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Skip the Five-Year Plan: Answer These Two Questions Before 2027 · Sell Well: Helping Agencies Close More Deals and Grow Revenue

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: Today I was talking to one of my clients and she told me, I just don't feel like I have a clear vision for my business yet.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, well, let's dig into that.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: What does that mean, a clear vision for your business next year?
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: Or for what you hope the legacy is?
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: And she's like, I don't know.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like everybody's got these like five-year visions.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I hear this a lot.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: Where are you going to be in five years?
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe you're gearing up for the holidays where some relative is going to ask you that, where do you think this business will be in five years?
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: We love those great ants.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: Today I want to give you permission to back off of a five-year plan and instead shorten the time frame a little bit, still get clear on your goals.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: No one is surprised here that I'm like, set a clear goal.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: But I want to give you a roadmap to what a clear vision for your business looks like while still knowing that you might change your mind.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: You could be a totally different person in five years, and that's okay.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: You can still work on your business with intention while leaving yourself the flexibility to grow and change.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: What I see most people saying they want in their business is more money and more flexibility or more freedom, but they don't necessarily have a target to it.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: They don't have anything that they are tying this back to.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's just more.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes they'll even tell me things like, I really want to make a million dollars, and they're sitting at 100,000 right now.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: The goals are so big and they're so elusive that it can be really hard to break them down and know what it's going to take to get there, which is where I think this 12-month goal is so much more helpful than a five-year vision.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: If you take your plan and you say, Where do I want to be in a year?
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: Especially right now, if you say, Where do I want to be at the end of 2027?
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: How much money do I want to make next year?
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: You typically won't say, I really hope I have a million-dollar business if this year you made a hundred thousand.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: You've got a little bit more of a benchmark and you can start to break that down.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: If you go through my Sell Well 21-day challenge, I actually walk you through these numbers and help you get there in a way that feels a little more bite-sized.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: But today I just want to encourage you to say, what do I actually want to make?
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: That's a great first step towards a clear goal and a clear vision that doesn't feel as overwhelming as what is the legacy of my business going to be.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: I would say the other thing I hear people say all the time is, well, I want to have more flexibility.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: I want to have more time.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: And when I ask them, what does that mean to you?
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: They start telling me about vacation.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: They start telling you, well, I want to travel and I want to do all these things.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, totally, but what do you want your Tuesday to look like?
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: Just a random Tuesday where you're working hard, right?
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: You're just working on the business and you're doing things because a lot of times flexibility to people means I have the resources and the time I need to go do the things I love.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: That's totally fine.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: But what are you doing when you're working?
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I think answering that question gives you so much clarity in how you want to run your business and what you're working towards.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: And again, you're working towards it.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: Just because you haven't arrived there doesn't mean that you can't celebrate the wins along the way and work towards something.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: What I'm saying here is if you can answer by the end of next year, I want to make X dollars and I want to be spending my time doing Y, you will have set a really good vision for next year.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: That's when you can start to do some of the work.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: You can start to look at, okay, am I on track to hit this revenue number?
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: Am I on track to spend my time doing these things?
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: Do I need more support?
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: Do I need more flexibility to hire people from a revenue perspective?
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: You can start to look at the pieces that you have to orchestrate the kind of business that you want.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: But may be very clear.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: You are the owner.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: If you were listening to this and you're the business owner, you are the owner.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: You can build this business to serve your life and your goals and your dreams.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: That's why you quit your nine to five.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: So this isn't a selfish exercise.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: This is something that's going to, in the long run, serve you and your family better.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: Now, an important part of this is the idea of knowing you'll change.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: If you are convinced that you'll be the same person in five years, I'd like to point you back to 2021 was five years ago.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: And that Instagram trend has been hilarious to me.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: Where were you in 2021?
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: We were post-pandemic, things looked so different.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: AI wasn't a part of our daily lives.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: Everything was upside down.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: We all changed a lot.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: Your life looks different now.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: You might want different things.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: And that's okay.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's also okay for you to go all in on something now.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: One of my best friends in business is Cheyenne Butchery.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: She runs Copy Girl Co.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: I've had her on before.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: She's absolutely amazing.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: But there's a, we both love John Mayer.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a John Mayer line in a song where he says, Give your heart and change your mind.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: You're allowed to do it.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: And we say that to each other a lot: give your heart and change your mind.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: Go all in on something.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's okay.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: You're allowed to change your mind.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: You can go back and decide this isn't for me anymore.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: When I sold Lawson House, I was telling her, like, well, I think I could do this in marketing and I think I could do this.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: And here are my skill sets.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: And she said, Yeah, or maybe you'll be a real estate agent.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I laughed and I was like, You think that I'm that bad of a marketer?
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: You don't think I'm going to keep going?
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: And she's like, No, I just think you've so many things you could be in this life.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I think you're really talented in a lot of areas.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: Why limit yourself to only what you've done so far?
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: And then she laughed and said, You're allowed to give your heart and change your mind.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: And we've always given each other that flexibility of just because you said this is what you wanted, just because you said, I want to go all in on this, I'll never hold you to that if you decide there's something more important or you really want to go in all in on something else.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: I'll always support whatever you want in this next phase.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I want you to know that that's true for you too.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: If you're working with me as a client and you want to change your mind and go a totally different direction, you decide I told you I wanted a whole team, but now I think I want to run this solo.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: Or I said I wanted to be solo, but now I think I want to grow a team.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: Or I said I wanted to hit seven figures, but actually I'd rather keep my margin in a really good place and just have it be me.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: There's so many options for how you want to build this business and how you want to support your life.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: I also hear a lot of people get discouraged by the idea of things that can change your plans, like having a baby or getting married or moving or all of these different things that you decide you want to add into your personal life and that that can change your goals.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: That's a good thing.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: That's what makes life beautiful and interesting and exciting.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: That's what makes it challenging in the best way.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so rather than looking at this as I need to make sure I've got this whole vision mapped out, I've got to have all the details worked out before I commit to something.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: Or it's too big and too broad and too scary, so I won't commit to anything.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: I want to encourage you to set a goal and give yourself the flexibility to change your mind later.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: Work towards something, make a vision that you can accomplish in the next 12 months, nothing crazy.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: Work towards it.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: Ask yourself, I want to make what by when I want to be doing what by when.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: Fill out the form on my website, susieconsoli.com, and I would love to be that person for you.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: Listen to your vision, help you map out what you want to make next year, what you should be doing with your time, how that can best serve your life.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: I want to hear about your dreams, your goals, and your personal life, and make sure that the business is supporting you.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: Go ahead to susieconsoli.com.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: I can't wait to get to know you and hear about what you are envisioning for next year.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: For everybody else, thank you so much for listening.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: Make sure that you plan out your next year.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: Go ahead and get started now.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: If you are starting in December, you're a little late to the game.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: I want you working on your plans in early Q4 so that you are laying the groundwork to get there early.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: And if you don't know what I'm talking about, go back and listen to last week's episode.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much for listening.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, sell well.