Latest / Glovisor Podcast / Ep 9: Calendar to Cash Transformation
Transcript
- GLOVISOR: What's the reason that your calendar is full, but your income isn't? That's because your calendar wasn't intended or designed to make you money. Today's guest went from working in data-informed strategy to helping solopreneurs turn their calendar into cash. Glovisor welcomes Brad Coverdale. Brad Coverdale: Everyone happy to be here. GLOVISOR: Great. We're glad and excited. Can't wait to hear more about your journey and that transition. for listeners meeting you for the first time, what's story behind how you went from working in data informed strategy to helping solopreneurs turn their calendar into cash? Brad Coverdale: Absolutely, thanks for asking. I had a very interesting story in the sense that the past 15 years I've been working in higher ed analytics, helping out leaders to be able to support many, many different students helping them to be able to make decisions on which strategies to make for which programs to continue to do to be able to provide the best support for their students and to help them to achieve their dreams. And as I was helping them with that, I noticed as I was getting ready for a presentation, had started moving into wanting to do my own venture. And I was trying to figure out what the right framework was going to be. And as was preparing for a presentation one night, I recognized that it really came down to one problem, one action, one goal that I'm looking for, one barrier that I'm trying to get past, and then one action. for us to be able to move forward. And I've used that framework as I've moved forward in building into my own ventures. And as I was trying to figure out where I wanted to start and to build my own business outside of the university, I really started focusing on solopreneurs, knowing how hard it was for me to get started with my journey, knowing how hard it is, especially for those who are parents or... who are families that are trying to, who've left their old work and now are trying to try on something new, what some people say of the leaving your 40 hour job and picking up something now that takes over 80 hours, wanting to ⁓ really focus in on the right, what's the right method to get around that? How can we really reduce that? Because ⁓ you. ⁓ When you go into business, you're wanting to do something different, but you don't want to do it at the cost of your family. So really how Calendar to Cash came about was that whole structure, because I started recognizing that it wasn't just about goals. It wasn't just about the barriers to those goals. It was really something about something more tangible, looking at the resources. And so I started hearing and thinking about myself as on the idea of a financial analyst, an advisor, if you will. Someone comes to you and they say that they want, they want to, if you're going to a financial advisor and you're saying, I want to raise money for college, but I don't have more income. The first thing they'd say to you isn't, you need to go work more. They're going to say, okay, looking at your money. and saying, what are you spending that money on? So they can see where the money's going and what happens at the end of the month to see what can we do? What can we cut back? What do we need to reallocate? What's the most important? business owners that I have found don't do that. Instead, they have a task list that they are filling out their calendar and ⁓ for the things need to do. But they don't really measure it back to ⁓ how it aligns back with the income that they want to do. And that's how I flip things around. I start with focusing with my clients on what's the income they want to have at first, then we fill into what are the activities that align with that income, and then we fill in the rest. And that, in essence, is the calendar to cash. GLOVISOR: Interesting. Many solopreneurs ⁓ busy all the time. They're just consumed by their work. ⁓ But the thing is that they don't have predictable income. What's the biggest mistake that you see people making when this calendar is full, but the revenue just isn't matching up? Brad Coverdale: So one thing as I've been having lots of these different conversations and it's crazy because we get, when we focus on, when you get that first client, you don't recognize, ⁓ so excited about having a first client and you wanna do everything for them, you're not recognizing how long it's taking you to get them acquired, how long it's taking them to get through the process, how long it's taking to get through that client delivery. It builds up and then you get onto that second client. And so let's say it takes 15 hours to get that first client and get them through their process a week. Now you've got on that second client. So that's already another 15. So now you're already at 30 hours. You only have two clients and you that's all right at beginning. But as you continue and as you keep adding more clients, you're going to eventually find to the point that you're putting in way too much effort and you're not getting the income that you're looking for. And so often What that starts to look like is you're spending a lot of time doing what I call zone three, where you're doing the things that are required for the business, but they're not gonna give you income at the end of the day. And then there's also zone two, which is where those are the things that you're really trying to, and this is where I try to redirect my clients, to really try and get things that are more in your pipeline. So you're networking, getting those diagnostic calls, discovery calls so that you're really able to support them and then ultimately you want to be able to Realign yourself into zone one. You want to have most of your time that you can say at the end of 90 days That's the income that I want and the income I'm going to get that helps you to take yourself Moving from a sporadic income into something a little more stable GLOVISOR: there three zones total. Brad Coverdale: I break it down into threes. It makes it easy to understand and easy to recognize. And most of the solopreneurs, when I'm talking with them, they're spending most of their time in zone two or zone three. Those that are a little more experienced will have a little bit more in zone one, but they usually do that at the cost of many, many more hours than four. GLOVISOR: One thing that stands out in your approach is the idea of what one goal, barrier, and one action. Is that correct? ⁓ can you explain a little bit more about that framework and how it works and why it's so powerful for business owners? Brad Coverdale: Mm-hmm. Absolutely. It's powerful because, especially for solopreneurs, there are so many different things that are happening. There are so many different things that are vying for your time. The challenge with zone three in particular, it's because they're usually your quick dopamine hits. Completing, fixing your profile on LinkedIn feels good because you can see the result, but it's not going to get you money at the end of the day. And you can easily spend, if you're a creative person, you could spend I have done so many different iterations of what's my banner gonna look like? What's my headline gonna look like focusing on all those different things and I'm not spending the time focusing on the leads that I've already generated getting in contact with them finding out what their needs are and getting them into my so that can really see how I can support them That's the kind of things to be thinking about. So when I say one goal That's the one thing that at the end of the day, it really helps to understand where you want to be at. Case in point, I had a client who was talking with me and we went through her time. thing she told me, said, well, what is it you want? She goes, I want to get my, she was like, I want to work less hours. Most of us do. And she's like, I want to get my Friday afternoons back. And I said, I'm on board with that. I said, let me ask you a question. I said, ⁓ now, If I gave you a new client, what would your first reaction be? She said, ⁓ crap. I said that already tells me a lot because it tells me you don't have the structure you need to be able to bring someone else on, yet you want to work fewer hours you want to get and you want to have those Friday afternoons. And so what we found as we were going through was that she was in a lot of different networking groups. And I said, how many groups are you in? And she said, I'm in about eight, about six different groups throughout the month. said, I understand that And I think it was about 20 hours a week through, different ones, cause she was moderating some of them. And I came back, she said, well, I really like my relationships. said, I understand that, but you have to ask yourself at the end of the day, which one is more important to you ⁓ actually being, having those which again, as solopreneurs, working by ourselves, working at home, that can be very valuable for us to going through. Or do you want that Friday afternoon back? You really do have to pick. And so, and for her, what we did was I had her go through and look at how many of these relationships that you've built are actually driving leads, how many of them are actually bringing in. And she was finding most, several of them just weren't, they were fun, they were interesting. but they weren't really driving that revenue. And that over time becomes time that she could have brought on that new client, could have gotten extra income, for her to have that ⁓ freedom flexibility that she can take off that Friday afternoon whenever she wants to. So that's where one goal comes in. One barrier comes in because All too often when we have goals and we set goals, we don't think about what's going to come in our way. And the first time we hit our first thing that's in our way, we lose momentum. Same thing happened with me when I was obese. I had a health coach that was working with me and she's like, where do you want to get to? I said, I want to get to 175 pounds. I thought it was crazy. I'd been obese for 18 years. Oh, Excuse me, over 20 years, I did not expect anyone to be able to help me with that, especially being able to eat the way I wanted to eat. But she worked with me. She helped me keep saying, like, what's your one goal? How are we gonna get there? And when I ran into my first barrier in the sense of I'm a picky eater, we already knew that ahead of time so that she knew, okay, here's what I want you to be focusing on this week. Here's how we're going to get around that. So it didn't become, she understood me mentally of, now know what's in my way. I can get right around it. Rather than hitting that wall and then stopping and going, how am I going to get around it? saying, or the self doubt coming in going, see, you're not going to get that goal. That goal was too ambitious to start with. And then that leads into one action. because there are so many different things that are vying for our time, very, very loud things that you have to keep asking yourself. It can be so, so incredibly easy to fill up a calendar with a bunch of things and saying to a bunch that are not aligned with your income, not aligned with where you want to be, not aligned with what you want to do. And before you know it, you're like, my day is gone. I don't have any room to bring in a new prospect. I don't have any room. to have that further conversation. I don't have any of that because I've allowed myself to be doing this and doing that. so instead, one action is the, it's one action to get past that barrier. That barrier is probably gonna take about five, six, seven actions. We get through that first action, then we see, is that barrier gone? No, okay, why? What's that new constraint? Perfect example, I had one, ⁓ current client, She was working with me and she tells me she's ⁓ making over 100,000 a year ⁓ and her home is a thousand dollars a month. And looking at her hours, ⁓ I was curious I like, I don't completely understand. Tell me a little bit more about what's going on. And I asked her a follow-up, said, I want you to provide to me how much you're actually charging your different clients. And when I go to find out that it wasn't a time problem, it was a business structure problem. And so like this is what I mean of one barrier that you get past one, you move into the next where you didn't even think about that before. Whereas in for her in particular, she was afraid to raise her prices. she thought she was at market or below or above market. I did a market research ⁓ analysis for her. and found out she was actually way below. And so just encouraging her to raise her rates 20 % for her new client is gonna be already huge, to mention getting rid of her lowest paid client, which was already draining her negatively anyway. GLOVISOR: That's true. ⁓ thing I want to ask, going back to your personal weight loss, ⁓ is great by the way, congrats. that before you started this process ⁓ working the calendar to create more cash? And did it reinforce the process that you were already or vice versa? ⁓ Brad Coverdale: Mm-hmm. Thank you. It came before and so it kind of, that was what really drove me to know that I wanted to support service-based solopreneurs because quite often they want to take their time and they want to help others to achieve their goals and achieve their dreams. And once I saw that structure, I was like, oh, I can do that. Meeting with someone, checking in. doing the accountability, seeing where people are at, looking at the data, being able to make the right decision and say, here's what you need to try this week. Try that, come back next week, let's see where we go. It's a brilliant system that soon as I saw it, I was like, this is what I need to do. And then, and then calendar to cash was just the right vehicle for it. GLOVISOR: Excellent. to the person who's listening right now, if they pull up their calendar for the week, what's one quick audit that they can do ⁓ would immediately reveal whether their schedule is working for them or against them? Brad Coverdale: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. first thing you do when you look in your calendar is immediately look and say, as you're looking at those pieces, what of these things can I honestly say are going to make me money in the next 90 days? That is by far the first step because it's going to reveal a lot. Because here's the challenge is that If you don't control your calendar, your calendar is going to control you. And I don't say that as a cliche, it's really true because if you already have a full calendar, it's already predicting that income. And if you don't make those changes, you're going to be in the same spot you were 12, 12 months from now, that same conversation. And that's one of the things I ask my clients after we do after we do our audit, I say. Are you happy with what you've done this week in the sense of the money you've made? Would you be happy if we repeat the same results for the next eight weeks? And if not, what's the one thing each day that is preventing you from being able to make the money you want to the next day? GLOVISOR: focus a lot on aligning, offers, ⁓ ⁓ If you had to pick one of the three that usually is the hidden bottleneck that prevents entrepreneurs from earning more, which one would it be? Brad Coverdale: Mm-hmm. It depends. And I say that because it depends on the data and that you're looking at and seeing where things are. Generally, it's going to probably be your pricing in that often you have to take advantage ⁓ the social capital that you've built, the social proof. You've got already one person that has agreed and said yes. ⁓ I see what you've done, you've provided value for me and this is the amount of value you've been able to provide for me, you can start using that as increment for incremental increases. That said, depends also, like I said before, in that if you don't have your offer structured and streamlined as you move forward, with every client I go through, I look at the time it takes me to acquire the client, what resources did I need to go through to look at that, how many different touch points do I need to look at, how many different conversations do we need to have, and I continue to optimize and see how can I take that and how can I move that forward. So it really does come back to having someone to take a better look at that and be able to... help you to see what's the right lever to move. But generally, easiest one usually is gonna be price, depending how elastic you have with your revenue options. GLOVISOR: That's right. I love the phrase life first income. And sure most listeners will agree. But what that actually look like in ⁓ real life Brad Coverdale: Yeah, life first income really is the drive for why you're doing what you're doing. I went into this because my university, while I love the work that I do, I don't have control. I don't have control of when I get a raise. it's all being by that are outside of me. I don't get that, I don't have the budget. It's not my budget to control. My leadership has to make the right move and there has to be the right opportunity available. I don't have that limitation when I'm working with ⁓ I am the only limitation that point. ⁓ I am the only one. I'm the one that has to push myself forward. and to get myself out there, to find the right path, to see how do I get people into my pipeline, to help them to understand how do I get them to tell my story. I have taken months to try and see the right way to be able to tell the story, to find the right vehicle. I all of that to say that I am in the process of ⁓ helping, I helping solopreneur families to get their nights and their weekends back and to so their effort and their income their calendar and their bank account finally align ⁓ Knowing of those pieces and knowing ⁓ where fit in The sense of what is your priority when it comes to why you're doing what you're wanting to do I don't have any intention ⁓ of a multi-millionaire I will never do that at the cost of my kids, at the cost of my family. ⁓ am solo, ⁓ I much, I've put myself on a 12 month plan that within 12 months, I will have my nights and my weekends back. ⁓ Or the very least, I will have my nights and my weekends back and doing at the very most, some things in zone two or zone three. Definitely nothing in zone one. There won't be times that I'm gonna miss out a meeting or I'm gonna, or I'm not gonna miss out a performance or I'm gonna miss out game night or something because I've got to take a call or because I need to support a client. anyone I work with needs to be able to, that. And I think those pieces are what it means life when it comes ⁓ with life income that. It's not just income, it's how you're going to acquire it. also, are your mission and values that you're expecting your clients to have as well? GLOVISOR: Yeah, priorities, that's key. It's so interesting because you work with a lot of different clients who tell you they're just amazingly successful, but they don't have time for their families. They don't have time to do anything else that would move them along or to create real connections in their personal lives. And when we talk to them about it, I say the true success would be that you can do that. Brad Coverdale: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. GLOVISOR: If you can control your time and much work you do, then that's true success, right? ⁓ you can't control it, then there's a questionably or arguably ⁓ much success is there if you can't control it, if someone else controls your calendar. ⁓ from the clients that you've worked with, ⁓ you share a quick story of someone that's had an amazing transformation using your process and your method? Brad Coverdale: Right. Yep, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, the one that we worked through. She, made about $100,000 and that was bringing home about $1,000 a month. when we got done and... She was like, I just want to be able to double my income. I looked at her and I said, this is a shoo-in. We can definitely do this within four weeks. Because I could easily see what levers we needed to push to be able to move that forward. And she's on track easily to be able to triple her income in the next couple of weeks. GLOVISOR: Looking ahead, how do you see the future of solopreneur businesses evolving as more people are trying to balance the income, freedom, and meaningful work? Brad Coverdale: this ⁓ is the is that we we need scale or we think we need more money, we immediately go, well, I need more offers or I need more clients or I need to do this new training and stuff. And we don't take good inventory of the things that we have and make sure that that's polished first. I even just had a conversation yesterday with a great individual who runs a VA agency. And we're going to have a great partnership because there are times that his VA's are going to be the right people ⁓ solopreneurs to be able to thrive and to move piece forward. But at the same time, we need to make sure that that time that they get back is protected. that it doesn't get absorbed into something else. So in some cases, it's going to be them, him referring his clients to me and saying, go with Brad and do the math first, then come back to me and figure out what's going to be your next step. I think those are where we're going to need to get to. And even with AI and stuff, there's a lot of great time saving techniques and and pieces. But it's not so much about that. It really is. It is going to be focused on for those who are going to be the most successful. Are you aligned with where you want to be? do you does your structure? Does your system does your system align with that? Because if it doesn't, you're going to keep it's going to be sporadic. You're going to it's going to be erratic. You're going to chase that next shiny thing. You're going to spend a lot of money going I'm putting into things and going, I'm going to get to this someday and then never get to it. at the you're going to be another 12 months going, I want this to change. Why isn't this changing? And still repeating that same process. ⁓ GLOVISOR: right? One of the Glovisor listeners calls you and says, I want to look at my calendar and tell me what I can do to improve my income, how to control my schedule, how do we improve it? What would be the method or the process that they should expect? And then how long should they expect to work with you? Is this a one month process, a two year process? Tell us a little bit more about that. Brad Coverdale: Yeah, so when clients work with me, we start with a diagnostic where they just bring to me their last week. We just, ask them a series of questions in terms of where their income was for the last month and how many hours a week they're working. And then we break it into understanding more of what do those hours look like? Again, going back to that zone one, zone two, zone three, like I had mentioned before. That helps me to get a sense of what's the next move to show you that I'm giving you an action to try for the next seven days and I invite you back. And then we talk about it see, does that work? And if you like how that works, then you partner with me for the next 30 days because this is what we do. We take an action, we run it through, you do that action, you bring it back to me, you show me the result, and then we move into the next action. And we continue doing that for four weeks and see where are you at. Some will then say, I've got it, Brad. I'm in a good space. Others will continue and be like, no, I need you to keep walking with me through because I will easily, slip back into ⁓ old behaviors. Same thing happened with my health coach. I thought I could get rid of after, I shouldn't say get rid. stopped working with her after one year and then got toward the end. She's like, are you really ready to walk away? I'm like, nope, nope, I need another year. GLOVISOR: Well, sure you, because then you move on to the next goal and then the next goal and you need someone to be there and to realign you again, I would imagine. ⁓ Well, if a listener only remembers one thing that you want them to away with? Brad Coverdale: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yep. Yep. The thing I would want them to walk away with is that if you don't your calendar and align it with your income, it will control you. It really does just boil down to that. GLOVISOR: those who want to learn more about the calendar to cash method or connect with you, where's the best place for them to go? Brad Coverdale: Yeah, I've got a great new app that I just put together where people can log in. It's a quick five minute app where you check in at the end of the day and it tracks where you are for your day, your month, and your week and your month. And just go to calendar number two, cash.com slash pulse, and you can ⁓ try it out. And then if you're interested in learning more, my link's right there to sign up for a diagnostic. Happy to continue the conversation. GLOVISOR: thank you so much for sharing your journey with us. Brad Coverdale: Absolutely. Thanks again for having me. GLOVISOR: Absolutely. All right, till the next time.