Planning can be a brilliant tool, or a form of procrastination.
Visions of what *could* be.
And as we follow the plan, we quickly realize that the ideal map we’ve chosen to follow… looks quite a bit different than the reality we’re faced with.
It happens in our personal lives AND our businesses.
Each year, entrepreneurs take the internet biting walk calendars, post-it notes and colorful pens to dream, map and plan out their perfect year.
And if you’ve been a big planner in the past, yet still aren’t where you set out to be.
This is the episode for you.
The season looks quite a bit different for me with baby #3 coming WAY earlier than expected (irony here is I DEF didn’t plan for THIS)…
But if I were in your shoes (aka not birthing a tiny human), here’s exactly what I’d do to finish the year strong (not coast it through), to set myself up well for the new year.
EPISODE SHOW NOTES👇
https://heathersager.com/episode222
🔗 Grab the latest FREE resources: https://heathersager.com/start
🔗 Browse all episode shownotes: https://heathersager.com/blog
👋 CONNECT WITH HEATHER:
Work with Heather: https://www.heathersager.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theheathersager/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/HeatherSager
If you’re loving this episode, please take a moment to rate & review the show. This helps me get this message to more people so they too can ditch the hustle 24/7 life.
Planning can be a brilliant tool, or a form of procrastination.
Visions of what *could* be.
And as we follow the plan, we quickly realize that the ideal map we’ve chosen to follow… looks quite a bit different than the reality we’re faced with.
It happens in our personal lives AND our businesses.
Each year, entrepreneurs take the internet biting walk calendars, post-it notes and colorful pens to dream, map and plan out their perfect year.
And if you’ve been a big planner in the past, yet still aren’t where you set out to be.
This is the episode for you.
The season looks quite a bit different for me with baby #3 coming WAY earlier than expected (irony here is I DEF didn’t plan for THIS)…
But if I were in your shoes (aka not birthing a tiny human), here’s exactly what I’d do to finish the year strong (not coast it through), to set myself up well for the new year.
EPISODE SHOW NOTES👇
https://heathersager.com/episode222
🔗 Grab the latest FREE resources: https://heathersager.com/start
🔗 Browse all episode shownotes: https://heathersager.com/blog
👋 CONNECT WITH HEATHER:
Work with Heather: https://www.heathersager.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theheathersager/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/HeatherSager
If you’re loving this episode, please take a moment to rate & review the show. This helps me get this message to more people so they too can ditch the hustle 24/7 life.
What I want you to think about. Of all the different things that you sell, just take a look at your offers and ask are these still offers that are one serving your audience and two serving you? And I don't just mean from a financial perspective. But how are you feeling about your offers when someone buys a certain type of package or a certain thing? Do you instantly get this like, oh crap, no, I have to do that. Or do you get energized from it? Do you get excited?
Speaker 1:This is the podcast for the entrepreneur who wants to make a big impact, who doesn't shy away from hard work but also wants to enjoy life along the way. Hi, I'm Heather Sager, former executive turned entrepreneur, and I've spent the last 20 years working with premium brands on sales, marketing and communication, and I've learned that when you become a magnet with your message, you only need a hint of hustle to achieve your goals. Get ready to be inspired and ignited each week with tangible strategies on sales, speaking, marketing and so much more. This is the hint of hustle podcast. Let's go Well. Hey, friend, welcome back to another episode. I took a little bit of break last week. I'll explain why that was the case here in a moment, but today's episode. I'm looking at the calendar and realizing, oh my goodness, at the time that this episode goes live, you have six and a half weeks left. You have, I have, we all have six and a half weeks left in 2023.
Speaker 1:And as we approach holiday season, many people take time off. Many people stress out around holy crap, how am I gonna make money between now and the end of the year? There is just a lot going on and for most people, whether you run a business or not, people declare it as a busy season. And before things get bonkers on your end, I want to have a pep talk today and talk about how, if it were me, what I would be doing to end this year in a calm state, in an excited state, but in a prepared state to feel proud of where I am, and also start next year strong. Now, this is not an episode around 2024 planning. This is not going to be a tactical list of all the things that you should do to clean house and get ready for next year, but more of a from a high level. Where would I be thinking if I were in your shoes? Now, I say if I were in your shoes, because I'm wearing very different shoes right now. So let's talk about what's going on in my world, and I will be ending the year much differently, most likely, than you, and also much differently than I had anticipated.
Speaker 1:So I took last week's episode off out of sheer necessity to reduce stress for me and my team. I had every intention of having these podcast episodes batch, prepped and ready to go well before I went on baby leave and about two weeks ago I had a couple things going on that were a little concerning for me. Medically, I've been really. I'll just, I'm just going to give you like true, honest behind the scenes. If you don't want to hear the personal update for me, just skip. Fast forward a few minutes until we get to the content of the episode.
Speaker 1:But a couple weeks ago I had been really tired. I had been really tired, rightfully so. I am pregnant. I had been doing a huge launch, I had taught a three day live accelerator and I had just found myself really needing rest. And how I rest is I made this little nest in my cozy bed with my giant snuggle pregnancy pillow, which, if you've ever known one of those are. They're very annoying to the person who sleeps in the bed with you, but they're everything to you if you were uncomfortable. So I made a little nest with my snuggle and I have been spending a lot of time in bed catching up on movies. I've been doing my email and just writing and stuff for my bed.
Speaker 1:But I've been in rest mode a lot over the last month and about two weeks ago I started noticing that I just wasn't feeling so great and at nighttime I was getting super freaking itchy on my hands and my feet to the extent where it was waking me up at night and I had full on insomnia. I could not handle it. It felt like like I was like through my skin. It was just so uncomfortable and luckily that was only a couple nights that was going on. And then I had my typical OB doctor's appointment. So since I apparently am a geriatric lady having a baby, I have lots of extra doctors appointments.
Speaker 1:So I had a doctor's appointment coming up and I asked my OB around about it and she explained that it could be indicative of this pregnancy complication called cholestasis. She wasn't super concerned about it because it's pretty rare and for those who do get diagnosed it's usually typically mild. So she said why don't we go ahead and do a blood test, figure it out. She gave me the threshold of the number she was looking at on a certain blood test so that I had that in my reference point. Move on. I had my non-stress test appointment Moving on a couple of days, but I'm waiting for the results. I'm waiting for the results and they take. There's only a few labs in the US that actually process these specific results.
Speaker 1:So it took about three days for the results to come back and when I saw the results hit on my little app, on my chart, and I was like, oh my gosh, this number is more than four times the number the doctor had referenced. Yeah, I'm not going to get specifics of my medical diagnosis, nor am I going to give any medical advice by any means on this episode, but, as you can imagine, having a number four times what the doctor had said, that ain't good. So I was trying to get hold of the doctor's office. They finally got a hold of me and they pretty much said you need to go to labor and delivery right now at the hospital to get checked out. So that I did Fast forward. I won't go through all the details, but I was in and out of labor and delivery three times in a 24 hour time period and it was pretty much a question of is this baby, are they going to have this baby come out? Now I got the diagnosis coliostasis is a liver complication.
Speaker 1:Where that is risky to both the mom and the baby, there is a high risk of stillbirth. There's also, during when you have this, there's liver damage going on. Luckily it all resolves itself once the baby comes out, but there's a pretty high risk that baby can come early and with that many complications, right, if the baby's lungs aren't developed, that's a big problem. You could have NICU time. There's just a lot of things and, as you can imagine, it's kind of scary to be like holy crap, what the hell is happening here. So, and as I've been talking about for the last six months or longer, my family and I have moved across the state in Oregon to Bend, and so we are here pretty much alone, not near friends and family. So it was yeah, it was pretty freaking scary.
Speaker 1:So at the time I had nothing ready. We had no diapers, we had no clothes for the baby. I thought I still had a month left and my whole focus as a business owner is. I got to get the podcast batched. I got to get my emails batched. I got to get my program finished and moved into this new on demand version, which I'm super excited to tell you about here today later. But I had all these other things on my list, right? We create these two lists and, ironically, the last episode that I published was all about building our own delusional deadlines for things which we create, our own stress and hilarious life. That served right back up in my face Crap, you thought you had this deadline in your head, but it turns out it could be much earlier. So luckily, they continue to monitor and test me and we were able to keep this baby cooking for longer.
Speaker 1:But it has been kind of on the edge of our seats over the last two weeks wondering is this the day that we're going to have to get this baby out? And luckily, my blood results. We've done multiple, multiple tests. They've been trending in the right direction. They're still high, so we do have to get this baby out sooner than later. So that will be coming very soon. I'll let you know later when it happens, probably going to go MIA for a little while, but I will still have episodes here waiting for you. So if you want the latest, be sure you're following along on Instagram at the Heather Sager. But for now this baby's cooking for at least a few more days and that's where we are.
Speaker 1:But it got me. It got me thinking about here's what's funny, right? There was no motivation to get ish done that when you're forced to get stuff done. So when I got back from the hospital, my two boys and I, we went to Target and I got on to Amazon and we pretty much bought all the bare essentials we needed. So we needed some swaddles, we needed some clothes, we needed diapers, we need wipes. There were just a few things that we absolutely had to have. Thank goodness for my older sister, melissa, who came into town right away to watch the boys and help us prep freezer breakfast burritos and get the house pseudo clean. And so we handled it right.
Speaker 1:But what I always laugh at is I think so often for us as entrepreneurs is we love dreaming and we love the hustle of the 11th hour, and that was definitely what happened in this situation of I had all these plans for how we were going to get ready for this addition to our family and for how my business was going to run while I was on leave. And then life happens and Ultimately there was a huge deadline pushed up and it came down to okay, what is absolutely necessary Not nice to have, absolutely necessary, that needs to happen. And then everything else will be gravy. And as much as that was stressful and I hated having that be forced upon me, I will say a deadline, a true deadline, is very clarifying, to help us focus and not waste our time, energy and money on things that really aren't critical to what we're building or what we're working on or, in my situation, growing in my uterus. So that's what brings me to today's conversation. I mean, I work with a lot of business owners.
Speaker 1:Every year there's conversations around annual planning, preparing for the end of the year, preparing for the new year, preparing for the plans, all these things. And I just laugh because back when I was in corporate, on the executive team at my former company, annual planning was I'll say this carefully. It was taken so seriously. But also I will just tell you it was a big, fat, freaking joke because every year it was like let's put together these binders and these plans and these big presentations and there was all this stress and pressure of it and then it was rarely ever referenced again, rarely ever referenced again. And I don't care like there for a decade how many times they adjusted the process, they adapted it. It's just.
Speaker 1:My take on strategic planning is probably different than most people, because, at the end of the day, in most businesses you can plan all the freaking time you want, but I think planning is just a big fat procrastination tool where we think we have more say in influence around what happens than actually does. I think, at the end of the day, you can't control the market, you can't control how your clients react to your messaging. There's so many things that are outside of your control that trying to put together this quote unquote perfect plan, thinking that if you follow it, then you're finally going to get the results you want, I think my friend is pretty delusional and at this point in late 2023, I think we need to open up our eyes a little bit to say we don't know what happens on any given week in this world. Things have changed very drastically over the last five years and actually thinking back on the last 15 years, oh my gosh, how much the world has changed, how much technology has changed, how much social behavior has changed in cultures, when we think about how people interact online, how people make purchasing decisions. So much has changed and we're not going to have an argument around of whether it's changed for the better or the worse to have your own opinions. I think there's probably sides on all the things.
Speaker 1:But the reality is, as an entrepreneur and as an expert and thought leader, you are an influencer to your audience. I know that word gets a lot of slack, but you have huge influence to the people that follow you and I would say that you have a responsibility to handle changes, to handle stressors, to handle curveballs with grace. You have a responsibility to demonstrate to your audience what it looks like to pivot, what it looks like to embrace change, what it looks like to endure hardship, what it looks like to navigate in a world that's a little bit unknown much of the time. That's kind of the job when you are a personal brand or you're leading an organization that's very public. When you have an audience or you have clients to serve, you have a responsibility to keep your freaking cool, even if you're freaking out quite a bit Now, as someone who's been in a leader, leadership position in the spotlight for 20 years.
Speaker 1:I will tell you, I wasn't always good at this, but it is a skill that I have developed, that I know that it doesn't matter what's going on behind the scenes, it doesn't matter what's going on in the world. I have a responsibility to show up and bring calm confidence to my audience. I might not know what's happening tomorrow, I might not know what's happening a month from now or a year from now, but what I do know is I can show up, I can be agile, I can continue to listen to my audience and their needs and continue to adapt my offers, my messaging, my demeanor, in a way that serves them, serves you, by the way, you, you are the audience and you could do the same thing for your audience. So I guess my little ramble here of what I'm trying to tell you is yeah, there is a lot of ish going on in my personal life right now. I'm one of those people that, for me, I share my stories. I feel like the experiences that I've had in my life the crazy ones, the wild ones, the traumatic ones, the happy ones I feel that I have been put on this earth with a very specific skill set, that I am a really incredible storyteller and, more importantly, I can tell my stories in a way that serves others. So a lot of times I share in real time what's going on with me.
Speaker 1:I'm not going to share every single detail, case in point. I'm not going to tell you when this baby's coming out exactly. I do not need the text messages of people saying how is it going? What's going on? Are you in labor? How's the baby? I don't need that. I don't need that in my life. So, thank you. If you want to send support, please just send me a little heart emoji on Instagram and say I'm thinking about you, but please do not ask me how I'm doing or the baby's doing. I just I don't need a million messages around that, but I promise I will post. Once we are in the clear and things look great, I will give you an update around the baby, but this probably will be the last update you hear from me around that until baby comes on Instagram and I again will not be posting it actively on that, and it'll probably be a while, at least a few days until I post that. Anyway, so I digress.
Speaker 1:Coming back is what I wanted to offer to you today is. I wrote some thoughts literally on a yellow post-it note around. If I were to sit down today with my clients and which I will be doing this week on our coaching calls and say, hey, I know there's a lot going on right now. I know you probably have a lot going on personally, professionally here's if I were in your shoes. Here's some of the questions or the areas of focus that I would just be visiting in my own brain to say, okay, how could I get some things together to have a strong end of the year and set myself up in the best way possible for 2024? So let's just, in no particular order, let's just go through these.
Speaker 1:So, number one audit your offers. This was something that I have learned that I've had to do over the last 18 months with a lot of the changes around in my business. Auditing your offers I think now is the time for you to really get present and say how are my offers working? How am I feeling energetically about my offers? How are my clients enjoying my offers? What's the results of what I'm teaching or doing inside of my offers? And what I say offer an offer essentially is what you sell.
Speaker 1:So whether you're selling a particular kind of one on one. Maybe you're doing what people call VIP days, where you're working with clients one on one for an intensive session. Maybe you're doing you have a series of digital courses or a group coaching program, or you have a membership, or you're doing consulting. Maybe you have different types of consulting packages or one on one packages and you're working with people in different ways. What I want you to think about, of all the different things that you sell, just take a look at your offers and ask are these still offers that are one serving your audience and two serving you? And I don't just mean from a financial perspective. But how are you feeling about your offers when someone buys a certain type of package or a certain thing? Do you instantly get this like, oh crap, no, I have to do that. Or do you get energized from it? Do you get excited?
Speaker 1:So, for example, one of my offers that I have is called my CEO Intensive Day. I don't publicly sell them. They are kind of a behind the scenes, off the menu offer that I do just with a handful of people, maybe once a month or once a quarter, but it's where my client would fly into Portland or now to Bend and we would work together for an entire day on their business strategy. So we take a look at the offer suites, we take a look at the messaging angles, we take a look around how they have positioned their brand and to support their vision for their offers. We do what I call home math hint of hustle math where we go through and create the math equations that say where do they need to be focused from a traffic perspective, leads perspective, conversions and sales. We then go into their offer suite and talk about the pricing levels of those offers. It is a CEO intensive because we think at the CEO level, setting the direction of the company and making sure the activities and the tactics that are lined up actually support the strategy. That's one of those offers.
Speaker 1:I love CEO days. The CEO Intensive is one of the my freaking favorite things that I do because my brain works differently than a lot of other people. I love strategizing on other people's businesses and strategy. I like hearing what their vision is and helping them create a plan to make it happen in alignment with their own style. There's not a one size fits all approach, so I use this example. As for me, when I look back on my calendar 2022, I'm like I want to do more of these. I love my CEO intensives, so I made that a focus of 2023 and I booked quite a few of those. Not a ton of them, because I don't do them very often, but I wanted to make sure that was prepped on the calendar. Another thing that I did at the end of last year is I really love coaching Like true coaching, not a like ask me a question, I give you an answer.
Speaker 1:But coaching is where you work with someone and you use guided questions to have them help go through this discovery process, for them to make their own decisions and put their priorities at center and learn how to really use their own critical thinking skills and truly grow as a person and as an entrepreneur. So in 2023, I launched an actual coaching one-on-one service. That wasn't speaking related. It was high performance coaching. It was what I called my amplified and aligned program. It was 12 weeks of coaching. I had a couple clients go through it. They freaking loved it. Many extended it going later into the year. But my aligned and amplified it's again not on my menu. It's not even anything to do with quote unquote speaking, but that kind of offer lit me up. Those are two examples of that I was also looking at last year.
Speaker 1:Going into the year I was feeling a little drained around how I was running my speaking program. If you've been with me for a while, you know I used to have a program called Speak Up to Level Up and then I sunset that program and brought on a business partner and launched a new program called the Speaker Society, which was kind of a combo of a course, coaching and membership all in one. It fell out of alignment for me when we and the business partner decided that it probably wasn't in our best interest to continue to move forward in that joint partnership. Instead, build our company side by side and collaborate. Obviously, I had to make some decisions around. Do I want to keep a software? Do I want to change a software? What do I really want to do? It took me a hot minute for me to get really clear around what aligns best with me energetically and gives my clients the absolute best results For me in 2023,.
Speaker 1:I totally switched things up and I invented a quote-unquote new program called the Signature Talk Accelerator to get my clients get their ideas out of their head, clarified and strategically placed around in messaging and a signature talk that they could go out and deliver it on stages, virtually live podcasts. Wherever they showed up, they felt confident, knowing that they had a message that attracted their ideal clients. It was done in days, not months. I knew that would be really important because over and over again, I have people reach out to work with me one-on-one and it's because they're on a super-frequent, tight deadline. They've booked a dream stage and they're like, oh man, I got to get something out now. So they didn't need to wait for me to launch a program. And they certainly didn't want to wait three, six, 12 months for a transformation. They wanted to get their talk done now. That, for me, was one of the offers that I've really leaned into and said I freaking love this offer and I'm leaning into it.
Speaker 1:In 2024, we are bringing out a self-paced on-demand version, which I am super freaking stoked about, because that is the number one thing. When you book a speaking gig, you don't want to wait to work with someone. You don't want to wait to get your ish together the night before. You want to know that the thoughts that you're crafting out on paper, you want to know that they're your best of the best, but you also want to not just build a one-trick pony to have to redo it every time you have a talk. You want to know that your talk is going to get your results on repeat. That's what we're doing.
Speaker 1:The Signature Talk Accelerator on-demand version will officially be launching in January. But, surprise, surprise, we are going to be doing a on-demand pre-sale starting, I think, this week, where if you pre-purchase the on-demand version, there are some freaking sweet bonuses and you get access to my Q1 live virtual event called Pitchfest, where I have my coach, james Wetmore, and my friends Zafira Rajan, who's been on the show multiple times. They're going to be coming in talking about visibility, talking about pitching, talking about positioning the event. Pitchfest is one of my favorite things. I have not done it in, I think, two years, but it is a strong start to the year.
Speaker 1:To help you go all right, how do I get myself out there in a big way? To stop hiding, stop being all freaked out about this concept of pitching myself, and boldly get your message out there. Those who participate or those who pre-purchase the Signature Talk Accelerator on-demand, you're going to get instant access to a couple trainings and then you'll get a ticket to Pitchfest in Q1. Keep an eye on your email. If you're on my email list or if you are not, you can join my email list on my website, heathersakercom. Or if you are looking specifically to get all the information on this on-demand version, just shoot me a DM on Instagram. Myself or one of my team members will reply back to you with a link so you can go check it out, including all of those bonuses. Bringing this back to you and my tip for you I Okay.
Speaker 1:First of all, I am more lit up about my offer suite than I have ever been, and my offer suite like when I think about what I'll be offering in 2024, for damn certain, I'm going to be offering this on-demand all the freaking time, and the reason is when you need to get a message out, you need to do it now and I want people to have access to that. In addition, my membership the Speaker Society that's where, once you build the rough draft of your talk, you can come in and get feedback on it. We can refine your message. We can work on your marketing and positioning as a Speaker and Thought Leader and start getting you on stages and start focusing on monetizing your talk. That's where I'm going to be spending. My time is inside the Speaker Society live coaching and feedback for my membership. So don't worry, if you do want to get feedback on your talk and on your strategy, you can absolutely jump into the Society once you're in the Accelerator on-demand version, so you can still get feedback even though it's on-demand. You can join the membership. But I'm excited about that. That's where my efforts are going to be. That's all I will be offering at the first part of 2024. Are those two things? And then my hope is to, yes, bring back the CEO intensives. I've actually already booked, I think, two of those for 2024, but I'll be offering just a couple more.
Speaker 1:But my vision is what really lights me up is I am a freaking ninja at live events. I love live events, specifically smaller, more intimate retreats. So my hope and let me know if you'd be interested in this I really want to host a CEO retreat in the spring here in Bend, oregon. It's beautiful, beautiful here. We can run a log cabin on the Deschutes River or we can rent something up at the mountain up a bachelor. We figure out the vibe. We want to go. But Penn is beautiful and I want to bring in just a small group of business owners and work on the business and work on collaborations, work on cross-marketing between aligned businesses. How can we all rise together and start building this really great network that serves our audiences in a better way? Doing retreats that's something that I really have on my radar and wishlist for this year.
Speaker 1:Now, bringing it back also to you. I want you really thinking about is what are the offers you're most excited about? Do you have any offers that it's time for you to sunset those? Could you run a sale on them and just be done and end them? Which offers do you need to look at and say this is the thing I'm going to lean in hard Now.
Speaker 1:My encouragement for you is choose one offer that's going to be your main Build your brand and messaging around that. For example, for me, my main forward-facing offer moving forward is a Sixer Talk Accelerator on demand. That is what all roads lead to. That's what I'm focused on. All my freebies are going to be leading there like that is full disclaimer. You're going to be on the receiving end, probably, of that marketing. That's why I'm focused, because that's where I know I can serve people best in the moment, helping you get your ideas out of your head so you sound like the incredible qualified expert that you are.
Speaker 1:That is the unique problem that I solve. I do it in a lot of different ways, but the starting point for anyone that I work with is we got to get it out and we got to get it laid out in an effective talk. That is the name of the game. That's where we have to start For you. I want you thinking about what is your main offer? If you have multiple offers, that's fine, but just make sure that you have a main offer, because that'll bring you a lot more clarity around your marketing and your positioning.
Speaker 1:When you're showing up and either speaking, whether you're adjusting copy on your website or figuring out what to post on social, if you're trying to sell a bunch of different offers, it makes it very complex for both you and for your audience. My mantra here is how can you simplify Out of your offers? Are they working for you or are they working for your audience, or are you still lit up with them? Is there an opportunity for you to simplify? The second thing that I would be looking at if I ran your shoes right now, which?
Speaker 1:This is what I've done over the last few months is I have really gotten clear around what is the actual revenue target that has to be hit this quarter. There's the has to hit of the break even and there's the nice to hit. You can set some targets above that. But my question for you is are you really clear around what your revenue goal is between now and the end of the year? And, looking at your offer suite, are you clear on the math? What will it take for you to hit that number? And when you do the math? For example, take your total revenue goal. Let's say revenue goal between now and the end of the year is 20 grand and your offer is $500. What is that? I should have done that math here for a second. Oh my gosh, it's live math. Oh my gosh, I am good at math, but when I put on the spot okay, so 20 grand divided by $500 should be a 40. Okay, so you would need 40 sales if your offer was 500 bucks and you want to do 20 grand and let's say that's the only thing you were selling. I just did revenue divided by sales price gets me number of units sold.
Speaker 1:My question for you is do you know your business math? Do you know what your numbers are? And what I find and I am. It hurts me to say this, but for most business owners, when I ask them what their revenue goal is, they have a number, but the connection between what needs to happen to get to that number and what they're working on is broken, meaning like we can do that math there and say, all right, you got to sell 40 units. And then I ask well, okay, so what are we working on? Well, the question is like, if you're just spending your time creating social media posts or writing blog posts or I don't know, doing coffee chats or whatever it is, I mean, I understand that that kind of stuff, indirectly, will hopefully one day bring in leads.
Speaker 1:But what we need to think about is, when we have a tight deadline AKA six weeks left in the year, and you need to make 40 sales, you need to be working as close to the sales conversion point as possible. So meaning, okay, when it comes into business I've talked about this before, but there's a flow, right there's. You get eyes on your business. That's called traffic. You convert those eyeballs into leads, aka people on your email list, more specifically, people registering for some kind of sales mechanism. So booking a sales call or attending your webinar or attending your challenge or entering your sales funnel that is a true lead, is someone who is really in your sales funnel. Then you have an opportunity to convert them into a sale. And then retention keep that person or upsells or just customer lifetime value, rattling off some numbers here but traffic, leads, conversion, retention that is the business equation.
Speaker 1:Okay, what I find is most entrepreneurs who are not hitting the revenue goals are working farther from that sales piece, aka that conversion. If you're looking at your revenue goal and you're like I have no idea how the hell I'm going to hit it, what I want you asking it is how are you specifically ensuring you're getting leads and converting those leads you also could be thinking about let me look at my existing customers how can I retain them and upsell? So it's a different way to bring in money. Is there an extension of your services? You can offer that? You can upsell the customers that you already have. So working closer to that sales point will bring you in more sales.
Speaker 1:Spending time further from that sales point. Yes, the seeds we sow will pay off at one point down the road. I don't know. You know what I mean, right? But when you're constantly, always working in that like, let me just get more, let me get more traffic, let me get more eyeballs, let me just show my website, let me read it, let me revamp my freebie, when we're in that world, you're six degrees of what is that? Six degrees of separation. You're too far away from the sales. This is the time for you to get really clear and say how could I just cut my activities and be really specific around doing things that are going to be aligned with more sales?
Speaker 1:Example of this if you have an automated webinar funnel or if you have some kind of let's say, you do sales calls unless you're like I don't fancy, I don't have a launch coming up, I don't have all those things, my thing's not open. Okay, great, do you have an offer that can run off of a sales call? The question is how can you get more sales calls? How can you build up demand and desire for people to want to get on the phone with you to talk about the solution that your offer provides? That's where I would just put my head down and say boom Now.
Speaker 1:Side note if you're one of my Speaker Society members. You have a sales call training in your portal where I teach you how to close those sales calls. I'm really fricking good at that. That's what I taught from stages for 10 years. So you can check out my discovery call training that is in your masterclass vault inside the Speaker Society. If you're not in the Speaker Society and you're like, hey, heather, I really would love to learn how to more confidently lead one-on-one sales calls to be able to sell my group program or my higher ticket one-on-one services. If you would like access to that training, shoot me a direct message on Instagram. We are considering opening up that training just for Black Friday. I have never done a big Black Friday offer or sale, but we are thinking that that training right there would help you close tickets on sales between now and the end of the year. So if you would find value in that, just shoot me an Instagram DM and let me know and we will throw together that offer behind the scenes.
Speaker 1:Okay so, number one, I want you to audit your offers to make sure they're aligned. Number two, I want you to map your revenue and make your efforts more tied to sales so that you can hit your revenue numbers this year. That's what I would be focusing on as I close out the year. In fact, that's what my team and I are have been focused on as we close out the year. Okay, number three and four these two, I'm super excited to share these with you. So, number three this one, I think, is the most important I want you to prioritize rest for yourself.
Speaker 1:The winter season, naturally, is a season where our bodies just need a little more rest. It's hibernation mode. We need a little bit more downtime and also, you probably are going to have some higher demands from your personal lives, whether it's social engagements with family, it's with traditions that you do, there's going to be. You're going to probably have higher demands of yourself than normal. So my recommendation for you, and one of the reasons why I say cut the clutter and prioritize closer to the point of sale is so that you can use this time and say, okay, if I'm going to lean in and hustle a little bit to make sales Remember this show is called hint of hustle that we lean in when necessary and we lean back to, and I really, really hope that you prioritize some rest time for yourself. Now, that might look different for each listener on this show.
Speaker 1:Some people really love to bunker down. I know, before I had kids, I actually really liked working over the holidays at my corporate office because it was really quiet, less disruptions and I can get a lot of stuff done. So if you're one of those people like I actually really love working over the holidays because it's quite online, I can just focus then yes, do that, but make sure you also plan some rest time for yourself in Q1. If you're the kind of person that wants to space, like for me as a mom, I like to not work when my kids are home and there are a crap ton of breaks over the course of the holidays. We have one for Thanksgiving here in the US for a full week.
Speaker 1:My sister jokes that November is no school November because there's so many days off for kids in November and then there's like a full week, two weeks off, maybe two and a half weeks off in December, january. I mean, obviously I'm going to be recovering from childbirth, so I will be taking time off. But on a normal quote, unquote, normal year, I would absolutely be taking time off of my business. I've designed my business so that I can work while my kids are at school and then enjoy it when they're not in school, and also take random Fridays off to go get pedicures or whatever. But prioritize rest. Let me just tell you this it's going to set you up so much better to be focused and present in 2024 if you have rest baked in already. So please, please, prioritize that for yourself and just know that rest could look very different for you. It could be you taking a three day weekend, or you going for a hike or heading up to the mountain for snowboarding. It could be you taking time off to make cookies with your kids or whatever that looks like. You get to define it Just freaking. Take it, please, please, take it, take, take rest, because our brains need that time and I will tell you you will be more fired up, more creative, more Okay, it's going to sound weird, but more tolerant of your business.
Speaker 1:If you've ever got to that point where you feel a little burned out sometimes you get a little result full of your clients or you get a little annoyed or perturbed of stupid comments on Instagram or stupid posts around people and Facebook groups and you find yourself going a little cynical that is your cue that you need to step up and take a break and focus on how freaking amazing is it that you have space and time to do what you want to do because you run a business. That appreciation, that gratitude, that presence it really does switch your perspective when you're able to jump back in. Side note, I think we're going to talk about on the next week's episode, because I have a whole rant I want to talk about on that. So be sure to tune in next week for more. But let's move on to my last nugget for you around how to, if I were in your shoes, how to really end the year strong and prep for 2024.
Speaker 1:This one is super tactical and inspired by one of my Speaker Society members who posted about it this week. Shout out to Emily Reagan. Thank you for putting this back on my radar, because I forget. I like to remind everybody to do this every freaking year. Emily had posted this week inside our community. She goes hey, friends, just a reminder to double check your LinkedIn profile. And if you really want to come across legit online, I got a reminder this week to change your cover photo to a speaking photo. Now, emily was at my bougie biz retreat. It was one of my first CEO retreats. I did last fall and I had a photographer there and I had all of my attendees give presentations up front so that they can get real time footage and photos of them speaking. So she used one of the photos from that retreat of her speaking on stage on her LinkedIn profile and she posted a screenshot of now what her profile looks like. And so, emily, it looks awesome, by the way.
Speaker 1:But the takeaway for each of you is, with this season, where your schedule might be a little slower, if you do want to do something that will, I think, serve you in the future, set a timer. I think maybe 60 minutes, maybe 90 minutes, but I want you to audit your online storefront, and what I mean by that is I want you to do a little tour and say what happens when you Google your name. What happens when you go to your LinkedIn profile, your YouTube account, your Instagram profile, your Threads profile, anywhere that you have a profile online or an internet front door, aka your website, or you Google it and you see other things pop up. I want you just to notice what do you see? And the reason why we put timer on this is I do not want you to go to rabbit hole going oh my gosh, I have to redo my website. However, this might be an opportunity for you to go. What is that first impression people get when they land on my profile or they Google me after hearing me in an interview? What do they see?
Speaker 1:And my challenge for you is what could you do to, visually and through written word, enhance your online image? Look a little more legit, because you are legit, but sometimes, let's be honest we create these things and then we forget about them. How can we just do a shish little refresh? Are there some things on your website that you, like I want you to think about? Here's a really tactical one. So two things. One, borrow from what I teach and have my program and what Emily did.
Speaker 1:If you can find a picture of you speaking and if you can't, that's totally fine. But if you can find a picture of you speaking, even if it's virtual, can you use that on your website or on your social profiles or on something Send the visual cue of I am a speaker, I am a thought leader. People bring me in to share my expertise with their audiences. That is huge. Get that out there. And if you don't have that, put that on your list of 2024, that when you do your next speaking gig, even if it's the podcast interview, get some footage of you speaking. Set up a camera over to the side, like now, you have that on your radar.
Speaker 1:But I also want you to think about okay, a second piece is, if you were to go on your website, does it actually call out that you are a speaker, that you are booking speaking opportunities or guest speaking opportunities? So one quick thing that you can do is, if you have a let's see if you've done podcast interviews or you have spoken on stage or in site groups at all in 2023, I would recommend that you create a little piece on your website, on your about page. You don't have to have a speaking page. If you don't have one, that's okay. Full disclaimer. I don't have a speaking page. I just added a section to the bottom of my about page on my website just to get it done. We're working on officially adding a speaking page to my new site, but what you can do is literally just write out hear us like, as seen on or recent podcast interviews Zafira, who was on the show a couple of weeks ago what we can link to her on the website or on the show notes.
Speaker 1:She has an incredible speaking page. It's awesome. It does a really great job showcasing her authority. A couple of weeks ago she was on and we were talking about her speaking at the Make your Market. Then, after her and I worked together, she infused those photos on her speaking page. She has a section of recent podcast interviews featuring her interview on a hint of hustle. So I take a page for that playbook.
Speaker 1:If you want to be more visible in 2024, start showing that you already are visible. Even if it's only one appearance you've done right, get it on your radar. And if you haven't done it yet, just put that on your radar. Just start collecting those as you go. But if you want to be seen as that thought leader, you need to showcase that you are that thought leader. Show yourself speaking, show where you've been. Another page from one of my clients playbooks, nick Hathorley, who was on the show a couple months ago. She had a really great tip. I can't remember if she shared this in the interview or she shared this with me later inside the Speaker of Society, but she created a Spotify playlist of all of her guest speaking opportunities and she has that available, so if people want to get a sense of her speaking style, she can link them to her Spotify playlist. That is an easy way to do it. If you do not have technology where you can round those things up on your website, it's great.
Speaker 1:The takeaway here is to set yourself up for the best visibility you've had in your business in 2024. You can do these little things right now to set you up, get those building blocks started so that you can be positioned more as authority next year and then, hopefully, if we can help you get your signature talk dialed in and you want to join me at PitchFest so we can really make a big splash of getting your name out there. Ooh, if you already have something started, you are going to hit the ground running, my friend. Okay, I hope this got you not only thinking today, but got you going. All right, let me just take a deep breath here Into the year. The world is not falling apart. I can do this. We have a six-week runway. Let's plan and some rest. Let's prioritize revenue and let's do a couple of things that are going to help you feel more prepared for next year, knowing that you being seen, you being heard, is your ticket to you making an impact, the people that you want to make an impact with. So we have to make sure that your ish is together, that you have a calmness about you, an enthusiastic quality around the future, and that starts with you handling your present. But that's the name of the game here. That's what we want to focus on and that is my message for you today. My friend, thanks for letting me share with you my personal journey of what's going on with my pregnancy. I'll keep you posted. Follow me on Instagram.
Speaker 1:I'm sure at some point, when I get back to recording episodes, I will have some more updates. But the next series of episodes over the next few weeks, probably the next month or two I'm pre-batching those. We are recording those. I have some best of episodes coming. I have some on webinars, communication skills, auditing your offers. We have a lot of different topics coming up, so you are going to be well taken care of on the show here the next few weeks.
Speaker 1:If you want to reach out and connect, please send me a direct message on Instagram at the Heather Saker. We can talk about any of the things I mentioned today, but again, please do not send me a message to say, heather, how are you feeling, how are you and the baby? That's probably not the message, but if you want to say, heather, I'm thinking of you sitting some love, totally fine, I might not get back to you for a hot minute, but if you want to learn more about the Signature Talk Accelerator on demand to get your talk knocked out quickly and join me for pitch fest in Q1, we'll get more information on that either in the show notes or shoot me a direct message on Instagram. It probably also will be on the homepage of my website, heathersakercom. And if you want to learn more about that sales call training if you want to learn how to connect with people on the phone and sell in a way that's really seamless it's not schmucky, but it's led through conversations and clarity around what your client needs and aligning your offer to that. I'm damn good at sales and I can teach you how to become a ninja at them too. If you want to learn more about that and you'd love for me to offer that as an exclusive Black Friday promotion, shoot me a direct message on Instagram and just let me know, and my team is on standby ready to get that rolled out, should there be a request for it.
Speaker 1:All right, friends, I will talk to you real soon. Thank you so much. I know you're sending me good vibes. I know I can, just so you know. I know I can feel it. I feel so supported. I feel so grateful that I have such an amazing community, and thank you for letting me share with you what's going on with me in my world, because I think this whole thing around business and life, it's all blended. That's why we became entrepreneurs. So I hope that your life and business is ending the year really strong and that you're taking time for yourself and I will see you.
Speaker 1:Well, thanks for listening to another episode of the hint of hustle podcast. That flew right by, didn't it Gosh? I hope I didn't say anything super embarrassing today, but if I did, it's pretty much on brand. If you love today's episode, be sure to scroll on down wherever you're listening from, and if you haven't yet left a review, it would mean the world. Hit those five stars. Tell other people who are prospecting podcasts how awesome this show is. Give us a little love. We would appreciate that. And hey, if you're hungry for more of what we do here on the show, you can peruse all of the past episodes, grab the show notes and find out the latest free resources to help you get seen, heard and paid for sharing your expertise. Head on over to heathersegarcom. You can also grab the link wherever you're listening to this episode and we'll see you in the next one.