[00:01:40] Heather Sager: Welcome back to another episode, friend. It is a Friday when I am recording this and I am on fire because I just finished a round of interviews that I am so excited for you to hear starting with today's guest, Katie Wussow, who's a business coach who helps entrepreneurs start and grow their business so they can make a living doing what they love.
And let me tell you, I've been following Katie for quite some time and one of the things that I love most about her is she is really good at planning, like really good at planning. This is going to sound very weird here for a second, but I started really admiring on Instagram stories when Katie would talk about batching out her social media and doing content planning and doing her quarterly planning. And I was just like, man, this girl plans on plants and I know she doesn't work a ton and I know she has clients and I know she has kids at home. Like how does she do it all? I've just been very like, wow. And y'all know, I only bring people on the show that I actually like would stamp their quality of work and what they do, and Katie is dang good at what she does and she has a knack for explaining her work, and you're going to hear that today.
Katie has one of the best analogies I have heard someone deliver on the show and it's all about Trader Joe's and what your missing when it comes to your creating a strategic plan. So I can't wait for you to dig in and listen to this one, but the reason why this episode is so important for you today is because at the time this drops, you're going to be two days away from the start of the last quarter of 2021. And if you're like most entrepreneurs, it feels like the last 18 months have simultaneously flown by and sludged by like a sloth.
It's the end of the year. It's time for us to start being far more intentional with our planning. And most entrepreneurs, myself included, we either come up with these huge dreamless for a quarter and then abandoned ship on the plan because we have a harsh come into Jesus where we realize that we can't get all those things done. So then we figure out what's the next planning tool, or what's the next reset, or how are we just going to hold on to the business moving at lightning speed by the edge of our fingertips?
Here's the thing. If you want to truly level up in business and create more flexibility and freedom, I know that's such jargony terms that everybody and their mom uses to market their lifestyle business on Instagram, but we all know, like we're looking for some breathing room in our lives where we don't feel like we're enslaved to our businesses. We feel like they're creating more time for us to do the things that we want. If we want that to truly happen, you have to come up with not just a plan, not just a content plan, not just a good to-do list. It's not just using your fancy little quarterly planner. It's being thoughtful and mindful and strategic with how you approach your business.
Katie's going to share with us today how to go about planning for the fourth quarter, but also help you avoid some of the traps that happen for most of us when it comes to driving life from a to-do list versus really getting intentional with a strategy. She talks about what is a strategic priority and why you need one and why your sales goal might not be just that or your launch isn't a strategy. She gives us some filtering questions for us to avoid shiny object syndrome and help us understand where sometimes we are our own first enemy. As an entrepreneur, we come up with a lot of ideas which also means that we are the source of the shiny objects distracting us from following through on our plants so we're going to talk about that.
She's also going to share with us some of the mistakes people make when it comes to the planning process, specifically, with goal setting and how to avoid them. And of course, as I mentioned, she's going to share with you one dang good analogy around Trader Joe's, which is my favorite grocery store. And why, how right now the to-do list that you're creating, how it's a little bit like shopping at Trader Joe's, and she's going to tell you a different way to do it that's going to help you find I think more ease, but also more outcomes in your business. I can't wait for you to hear more from Katie.
But hey, before we dive into this episode as we think about entering this next quarter, remember that this is the time for you to show up in a big way. This is the time for you to start thinking about how visibility is part of these strategic goals for your business. So if you've been wondering, okay, how am I going to really go on my email lists this quarter? Or if you're wondering, how am I going to start attracting actual clients who want to pay me, not just snatch up my freebie. If you've been thinking, oh, how do I get seen as more of a thought leader in my industry and not just another, another pony on Instagram throwing out tips and tricks and strategies. Like how do actually, how do I move to have people look at me and my thoughts as something truly valuable.
Well, a lot of this stems from you really learning how to articulate your ideas with influence and persuasion and captivation. Your voice is your most powerful brand instrument. It's brand asset that you have. You hear me say this all the time, and my question for you is if you're sitting here almost to the end of 2021 and you do not feel totally confident in your voice and what you have to say when you show up on guest platform, knowing that it's not only going to serve your ideal audience, but is actually going to drive tangible results back in your business. Please, for the love of cheese, let me help you with that.
That's exactly what we do inside my free training, where I walk you through the recipe to apply it to your area of expertise. That's your message, your core message that you should be using when you show up on guest stages and on your stages on repeat so that you actually attract businesses into your world. If you want to learn how to do that and how to step into a more confident version of you head on over to heathersager.com/speak and I will teach you a formula that you can use that will help you show up with confidence, but not sound like you're using a formula. You gotta learn how to talk like you, you got to learn how to take your expertise in a way that's going to feel authentic, but also truly resonate with your audience. Head on over to heathersager.com/speak and we'll do it in that class. All right. Let's jump into the episode with Katie.
All right, friends. Well, welcome back to another episode. I am thrilled to have Katie here. Welcome. Welcome to the show, mydear.
[00:08:35] Katie Wussow: Thank you so much for having me. This is great.
[00:08:37] Heather Sager: This is like swapsies. I had the pleasure of being on your show here this last month and now you get to be on mine, so I love a good podcast swap, right?
[00:08:47] Katie Wussow: Absolutely. It's really nice when it works out that way, so it's a pleasure to be on.
[00:08:52] Heather Sager: Yeah. Let's a little dive in all the goodies here. We're gonna talk about a lot of things. I have lots of questions for you today around we're going to geek out over the topic of planning, like strategic planning, and it's like the great time because, literally, this week bursts a new quarter in business. And I dunno, I've done planning episodes before but to be perfectly honest with you, I deprioritize planning in my business and I'm more of a build the plane as she flies kind of entrepreneurs, so if you are like that too, this episode will benefit for you today, but Katie, you're a business coach. Why don't you talk a little bit about who you specifically serve and a little bit about your business?
[00:09:30] Katie Wussow: Yeah, well, I love this topic. It's really the focus of my business is helping creative entrepreneurs, including service-based entrepreneurs, like graphic designers and interior designers, photographers, and also coaches and influencer thought leader types. I help them create a real plan around what they're doing in their business that is strategic, that is focused, that is well thought out and most importantly, actionable. So many people, they are kind of winging it in what they're doing in their business and because of that, aren't necessarily getting the results that they really need to make a full time, a real living doing what they love to do. And so that's what I help people do.
[00:10:09] Heather Sager: Okay. I love that. I love that you bring up this idea enough for them to sustain a living in what they do, because I mean, just going here for a second. I think it's really easy as an entrepreneur when you, It's going to sound bad, when you stumble into success, right? And what I mean by that is, we don't necessarily stumble into it. We do things that cause our success, but a lot of entrepreneurs don't know how to replicate that. How do they actually do it over and over again, and that's kind of what you're talking about here is how do you do it on repeat. So I'm curious, why do you think so many people have this love or hate relationship with the idea of planning?
[00:10:45] Katie Wussow: I think there's so many different reasons why and personality definitely comes into play. I think there are a lot of people that have a sort of fatalistic mindset around planning, which is like, why plan if nothing ever works out the way you think it's going to. They think like I'm gonna sit down, I'm going to make this plan for my business, it's going to be great. And then, we're going to have a pandemic, or my kids are going to get sick, or something is going to happen that is going to derail me and it's just going to become another source of frustration in my life and in my business, and so why bother? So there's that piece.
I think there are a lot of people that question their ability to follow through with a plan, and you see this a lot. There's a lot of people that would really love to get farther out and ahead of their blog, or their content, or whatever sort of things they need to be producing consistently. There's people that would love to say, to get four weeks ahead, but they struggled to actually follow through and execute the plans that they've made. So I think there's a little bit of, I'm not really actually going to be able to do it, so I'm not going to bother, and then there's the challenge of time.
Planning is a different animal than sitting down at your computer and doing tasks, and doing projects, and doing client work. And it's difficult for a lot of people to see the value in planning your work. They think it's a distraction from doing the work and doing the work is what's most important. Billing the hours for the clients is what's most important. Being there for my clients and for my audience or whatever you're doing is most important, and planning really is just a distraction from that. So I think there's a lot of different reasons why people don't plan.
And then the last is I think a lot of people think that they are planning, but they're not really. They have a long list of things that they would like to do in their business and they have, you know, maybe they have a few different promotions or launches planned in their business, maybe they have some content planned out and then they think that is a business plan. But in fact, it's just a collection of tasks and projects, not an actual plan for the business.
[00:12:52] Heather Sager: Let's go there. Let's talk about that because I think that is how most entrepreneurs approach things is, and there's probably a lot of reasons why, right? But most people are operating off of a to-do list, not necessarily a plan. So why don't we, I know this is something that you talk about a lot of like defining the difference between the two. I'll just say this big fat disclaimer right now. I think the word strategic planning, strategy planning, content planning, I think they're all thrown out a lot, but I actually think very little business owners understand what an actual plan is. So can you demystify it? I will ask the question because I'm not afraid to sound stupid. I'll just say what the hell is a plan? Like how do you define and what does that look like in comparison to a to-do list?
[00:13:36] Katie Wussow: Really good question. I think right off the bat, there are different kinds of plans in your business. So I have a content plan and that's a valid thing to do in your business. I have a promotional plan, like a calendar of the different types of promotions that are going to do my business. That's a valid thing to do, but what most people don't have is what you are saying. This a strategic level plan for your business and really what that is in very simple terms is an understanding of what success is. So a business plan, that is a strategic plan defines what success looks like and identifies the projects, and tactics, and strategies that you are going to use to get there, and there can be different lengths of time that we're talking about.
So in a perfect world, all businesses would have like a ten-year plan of this is where I'm going long term and here's how, what I'm doing now connects to that long-term vision. But it's not just the big picture, lofty stuff. It's also the, I think what we're going to focus on talking about today is what's the next quarter going to look like? What does success look like in the next 90 days in my business? What's the big priority and the big goal that I am looking to accomplish and what are the things I'm going to do to get me to that goal? And most people, they have the tasks and the projects part, right? They have the lists, they have the things that they want to do, they have the projects, they have the ideas, they have the creativity, but it's not anchored in any bigger picture understanding of what's the most important thing that I need to be focusing on in my business right now and how are all of these projects that I want to do connect it to that?
And I like to think about the analogy of, you know, I'm a mom, I have two kids. I cook a lot of food in my house and I like to think about the analogy of meal planning and like making a grocery list. A lot of people are operating in their business, kind of like they're going to Trader Joe's without a shopping list. And I don't know if any of you are Trader Joe's shoppers, but it's like, there's all kinds of little treats and snacks and cookies.
[00:15:46] Heather Sager: Peanut butter filled pretzels.
[00:15:48] Katie Wussow: Yes, it's the cookie butter that they keep putting in new products and then it's the seasonal pumpkin stuff, and they have pumpkin flavored granola and pumpkin flavored ice cream and all the pumpkin things. There are so many things that look so good that it's really easy to fill up our carts with all of the things that we're like, I want this, and I want this and I want this and we get home and we can't make spaghetti because we just randomly bought stuff without a plan behind it of like, how is all of the stuff that I'm buying gonna make me dinner for the next five nights?
And I think that's what a lot of entrepreneurs are doing is they're like, I want to create this product, and I want to create this lead magnet, and I want to launch this program, and I really need to implement this system in my business, but without that layer of like, what am I actually trying to do right now? Where am I going? What goals am I trying to accomplish? And how can I be more selective about the things that are going on my list so that I can actually get to those goals. And that's I think why a lot of people feel like their days are really, really full and their lists are really long, but it's not all coming together to create meaningful results in their business. So your to-do list is valid thing. I have a to do list. I have my planner right here, but you have to have a plan to decide what goes on your list in the first place.
[00:17:08] Heather Sager: First of all, like, can we just give like a virtual standing ovation for the power of the Trader Joe's analogy. Talk a lot about power of analogies on here, but that is gold and we could take that in so many different ways. I'm thinking about where my brain went immediately on that analogy was you could fill your cart with all these things that are like snack foods that have no nutritional value which they're just distractions, then you get home and wonder like, why am I not hungry, or why did I gain 10 pounds, or all these other unwanted things not solving the root problem. So, first of all, applause on that and I know that's going to be something that really resonates with people around when you said, like finding different strategies to do like, oh, this new lead magnet or, oh, it's time for a mini offer, or now it's time to try this, whereas chasing those snack items and those seasonal things with ignoring the main thing that's needed.
So let's talk about how do we identify the main thing that's needed, right? And let's do this through the lens of we're starting the fourth quarter. It's a great time for business owners right now to actually set a plan. But I know one of the things that I struggled with this, and I would imagine people my audience do too. That old adage that says like we've far overestimate what we can do in a quarter, but we really underestimate we can do in a year. How do you approach this idea of coming up with a plan for a quarter? Honoring our visionary thoughts as entrepreneurs where we think we're going to, I mean, build these pretty massive things and whether or not that's feasible story for another day. But talk us through that a little bit.
[00:18:39] Katie Wussow: Yeah, and I think you're so right that we, I think the quote is, and I think it's Bill Gates, that we underestimate what we can do in a year and overestimate what we can do in a day and maybe the timeframe is different. The point of a shorter timeframe, we think I can get a million things done, and actually underestimate the amount of things that we can accomplish and the results that we create by steadily working at something for a long time instead of cramming it into a short time. So any time, first of all, I would really encourage your listeners. You know, it's the beginning of October, it's the beginning of the last quarter of 2021. There's a huge temptation, and I feel it too often to shut down and stop thinking about this year and start thinking about next year. What do I want to do in 2022? What are my goals going to be? What stages do I want to speak on? What programs do I want to launch? What kind of revenue universe am I going to be living in next year? And I would really encourage you if you're trying to strenghten your planning muscles, start now. Start with the last three months of the year and figure out how can I leverage this period of time for the results that I'm trying to create in my business and really focus on the now before we move on to the next year, so that's the first temptation to avoid.
But whenever you are developing a plan, particularly, a 90 day plan where we start is not by making a list of projects and tasks that you want to do. And this is what most people, when I ask people, people will tell me often, like I took a planning day, it was so great. And I'll say like, oh, awesome. What did you do? They'll say, well, I went to a coffee shop and I batched all of my blog or I batched the next month of blog posts, and I figured out my social media, and I updated my Trello boards and my Asana with the projects that I want to do. I'm like, that's great. That's not where we start with planning.
Where we start with planning is by identifying our top priority and a priority is simply answering the question, what is most important right now? What is the most important thing right now? And there's two pieces to that. The first is most important because everything in your business is not equally important all the time. There is one thing probably in the 10 things that you think are priorities in your business, there is probably one of them that is more important than the others. And my favorite filtering question to identify if you're one of these people that is struggling to understand which of the things in your business the most important. I really love Gary Keller's book, The One Thing. Have you read it?
[00:21:17] Heather Sager: Yeah, I love that book.
[00:21:19] Katie Wussow: Yeah. So he says, basically if you're struggling identifying the top priority, ask yourself the question, what is the one thing that if this one thing was fixed, if this one thing was resolved, if this one problem went away, that it would make all of those other things that you think are a priority, easier or unnecessary? So I think that's a really helpful question. So if you have five things that you think are important, what's the one thing that's going to make all the other things better? So that's the first piece of a priority which is what's the most from that book.
[00:21:51] Heather Sager: He uses an awesome analogy around a domino, like what's the first domino? And I have some right here, I have some cork boards up on my wall and right here, like one of my little corkboard areas has my domino. And it's the what like, what's the domino and that reminder of like it's a tipping point to knock over other things like that centering question. So side note, we're going to link to that book in the show notes if you haven't read it, but I think that is a must for people because it really gets you focused on what exactly should you be worried or focused on right now? How do you pick up a priority?
[00:22:21] Katie Wussow: Yeah, it is really a book about prioritization, right? His pretty unique take on prioritization, highly recommend. So your priority is what's most important, but it's not just what's most important. It's what's most important right now.
[00:22:36] Heather Sager: Okay. Let me ask you a practical question here real quick 'cause I think theoretically, everyone gets that idea, like a priority. It has to be singular, otherwise, it's not a priority. It's just that doesn't work that way. What about, and maybe you can use this example of your business. I hear a lot of business owners go, okay, my priority is I'm going to double down and focus on, let's say a new launch, but I have a podcast and that podcast has to get every single week. They get distracted or are unfocused by ongoing things that have to get done while choosing a priority. Can you talk about that just for a moment because I know a lot of people get caught up in that? That they picked this one thing, but the other things they've already committed too seem to pull them off track.
Katie Wussow: Yes, that's a great point. And it's also an opportunity for me to clarify what I mean by a priority because a priority in this framework, in this planning framework, a priority is not one project. It's not one client, it's more of a theme. So a priority might mean grow my audience, grow my podcast downloads, grow my social media audience. It could mean stabilize my revenue, get consistent with revenue. It's a theme. It's not a single thing. So if you're thinking your priority is one launch, or one promotion, or one project to be completed, you need to back up and think a little bit bigger, but you make a really good point about we are entrepreneurs. We have more than one thing we have to do. We have to wear all the hats. We have to create the consistent content. We have to show up on social media. We have to do the administrative work and keep on top of our finances and serve our clients. I am a client facing business so I have clients that I need to serve.
So what we're really talking about is intentionally creating space for really strategic things that are really important because all of these other ongoing things have the tendency to crowd out strategic projects in our businesses and strategic initiatives. It's not to say that you drop the ball on all of your ongoing stuff that you're doing to accomplish your one priority. It's that, how can I, you know, squeeze some space into my week, into my month, into my quarter for this thing that is really, really important that is going to move the ball forward in my business. And really my favorite strategy for that is time blocking and this is where I encourage, you know, all of my clients, people that work with me, my audience, my podcast listeners, whatever, is to make sure that when you're looking at your work week, you're not spending 100% of your time working in your business client facing. You need to have some time reserved for working on your business, and that's typically all, everything that we're talking about with planning these priorities and these projects that are going to contribute priorities typically fall into the category of working on your business, not in it.
Heather Sager: Yeah. Okay. I love, I love that you described that in a way that the other things are going to happen, but it's intentionally carving out space for a more strategic focus. So for your main people that you work with, creative entrepreneurs, service-based providers, coaches, do those priorities, do you typically find their themes that people choose, it's audience growth. It's sales. I love that you mentioned stabilizing sales. I thought that was a really, a really insightful lens that many people probably need to look at, but are there some trends, like if somebody's listening, going, ooh, what should my priority be? I don't really love the term should, but if they were trying to figure out. If I had to pick off a Cheesecake Factory menu, what are some of the things that they would be choosing from?
[00:26:14] Katie Wussow: Yeah, there are definitely some patterns and some trends that are common based on where the person is in business. People that are in the early stage of the stages of their business might be focusing on, I need better systems in my business. I need better systems so that I can serve more clients more effectively, or they might say, I need to make more money. It can be as simple as that. I have got to pay myself consistently from this business. I need to be making more money. It could be, you know, streamlining, you know, there are people that when we start our businesses, we do a lot of different things. We're the yes person. We say yes to everything and then there comes a time where you need to streamline your offer offers and focus on one or two signature offers, so there's some themes on that front.
And then when people are more established in business, their revenue is more consistent, their workload is more consistent. That's when they might start working on something like I need to build my team, or I need to focus on leadership, or I need to grow my audience. I need to improve my thought leadership. There's a lot of different themes that you can focus on, but there definitely tend to be trends based on the overall stage of growth of the business.
[00:27:26] Heather Sager: Yeah. Okay. I love that. Thank you for fulfilling the Cheesecake Factory menu. Okay. So let's say we pick the theme, right? We've picked up the strategic priority. What's next? How do you help people, like or how do you recommend they move from, okay, I've identified that priority. How do we now put that in the plane?
[00:27:42] Katie Wussow: Yeah, absolutely. So the first thing we need to do is make that priority a little bit more specific because remember the priority is necessarily thematic. It's a theme. It's broad and it's a little bit vague. And so what we need to do is take the next step of turning that priority into a specific outcome oriented. So for example, one of my priorities for this quarter is to grow my audience. And so I might translate that into a specific goal of, I want to hit a certain number of downloads for my podcast or I might create a goal to say, I want to book five podcast interviews this quarter so that I can get in front of other people's audiences and grow my audience that way. So it's translating your priority into a specific goal that is going to be your north star for your plan.
[00:28:36] Heather Sager: And does it have to be just one specific outcome or like you just mentioned a couple of growing your audience is there. Could you have guests like podcast appearances and other things or does that make it more convoluted?
[00:28:48] Katie Wussow: You definitely could. If you're just getting started with this, I would recommend just sticking with one main goal for the quarter. The idea is to simplify and focus your business because that's what most people don't have is they don't have a focus. They're trying to do everything. So you might do both, right? You might improve your downloads and also book for interviews. But the idea is you want one outcome oriented goal that you can really use to measure the success of your priority.
So it's really answering the question, like, how will I know that I've resolved this priority in the next 90 days? How will I know? And the answer, it needs to be an unambiguous yes or no. And this is where a lot of people, a lot of people have complicated relationships with goals for a lot of different reasons that could be it's whole, it could be a totally separate podcast is like mindset issues around goal setting. But the mistake that most people make is they make their goals too small and their to-do lists huge. They're like, I want to have these like tiny, tiny unambitious goals of like, I want to do Instagram stories three times a week. And then they have a to do list that's nine pages long, and so what we want to do is flip that. We want our goals to give us a little bit of a push, right? To give us a little bit of a stretch, to challenge us to create better outcomes in our business and then we want to be extremely picky about what actions that we commit to in order to achieve those goals.
[00:30:19] Heather Sager: Okay. I love this approach. That's like such a beautiful way to put it of like how we need to invert those two things. I'm curious, how do you help people fend off that pesky, but what about this piece? For example, let's use the example that you said, right? So let's say the goal is I want to grow my list and I'm going to focus on podcast downloads for that. So how do you help someone who keeps getting distracted by going, Ooh, but now I want to, I don't know. What about this little list builder thing here on a new landing page? How do you help them ward off all of those ideas, because as visionary entrepreneurs, we have so many ideas and that seems to be what makes us great and serves our detriment. How do you tackle that?
[00:31:03] Katie Wussow: Yeah, totally. I mean, they're different things work for different people for this so I'll say that up front. For some people, it may make sense for you to set aside a couple of hours of your week where you just get to chase those rabbit trails. Like whatever idea has popped into your head, that you are just dying to take action on, give yourself the space to just go down those trails without feeling too guilty about it. Because I think sometimes we can, we can be very harsh about shiny object syndrome and sometimes it's good. Sometimes it's good to allow yourself that creative space.
[00:31:38] Heather Sager: Yeah. We'll hit there. Side note, I just envision people are now going to add rabbit hole time to their calendar, so I kind of love that. So if you do that, be sure to tell Katie and I.
Katie Wussow: Absolutely, you should. But I'm not really wired like that. So I don't really feel like I need, you know, big stretches of time in my calendar where I just get to do random stuff. But the other thing that is really important to do is to keep a list of those ideas because I have this list in my little project management thing of just ideas for the future, future ideas. And I have lead magnet ideas on launches and products and just random podcast episode ideas and capture those and honor them, like, this is a good idea. It's not what's the most important thing right now. And I think what you will find is if you stay focused on what's most important right now, that's how you actually create a situation where you can say, like, I worked on my systems for a whole quarter and they're actually in pretty good shape now so I now have the time and the energy and the space in my business to go do one of these ideas, but if you're just constantly chasing the ideas and chasing the things that pop into your head, it's sort of, it's a cycle where you never really have the time, the space to pursue the ideas because you don't have the basic things in place.
Just keep a list. Give yourself creative time if that's something, you know, you really need. But also I would challenge people to get really, really good at questioning yourself. So if you are a person that's like, oh, I've got to create a trip wire product, right? Like that's one of these things where we're like, gosh, if I don't have a $27 product in my business, then my business is gonna fail. That's where I think you need to get good at asking yourself the question, is that really important right now? And if I divert my attention away from what I have already decided is most important, what's that going to mean?
So let's say, you know I had a client last year. No, it was actually, yeah, it was last year and she came to me and she was beat down and really discouraged because she did the shiny object thing for like a year in her business. She created so many different products and so many different funnels and all of these different random pages on her website and it just wasn't coming together to produce a business that made her money, and so she was exhausted and beat down and ready to quit. So what we had to do is take a step back and say, what is gonna make you money the fastest? And let's put you on the fastest track to that instead of fiddling around with all of these different things that aren't actually producing results.
So getting really good at questioning yourself and what's going to happen if you just table the $27 project, the $27 product for three months and focus on the priority that you have set. Another good example of this is I cannot tell you, every entrepreneur in the world thinks that they need to update their website. Every single entrepreneur in the world, it's like, oh, I have this idea and I need to focus on this, but I've got to fix my website first. And so there's things like that in your business that you are creating obstacles to yourself being strategic that don't need to be there. And so just getting good at really turning inward and ask yourself, do I really need to do this right now? Is this really strategic? Is this really important? And if I go down this path, what's it going to mean for the goal that I set was really important to me two weeks ago when I was doing my planning.
Heather Sager: Yes, that's so good. It's so good. I think that there's a narrative going out there that we shouldn't question ourselves, like we shouldn't be questioning like whether or not we're good enough or valued, like we shouldn't be questioning our worth. But questioning the ideas, not in a way of are they dumb, but questioning are they right for right now? I think that's really powerful. It sounds like self-coaching. It is just such a powerful thing. That it's one of those things that I think a lot of people do that when they have a team, right? When you verbalize and think through things out loud, but they forget to do that when they're working on their own, so what a really powerful insight you just shared there.
[00:35:54] Katie Wussow: Yeah, and I think we have to get better, and this is something I've been working with, a couple of my clients on lately is we have to get better at letting. A lot of us are like an idea pops into your head and you feel like you have to do it right now. Getting better at saving things for later, it's really, really important because you might actually, there are things on the back end of my business that I actually do need to fix. I actually do need to go back into my welcome sequence and make sure everything's still makes sense. I actually do need to evaluate all of my different sales funnels and make sure everything is still working and not broken and it's fresh. Those things matter, but I can't do them right now. I'm one person, and I have a VA that works like five hours a week. There are very real constraints to the amount of work that I can produce, and the whole point of having a plan is to channel your very limited time and resources, because guess what? Even if you have a team, that team still has limitations, right? We are all limited with the time and resources that we have. We have to channel them into the most important things. We just have to. It's not actually an option. We have to do that. And so just recognizing our own limitations and being honest about them is really important. And then you'll start to realize, like, if I chase this rabbit down that trail, it's going to mean I'm actually ignoring this more important thing and that's going to hurt my business. It's going to hurt my clients. It's going to hurt my results.
[00:37:26] Heather Sager: Yeah. Okay. I love, I love that, that method of thinking. So let's apply this to the fourth quarter. Making it timely now, people are approaching this and maybe they've already brainstorming. What am I going to focus on this quarter? They're starting to think about how do I develop my plan? What is just some of the basic tip, not basic as undermining it, but what are some of the simple things that business owners listening can do to start off the quarter in a smart way?
[00:37:52] Katie Wussow: Yeah. So the first thing that I would do is set aside a four-hour stretch of time where you are not, where you're going to plan, like set aside a half day where you can plan as soon as possible because you know this is coming out at the beginning of the quarter. We kind of need to get a plan in place before we can execute it for the rest of the year. So give yourself a four hour stretch of time and the first two hours, what you're going to do is something fun and refreshing that doesn't have anything to do with your business.
Go to a museum, go read a book, go on a hike, go have lunch with a friend, go do something that is going to be life-giving for you and energizing for you, and also separate you a little bit from the day-to-day grind of running a business because that's what's so difficult. It's so hard to make these decisions when you're in it, right, to see what the most important priority is when you are in the grind. So we have to separate ourselves a little bit from the grind and you don't have to go to a monastery for three days in order to do that. You just need a little bit of time, a little bit of space to clear your head.
And then for that second two hours, you're going to do what I have, what are the first two things that I've shared, which are a set of priority for the next 90 days? You can follow like very simple journaling prompts, like what's going well right now? What it's not going well right now? What are the problems I'm experiencing? What are the challenges I'm having? What's coming up? What is seeming important right now?
And then, you know, choose a priority based on that very simple reflection, and you're going to set a goal that reflects success for your priority. And then what you're going to do and the other thing I also recommend is I do recommend setting a sales goal for your business for each quarter, and it's certainly related to your priorities. But I do think it's important to have a separate sales goal that guides you in how much money you actually need to be bringing into your business. It's a little bit of a separate discussion, but it's important to put a number to it. And then you can do what you've probably been waiting to do, which is figure out the different projects and tasks that you're going to commit to. And I use the word commit very intentionally because your 90 day plan should not be a wishlist of things you hope you have time for. It should reflect a commitment that you are going to prioritize those specific tasks and projects because they contribute to where do you want your business to go.
And so that's where you can decide I'm going to do this type of launch, I'm going to create this type of product, I'm going to implement this type of system, I'm going to be more consistent in the way that I'm showing up on social media and creating content. That's where you can really map out what is it going to take for me to achieve the priority and the goal that I have set for my business and also continue doing all of the other things that are important, right? Because if I, for example, set my 90 day goal to grow my podcast downloads, well there are other things in my business that are also really important that I need to do and those things can also be reflected in your plan. The things that are important that are ongoing commitments that you have already made in addition to the new stuff that you are deciding to commit.
[00:41:05] Heather Sager: Yes. Okay. I love this. This is like, you just sum that up like, so concisely in like three minutes. You surprised me with the first tip around how people start for the first two hours. I mean, that makes sense, right? But as business owners, we do not schedule time for that and it makes perfect sense about creating some space between the being in the business to working on the business. So I love that. I love that so much. Do you do this when you like at the end of the quarter, or do you like, I'm just curious, when do you actually do this planning date? Like how far in advance of a quarter do you do this?
[00:41:38] Katie Wussow: I like to have the results from the previous quarter more or less finished. So I try to do it at the beginning of each quarter so that I can look, you know, I like to look back and to say, you know what happened in my business? What went well? What didn't go well? How much money did I make? Am I on track with where I want to be? And it's easier to do that I think if you have a closed quarter, you have all the financial results and all of that stuff.
[00:42:00] Heather Sager: Yeah. I agree. I typically do my planning day on the first of each month. Yeah, but my finance review is later in the month because of my finance closure, anyways, not important. Okay. So, you actually have a tool where you help people walk through this planning piece. I downloaded your freebie and I am in your welcome sequence right now, my dear. Talk a little bit about that because if somebody is listening, right, it's simple planning, but sometimes having a guide to partner with you helps with that. So can you share a little bit about that?
[00:42:30] Katie Wussow: Yeah, absolutely. I have a 90 day plan template. It's a one sheet template that you can use to fill out all of these elements that we've been talking about, your priority, your goal, your sales goal and the monthly or the tasks and the projects that you're going to do to contribute to that goal. It's a one-page deal. I'm actually in the process, by the time your listeners get this, I will have released a workshop and a workbook that accompanies the free template and it's going to be, it's a low cost deal. But it's, if you feel like you need a little bit more help figuring out how the heck do I, 'cause it's one thing to have a template, right? It's another thing to decide what goes on the template and if you feel like you need that support to really learn how to be strategic. There's that resource as well, but you can get the free template at katiewussow.com/plan.
[00:43:22] Heather Sager: Perfect, and we'll link to that in the show notes. I think one of the things to keep in mind is I think it's really easy as business owners for us to get distracted by templates or planners or one thing that I got really distracted with for a long time of like content calendar, like how do I lay this thing out? And I was in search for the content calendar that made sense and I think I bought like five people' and none of them actually made sense. And I think when it comes back to, and I want you to speak to this for just a moment. At the end of the day, templates are gonna help you, but you using the template and figuring out how to make it work for you is what matters most. So any tips for anyone listening, who is like obsessed with finding the next planner or project management tool or whatever else, like what's your insight on that?
[00:44:04] Katie Wussow: Oh, absolutely. I mean, the tool is not, is not the solution, right? Being strategic in your business and operating from a plan is really more an approach and a way of thinking and a way of being in your business versus a specific tool. I have clients that use all different kinds of planners. Clients that use all different kinds of project management software, all different kinds of everything. Those things are very, very specific to the preferences of the person, right? And it doesn't really matter. What matters is you learning how to decide what you doing. You learning how to set the direction for your business, and then just decide what things that you're going to do to keep going in that direction. And this is where I think a lot of people are really struggling because they're taking courses and they're doing programs and they're doing all kinds of things that they think are going to tell them what to do. Like if I enroll in this person's program, this person is going to give me step A, step B, step C, step D to having a profitable business. And I'm a coach so I am a big fan of coaching. I'm a big fan of education. I'm a big fan of like getting all the resources you can get your hands on. But at the end of the day, it's up to you as the business owner to decide how to pull together all of the different resources and tools and projects and initiatives that you're doing in your business to make sense together. And so that's really what I try to help people with is help people learn how to be in the driver's seat of their own business and decide where's this bus going? How am I going to get there? And how do I need to keep taking those steps forward?
[00:45:52] Heather Sager: Yes, this is so good and it's something that I see you do like you did really good on Instagram. I follow you and stalk. You know, we chat all the time on on Instagram, but you do this in your stories. You actually show people a peek behind the curtain of how this shows up for you, how you use your planners to work for you, how you work with your clients. So side note, for anyone listening who is on Instagram, follow Katie. She'll be tagged on everything when we release this, but just watching how she approaches it. You pick up a really good tips to figure out your style there. So Instagram, favorite place to hang out. Is that that's your favorite platform, right?
[00:46:23] Katie Wussow: Pretty much my only platform. If you look at me, there you will find me.
[00:46:27] Heather Sager: Okay. So I want to wrap it up with this, I would not doing my job. If I didn't end the discussion of us talking about let's pivot a little bit around the power of your voice as an entrepreneur. You and I were a voice chatting on Instagram a couple months ago how we both had this similar approach where we're kind of protective around the kinds of people we bring on our podcast because it's a platform that we're endorsing other people. And for you, your voice is such an incredible asset for you to be able to help and serve your clients. I'm curious, when you think about you showing up and using your voice, like how does it show up in your business and what advice do you have for business owners who are maybe being hesitant for using their voice in a bigger way?
[00:47:13] Katie Wussow: It really has been an evolution because when I first started, I never really from the outset wanted to be a personal brand. I obviously knew that I was a coach and that I needed to show up in my business and it was okay that people knew me and knew things about me and I'm not, I'm not a super like, I'm totally fine, you know, being casual and comfortable on social media and all of that stuff, but I didn't want to be a personal brand because I didn't want to be the face of my own business. I didn't want it to be all about me.
I had a block there and I was hanging out with some fellow entrepreneur friends of mine. This was probably in 2018. And they were telling me how much they liked it when I shared stuff about being a working mom. And I really didn't share that much stuff about being a working mom at that time because again I was trying to be almost all polished and all strategic and all like, you know, only business content is going to be found here and was trying to be very focused with what I was sharing.
And I was like, oh, well, I really, I'm glad to hear that. But you know, I am always a little bit hesitant to share because I don't want my brand to be all about me. And my friend Laura was like, I mean, yeah, but your business is based on giving people advice. That's your business. So if people don't know you as a person, they're going to have a hard time trusting the advice that you're giving. And that's really, that really represented a big shift for me of leaning into, to being a personal brand and yet still having boundaries and still maintaining my privacy as a person and still being really strategic and focused about the information, the content that I'm sharing. But that's when I got a lot more intentional about, talking about, about using my voice and showing up and talking about who I am as a person and why I think the way that I do about business and sharing about my face which drives, you know, everything that I do. And it was at that point that I began to be more effective at building relationships with people online, building relationships with people in business is because I was showing up as myself as like, you know, as the version of myself that I felt comfortable sharing, right? But it was my voice, it was my way of thinking, it was my approach, my philosophy, they started to come through.
[00:49:38] Heather Sager: I love that. I think it's that block that a lot of people have is I don't want to make it about me, right, where we don't want it to be like the Heather show or the Katie show or whatever that is. But sometimes it's been more of you and talking about those weird, quirky things about yourself or what's happening, it actually puts a guard down for other people for them to be more of themselves or them to raise their hand and be like, oh my gosh, we're actually pretty similar in that way, or this happened to me. Sharing more of yourself actually makes it less about you and invites more people to participate in what it is that you do, so beautiful. I love that. I love that. Okay, Katie, I can talk to you for the whole next hour, but let's wrap it up 'cause I got another interview and you probably have things on your to-do list today that are a priority.
[00:50:19] Katie Wussow: I have a pie in my fridge that I need to top with whipped cream so I'm getting.
[00:50:23] Heather Sager: Sounds like it's something I wish was on my to-do list. Oh my gosh. I love it. Thank you. Thank you so much for being here. I'm sure everyone loved this episode. Be sure to check Katie out on Instagram and got that template she talked about. I'll put everything in the show notes and we will see you on the next episode.