Episode 50: Q4 Planning: The Best Strategy for a Successful Tomorrow

Crafting the Best Strategy for Success in 2023 and Beyond with Kiva Slade

The fourth quarter is a time for taking stock, planning for the future and getting ready to make changes. 4th quarter is the best time of year to set goals and create a plan to take you into 2023 with momentum.

This episode will help you with a simple process to plan your next three months, including setting goals and developing actionable steps. 

Want to dive deeper? Check out our quarterly planning blog post.

Thanks for tuning in to another episode of Collab with Kiva.

See you next time!

Podcast Transcript:

Kiva Slade: [00:00:01]

Hello, and welcome to Collab With Kiva. I'm your host, Kiva Slade. From the marbled halls of the US Congress to my racing-themed office chair, I've learned that there is no perfect path to the life of your dreams. My journey over the past 20 years has included being a legislative director for a member of Congress, policy director for a nonprofit, stay-at-home mom, homeschooling mom, jewelry, business owner, and now the owner of a service-based business. Whether your journey has been a straight line or full of zigs and zags, join me and my guest as we share insights, hope, and lessons learned from our female entrepreneurship journeys. Made the collaborative sharing of our stories be the tide that lifts your boat. Let's dive in.

[00:00:55]

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to another episode of Collab With Kiva. I am your host, Kiva Slade, and you should know what time it is. It is Q4. That's right, we are in the last quarter of 2022, and I need to know, are you pushing through, or are you through pushing? Which one is it? And believe it or not, you do have the opportunity to choose. You can choose to keep on going, or you can choose to say, "Hey, I'm willing to come up off the gas and coast the rest of the way". I don't want you, though, to be fooled because you need a plan in place, whichever of those options you decide to choose. I have a client, and earlier today she did her numbers and she was looking to bring on another contract, someone who wanted to work with her. She had an uneasy feeling, though, about it. And so she was wondering "Oh, do I do this? Do I not?"

[00:02:00]

She did her numbers. And when you do your numbers, you get to decide, am I pushing through or am I through pushing? And when she did her number, she realized that, you know what? I'm good. I'm good the rest of the year. I don't necessarily have to take on a client that doesn't feel aligned with me, that doesn't feel like the project is something that fits and is setting us up for success. However, if she didn't do her numbers or didn't know her numbers, she might have made a decision that looked a bit different. And so, that is my thing for each of us, is to make sure that we know our numbers and what are those things that we have as measurable goals for this year. Have we hit them already? If we have, woohoo yay for us. That means we don't have to keep going as hard maybe as we have, Or maybe we use some of that energy to go hard to set ourselves up for 2023, Q1.

[00:03:12]

Because even with knowing your numbers, even with having hit the goals that you were wanting to hit, that doesn't mean that you just sit back, put your feet up, and maybe have some bonbons. There are definitely still things in your planning that you should be doing that you should be paying attention to. And so, as we think about. 2022 and closing it out, again, pushing through or through pushing, I want to also talk about the importance of what we need to look back at. What do we need to consider that, you know what ... maybe we need to look at our systems. Maybe we need to refine some of our processes. Do we need to evaluate our team? So, there are always things that you need a plan for.

[00:04:07]

And if you find that your Q4 is one in which you're not having to do a ton of client work, then that is an opportune time for you to take that focus and focus it inward on yourself, inward on your business, and inward on your client delivery. We are still in the midst of a recession. We are still in the midst of a global pandemic. We are still in the midst of so many things. Honestly, while I am recording this, I am in South Carolina and Ian has made landfall. It is windy. I'm praying the power doesn't go out, the Internet doesn't go out while I'm trying to get this recorded. We are in the midst of a lot of different things, but even in that we always need to be thinking about what can we do to simplify. What can we do to up-level? What can we do that sets us apart in our client delivery?

[00:05:12]

So if you have been a long-time listener, then you know that as we approach the beginning of quarter three, I shared with you a document to help you look at quarter two and also look at quarter three for planning. I am doing the same thing. It will be in the show notes on the website. It is free, literally, no email required. I'm not adding you to a list. I really want people to do planning. So, some of the things that we're going to look at, we're going to look back at Q3 and we're going to say, Hey, what accomplishments are we proud of? What did happened? What did we do that made us like, yes, this was an awesome quarter. I want you to figure out what are those adjectives that describe how you felt in Q3.

[00:06:03]

What are your challenges ... The big ones in quarter three? Because let's be honest, if you've been doing this for any amount of time, there are definitely challenges. And what improvements and takeaways can you move into Q4 with? And those might be quarterly takeaways or there might be something that you are starting to restructure some of the foundational parts of your business that will set you up even for Q1, 2023 and beyond. Are there lessons that you learned in Q3? What were those lessons? Are there activities that you're doing that no longer serve you and your business? Maybe you've had a pivot in your offers. Maybe you don't serve the same clientele. Maybe you'd like to not serve a particular clientele, and you're not yet sure how to make that shift.

[00:07:04]

Writing that down, reminding yourself that this is something that you're looking to do is really a key part of the process. Obviously, you want to look at your revenue goals, then also look at your actual revenue. Did those two things actually align or was there something that was different? Was there something that was off? Did you bring in more? Did you bring in less in? And depending on each one of those, you can ask yourself some additional follow-up questions. If there was more, what led to that being more? If it was less, what led to that? Had you off-board some clients again? Did you have a change in your services? These are things that can lead to fluctuation in your revenue. And as we look ahead to Q4, when we get to the end, December 31st, 2022, what adjectives do you want to feel? What do you want to feel on December 31st, 2022?

[00:08:01]

Yeah, I know we'll be going into a new year and it might be feeling elated. Yes, that's always for that new chapter in our books. But what do you want to feel as it relates to your business? What are two of the three main goals for Q4? Again, maybe you've had a pivot in your services. Maybe your goal in Q4, one of them is to solidify those new offers so that you go into the new year ready to rock and roll with who you're talking to in this new season and your business. Our businesses are like life, they do not stay the same. There are going to be ebbs and flows. There's going to be mountains and valleys. There are going to be those different experiences where you grow through professional development and maybe your services change. How you want to show up and serve changes. And so, what are those goals that you need to have set to make those things happen? Then I want you to dig a little deeper. Why are those goals important to you?

[00:08:58]

Because when our goals are attached to a why, oh man, that helps root them. That gives them that stabilizing power that they need that actually helps us when again, the winds of change come about. We can go back to our why those goals are important and keep ourselves focused, keep ourselves like the little kid ... What's that? Bowling little safeguards. We'll keep ourselves out of the gutter when we have that why? Why are these goals important to you? And do these goals fully support your annual goals? Way back last year, probably this time or maybe in January, you said about having some goals for this year. Do these goals quarterly ones, these broken down ones, actually support the overall mission that you've laid out for the year? If not, did we go astray somewhere? What caused that to happen? We need to dig deeper.

[00:10:03]

What action steps are needed to accomplish these goals? That's going to be important because it's one thing to have a goal, but we know that if we don't have steps those goals become nothing but dreams. What habits do you need to start or stop, or maybe just continue to fully realize your Q4 goals? And then my other one, know your numbers. What is your revenue goal for Q4? What is that goal? Remember that you have to have a goal, you have to have a destination of where you're going. If you do not, you can literally end up anywhere. And anywhere is sometimes not good depending on what that can look like. But yeah, honestly, thinking through what are those goals. What is that revenue goal? What do you need to hit that again at the end of Q4 December 31st, 2022, you can say, yes, I did that, I made this happen and this is where we wound up.

[00:11:07]

That is going to be important. It goes back to knowing your numbers and really harnessing that data to figure out, you know what, this is what I need in order to ... yadah-yadah-yah, in terms of your goals. So, I think that those things are super important. And I, again, am going to share this worksheet for everyone on my website. You will find it in the show notes for this podcast. And I am going to do this every single quarter because the more we plan ... And I don't want to jack up the quote, but failure to plan means you plan to fail. Something like that. Basically, we need to have a plan. We need a plan in place in order to accomplish our goals. And that is so critically important.

[00:12:04]

I recently saw a commercial where it said that approximately 3.5 million women left the workforce during COVID. And this business, ZIN [sounds like 00:12:15] business, was helping women form leases because they felt like those women were now going to transform the workplace. I was just so inspired by this commercial. As many of you know, it's really a heartfelt desire of mine ... We just recently had a Black Women's Equal Pay Day, which meant that for black women like myself, you had to work all the way till September 21st of this year to equal what a male made last year at December 31st. And that is a month. It's literally about five weeks, six weeks different from last year because last year, Black Women's Equal Pay Day was August 3rd.

[00:13:04]

And for Asian American Pacific Islander women, Black women, Native American women, Latina women, this year in 2022, all of the dates are later than they were last year, and the money is less per dollar than it was last year. Last year, for example, black women earned $0.63 on the dollar, this year it's 58. And those equity pay gaps are something that drives me forward in the things that I do as I seek to help women entrepreneurs in the work that I do. I honestly believe that we can through entrepreneurship close these gaps and close them a lot faster than if we were to wait upon the powers to be to make these closures take place.

[00:14:03]

So, the more that we plan, the more that we're strategic in our businesses and what we're doing, the sooner we close those gaps. The more women that we also help through. our teams ... Most of us have female-led teams and we're serving female entrepreneurs. There is power in those numbers. There's power in giving another woman an opportunity to make a difference economically in her family. And that ripple effect is felt through the family, through the community, through the country, through the world at large. So, the more we plan, the more we're strategic, the more we're pouring into one another, the more we are reaching back to help those who are just starting on this journey, and we can share some wisdom and some insights to help them navigate and avoid some pitfalls that we may have fallen into ... The more that we look ahead to those that are ahead of us and find those mentors to once again guide to avoid pitfalls, the stronger we are in those numbers, in the more successful we are in closing those gaps.

[00:15:34]

And those gaps are important to be closed not only for us, but our daughters, our daughters' daughters. Because this is an issue that has existed forever and it's really up to us. So, again, I'll get off my soapbox. The planning document will be on the website and included in the show notes. And I want to see each of you rock out your Q4 goals, whether that is you pushing through or whether you are through pushing for the year. Whatever it is, I want you to end this year how you desire to end it. And I am wildly cheering you on, wishing, hoping, praying for your successful Q4, whatever it is that you define it as. So, again, check out the show notes and I will see you next time. Bye.

[00:16:39]

Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Collab With Kiva. Each of us has a different path. And I hope that this episode gave you some takeaway that has left you inspired and motivated to keep pressing forward on your unique path. Make sure you subscribe so you don't miss out on any future episodes. And of course, your reviews on Apple are greatly appreciated. If you're a small business owner ready to start making data-driven decisions in your business, and you know that without the data, you're really just guessing, make sure to visit my website the516collaborative.com, and let schedule a time to talk to make sure that you can harness the power of data in your business. I'll see you next time. Bye.

Meet Kiva Slade - the Founder and CEO of The 516 Collaborative. With a unique background in high-power politics on Capitol Hill and sixteen years as a homeschooling mama, Kiva found her calling in the online business world as a trusted guide for entrepreneurs looking to build the business of their dreams.

Kiva's work began behind the scenes, orchestrating the back end of businesses and managing teams. But her inner data diva couldn't help but notice that small businesses needed help harnessing the power of data for growth. So she and her team set out to uncover and tidy up the data required to enable clients to grow their businesses confidently and easily.