Latest / GEL & Tell / Ep 8 - How to Reset Your Goals in Q2 (And Actually Stick to Them)
Transcript
- G: Nora. Nora: people ⁓ episode G: EIGHT Nora: Eight of Gel and Tell. It's us again. And we are back with another, yapping session for you. G: It is a... Woo! another fantastic, insightful, entertaining episode of Gel and Tell. This week, we're to do something a bit different because we thought, you know what, variety is the spice of life. So this week we are in Q2. those of you that don't know, that means quarter two of the year. And we haven't set any new business goals or reflected on our Q1. ⁓ we thought, why not reflect, Nora: Yes. G: and do it with you live. So if you are either running a business or just someone that loves to goal set and make sure you're always on track, this podcast is going to be a practical goal setting reflection sesh one with team gel. Nora: well, I can't believe that it is Q2, be honest with you. I don't know if you agree, but like, ⁓ wow, time moves very fast. G: feel like we only set our New Year's resolutions like yesterday. ⁓ I think this is probably a point in the year where a lot of people are forgetting what New Year's resolutions they set or not sticking to them. So it's probably a good time of reflection to think, have I actually stuck to my New Year's resolutions? Speaking of, what were your New Year's resolutions, Nora? Did you have any? Nora: Yeah. Yeah, 100%. I did. Yes. Obviously this year I set myself the goal to step on stage. So that's on a personal level. I've never done that before. It's very scary. A lot of limiting beliefs, but doing it, which is great. But yeah, that's the goal. Obviously I haven't done it yet. So let's get there. But I've started prep, which is, I would say progress that goal. ⁓ What else have I set goals for? G: Mm-hmm. Nora: we've had some like audacious goals for the business, which, ⁓ you know, we're very much track. To be fair, when I was writing it G: We're on track. Nora: I was like, you know what? It's a bit goal, but it's not unrealistic, I back us that we can do it. So I don't know. Do you want to? G: Well, shall we share what it was? I feel like if we say it out loud, it's more likely to happen and... Yeah. Tell viewers. Nora: We're manifesting it. Okay. But we've set a goal for gel to hit 250k in revenue in 2026. G: That is a quarter of a million pounds. Nora: Thank you, Georgia, for the clarification. can count. ⁓ G: I'm so much cooler when you say quarter of a mil Nora: is pretty cool. It is pretty cool. And it's wild how the last three months have gone since the start of the year and we are on track and we should be very, very proud of that. yeah, what were your two ⁓ top goals, G: My New Year's resolutions in general. So one was obviously like from a business perspective. was I wanted to improve my high rocks time and obviously like smash all my events. So on track, 11 personal best last weekend. ⁓ And I've got another race in three weeks. ⁓ And I think I also made one of my New Year's resolutions to actually plan our wedding because... those of you that don't know, Josh and I have been engaged for nearly two years and we haven't booked anything, but we are moving with the planning. So ⁓ is being made on that front. So that's quite exciting too. Nora: And for anyone listening, Georgia's not great at making plans. So this is actually her putting effort in making a plan. Yeah. G: I'm yes man. I go to things and I say yes to plans. I do not organize the plans and that is how I am. Not a good thing, but it also means that like just less admin. I just hate organizing stuff. I just don't know. Yeah, the wedding exciting. Yeah, we'll reveal more on another episode. So let's jump in to setting a clear Q2 plan. I think maybe we should start with Nora: Yes. So exciting now, I'm buzzing for you. Yeah. Yeah. G: Q1 reflection and from a business level. let's start with the juicy what didn't work in Q1. if obviously we've celebrated that we're on track with our revenue targets, which is awesome. So some things are working really, really well. But what do we think? Being really honest and sharing some maybe like ugly bits and bobs didn't go to plan in jail in Q1 that we can work on. Nora: Hmm. So what comes to mind for me is like bringing in the right kind of people into business to work with. So as clients, ⁓ I feel like we have said yes to many opportunities that we've learned a lot from, but we've also, because we've learned a lot from those opportunities, we have also said no to certain proposals and like opportunities that came up later down the line. So I feel like We started that trajectory of not setting as good boundaries or expectations with people, but then we've developed and grew from that and have then, when we felt like the opportunity wasn't quite right for us and our business and where we want to get to, we have said no, which is not easy for either me or you. ⁓ G: No, we said no to three people or three businesses this quarter. Nora: And there were quite big businesses as well, which was, if you look at it from like a financial G: We lost about 20K. Nora: Yeah. G: But we didn't lose it because we gained a lot of self, what's the word, like trust, I don't know. Like it wasn't obviously, I think if it depends how you look at it, but I think that probably did go well. So that was gonna go in the what didn't go well pile, but that actually was a good thing. And that showed a lot of like because in Q4, Huns would have been, come on in boys, come on in. Nora: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's always in business to just keep saying yes to opportunity because obviously you want to make money and obviously you want the business to grow and you want to like, you know, if you feel like you can help the thing is with us, we love helping people and like, if we feel like we can do the work because we are so like multifaceted in how we help business owners, it can feel almost tempting to always say yes, we want to work with you or we can work with you and in most cases we can but is it the best decision for us and the company? G: Hmm. Nora: In some cases, no one. Yeah, you're right. It would have been a not gone well, but it actually has. Yeah. G: We did really well on that. I think that was a good learn. I think maybe what didn't work or go as well at the start of Q1 was possibly our pricing strategy. I don't think we increased our prices aggressively enough, quick enough. So we were still onboarding our sort of, so our initial rates, if you haven't listened before, we started way too cheap. And we've been over delivering, loving the work we're doing, but basically like spending a lot of time on and things that weren't necessarily financially rewarding. So we increased our rates, but we kind of pussyfooted around getting them to where they actually were. And now, now I feel like our prices are solid. And like, yeah, of course, we get the like financial objections here and there. But like, that's good. Because if everyone says, yes, it's too cheap, and we were having 100 % conversion rate for quite some time, which, which was Nora: Yeah. The funny thing is, I think we needed it for our confidence building. I always say like with anything when it's fresh and new, you need to build confidence up. And as much as we've been doing this for years, we've not been doing it for ourselves. there was a lot of like imposter syndrome that came with it and a lot of like limiting beliefs that came with it. I think that's okay to admit it, but we needed that time to under price ourselves to then learn to value ourselves and our time and our value more. And we did, and now, and we always said this to clients, if you have a hundred percent conversion rate, you're not charging enough. And we have felt that and we have experienced that. then, you know, we almost like relayed and changed it, which is great. Getting notes is fine because it just means that you're bringing the right people in when you get a yes. G: We've changed. It doesn't feel fine though, let's be honest, it feels shit. No one likes it. But you know what feels worse than a no? Nora: Yeah. vampire client. G: ⁓ that but i was gonna say a ghost yeah someone that says yes on the call and then disappears off the face of the earth afterwards and you're just Nora: I hate that. ⁓ See, I don't mind the ghost as much as I find someone saying yes, coming in and being a nightmare to work with. I find that more emotionally draining and stressful because we both want to do a really good job. if the client is not in the position to do the work and get the results, I find that more frustrating than them not coming on board at all. G: Mm, yeah. Yeah, I actually think maybe that's what didn't, I don't think it didn't work well. I think it's a room for improvement area is our onboarding process. I think we should work on that in Q2. Because I think we actually it's ironic. What do they say? The shoemaker's shut the shoemaker's son has the worst shoes. we build the most beautiful, impeccable onboarding systems for all of our clients, which have like ⁓ and explainers and like everything gorgeous. ⁓ Nora: Mm. Yeah. G: we have an automated email with a form. Nora: But we're improving that. We're improving that very soon. ⁓ Yes, we are. We are. G: Are we? Oh, oh, oh, yes. Okay, that is a definite Q2 goal. Yeah, I forget, I forget. Okay, so that is, but I do think that's a really important thing is that like, we had, we have onboarding systems, but we built them for like the start of the business. And now the business has grown. And the service is obviously more developed and premium. And I think now we know exactly what the offer is and how it's delivered our onboarding process should be a thing for Q2. Nora: 100%. G: So if you're joining us, and I know that this was gonna be interactive, want you to write down what didn't work well for you in Q1 and your personal or your business. And I think that links to like what you need to be doing in Q2. It's like an action on the back of what didn't work. ⁓ we move on, was there anything you think we wasted time on in Q1 that we should avoid in Q2? Nora: I wouldn't say we wasted time on, I think we got better at, accepting and bringing on team members. because we were spending a lot of time doing things ourselves, which we are again, also both of us are very, we like doing things and like, ⁓ it might that we are not necessarily the best person to do this because we can focus on other things that move the needle in the business. but G: Mm-hmm. Nora: We have outsourced a lot of stuff, which is great because it allowed us to deliver a better service for our clients. So we have wasted time, I think, doing more manual stuff that we could have outsourced, but then we learned again. think it was like a gradual thing in Q1 where we like identify the opportunities where we could stop doing things and waste wasting time on them. It wasn't really wasted time though, cause it was still productive work, but it was, we were not necessarily the best people to do them. And we have, you know, G: Mm. Nora: brought in team members to do that, as video editing as an example. Yeah. What would you say? G: Yeah, okay. So think I don't know if it's that it was wasting time. But I think something that I fall in the trap of or did do a few times in q1 and you would tell me off or call me out for which is right, ⁓ would be when client wasn't paying for like the higher service and then delivering the service to them when they weren't paying for it, because of like this fear of like not being good enough or like, I don't know where it comes from, like this fear of over delivery that like stems probably from like deep, deep rooted trauma of something, but like really trying to stick to this is the package you're on and this is the service that you get, not just constantly adding more and doing more. And I think I fell into the trap of doing extra bits sometimes, which then flip the expectations. And then the client then expects what this like extra tier, which they're not actually on, which isn't fair on them. And then it's also a waste of time for us. I think I did it two or three times in Q1 ⁓ and you pulled me up on it as should have done. And then I've got better at reflecting on that. And also I think we need to build the systems around that. So having the right infrastructure for the different tiers so that it doesn't become tempting to fall from one to the other. Cause it comes from a really good place, but not productive for the business. So. ⁓ That's one thing that I need to work on and make sure I don't do in Q2. Nora: Yeah, yeah, I think that's a great point. was coming from a good place, G: It always comes from a good place. But it's not good for the business. And I think that's something that's a really important lesson is that like, sometimes things feel good, and you feel like you're doing the right thing. But it's not what the business needs at that time. Cool. So now we're to go into the goal setting section. you get one to two goals max, ⁓ because if you loads and loads and loads of goals, it's just bollocks and it don't work. So we need to keep them really streamlined. let's start with our personal goals. And for you lovely lot at home, write down one personal goal for Q2. So it needs to be something that's tangible that you can measure. And it's actually kind of realistic as well. Don't just be like, I wanna be a millionaire or something. So it's not gonna happen necessarily, might do, but just make it realistic, tangible and something that we can build a plan towards. So Nora. Nora: When does Q2 end? G: ⁓ April, May, June, July? End of July? August, September, October, ⁓ no, have I done it wrong? Nora: Okay. I think it's June, June 30th, I just googled it. G: When did Q2 start? The beginning of April, January, February, March. Are we still in Q1? Nora: No we're not. January, February, March. You. G: ⁓ there's three. ⁓ my God. I thought ⁓ my God. I've like you can tell he's the bad one at math. Jesus Christ. Okay, good. got a flustered then. ⁓ Nora: April, May, June. Yeah, so it's end of June, end of June. Okay, fair. That gives me a clearer deadline to work with for my goals. G: Okay, So, right, what's your one personal goal that you wanna achieve? Nora: I would like because I've been not putting it off. I really want to do it, but it's just I want to make sure that it's a perfect arrangement and that both me and Gio enjoy it. And like it's a great time for the business as well for me to be away. But I want to book my honeymoon. Obviously, did get married almost a year ago, which is well, not nine months ago. we still haven't booked anything. So we need to book. our honeymoon. We've got a few ideas, but we haven't booked anything. So ⁓ we to make it quite like fun and ⁓ it's to be a nice. G: What's the vibe? Is it like a hot honeymoon? Is it going to be like a bit traveling? Like, what can you share with us? Nora: So both of us wanna go to Asia. we're thinking like Thailand, there's so different places, like, Vietnam, like there's so many cool like places that we wanna visit. I've never been to Asia in general. So like anywhere that I would go would be very different to like what I've seen before. So yeah, we just, ⁓ we're gonna try and like different locations, but we just need to plan it really. And like a trip like that needs a lot of planning. So. ⁓ That's my goal, book something so that we have it in the diary. Yeah. G: Love it. ⁓ that's such a good goal. I feel like with those kind of trips, like one thing that I see a lot of people doing is like going to too many places and then not actually being able to chill because they're doing so much traveling. So I feel like you should choose like the places that you really want to go to and then maybe like plan separate. Like, you know, when people go like literally from like Southeast Asia, like across and then go to like do like to Philippines and then Bali and like they go everywhere and like I get it if you're there for like six months but if you're only there for like a couple weeks I feel like it's just exhausting. So you want it to be like a bit of both right like travel and chill. Nora: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 100%. Yeah. I think we want it more like chill vibes. We're thinking like Thailand as well, because there's a big fitness scene there as well, which both me and Gio are, know, it's part of our lifestyle. So it makes sense that part of our honeymoon has a bit of fitness in it as well. But yeah, like we're thinking like, ⁓ it needs be close. If we go in multiple locations, it needs to be close by so then we get the chance to like chill, ⁓ enjoy some food. We're both G: Hmm. Nora: very much foodies, even though we do bodybuilding, explain that. So yeah, that's gonna be fun. What's yours? G: Love it. I think mine has to be to book the wedding, doesn't it? I think it's got to be because if we're going to get married next Feb, which is the line of which we're looking towards, then it's got to be booked this quarter, hasn't it? Nora: Yeah. Yeah, I think so. G: If there are any wedding planners listening to this or organised people in my network that would like to be paid to organise my wedding, hit me up. Thank you. I will pay good money. ⁓ Nora: You hate planning anything. Guys, when she first got engaged, I literally sent her all these like planners or notion and spreadsheets and all that stuff. Like I'm all for that. I loved planning my wedding so much. It was like a full time job on the side of working a full time job, but it was so good. I just love planning. G: Ugh. I know, and I think that's lovely, not for me. But that's why if you'll notice a common trend amongst my friends, they're very organized and they like planning things. ⁓ choose the type A friends who can make my life lovely and fun. And I can say yes and go along with it. Yeah, I always show up with lots of energy. Nora: Yeah. She chooses us so that we can do the work for her. ⁓ You're still up. G: So we've got the personal goals. Now let's move into business goals. And I hope you guys are writing yours down at home too. Business goal for Q2, what we thinking? Nora: You do. I think we need to decide this together, you know. G: Okay, that's kind of like go through some potential things that we could look at. So I think revenue goals like we're we've got a target for the year. So I don't think we need a revenue target for Q2. We are quite at capacity at the moment, I think sort of literally mentally, mentally, physically, spiritually. think systems need to be a huge focus for Q2. ⁓ Nora: Yeah. We are a capacity. ⁓ Yeah. G: So like making everything a bit slicker, all of the things that we advocate for and build for other people, we should be building new ones for ourselves. I would love for us to be integrating more like Claude and AI to leverage like efficiencies, not to replace us, but to like make things just a little bit smoother across the board. don't know how tangible this is though. We need to challenge ourselves on tangibility. what you think? you agree? Nora: Well, let's, okay, we wanna build systems. We wanna build new onboarding systems. We want to have a better, we do have some systems now, but better internal systems for client management. G: Yeah. Yeah. Nora: and tracking. G: Yeah. Metrics tracking. want to automate so that we're not pulling manual data in. So like pulling that from like our ads, putting that from our CRM, putting that from our client tracking and revenue and Stripe and stuff. I think we can automate a lot of that so that we're not manually updating spreadsheets. Nora: Yes. ⁓ Yeah. And in terms of AI, how do you feel about the goal of creating agents that help us with market research across the industry to help us make better informed decisions in our consulting and when we're advising business owners, I think that would be super helpful because we do that already by scrolling and reading stuff all the time. like if we built ⁓ ⁓ G: Yeah. Yeah. to do our analysis and research. Yeah, I love that. I would love to have that. So I think that's a that's going to be a non negotiable. So we've got agents set up for researching and capacitor analysis, and agents set up for metrics tracking and updating our, revenue, client base, that kind of thing. I would love it if we could potentially set up something that would help us with keeping eye on like how of our clients metrics are tracking across the board. So like, Nora: That would be. G: if there's a way to as like reports ⁓ insights so that we are like on top of all the numbers for everyone. So it's like ⁓ our report, it's like filtering in so we're not checking like multiple places, ⁓ just so we can deliver a better service. But what's really important is that it doesn't replace our consulting or brains or creativity. And it just makes us a bit more efficient. Nora: They're friends, yeah. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Just summarize this data that we need to advise better and make better decisions. Yeah. ⁓ G: Yeah, love it. And then potentially more of our like management stuff, not the writing of the content. I don't want to outsource that to AI, but like, know, when we do a shoot and we've got to manually go through all the footage and label and organize it, and that takes hours. If we could get like a data, Josh said a name for this that they have like a Nora: Yeah. Yeah. G: thing on shoots, but I can't remember what it's called. But in a production, there's like a data person that basically labels all the files and organizes them and puts them in folders. I reckon we can create a Claude cowork agent that does that for us. Nora: and possibly we have to look into it. All this AI stuff is so cool, but so you need time. There's a learning curve, isn't there? G: 100%. And also we've got a ring fence super carefully. Like we are not going to just like give this access to like stuff that it shouldn't have access to. We'll probably get like invest in a new laptop to run stuff on and like make sure it's super like safe and secure. And we've got some contacts that will help us make sure it's done properly too. Cause I am not risking baby bell on this. Okay. So do we feel like that's a, do we feel like that's tangible enough for the business golf Q2? Nora: 100%. for sure. I think it's very tangible. think specific. Yeah. G: It's Yeah, it's about efficiencies over growth because from a growth perspective, if we were to maintain where we are now for Q2, obviously it'd be great to get some new people in at some point, but I actually would rather as get the systems in a good spot and then grow again. I think we need to like optimize before we kind of go up again, which is cool. And obviously like super grateful that that's the position we're in. Yay. I hope you guys have written down your one to two business and personal goals. Nora: Yeah. 100%. Yeah. Yeah. G: So basically by the end of Q2, you've got a honeymoon planned, I've got a wedding planned, and we've got a systemised business with a couple of cute little AI agents helping us out and we maintain our revenue. So we're tracking for our quarter of a mil year target. Nora: Yes. That's right. ⁓ I can't wait. ⁓ G: Bada bing, bada boom. Okay, sick. next thing would just be, So got the goals. Now we need to create the actions that will drive the goals. So, which is where people mostly go wrong with goal settings. just say, I'm gonna do this and then they don't do it. So we need to create for the personal and the business goals, weekly non-negotiables. and daily actions that will mean that these become a reality. So let's start with the honeymoon for your personal goal. What are the the weekly and then the daily actions that need to take place so you book your honeymoon by the end of Q2. Nora: I need to daily start writing down what the steps are in terms of like, I need to do some research. I need to find like, if we'll go with a package or like if we'll plan it ourselves or all that stuff. on a weekly basis, sit down with and review it because he's very much like you. I do the planning. just, ⁓ he's just there happy, you know, and I don't mind that. That's how we love to roll. So yeah, sit down with Gio and present the options. So, and then, I think we'll get there pretty fast to be honest. G: He just comes along for the ride. and sick. Okay, cool. So that's that's the plan. And yeah, same as that. That'll be fine. Let's go into the business ones because I think that Nora: How about you with your wedding? Nice, No, but just walk us through what actions you're gonna take to plan your wedding. G: I'm gonna talk to Josh about it and then hope that he picks up most of the slack and then maybe reply from the podcast saying they're gonna organize it for me. No, we just need to book something. Nora: Hahaha! Bye. You will. ⁓ it's so exciting. G: It is super exciting. And business goal. for our systems, weekly non-negotiable daily actions. So I think weekly non-negotiable, I don't know what you think about this, but I'm thinking we put in like a half day blocked for system building every week this quarter. It's a bit aggressive, but like if we don't put the time in, it's going to get booked with calls. We do. So we've got half a day tomorrow. So we do that, maybe recurring. Nora: We already have one tomorrow. G: Thursday mornings and then so that would be a weekly non-negotiable so the times allotted to it and then the daily actions to make sure this has becomes a reality. Nora: So I think with anything that you build, any system, you need to be continuously using it and updating it to be up to date. Right. So I think we've built a lot of systems initially. And like you said, they need updating for sure, but we also need to upkeep and when you have a system, you need to always be giving it information, fitting in stuff. then it's useful. It's a useful system. Yeah. And optimize. So we should add a daily 15 minute blog just to run through clients. G: Yeah, unoptimized. Yeah, agreed. Yeah. Nora: you know, all of that, like update our systems with any data that we need to, ⁓ and just always have things up to date. G: Love it. Love that. And then I think before we've actually got them built, it would be a case of writing down things as we're doing them. Like if you're coming across a piece of work that's like a bit clunky or like something's taking longer or like it doesn't feel very organized. Like we should just have like maybe in our Slack, like a bookmark thing where we can write notes of ideas when they come up. So the daily action is writing down bottlenecks or things that come up that could be systemized better and then updating the systems once they're Kiss. Love it. So good. ⁓ planning. And obviously for you guys too, make sure you've written your actions. So you need your daily tasks, weekly non-negotiables to make those goals a reality. we should all now have goals. ⁓ personal business, actions, and then some stuff that we're no longer doing that we maybe did in Q1 that wasn't very conducive with our new goals. ⁓ if you've actually done this, well done. You're probably ahead of everyone else. ⁓ Nora: You know what? I feel like this is very productive. By the way, guys, we have not planned any of this before we came on to film the episode because we wanted to actually like set our goals with you. But I think this quite productive. G: Yeah, I'm enjoying this. I'm also feeling like shit now I have to really do some planning for my wedding, but it's I wanted to do it anyway, but now I've said it out loud, it has to happen, so it actually happens. Nora: Maybe when I'm doing my honeymoon plotting, you should be doing your wedding plotting. Yeah. G: Yeah, you can tell me right it's time. It's our weekly non negotiable time. Love it. Well, amazing. So yeah, send this episode to someone that you think needs to set some goals. Maybe they're slacking a little bit and you think they need a bit of fire up their ass. Or if you did set some goals, message us and let us know what they are. We'd love to know. Just in Nora: Yeah, a hundred percent. Yeah. we might be able to get to help you get there as well with the goals. ⁓ So, but stay tuned guys, because we also have next two episodes are looking very exciting as well. Obviously this one was more of a practical one, but the next two episodes, we've got very cool guests coming on, coming on. Yes, we are. G: Maybe, maybe, Are we doing guests two weeks in a row? ⁓ OMG! Nora: They're locked in and they're both really cool guests. So we can't wait for you to meet them. And yeah, we'll catch you on the next episode, I guess. G: Yeah, peace out. Nora: you