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If you're running a business and it's, you know, less than $3 million a year in gross revenue, you really haven't given a chance to really think about all the different departments that run a company, because you do all of them, you know them, right? And and more likely right. And it and so sometimes they just set goals. But they don't really take the extra step, really think through like each segment of the business that needs to have a set goal for them.

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Welcome to the Builder Hacks podcast, your go to destination for cutting edge strategies, time tested systems, and invaluable insights to revolutionize your construction business and elevate your life. Join your hosts, Nate Piper and Keith Meals, seasoned contractors who are not just in the trenches but are also pioneering the future of the industry through Concord University. In each episode, we dive deep into the minds of the industry's most accomplished building professionals, uncovering their secrets to success, and sharing actionable tips to help you thrive.

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Whether you're a seasoned veteran or just starting out, our goal is to empower you to build a brighter future for yourself and for America. Tune in. Level up and let's build a better tomorrow together. This is the Builder Hacks podcast. Build your future. Building America.

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All right. We're excited this week. One of the big things that everybody looks at this time of year, and we're no different than anyone else, is as far as that goes, is what are you doing for 2025? How are you setting up the business? How do you know where you're going? You got to set that that route so that you're going to be running on set those goals up for the year.

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So and we're just like everybody else's. I mean, thing is, Nathan, I've been doing this for a while as far as our businesses go. We've got a little bit more of a process for setting this out. Now, here's the one thing I want you to remember. So this is great for business. And I also want you, especially if you're someone who's new to this and maybe you don't have a business yet.

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Look at all areas of your life because I usually I literally use this piece, I sit down and play my business, but I also use this in every other in my life, whether it's my personal life. So whether it's my exercise goals, whether it's my my religious life. So all of these things come into play and go through the same type of process.

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And that's one of the big things, is once you have a process, you're able to apply it everywhere. It's one of the reasons why Nate has so many businesses. He's got processes for what he does. So and he just implements the new widget is what it comes down to. And that's the key is there? Remember you can take this and use this everywhere.

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Of course we're going to be talking about it in our construction businesses. So because that's one of the big things that we're looking at right now. And that's one of the big reasons why you're all tuning in. The builder hacks. So that's what we're going to jump into today. So you want to grab something to write on and something to write with.

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you're going to want to take notes for sure, because if you implement this I will guarantee you you implement all the pieces in this year, 2025 is going to be a lot better than any of your years have been to this point. So I'd say get ready and let's make this happen. So you ready, Nate? Absolutely. Awesome.

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Well, and it's one of the art Nate. So what do you do? So before you actually get started with your goals for the year. So what do you usually jump into first. Well for me I always kind of like to dive into, myself and make sure that I'm in alignment. Right. I'm okay that I have my own personal goals.

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I want to make sure my family's goals are in alignment with my goals, and then I want to make sure that all of my companies and my businesses are in alignment with my family goals and my personal goal. And so I start that process off of being able to kind of have a couple of weekends where I'm thinking through, what do I want to achieve for next year?

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And I don't try to do like big hairy, audacious goals for the year. Right. But I want them to be big enough so that I could strive for them, but not so big that I can't ever touch them. But I can't believe that I can touch. So there's, But I also don't want to make them so short that I hit it in month one, and I have nothing else to go for, right?

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So for for us, we try to start looking at like the company itself and I start looking at the people and inside the company, and how do I help them get to where they want to be. And so that whole process starts to unfold. And so we set those long term goals. And we just did one last week where we were.

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How do we want to grow into the next year. Right. What does that next year look like for us. How does it feel? What are we what are we going to be? reviewing back and say this year was a successful year, 2024 was a successful year. Now what about 2025? And so so with that question. So you said 2024 is a successful year.

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So you go back and actually look at what you did in 2024. Yeah absolutely. So you kind of start out with that as what you're talking about. Yeah we have to we have to do a review. Right. So I do I do two reviews of the previous year. I do one in December right before we go into 2025, and then I do it again at the end of January or into February, somewhere in those those first months of the year.

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And I do a deep dive review. One of December is just the checkbox, right? Did we hit this goal from last year? Did we hit this goal from last year? And that helps us kind of like okay where is our chart. It doesn't matter if we hit all the goals. But did we hit 80% of. If we did then I consider that a success.

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Okay. So that's your bench. That's your benchmark then. That's what that's what goal for the company is. You look to hit 80% of the goals you set out for the year. Absolutely. Because I feel like if you hit 100% of the goals, you left something on the table. Definitely right. And if you don't hit 80, then you didn't try hard enough.

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And so there is a distinction there. And I don't know. That's where I like to have that sweet spot is 80% of the goal. And so what does that mean. That means we put together maybe five, six, eight goals, no more than ten for the year. And then we see if we could hit them and we put them in our different categories.

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Right. Like I have a goal for sales. I have a goal for marketing. I have a goal for how many projects we're going to complete. I have a goal for, how many, how many new people we're going to have bring on to the company. Right. Like, all of these are growth metrics that we're looking at, but they're in different categories, right.

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And then we kind of say, okay, where do we where do we land with them. And and that's been really fun. Like I said, I think that's one of the big keys for everybody is one of the things that I want everyone here to realize. You kind of got to dive deep. So that's one what we typically call is an after action review.

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And that's what Nate was just describing. So let's you know what went well. So did you hit the goal that you set for the year. or you know did you fall short. So and then the big thing is if you did if you fell short, it's taken that chance to look at it and go, all right, why do we fall short?

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That's what could have been different. You know, it wasn't on us. So what what what what? It's always on us. So what can we have done differently to be able to hit that piece, you know? Or did we just set ourselves just such an outrageous goal? And we wanted to get it, but we just didn't quite get there because we set it so high, you know, like, it's one of the things that I look at even when I'm the same way you are natives, I tend I tend to push my goals.

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I don't go for the, you know, way over the top goals. Yet I don't do like one of one of the, one of the things that drives me nuts is there's a system out there now called the smart system. So and one of the things that one of the pieces that's part of that acronym is realistic. So and I hate realistic goals.

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So I want something that's going to stretch us then every facet, you know. And there's always ways to get there. So that realistic thing is the thing that always catches me when you're talking about smart goals. So that's why I always say there's going to be goals like you were talking about Nate that I'm not going to hit.

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It's just not going to happen. I don't know which one it's going to be whenever we set them. And you know, let's look at it because we may want to reset that goal or we may want to up that goal. But it's like what didn't work this year so that we can go ahead and make improvements to it.

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And that's the piece to look at. It's not that we failed. What can be different. That's the that's like the question we always ask what can be different. So not what did we screw up. So and then the other pieces when we're looking at that after action review. So I always look at what do we want to do more of.

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Those are the ones that you were succeeded. What what processes were killing it this year. What did we do, especially if you went ahead and exceeded a goal by a large number. How did we do that? So what do we implement? Because we want to do more of that, of course. Absolutely. Yeah. And then I know one of the big one of the big things that we also look at two when we're looking at that.

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And I talked to like I like to bring in the team when we're talking about this because it's not just about me. It's not just about the management team. It's about the whole team. Because what I look for from them is what are our customers asking for that maybe we're not delivering yet, or maybe what they're asking for and we are delivering it.

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Let's make sure we have a hardened heart process. Or what are our business partners looking for that we can do better to make their portion of our jobs more effective, so that they're happy to be there so that they flow better. They make more money, which then if they're going to make more money, want to make more money because they're going to be happier when they're going to take our take care of our customers at a different level.

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I mean, like those are some of the key things on the that I look at whenever we're looking at those goals and the after action side of things. Yeah. When I'm looking at the after, I, after review, I'm looking at, I'm looking at where do we, where do we find success. Right. Like what? Do we not get the part just like what you're talking about.

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And then and implementing that next thing, I automatically know. So when you're looking at a business, you have peaks and valleys, peaks and valleys, but it's peaks and valleys and all these different categories. Right. And the goal is to get more peaks and valleys right away. So it's like, all right, we're crushing it over here. But understand, like I got to hit a plateau over here, so.

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All right, I can't just keep crushing over here and all this. There's too much of a separation. So you want that that when you're doing that review, you're like, okay, so this year we increased by 25%. We did phenomenal in this one structure. But over here we only increased by like 3%. I can't I can't neglect the 25% growth and focus solely on the 3%.

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I've got to find a place in the middle for the following year where it's okay. 25. We're not going to grow by 25% again, right? So where is a good medium that I land on? Is it 12 to 15% growth. And then can I raise my 3% up to 910% growth. And it's shorten the gaps between them. Because in doing that that's where we have long term success.

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And so I kind of focus in those areas to be able to say, okay, our admin needs tweaking to be able to support the operations because the operations is growing so fast. I got to slow the operations down, increase the admin so I can have equal support so that the gaps aren't, aren't, aren't so big. Because that's where all of the pain of of growth happens is when you have these massive peaks and valleys.

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I agree, I mean, it's definitely one of those things where, and this is one of the biggest challenges I see for people who are new or newer companies, it's they really push hard on the sales side of things, and all of a sudden their sales explode. And the challenges at every level that you step into. So what ends up happening is there's a new level of back office, so of structure, of processes that need to be put in place to maintain this, or else you really run that peak and valley piece, and it'll be in the same year where you'll go up and then you'll drop way down.

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And what it does is and unfortunately, when that drops way down, a lot of times it can pull everything down at the same time. And those are the pieces. That's kind of like what Nate's talking about there. You've got to keep everything moving forward. So and there's there's always going to be or there's should be a point where you're looking for that.

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Everything's moving effectively. And if you have one of those ones like one, I was thinking whenever Nate was talking about that, he's like, he's got one that's had 3% growth. And like whenever I look at those types of things done, the 3% growth, it's like, was there something there that we could have done better? Or is this market are we getting close to the point where we're just capping out this is the best that we can possibly do here?

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and that becomes part of that determination to so because if there's something that we can do all right, then let's do it. And that's the part are you talking about. Let's get that up 910% on that growth piece. Now there are certain we've had certain things that we've pulled through. And it's like we look at it, it's like, you know what?

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We're better off going ahead and focusing into that. That were the 25% growth was the previous year. And letting this just stay where it's at, because it maybe it isn't a big moneymaker, you know, maybe at some point at that point it's just, hey, this works well. You know, it goes out and kicks, leads to other portions of the business.

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Don't it's like, all right, if that's the case and it's finely tuned. So then it's like okay. And but that's part of where the key is of knowing your business. And unfortunately you get that after you've had a few years in the industry. So or a few years going after your goals, whether it's something that's on the personal side of things that you look at those, it's like, all right, some of these things, we're we're killing it.

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You know, some of these things, it's like we're going to be good where we are. And then they may have reached that plateau that you talked about, but unfortunately it's not the the higher plateau. It's that this is just where this is. Are we good. Keep that. And it's one of the like it's one of the determinations for us.

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There's been lines or divisions that we go ahead and drop over time. Because you look at that and they're growing marginal ends like, well, if I put my my effort and my focus on this one over here, that's been killing it. So and we keep killing it at a level that's really high, this one makes more sense. So other than going ahead and worrying about this, that well we do that too.

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And it's one of those things that's like because we have different facets of the business. There are some things that are are less, profitable and margin. Right. But they hold a significant value or the long term of the company. Right, right. And in a corporate term, you'd use it as a loss leader, right? Where you're providing a service at a low, a low margin, capacity.

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But that low margin capacity turns into another project or an extension of that original project at higher value dollars. So you have to look at these things as like, okay, my overall arching goal is to do what for us, it's ultimate customer service and the lifetime value of a customer. So do I mind doing a $300, project for a customer?

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And we're going to make, you know, 15% on that $300, right? That's basically pennies, right? For for a company. But I'm not going to eliminate that if it's going to turn into a 4000, 5000, $50,000 project on the next cycle of the, of the customer, right? So that that loss leader that we're doing, you have to take into consideration what does that do for you to get the next customer or, solidify the relationship that you have with the current customer.

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And so those are some of the things that we take into consideration when we're looking at our targeting goals and what goes along with kind of like our sales process. Things manager, you know, and that brings up an interesting point on like whenever you say a because we've run through that cycle a couple of times where it's like we look at some of those jobs, like you're talking about the smaller jobs, or it's like it's definitely not, it's not in our best interest if we just look at it on a profit basis to go ahead and do some of those smaller ones.

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And that's one of the things that I've told people over and over. I tell myself subject because I was like, why are you doing this little thing? So and it's like, it's because, like you said, it's the relationship. It's actually sowing that seed. So and starting to nurture it, to go ahead and have it blossom, bloom into and grow into something much larger over time.

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And that's usually what happens when you go ahead and perform with those little love projects. When they're ready for a larger project, they're going to call you because you've already done well. Yeah. And it's it's been like an I always tell like my home out of homeowners that we've worked with multiple times and they'll call me over something really small like, we know this is really small.

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Like I have a homeowner called me about Hvac, just an annual service so huge. I'm like, do you have someone you can send out to take care of the annual service? And I'm not making any money on that annual service at all whenever I send that out, because their price point on that so well, it's like I make nothing.

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But I still go ahead and do that because they've sent multiple projects my way from their own home. They've sent referrals. So and I know they're going to come back for other projects that they've got in the future. We still take care of it. It doesn't take us that long. Typically in those homes, we don't oversee them. Yeah, we'll go ahead and send out the guys on something smaller that's like, they know how to do HPC service.

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I don't need to go out and check that piece. No, but it's like those small things. We still take care because what you want it to become, and this is what Nate's actually talking about, is you want anytime that customer thinks about anything for their home that you're the company in mind, so or you're the person. But whenever it comes down to that and that's what goes ahead and builds brand because now you take care of them and that's what you want, is you want that relationship built.

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Yeah, that's what they want. It's what everybody wants. You know, whatever. You know, I've got a doctor, everybody's got a doctor, a primary care physician, and, you know, he takes care of me. He's he's I'm a big guy. He's a big guy. Right? And every time that, you know, I go talk to him, he's always giving me the things that he needs as a doctor for me to do to help be a better client.

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But I'm not going to go anywhere else because I built a relationship with him. Right? Right. I want my customers to build a relationship with me. I want my customers to build relationships with my project management, my my trade partners, my, you know, my entire company. I want to build that relationship so that whenever they have a, a, you know, problem, a need, a question, we're part of that.

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We're part of their journey. And, that's just part of what's inside of our, our company and our culture. But that's what people should be thinking about. Now, on the flip side of this, I don't think that you should have extremely amounts of low volume work in the efforts for having that. So we put kind of like a cap barrier right where we look at like, how many of these loss leaders are we actually going to do for the year?

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Or where is our threshold for loss leaders so that we can make a bounce? Because if you focus solely on loss leader loss leaders, to be able to create things, then you gotta find yourself in a different position. You can find yourself in that position of, oh crap, I'm way under business. You're way out of my profit margin.

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I can't pay bills, right? So that's part of the strategic planning is being able to say, okay, I'm going to be able, you know, accept X amount of loss to be able to gain customers. And then what is the percentage of high value, high profit customers that I get off of this low value piece? Right. So if you put a cap on it, you say, for instance, for us, I've got a higher cap because I have a higher profit margins that we make on the back end.

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But let's say I do I'm gonna give round numbers here. Let's say that we do a $100,000 in loss leader projects, and we say that's kind of where we're going to be at once we get over $100,000, we're not going to accept them. But on special occasions, right past customers, you know, specific against the, instances where we need to be able to cover or help protect.

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But that's kind of like the cap. But of that 100,000, can I make $1 million in revenue? That's the goal, right? Can I exit, be able to hit a higher percentage or I have higher profit margins. And so there's a formula for you guys and that. And the big thing Nate talks about there. And this is one of the things that you've got to be able to track back out.

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Because the challenge is if you're doing those loss leaders and you're not tracking which ones of these that we did as loss leaders and students to see what comes back through in the back end? Well, if you don't know what that is, the challenges, you may do $100,000 and loss leaders that turn into, you know, $50,000 in bigger projects, which then you have to go ahead and ask.

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But that doesn't make sense, right? Yeah. so but that's that's one of the biggest pieces. And I know a lot of people who are in this industry, no matter whether you're a contractor. So whether you're a tradesperson, a lot of people don't look at those pieces and numbers and data are your biggest friend, especially when you get to doing goals and things like this.

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It is the indicator because without the data you can't do the review be how do you set next year stuff. So it's literally you're putting a lot of gas out there is what it comes down to. And that's never a way to build a business. Well, I think most people try to build the business off of, just feel good.

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Right. Where they see somebody in need and distress and they're just like well will this help them? And then the next one and then the next one and then the next one and all those low volume, low percentage margin projects put them in a position where they can't really help themselves. At the end of the day, it's kind of like that, that mass that flows down on the airplane that you have to watch that video every time we get on an aircraft, same kind of thing.

00:21:07:08 - 00:21:29:00

It's like, put your own mask on first and then help out, right? So you can't help others if you haven't helped yourself. And I think that's the biggest thing that I would say that especially for contractors, whether they're just starting out or they've been in the business for 20 years, you really have to focus on the numbers and the data and the profitability of your company.

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And it's part of the the biggest goal setting piece that you have to make. I remember back when we when I opened up a business, I guess it was. Eight years, nine years ago, I, day one, I walked in. We didn't have we didn't have. We had one employee and no trades and nothing. And I wrote $2 million on the board.

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That's what we're going to make it 365 that right now. That's a big, hairy, audacious goal. You know, to hit the big yeah. We didn't hit today. Right. But we didn't we didn't go through the whole process either. I just put a number on the board. Now, what it did do is a bit of stretch to try to get there.

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And I think we did $1.4 million that your year one coming out with no backup, no, no plan, no customers, nothing. Just knocking on doors and going for it was a it was a good business. Right. But we we worked it and we were trying to get there. What I found out what I discovered was that two things.

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One, you can't just make that big hairy, audacious goal without having some kind of map to get you there, right? Because we had, of course, a little sketch. You got to figure out what what you're making, what your dollars are. And and you got to have you can't burn out your people trying to get them right.

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Because what ends up happening is you're pushing your people to hit a goal that you never even had any kind of data supporting, that you can even make that you just ordered out of thin air. and that's the last time I did that. But and it's, it's one of those pieces that the I've been down the same road as far as that far goes, setting those numbers.

00:23:07:26 - 00:23:22:25

And it's like you don't have the plan that goes behind that because it's like, oh, that's going to look great. And like one of the big it's like we as business owners, we go ahead and set revenue numbers. Typically is what we go ahead and set. is in a lot of cases. And it's if you look at if you're someone who hasn't had a business yet, think of it this way.

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If you've got social media accounts and you're like, I want to go ahead and get X number of social media followers. So it's the same thing. You can go ahead and throw a number out there. Yet if you don't know what the plan is that goes behind it, the chances of ever getting to that number are going to be slimmer than another, a lot higher because you set a number, you know, and it's one of the like.

00:23:39:20 - 00:23:56:14

It's one of the big things that I look at whenever we set goals. I have three things that I have to have with any goal is that it's got to be specific, which means it can't like be a 13 sentence goal. So it needs to be a short goal. The shorter the better. So as far as that goes, because it will get specific if you're taking out all the extra mumbo jumbo.

00:23:56:16 - 00:24:16:22

So it has to be measurable, which means it's got to have some way of measuring it. If it's a revenue number, that's obviously an easy piece like that. So but whatever it is. So you've got to be able to actually, definitively and objectively look at it and go, yes, we hit it. Well. And then the third part is you've got to have a deadline, which if you're doing goals for 2025, obviously the end of 2025 is your absolute.

00:24:16:22 - 00:24:32:11

And if you can go ahead and set goals earlier than that for some of the pieces which you may be able to, depending on what the goals are, setting pieces earlier is good because if you're analyzing that they're going throughout the year, you get the chance to readjust before you know you get to the total end of 2025 and you can make things different.

00:24:32:11 - 00:24:48:21

But when you go ahead and put those three pieces in place, once you have that, then you set that plan that Nate's talking about and you've got to what that plan is, is literally breaking down whatever that goal is into the individual actions that are going to be needed, you know? So if it's I use a Nate's example.

00:24:48:21 - 00:25:07:12

So we're going to make $2 million in revenue this year. So well what does that mean that yeah. You know, what do you have to do. Well it's kind of one of those things where this is where I learn you got to do an annual goal. Gotta do a quarterly goal. You gotta do a monthly goal and you gotta do weekly.

00:25:07:15 - 00:25:31:15

Right. Like without having that structure in place, you're just wandering around in the forest trying to find a log that you want to chop. And it's like, well okay, there's, there's blood everywhere, but how do you know which one's the right one to do? So you start off with your annual goal and you say, okay, well, we're going to make $1 million in in one year.

00:25:31:20 - 00:25:52:11

Great. Well, what does that look like? You have to then take the next step and say, okay, well do I divide that by 365 days? I mean, I need to make, you know, x amount of dollars per day. Okay, great. But here's the offset. Do you work seven days a week or do you work five? All right. Well let's change that that number around okay.

00:25:52:11 - 00:26:11:07

So now we have X amount of days in the year 260 days if you're doing a regular workweek right. Yeah 260 days. Great. And if we're going to break that down into weekly, that's 40 hours a week, you know, by X amount of, you know, people that can produce whatever. And then you got to break it down to, okay, how many hours is that in a year.

00:26:11:09 - 00:26:39:16

Right. It's 2080. And it's like, okay, well how do I break all these down to figure out what is going to be or how much I need to make per hour, how much do I need to spend per hour to make per hour, and what are all the resources that you're going to need? But you you can break that down from setting a goal and then put it into a quarterly that put it into a monthly, and then put it into a weekly digestible system that you can then, you know, constantly go back to and push forward.

00:26:39:19 - 00:27:05:27

Yeah. And that's the that's the way to break down the overall goal itself as far as the measurables go, which is which is hugely important. So what's the other part of that Nate. So well so once you figure it out here's the goal. And you have a team now you have to get people on the team to then be in alignment with your goal and have their goal align with your goal.

00:27:05:29 - 00:27:31:00

So guess what you have to do. You have to put incentives in there right. Because they have to be able to match up with what you want to do. So what is that? There's a whole list of things I've got some I'm sure Keith. but there's a difference between like we do like a, a monthly, get together lunch or party at the office or we'll go out to eat.

00:27:32:04 - 00:27:53:27

you can have, money instead of goals like bonuses or commission checks or things of that nature. You can do, vacations. You know, we did one. Or send a family on vacation for, like, 4 or 5 days for the week for hitting goals. Right? You can do promotions. You can win iPads, you can win cell phones, right?

00:27:53:27 - 00:28:17:19

Like all of these things are incentives for the people around you to align their goal with your goal. And you've got to line up with their goal too, right? So maybe they might want to get better at doing, you know, accounting or sale process or whatever. Aligning your goals and their goals together is another way of incentive, right?

00:28:17:19 - 00:28:35:26

Because maybe they want to get better at doing a thing, and you need to be able to help them or provide them an opportunity to get better at that. So it's those are the that right there like what you just said native giving them the opportunity. Like if it's someone just like say it's the salesperson and they want to learn more sales process, it's like, all right, great.

00:28:35:26 - 00:28:51:08

Go ahead and hit these pieces and we'll send you to that sales training that you really will pay for, the sales training that you want them to go to, whatever that thing was that you wanted to go ahead and take advantage of. And, like the key piece there. When you talk incentives, the incentives aren't going to be the same across the board.

00:28:51:08 - 00:29:04:19

Some people are very motivated. Like if you like, you put up a vacation date. Some people are like, oh, we're going to do whatever it takes because I want that vacation. Whereas other people are like, if I want vacation, I'll take a vacation. It's not a big deal to me. Yeah. You know, or vacation becomes inconvenient because maybe they've got other things.

00:29:04:19 - 00:29:19:27

So you've got to go ahead and actually talk to your team and find out what motivates them, what moves. Because like I'll give you an example like page on our team pages are motivated by money at all costs. Like I can throw bonuses out and while she takes them, it doesn't mean as much to her. Yeah, you know that.

00:29:20:00 - 00:29:38:03

Like for her the recognition means the most of anything. So if I'm recognizing her so and doing it frequently and doing it publicly and things like that, like those are the things that built her up that she would rather have happened than extra money in her paycheck. Now that not that she won't take the extra money. So yet again, and that's the pieces.

00:29:38:03 - 00:29:55:04

Sometimes they'll still take whatever that that incentive is that you're offering, but it may not make them move any better any faster. So get to that next level. So put the extra effort in and that's really what you want to find. Because when you're setting these goals that are, you know, that are high reaching goals, they're not the easy it's not the given.

00:29:55:04 - 00:30:10:10

It's all about all right. You know, we did $2 million last year. We're setting the 2.1. All right. That's great. If that's all you want is that minimal amount of growth I look at that and I'm like, I should be able to fall into that piece. That was what it comes down to without doing anything. Like I should be able to breathe in that much money should still show up.

00:30:10:13 - 00:30:29:03

That was what it comes down to. but whenever you're looking at those things like that, you want it to be something that stretches them and gets them to go ahead and step up. And that's like that piece of going back and having those conversation conversations. What you should be able to do or your management team should be able to do, depending on how big your organization might be to be able to figure those things out.

00:30:29:05 - 00:30:57:21

And that's what you bring back when it comes time, when if you're talking to the team about, all right, what are we doing for incentives this year? Figure that out. How I do that actually is that I would do, annual reviews, right. Where we, we talk with our, our people. Right. And we, we have these conversations and we're like, you know, it gives us an opportunity to be able to have a conversation and open dialog conversations of like the things that they like, the things that they don't like, the things that they want to do.

00:30:57:24 - 00:31:18:21

And we get to know them as people. And so when it comes time for us to to put in our annual goal, right, as a company, I already know what each employee or each, you know, trade partner or, or anybody that's working inside of our organization what they want. Right. But because it's the thing that motivates them, right.

00:31:18:21 - 00:31:45:01

It's like that should be the goal as a as a leader, as a business leader, as an owner, as a GM, as a CEO, you should know what motivates your people to then push forward. Right. And so when you know that that it's like, okay, here's the incentive for you and here's the incentive for you, and you customize it to their plan, and then you communicate that with accounting of how is that all going to play out.

00:31:45:03 - 00:32:05:11

And so it it really helps, when understanding the what your people want need, then you can actually provide for them. And and it's that's a key piece in any organization. So with any team no matter what. I mean, even if you're the solopreneur and you're using subcontractors for everything, you know, which is where I started out at, you know, it's then it's knowing.

00:32:05:11 - 00:32:18:29

All right. What did those guys want? What do those teams want whenever they're coming out there is that they want, you know, to have lunch on site one day and then off to worry about going and getting food as a thank you. Is it you show up with drinks and stuff like that on the hot days to make sure that they're taking care of that?

00:32:19:01 - 00:32:32:10

You know, is it just the recognition and telling their bosses, hey, these guys are killing it out here, though. And, you know, make sure to keep sending them to my job because that's the crew that I want to take care of me because they already are like that type of thing. And it's figure in those pieces and it'll be a combination of it.

00:32:32:10 - 00:32:49:15

It's like whenever you talk about like the incentives piece. All right, so someone might like vacations, someone might like money in their paycheck. You know, someone may want their recognition and things like that. Well, you look at all three of those across the board. So it's like, all right, so if I'm going to go ahead and do that and the incentives, maybe it's $2,500 is what's going to pay for the vacation.

00:32:49:15 - 00:33:04:16

All right. Or it could be a $2,500 bonus. So or it could be a $2,500 party where we recognize the person for the work that they've been putting in. So either way, like when you're working with accounting, that's the way to go ahead and set it up is this is what we've got for the budget on whatever this incentive is.

00:33:04:23 - 00:33:19:17

And whenever you put it out there, you can actually put it out. There's this these are the incentives for this. This is going to be one of these and it's going to be dependent on whoever wins. So whatever they want to have is what they're going to go and get. So you get a choice. So that way when we put it out there, everyone's motivated.

00:33:19:17 - 00:33:32:25

Everyone's driven after it. So and then you go ahead and figure out how you're going to go ahead and take care of it for the person that is you know, is the key person. Or if it's everybody on the team, everybody gets their choice of whatever that might be. Yeah, I try to do it all before the year starts.

00:33:32:25 - 00:33:55:20

Right. So we it's kind of like right now in this time period, it's like as I roll into doing the annual planning for the company. and then once we kind of get those goals kind of outlined for, for 2025, then first week of 2025, I come back and say, okay, here are the goals for the company right now.

00:33:55:21 - 00:34:15:13

Let's do our individual incentive goals. And here are the options and kind of outline it and be like, here are the benchmarks. Here's where we're going to go. This is what we need to reach for the these incentives to be put into place. It is a collective effort. So either we all hit it or we don't hit it at all.

00:34:15:16 - 00:34:49:27

Right. So it's just here it is. And then that motivates everybody to kind of move into it. And I don't do for me, I don't do the annual percentage, right. And say like, okay, well, our goal is $1 million for the year and we all have to hit $1 million in sales and make X amount of dollars in profit in order for everybody to hit the budget and break it down into bi yearly kind of pieces, because our construction business really runs from like March to October.

00:34:49:29 - 00:35:14:25

So I do January 3rd through June as one segment, and then I do, July through October or actually July through December as the second segment. Right. But so I break down my overall, goal into two halves. And so if we went on half one, great. Everybody went right. And if we went on half to that, everybody would.

00:35:14:27 - 00:35:36:16

Right. Or you have a different opportunity to correct or make adjustments. and so that kind of works for us. I love that idea, not only for the fact that then, you know, say you're having a tough first half of the year for some reason. Yeah. And it's like if you get behind the eight ball on that, that's the only way you have to go ahead and get, you know, whatever the incentive is, is to have a number by the end of the year.

00:35:36:16 - 00:35:51:07

It's like you might set yourself such a hole that there's no way to get there. And it actually discourages everybody as well, because, like, we're never going to hit those numbers because we're so far behind at this point, you know? And at the same point, you also want to look at it as if you do the first, the first part of the year.

00:35:51:07 - 00:36:11:14

So the first six months, like what's talking about and you guys kill it just because you had the best six first six months of the year that you've ever had before. So you want them still to be motivated for the second half of the year where it restarts again, because if not everyone gets lazy. Well, as you go through the second half of the year and then all of a sudden it's like you're you're scraping to meet that overall number as opposed to re.

00:36:11:15 - 00:36:29:05

And this is one of the big keys that we do is if you go ahead, like the first six months of the year, you kill your number and you say, all right, we're going to be way above what our expected goal we set was reset the goal. So move, move that goal line. So to where now? Hey you know this is what we did in the first six months.

00:36:29:07 - 00:36:47:19

Let's see what we can do on the second six months to go ahead and hit that and make that new goal now as opposed to the previously set one or what I do in that case is that I put a chariot. Right. You hit it hit go one first half of the year. Great. I don't want you to be like oh I already hit go blah blah blah blah.

00:36:47:19 - 00:37:04:25

Well let's increase that a little bit on, on the back half and I'll put a little cherry on top. But maybe it's, you know, double what it was or whatever the instead of is on the back half or you get to make an option or you want to do x or Y. So you got to put a little cherry on there.

00:37:04:27 - 00:37:23:20

If you got a big increase the second half go just a little bit. You don't want to make it too far outside of the realm of like say, oh, we went from, you know, five jobs a week to ten jobs a week, right? Like, no, no, don't don't be like, all right. How about we go from five jobs a week to six jobs a week?

00:37:24:13 - 00:37:47:11

I just want to get 1% better on the back at all. And on those cases, like whenever you look at those numbers, like Nate's talking about, if you go from five jobs to six jobs, it's a 20% increase. So which is a nice increase as far as that part goes. Get on setting them something like whenever they give the example of going from 5 to 10, your biggest challenge is your infrastructure is probably not set to be able to handle going to ten.

00:37:47:13 - 00:38:03:07

That's doubling your business as well. It will come down to and most companies that I know are not able to double the business in that short of a timeframe and get the results that you're looking for, maintain that quality that you want to be putting out on a consistent basis that you're building your brand off of. Yeah, that's the last thing I want to go ahead and set yourself up with.

00:38:03:09 - 00:38:21:23

But every business owner wants to do it. everybody, there's no question every business that wants to do it and the smart ones realize the throttle that back or they're going to bury themselves at some point anyways. Yeah. You can actually tell the people that have been through the cycles before, and typically I've already attempted that once before or twice before and realize the havoc that it creates.

00:38:21:27 - 00:38:38:24

If you want to watch everything crash and burn on the second half, you just go forward and double what you did in the first. It's just it's a psychological trauma that you can't get past. You just can't. But I'll tell you what, by increasing it from five jobs to six up, two things happen. We know that it's 20%.

00:38:38:27 - 00:39:04:25

They see it as one job. One job. More easy one. Yep. Oh, we could do that. We've been doing five jobs a week. We could do six job week. They see it differently and they see it as an attainable goal. And they see it as extra motivation to keep pushing forward with what all what they're already doing. And so, this just little tidbits that I've learned over the years.

00:39:04:25 - 00:39:20:29

And hopefully this helps a lot of people that can kind of get started. I do want to circle back to one thing, because it's one of those pieces that that is the key piece to going ahead and reaching the goals that you set for the year. So we talked about breaking into an action plan and what that action plan really comes down to.

00:39:21:01 - 00:39:36:01

So is like if you're looking at the year I like and what they did is exactly I do what I break it down into. Right. So to be able to hit this goal I've got for the year, this is where we need to be for quarter of one hour and to hit the quarter one goal. This is all we're going to need to do each of the three months or in that quarter.

00:39:36:01 - 00:39:53:24

One goal, and to hit that monthly goal. This is what we're going to need to do there. So and it's but that goes ahead and breaks the numbers down. The next thing you need to do and this is the part that's that the only truly controllable aspect for you. And this is the part a lot of times that especially newer owners will miss, or someone who's newer to setting goals will miss.

00:39:53:27 - 00:40:11:04

It was setting the number out there is great. You literally have to break down what action do I take that creates that number, creates that result because you can control your actions, you're unable to control the result. In a lot of cases you can influence the result. So you can, you know, which is part of what happens is definitely the sale side of things.

00:40:11:04 - 00:40:34:18

And even on the delivery side of things, of how fast you get things done and how effectively you do it the first time. Yet at the same time, those are the actions that will go ahead and influence whether you can hit those pieces if you're out, if you've got to speak to ten people, you've got to meet with ten homeowners to go ahead and nail three jobs, you know, then if you know what those numbers look like, then it's like, all right, well, if I need to go ahead and sell 30 jobs during the first quarter, well then I've got to break that down.

00:40:34:18 - 00:40:48:21

That's ten jobs per month. So that means that's two and a half jobs a week, which means I need to talk to at least ten new homeowners every week. Now, how do I get in front of ten new homeowners every week? And part of that may go, like in that case, for the salesperson, part of that is going to go back to the marketing team.

00:40:48:24 - 00:41:02:07

Part of that is going to go back to the customer service team, because those are the people who are taking care of the homeowners you've already taken care of, and it's them getting the referrals. So for someone else that they know that might need a job. So marketing teams like, what are we doing on the marketing side? Where are we getting started?

00:41:02:11 - 00:41:17:23

We run an online marketing. Are we going ahead and do networking functions? Are we going ahead and doing home shows? So whatever the case might be, you've got to go ahead and know what that plan looks like and you've got to have those pieces in place. And that's the part that I see too many businesses miss, is they'll set the goal.

00:41:17:23 - 00:41:35:08

They may even break the goal down into the quarterly, monthly, weekly pieces. Yet they didn't pick out what the action is that needs to happen for that. And the second part, whenever you do that, because especially when you get a little bit bigger, if you're a smaller company, a lot of this is going to fall on your shoulders, which means you know who's responsible for it because you're it.

00:41:35:22 - 00:41:50:27

whatever. You build the company a little bit bigger. The other part is you've got to assign the person that's the driver for whatever this is. So if there's the big goal, all right, you're the driver for this, you know, head of marketing, you're the one that's got to take care of this, which means you need to break it down with your team and what needs to happen for us to hit this.

00:41:51:04 - 00:42:06:24

So and we're coming back to you to find out what needs to be different if we need something different. So what we need to do more of? Well, to go ahead and get you where you want to go. And that's the part you've got to have someone who's responsible for it. Who is the report person? Who is the one getting the rest of the team on the same page?

00:42:06:24 - 00:42:26:04

As far as the new action steps that you're taking? Oh, you've got to have that. Because if you just leave it out there when nobody nobody's responsible for it, I will just about guarantee it's never going to happen. Never, never going to happen. Yeah. So so those are some of the big pieces. Now one of the things that we do, and I do this for my personal stuff as well as my business, goals.

00:42:26:06 - 00:42:42:07

So I was I actually take all of my goals. So and I print them out and I only print the short piece of it like I don't break, I don't have the part broken down. So that's something I see in a different place. But the overall goals for the year. So I have print it out. So and I post them around, it becomes the screensaver on my laptop.

00:42:42:09 - 00:43:00:23

I print it and put it on my mirror. So whenever I'm getting ready every morning, guess what I'm staring at every morning. So there's it's right there in my face. And the reason why is it can get so easy. Like if you go ahead and do this and you create the plan, what happens to the plan 90% of the time ends up in a drawer somewhere in a file, but no one ever looks at again.

00:43:00:26 - 00:43:15:12

So it's got to be posted. It's got to especially like if you break this one, you're a little bit bigger and you break it down into divisions, the division, you know, the marketing. Hey, this is what this is our goal on the marketing side to be able to create these things. So it's like that should be up somewhere in someone's office, in everybody's office for whatever their piece.

00:43:15:12 - 00:43:36:09

And part of that is because anything, anything that you focus on will actually happen. The challenge is if you don't focus on it, it's never going to show up. Yeah, we do the same thing. I've got I got goals kind of posted around the office and, you know, put them up on the wall and, and make big deals about, you know, whenever I'm walking by to say, hey, look, here it is.

00:43:36:11 - 00:43:58:09

That's where we're going, you know, and it doesn't I think there's a subconscious piece that goes along with that that really is powerful, where when you're constantly seeing what your goals are, then you're constantly reminded of like, what is it that you're supposed to be doing next? Because I know for me, sometimes I get A.D.D. or ADHD or whatever, squirrel brain.

00:43:58:11 - 00:44:21:25

And it's like, oh, I want to do this, I will do this, I will do this. And I got to bring myself back to, okay, here's what you said. Here's where you said your glory. This is what you're doing. And it it helps me kind of like refresh. And I've got a whiteboard in my other office, and on that whiteboard I've, I've got like, here's our financial goals, here's our, internal goal that all of us just kind of there.

00:44:21:25 - 00:44:38:21

And I leave it there and everybody comes to my office. They're always reading my board. Write it up. And at first I thought, well, that's weird. why why are you guys all in my personal headspace of what's in my mind? But it really kind of came to a point where I was like, okay, they're seeing it like I'm seeing it.

00:44:38:21 - 00:44:57:24

They're seeing it. As much as I would say that they see that I'm, I'm conscious, consciously kind of going forward in this. And so it helps them kind of be more in alignment with what I'm thinking. And so I encourage everybody, print out your goals and put them in these places and put them in places that you can see and kind of go from there.

00:44:57:27 - 00:45:13:18

I mean, if you've got like, well, the part that popped into my head as you were talking about that Nate, for having that piece is out there, my ex father in law, they owned a portable X-ray and EKG company. So they ran in three states up in the northeast. And the one question he would call in every day multiple times throughout the day.

00:45:13:18 - 00:45:29:09

And the only thing he wanted to know, so is what's the number? And that was the number of exams for that day. So because he knew if that was controlled and what that there were actions that the techs could take whenever they were in the facilities, that's going to all the nursing stations and asking them, did they need anything taking care of all their, their.

00:45:29:12 - 00:45:47:23

So that meant the office reaching out to all of the typical people who usually call in. So some kind of exam to make sure that, hey, they got everything in that we're able to take care of on that day. What that did is that that that was the focus. Everybody knew to stay on that. And by staying on that one action and asking that one question.

00:45:47:25 - 00:46:03:19

Yeah. So they were able to go ahead and boost that business every day and get the maximum so that we could go ahead and deliver, on a weekly, monthly, yearly basis. So it was one thing that happened. And by, by figuring out that that was the KPIs was what it came down to. That was the key performance indicator.

00:46:03:19 - 00:46:21:25

That was the one thing, though, that if that went well, everything else built. So it was what it did. You know, and finding those pieces for your business or for your division or whatever may be. And unfortunately, if you're if you're a solopreneur or you're someone who's got a very small team, you may have multiple of these things to go ahead and have to hit somewhere on the same day as the same focus.

00:46:21:25 - 00:46:35:13

And those are great questions that those one, those key trackers are good things to keep up in front of you. You know, it's like on our end. I mean, one of the things that we look at is like on the sales side of things, one of the lead comes in, so they're supposed to get contacted within an hour of whenever the lead comes in.

00:46:35:15 - 00:46:48:09

That doesn't necessarily mean we have to talk to them because we may not be able to we may call them and they may go to voicemail. That means we left them a voicemail. We texted them so the next thing the auto email sequence is go out. So we'll say, hey, here's the, you know, the next steps, the next steps.

00:46:48:12 - 00:47:10:27

And those are already started going, whatever that is. There should be a combination of all those things happening. But I want something physically from my team, either a text or an email. So when I start a text or a call. So that's happened within that hour. Well then that's it's big. And I know whenever that happens we've got a much higher likelihood of that person at least talking to us on the phone to do the consultation first before we go out and do a site visit and we can go ahead.

00:47:10:27 - 00:47:23:24

And that's our chance to go ahead and check to make sure they're a good fit for us. That what they're looking for is going to align with us now, and then we go out and then do the actual thing that that takes a little bit more time. So we get to know them a lot better. So for what they're looking for.

00:47:23:26 - 00:47:49:28

But those are those key performance indicators. You want to know what that is for each area of your business. That again is a tracking piece of whatever that piece is. So you think a lot of people, at least what I've, what I've experience is that if you're running a business and it's, you know, less than $3 million a year gross revenue, you really haven't given a chance to really think about all the different departments that run a company.

00:47:49:28 - 00:48:16:09

Because you do all of them, you do them right, and and more likely right. And it and so sometimes they just set goals, but they don't really take the extra step, really think through like each segment of the business that needs to have a set goal for them. And so when we're doing our, you know, annual planning and we're going through this, it's not like something we do in an hour, right?

00:48:16:09 - 00:48:37:16

This is something that we do over a two day period, or it's eight hours a day. And it is. We dive into each thing and we look at, okay, what do we want to do here? And we do that because it takes that much mental focus and is probably the most important thing of the year that I'm going to do.

00:48:37:21 - 00:48:58:23

And so I want to make sure that I have a clear mind. I want to make sure that I, I process everything, I want to make sure that I'm reading it appropriately. I want to make sure that I'm not trying to do it or rushed through things. I think that's another thing that most people do that is a challenge, is that they rush through it, or they just think it's something else that they have to check off the box.

00:48:58:25 - 00:49:26:06

Right. And those are the people that never hit the goals that they set. And they're always miserable because they're not in alignment with what they're trying to do. And so I want to make sure that I encourage everybody to take the time to do the deep dive, because even if it's on the weekends, even if it's a Saturday, Sunday and you're doing it by yourself, you now have spent that time to outline your next 365 days.

00:49:26:09 - 00:49:46:06

And in doing that, you're going to have a higher rate of success just for spending those two days. That will impact the other year that you're going to go through. And so, you know, it's one of the like and that you said spent. I would actually go ahead and change that to invest that time because it truly is an investment is what it comes down to.

00:49:46:08 - 00:50:06:26

When you view it as an investment, you'll typically go ahead and take a little more seriously. Yeah. Because we unfortunately we all spend time every day and sometimes it's spent well, sometimes it's not. If you invest it and that's what it is for, especially for your business, you know, it is an investment and it's if this is for you and your personal life, it's the same thing if you're looking for certain things to happen in your life.

00:50:06:28 - 00:50:24:27

So invest that time because that's what that's how you create the success. So just by looking at taking the time that Nate's talking about, because after you create these pieces, after you've taken the time to make sure it's the right thing. So for you, for the business, for the team. So for you personally, if you're doing personal goals.

00:50:24:27 - 00:50:41:03

So those literally, as far as I'm concerned, become the guiding light of what happens in the next 12 months and what ends up having like one of the biggest things Nate was talking earlier to the squirrel ideas that can run through your head, which we as entrepreneurs, have all the time, multiple a day. Most of the time.

00:50:41:12 - 00:51:01:07

so whenever that happens, the one question I go ahead and ask is, hey, does this whatever this new idea, move us closer to our goals that we've got set for the year? So, or is it going to distract us and pull us away? If it's moving us closer to those goals, great. Then I may be something we want to pursue and add in and figure out a way to go ahead and maximized.

00:51:01:09 - 00:51:16:14

If it's something else that's going to pull us away, especially like there's all those new ideas, new product lines, new new areas that we can get into. the best thing to do if it doesn't move the goals right now, and that is go ahead and record it somewhere. Like, I'm a big fan of my maps. Nate knows that.

00:51:16:29 - 00:51:30:28

so I use my maps for everything, and I've got a running one of all of the ideas that pop into my head. So and I just keep I keep adding to that. And at some point. So some of those pieces come off of there, and at some point I have and I go back and look at it later, I'm like, yeah, you were freaking crazy thinking about that.

00:51:30:28 - 00:51:47:27

I don't know what was in your mind. I don't know what you're doing. You know. Exactly. I did the same thing. I use Apple Notes and I yeah, I've got tons of Apple notes, but, you know, that's where they live. Because if not that, I'm spewing them out and then we're trying to chase those things, but I bring them out like the day before.

00:51:47:27 - 00:52:08:21

We're going to go into the annual planning meeting. And I read through all my notes and I go, hey, that was a good idea. We might want to implement this, or I'd be like, that's garbage. That's farmers. We're never going to do that. Like 98% of them. I never even bring to the annual meeting because they were moments in time that were just ideas.

00:52:08:23 - 00:52:26:17

And then the 2% that comes in, they might have some substance. And so in doing that and bring it to the team and say, hey, what do you think about X, y, Z, or what do you think about this one? And then I get their feedback. Usually it's like so far out of left field that they're like, I don't even want to touch that thing.

00:52:26:21 - 00:52:50:08

And then and maybe in meetings sometimes I'm like, well, we're doing it anyway. So you may think it's crazy if they get all the crazy training because here we go, because here we go, you know? So, I enjoy my annual planning, like my I want to get off topic for a second. my personal planning stuff I do every two years.

00:52:50:08 - 00:53:11:23

Right. But this is for me and it. But for me, I'm also thinking about the company. I'm also thinking about my family and also thinking about me personally as an individual. I'm thinking about my health and my mental acuity, and that all the things I do that for myself, you know, every two years. Right. And I set those two year goals for those things.

00:53:11:25 - 00:53:35:15

And I think people need to set their own individual goals. And in doing that, they can really kind of hone in on their business goals and where they want to go. Because if you don't know where you want to be personally and you're just chasing a company goal, then then you're never going to be in a happy state of mind because you're always chasing something that's not for you.

00:53:35:18 - 00:53:54:03

So I think it's important for everybody to spend some time on their own personal stuff. Well, and I agree, as far as that part goes, I know Nate actually takes a trip whenever he does his and he goes goes while. And the last one, the last one was walking through England. Scotland. Yeah, I walk across England. Okay.

00:53:54:22 - 00:54:10:05

so he did that for, what, two weeks? Yeah, it was about a month long month. Okay. but it took it took about 17 days to go from one side to the other. Okay. So but so like for Nate that works out really well. And obviously Nate's got his businesses set up and he can be gone for a month.

00:54:10:05 - 00:54:25:08

And that doesn't go ahead and affect his businesses. which is where we're most people in the business like to me, because if if it is, if you're not able to do that type of thing, you truly don't own a business, you own a job. And there's nothing wrong with owning a job. So it's that. But if you want to own a business, there's different ways to put it in place.

00:54:25:08 - 00:54:41:27

And Nate's business continues to grow whether he's there or not. and that's one of the things that he's got set up over the years. But that that comes into what, what I want from a personal goal. Right. And what I wanted from a personal goal is to have some freedom to be able to do the things that I wanted to do.

00:54:42:02 - 00:55:06:06

So while I'm going through these adventures, adventures that I like to go on, I'm constantly thinking, how do I make my team better, be able to act better while I'm not there? And how do I and my my whole, my whole process, like how do I support them getting better? Alex Hartford has a has a great outline for the billionaire closed.

00:55:06:12 - 00:55:28:21

Right. And I don't we don't have time to get into that today. That's another episode today. And until another time. But there's stages of going through business ownership. I am part of one of the stages is as you're hitting revenue numbers and you're kind of coming through this, there's a point in time where you look back and you say, okay, I've gotten so far.

00:55:28:24 - 00:55:59:02

If I want to go further, how do I help my team drive the bus? And I get to be upon the bus that's being driven, and that's part of the focus. But you can't get there if you don't have your own personal goals, right? And you have to be able to clear out the head space for you to be a better person, to be a better leader, to be a better, you know, family person, family man, husband, father, what have you wife, mother, whatever the goal is, you have to be able to do it in.

00:55:59:04 - 00:56:14:22

Sometimes it's ten minutes a day, sometimes it's like what I do. I take it, you know, a couple of weeks and I clear out all the cobwebs and set goals and go forward. And it's Nate's right. It's got to be it's the right thing for you. And it can be there depending on the stage that you are in your life and in your business.

00:56:14:24 - 00:56:30:18

I mean, I know look at this year, I as one of the first years we meet, Alice, I, my wife and I are not taking a vacation between Christmas this year. That's been a staple for, probably a decade now, if not more. as far as that part goes, I'm still shutting the business down like we always do during that time.

00:56:30:18 - 00:56:46:10

Just because I want my team to be able to spend time with their family and friends and do the things that they want to do to celebrate the holiday. and at the same time, what I talked about is, okay, since we're not doing vacation this year. So let's take one of those days and sit down so and run through our goals together.

00:56:46:10 - 00:57:00:16

So as far as what it looks like for our family, and how those pieces come in because then whatever we do that together, it's no different than doing a business, doing those things on a personal side of things that we can be on the same page. So then I can find out what I need to do to support her in what she's doing.

00:57:00:16 - 00:57:18:02

She gets to find out what she's going to do to help support me and the pieces, and for me, it'll be me. It will be both the business side of things and the personal side of things. Getting that chance, though, is just to spend that time getting on the same page as your partner is huge, you know? And then we'll take the whole day or not, I don't know, but that's what I'm blocking out for it.

00:57:18:13 - 00:57:31:14

and whatever it takes, it takes and we may end up going over. It may be one of those things where we get going, do it. It's like, well, you know what? We're going to need to spend a little more time getting clear on some of these pieces. And that's what we end up doing now. And it's it's finding out what's right for you.

00:57:31:16 - 00:57:50:00

So and I, I think truly the more you get going on in your life, typically the longer that planning stage becomes now, like the number of days and things like that that you're going to do just because you've got so many different balls in the air to be able to handle. It's an awesome time of the year, though, because I'm like, Nate, I look forward to that every year.

00:57:50:03 - 00:58:05:11

Oh, I look forward to the review. So which is typically already started by the time I get down to that level and and B, I look forward to that plan piece because it's, that's the excitement. That's the that reignites me is what it does. So it gets me going again. It's that that new hey, we just fanned the flame again.

00:58:05:11 - 00:58:22:00

So you know we're necessarily starting to burn out. But there were embers. There is what it comes down to. So we go ahead and fan. I think there are some more logs on the fire. And let's make this thing cook baby. So and that's what we go after. Fire it up. Let's get it going. Well and that's what those are some of the big things.

00:58:22:00 - 00:58:37:20

So that that we I think I can on overall basis process wise that some of the big things that I do. So Nate, anything else that you want to go ahead and add to that as things that you might do either personally or professionally, so that you want to go ahead and let everybody know, hey, here's another key piece.

00:58:37:23 - 00:59:20:09

Yeah. you know, part of this is that. When you're making the decision of where you're going, you have to you have to know where you've been, right? And you have to be okay with where you fit. You have to, you know, you can't be. You can't be held up with the rearview mirror. And what I mean by that is that when you're setting goals and you and you're wanting to achieve something, one of the things that I always do is that when I, when I cross over into the New year, I make sure that I leave everything that happened in the previous year behind me.

00:59:20:12 - 00:59:54:04

I don't take that baggage with me going forward. Now. This is a mindset that this is a, a learnable skill. It doesn't come natural because everybody kind of like, looks backwards. Oh, I could have done that or I should have done this or that. Right. And most of those things are negative. Right. And I can't go in to my next, my next year wishing or hoping or thinking that I should have done something different or I could have been better or whatever.

00:59:54:11 - 01:00:17:11

I can acknowledge it. Right? I could have done well, I could have I could have done that better. Okay. But I can't hold on to it. Like, oh, I should have done this. I should have done that. And this is the reason why I'm not there. This I gotta let all of that go. Because if I don't, then I've just put both anchors on my back as I'm trying to run forward, and I can't do that.

01:00:17:11 - 01:00:41:04

So I got to I got to shift it in my mind, be like, okay, well, I didn't hit that goal. All right, fine. I didn't do that. Perfect. Okay, fine. I didn't like I got to get to a point where I'm okay with whatever happened. If I hit success, great. Okay, great. That's over. I've never been one to be, having my trophies, like a bunch of trophies.

01:00:41:05 - 01:01:00:24

All kind of, like, even when I was in grade school and high school and college and winning medals and winning trophies and all that was like, oh, okay, great. I did the thing. I put it away like I don't care anymore. It's not on the top of the mantle. Right? You got to let the successes go. You got to let the, you know, the the shortcomings go.

01:01:00:27 - 01:01:30:09

And you have to say it's a refresh new thing, because if not, if you're holding on to last year's success, it won't help you in the next year. If you hold on to last year's failure, it will keep you from having success in the next year. So you have to get to a place in your mind where it's like, okay, I accept whatever happened last year and I'm stepping forward into my new year, in my new goals and my new way of doing things, and I'm just going to accept whatever happened last year.

01:01:30:09 - 01:01:54:21

And now I have a refreshed view. And so I love that. And it's one of the things I think of whenever you're describing that night is everything that comes in good or challenging is feedback. And that's all it is. It's it's feedback. Take it for the feedback, make the next step forward, whatever that is. And that's that's what you're talking about is, hey, you got all the feedback from 2024 when you analyzed everything, you mapped out what the roadmap of where you want to go for 2025.

01:01:54:24 - 01:02:09:13

So now let's let's go ahead and leave all those bags sitting there. We've taken the feedback. We've made the plan. So there's no sense thinking about it anymore. Because like you said, the successes aren't going to lift you any differently in 2025, and the failures are only going to pull you down if you keep focusing on them, is what it comes down to.

01:02:09:16 - 01:02:25:24

Just leave it all there, so keep on moving forward. I love that great way to go ahead and start off 2025. something that's key, both whether it's business or personal. So those are the ways to go ahead and look at things. And when you find it, when you talk to people who are successful, it's the things that they figure out the fastest.

01:02:25:29 - 01:02:40:03

Well, is it's only feedback. It doesn't mean anything until you give it meaning. And so you attach an emotion to it. If it's only feedback, take it for the feedback it is and then keep moving forward. What's the next step? That's the question I was what's the next step? What's the next step? What can I learn from this.

01:02:40:06 - 01:02:56:28

So how can I apply differently the next time? and those are the pieces that we go ahead and look at it. I don't dwell on it past that point. Once I answer that question and put whatever the action is in place, we're moving. That's all I care about. Let's keep moving forward. That's it. Awesome. everybody make sure and I'll definitely share this one.

01:02:56:28 - 01:03:13:01

If you know anybody who is looking to go ahead and make 2025 very year, well, this is some of the key pieces to go ahead and look at run through these action steps. And that's the key piece. Run through the pieces that we talked about. Don't just listen to it. Too many people go back and listen all these things and they don't take action.

01:03:13:06 - 01:03:29:01

If you don't take the action, you're never going to get the result. We want you to get results. And if one of those results you're looking for is, how do I get in the construction, what do I how do I do this? What do I want to do? So where's the area I want to focus in. So definitely reach out to us in the show notes down below will be the link for Concord University.

01:03:29:03 - 01:03:45:15

Reach out to us. We're here to help you. We want to actually see more and more people get into this. And it's like one of the key pieces. So is if that's 20 or 20, 25 goals, let's make that happen. Reach out to us there. Make sure to share this. So on whatever platform you're listening on, make sure to comment if you got questions about this.

01:03:45:15 - 01:03:59:24

If you go ahead and start setting your goals and you're like, I'm just stuck on something, shoot us a comment on one of the social media pieces, either NATO, I will reach back out to you and go ahead and give you some some clarification to make sure that you're getting the most out of this. Well, I know we're getting ready for a great holiday season.

01:03:59:24 - 01:04:14:03

So, Nate, I know you're all holiday it up in your sweater, but he looks great. Well, he's all ready for the holidays. He's got it. He's got a vacation coming up with the family. So he's going to have a blast with that. So I know we've got some great festivities planned around here. And we want to make sure that for all of you.

01:04:14:10 - 01:04:29:23

So have a very Merry Christmas and let's kill 2025 and have the best year possible in all areas of our life, personal and professional. Have a great one!