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Why Focusing On Q4 Is The Best Preparation For 2023

TRANSCRIPT

TRANSCRIPT AUTOMATICALLY GENERATED Hey, Hey, so we are well into Q four and I wanted to jump in today on a solar episode to chat about what I normally see happen in people's businesses at this time of year. And why this time of year is actually really key. Two. Your success next year. At this time of year, end of October, we start to see one of two things we see. The camp that all. 2023. It's kind of the like diet starts on Monday version, but in the business world, right. We'll start again on January 1st, We're thinking about all the things that we're going to do next year, rather than what we want to do before year And the other camp that you see. Is the high pressure push. Two wards year end, finished strong is the slogan for that camp. Here's the thing. Both of those are going to cause problems for you now in Q4, but also in 2023. So let's talk about where we're not really thinking about. Q4. It's the end of October you have, if we take out some of the holidays and stuff, probably 60 days. So two good solid months. Of the year left. So that's like, Like 15%, let's say, I think it's, I think one sixth is like slightly more rounded, but we'll say like 15% That removes it from being this like, oh, well the year is almost over, actually. It's not, you're only 85% of the way there. And while 85% might be a good solid a You have an opportunity to really push yourself a little bit towards your end. I'm going to talk about [00:02:00] how in a minute. If you're in the other camp and you've maybe set yourself. I get a really big, scary target for the end of the year. I want you to take a moment. And ask yourself whether that target is a need. Or a want, right. Is it something that you're striving for or is it like, Hey, I need that money to pay bills. Very often the large target is like, I want to see what I can achieve. And that's great. I'm all about stretching yourself. But at this time of year, when you start to put that intense pressure on yourself with that limited timeframe, It's one thing to have a really big goal in January. It's another thing to have a really big goal in November. Y you need to really watch yourself in this particular area, is that that intense pressure can lead to less than ideal. Decision-making. And often at this time of year, you are going to pay for those decisions. In 2023. So wanting to hit that big target maybe looks like taking on clients that you wouldn't normally accept. And then you're stuck with a pain in the ass client for all of 2023, It looks like selling something that you no longer love delivering that you are now going to be stuck delivering in 2023. fortunately, whichever of these two camps you're in, whether you're kind of like died, starts on Monday, or like finished strong, whichever of those that you fall the thing that's going to keep you on track is. The same. And that is figuring out what your needle mover is for the next 60 days. What is the one thing that you could focus on? To move the needle for year end. for The diet starts on Monday crew that gives you something to focus on. It gives you something that sets you up. Really well for 2023, because if you do have a really good end to the year, you go into that new year, that much more confident. And so those goals that you're sort of vaguely thinking about, maybe they become even more exciting. Maybe you stretch even further in 2023, so we're not removing or focus on 2023. [00:04:00] We're just using it to our advantage. Then for the finish strong This is going to help you to not try to do everything. And to not do the things that you know, aren't good for you. It's really going to help you make decisions That in the moment might be really difficult if you didn't have this focus. Let's say your focus is to bring four new people. Into your mastermind, for example. when the squirrel runs across you and you think yes. And I can do that as well to finish Rather than now having two focus points, you can be like, Is this idea in service of me bringing four people into my mastermind. And if it's not, we can put it politely to the side to revisit. When we come to do 20, 23 planning. And it's going to allow you to make more progress than you would make if you scattered your attention. So if you're trying to do five different To finish strong for the year. Your attention is split. It's only two months. That's not going to lead to real results, but if you really honed in on what it is you want to do in for year end. And got really clear on that you could make real progress. So no matter which camp you're. And you're going to pick a single focus for the rest of the year. This is going to allow you to both have a Q4 that you can be proud of and set yourself up really nicely for 2023. Secondly, because of where we are in the timeline, because we all coming up on a year end, it's natural for us to start. Thinking a little bit about 20, 23, right. It's waving at So in Q4, what we really want to be doing is preparing for 2023. Notice I said, preparing, not planning. Planning is going to distract us from the needle mover that we're trying to do. Preparing is us thinking about what we might need for 2023. And here's where I really want you to focus. While you're working on the needle mover [00:06:00] for Q4. I want you to Take some time out, take an hour, whatever. I get a blank piece of paper. And just like brainstorm all the things you might want to do in 2023. You're not going to pick between them. You're not going to investigate them. You're not going to do anything. You might just be like these, my financial goals is my marketing ideas. This is why I need to go with team. Just get it all out of your And then I want you to sink about in 2023. What would you need to be measuring for those Okay, so let's take a step back if you're in a growth phase in your business, you're trying to increase your revenue. You are probably thinking about front facing client facing goals. So when you're measuring things next year, all of those kinds of marketing KPIs that go from like how much traffic did I get to who converted. That whole. , ecosystem of KPIs. So like traffic. , leads or opt-ins. booked a call, had a call converted or looked at the sales page, clicked on the cart, paid for the call. You probably already have that information, but if you're not Now is the time to go and check, go and check. If you have a Google analytics or a plausible, or one of the tracking softwares. Available to you. So that when it comes to next year and you say, okay, we want to increase our traffic. You know what you're increasing your traffic from. the biggest problem I see is when people get focused on something and they start measuring it is they don't have a baseline to start If you don't know what your com your conversion rate is on a sales call, how can you improve it? Now you're stuck, spinning the whole of Q1, developing the baseline for these KPIs. So where your focus is going to be next year, where you want to think, how am I measuring that this year? I am I already collecting the data. So make Q4 the baseline. If you're in a optimization stabilization phase where either you are building the back [00:08:00] end to meet the growth that you've just gone through. You grew really fast and now you're like, okay, wait, where all the systems where all the processes. How much more team do I need? What's on my plate. That shouldn't be. All you're looking at something like profit and bring, how do I optimize this? How do I increase my profit? How do I increase my profit margin? These are probably KPIs that you are maybe. Not monitoring as closely, . We tend to be really comfortable with the marketing ones. Still go and check that you have them. But for example, if you want to make sure that you are delivering a really high level of service, even though. You've grown substantially. So maybe you, instead of having 50 people in your program, you now have a hundred people in your program. How do you know that they're getting a great service? On the fulfillment end, are they getting everything they need? Are they getting the customer service that they need? Maybe you want to think about adding in. A net promoter score, which is, you know, when you ask someone like, would you refer me to your friends and family one to five, right? That's a net promoter score. You might want to think about. Looking at turnaround times on things you might want to look at spending over time. If you're looking at profit. Again, what we're trying to do is think about the things that we might want to look at. Just because you think about those doesn't mean you have to focus on that in 2023, you're looking at all the things you might want to focus on. And then making sure that you have the data. That you need to create a baseline. So you have at least 60 days of baseline data before you go into the new year. That is going to make such a big impact. On how quickly you respond to things in Q1. Because without that data, you don't know if you're. People are suddenly unhappy. In your course. You don't know if. Your systems have got less efficient, right? If things are breaking more often because you've been through this growth. You don't know if your sales team are outperforming the previous year, because you're not looking at conversions. You're just [00:10:00] looking at revenue. So this is really important data to have, and you will probably need to work with your team around this. . I'm not suggesting you go and collate all this data. I'm not suggesting even build a dashboard for it. I'm just suggesting you make sure that it is being collected. So that you can use it and analyze it once you've planned for 2023. Okay. Finally, the third thing I want you to focus on. In Q4 to set yourself up for 2023. Is. Maybe something that's going to be a little, a little out I don't know about you, but my inbox is full to the brim at the moment with people telling me. Why I should have a black Friday offer how to create a black Friday offer offering, drop me, copy for a black Friday offer. . And you know that as soon as we get like, A little bit into November, then the actual black Friday offers are going to come. So this is the season of FOMO. What often happens because it's towards the end of the year, people are looking at like, oh, I've got this profit and I haven't spent it. So let me spend it in this tax year. And so we start to make. A slightly more rash decisions than we necessarily would. So I want to challenge you to sit down and think about what might you need. So we've already brainstormed what you think you might. Want to do in 2023. I want you to think about what you might need in terms Maybe it's for example, you want a Facebook ads course for one of your team. You as the CEO. It's not your time to be doing courses anymore. You have a team. Let them learn the skill. You can pick up the basics from them. But if you're looking for tactical courses, I want you to also think who is this for in my team. So maybe you want like something on social media, maybe you want something. On. Templates to use in dub Sato. So tactical things that your team might need. But you as a CEO, probably looking for two types of support, one done for you support, right. You should not be thinking about hiring [00:12:00] team members or contractors based on black Friday sales. That's not how we do hiring. The other kind of support is that strategic support that you need to run your business at the level that it's at. And that can come in two different ways. I can come through masterminds. We all know that there are a lot of masterminds that. Open up at this time of year to start in the new year. Or it looks like one-to-one support. I want you to ask yourself if you're looking for more input, so more ideas, then you're probably looking at the mastermind route. If you're looking for that more strategic sounding board. That strategic partner in your business, you're probably looking at more of a one-to-one situation. But I want you to sink this through for you and for your business. Before we get into the season that is black Friday followed by all the holiday stuff, We are making a ton of decisions at this time of year. We are dealing with a ton of personal life stuff and family relations and all of that good stuff. So our decision-making is already being tested. We don't also then want to spend a bunch of money on something that would never, ever going to look at. While still actually wanting to spot the opportunity. For the stuff that you might need. making those kinds of decisions now, before all the FOMO, before all the discounts before all the. Very persuasive sales pages and sales emails is really going to allow you to find the things that you need for 2023 and ignore the things that aren't relevant to you. No matter how good the sales copy is. Okay. Let's recap. First of all being successful in Q4 is going to set you up for 2023 and we're going to chase that by narrowing our focus into one big needle. Move up for the next 60 days. Second of all. We're going to think about what we might want to be measuring next year. We want to think about what our goals might be. For 2023. We're going to think about how we know that we were successful in those goals. And we're going to [00:14:00] make damn sure that we're creating a baseline for that data measurement in Q4. So we can start measuring our progress from day one of 2023. And finally, we're going to prepare us selves for really good decision-making by taking some time out, to work out what kind of tactical courses or support our team might need and what strategic level support you might need as the CEO going into 2023. So that when all the offers start coming, you can ignore the ones that are just noise to you, and you can get really focused on the ones that might be a great opportunity for I Remember, we're focusing on Q4 to prepare for 2023. We're not planning for 2023 yet. Because we still have 60 ish days to go.


The year is not over but we can see 2023 beckoning so it can be hard to know where to focus our time and attention.

Key Takeaway

We need to be focused on Q4 to prepare for 2023 but we're not planning for 2023 because we still have 60 ish days to go.

In This Episode

  • The two types of approaches to Q4
  • How Focus in Q4 sets up success in 2023
  • The one thing you’re probably not doing that you’ll need from day 1 in 2023
  • The danger zone in Q4

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Disclaimer:

The information contained above is provided for information purposes only. The contents of this podcast episode and article are not intended to amount to advice and you should not rely on any of the contents of this article or episode. Professional advice should be obtained before taking or refraining from taking any action as a result of the contents of this article. Diane Mayor disclaims all liability and responsibility arising from any reliance placed on any of the contents of this article.