Latest / The SmallBizChat with Melinda Emerson / Reflecting and Planning in the Final Quarter

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Reflecting and Planning in the Final Quarter · The SmallBizChat with Melinda Emerson

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  What were our wins?
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  What did we do well?
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  What is it that I wanted to accomplish this year?
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  And I actually write it down And I write it down because it's important to reflect on small
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  wins and big wins.
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  Hi.
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  This is Melinda Emerson, the small biz lady host of the small Bizchett podcast.
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  I want to serve you.
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  This pandemic has been so hard on America's small businesses and on just America in
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  general.
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  If you're ready to start your dream business, boy, do I have a great offer for you?
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  I am giving away 1000 copies of my best selling book, become your own boss in 12 months.
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  Over a hundred thousand people have this book is been printed in multiple languages around
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  the world, and I wanted to find a way to serve America's small businesses in this pandemic And
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  so I am giving away a 1000 copies of my book.
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  All you have to do to get your copy is head over to beginmybiz.com/ free offer to, you
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  know, sign up for your copy.
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  All you have to do is pay shipping, and we will mail one out to you.
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  I am so excited about this.
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  I wanna serve you grab your copy today.
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  I left off.
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  Ending small business failure.
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  Welcome to the Small Biz Chat podcast with a number 1 small business expert, Melinda
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  Emerson.
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  Melinda's goal is to end small business failure, and she'll give the information you
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  need to succeed and live the life you dream of.
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  Now here's the small biz lady herself.
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  Melinda Emerson.
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  Hi, everybody.
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  This is Melinda Emerson, small biz lady, and welcome to the small biz chat podcast.
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  I'm excited to be here with you today.
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  You know, it's 4th quarter, and 4th quarter is a great time to reflect and plan.
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  And so I'm so excited to talk to you today about how I do that because I wanna inspire you
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  to think back and think forward because that's what we have to constantly do in business.
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  You know, sometimes we get caught up working on day to day, you know, dealing with day today's
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  troubles so much so that we can't have a vision for tomorrow.
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  And I want to encourage you that that's not good.
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  So I I wanna just help you think through what 2022 is going to look like for you?
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  And what do you have to put in place to make that happen?
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  Because It is extremely important.
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  You have to plan for success.
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  Success will not just happen to you, and you can't dwell on what happened last year.
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  But sometimes you wanna celebrate what happened this past year, but all of those things need to
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  happen in what what I call sequential order.
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  So at this time of the year, one of the things that I do is number 1, I sit down with my
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  accountant every fall, and we say, alright.
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  This is how much revenue I'm gonna get before the end of the year.
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  What kind of tax pan planning strategies do I need If there's equipment, do I need to buy it?
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  Do I need to prepay some of my vendors?
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  What do I need to do so that I can make sure that I can reduce my tax burden.
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  Like, I start my planning with my tax planning.
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  So We have a meeting, we go over, you know, what our tax liability is projected to be, and
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  then we say, okay.
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  Why don't you your top 4 vendors, why don't you ask them to send you, you know, 3 month or 4
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  month invoices so that you can pay them an entire quarter in advance And that way, that'll
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  get cash out of the bank account so that you're not being taxed on it.
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  And at the same time, it's gonna ease your cash flow burden going into first quarter because
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  you're prepaying your vendors.
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  That's a strategy.
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  Another strategy might be it's time to, you know, put some money into your CEP IRA or your
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  solo 401 k to save for your personal retirement.
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  And those things are deductible on your taxes, depending on your age, you can donate almost
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  $59,000 a year into a solo 401k.
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  So that might be a strategy that you wanna look at.
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  You also just wanna look at, is it time to invest in staffing?
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  Is it time to invest in equipment.
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  Is it time to, you know, get that new van you were thinking about, or at least a car in your
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  business's name so that you can reduce your tax liability that way and then get something that
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  you actually need.
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  So the point is is that you want to sit down with your accountant now because 2 often folks
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  call accountants in January, and they can't do nothing to help you in January other than
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  prepare your taxes.
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  So what you want is to sit down in the fall, preferably, like, October, November and say,
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  okay.
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  This is what's gonna happen before the end of the year.
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  Especially, like, if you're an e commerce retailer and you know that holiday season is
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  your Super Bowl and your business, you just wanna have a plan for that cash.
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  To minimize your tax liability.
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  So you wanna look at that.
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  The second thing you wanna look at is are you gonna be able to bonus out your team?
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  Are you gonna be able to bonus yourself, but also are you gonna be able to bonus your team?
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  You know, think about what thank you you're gonna do for the people that work for you.
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  It could be something small.
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  You could send out thank you cards and a $100 Amazon gift card.
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  Or if you had a really good year in 2021, you know, you can send everybody, you know, $5000
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  checks a piece.
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  It really just all depends.
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  On how your business did.
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  But whether you send a $50 gift card or a $5000 bonus check, you wanna make sure that you think
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  about your team and acknowledging your team for all of their hard work because nobody can do
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  this thing by themselves.
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  And even if you have contractors, you know, I am a serial monogamous with my contractors.
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  So they might have several other clients, but I try to be their favorite client, and I do
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  things like celebrate them and thank them at the end of the year so that when I have a fire
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  alarm going on in my business, everyone steps up and helps.
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  And and that is a big, big, big thing.
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  The other thing you wanna look at is look at your health insurance.
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  If you have a deductible, did you meet it?
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  Are there some new other, you know, health tests you need to go get done?
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  Is it time to get that mammogram or that colonoscopy?
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  You know, now at the end of the year is the time to do that stuff because if you met your
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  deductible, they gotta pay not you.
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  So you definitely want to look and see if there's some blood work you need to have done
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  or any other screening test.
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  Go get that stuff done.
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  Before the end of the year now because you've been paying for insurance all year.
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  You need to go use it, especially if you are of a certain age.
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  And then the next thing that I do is, a serious point of reflection.
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  I sit back and think about this entire year, you know, January, February, March, April, May,
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  I go back and say, what were our wins?
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  What did we do well?
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  What is it that I wanted to accomplish this year?
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  And I actually write it down And I write it down because it's important to reflect on small
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  wins and big wins.
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  So one of the big wins for me this year was releasing the 3rd edition of my best selling
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  book, become your own boss in 12 months.
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  That took a lot of work last year.
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  It came out in September.
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  We've done extremely well with it, you know, ranking on 3, 4 Amazon lists at a time.
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  That was a lot of work.
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  It was a lot of work on my team.
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  It was a lot of work in partnership with my publisher, Simon Shuster, and that's something
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  that I really wanna celebrate.
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  But even before I celebrate that, let's celebrate the fact that that book has been in
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  print for 11 years.
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  Okay?
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  A nonfiction business book That does not happen.
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  So I'm very blessed and fortunate that the work that I developed originally in 2008 is still
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  relevant.
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  And so I'm really excited about that.
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  One of the other things I'm celebrating this year is we created an online school.
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  I now have small business lady university, and I developed it in the pandemic because I
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  realized so many people were struggling because of their digital pivot.
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  They they didn't know how to make 1, or they didn't have an email list of their customers.
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  So we developed some courses, and they're not these 30 minute courses that are out here, you
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  know, on LinkedIn or some of these other platforms where you can take courses, I
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  developed, you know, college level 6 week, 10 week courses with worksheets and and and things
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  to read.
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  And I'm really proud of it because I wanted to arm people with information to upskill
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  themselves so that they could finally start making the money they deserve online.
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  And I'm exceptionally proud of that.
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  It took a lot to do.
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  I had to hire an instructional designer to help me So it really put the time in, you know, and
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  I'm looking forward to my 2022 goals of, you know, transferring all those courses and making
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  them available in Spanish.
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  So that's something that we're celebrating this year, but looking forward to for some things
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  for 2022.
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  And so my point is I'm certainly not gonna run down the entire list of accomplishments that
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  I'm celebrating this year, but I want you to take the time to make the list.
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  And I mean, even if it was like, I painted my office, I invested in some equipment.
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  I launched my podcast.
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  I finally released my first webinar.
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  Whatever it is that you did in your business that moved your brand or moved your revenue
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  forward, celebrate it.
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  Write it down.
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  You finally hired a VA to help you, or did you finally get a sales rep that's out here helping
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  you make money in your business?
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  Whatever it is you did that move the needle forward in your business, celebrate that
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  because there's so many days we here know.
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  There's so many days that are hard in business.
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  You know, you gotta write checks and you can't write a check to yourself.
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  There's a lot of stuff that goes on And so what I want for you is to celebrate.
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  I mean, 2020 was hard.
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  And I don't know about you guys, but 2019 was hard.
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  I remember saying I can't wait till 2020 gets here.
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  Well, honey, you better would be careful of what you wish for because next year might not
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  be better.
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  But that's why it's even more important to celebrate what did go well because I think too
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  many of us were very hard on ourselves we dwell on what didn't go well.
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  And that's not good.
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  We gotta get out of that habit.
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  Now here comes the real fun part.
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  Now it's time for you to develop your 2022 vision.
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  What do you want to have happen in your business?
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  Now what we know just from all the psychologists out there is that if you write
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  your goals down, you are far more likely to accomplish them.
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  Now so it's important for you to set big goals and small goals and put timelines on them.
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  Right?
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  I don't want you to just be like, oh, we're gonna generate 1,500,000 in revenue.
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  Okay.
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  Well, if you're gonna say that, then list out the clients that you're gonna get or the
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  product number that you're gonna hit in order to generate that number of sales.
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  You should know your number as well enough to say, okay.
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  For us to do 1,500,000 in revenue, we have to pick up 25 new clients and then an average
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  contract size of 50,000 or more.
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  So, again, don't just make it some pie in the sky number.
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  Put some meat on it.
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  Say how you're going to get there.
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  Who are the customers you're gonna chase?
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  What methods in which are you going to chase them?
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  Are you gonna ramp up your LinkedIn marketing?
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  Are you gonna ramp up your content marketing?
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  What are you gonna do to show your value to your target customers?
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  And speaking of value, What's your value proposition?
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  Is it time to tweak it?
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  Have your customers needs changed since the pandemic?
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  I bet some of them have.
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  So you wanna be really, really specific about your sauce, about how you serve, and how you
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  help.
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  And are you gonna launch anything new in 2020?
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  Are you gonna develop a new product?
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  Are you gonna bring anything to market All of these things are important for you to think
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  through right now.
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  At what point in the year are you gonna drop it?
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  Are you gonna drop it in June?
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  Are you gonna drop it in September?
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  When are you going to launch your next big thing?
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  That's and this is fun because you can set a goal and then figure out what resources that is
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  in, you know, financial resources, but also human capital.
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  Do you need graphic designers?
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  Do you need a copywriter?
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  Do you need someone to build a new sales funnel for you for this new product you're developing?
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  Are you just developing a new lead magnet on your website to build your email list?
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  What are you doing, and who do you need to get to help you to execute it.
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  Stuff, are you using all this stuff that you pay for?
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  Very, very, very important.
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  So you wanna think through what's going on in your business, Are you using that CRM software
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  you pay for?
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  Are you using the deposit photos account?
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  What are you paying for?
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  Are you paying for LinkedIn Navigator and not using it?
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  So make sure that you go through and do a little mini checklist, you know, and it's easy.
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  Once you look at your bank account, that's gonna tell you and remind you stuff you're
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  paying for.
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  Look at your Google Pay account.
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  What is hitting?
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  What's hitting your account every month that you maybe use, maybe don't use?
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  And then what softwares have you heard about that might be valuable to you.
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  Right?
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  So one of the things that I do every week in my small business lady Buzz newsletter is I talk
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  about a tech tip of the week.
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  So I do a new one every single week, every week of the year.
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  So those are some of the things you might wanna think about and look at and figure out if
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  there's some new software that could save you some time.
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  Or maybe there's software that might integrate better with some of the other things that you
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  use.
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  So all of that stuff is important for you to think through and think about.
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  But more importantly, celebrate.
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  Celebrate your wins.
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  Celebrate with your team.
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  And celebrate the fact that you're still here because we lost a 100,000 small businesses in
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  2020.
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  And so 2021, has been a big rebuild year, or some people won in 2020.
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  So those people hopefully are still rolling and still doing well.
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  But I just wanna encourage you that you are an entrepreneur.
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  You are one of the bravest people on the planet.
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  You create jobs.
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  You sign check on the front and the back.
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  And what I want for you as your small business lady is I want you to win always.
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  So just know as we head into the holidays.
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  Take a little bit of downtime if you can.
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  Enjoy your family.
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  If you can give your team the last 2 weeks of the year off, do it.
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  They'll love you for it.
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  They'll work harder when they come back in January.
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  So I just wanna encourage you that tomorrow's gonna be a great day because you're gonna plan
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  for it.
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  Alright.
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  Take care.
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  I'm Melinda Emerson, the small business lady.
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  You're listening to the small Bishop podcast.
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  And we'll see you next time.
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  Thank you for listening to the Small Biz Chat podcast with Melinda Emerson.
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  For more resources and small business success strategies, visit succeed as your own boss.com.
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  Subscribe to this podcast wherever you listen to podcasts and join us next Wednesday.