It's a new year and a new beginning for all of us as entrepreneurs. Here's our opportunity to start the year in the right direction.

In this episode, we talk about the importance of planning and goal setting, the benefits of engaging with and seeking advice from trusted advisors, and how to create and implement a personal and business manifesto. We dive into the unique challenges and rewards of entrepreneurship and empower aspiring entrepreneurs to take action and bring their vision to life.

We hope you will walk away with the knowledge and motivation to make the most of your entrepreneurial pursuits in the new year and beyond.

Empowering Moments

00:00 Podcast interviews entrepreneurs who provide valuable insight.

05:12 Engage trusted advisors for a broader business perspective.

07:06 Strategizing involves shared brainstorming and accountability.

10:07 Plan, purpose, and leadership drive success.

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Empowering Takeaways

1. **Yearly Review**:

- Importance: Take time to review the previous year’s financials and operations.

- Actionable: Assess revenue sources, profit margins, expenses, and taxes.

2. **Operational Efficiency**:

- Importance: Ensure your organization runs lean and efficiently.

- Actionable: Evaluate if the right people are in the right roles to maximize strengths and minimize weaknesses.

3. **Comparative Analysis**:

- Importance: Use year-to-year comparative statements to understand trends.

- Actionable: Identify areas of improvement or growth by comparing multiple years' financials.

4. **Personal and Professional Goals**:

- Importance: Plan both personal and professional goals for the upcoming year.

- Actionable: Think about improving as an individual, including health, leadership, and personal roles.

5. **Detailed Planning**:

- Importance: Create a concrete plan with specific goals and timelines.

- Actionable: Write down 30-, 90-, and 120-day goals and share them with trusted advisors or accountability partners.

6. **Engage Trusted Advisors**:

- Importance: Utilize a team of professionals (CPA, financial advisors) to offer different perspectives.

- Actionable: Regularly consult with advisors to identify blind spots and opportunities for improvement.

7. **Time Management**:

- Importance: Entrepreneurs must prioritize time to plan, review, and execute.

- Actionable: Dedicate a few hours for high-level strategic planning to avoid being stuck in everyday tasks.

8. **Delegation**:

- Importance: Recognize what tasks can be delegated to free up time for strategic thinking.

- Actionable: Identify team members or external resources to handle non-essential tasks.

9. **Execution of Plans**:

- Importance: A well-thought-out plan is useless if not implemented.

- Actionable: Commit to executing the plan with regular reviews and adjustments as needed.

10. **Positive Mindset and Manifestation**:

- Importance: Believe in your goals and manifest success through written and shared plans.

- Actionable: Maintain a proactive approach, writing down goals, and visualizing success to stay motivated and focused.

Running a business doesn’t have to run your life.

Without a business partner who holds you accountable, it’s easy to be so busy ‘doing’ business that you don’t have the right strategy to grow your business.

Stop letting your business run you. At Harper & Co CPA Plus, we know that you want to be empowered to build the lifestyle you envision. In order to do that you need a clear path to follow for success

Our clients enjoy a proactive partnership with us. Schedule a consultation with us today.

Download our free guide - Entrepreneurial Success Formula: How to Avoid Managing Your Business From Your Bank Account.

Copyright 2024 Glenn Harper

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Hi. I'm Glenn Harper, CPA and owner of Harper and Company, CPAs Plus, and partner in Sewell Consulting. In each episode, my co host, Julie Smith, Harper and Company's practice manager and partner in SUIC Consulting, and I will interview a different guest about their entrepreneurial journey. The podcast features interviews with business owners, aka entrepreneurs, who bring intriguing and entertaining clarity to the entire entrepreneurial journey, giving others confidence to build their business. Our goal is to provide actual value to you, the entrepreneur, to help you do business or build a business. Every entrepreneur deserves to enjoy the journey. Learning from others offers valuable insight and inspiration. We want to provide insight on the why, the how, the shortcuts, and the value add that many entrepreneurs wish they would have had identified at the onset of their journey.

Sit back and enjoy the journey. Hello, everyone. Welcome to another edition of Empowering Entrepreneurs. I'm Glenn Harper.

Julie Smith.

What's up, Julie?

You know, it got warm, and now it's cold again. And I don't know that I like it.

Oh, man. If we're only in Lake Tahoe right now, we're only getting, like, 2 feet today.

Just today?

Just today.

Plus the 2 feet from yesterday. Right?

Yes. And you get one of those big Articac snow machines would be awesome. All people around.

I don't know if they have 10 keys in those, though, but I bet you could get one installed.

Well, today, we got a little special Well, today, we got a little special treat for you. We just wanna kinda do a top three things that's gonna obviously have lots of subsets of what, as an entrepreneur, we'd like to see happen at the beginning of the year. We we don't like New Year's resolutions because those really don't work. You need that purpose. So I think the first thing we'd like to think that entrepreneurs should be doing this is probably much anybody probably, but it's it's about review. You wanna look at your prior year and get all the analytical data, the factual statements. What did you make? Where did you spend your money? What were your taxes? What actually happened that you can actually measure and see what see what really did.

And I think this is the only time in the year that you're ever looking backwards.

That's correct. Because what happens is a lot of entrepreneurs are so busy forging forward, they they forget to evaluate how they did. And if you don't evaluate how you did, how are you gonna know how to improve?

Right. What can you do to, you know, make it better? Or if there's something that you're doing really well, how do you leverage that?

Right. Because when you look at where your revenue source is coming from, what are your margins, what are your fixed expenses, what are your, variable expenses, what can you cut, what can you improve, what do you need to throw dollars at? You have to have a solid set of financials and have an understanding of the we'll call it the financial checkup of your business. And that and that comes with just looking at your financials. Here we are. January, you should probably have your statements done by no later than January 15th so you can see what happened.

Well, and I think to your point too, it's also looking at it operationally. Are you running a lean organization? Do you have the right people in the right seats? Is everybody doing exactly, you know, their strengths? And are you able to kind of move some of those weaknesses around to, again, create more a little bit more efficiency internally to run that lean organization that everybody wants to have?

It's called the the state of the union. And if you don't if you can't measure it, how can you possibly evaluate the state of your union?

But I think to that point, you have to know what you're measuring too. And oftentimes, you know, I think we find entrepreneurs are just head down moving towards that next task, that next project, and not even understanding maybe that their profit margins or, you know, where their expenses are or maybe this would have been the best decision instead of this one and just being able to kind of reflect, have some awareness and move forward.

And generally, when you do do your financials and you put those things in order, you're gonna have comparative statements. So you're gonna see year to year how you're progressing. If you're a new entrepreneur, right, you have 1 year to look at. But if you're an and been in business for a few years, look at the multiple years and see what your trends are. And then that's you have to do that, and then you have, I guess, would call it a, you would have a basis to make the next thing that you need to be as an entrepreneur.

And even set those goals, right, as as you move into your second thing that I just took the thunder from. But

Yeah. Well, there's thunder. There's lightning. The next thing would be, the plan, and the plan would be as after you evaluate where you were and what happened, the next thing is to, like, okay, what do we want to do as an entrepreneur? And it's and it's a combination of you as an individual, how are you going to be a better individual, whether that's a, you know, a spouse, a parent, a friend, a leader of your company, yourself, health, all those things. What do you wanna do? What is that plan to be the best you can be to put you in the best position to execute on those items? After you do that, then it comes down to what does the business need? What are we gonna do with the business? What's the goals? Right?

So I think you're saying trying to find the purpose for the next 12 months, whether that be personally, professionally, and then breaking it down. You know, have someone who can hold you accountable. Write down exactly what that is. 90 days, a 120 days. What are you gonna accomplish at the end of the year? And whether that's sharing that with, you know, some of your trusted advisers so that they can help hold you accountable, or it's a friend or, you know, it's a spouse. Whatever that is, make sure you're writing it down. You can be held accountable because as we all know, something that's not written down, it's not a plan. And until it's a plan, it it's not executable.

It's a dream. And the reality is you as an entrepreneur know what you know, but you don't know what you don't know. And what I mean by that is engage with your trusted adviser, whether that's be your CPA, your financial adviser, whoever that person or people are on that team that can give you different perspective of what this looks like. Like, hey, you you as an entrepreneur thought you made x dollars, or you thought you spent money here, but the reality is if you look at it through somebody as a trained professional to look at it in a different way, oh, that's a wholly different different, you know, thing that happened, and you're not may not be aware of it. So engage your trusted advisors beginning of the year to make sure that they can poke holes or advise you on a better way to do things and just a different lens because you you're you're gonna be in the little tunnel vision probably.

And I think it's just about that perspective. Right? Because oftentimes, like I said in the beginning, you know, entrepreneurs have their head down going to the next task or the next thing. When you're able to kinda pull yourself out of that and see the big picture, you know, possibly there's another perspective or something else you see, like you said, in a different lens. And that's just a that just sheds a whole different light and a whole different road that you could possibly go down.

But, Julie, I'm an entrepreneur. I'm so busy. I I I don't have time for that. I just can't do it. I am I'm stretched too thin. What do you say to that?

I mean, do you not have time to not do it? Because I think at the end of the day, if you don't do that, you're gonna be in the same place you were next year, you're gonna commit to doing it next year because you just don't have time. And I hate to break it to you, but you're gonna be even busier next year.

So, like, I'm gonna be a hamster on a wheel again.

That's right. And how are you gonna get off of that wheel?

So entrepreneurs, please take hold of it. Literally, it doesn't take very long. You just need to commit to putting that time down to evaluate and review, and then make your plan. And it it is we're not talking you take 6 months to do this. We're talking a few hours. You everybody can find a few hours.

When I think, you know, sometimes, Glenn and I, when we sit down to strategize or even talk business, it's in a 20 minute setting. And it's like, it's just taking the time to have that brain dump so we know what each other is thinking or doing and being able to really map out that road. And then it might be 20 minutes the next day. So we got here. We're gonna go here. And so maybe it takes place over a week, and that's perfectly fine as long as you're committed and being held accountable. And, again, I think it's just getting out of your own way and making sure that you understand where you wanna go, where you wanna be, and how are you going to do whatever you need to do in order to get there. And it might not be you doing it, And that's completely fine too.

It's even better if you can delegate. But you you you stand around and look as an entrepreneur. You look at other businesses, other companies, other entrepreneurs, and I'm like, well, how come they're doing it so well? I'm gonna tell you why they're doing it so well. They're doing it so well because this is what they do. They literally review their things, they plan it accordingly, and then that gets us to the next item that you should do, and that's the actual execute the plan. A plan that is not violently implemented and follow-up on and and reviewed and done is just a piece of paper. Well, I

mean, I think the first step is definitely writing it down on that for that piece of paper and making it come alive a little bit. Right? But I definitely think it's then backing into something that's bigger than yourself, essentially, and being able to say, hey, these are the steps I'm gonna take to do this again, the next 30 days, the next 90 days, then, you know, whatever that time frame is and holding yourself accountable. Hey. Stick it on your computer. Stick it on, you know, wherever it is that you see every day. Maybe it's your bathroom mirror. Just to remind yourself of where you're going and what you wanna do, and you're creating a proactive approach instead of a reactive approach. Like you said, you know, what if next year you didn't do it? Well, you're still being reactive to what you didn't plan for.

Well, if we do it the same way, we know exactly the same results we're gonna get. We're gonna be burnout. We have we have no opportunity for advancement. It just is what it is. We're buried. We need to break that cycle.

And I think that's called insanity at the end of the day, but, I'll let I'll let the professionals deal

with it. Entrepreneurs are insane, but in a sane way. I get it. And I think that the plan that we talked step 2, I think it comes down to you know, I like to call it have have your own manifesto. Like, who am I, and what do I wanna do with my personal life, and also what I wanna do with my team of my business at being an entrepreneur. What do I wanna do? What does this look like? And listen, you'll be amazed as an entrepreneur when you tap into that piece of your brain that says, why am I doing this and what do I need to do? You will execute on it. It it's inevitable. But if you don't write it down and you don't tap into it, it will be shadowed on the easy way, which is the way I've always done it.

And I think if you manifest something, like you said, writing it down and manifesting it, it's it's going to come true. It's you're going to work towards it, you know, whether it's subconsciously or consciously.

You're saying I can self prophesize something?

Just saying you have to believe in yourself.

Correct. And, again, the great thing about this is that when you plan, and you start to execute, and you have purpose, it's amazing how people will come with toward the goal or toward the mission. When you're uncertain, and you're down on yourself, and you're down on the organization, you're just not happy, and then things aren't working well, people don't wanna work for that. They wanna work towards something. So it's incumbent on you as your entrepreneur in your own world, your own Fifeton that you have to be that leader. And to do that, you have got to get out of your own way and figure out how to make that work.

I I 100% agree with you.

Fantastic. Well, hopefully, all you listeners out there will take some, to heed some of this advice, and I'm telling you there would be what is the absolute worst that can happen.

Hey. You're right. You use a piece of paper, and you gotta throw it away later. But at least you use the piece of paper.

At least you are now more aware. You're more cognitive what's going on. You may not execute anything, but you're gonna be aware, and now that should be your call to action. And the the worst that can happen is you're gonna be better. How how can that be how can that be bad?

Or you might, you know, act with some sort of purpose.

That's crazy talk. But, no, that's that's how it works. And, again, as an entrepreneur, you just you don't have to do this alone. You'd have you can get yourself some advisors, you get yourself some teammates, but you have to start this. You have to be impetus to change. You have to be the person that sets the tone.

100% agree. We don't normally agree, but I'm with you on this one.

It's about time. Well, appreciate everybody listening in. We wish you the best in the beginning of this new year. I'm looking forward to seeing you on the next podcast. This is Glenn Harper.

Happy New Year, Julie Smith.

See you. At Harper and Company CPA Plus, we just don't care about the numbers. We care about helping you tap into the greatness of your entrepreneurial journey. You deserve a partner who has helped hundreds of businesses go from paying the bills to building the business and lifestyle of their dreams. Go to our website and download our free guide entitled entrepreneurial success formula, how to avoid managing your business from your bank account. The link is in this episode's show notes.