Latest / Business for Humans / End‑of‑Year Checklist for Freelancers and Small Business Owners

Transcript

End‑of‑Year Checklist for Freelancers and Small Business Owners · Business for Humans

• 0:00
  I'm Jamie Gennaro, business coach, consultant, and founder of Practica Consulting.
• 0:12
  Well, hello. Welcome back. I took a little hiatus from the podcast, but I am back.
• 0:21
  It's September and it's time to hit the ground running.
• 0:25
  So I have been, since I got back, a lot of hitting the ground and running.
• 0:32
  So my goal for today's episode is to really focus on those of you that are freelancers,
• 0:40
  that are running a small business, that are contractors, or just trying to,
• 0:47
  create a side gig that will give you a little bit more income,
• 0:51
  a little bit more revenue as
• 0:53
  we go towards the latter half of the year or quarter, the latter quarter.
• 1:01
  As we go towards the fourth quarter of the year. That's the way I wanted to say that.
• 1:06
  So this is a time to make sure all your I's are dotted and your T's are crossed and that you're really,
• 1:17
  foundationally doing some of the low-hanging fruit things that we tend to let
• 1:22
  go of, but you don't want to leave anything hanging,
• 1:27
  this year as you build into next year, which is also just crazy to think that
• 1:31
  we're going into 2027 in a few months.
• 1:35
  So I want to prioritize a couple big things that will really help you if these
• 1:41
  are your focus as we go into the end of the year.
• 1:45
  So the first thing that people don't prioritize that is super fundamental and
• 1:54
  really important to the cash flow of your business is reviewing all of.
• 1:59
  Are out. All of the invoices that you've sent out.
• 2:03
  This is just, I know it seems like a little bit of a cleanup and everybody,
• 2:08
  you know, knows that they should be doing this, but sometimes invoices are sitting in the queue,
• 2:14
  and sometimes they get lost and sometimes people just haven't reacted.
• 2:19
  You don't want any invoices from this year going rolling into next year.
• 2:25
  So one of the best things you can do at this time of year is just chase any
• 2:30
  outstanding invoices. If you have an accountant, even better,
• 2:34
  they can do this work for you.
• 2:36
  They can pull a report from the system that shows all invoices that are outstanding.
• 2:41
  And you want to make sure that you're getting that in the door because it's been billed this year.
• 2:47
  You just want that money to land this year. It's just a really simple thing
• 2:51
  that you can do to make sure that you're stabilizing your cash flow,
• 2:55
  kind of meeting those goals that you set up for yourself and just getting the
• 2:59
  money in that's due to you.
• 3:02
  So if you haven't done that in a while, I would just encourage you to sit down
• 3:06
  and do a sweep of all the things that might be out there looming that you can
• 3:12
  make sure that you're bringing in the door.
• 3:16
  So kind of a simple way to just bolster your cash flow for the end of the year.
• 3:22
  So another thing that's a great thing to get ahead of as you're rolling into
• 3:27
  next year is to see what do you have already on the books?
• 3:32
  What work is already on the books signed? So I stress that word,
• 3:39
  what's signed and potentially like a deposit paid, what's already on the books for 2027.
• 3:47
  So that means what's going to land in 2027.
• 3:50
  Not stuff that's landing now that you need to get signed and all of that,
• 3:54
  but what's actually in your pipeline or in your projections starting in January.
• 4:02
  So lay out everything that you know is coming. So that might be work that you
• 4:06
  have on retainer or work that you do consistently every year.
• 4:12
  And if you don't have some kind of contract or scope of work for
• 4:16
  those projects, make sure you're getting those dialed in before,
• 4:21
  I would say like even before December 1st, just let clients know we want to make sure.
• 4:28
  This is on the books, that it's committed, that we're not giving that time away
• 4:31
  to other clients, and just have those conversations so that you can get the
• 4:35
  work signed before you're rolling into 2027.
• 4:40
  Really critical. And then when you're looking at that, you know where the gaps
• 4:44
  are. So now you know, okay, well, January is fine.
• 4:48
  Maybe February is fine. Maybe you have a gap in March or April.
• 4:52
  You start to see where you need to be putting out more proposals or getting
• 4:58
  in front of people or landing more sales to kind of.
• 5:02
  Make up for those gaps in income throughout next year.
• 5:08
  And then the fun part is figuring out how are you going to fill those gaps.
• 5:11
  So I will do another episode on that, but it's just important to see where you
• 5:17
  stand before you get too close to the end of the year so that you have a whole
• 5:22
  quarter to get ahead of it.
• 5:25
  So if January is not looking strong, if you don't have anything in your pipeline
• 5:30
  this is a good time to just assess so this episode is really just let's just clean your room
• 5:37
  you know like let's just clean things up know where things are get organized
• 5:42
  so that we just know really clearly where you stand we know how much money you
• 5:46
  have in the bank you know what's about to come in when it's going to land and
• 5:50
  you know what next year is going to look like.
• 5:54
  And then what I would say is, if you have ideas for clients that you've been
• 5:59
  working with for a while, if you feel like there's a place where you could be
• 6:03
  adding value or doing something to,
• 6:08
  support what one of their pain points might be.
• 6:12
  What I would love to see you do is just put a proposal together for yourself
• 6:18
  first before you go to them.
• 6:20
  But really think about what value add could I bring to the table next year?
• 6:27
  And don't get your head full of, well, they only have budget for this,
• 6:32
  and they only have this, and they, you know, have this team,
• 6:35
  and they don't create a lot of stories.
• 6:38
  If there's a client you're working with that you see an interesting opportunity
• 6:42
  where you could bring more value, document it, write it down.
• 6:47
  What would that look like? If you were to approach them,
• 6:51
  knowing what you know about them and knowing what you know about their budgets,
• 6:55
  but knowing where you feel like you could bring value, that they would see a
• 7:00
  return on that investment, then I would encourage you to just go through,
• 7:06
  the exercise of writing a proposal.
• 7:09
  Because that way if you do end up getting in front of them or you happen to
• 7:12
  be on a call and the conversation is going in that direction you're ready.
• 7:18
  And once you have these proposals written out, then you know where you want
• 7:24
  to put these clients and where you want to start growing the work that you're doing with them.
• 7:32
  Because you might not want to promise January if your January is full.
• 7:37
  You might start thinking, well, this would be a good project to actually kick
• 7:40
  off in the spring because they're trying to do this and they're trying to do that.
• 7:44
  So, again, you've looked at your pipeline. You've looked at your calendar.
• 7:47
  Or you know what's in there, and then you can decide when a good time to start this might be.
• 7:55
  It might be interesting to say, let's start it before the end of the year,
• 7:59
  do a little test run, and if it's going well, we can just extend into 2027.
• 8:06
  So you're potentially bringing in new business even in the fourth quarter if
• 8:12
  you're thinking about what you need to land for 2027. heaven.
• 8:17
  So I hope that makes sense. So just the exercise of writing these proposals
• 8:20
  is really helpful because it just gets the language put together.
• 8:25
  It gets the thing out on paper. It's not just an amorphous idea anymore.
• 8:31
  It's actually something that you could potentially be talking to someone about,
• 8:34
  whether it's them or someone else.
• 8:37
  So now it becomes kind of an offer that you can shop even with other people,
• 8:43
  realizing like, oh, maybe there are other people with this pain point that I could support.
• 8:48
  Okay, now I have a proposal and then I just need to craft it specific to them.
• 8:54
  I really love this exercise. An interesting thing that I did recently,
• 8:58
  because I do a lot of executive coaching, so I am experimenting with the idea of, I made the proposal,
• 9:04
  I made it very general, and it's the proposal I use continuously with companies
• 9:09
  when I'm talking to them about doing coaching with their staff.
• 9:14
  Sometimes people come to me and they say, oh, can you prepare a proposal that
• 9:19
  I can sell through to my company?
• 9:21
  So what I've done is I've actually put that proposal on my website.
• 9:25
  So people can just download it if they're interested. And it's just kind of
• 9:29
  an experiment. Now I have this general proposal that I've made.
• 9:33
  I know what my program looks like.
• 9:36
  It sort of gets past that step of like talking to someone and then I have to
• 9:41
  make the proposal and then I have to send it to them.
• 9:44
  So people can just download the proposal, look at it and even shop it around
• 9:49
  and then get on a phone call with me. And then we can talk about details.
• 9:54
  So we'll see. I mean, it's just an experiment. But I like this idea of just
• 9:58
  crafting these proposals so that you have the language, you know how to talk
• 10:03
  about it, you have the details, and then you have something that you can share.
• 10:08
  I just feel like it saves a lot of steps.
• 10:11
  And also if you're someone who's out networking a lot you now have.
• 10:16
  Kind of a bullet list of this offer that you want to go out and shop with people
• 10:22
  so I like that exercise particularly at this time of year because you might,
• 10:28
  think that your clients may have a need for.
• 10:33
  Doing some kind of strategy or end of year project.
• 10:38
  Maybe they have some budget that they need to factor in and this is an opportunity
• 10:46
  for you to get in front of them.
• 10:48
  So that's that part.
• 10:52
  Okay, I am, my computer is like going a little bit crazy. Okay, we're back.
• 10:56
  Okay, so we have this idea of get all the invoices paid,
• 11:02
  look at your sales pipeline or projected things, make sure you're getting all
• 11:06
  the work that you've talked to clients about signed in preparation for 2027,
• 11:13
  and then you want to just check in with your clients.
• 11:16
  You have these proposals, you're creating these proposals, and then you want
• 11:21
  to start setting up meetings to talk to them about this proposed work and this
• 11:26
  value add that you want to bring to them.
• 11:29
  So that's the second step of creating the proposal is actually getting it in
• 11:33
  front of people, getting it in front of your clients.
• 11:37
  So then the last priority that's really important as you wrap up the year.
• 11:44
  If you have a If you have any freelancers working with you, any contractors
• 11:50
  working with you, or staff that are working with you,
• 11:54
  if you don't already have some kind of system for getting feedback from people or,
• 12:01
  creating a survey, I mean, depending on your relationship to these people,
• 12:04
  or doing annual reviews, if you don't have this established,
• 12:09
  then just go out and have a coffee, have a conversation with everybody that's on your website.
• 12:16
  On your team. As you go into 2027, it's important to know who's with you,
• 12:23
  who is jumping on the train and going forward with you into these big goals
• 12:29
  and dreams you have for your business, who is going to help back you up.
• 12:34
  If you don't have a team, then what I would say is figure out if there's someone
• 12:41
  that you can bring in as a support person.
• 12:45
  This can mean anything. This could be a friend that you call once a week and
• 12:49
  brainstorm with. This could be an executive assistant.
• 12:53
  But I would encourage you, as someone who worked by myself for years,
• 13:00
  I have recently brought someone in to support me, and it has been the biggest game changer.
• 13:06
  Just having someone to banter back and forth with, to talk about ideas with,
• 13:11
  to start figuring out how we're going to implement on those ideas, just having a partner to.
• 13:19
  Yeah, just I mean, I guess brainstorm is one of the biggest things that we do,
• 13:24
  but then they can take things off of my plate.
• 13:27
  So there are so many versions of what this could look like. It could look like
• 13:31
  a business consultant. It could be someone like me.
• 13:34
  It could be a fractional operating officer. So a fractional role could be a
• 13:41
  fractional marketing person.
• 13:43
  It could be i you know i i sort of if you're running your own business i would
• 13:48
  say don't start with the most junior level person it's going to be your first
• 13:52
  instinct let me bring in someone who can just.
• 13:55
  Create social media content i would encourage you if you are a solopreneur
• 14:00
  to think about how much further you could get if you brought in a slightly more
• 14:06
  senior person who can kind of meet you where you are and actually take things off your plate.
• 14:13
  I don't want to throw anybody under the bus or say that it's not great to have
• 14:17
  some people who are ready and hungry and have time to be mentored and things like that. I love that.
• 14:24
  But sometimes you just go further faster if you're by yourself to work with
• 14:29
  someone who's more senior who can kind of meet you where you are.
• 14:33
  You might just get a lot more done if you're on your own.
• 14:37
  So check in with those people and then evaluate what you need from your team, your current team,
• 14:44
  or your new team, or whatever version of this is going to look like the right fit going into 2027.
• 14:53
  Do you need to grow that team? Are you scaling? Are you scaling?
• 14:55
  Are you scaling? Are you scaling? Are you scaling?
• 14:56
  What's your plan for hiring people? The worst thing you can do is just start
• 15:01
  putting people in seats, but then you don't have a plan.
• 15:05
  You don't have an onboarding plan. You don't have a mentoring plan.
• 15:07
  You don't have a, you know, just a hiring plan of who's going to be the right fit where.
• 15:14
  So don't get yourself into a situation where you're overloaded with work and
• 15:18
  then just hiring people to sit in chairs.
• 15:22
  Make sure that you have a really thorough hiring plan also something I can help with if you need it,
• 15:29
  but I would say just sit down and have that plan know who you need and then
• 15:33
  go into 2027 in a different version of what you've been doing this year double down on what's working,
• 15:41
  cut out the things that aren't working and then come to the table with an idea
• 15:47
  of how you're going to level up in your business,
• 15:50
  and don't just do things the same way if you have a goal of leveling up.
• 15:55
  Everybody has to run their business at the level that is going to work for them,
• 15:59
  but if you're really trying to sort of crest into the next level of the video
• 16:05
  game, then you have to do things differently.
• 16:07
  If you're doing things the same, you're going to get the same results.
• 16:11
  If you want different results, you need to start to shift things.
• 16:14
  And I think support people and having a team is a really fantastic way to be able to do that quickly.
• 16:21
  So these are the pieces that I encourage you to look at as you're running towards the end of the year.
• 16:29
  Or walking, but I feel like everyone's kind of running at this stage in the game.
• 16:34
  But these are some simple ways that you can just look at your business,
• 16:38
  make sure that everything's set up, that you've done all the work that you need to do.
• 16:42
  Sometimes people really hit this planning stage too late.
• 16:48
  People are looking at budgets and operating budgets and hiring plans in November.
• 16:54
  It's too late you want to make sure you're getting your head around all of these
• 16:59
  pieces now so that you have a full quarter,
• 17:03
  to make things happen to get things secure just gives you some breathing room
• 17:09
  so that you know what 2027 is going to look like so
• 17:14
  again if you need support in any of these things i can help you in all different
• 17:18
  ways you can just drop me an email all the information's in the show notes.
• 17:22
  You can set up a call, all of that. But I really do think that these are some
• 17:27
  foundational, important pieces to be focusing on before you hit the end of the year.
• 17:34
  So I'm going to end it at that, and I will talk to you next week.
• 17:38
  If you're looking for support with more work-life balance,
• 17:43
  managing conflict at work, stress reduction, or just generally taking a good
• 17:48
  look at your career to make sure it's still serving you, I encourage you to
• 17:53
  get in touch, book a 15-minute call with me, no pressure.