. I've got some other kind of tricky interesting questions in there too. We also look at like what are our numbers at.
Speaker 1: (10:11)
So I love looking at like my email list and my podcast downloads because obviously I did this last year. So what's lovely this year is I've got all those stats from last year so I can see the growth. The other thing we do in this section is we review things like what have we achieved? Cause you know what? A year is, although it goes incredibly credibly, quickly, it actually is a really long time. And it's not until you kind of go back and go, Oh hang on a minute, I did this and this and this and this. And then you can give yourself a massive Pat on the back because of that. So that's what we do. We start by reviewing it and the workbook. We'll show you how to do that or it'll give you some of those steps through that. And then the next bit we do is in the workbook is we look at how do we then plan what's coming up, what are our goals, what do you want to achieve?
Speaker 1: (11:05)
What actions and steps do we need to take in order to achieve them? And what do we need in place? Because you know, it's no good saying, I want to take on 20 more clients or 50 new customers if you don't have the resources in place. So what might you need in place? And it just enables you to take that time out and think about it. So, like I said, last year we did a workbook and it was great and I got great feedback and lots of people downloaded it. But you know what, I thought I am one of those people that will download something and think, Oh yeah, I'm definitely gonna do that. And then I don't, or then I think to myself, Oh yeah, yeah, I'll get right into it and the time never comes or I never make the time. So I wanted to work out a way on how I can make you guys actually step out of your business for an hour or two hours tops to go through this and do this exercise.
Speaker 1: (11:56)
Cause I promise you it will make so much difference. So what I've done, when you download the workbook on the thank you page, you're going to be invited to join me for a really special one-off workshop and coaching call. Now let me just explain what I mean by that. So when I do a coaching call in the Academy, everybody gets on screen. They don't have to be on screen, if you don't want to. But they're bought into a zoom room that isn't like a webinar. It's not like the masterclasses I've done before. So it's not like you are kind of just watching and observing. This is actually a group conversation, so you'll come into the room. I will be sat there live saying hello to you. You can be onscreen, you can have your mic on, we'll have a bit of a chat and an introduction and then what we'll do is we're going to take that time out together and we're going to work through the workbook and obviously I've got lots of other added extras that I'm going to chip in and talk about that.
Speaker 1: (12:54)
It's going to help you do that really successfully. And then we're going to review a year before and we're going to plan the year coming. And then what's going to happen is not only is this a workshop, but actually we're going to have a coaching call. So what you're going to be able to do is when you sit there and you're trying to plan your year and you sit and think, actually I'm struggling about what is it I'm trying to achieve or how do I achieve that thing, that goal that I've just set myself or what first steps I need to take. And that's when you're going to be able to come on camera or just come on with your voice and ask me those questions and we're going to be able to have a group discussion. And honestly, the kind of breakthroughs we've had in the coaching calls in the Academy have been phenomenal because you can hear what other people have to say.
Speaker 1: (13:39)
You can hear what they're doing, what their challenges were, what they should be paid off. And it really helps you remember and think and get clarity on your business and you and what you can do going forward. So I am really, really, again, when you use the word excited, but I am excited about it because I know what it can do and I can't wait to get you guys in there and give you guys the opportunity to do that with me because at the moment the only chance you can do that is through the Academy. So this is a one off thing that you can do all the details on the thank you page when you download the workbook. So I really, really want you to join me. The other thing I've done is I've put a price on it. Okay? And I've done that for a couple of reasons.
Speaker 1: (14:20)
One, obviously this is one off and I know that if you're in the Academy, you get these calls all the time, but always they paid to be in the Academy. So I don't want to completely devalue the fact that they have these coaching calls and give it away for free. But you know, the main reason why I've put a cost, it's only $19 it's not a lot of money. But the reason I put a cost is because you will want to do it more. You will definitely want to turn up and use that time. If you are paying money, I can promise you this year and last year, I've spent an awful lot of money on stuff that has made me do the work because if I hadn't have spent money, I would have basically just gone, Oh yeah, I will do that. I'll get right into it.
Speaker 1: (15:03)
I would've had no value in it. The same way is you shouldn't give your stuff away for free because people don't value free stuff. They, they might say, they might, they might be like, yeah, yeah, but actually, like I said, you know, of all the people that downloaded this work, but last year I'd be fascinated to see how many people filled it in. And actually last year I did offer accountability, so I offered people to email me and tell me their goals and I would keep them accountable for the first 30 days of the year. And there was a handful of people that did that. It wasn't loads compared to the number of people who downloaded the workbook. So I'm naive thinking did they actually do the workbook and that's why I want you to come on that call with me. That's why I want you to do that workshop with me.
Speaker 1: (15:45)
Sit and have that coaching call, pick my brains and like said, I've said one to two hours, but really it's as long as I need to be on that to make sure everyone's questions are answered and that I want your next year, I want 2020 to get off to a great start. I love new year. Always have done. Even since I was young, I loved kind of thinking, right, this isn't fresh start, this is a new kind of, you know, clean break on the air. What am I going to achieve this year? And I still love doing that in my business now. So like I said, it really, really helps me and I really want it to help you too, which is why I've decided to do it this way. The other thing. I'm not going to have loads of people. I am going to put a limit on the coaching call because I don't want loads of people in that room because otherwise it's going to be really hard for you to get heard.
Speaker 1: (16:29)
So obviously do hurry in terms of getting that. If you want to get this download and then you'll be offered to do the coaching call on the thank you page. Go to teresaheathwareing.com/2020 as in the numbers, so two zero two zero okay, so once to give that a bit of time, like I said, there is a whole episode on what I did last year, but the coaching call and the workshop, we'll go into more detail, but it was episode eight not 18 what am I talking about? 42 so if you do want to go back and have a quick look at that, then you can do, but like I said, go and get that download. If you want to join me for the coaching call, I'd love to see you and talk about your business and help you plan your most amazing year yet.
Marketing your business in 2020
Speaker 1: (17:11)
And that's the year I am planning on having every year. I want it more amazing than the year before. And actually I've not filled my workbook in yet cause I'm going to do it alongside you guys. But I've done some flicking amazing stuff this year. So how I'm going to like, you know, send that to the next level. I'm not entirely sure, but that's the whole point of this exercise. That's why I'm doing it. Okay. So the other thing I wanted to talk about today is talking about reviewing your business. Now obviously, we just talked about doing the end of year review, which I always do and getting planning for the next year. But one of the things I've been looking at recently, because I did a little trip up North around Newcastle and Sheffield and I met up with some awesome people. I met up with Mark Asquith who's coming on the podcast soon to talk about podcasting.
Speaker 1: (17:58)
I met up with Andrew and Pete who have been on the podcast before and I met up with the amazing membership guys, Mike and Callie, and basically it was a bit of a social, to be honest, it was, it was mainly kind of going out for dinner, catching up as friends because we don't get many opportunities to do that other than events. Normally events, everybody's tired and busy and whatever they're doing. But I wanted to go and see them. But what was really nice was we were able to have a few discussions around what we were doing in our businesses and it kind of got me thinking about now this is different to what we're going to do on the workshop. It kind of got me thinking about what am I doing right now? How am I actually marketing myself? How am I actually trying to get people on my email list?
Speaker 1: (18:41)
How am I trying to get them to talk to me on social media or to engage with me on social media and what kind of process of these people going through. Because again, this is something that seems to been coming up. I think this is all to do with one, it's coming to the end of the year. Two, I have been meeting with people talking about businesses and three, I've been doing some new 90 day people. So again reviewing their businesses. But what we've done actually in the office and it was my husband's idea is we have written out everything that we've got going on in terms of how are we getting people into the email list, how are we encouraging people to take a look at the Academy, take a look at the 90 day programme because we all love what we do, right? And honestly, if I was rich and a millionaire, I would sit and do this for free because I love it.
Speaker 1: (19:28)
I love helping people. But unfortunately we all have mortgages and children. Well we don't all have children, but we all have commitments and we will have things that we need. And then there's nice things that we like. So ultimately what is the kind of frustrating thing is it comes down to money, which is a little bit irritating sometimes because boy would I do some things differently if money wasn't ever a consideration. But what we wanted to do is kind of just plan out the business and just have a look at it. And actually because he does do a lot of work in their business. My husband, sorry I'm talking about now because he does do a bit of work in the business. Sometimes it's really hard for him to understand when it's in my head. Also sometimes it's very overwhelming for me when it's just in my head.
Speaker 1: (20:12)
So again, I just wanted to bring this up like when did you last map out and whether you're going to do it with post it notes, whether you, we have a big massive whiteboard, so we've put it on there like when did you map out, okay this is the content I'm putting out. This is where I'm asking people to join my email list. So we've actually listed all the lead magnets I currently have available to you and then we listed how many people have opted in in the past sort of six months, what percentage are opting in at so we can see which is the most sort of the best one and the one people are liking the most. Then we're looking at, right where am I actually promoting those lead magnets? So is on social media, is it on my website and what sort of impact that's had? What my email list has grown to?
Speaker 1: (20:56)
Then we've just gone looked to actually, you know, what are we pricing everything out? Because come January, everything's getting a lift and it's not that I always do that. I don't, and again, you know, I'm not sitting here saying that you should lift all your prices in January, but they haven't lifted for the year and January is as good a time as any other. I'm going to wait till sort of mid January and then the prices are going to increase. But again, it's like just writing all that down and just looking at all those things and seeing how it all fits together and does it make sense. And the other thing that is interesting is, you know, if there are several different ways in which someone can come into your business, if you offer several different levels of service, have you got a lead magnet that leads them in for each one of those levels of service?
Speaker 1: (21:42)
So I feel like I'm going off on a complete random one at the moment. And I'm sorry if you're sat there going what you're talking about Teresa, but I just want you to, like I said, take some time out for a couple of reasons and the end of the year is a perfect time to do this. What am I trying to sell? Who am I trying to sell it to? How am I asking them to buy from me? There's something else that I've come up with that I'd like your feedback on. I'm asking a lot of you this episode. I really want you to reach out to me. In fact, I've had some amazing people reach out to me recently and honestly I love it and I always respond back and I'm just so touched when someone contacts me and says, I listened to your podcast and I love it, or this helped, or this was great, or whatever it is.
Speaker 1: (22:27)
Hopefully it's always positive. Otherwise I'm not sure I want to hear it, but anyway, no, I don't mind constructive criticism. So anyway, I digress. Back to my original point. I want some feedback now. I came up with a model and a method on how to structure your business. This is my Marketing That Converts model and then the method is how to structure your marketing. Now I have alluded to the method previously in an episode which can't remember what number it was right now off the top of my head, but we'll link to it in the show notes. However, the model, I don't think I've ever talked you through, so I'm wondering do you want to see that or hear that? Because actually I did it yesterday on a call with my 90 day person that started and for me it really helped and I think for them to think about the structure of their business, it really helped.
Speaker 1: (23:14)
So do you want me to go through that? Drop me a DM somewhere, wherever you like. I'm on everything as you well know. And tell me whether you think that will be useful. The other thing I wonder am I have offered this out before is I haven't, I'm not doing a masterclass before the end of the year. Like I said, I did one, can't remember a few months back and said that that was my last line. I always like to stand by my word. So I will do one next year. So should I do it as a masterclass? Is it more useful to see me go through it? Because I have gone through it at events I've spoken at. So I have presented this maybe three, four times now this year in different ways, but would that be useful? Would that be helpful to join me on a masterclass or are you happy with the podcast?
Speaker 1: (23:57)
So let me know because I really do like getting your feedback and I appreciate that actually I'm asking a lot, you know, I know I don't underestimate, which is why I'm so thankful when anybody contacts me because I know what happens. You're probably listening to this and you're driving or you're getting ready in the morning or maybe you're prepping something for the day in the kitchen or whatever. I don't know. But I tend to listen to stuff while I'm doing something else. So if they say to me, Oh, could you do this? I might have great intentions and go, Oh no, no, I will and then never get right into it because by the time I'm a computer or at the point where I could do it, I forgotten is normally the case. So I totally get what I'm asking. But it's always good to get your feedback because ultimately I'm here to serve you.
Speaker 1: (24:39)
The podcast is entirely to serve you to help you. So if there's something that you need or want or want an input on or want me to talk about or teach or someone you think I should have on, I'd love Breńe Brown so much. I keep thinking about this. Maybe I need to like put it on my board or think about manifesting it. And do you know what the funny thing is I just want her on cause I just want to talk to her. So funnily enough, the episode that you're going to hear in a few weeks time from Mark Asquith, he talks about podcast interviews and how they're just about ego and how, and I don't disagree at all how sometimes we get people on our podcast just because we want to speak to them. And I try really hard to only ever bring people on who I feel are going to be a really good benefit to you.
Speaker 1: (25:23)
And I do turn down quite a lot of people, um, who I just think that they're not right for the audience and for you guys listening. So like I said is a bit ego. I think Breńe Brown is a bit ego, although she's just amazing by the way, if you've never read it and that this stuff or just Google her or like search on YouTube and watch some of her stuff. She's really smart. Anyway, that's who I want to be when I grow up is Breńe Brown and I'm sure I'd quite like her money as well to be honest, cause I think she probably does all right. But anyway, that's it. I think I'm going to leave it for today. I've rambled on enough. This has been a little bit different to normal because I literally have, I wanted to talk so much about the 2020 planning because it's so important and like I said, so many of the things are going in my head that maybe this has been like a bit of therapy for me.
Speaker 1: (26:09)
So I apologise that I've used this to kind of just discuss over a few things. But yeah, hopefully you will download the workbook, you'll join me for that live session because I do think it's going to be awesome and I want to see as many of you on there as possible because I love meeting you. In fact, sorry, let me just tell you this one last thing. I had someone email me the other week who is thinking about joining the 90 day programme because her son listens to the podcast and hopefully he's listening to this and he knows I'm talking about him and he recommended me to this lovely lady. And what's awesome is I get to sit and you know I give a free sort of 15-20 minute call to chat about whether something is suitable or whether she needs consultancy or what is suitable for her.
Speaker 1: (26:55)
And I'm on the call and it's like I get to find out about her business and I get to find out what she does, which is amazing. And actually what she does is super cool and super good business. And obviously I don't get to to find that out when you guys are just listening to me and your ear buds, you know when you reach out to me, I get to find out more about you, so I love, love, love that. Anyway, I'm going to go, it's nearly lunch time when I'm recording this and I'm starving, so I'll leave you to it. Have a wonderful rest of your day. Next week, I'm back with an interview and next week it is Mike Stelzner. So if you are in the social media world, you are going to know exactly who Mike Stelzner is, but he's talking about how to become the industry expert in your industry. Some really, really good stuff. Really enjoyed talking to him, so that's going to be super cool. Anyway, I will speak to you all, very, very soon. Until then, take care.
