Episode 393: The #1 thing to do to achieve your business goals
In this episode, Fiona shares the power of breaking down overwhelming tasks into manageable steps. From starting a podcast to managing finances, practical tips are provided to facilitate progress. Tune in!
You'll Learn How To:
Breaking down overwhelming tasks into manageable steps
Starting a podcast: overcoming comparisons and focusing on the first step
Utilizing tools like GarageBand for podcasting
Applying strategies from writing a book to achieving business goals
Managing finances and revenue streams effectively
Setting realistic goals
Get in touch with My Daily Business
Connect and get in touch with My Daily Business:
Welcome to episode 393 of the My Daily Business podcast. Today is a quick tip episode, and honestly, this is one of the most used tactics that I have used in my business over eight to nine years to achieve the things that I've been able to achieve in business. If this was on that whole, like what's your top five things that you would ever tell somebody, this would be one of them. Before we get stuck into that, I want to acknowledge where I'm coming from and acknowledge the traditional owners and custodians of the land on which I am utilizing these tactics. That is the Wurrung and Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. And I pay my respects to their elders, past, and present, and acknowledge that sovereignty has never been ceded.
The other thing I want to do is just remind you that Marketing for Your Small Business online course is available at any time, just at marketingforyoursmallbusiness.com. Twice a year, we run a coaching component where we have nine weeks of live coaching. You do a module, you come to the coaching, you do another module, you come to the coaching, and at the end of that nine weeks, you have the opportunity to present your full marketing plan to me and anyone else on the call for feedback. If you're keen to get part of that, you can find all the information and sign up at marketingforyoursmallbusiness.com. If you already have the course, you would've been sent an email to sign up for a very small fee. If you can't find the email or you're like, “My inbox is crazy”, just email us at hello@mydailybusiness.com and we'll sort it out for you. Let's get into today's quick tip episode.
Someone in my life wants to start a podcast, and this person is very dear to me and somebody who I think is the bee's knees. I want them to do well. They were comparing where they are with where I am in this podcast and I was like, “No, do not do that. I've been doing this a lot longer than you.” Also, I have worked with systems and processes and that's what I enjoy doing. I was showing them the systems and processes for this podcast, and I was showing them in particular our podcast tracker. This is episode 393, which just means we are almost at 400 episodes. And I can't believe that, to be honest. I can't believe I dilly-dallied, I never used that term, but I woofed around for so many years before I started this because I had all of these ideas that it was going to be too big and too overwhelming, and I didn't have like a beautifully set up room that was soundproof and I didn't have a studio to go to, and all the things I let all the things get in my way.
I was showing this person our podcast tracker, and they were like, you are almost at 400 episodes. Like, that's so big, that's so this. I said, “You know what? Just start with one.” Just start by just, let's just record your first episode. That's all you need to do, just the first one. And even just before that record episode zero, which is your intro of what's coming, and that can be like two minutes long. We are going to push it back to just starting somewhere, start small. I guess that today's episode is when you have these overwhelming tasks, like for this person starting a podcast and you're looking around and everyone else seems to have started before you or got further along, or be making more money or have more followers, or whatever it is in small business, that is your trigger point.
It's so easy to then just dwell in the overwhelm and this idea that you are at the foot of a mountain and it is far too high for you even to attempt to climb, as opposed to genuinely thinking, how do I break this down? How do I break it down into small, manageable steps? Somebody looking at me and going, you have a lot of podcast downloads. I was going to say the exact number, but I think that isn't going to be helpful right now if you're listening to this and you're feeling overwhelmed, we've done well in terms of this podcast. I'm very proud of it because we've never spent a single dollar on advertising for this podcast. Everything has come organically, and that's amazing. But if you are looking at that and you're like, this person's already up to almost 400 episodes and they've been doing it for years and it's so easy to get stuck there as opposed to going, what I could do right now? I could record a two-minute episode.
You can record that on your phone, you can record that. I use GarageBand. I'm using it right now as I record this, which is a free tool on any Mac. It doesn't have to be this big and audacious, I've got to go to the right studio. I've got to have the exact right mic, I've got to have the cool headphones. I've got to have three different cameras pointing at me. No, you can just get started. It's the same as when I wrote my book, I had 70,000 words to write. The second book is about to go off to print. At the time that this comes out, it might be off to print. That's so exciting and nerve-wracking because once it's off, I can't change anything. But also exciting. But when I was sitting down to write that, I was like, “70,000 words, how am I going to do this on top of my normal life?”
But what I did, was just break it down. I had an Excel sheet that I used for my first book, and I broke that down into every chapter. This is how many words the goal is, and I had another column for how many words I wrote, and then what the variance or discrepancy was and how many words needed to be added somewhere. Instead of looking at it and thinking, I have to write another book and have to have 70,000 words, I broke it down into 500-word increments, which is about a page if you think of a four-page, piece of paper. That was enough to be like, I can write 200 words, which is a couple of paragraphs, or I can maybe try and get to the whole 500 today.
I had much smaller goals as opposed to 70,000. The same with the money that comes into this business. I've talked about this at length. I'm very open about money and how I do the management of my money and the systems and processes. We have a Money Mapping course. We've had hundreds of people go through that. You can find it at mydailybusiness.com/courses. I've had so many episodes in this podcast about money. If you hit subscribe and then search for money, you'll see so many episodes that pop up around this. But again, if I'm looking at a big amount of money that I want to come into this business, I'm not going to be earning that overnight. I'm not going to instantly just put something on Instagram and suddenly all that money comes rolling in. It has taken years to look at exactly what I want to come in, how that's going to come in, and how it also works with my life because that has been from day one, that I want to have a life.
I'm not going to work on this business 24/7. I have young children, I have other things outside of business that I want to achieve in life. It's looking at that number and instead of being scared by it, by being like, so these are my revenue streams, this is how much time I have. And then literally doing the maths of, this is how many people I'd need to come through that and pay that amount. This is how many people I'd need to come through courses or one-on-one coaching group coaching speaking gigs or whatever it is. And then I just map it out. Every time I get, let's, for example, another speaking gig and they say, this is the budget, or I say, this is the budget, I put it into the tracker. And some of those are small and some of them are big.
It's nice to see that number go down from what I had established as a goal for that revenue stream. And then every little thing adds up. It's the same with anything else that you're doing in your life, particularly when it comes to money frequent flyer points or anything else. You can get overwhelmed as opposed to just getting started. I think that is today's tip. It breaks it down into what is the next step that you need to do. I know that this is advice that is given all the time, and I think it's given all the time because it works and yet people don't implement it. We all can get stuck looking at something. For example, I joined TikTok maybe three years ago now, two and a half years ago.
I've been on there for a while, but I wasn't adding content to there for ages. I was just lurking, researching, looking at the platform, and enjoying the platform. And I started posting. Again, we're not posting all the time, I'm not doing all this stuff. However, if I sat there and thought, I want to get to X amount of thousands of followers, that would be completely off-put as opposed to going, I just want to post this many times in the next month. And it's like, that's completely possible. I could do that in the next month. And then stepping up as I progress. At the moment, we have like a couple of hundred followers. It's not huge, but I'm still enjoying it because I haven't been paralyzed by this giant goal. That can be overwhelming. And then to stop you from even getting started.
That is it for today's quick tip episode. Look at maybe a goal that you have in your business. It could be in your life as well, either or, or both. And thinking about it, am I just getting stuck on getting started because I haven't broken it down? Could I break it down? What would this look like? I often talk about a list of 12. So most things can be broken down into 12 into 12 items, and then you could do one item per week over the next three months. You could do one item per month for the next 12 months, whatever it is, there's no race to the end. I think people often have this idea that especially in business, you've got to get as big and profitable as this, and is that overnight. Now, unless you have major shareholders and investment coming in from venture capitalists or you know, angels that are like, you need to get that return on investment to us.
Quick, smart. Most people don't have that. Most people that I work with are creative small business owners. They are investing it fully themselves. And yes, of course, people want a return on investment, but I think so often we forget how enjoyable the journey is as well, just how enjoyable it is and stop putting so much pressure on yourself, take a goal, break it down, and I assure you that there is always a first step that you can just get started on. That is it for today. If you want to go through this in text format, you can find it over at mydailybusiness.com/podcast/393. If you want to sign up for Marketing for Your Small Business, it's available anytime and it's over at marketingforyoursmallbusiness.com. I have been in marketing for 23 years now, and certain principles work no matter what you are doing.
The other thing I wanted to mention is if you are like that person who was looking at my podcast tracker and feeling very overwhelmed, but does want to start a podcast, we have a short course. Again, we've had so many people go through that and start podcasts, which is so lovely to see and to hear, and they're like, we started this because we went through your course. We have that over at mydailybusiness.com/podcast. And that goes through exactly how I set up my tracker, exactly how I set up my processes and systems so that this is not an overwhelming marketing channel by any means. It's something I enjoy and it's something I can do whenever I feel like it. And honestly, this has been the absolute best marketing tool that I've had for my business. If you want to do that course, it's at mydailybusiness.com/courses. Thanks for reading. I'll see you next time.
