In this special episode, host Yvonne McCoy shares her insights on implementing the "Quarterly Clarity Check-in." Yvonne emphasizes the importance of clarity and direction when setting and achieving business goals. She introduces key questions and concepts that guide listeners in evaluating their progress and making the necessary adjustments. Through personal anecdotes and actionable steps, Yvonne encourages listeners to celebrate achievements, understand their unique processes, and take consistent action toward a defined vision. This episode is all about self-discovery, leveraging strengths, and navigating business challenges with clarity and purpose.

Quote:

"You don't need to be fixed. You just need to be found."

Link:

bookacallwithyvonne.com

Welcome to the one small change, and I'm thrilled that you're here on this

journey of exploration and transformation. And I'm your host,

Yvonne McCoy, and I bring almost thirty years of entrepreneurial

experience and a passion for discovering growth through the power of

seemingly small change. And I wanna thank you for joining me

for this exploration and get some in hope you get some

inspiration. And this week, I'm gonna do something a little bit special.

I'm going to do what I'm calling the special

quarterly clarity check-in. And the reason

for that is because, you know,

at the end of each quarter, the beginning of each new quarter,

I really take some time to think about what my

goals are, why I'm doing it, am I on track. And I thought,

you know, I would be remiss if I didn't share this with you.

So this is the first time I'm doing this,

And I have some ideas, so I hope you'll find them helpful and you'll let

me know. So this is meant to energize you and

to inspire you. But I wanna also make sure that

it reinforces that for action takers only. This is

clarity that leads to implementation, that leads

to action. You know, one of my favorite

sayings that I came up with was it doesn't matter how fast you're

going if you're not going in the right direction. And so the

real thing is it's not just about taking action,

but making sure you're going in the right direction. So you're doing the things that

are going to build your business, that are gonna speed up your

momentum, that are gonna help you get where you wanna get

faster. And part of that is it's gonna help

you to help the people that you wanna impact, and I think

that's what we're all in business for. So I wanna start with

two clarity questions. And you don't have to just ask

these questions, you know, at the beginning or the end of a quarter.

You can ask these questions about anything because they're that

good. Okay? So the first question is

what's working well and why? So before I

actually go into question, I wanna go into a little bit about how we

as as humans tend to,

act. So we do something, and, typically, we

have one of two actions. One action is,

oh, I coulda done better. I shoulda done more. Right?

And I can't help it. I still have that. And, you know, the idea

is if you acknowledge that you're gonna have it, then at least

get out of it fast so that you're not stuck in that place for a

long time. The other thing is when we have good

results, we tend to say to ourselves, well, what if

I had if this was good, what if I had done more?

Right? We are not taught

to celebrate our successes.

So the question of what's working well is

really twofold. One is for you to

see what is going well and to celebrate

that. I did the things that I said I was gonna do.

I went to the networking meetings. I talked to x number of

people. I finished the course that I said I was going

to to do without the other

things that we put on there. I went to the networking, but

I didn't stay. I finished the course, but it's not as good as I want

it to be. Okay? So forget that part. Just this is what I

did. This is what I accomplished. This is what I should feel

good about. And just take a minute and really

celebrate yourself for that. And I

know that you don't want to, but you can do this.

Alright? The second part of that is why.

Why is it working so well? And I think

we don't get into that. So

everything we do kinda has a process. It typically is

not one thing by itself. So

say for instance you went networking, and it

went really well because of what? Well, first, it's it

reminds me of the story when, my son got

a zero, got a bad mark in school, got a zero. And

I said to the teacher, what? I I don't understand this.

And she goes, he never turns his homework in. I said,

but he does it. And she goes, but he never turns it in.

And I said to him, why don't you turn it in? And he said, you

know, because I know you've been working on it. And he said, because I didn't

finish it. And I said, well, why didn't you finish it? You put in enough

time. He said, because I didn't have enough time to copy the whole

assignment, so I didn't do the whole assignment, so I didn't turn

it in. So what seemed like it

was the initial problem of him just simply turning his homework

in actually started at the beginning when he

wasn't getting the whole homework assignment to begin

with. So the solution was not making

sure his homework was in the in the bag. It might be once

we solve the first problem and see how that impacts it.

But the first problem was how was he gonna get his whole homework

assignment? And it turned out that one of the ways for him

to do that was to have the phone number of somebody in his

class. I mean, he was writing it down, but he wasn't getting it

finished, right, the whole thing. And checking you know, having a

homework buddy that he could check with, and they made sure that they had all

the details for their homework. Once that was done,

then we could address whether he was actually doing it, finishing

it, putting it in the bag, getting into school, and

then turning it in. And I have to thank the teacher for bringing

this up to me because it was the first time that I really was

like, oh my god. It you know, it's not the thing that you

think it is always. Start at the beginning and make sure all the other

pieces. So why is it working well?

If, in fact, you spoke with a client and they

signed up, what was it that made that happen?

Did they had they gone to two workshops? Had they talked to

you previously? Were they in a certain situation

of their life? Were you able to really empathize with

them? What was it that made it work so you can do

it again and again, right, and increase

your results? So the question is,

what's working well and why? And the why is,

let's take a look at the process and see what it is that you're

doing and all the pieces that are in place so that you can

tweak those things as you're going along,

which brings us to the next thing. What are you solving for,

and what would that ideally look like? So kind of I guess I kinda

jumped ahead a little bit. So what are you solving for, and what would it

look like? So in the case of my my my son, it was like,

I want him to have a a way to get his homework

into school without, you know, it always

being chaos and that kind of thing. So what am I solving for? I'm

solving for all the things that are keeping him from doing

that and putting a system together that

he can do. Alright? So you may be helping

your clients, but if it's something that they can't do

on a regular basis, you haven't really solved for it. Right?

Because part of what we're we're tuning into here

is our unique strengths. And when you're working

with clients, you're looking for their unique strengths to help them as

well. So what are you solving for? I

remember one time someone came and we were I was getting

people to my my landing page, but they were not signing

up for my workshop. So one person said,

it's because your landing page has got this problem. And, you know,

the other person said no. People are clicking on the

sign up button, but they're not going through.

So who was right? Turned

out they were both right because what I was solving for was

to get people all the way through the process again.

It turned out that when I did what the marketing person said and moved

the sign up button closer to the top of the page,

Right? More people clicked on it. But there was also something

that was going on behind the scenes that was peep

keeping people from being able to sign up, that there was some confusion.

So what are you solving for, and what would it ideally look like? And one

of the parts about how it ideally looks is

that's where your vision and your

purpose comes in. Right? And you wanna be

big picture on this. I wanna be able to

help people move from here to here, and I wanna be able

to help a lot of people do that. I wanna be able to

connect with a certain population that doesn't think

that there's help out there. Part of the problem that we all have to

sigh solve for in,

you know, attracting clients to us is

what is it that keeps them from knowing

that there is a problem that you can solve?

Alright? So it could be several things. It

could be an education

problem. It could be that

they're not in the right situation to make it important for

them. And so when we end, we'll talk about when you're doing

something you wanna do, you know, take a look at you

wanna do the right thing for the right reason, the

right way, at the right time, and then it's right for you

when you're putting together this plan for yourself. And when you're doing

it with your clients, the right for you becomes the right for

them. Okay? So that's the first

thing that that that I wanna talk about. And,

I think that we don't take the

time to pause. I'm not saying stop. I'm saying

pause and take a look at what it

is that we need to do and spend some time with

ourselves. So I wanna I wanna

expand a little bit on the on the five r's because I think it's so

important. One of the reasons a lot of solutions don't work for

you is because one of those r's is not right.

So the first r is you're doing the right thing.

Okay? So someone comes up and says, you should run

oh, I'll just tell you a story because it's easier. Someone said I

should, participate in a three day

summit and be a gift in the gift box. I don't know if you've ever

gotten one of those gift boxes. So that was

the thing. Okay? I couldn't

afford to pay to be on the stage because it cost too much.

And I thought this would be this would be a good thing. So I was

gonna be in the gift box. So you do the right thing

for the right reason. The right reason was I wanted to get in front of

this huge audience that this person had, and I feel

felt like that was a way to get in front of thousands of people.

Right? So the right thing for the right

reason at the right time. That was kind

of where things fell apart, the right way.

Right? The right way was what I could at

that time, I I said what I could afford. So when I

did it, I was, like, very careful about what I put into the

box. I didn't want a potato chip thing because who

makes business, you know, decisions when you're going to your refrigerator

eating potato chips? So I like the idea of the magnet

because we keep magnets forever. So but that wasn't

it. So I decided on a little round thing

that had my name and, you know, my name and

the, website. And it

was a cloth and a

sponge, a cloth that you could clean your glasses and a and a

sponge that you could, clean the computer with. And

I was like, yes. We will keep this on our desk

forever. People will see this forever. This is, like, a wonderful

thing. Okay. So I had to pay to have it produced. I

had to pay to participate and get it shipped and

stuff like that. So the bottom line is at a time when, you

know, I couldn't afford to be on the stage,

I spent two thousand dollars to be a gift in a gift box.

And for that, what I got is a one

minute kind of like, yes. And now we're opening up this gift

and, you know, blah blah blah blah blah. I

did not get one call from

that.

I hope this makes you feel really good about if, you know, if you're

taking a a three month course or, you know, for

$2,000. I got a minute,

and I got distributed to about 700 people and

and the people that were listening. Alright. So I did you

know, I knew I needed to do something to get in front of a lot

of people. So that was the right thing. But being in that box

was not the right thing, partially because

I did not have enough to do

to buy a a a place so I could follow-up with people or actually

get people's information. So I really did not do it the right

way. And it probably was not the right thing

for me. Right? Because people,

when they get to see me, right, when they

get to talk to me, I have a much better chance

of connecting with them. When you read my print

or you, you know, see a little a little

ad, that doesn't do it. I I I think that most of you

have been places where you've fed somebody. You've read an ad and it's like,

this is the best thing ever. And you go, yeah. Didn't it been

there, done that. Okay? So that was not the right thing

for me to reach the people that I wanted to. It was not the right

time. It it would have been the right time if I had done

that, and I could have afforded a speaking spot.

Right? And it would have been a much better process. So I

want you to always say to yourself after you've decided what you ideally want

it to be and you're looking at what you're solving for and you're coming up

for the solution, to ask yourself those those questions.

Is it the right thing at the right time, and

is it right for me? Alright?

So in this clarification, when I do this

every quarter, I probably will share with you some of

my my embarrassing embarrassing stories.

I I mean, I will give you another one. I was in collaboration

book. I had a year to write my chapter. I

decided that I wanted my my this to

be my, you know, my lasting work. And

so, you know, one month before the tie you know, the book was

out, you know, we had to submit it. I

had four sentences, and I was in a panic.

And so the reason I was doing

it is because somebody told me it was the right thing to do,

to be with speakers. And I think it can be the right thing, but at

that time, it was not the right thing for me.

And so, you know, the good news was one of the things that I

discovered is I am not a writer. I am a speaker.

And so I eventually came up with the idea that I would just

record my chapter and have somebody transcribe it because it

was really a long time ago. But because I got it, you

know, so late in the process, it came

out in the book, and it looked horrible because there was a

chart and a worksheet, and it just looked

I mean, I was so embarrassed. Again, something that I

I paid. I think I paid, like,

$3,000, and I got 3,000 books.

This is when this is when they you actually got the

books themselves. It wasn't like the books on demand.

And to this day, I have

2,990, probably, of

these books that are holding up my my my

printer. And

the only thing that I actually ever did with that book

was, at one time, I was giving a talk and I said, you

know, I've got my book and my chapter's in here, and I want

you to know that you don't have to be perfect to do

something. And it was far from

perfect. Alright. Again, it was the wrong thing to

do because I'm not a writer. It

was the wrong time to do it. I had nobody that I was potentially

gonna sell these, you know, 3,000 books to.

Did I learn something from both of these experiences? Absolutely.

Absolutely. And part of what I learned is, is it right for

me? Now just to show you that there is hope in the world, I am

now in the process of writing another book. And the way that

we're doing it is we are doing it

we are meeting once a week, my partner and I. We are

having conversations. We've got an outline. And every week,

we talk for about a half an hour on a particular

subject that's on the outline, but it isn't a talking

form. It is conversational, and that's why it's right for

me, and it works. So

I want you to be able to kinda use this to be

able to not only do a quarterly quarterly

check-in with yourself but to do check ins more often.

Because the more often you check-in, the more you can stay on

track with what you're doing. And one of the reasons for that is we kinda

give ourselves deadlines. We we we, again, we have that

tendency to, you know,

speed up to get things finished. So the more deadlines you give

yourself, the more you will get accomplished. So if you

decide that not only are you gonna do a quarterly check-in,

but you're gonna do a monthly check-in, you're gonna do a weekly check-in, and you

ask yourself these questions, you're gonna find that you're gonna get a

lot more done because you can, you know, you can

tweak as you go along. And we, you know, we like to win,

so we like to get things done by the deadline. As human

beings, we are pretty predictable when it comes to

that kind of thing. And so I think, you

know, just that, not only having a quarterly

check-in, but also making sure

that you are looking at what

you're doing. So the one thing I haven't said is

that you have to, at some point, know what your long term plan is.

And when you've talked to me or been to one of my workshops,

I talk about dead reckoning. Some people call it your North Star. Dead

reckoning is one of my favorite terms. I hate how

it sounds, but I love the concept. And it comes

from sailing from when there was no electronics and stuff to be able to

navigate, that you could pick a place on the shore or on

the horizon. Because when you're sailing, you've got

the currents and you've got the winds. And so you're all always,

self correcting. You're always tacking in I forgot that

there's another sailing term, to stay on course. And

so when you do these check ins with yourself, that's what you're doing.

You're starting with the idea that this is where I'm trying to get,

whether it is, you know, this is the first step in the

journey or whether it is, you

know, this is what I'm gonna be celebrated for at my one hundredth

birthday. So

without getting too philosophical, I have to say we are at a

time right now when it is more

important than ever to really know

what your north star, what your dead reckoning is. So

that regardless what things are going on, good, bad, you

know, the good, the bad, the ugly, you can make

sure that you're staying on track, that you're staying in your

values, that you're staying in your purpose, and that you're not

being sidetracked. And sidetracked doesn't mean

that you're not participating in things. It means that you're doing

it in a way that is a reflection of your values,

that you're taking the steps that are going to get you the

actions and the outcomes with the values that you

think are important. So that's that's my

philosophical detour.

But I think it's really important, that you do

that. Alright. So the other thing

that's really important to realize is that you don't need to be

fixed. You need to be found. So if you are at the point

of your business where you have already

invested in yourself, you've taken some high ticket courses. And in

my case, and it may be true of you too, you did not get the

outcomes that you expected.

If you have had clients and the clients are really happy

with what they get when they work from with

you, you do not have a delivery problem.

Okay? You have a client attraction

problem. And so there are a couple of things

that I just wanna remind you of as you're going forward to make

sure that you check-in your check-in. So

my story is that in 2020, I lost my

business, because of COVID. It was like it was like watching

this Titanic sink. I was in the hospital for something

totally different. I was in there for five days. When I came out,

I had lost all my businesses. I was I was coaching women

executives of nonprofits, and they did not have the funds to pay

their employees. So they couldn't pay me either, which I totally

understood. But, you know, to my

dismay, I did not have a

well working, a well oiled business. I had a junk drawer, things that I

had collected for decades with no particular focus.

And so I thought, oh my god. I have gotta get

clients. I've gotta get clients really fast. What am I gonna do? And that started

my journey to where I am now to the be found

framework. And one of the things that I realized was

that was a mission for myself, was if I have to rebuild my business again,

I want it to be something that I like. I want it to be something

that I was gonna have fun with. I wanted it to

be not cookie cutter, but something that clients

came to me easily. Because even though I've had

sales jobs before and I'm pretty good at it, I don't really

like it. But if you don't make a sale, you

don't make money, and you don't have a business.

Right? So finding a way that you can do that

in a sustainable way is the only

way that you're gonna be able to sustain your business.

And I have to tell you, it is wonderful when you talk to

people and, you know, before you're finished, you know, doing you know,

at the end of my workshop, I do, a call. And

the call is basically has it's not a sales call. It has three

purposes. One, to help you identify what makes

you unique so that you can use them more. Two, identify

the gaps in your client attraction process, and more

importantly, to see where you're leaving money on the table. Because if you

don't know that you have a special quality that

is particularly enticing to a particular client,

you've never gone after that before, and you probably have those

people know those people already. And and they're

just waiting to work with you, but you didn't know that, so they didn't know

that. So you know? But as I'm going through that

call, it's really wonderful to have people say

you know what? At the end when I say, okay. This is not a sales

call. This is you know, if you'd like to to book a call with me,

we can do that. Or if you have a couple minutes more, let's do it

now. Did they go, oh, let's do it now.

I've got a couple minutes. You know? Or as you're going through this, they

say, you know, how much does it cost from you know, if

we were to work together, how much would that cost? Right? Because

they've self selected. You've met their needs, and they're

like, I need you. I want you. You are found.

So after several years, I came

finally came up with the be found framework. And it is for

me, it is, you know, it is so exciting. And this

is one of the things that I do for people, is I help them be

able to come up with their framework that they already

have, but clarify it so that they can use it better.

So my question would be, do you have that? So

just so that you know, part of the things that I think

you need to do to be found is you

need to bravely step into who you are. You need to own

it. Right? Because e, that's

what's gonna explode what's working for you. Alright?

So the found part is focus on

your strengths. When you do that, it

increases your energy. It makes you excited.

You're, you know, excited to talk about what you do. Right?

You need to do outreach. Yes. We would love it to be

the person that sits here and people just, you know, flock to us.

You know? But let's be real. You have to do outreach in some

form. And so when you're doing outreach and you

know what your strength is, then you're then you're fishing in the right

pond. You know? If you are selling air conditioners, you don't

wanna be networking in the Arctic. Then you need

to understand what your client is going

through, understand their journey. I mean,

when you do that, you give them permission. So I

said, I'm a sucker for somebody who goes, it's not your fault.

These are the reasons that you are in this situation that you

didn't even know you were aware of. You know? Like, I it's like, oh,

thank god. It's not my fault. I love that. But the other

thing is to identify and say, I know

it's hard to make a call. I've been there. But this is you

know, when I made a call, a free call and and it's

true. I took a high a high ticket course. I didn't know who

my ideal client was. I went on

a free call, thirty minute call, and the person said, what

situation are is your client in? And

that clarified it for me. Right? So

you have to be able to understand what's going on in your client's

life so that they say, you know, you

empathize. You understand me. You get it. So you have to understand their

journey. And you have to nurture your

relationships, and not just your clients, but the people you

meet because entrepreneurship is a really

lone lonely thing. And, you know,

aside from our business, we need our relationships to help us grow.

And probably the piece that I like the most is the d

stands for delight, deliver, and delight. And so

part of the way that you may do outreach is in ways that delight

you and also delight your potential clients. And so that's one

reason that I really like doing the podcast.

That's one reason I like doing the call after my workshop because I feel like

I can delight you. You may not sign up to work with me, but you're

gonna be delighted and find out something that you can you can,

you can use. So alright. So I'm gonna tie this

up. I want you to remember that to to to use the questions

that I gave you and also the five r's, the right thing, the right

reason, the right time, the right way, and it's right for

you. But here's what I want you to do because this is for people who

wanna take action. I want you to take some action. So the first

thing I want you to do is to book a

call with me, and we can go over those three things. Right?

You don't need to, you know, you don't need

to to wait to do that. The second thing I

want you to do is make sure that you sign up

for either my course or come to a workshop.

Right? And the the last thing I want you to

do is I want you to put time on your calendar to actually

take out your calendar and mark out times

when you can do a clarity check-in with yourself, whether

that's once a week, you know, whether it is you know, the

clarity part. I call it clarity because we automatically

do the planning. Right? But without the

clarity, you're gonna be going fast in the wrong direction.

Right? So I want you to take out your calendar. I want

you to make sure that you make time for

yourself so that you can stay on course, so that you've got

your north star, so that you've got your dead reckoning, and you

can increase your momentum that way. So

I will say this, remember, you don't need to

be fixed. You just need to be found.

And you don't have to do it alone, which is the part that's

so exciting for me. So that's

it for this. I hope that you enjoyed this, and I hope that it's

different. The other thing I'll say as we go is

please stay curious. It takes

courage to do something different, and this is

something different. But if you stay curious, you

will be open to so many more possibilities.

And until the next time, I'm Yvonne McCoy.

Thank you for joining me for the One Small Change.