Welcome back to Part Two of our Legendary Business: From Rats to Riche$ series, based on my Amazon bestselling book about the five most common mistakes business owners make and how to fix them. (If you missed Part One, go back and meet Maya, the Nearsighted Rat in episode 26 “When Passion Gets in the Way of Profit“)

Today, we’re diving into a new chapter with one of my personal favorites: Holden, the Disoriented Rat.

Holden is easy to love. He’s hardworking, brilliant, and totally dedicated to his business. He shows up early, stays late, takes care of his customers, and gives it his all every single day. The problem? He has no idea where he’s going. 

In this episode, I walk you through Holden’s story including the real-life inspiration behind him and explain why being amazing at your craft isn’t enough to build a successful business. We talk about the difference between staying busy and being intentional, and why defining what success actually means to you is the key to moving forward with purpose.

Whether you’re launching your first business or you’ve been at it for years, if you’ve ever felt like you’re working hard but still not making real progress, just like Holden, this episode is exactly what you need.

Key Takeaways:

• Success is a vague word until you give it shape: Whether it's a specific income, more freedom, or serving a certain audience—clarity on your version of success is the first step to achieving it.
• Being busy doesn’t mean you’re being effective: Without goals or a clear direction, your effort might not be moving you forward, it might just be keeping you in motion.
• Goals create structure, momentum, and clarity: When you set goals the right way, they become the foundation of your business.
• Writing goals down is where the magic begins: There’s something powerful about putting your goals on paper. It shifts them from wishful thinking to a tangible plan.
• Break down big goals into bite-sized steps: When you chunk goals down into manageable pieces, action becomes far less overwhelming.
• Set three levels of goals: realistic, stretch, and next-level: Together, they create a full picture of your growth path.
• Planning is what makes pivoting possible: Without a plan, pivots become panic. With a plan, they become a strategy
• Don’t underestimate the power of deciding: Choosing a goal, even an imperfect one, gives your energy somewhere to go and movement follows clarity.

Unlock the Secrets to Building a Resilient and Profitable Business at the Profit Connectors Club - https://profitconnectors.club/

About Sharon:

Sharon Galluzzo, Profit Growth Strategist at Profit Connections, is the author of several Amazon Best Selling books including “Legendary Business: From Rats to Riche$.” She ran a successful multi-six figure, award winning business for more than a decade before selling it for a profit. In her more than 19 years as an entrepreneur, Sharon has coached professionals across the country from franchisors and solopreneurs to businesses on the verge expansion. 

http://sharongalluzzo.com/

https://www.facebook.com/sharonagalluzzo/

https://www.instagram.com/sharon_galluzzo/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/sharongalluzzo/

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Foreign Welcome back. I am so glad that you're

joining me today, and today we're going to do part two of

legendary business from rats to riches, which is my Amazon best

selling book about five of the most common mistakes business

owners make, how to identify them and how to fix them. So

today, we are going to delve into the second rat in this

book. Last time we spoke about Maya rat, who is a near sighted

rat. So if, if you didn't listen to that episode, you want to go

back and catch Maya, go ahead and do that. A little bit about

the book legendary business from rats to riches. This is it, if

you're on video, there's also a workbook, the workbook you can

only get through me. So there's a link that you can go to the

book, you can get on Amazon, and you can get it through me. We

will, of course, connect everything to the profit

connectors dot club site so that you can get access to all of

that as well. So the legendary business, from rats to riches

book, when I wrote this book, I wrote all of the stuff that I

wanted people to know, and I gave it to some friends to look

at, and they came back to me and they said, that's not a book.

One. It's too short. This was actually before little micro

books became a thing. And the second thing was that it just

didn't have a story. And my friend said to me, you know,

business books with a story are more people connect with them

more and they're more popular and they are more effective. So

me being the overachiever, I decided that I wasn't going to

tell one story. I was going to tell five. So I created five

rats for each of the chapters, each of the five Common Mistakes

Business Owners Make. And so to tie it all together, I borrowed

from the legend of the pied piper. If you're not familiar

with the story, it's kind of a horrible story. However, we

won't go quite all the way to the end with the horror, horror

ending of the original story. The Pied Piper was said to have

this magical pipe that would make you know rats leave the

city. So the city of Hamlin was overrun with rats. They were

everywhere, and they didn't know what to do, so they sent for the

Piper, and the Piper came, and he said, Okay, here's my price.

I will take all of the rats out of the city and I'll drown them

in the river. And so they made a deal with him, and they said,

Yep, that's what we want. Please go do that. So the pied piper

picked up his pipe, played his tune in all the rats followed

him out of town, and they were drowned in the river. After that

was done, the pied piper came back to the town and he said,

Okay, I've gotten rid of all the rats. I'm ready to be paid, and

the townspeople were like, Oh no, no, we're good. We don't

have a rat problem anymore, so we're not going to pay you. And

so if you've ever heard the term pay the piper, this is where it

comes from, because they had a business transaction with him,

and they did not honor it. He did something terrible to their

children. He led the children out of town, just as he had the

rats. It did go into a little bit of the dark part of the

story. However, the part that I wanted to use for this book is

for you to understand that there are rats. I call them rats. You

can call them whatever rats in your business, habits, mindset,

things that you're doing or not doing, but mistakes that you're

making in your business that are causing your business to not be

as successful as you want it to be. And so you have to be the

pied piper to drive the rats out of your own business. And so

what, what I did was, I picked the five rats. And I know the

the story, the pied piper story, is a little bit dark, so I

wanted to inject a little bit of light into the the process. And

also I wanted, I wanted my rats to be a little bit friendly. So

what I did was I hired an artist to create an illustration of all

the rats in the book. So each chapter has a picture of the rat

before you will learn their story. So I have a business book

with pictures. That's my favorite thing to say. I have a

business book and it has pictures. That sort of

alleviates the pressure, right? Whenever you read a book,

business books can be dry and dull, and the other reason that

I wrote the book The way I wrote it is I wanted it to come to you

in bite sized chunks so that you could read. Read a chapter while

you're waiting for your laundry to dry, or you're waiting in

carpool, or you have a few minutes here or a few minutes

there, you don't just sit down and read it cover to cover in

one sitting. There are sort of standalone chapters that can be

taken in bite sized chunks. So the book is designed so that you

we first tell the story of the rat, which is whatever problem

that that I'm illustrating, and then we do, how do you solve

that? How do you pay the piper? How do you get rid of that rat

from your business? So as I said, we talked about Maya rat.

She's a near sighted rat. And today we're going to talk about

Holden. And Holden is a disoriented rat. I love. If you

are not on video and you can't see the picture, Holden is

looking down at his compass and holding the map upside down, not

getting anywhere. And let me tell you, Holden is one of my

favorite rats. He is absolutely a joy. He is really, really,

really good at what he does. He's earnest and honest. He has

great customer service skills. He works really hard. He's an

expert, and he can't figure out why he can't make his business

successful. So let's talk about Holden. Holden was that guy you

know, whenever you work in an office, and there's that one

person who does nothing, and then there's that other one

person who does everything, and because of that, everyone gives

all their work to the one person who does everything and does it

well, shows up, does all the stuff that needs to be done.

Well, that's Holden.

He actually is a little bit related to, or based

on, my husband. My husband is that way. He's so

good at what he does, and he's such a joy to be around. And

he's he really is great. And so everyone gives him the work to

get done, because they know what's going to get done, and

it's going to get done right? And after a while, Holden says,

You know what? I am really, really good at what I do. I'm

making a lot of money for my boss. What if I could make that

money for myself? What if I could start my own business with

my expertise and make the money instead of giving it to my boss

and then just getting a salary? So he talks to his wife, and his

wife says, You know what? You are, such a great rat. You

You're you're really good at what you do, and I have been

listening to your war stories, as she calls them, for years.

You know the ones? Oh, they hired a new person and they gave

them to me to train. Doesn't my boss know I have lots of other

things to do? Or, hey, here's this project that so and so

couldn't finish. We're giving it to you because we know you'll do

a good job and get it done. So after a while, he's just so

weary of things like this. And he says, talks to his wife, and

his wife is like, Yes, I think you should do it. I support you.

Go ahead and start your business. And he does. He gets

this cute little shop, and he's, it's always neat as a pin. And

like I said, he's really great with the customers. He comes in

early, he stays late. He works really, really, really hard, and

he has a friend, Mary. And Mary has a similar kind of business.

However, Mary's business seems to be doing so much better than

Holden's business, and Holden just can't figure it out. He

thinks he's doing the right things. So one day, he calls up

Mary, and he says, Hey, Mary, how are you doing so much better

than me? And Mary says, well, let's sit down and talk about

it. Holden, you know, I know you're really great. You're an

expert at what you do really good work, and the customers

that you have love you. So let me ask you. Tell me what your

sales goals are for this month. And Holden's eyes get huge, and

he goes, What do you mean sales goals? I know how much money I

need to pay, the rent. I know how much money I need to, you

know, to do these things and to keep things moving in my shop.

Because what I don't, I don't know what you mean by sales

goals. And so she's like, Well, do you have a gold of how much

you want to make in your business? And Holden's like, No.

And it suddenly occurs to Mary that Holden is a disoriented

rat. He doesn't know where he's going. He knows he wants to be

quote, unquote successful. Successful can mean anything.

Successful can mean I started a business and I go. To work every

day in my business. Successful could be I make this much money?

Successful could be I now have time for this kind of thing in

my life. Successful could be I'm going to use the money I make in

my business to go traveling. Success is not a definition of

anything. Success has to be defined. And so since Holden has

never defined success and has no goals and doesn't know how to

get there, he's a disoriented rat. So what we do in the set?

So that's Holden story. And then in the next part of the chapter,

we talk about how to pay the piper. What do we need to do to

get Holden rat, the disoriented rat who's keeping you stuck and

unsuccessful in your business? How do you get him out of your

business? Now it's really hard to not like Holden, because

Holden is so wholesome, however, he is disoriented. So what we

talk about in the next part is goals. Why do I harp on goals?

Why do I know that goals are part of the success formula that

you need to have in your business so you can get where

you want to go? It's because they work. And it's not just

having goals, it's having goals in the right way. And we're

going to talk a little bit more about that. So first of all, you

have to know where you are going. If I said to you, Hey,

let's go on vacation, and we're going to go to a tropical

locale, I'm going to pay for everything. You're going to come

with me, and you're going to have the time of your life. What

do you need to know other than you know when? But what do you

need to know so that you can get to that tropical location?

Because tropical location can be a lot of things, right? It's

like a goal. So you have to have the address. Where are you

actually going? Once you have the address, you can plan the

trip. Now we all know how to successfully plan trips,

vacations, at least, I think you do. We've all done it at any

rate, you pick the location, you pick the date that you're going

to travel. You pick how you're going to get there. You decide

what you need when you get there. How are you going to

dress? What's the weather? What are you going to do? Do you need

a swimsuit? Do you need a snow suit? What do you need once you

get there, and what? Who's coming with you? What is we're

really good about planning and executing vacations, because

they have a destination. So if you'll think about your business

that way, like it's a it's plant, like planning a vacation,

it's much easier to get your brain around goals, because

sometimes that just feels so huge and overwhelming or icky or

hard or boring, however, it's none of those things. When you

set the right kind of goals in the right way, they actually

lead you where you want to go. So first of all, you need to

pick a destination. You need to know what is your definition of

success, and then break that down. Let's just say your

definition of success is to make $100,000 in a year. Well, now we

can break that down, right? $100,000 means, how much do I

have to make every single month? And then you can go, oh, okay,

those are now sales goals. Well, now we've taken something that

was esoteric and big and broken it down just by giving the goal

a number. By having numbers in your goals, you can actually

break them down so that they can be done in bite sized chunks. So

the first thing about about the goals is we need the

destination. We actually need to know where we're going so that

we can have the most success. And I'm paging through the book,

if you're hearing the pages turn, so I can get to a list

that I want to read, because it's really good. So here is the

importance of having goals,

because goals do a whole bunch of different things for you. Not

just set your destination. Goals give you a foundation, the base

upon which you build your business. Defining your goals

provides the solid rock on which your success is built.

Foundation. You know, that is what I say all the time. Your

goals need a foundation too. Your goals actually are the

foundation that you build upon. Once you define where you want

to go, now you can build the second thing that goals do is

that they're their driver. They fuel your forward momentum, and

they remind you of where you want to go. The third thing that

goals do is they provide an instructor. Having your goals in

place informs decisions in your business systems, such as

budgets, and that allows. You to determine how and where to spend

your money, and when you're making decisions, ask yourself,

if doing this thing it will get you closer or further away from

your goal. Can you see now how goals have so much power.

They're not just an exercise, they're not just numbers that

you write down, they're not just words on a piece of paper, they

actually can help you create the reality. And the final thing

that a goal can do is it provides you with that North

Star the point. It points you in the direction of your dreams,

and they keep you on track and help orient you. That's really

important. Whenever you have goals set out you have something

that can keep you oriented. I read a book one time, and it was

really such a this illustration has stayed with me over the

years, and he said that if you define what you want and you

commit to what you want, AKA a goal, then all decisions become

easy. And he gave this illustration of a dentist who

wanted to do Pediatric Dentistry. He only wanted to

work on kids. He wanted to work on kids. And then I think he had

another goal, like he wanted to provide dental service for

children, and he wanted to contribute to a charity for

children. So everything that he did was in the realm of working

with children. And so when people would come to him and

they would say, Hey, can you present at this dental

conference on this new, you know, teeth whitening system for

executives, he could easily say, Oh, let me check. Does it have

to do with children? No, that does not serve my that does not

serve my mission, that does not it's not my goal. So I can now

say no. Thank you to that opportunity. While it might be a

great opportunity and it might be great exposure, and he could

meet lots of colleagues, they're not meeting the goal that he has

set for his business. If someone came to him and said, Hey, we

have a charity that we want, want you to contribute to, and

it's going to plant trees in Idaho, he can go back to his

plan, his success, his goal, his definition, and say, does that

help children. Now, trees might actually be something that could

help children. Depends where they are, where they're planted.

What's the purpose? If they're in a forest and they're just

growing Christmas trees to replace the Christmas trees, you

still might might fit in there. However, it more more likely is

not in that really sweet spot of his goal so he can more easily

go, No, that doesn't get me closer to my goal and my

success. I can say no to that. And then if someone comes to him

and says, Hey, we would like you to come into our schools and

teach children the proper way to brush he can go, ding, ding,

ding, ding, ding, yes, that fits all of my criteria that is

within my goals. It serves children, it serves dentistry,

it will get me in the community. I can give back. And so then

it's a really easy yes, so goals as your North Star is such a

positive thing now it's also tied in with your mission, which

we're not specifically talking about today. However, your

mission can inform very strongly your goals. So once you

establish your goals, you have so much more power in your

business. You have power to make decisions. You have power to

know where you're going and to have forward momentum in that

direction. You have all kinds of power in your business simply by

setting goals. So in the book and also in the workbook, we go

into a deep dive on how do you set goals. Where do you set

goals? What do you need to think about? And it doesn't have to be

complex. It can be very simple. How much money do you want to

make in a year? Let's just use money as our as our line. It can

be for anything. How much exposure Do you want to have

this year? Do you want to have any kind of recognition or

awards. How many see what else do we have on here? Uh, do you

want to do? How? How much social media presence Do you want to

have? All of these things can be goals. You you decide what you

want to achieve, and then you create the goal, and back step

it into, how do you now make all of the steps forward towards

that goal? And this is a really, really positive, I mean, a

really powerful and positive. It's a really powerful tool in

your business, just setting goals. So then, once you know

what, what is that base? Line for your dreams. Where do you

want to go? Then you go and figure out how to get there. And

sometimes we get an what they call analysis paralysis. If you

think too hard about it, and you try to make yourself right or

wrong, you can actually get stuck. So here's my advice, go

ahead and pick the goals that work for you today. Decide what

you want for today. It does not it is not set in stone. You can

always change. You can always pivot. If, if you find that you

know, maybe this goal that you set no longer resonates with

you, you're not really in alignment with it, or there's

something else that's going on that no longer works for you,

that's okay, go ahead and set the goals. Set the goals for

today, and then once you have them, then you have more power

to change them. I don't know if I've shared this story with you

before. However, I believe so strongly in having a plan A that

I that's sort of a a constant in my life. Everything that I'm

doing, I'm working off of a plan that I set in the beginning.

I'll share this little story with you. I used to teach third

three year olds, three year olds, my favorite. They're so

much fun. And I also worked in our church, in the children's

church, and children's church was kind of, was kind of crazy

because, you know, didn't you didn't know who was going to

show up. You didn't know what was going to happen. So I always

what I figured out. This is actually where I learned it on

the days where I was really, really put in the time before

Sunday to plan out the things that I wanted to do and how long

it was going to take, and all of those directions. When I got in

front of the kids and things went a little bit crazy, because

I knew what I wanted to do in Plan A, shifting to Plan B

became really easy. For instance, if I decided that we

were going to color a coloring page, this was going to be like

an activity, and the kids were just too crazy that day, and

then full of energy, then maybe I would get out a ball and we

toss the ball around the circle and talk about something, or

make it make a different kind of game. So we so the the once I

had the plan A and I knew this was time for an activity. If one

activity wasn't going to work, because what was going on that

day in the room, then I could shift to another activity, the

goal, the plan just pivoted a little bit. And I found that

once, when I was really well prepared, the days went really

quickly, easily. Everything flowed, even if I had to go to

plan B, plan C, Plan D, didn't matter if I had a strong plan A.

However, the days I went in when I really didn't prepare very

much and I just said, it's going to be fine. Wow, what a

difference. Sometimes the kids were running the show, let me

tell you that. And I think that happens in our businesses too,

when we fail to plan. That the saying is, when you fail to

plan, you plan to fail and and that's not always true. However,

if you don't have that strategy, the strategy, the plan, a the

way we're going to do things, it's so much harder to pivot

because we just don't know what the plan is, and we're making it

up on the fly. So have a plan, a whoops, and just hit the

microphone. I don't know if you can hear that. So having goals

is really, really critical. The next thing about having goals. I

have three kinds of goals. I may have talked to you about this

already. I'm going to say it again, three types of goals. You

have your realistic goals. Those are the goals you think you can

achieve. They should be a little bit higher than where you are

now. If you want some forward momentum, or if you're happy

with staying where you are, just go ahead and set the same goals

for the next period of time, the next month, the next year,

whatever.

So you have your your realistic goals, then you have your

stretch goals. Your stretch goals should be higher than your

realistic goals. And for me, I know it's a good stretch goal

when I look at it and I break out in a little sweat thinking,

I don't think I could possibly do that. And when I feel that

little impossibility of the stretch goal. I know, for me,

that's a great stretch goal. And here's a little secret I will

tell you that setting stretch goals will get you closer to the

stretch goals then you possibly than you think you can. It was

so crazy. I would set these stretch goals and then I would

blast past them if I had just stopped at the realistic goals,

I might have blasted past those two, but that was that was my

own. That was my own stopping point. So having the stretch

goals really actually pulls you forward. And then the third kind

of goals that I recommend you have are next level goals. And

these are not the kind of. Goals that you're setting for your

year. These might be your five year goals, or your next level

goals, like if you are in a an business where you can move up

in rank, somehow your next level goal might be, you know, the

next rank, or five ranks above. So sometimes businesses are

organized that way. So you can have a next level goal, but you

need and you need to define it. So for example, when my husband

and I started our business, we started it in our home with our

next level goal being, in five years, we will have a retail

location. That was a goal for us. We wanted to be in a retail

space, and we did everything as we were building our business in

the first four years. We did it with an eye to we are going to

be in a retail space in five years. So everything that we did

moved us that direction. So it was actually less than five

years when we got into our retail space. That's the power

of the next level goal. So goals are so so powerful, goals will

take wonderful, earnest, hard working, genius, expert in his

field, Holden from just showing up at work and working really

hard to actually having success as he has defined success as he

first even needs to define that word. So this is the this is the

path, this is the power. This is how you get where you want to

go. And I have a a little secret. So there is a secret to

reaching your goals. It's a secret magic formula, and I am

going to share it with you today. I'm I am living proof

that it works. Hundreds and millions of people have already

done it, and it works for them. So I know that it will work for

you. It is magic. Here is the formula. Write down your goals.

Put it on paper, put it in pen and ink. You can write it hand.

Write it. You can type it and print it out, write it down. I

cannot tell you why that works. I know there are people who can,

however, writing it down actually gets you way closer to

your goals than just going, Oh, I'm going to, I'm going to, you

know, do this someday. Write it down. Write down your goals. So

that is the story of Holden rat. I hope that you enjoyed it. I

hope you identified a little bit with Holden. Here's what I found

with my book, is that everyone who's ever read it and

encountered me afterwards cocked their head to the side and

looked at me really funny and said, Are you following me

around? So I know that these stories, these these common

mistakes, are out there and and people resonate with them. So I

encourage you to I encourage you to set goals for this week. I

encourage you to set goals if you would like to read the book.

As I said, it's available on Amazon. You can get it from me.

The workbook you have to order directly from me. And what I'm

going to do is I'm going to take that information, I'm going to

put it into our profit connectors dot club portal, so

that you can go there, check it out and and get those if you

would like to so the profit connectors portal is our

community. It's where we put all the goodies from the podcast.

And why is it called profit connectors dot club? Because

it's about you. You're the connectors. You're going to

connect, your your goals, your vision, everything to to to the

profit, the the profit that you want to have in your life,

whether the profit is money, or the profit is vacations, or the

profit is success, or the whatever the profit is for you,

you're connecting with that. You're connecting to your

profit. So profit connectors dot c, l, u, B is the website

address. You just go to profit connectors, dot C, l, u, B,

profit connectors, dot club. It's free to get in. You just

have to log in. And then you can see, not only this information

from this podcast, you can get information from all of our

guests, all of the free gifts, the contact information, BIOS

about everyone that we've had on the show, and that is the place

to go to get all of the goodies. And I encourage you to go to

profit connectors, dot club, and pick up all your goodies. And

here's what I want to say to you, keep showing up. Your

future self will. Thank you. You. Remember it's your business

and your impact. Go, make it matter you.