BIRD WILLIAMS: You're listening to Bird Means Business Episode 47.

Aye aye aye aye. That song. I don't know that beat really still jams for me. Maybe that's just me, but I mean, I jam to it every time. Hey, y'all. Welcome to the Bird Means Business podcast. I'm so glad you're here. It means a whole lot for me, or a whole lot to me that you take time out of your super busy day and all the things you have going on to tune in. And you're investing in yourself and your business, and it's going to make all the difference in the long run. 

We are in the middle of a series, a four-week series called, "Your Questions Answered". A few weeks ago I was on social media and I asked hey what do you want to learn more, what can I share on the podcast. And y'all had so many great ideas and I took four of those ideas to make this series. Last week was all about how to sustain growth through customer retention. Y'all, if you haven't listened to that one. Make sure you go back because it really is a good one. You know what, I wanted to say this. You might think, well, I haven't even launched my business yet so I'm not even like worrying about growth or, you know, customer retention. I'm just trying to launch this thing. Let me tell you my friend, that could not be further from the truth. This is why I have the Bird Means Business podcast. It's really to just talk through the many complicated aspects of what it looks like to build a brand and make it a lot less complicated, and to show you what entrepreneurship looks like. And I'll tell you, having that future-minded perspective, will really help you make better business decisions, while you're building that foundation. You know, it's like a dentist offering a dental student to spend the day with them in the office shadowing them with patients, and that dental student saying, "No, I'm going to turn it down because I'm just really focused on getting through dental school right now". No, you're not going to do that. You're going to take that invaluable opportunity to learn from someone who's gone through it, because your prep, as you study and as you prepare to graduate, quote-unquote, that will be so much more practical and effective having that real-world experience. So that's why I have other entrepreneurs on the show. I want you to soak up all of this information in these experiences so that wherever you are on your journey, you'll have it in the back of your mind when you need it. 

All right. So real quick, I get this question a lot. Someone will reach out and say, "Hey, I want to finally book a consultation call with you so I can figure out what I need to do in my business. What does your schedule look like next week?" I've gotten that question a lot lately. So the cool thing is you don't have to even wonder what my time looks like on my calendar. It's a super simple process. You go to Bird Williams.com/consultation. There's a form there that you'll fill out and you'll immediately be sent a link to book. It's as simple as that. So if you're looking to kind of get more guidance as you're navigating your journey. I love to just kind of get on a Zoom call and kind of talk through where you are and how I can help you, alright? So again, that's birdwilliams.com/consultation. 

All right, let's jump right into the episode. I'm very excited about this one. It is all about how do you not get overwhelmed with all of the details. I saw that question come through and I was like, true. There are so many things as it relates to launching and growing your business. But I got you, okay? So, again, this is one of those questions that was submitted a few weeks ago on Instagram when I asked how can I serve you better. And when I first heard the question I thought to myself, of all the different entrepreneurs I've worked with and spoken to, why have they been overwhelmed with the details? And one particular theme came to mind. A lack of focus. Zig Ziglar said, "Lack of direction, not lack of time is the problem. We all have 24 hour days." He also said, "I don't care how much power, brilliance, or energy you have. If you don't harness it and focus it on a specific target and hold it there. You're never going to accomplish as much as your ability warrants." Dang. I read that and I was like, it don't matter how smart you are, or how powerful you are. You have to be able to focus on one specific target. It actually had this image come to my mind when I saw that quote, and it was like shooting darts, you know? Can you imagine if you had one dart in your hand and you're aiming at a target? What's your probability of success? Pretty high, right, of course, depending on how far you are from the target and all these other elements. But now imagine if you had five darts in your hands. And they're aimed at five different targets. You significantly lower your chance of success. So we've got to get focused. Let's start there.

Now I've seen this play out in two ways. The first way is not being able to focus on one business idea, among so many different ideas. The other way is, okay I've identified, which business I want to start, but I have all of these different business efforts that I'm trying to do at once. So let's start with the first one, where it's like I don't know how to choose between all of my different interests and all these different business ideas. I hear this so often. I have like six businesses I want to start. How do I choose one? Actually, I want you to stay tuned for a podcast episode that's in the works on like choosing an entrepreneurial endeavor based on your passions and your purpose. But there's kind of a spin to it. I'm really excited about it cause it's a question I get a lot. And I'm going to kind of incorporate some of the questions I asked myself when I transitioned into entrepreneurship and made that big leap. 

But let's talk about the second scenario when you have identified okay this is the business I'm going to launch this is what I'm going to focus on. But you aren't focused within that business. You're trying to do all of the things with such limited resources. So here's my take. First, this is what I need you to do. Get clear on the long-term and near-term goals for your business. So I want you to start off by thinking very macro, big picture, high level. What are my long-term goals? Now, oftentimes, this is a question of really how much money your business needs to make. Because at the end of the day, we have to make money to have a business, otherwise it's just a hobby, right? 

So, let's say, for example, I want to leave my job, but I'm making $5,000 a month right now and I'm gonna need to at some point replace that income. So if you're making that much right now in your corporate job, first, I want you to ask yourself, how much of that $5,000 do I really need, like need to survive. And how can I scale my salary up over time? Or how can it grow over time? Now I'm really big on it being very important that you pay yourself in your business for so many reasons. Basically because otherwise you'll be burnt out. And I don't believe in killing yourself personally over trying to reinvest everything back into your business because your business success is highly contingent upon your personal success. If you're not okay, your team is going to feel it. Your clients are going to feel it. So you do have to be okay. You don't have to live a lavish lifestyle. But you should be paying yourself something. So you're going to identify how much do I need to be okay? What's that baseline level? And then you're going to back into how much sales or revenue do I need to bring in to pay for business expenses like my team salary, if needed if you're going to start off with a team? Or taxes. That's something a lot of people forget, but it's super important. As well as owner’s pay. So that's the pay you're going to get. I actually have this in a spreadsheet that I walk you through in week two of my Prove It Plan course. So if you don't know, Prove It Plan is my dynamic signature program that shows you how to develop a profitable business plan. It pulls together these four pillars of your business to make sure that you start strong. And week two is all about financial and I have this spreadsheet where there's these three tabs. The first is doing this, identifying your goals. Then it's figuring out how to price your packages and services, and your offerings so that you can achieve those goals. And then it's looking at your budget and your financial projections. Y'all, it's one of my favorite modules of the course because so many aha moments happened this week. It's a lot of fun to kind of see students' faces as they realize, "Oh, you know what I thought this was gonna look like isn't exactly how it looks. I'm gonna have to make some adjustments". And it's so great that they're able to make those adjustments early on, as opposed to spending so much time and energy and money and efforts on a business that doesn't really have that foundation built in. They're able to make those adjustments on the front end. So it's one of the reasons I love my Prove It Plan signature course because you have to actually prove it. 

Now I want you to understand unless you have crazy capital when you launch, and also like cheers to you if you do. That's awesome if you do have all this money to be able to do what you need to do, hire who you need to hire, and you have more time and that's great. But a lot of us don't got that. So unless you have that, you won't be able to have all the bells and whistles in your business from the beginning. So, again, depending on your resources, your time, and your money, particularly, you may have to do the hard thing and wait on some of those bells and whistles for now. The "Phases of Your Business" is an exercise that we actually do in week one of Prove It Plan. I wasn't planning on talking about this much, but it just really applies. Week one, the first module, is all about Foundation. And we talk about the phases of the business because in setting your long-term and near-term goals, it is so very key to identify how the ideas that you have in your business, all these things you want to do, how they'll be staged over time. 

Okay, so once you've identified your long-term and near-term goals, you create clear priorities. This is where you're going to choose one thing to focus on now. For example, I have a client who eventually wants to have these amazing annual retreats and I'm so excited about it. I cannot wait to go on one myself. But it's just not feasible right now for the business, not only because of COVID, of course. But also because there are just so many areas, fundamentally in the business that need to be developed and really worked through so that they're strong so that the business can have the capacity to bring on that offering. So, again, while there's certainly and importantly space to dream big in your business. We're focusing on what needs to happen now to help us meet our near-term goals so that those long-term goals become more tangible. Okay? 

Now, next is having a plan. Okay, I have my long-term and my near-term goals. I know what my clear priorities are in this phase of my business. Now, what needs to happen for me to actually achieve those goals? I want you to work backward. So, let's say, just for an example, you need to bring in $5,000 a month in your business. I want you to look at the breakdown of services you offer and determine how many of each package or product, even you need to sell each month to reach those goals. And then you're going to strategize around different routes to making those sales. So these are your marketing strategies. Then you're going to analyze once you put those marketing strategies into practice, what is and isn't working as you move along. So, you have to make sure that you get a plan in place. 

Next, you're going to incorporate the plan. Now, I'm going to get a little hype right now, and it's fine. But there are few things that irk me more than having goals with no plan or having strategies with no roadmap of actual implementation. So, you know, you can't create a strategy and have it sit in a PDF, and like, Oh, that's great. You want to also implement it into your life, into your day-to-day. I want you to get down to the nitty-gritty. Now, this is going to depend on you know how you operate your workflow. But for me, it's all about my calendar. And if you follow me on Instagram it's @heybirdwilliams on Instagram. You've probably seen my calendar and how crazy it is and how I block my schedule. I've talked a lot about that. If I have a goal that isn't incorporated into my calendar, it isn't going to happen. I mean I really do think this is why many of you might feel overwhelmed. You have this vague idea of your plan, maybe, if you've done that step. But there's no incorporating it into your daily life, so it was kind of just all floating around in the air. And you're trying to catch it here and there. And sometimes you're missing things or forgetting things. It doesn't really all tie together because there's no real cohesive plan or implementation into your life. Because y'all, when you do these things as you make a plan, as you begin to implement it into your calendar or your project management system. You begin to say, "Oh, wait. That doesn't make sense. That doesn't work. I'm gonna have to adjust things." So don't forget to actually implement. 

I recently actually rebooted some of my marketing strategies. And again, it was important for me to not just have the strategies written up. But to actually incorporate them into my calendar and Asana, which is my project management software. These are two things that I'm going to check every single day to make sure that I'm executing. Which leads me to the next step, execution. Now, I'll be honest, for me, y'all, this is the hard part. I love the planning. I love getting everything together and it all making sense. And I mean I can create a good plan. Put it in my Asana. Put it in my calendar. It looks all cute. Whoo whoo. But then there comes executing, and actually doing it every day, day in and day out. Having to do the hard thing. Having to eat the frog. Have you heard that expression before? Eating the frog means doing the hardest thing on your to-do list for that day, early in the day, usually in the morning before you do anything else. I was recently sharing about this on Instagram and it was really interesting because I talked about how there was this thing that had been on my to-do list, honestly for so long. And I was just dreading having to do it. I just kept thinking in my head it's gonna take so much time, be such an energy drainer. I didn't want to do it. So I decided one day I'm going to eat the frog. I'm gonna do this the first thing in the morning so I can make sure to get this done. And guess what, y'all? It took me like less than an hour to do it. It was just like, I had made this big monster up in my head and it wasn't even that bad. 

So, sometimes it's just doing the hard thing, forcing yourself to get it done. You will feel so good after and that's the thing about execution. When you're executing you're making progress. It's going to feel good. You're going to be motivated and you're going to gain momentum. It's actually science. It's physics. I actually looked this up because I wanted to add it in here. Newton's first law of motion is an object at rest, stays at rest. And an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed, and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force. So, you check one thing off of your to-do list. Oh, you started moving forward it feels good. Then you check another thing off. And another thing off. And those are more, you know, elements of force increasing your speed in the direction that you set in your goal planning. 

So you got to get moving. You have to do the next thing. Then the next thing. Yo, if you need help with executing, have accountability. Have someone who's going to check in with you, who you've told, hey, this is my plan. This is my goal. This is what I need to do this week to make it happen. And they're gonna hold you accountable. That could be me. It could be your spouse, your best friend, your business partner, a mentor. It doesn't matter. Just someone who you trust, of course, with something that could be personal or important to you, and who's going to actually check in with you. Because y'all, at the end of the day, none of this matters, if you don't actually do it. The planning, the goal setting, all the things. Implementation of the plan. Doesn't matter, unless you actually do it. So we got to get to doing it. Okay?

Now I have three tips around this topic of overwhelm and all the details. Okay, number one, taking one step at a time, and give yourself grace. You won't execute perfectly. And just like in that law of motion example I gave you. There will inevitably be an unbalanced force that comes along and knocks you off your rocker and affects your forward motion. Y'all, it happens to all of us. You're going to simply go back to the drawing board. Go back to step one. Re-evaluate your long-term and near-term goals based on any new factors or the resources you might have, and then follow these same steps. Okay, just one step at a time, give yourself grace. 

Number two, don't do it alone. Y'all you don't have to keep learning things the hard way. You can learn from other people's mistakes. You don't have to move forward blindly. Like I said, accountability changes the game. If you know someone will be there checking in with you, you're more likely to do those hard things and make it happen. So make sure you do this journey of entrepreneurship in community. 

Number three, breathe. Just do with me right now. Just breathe. Take a deep breath, you know? It's gonna be okay. At the end of the day, entrepreneurship is a lot. But y'all it's also very rewarding. And more times than not, the hard work, and the grind is well worth it. So take a deep breath, and just keep going. Don't let one bad day spoil the rest of the week. Just wake up and try again. 

And I really want to say this too, because some of you might hear me say keep going and think, I gotta be nonstop. I gotta grind it out. Nope, that's not what I'm saying. Sometimes, keep going looks like resting. Because resting allows you to recharge and pick back up and move forward stronger. Actually in our gym, so if you don't know I own a gym here in Houston called The League. It's my first business that I launched seven years ago with my husband, Terry. One of our core values and our motto is keep going. And we actually have rest periods in our workouts, of course. So we're not into just going, going, going, going, going when it comes to working out. We don't want you to overwork your joints and muscle groups. So we incorporate rest periods throughout the circuit training workout. It's the same thing in life. It's the same thing with your business. You have to incorporate these rest periods so that you can recharge and go forward stronger. Otherwise, you would just burn out, and you wouldn't be able to keep going. So, as long as you rest with the intention of getting back up to keep going forward, you're in a healthy place. 

All right, so how do you not get overwhelmed with all the details that are involved in running a business? Create a system. Break down the pieces, look at the long-term and near-term goals. Make clear priorities and develop a plan around all of it. And then you got to execute on it while being gentle with yourself and giving yourself grace and remembering to breathe and all of that. In Episode 49, we're actually going to be talking about managing mental health as an entrepreneur, since that was actually one of the questions that one of you asked on Instagram. So we'll go into more of the mental health aspects of entrepreneurship there in Episode 49. So stay tuned. 

All right. So when I actually just decided to share this today, I was emailing back and forth with a young lady who has an amazing business who I connected with on Instagram. And she was shooting me an email to kind of update me on where things were with her business. And she says this in the email. "I keep thinking I'll get to some point where there's ease, or I will feel like I have a plan to follow." And I was responding to what she said in my email response and this is what I said. "I think it's a myth to believe that one day you'll have this grand plan that will make you feel perfectly comfortable. Because, as you begin to execute on any plan, there will inevitably be surprises, detours, etc. that could have you feeling again like you do right now, which is all the overwhelm. So, the work, the growth, is actually in the process. It's not in reaching that long-term goal. As we analyze our long-term goals. We're going to strategically create a plan that gives us some direction. That's so important. And we're going to work backwards to determine what needs to be done today, this week, etc. And then we're going to execute on those priorities."

And so I emailed her that and I thought wow that ties in so much to what I'm talking about in this episode because y'all know I'm all about having a plan. It's so important. I have a whole signature program called the Prove It Plan where you sit down and you look at your business foundation. You look at your financials. You look at your operations. And you look at your marketing. And you say, how does all this tie together and work for my business, so that you can go forward with direction. That's what a plan gives you is direction. But it isn't your peace. That's not where you're going to anchor into your peace because inevitably, things will change, and you'll have to be able to adapt. I've talked about that so much. So understand that, while you have these plans and while you create this structure. What you're really developing over time is this wherewithal to bounce back. To say okay, I believe in what I'm doing. I know that it's going to help people. It's going to serve my community in a big way. So I'm not going to give up on it. I'm not going to be defeated. I'm going to keep pushing forward. Okay?

So, I know this is a lot, and I know that if you're tuning into this episode, you probably saw the title and you said, "Okay, yeah, I need help with managing some of this overwhelm. Well, there are a lot of things to talk through. And if you're wondering like, Where should I start? How do I even think through my long-term goals or my near-term goals? I'd love to chat with you. Like I said, it's super simple. You just go to birdwilliams.com/consultation. And there's a quick and easy form that you fill out. You'll get an email to book, our session. We can kind of talk through where you are. I can try to help give you some direction. I don't even know if I should say this on the podcast. I know I've probably said it before. But I always say, man if I can answer someone's questions and just help them feel more motivated and confident and move forward. I'm here for it. I would love that. I know that when I launched my business, I would have loved to have a seasoned entrepreneur to say, does this make sense? Or what are we doing here? And if I can do that and empower you to move forward, even if you don't end up working with me. I am totally here for it. So again, I just want to serve you. I just want to be the resource that I wish I had. So, if you need some direction go to birdwilliams.com/consultation. 

Thank you so much again for joining me here. I love the space that we get to share here on the Bird Means Business podcast. You can always hit me up on Instagram, like I said it's @heybirdwilliams. If you have any questions you can always of course book a consultation. And make sure to tell your entrepreneur friends about Bird Means Business. And I will talk to you next week.