[Transcript starts at 1:17]
Hello, hello, hello, my podcast people, and thank you for joining me for yet another episode of my favorite podcast. If you're listening to it or watching it when it drops, it is Monday, December 18th. The month flies by, it always does. Today we are talking about how I personally am planning for 2024. But first, first order of business.
There's a little movie on Netflix. It's called Leave the World Behind and it is trash. You should leave that movie behind. It is a Netflix movie. Julia Roberts is in it. Ethan Hawke is in it. Who's the other guy in it? Kevin Bacon's in it for five seconds. I think they paid Julia Roberts a million dollars and by a million I mean a billion dollars to be in this because it's terrible.
It's terrible. Don't watch it. Don't watch it. For those of you who did watch it, what the fuck happened with the animals? Like, I'm annoyed about that storyline. Maybe this whole thing is a, you know, some sort of social commentary. I don't fucking know. And also, I really feel like in the beginning it said that it's produced or something by the Obamas.
Like, what is happening with it? Either way, it's bad. Don't watch it. People will likely watch it because lots of folks are saying that it's bad. And so you kind of want to like watch it for yourself and be like, well, why was it bad? But either way, don't say that I didn't warn you.
Okay. As for today's episode, talking about planning for 2024. We are nearing the end of the year.
We're like two weeks away from the end of the year when this episode drops. And I want to discuss how I am planning for 2024. It's actually quite meta that we're two weeks away and I'm talking about planning as opposed to like, you know, talking about it in July or talking about it in September. Um, because in many ways, this kind of pseudo last minute approach is how I plan. So four things to understand about me. And I think that'll give it, give this episode context. Number one, I am a creature of habit. If you listen to this episode, to this podcast for the amount of time, you know, that's also, I've been doing this podcast for five years on the same days.
Cause I'm a creature of habit. Uh, but much of what I did this year and last year will be what I do next year in 2024. So, there doesn't need to be much planning. Cause I'm just like, it stays the same, check mark. This is how it was when I was working with rock tape, especially like from the middle years towards the end.
Like I just kept doing the same things over and over again, because it worked.
Next thing to understand, I am a big fan of leave it until the last minute. When you leave it to the last minute, it only takes a minute. So certain things with planning or executing certain things, like you typically, um, or more usually with like, um, PowerPoints, things like that.
Like I'm going to do them the day before maybe even the day of, depending on what the thing is. I don't, I really actually really do not like when people get on my ass about something very early. Lex and I have had this discussion many times. Cause I'm like, my attention is on this thing. That other thing's not even in my brain yet.
Not even worried about it yet. So people try to get me to worry about things before it's on my schedule. I actually am like quite really stresses me out and frustrates me.
So that's something to understand as it relates to me and planning. Next thing, if it's not on my calendar though, it doesn't exist.
So to that end, I do have any, um, speaking events that I've committed to for next year. They're already on the calendar. So I'm not opposed to planning for things early, but I'm not going to touch that thing again. Right? So I have two events already on there. on the calendar for next year. I am not like outlining the talks or anything like that.
Like I will deal with that right close to the day of, right? Um, but they, but the actual thing and blocking off the weekend that has been on there for many, many months. Lastly, I have a lifestyle business and this is what I specialize in helping people build is lifestyle businesses. My business supports my lifestyle.
I want to live here. I want to play volleyball. I want to be able to chill. I'm going to hang out with Lex and Rupert and Moose, and I want to be able to go for walks, like, that's what I want. So to that end, if I'm happy with my lifestyle, I don't feel a need to change things in my business. Whereas some other folks just really, they love being in the business.
You know, Jill loves growing her business, and I fucking love that for her. It excites me for her. I'm over here like, I got volleyball. I gotta make sure I have enough money coming in that I can play volleyball. But I'm not looking to change things in my, in my business because that's where the excitement comes from, right?
So as we're thinking about planning and goals. Lifestyle business. Okay. Lifestyle business.
So let's break down how I coach people to plan their year and how I plan my own year. So logistically, and this is what I'm going to look at and suggest to people and walk through with people, um, when they have an online business.
First off, get yourself a big ass calendar. I use the Swift Wow, that was hard to say. The Swift Glimpse Calendar. We can link in the show notes. Yes, it's an affiliate link from Amazon because mama didn't raise no fool. Uh, but it's a, you know, dry erase and I have one on my- You can't see me and you can't see it.
Rather, you can't see me if you're listening, but you can't see the calendar if you're watching because it's off to the side of the screen. But I have one. I write all the things on there and it's very helpful for seeing just like, you know, spatially and pictorially seeing when things are on the calendar.
So you know, like, oh, I have more room at this time of the year versus the other. Second thing, consider seasonality. Speaking of when you have more room, I don't like launching or selling things or running things during the summer or the last Month of the year of December or December so I'm not gonna put this on the calendar during those times But that means I have to be cognizant of that when I am planning things.
Like I said a little bit earlier, live events, I have those on already and typically those will go on first because you need like longer time frames in the to lead up to that. Alright, so any that I'm speaking at and any that I'm hosting. I host live events with Jill obviously and now with Lex for the LextroMind and for Legacy.
But folks, we are bringing back Boss Up this year, or excuse me, next year 2024. We're going to do it bigger, we're going to do it better. And that will be likely in October. So that's on the calendar tentatively, but just, put that in your brains so that you can plan for 2024, all right? So, if we're looking at planning out the calendar, planning for 2024 as it relates to launches, the way that I do this is your signature offer will go on the calendar first.
Your signature offer is the thing that you are known for. If you're not known for a specific offer yet, right, so for me it's the Instagram Intensive, for Jill it's FBA. If you're not known for a specific offer yet, the way that we look to figure out which one of our offerings, okay, will become that signature offer is one you run the offers and you're going to learn from that, but some things to think about is with your signature offer, this is going to be the offer that if folks don't do anything else, you want them to do that, right?
They come into your ecosystem, you have all this stuff and you're like, where should I start? What should I buy? I can only do one thing. And it's like, Do this thing. Your signature offer is typically a good starting point in your ecosystem for other offers as well, right? So it's not like the highest thing that you offer.
It's typically something where they can kind of get started, get that introduction, get some really good results, and then they can move through the ecosystem. Your signature offer will typically allow you to get the most number of people through it as well, right? Cause it makes sense. If this is kind of like a starting point, we don't want your starting point to be a bottleneck.
If you're like, I want to get eight people through at a time and it's a year long- that's going to be very tough for the business as a signature offer. Whereas something like, you know, the Instagram intensive, I cap it at 50. I could have more people in that. Uh, Jill, I think has over a hundred people that go through FBA, right?
There's no bottleneck there. You can get a lot of people through it and then they're in the ecosystem and they can move on to your other offers, whether they're going to go down or up. Typically, you know, people may look to go up with your higher level offers, uh, but it allows for the most number of people to get through it.
That in mind, we're thinking about the time and the financial investment that is commensurate with allowing the most number, the greatest number of people to go through it, right? So it's simply not your most expensive offer and it's simply not going to be your longest offer, right? So. It makes sense if it's a long offer, typically the price point would go up, but something like Legacy or LextroMind right?
Legacy 9, 000 investment, LextroMind 10, 000 investment. That's not my signature offer. That's an offer that once people have been in the ecosystem and they've gone through other things and they've built a lot of trust and they're like, yeah, I want Maestro to help me out. Then they can move to that. Okay.
So with that signature offer, you're typically going to launch it one to two, excuse me, two to three times a year. I like one to two better, but you're typically going to launch it two to three times a year. Three times max a year. In the beginning, when you first start running it, you may launch it more and then you're going to realize like, oh, that's too much.
So you're launching it two to three times a year. For me, I do the Instagram intensive twice. As for where do you put it on your calendar? You're going to reverse engineer it, right? When do you want it to end? So you go to the calendar, see that when, based on that, do you need it to start, right? Cause you know how long this thing is.
Okay. Then you give yourself, you know, two weeks for the cart to open. I do two weeks. I do the wait list and then I do, uh, the public launch. And then a month before that, I start the promotion of it. So we start to see, holy shit, you need more time. This is why I don't launch things a bazillion times a year.
So I'll put that on. And remember, I said earlier, I don't like ending things or running things through the summer, nor do I like to do that in December, kind of, or even like really near Thanksgiving, because it just kind of gets a little tough. So I can see now where that needs to go on the calendar, and I have those two time periods blocked off.
And that is really, for me, like the nuts and bolts, the most important part of what I'm going to plan and put on the calendar. Pocket launches or what I call pocket launches will go on next. Pocket launches are things that aren't really front, front facing. I borrowed that term pocket, like the pocket listing.
You all know that I love Million Dollar Listings and I love Selling Sunset and pocket listing is one that's like, it's not, I guess they're on the MLS, but. You're not like doing all this marketing and stuff for it. It's like, Hey, I have this thing. And if you have a client that comes to you and you can kind of like this pocket deal, so same, same for um, any kind of launches that like Legacy, Legacy is not a true pocket launch. LextroMind this year kind of was where we only launched to the wait list, right? Suffice to say that these pocket launches are smaller. They are not super front facing if they're front facing at all. There's much less effort, but it still requires a dedicated time period.
So I'll put those in the calendar next. We typically launch Legacy in October and we'll probably do LextroMind on the same time. We'll see. This is the first year running it. So we'll see how we want to do it for next year. Based on after that, that's it. I know I keep looking at the calendar. You can't see it, but that's what I'm looking at over to the side of the screen.
I'll put the signature offer on first. I put any kind of pocket launches that I have that I know that I'm going to do. And then I see the calendar is open. And then from there I can see where I have breaks in the calendar. Just literally I have space on the calendar and I can fill that in with things like webinars or flash sales, you know, things that require very little promotional real estate.
Very simple though from a zoomed out perspective of planning when I'm looking at the year I'm looking at intention for the year ways that I'd like to spend my time and things that I'd liked- Oops hit my a little bowl there- and things that I'd like to lean into, ultimately for me this culminates in a word for the year. I don't set goals. If you do, awesome. More power to you .Like it's just nothing, I just, I don't do that.
So, if you do set goals, soft suggestion, reverse engineer them, bitches. And then double down on the process. That's, that's what you're gonna do. So, how do I, okay, this is what I want. Okay, what does that, what do I need to do in order to get to that? Okay, what's the first step? What's the step that I need to do each week?
Cool, then lean into that. Very simple. So, for me, with my biz, my business, my desire is always just to keep enjoying what I'm doing and to figure out a way to reach new people or more people or, or I should say and, or deepen the relationships that I have with current people and how I'm providing them value and doing all of that in a way that I enjoy.
This year the goal was to do that through video podcasting and so my word of the year was create. I have my little like my intent bracelet on and I leaned into that word. I created two video podcasts every single week for the whole year. I'm very happy with how everything came out. Next year, I think that I want to lean into writing and really refine that skill.
And so as of right now, my word for 2024 is going to be write, W R I T E. So to come up with a word for the year. I like for it to be a verb, right? For, you know, to me, action is the answer. It gives you clear direction and it minimizes choice. You're just like, what? I have this situation. I know that my goal is this, or my intention was this.
I'm presented with different options. You lean into the word that's right on there, right? My word was create. And so I'm like, Oh, I'm kind of tired. Should I do take this rest? Or should I make this video? Hey, there's my word right there. Create. That was my intention. That's my goal, whatever you want to call it.
The decision's made for me. I also only pick one word for the same reasons that I just listed. Action is the answer. It gives clear direction, direction, and it minimizes choice. Why I feel like when you have multiple words, then you kind of choose the one that maybe feels safest or easiest, which maybe isn't going to move you in the direction that you actually want to move in.
So. Something to consider. And then I make my little my intent bracelet and I lean into it. Of course, as goes with everything, it's a soft suggestion. If you pick a word and you hate it, then change it. But I do spend some time really thinking about it and I'm not going to say that I look for a word that's going to intentionally, or that's going to, yeah, we'll say intentionally push me out of my comfort zone and make me do things I don't want to do.
It's again, what's the direction I want to be going in? What do I want to spend time doing? What's going to bring me joy? And in this case, what is going to, you know, lean into some growth? And I think that that's going to be writing. And so that's why I'm thinking that's going to be my word for the year.
So planning for me is pretty easy because I've been intentional with my actions for the past however many years and I'm happy to continue doing the things that I've been doing pretty much exactly the same as I am right now. If I wanted something to change, then I would plan accordingly and I'd lean on how to cut that thing out, right?
It's not about adding more things in. It's like, hey, I don't like that thing. How do I get rid of that? Y'all know I hate the question, where do you see yourself in five years? For me, the better question, or the question I prefer is, could you see yourself doing this in five years, and if it's no, like, what could you not see yourself doing?
Why? Do you need to start cutting it out now? Right? Do you need to start cutting it out now? For me, yeah, I totally could. Right? I had a big life change this year that I didn't see coming, but the things I was doing before, I could have absolutely seen myself doing for five years and living in that other apartment and just having work go the way that it was, like, it was great.
So planning pretty easy because I've created a life that I'm not trying to change. So the last thing to consider here, something that I'm also not changing, is how the week is structured. I've had my week set like this for quite some time now and I love it. I'm only client facing on Tuesday and Thursday and I do group things, I kind of group offerings, group meetings on the first and third Wednesday of the month.
All right, that's it. So, I don't need to change any of that. I don't need to be like, oh, I need to like put this thing first, or like have more volleyball, or like, I'm like, I'm good with how things are. If you want to learn more about that, and kind of your own, think about your own week, reflect on your own week, maybe change your own week, I have two episodes that I'm going to suggest.
Number one is episode 444. That's from January 26th, and that's called Breaking Down My Weekly Schedule. So, if you want to hear exactly what my schedule looks like each day, and how I kind of, plan things, uh, and do things rather, you can listen to that. The second episode I'm going to recommend is called A Better Way to Schedule Your Time.
That's episode 239. Um, and that is from September 9th, excuse me, September 3rd of 2020. It's older, but it's, it holds true. Um, and that is basically about profit first for your life, where you schedule the good things first, and then you allow the work, you make it fit in around it, right? So thank you for linking those, Courtney.
If you listening to this want help structuring your week, I'm not even gonna lie, I'm fucking great at it. And I would love to help you. Schedule a Maestro Meeting. Let's break down your week. I love organizing things. Oftentimes, people have way more time than they think. It's just that they are, um, task switching.
And you lose a shit ton of time when you are task switching. Yes, I am a fan of batching. But people, they, they understand it incorrectly. That's what I'm saying. Batching doesn't mean doing the same things. It for me means doing things that have similar energy requirements where it's either client facing or we're thinking about like kind of more executive tasks versus creative tasks.
If you're like, I'm going to go and like do the financials and then I'm going to go try to write an email and then I'm going to go try and coach someone. Those are all different, like mental and emotional strengths and mindsets. And that task switching and having to go from this to this, to this, you will lose so much time and you're going to feel really tired.
And you'd be like, I feel like I've doing so much, but nothing's getting done. So if that is you, soft suggestion to listen to those episodes that I have there. Um, actually now that I think about it, I have another episode. I don't know the number of it. Um, but I talk about my CADE system. So when you're looking to organize things, that's going to be consolidate, automate, delegate, or eliminate.
Um, Courtney, if you could link that episode, that would be amazing. Um, but that's just about kind of organizing things. Um, if you're going through tasks and you're like, how would I put this? We can consolidate, which means batching. We can automate things. We can delegate, might be outsourced, or we just get rid of it altogether.
We eliminate it. All right. So three episodes that you could check out. If you want direct help I would love to help you. I love this shit. Schedule a Maestro meeting. We will link that in the show notes as well. So, wrapping this up, overall, again, I have a lifestyle business. My business affords me the life that I want and the lifestyle that I want.
And so there's no inherent desire for me or need to change it. I will, however, say that I'm definitely feeling a bit of a shift in things. And I just had a, like a two hour discussion with my girl Laura Jean. But I'm not exactly sure what that is and what that looks like or or any of that. I just feel it.
I feel like something's changing. I kinda think we all kinda go through like five year cycles and you're like, all right, I'm ready something new, but not necessarily radically new. Um, just like an evolution of things. I don't know exactly what it is, what it's going to look like. Um, so I just leave space for it.
That's it. All right. I have things on the calendar. I've explained to you in this episode how I put them on the calendar, but it is a dry erase calendar, which means those things can always change. All right, that's all that I got for you today. Uh, just a little announcement. The Meredith and Alex episode that I do every year, that will likely either be the final episode of this year or maybe Christmas.
I'm thinking I'm probably gonna lean on Christmas. It'll release on Christmas Day. But we will do it. It is an annual tradition. They're coming on for the 110 billionth time and you already know I'm stoked to have them. But keep your ear out for that. And Happy 2024 planning. As always, endlessly, endlessly, endlessly appreciative for every single one of you.
Until next time, friends, Maestro out.
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MOTM #239: A “Better” Way To Schedule Your Time
MOTM #444: Breaking Down My Weekly Schedule
MOTM #433: What Should You Outsource to a Virtual Assistant? (My CADE System)
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