Welcome to a transformative episode where we explore the powerful concept of “starting with the end in mind.” Inspired by the teachings of Stephen Covey, who once quoted our guest, we dive deep into the question: What does your business look like when it’s done?
Join us as we introduce Allison Harvey, founded Benediction Counseling in 2014 and serves as the clinical director and the therapist. Mark Ballestri, a skilled facilitator and business advisor, who has been working closely with Allison. Together, they discuss how envisioning the final outcome can open doors to new opportunities and help avoid the common pitfalls of operating without direction.
Key Points:
- Visioning the End Goal: Discover how starting with the end in mind can reshape your business strategy, leading to clearer objectives and better decision-making.
- The Power of Clarity: Allison shares her journey from overwhelm to empowerment, revealing how clarity about her desired business outcome transformed her approach to planning and execution.
- Delegation and Freedom: Learn about the importance of delegating tasks to free up time and energy for higher-level strategic thinking—crucial for any business owner.
- Practical Tools for Success: Mark and Allison discuss the effective use of a two-page strategic plan, breaking down annual goals into quarterly and monthly actionable steps, ensuring consistent progress.
- Overcoming Roadblocks: Explore the challenges Allison faced, from feelings of overwhelm to maintaining focus, and how she navigated these obstacles to achieve her goals.
- Creating Momentum: Understand how small wins lead to bigger successes and how momentum can drastically reduce your to-do list while increasing overall productivity.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:05):
Welcome back to the Get Off The Treadmill
podcast for small business owners and entrepreneurs, where
we show you how to build a successful
business and to have a life too.
We're going to dive into another topic that
helps us make more money in less time
and to get off the treadmill so we
can experience a life of significance.
And now your host and the author of
(00:25):
the number one bestselling business book, Making Money
Is Killing Your Business, Chuck Blakeman.
Today, I'm talking with Allison Harvey.
She founded Benediction Counseling in 2014 and serves
as the clinical director and the therapist.
Allison earned a Bachelor of Science in Biomedical
Sciences from the University of Northern Colorado in
(00:46):
2005 and received her Master's of Arts in
Counseling from Denver Seminary in 2010.
Allison is passionate about training and mentoring and
serving as a supervisor for newer therapists.
She has a strong belief that the community
at large is stronger and healthier when therapists
befriend and support each other.
The other hats Allison wears are wife, adoptive
(01:06):
mother, biological mother, daughter, sister and friend.
She enjoys swimming, a good long walk, quiet
music, a good cup of coffee and slowing
down with a good book of poetry.
Welcome, Allison.
It's great to have you on the show.
Thanks so much.
It's nice to be here.
Today, we're going to talk about something that
I love.
We're going to talk about starting with the
end in mind or the question, what does
it look like when we're done?
(01:28):
I'll preface that by saying Stephen Covey actually
quoted me in his final book before he
died.
He died in a tragic bicycle accident riding
downhill.
I have to be careful with that because
I love bicycling.
Before that, we were just beginning to get
to know each other.
He quoted me in his book.
I've been a huge fan of the book
that made him famous, The Seven Habits of
(01:51):
Highly Successful People.
I started with the end in mind was
a huge piece of that.
I'd like to start with that, but before
I do, I want to introduce everybody to
Mark Bluster.
Everybody's saying, why is this guy on the
line?
We usually have just two of us, but
Mark is one of our facilitators and one
of our business advisors who's been working directly
(02:11):
with Allison on the things in her business
for the last year.
We want to hear from both horses' mouths
how this is working.
I'm going to be more the fly on
the wall today, but I'll get it started
and then I'll be annoying here and there
and jump in.
Let me start with how either one or
both of you would work with that statement.
(02:34):
What does it mean, or that question, what
does it mean to start with the end
in mind?
What does it look like when you're done?
What did you mean by that?
Mark, maybe you start with how you saw
that.
Yeah.
Let me start.
I think I can be accused of, in
the past, doing a lot of work, running
as fast as I can and not have
(02:54):
a clear idea of when I'm accomplished, what
I needed to accomplish, what it looks like.
What I found in a lot of my
businesses is that once I had clarity of
what does this business look like when it's
serving me and impacting the most people possible.
(03:15):
And when I did that, it opened up
possibilities that were, frankly, hidden prior to just
go, go, go, go, go.
And so, I love to start with that
question with all of our business advisor clients
because, to me, without that, we're hitting the
(03:36):
go button and we really have no clear
intention or no clarity of where we want
it to be.
And I could then be mistaken and start
sending them in directions or making recommendations thinking
I know what they want it to look
like, and yet I really don't.
That's my definition.
So, you're basically trying to avoid what I
(03:56):
call the Alice in Wonderland problem?
Yes.
I can't remember which character it was, but
which road do you want to go on?
I don't know.
Well, then any road will do.
That's right.
And that's the way we mostly do business.
I call it the random hope strategy of
business.
I'm going to work really hard and hope
something good happens.
Starting with the end in mind gives us
(04:17):
a much better angle on that.
So, Allison, how did that settle for you
when Mark brought that through as one of
the first things to talk about?
Oh, it was so helpful.
And I feel like I should self-disclose
that I'm not a visionary at all.
And so, that question, I was able to
interact with that question probably more than if
(04:38):
it had been asked in a different way.
You know, what do you visualize for your
business?
But the question, what does your business look
like when it's done, was a really fun
thought experiment that got my head in a
different place as we started working together in
this mentorship relationship.
So, it almost felt like permission to me.
(05:00):
I can be an implementer really easily.
So, getting out of the weeds is something
I need help with.
And what a welcome question, I think.
I would guess if you're normal, like most
business owners, that's not a question you ask
yourself.
We just never think of that.
It's just like, well, we just keep going
and we got to pay our bills this
(05:21):
month.
And I think that might be how I
would describe myself, maybe as a little bit
more of an opportunist than that, but like
almost a good enough.
If things are good enough, then they're good
enough.
But that's also not enough leadership for me.
Mark, what did you see with Allison that
made you want to ask that question or
(05:41):
how did you respond to it when she
said it?
Well, for me, what was so exciting because
we were doing our meetings over Zoom is
it was literally almost like a light bulb
went on.
And what Allison said, I think is really
true.
It almost, for the first time, gave her
permission to think about her business in a
(06:01):
different way.
If you will, Chuck, it gave her permission
to figure out ways how her business can
serve her in her ideal lifestyle, where before,
I don't know if that necessarily was the
implied or implicit case for her before.
And that's when it got exciting because then
we just had all this kind of fun
(06:22):
brainstorming what it looks like and why and
really what has to happen then from there.
So it was just really, it was such
a thrill.
And I think I told her every time
I talked to her how much it just
gets me more jazzed than her sometimes.
I think I'm just like, this is wonderful.
Yeah, I put it on the back of
the first book, Making Money is Killing Your
(06:42):
Business.
And it was actually a placeholder put there
by the guy who was doing the graphics
on the book.
And the big, bold statement is use your
business to build your ideal lifestyle.
And I remember feeling almost guilty about that
when he stuck that on there.
And we never took it off because that's
(07:04):
really why we should have a business.
But somehow we just never think of the
end in mind or what it looks like
when we're done.
It almost feels like we shouldn't.
And so getting permission, that's not something you
just experienced by yourself, Alison.
I think all of us experienced that at
some point.
Yeah, I think that idea of the ideal
(07:25):
lifestyle feels like another way to ask, you
know, what does your life look like when
your business is done?
And that's been a really intriguing thought experiment
to play with.
Also, I really love that invitation as well.
Did you guys use the two-page strategic
plan to play with this, Mark?
Yes, and that's exactly the best segue to
(07:45):
say, because with that fun that we had,
with that experimentation, with that playing that we
were doing, to visualizing, to really understanding what
does this look like when it's done and
it's serving me?
We then were able to start really at
the top.
So what are some strategies that will help
us get there?
And then what's standing in your way to
(08:09):
do that?
So we asked those questions.
She had already, Chuck, an incredible big why.
She had a great vision.
She has an unbelievable mission statement.
We just reviewed those.
We asked a few clarifying questions.
But those, for the most part, she's really
put some great thought into that.
It's when we were able to play around
with what your business looks like when it's
(08:30):
done, and then put those down into strategies,
and then put those down into actually rocks
that need to be done for the year,
the quarter, and then the month.
And then when we met, that was kind
of how we used our meeting after we
did our initial check-in.
And Allison maybe can explain some really big
(08:51):
rocks that she's accomplished this year as a
result of using this methodology that, on the
surface, for a lot of people, I think
would seem overwhelming when you say what had
to be done.
And yet, it seemed that it happened with
ease because she just followed the process.
And before you do that, Allison, I want
(09:12):
you to jump in on that.
Let's not forget that.
I just want to, for our listeners, what
is the big rock?
You said a little bit about it.
But the big rock is, I learned in
13 businesses that when I have eight things
I want to accomplish in the year, I
get none of them done.
When I have three things, I get all
of them a third or a half done.
When I have one or two things, I
(09:32):
tend to get them done.
And so what's the one big rock you
want to crush this year to help you
get where you need to go?
So at the end of the year, you
could say, if I get this one or
two things, sometimes three, that makes this a
successful year.
So that's what we're talking about.
So yeah, jump in and share with us
what were some of those, what did you
find as the big thing in your business
(09:55):
that you needed to do in that 12
months?
I would say the big two things that
I really prioritized this year were to, I'm
going to state it in a past tense
because this morphed over the year, but I'll
share what I started with at least.
To hire, train, and delegate to an office
manager.
(10:15):
I'm in a position where I'm doing too
much in the business and I need to
really delegate.
And that also gives me some freedom to
breathe outside of the business too.
So that was one, was to hire an
office manager and to complete delegation to them.
And then to find a new office location.
Our business needed a new office to help
(10:37):
it grow a little bit.
So those were the two big rocks.
There were a couple like secondary things, community
development, something that I always want to keep
on like the forefront of my mind and
I need to work to keep it on
the forefront of my mind.
So I put it down as a rock.
And then we actually did a lot of
work together on financial stability too.
(10:58):
And I see that as an ongoing work.
You've been doing this stuff for your whole
life and you're now delegating to an office
manager who you didn't have and now you're
hiring one.
Was there any roadblocks behind that?
My goal changed actually as I got into,
I think it was like probably the process
of writing that job description.
(11:19):
I realized that I had an opportunity within
my practice to help make that work more
affordable as well.
So that was a piece of it.
I host student therapists in my practice regularly.
And what they need from me is direct
service hours.
(11:40):
They need contact with clients.
And so part of what I wanted to
delegate to that office manager was our intake
work.
When new clients reach out, looking for a
new therapist, I was going to ask that
office manager to do that work.
And then it occurred to me that we
have people joining us asking for that work.
And so when I started to have these
(12:04):
thoughts, I thought maybe I can get a
student therapist into that position and they can
do the intake work.
They're getting the direct service hours that they
need and I don't have a person on
the payroll doing that work.
Mark, how did you see Allison's mindset evolve
around this?
Because this is a big deal for all
of us in hiring people to replace things
(12:26):
that we know we can do and love.
Yeah, and we had those conversations.
And it started again with the big why
and what does it look like when the
business is done serving you?
And so it made it so much easier
to have the conversation, well, how will this
help you get to where you want to
(12:46):
be?
And because of that, Allison actually has a
lot of creativity, but she didn't have the
clarity that the creativity could have served.
And so it freed up.
And so we started in one direction.
It's that bad plan carried out violently, oftentimes
get good results.
But she had an epiphany because of the
(13:08):
clarity of what that business looks like when
it's done.
And it was so exciting because we just
kept having these new brainstorm sessions using the
same data that we got in the beginning,
but just refining, oh, it could look like
this now.
Oh, it can look like this.
Oh, that's even better.
And that was the really unique, I think,
(13:30):
aspect of our mentoring is to see her
take that clarity and actually use her creativity
to build that ideal business and ideal lifestyle.
So you guys use what I like to
think of these things in terms of principles
that work for all of us, all of
our listeners, and used a really important principle
here that I think is lost so often
(13:53):
because we're so involved in just trying to
make today work and the tyranny of the
urgent and all that stuff.
The principle that I hear here that I
understand here is that you worked with the
result and did not focus on the process.
And we're wired the opposite.
We want to know how.
(14:14):
How is our best favorite question?
How am I going to do this?
How am I going to do that?
And instead, we need to be asking ourselves,
where are we going to end up with
this process?
What result do I want?
So what and where take precedence over how?
And if you both said it so clearly,
I just want to emphasize it for our
listeners.
If you have a real great understanding of
(14:35):
where you want to end up, that's the
result that will inform your how.
And you can figure out how one little
step at a time because you're always looking
at that marker out there saying, am I
getting closer?
Am I wandering?
It's all about the result.
And the process will unveil itself.
And that's just unnatural for us, I think.
(14:56):
Did you experience some of that, Allison?
Switching from the process to the result?
Yeah.
And the result, I would frame the result
as what do I want off my plate
this year?
A little bit, right?
And once I had that list of tasks,
one option was to hire one person to
(15:17):
do all of those things.
But once I had that list of tasks
in front of me, I saw different ways
that I could delegate those, maybe not to
one person.
And what Mark was supporting as a part
of this process was he was just encouraging
me to do the research on all of
it.
If one person were to do all of
(15:38):
those things, what would that cost be?
If you were to separate it in different
ways, what would that cost be?
And what I ended up doing was delegating
that intake work to the student therapist, and
that's unpaid work for me.
And I hired a professional billing company to
do the billing.
That was another thing on that task list
(16:00):
that I wanted to hand off.
An office manager could have learned that.
I would have been in the teaching role,
and I would have been very involved in
coaching for a long time, I imagine.
But hiring a billing company, it took a
little bit of work to hand that off,
but they know more than I do about
billing in the end, so the long-term
(16:23):
stress expense was lower in that way.
So that's another great principle I'll pull out
of that is that basically is, I learned
this in my first eight or nine businesses.
I'm a pretty slow learner.
But I finally learned it, that I shouldn't
get in business.
And let me back up.
As a human being, I should always try
and improve the things I'm weak at as
(16:45):
a human being.
But as a business owner, it's just the
opposite.
Anything I'm not good at and I don't
enjoy doing, I should delegate that, give that
to somebody who is good at it, who
loves doing it.
And again, that's not intuitive.
We think, oh, I'm terrible at fill in
the blank.
I need to get better at that.
No, you don't.
It'll just make you worse at what you're
(17:06):
really good at.
So I'm sure you guys had fun playing
with that principle is just figuring out what
am I good at and give the other
stuff to other people who are good at
that so that I can just get better
at what I'm already good at.
It's a hard thing for us to figure
out.
How did you guys use the strategic plan?
I'll let you guys take it from here
for a little bit.
But to work on these big rocks, delegating
(17:29):
to an office manager and getting a new
office location and then the financial stability, how
did you use a strategic plan to help
you do that?
Yeah, Allison, I'll start a little bit of
my observation and then let the audience know
if you felt this way or if you
saw it differently.
(17:49):
But what I saw is two things.
The tools only work when you use them.
So it's one thing to talk about what
your business looks like when it's done.
It's another thing to set up strategies and
big rocks for the year, the quarter and
the month.
But then what really puts the power, the
(18:09):
leverage is the twice a month we followed
up with that.
And I think that helped to add focus
and clarity.
So it was a living, breathing document with
permission to make changes to the process because
it wasn't about the process, like you said,
it was about the results.
(18:30):
And it was that consistency that I think
really helped Allison open up the possibilities for
her.
And one of them was a big one
was the medical billing.
And it was something that we knew subconsciously
was possibly even affecting her growth because she
knew that as her practice grew, that meant
more work for her in billing.
(18:51):
And she despised billing.
She was good at it, but she despised
it.
Right?
And it drained her, though.
And so that was the conversation we had
of, oh, well, what happens if you shift
things around and then have somebody else who's
really good at it do it so you're
freed up to do the other things you
really love?
Allison?
Yeah, I'm just nodding my head in agreement.
(19:14):
I think a lot of what we did
was, you know, after you asked me that
big picture question, what does your business look
like when you're done, then we named the
rocks for the year.
I consider those yearly goals an annual goal.
And then we created quarterly goals to support
those rocks.
And we were even working on a monthly
basis to start.
(19:34):
So we had monthly goals as we started
to really chip away at those.
And we made so much progress.
We're kind of back to quarterly goal setting
now.
So yeah, I think it was really just
kind of chipping away at the bigger goals
by making them bite-sized.
And Mark had a lot of great ideas
(19:55):
for, you know, why don't you look into
this?
Here are some references or some things I've
used that have been successful for my businesses.
Just little tidbits to guide the process as
well.
Yeah, it's great.
Eat the elephant one bite at a time,
right?
Yep.
Yeah.
What else?
How else did you use the two-page
strategic plan?
We have the 12-month, three-month, one
(20:16):
-month, second page.
And the Vision Mission and Values Vision Mission
on the front page.
What were some ways that you found having
a tool like that?
Let's start with this.
How did you keep that alive?
Because a lot of times we write stuff
down like that.
We make a fancy document.
And then we put it on our shelf
to make our shelf look good.
I call those shelf help books.
(20:38):
We have shelf help books that help our
shelf look good.
Well, you have a shelf help plan that
helps your shelf look good.
How do you keep it relevant?
I've slacked in my practice a little bit.
But it's still alive enough to mention, I
guess.
I look at my book.
I have a notebook that starts with my
ideal lifestyle.
(20:59):
I have a graphic that represents what I'm
working towards.
Next page is my strategic plan.
And I look at that.
And then on to the quarterly goals.
And so I look at it regularly.
I was looking at it weekly.
That's why I feel like I'm slacking.
(21:20):
And you're okay because I'm guessing most business
owners don't look at a annual plan more
than once a year, if that often.
They put it on their shelf because they're
too busy with all the other things that
are going on in life.
So I love the simplicity of what you
just said.
I look at it.
That's how I keep it relevant.
It's pretty much that simple.
(21:42):
That doesn't make it easy because we have
to discipline ourselves to carve out the time
to look at it.
But when we look at the things that
are important, they impact the way we do
the things that are daily and seem small
and lacking in importance.
They aren't.
We can eat the elephant one bite at
a time as long as we look at
the elephant and say, okay, what's next?
(22:05):
So I love the simplicity of that.
Mark, do you have any thoughts on that?
I think it's spot on.
And I think what we did is we
brought it alive every two weeks.
Every two weeks, we'd revisit the not the
annual because we already set the annual and
when we set our quarterly, they were there
to support or complete our annual goal and
(22:26):
we support the monthly.
It was there to support our quarterly goal.
So once we got the quarter done, then
we go back and we look at the
annual to set the next quarter up.
And so it's just that continual.
You don't have to revisit it all, all
the time.
Just the things that are most relevant and
the things that will then can be actionable
that week, that month for you.
(22:47):
Yeah, it's a great way to say, if
this is what I want done a year
from now, then what should I do within
the next three months?
And all I have to do that is
four times.
If I do that four times, I get
the month, the quarter or the year done.
Well, that's what I want done in the
next three months.
And what should I do in the first
of those three months?
And so we eat the first month.
Obviously, when we're looking at that first month,
(23:08):
what should I do this week?
And now this week becomes relevant for getting
through the next year, instead of just getting
through the week, which is the way I
think most of us do things.
So brilliant.
I love it.
Did you find any rocks along the way
or any roadblocks along the way, Alison, in
getting this stuff done and using this planning?
(23:29):
Was there any struggles for you in changing
your mindset or just implementing this?
I think one you mentioned was just staying
with it.
Sometimes we lose the regularity.
But was there anything else?
It doesn't have to be.
I'm just fishing.
I think the only thing that comes to
mind is a little bit of overwhelm.
When we started, it was easy to break
(23:53):
these big goals into smaller pieces.
But I'm thinking back to January and February.
I walked away from our meetings with a
to-do list of 19 to 20 points.
And they were all manageable, truly.
And I was able to get through them.
But it took a little bit of mental
management to say, I'm going to do a
(24:13):
little bit today, and then I'll schedule some
for next Thursday.
And then I'll do some more the following
week.
I appreciate your transparency on that.
It's always different.
I just got off a Zoom call with
a client today, and they have one thing.
That they have to do in the next
two weeks.
And last week, they had like 11.
(24:34):
But there were 11 little tiny things.
And this is one big thing.
It's going to take them the whole two
weeks to get it done.
So it varies.
It does.
And I was able to see improvement over
time, too.
We started with a lot.
And I've worked really hard this year.
But my to-do list hasn't been that
(24:55):
long for a while now, too.
Brilliant.
That means something.
That's the tyranny of the urgent versus the
priority of the important.
We talk about that constantly.
And what you're telling me, what I heard
you say, was that the strategic plan is
an important thing that's not urgent.
Nobody has to do one.
But because you did one, you just said
(25:17):
something incredibly important to every business owner listening
to this podcast.
You have fewer things on your to-do
list.
Because you paid attention to a few important
things.
And that's the point of this whole process.
The more I pay attention to the important
things, the fewer to-dos I will have
(25:37):
over time.
It does lessen the load and create freedom
for us in our business.
Mark, thoughts on any of that?
I think she nailed it.
Speed of execution.
We executed on some really important items.
And as we did, Allison started to see
more and more time free up.
(25:59):
And she started to see other business metrics
improve dramatically.
And so it's a snowball effect.
And now the momentum's going.
So it takes very little effort to go
down the hill.
But climbing up that hill can take a
lot of effort.
But once you're at the top, and now
you're going down, that's what's happened this year.
And that's what Allison's experiencing.
(26:20):
And it's wonderful to see.
Yeah, I love that.
Paying attention to the important reduces the urgent.
It's hard for us to grasp that until
we've actually experienced it.
So I appreciate you coming on and sharing
that.
Allison, how can people get a hold of
you and your company?
Well, we've got a website, benedictioncounseling.com.
(26:42):
That's where we live.
That's probably the easiest way.
Yeah, I've got my personal, there's a button
to email me on the website.
Excellent, benedictioncounseling.com.
Brilliant.
Well, we just scratched the surface.
Hopefully, if anybody wants to get to talk
to you about how they would do their
(27:02):
strategic plan, I love for people to talk
to the people we work with.
Because you're on the ground in the trenches
doing the same thing they're doing.
And it's very identifiable.
So if anybody wants to get a hold
of Allison for that, or to just work
with your company and find counseling, that would
be great.
We'd love to have them do that as
well.
Pleasure to have you on, Mark.
Great to have you on as well.
(27:23):
As well.
And let's all figure out how to make
more money in less time and get off
that treadmill.
Let's keep going.
Appreciate you guys.
Thanks, Chuck.
Thank you.
That wraps up another episode of the Get
Off The Treadmill podcast.
If you found this podcast helpful, please subscribe
and hit the like button to ensure you
are receiving the latest tools you need to
(27:45):
grow your business and to get off the
treadmill.
If you want more information on the 3
to 5 Club, the Crankset Group, or to
book Chuck as a business advisor, speaker, or
workshop leader, you can contact us at grow,
G-R-O-W, at cranksetgroup.com.
Until next time, have a great week.
Welcome back to the Get Off The Treadmill
podcast for small business owners and entrepreneurs, where
we show you how to build a successful
business and to have a life too.
We're going to dive into another topic that
helps us make more money in less time
and to get off the treadmill so we
can experience a life of significance.
And now your host and the author of
(00:25):
the number one bestselling business book, Making Money
Is Killing Your Business, Chuck Blakeman.
Today, I'm talking with Allison Harvey.
She founded Benediction Counseling in 2014 and serves
as the clinical director and the therapist.
Allison earned a Bachelor of Science in Biomedical
Sciences from the University of Northern Colorado in
(00:46):
2005 and received her Master's of Arts in
Counseling from Denver Seminary in 2010.
Allison is passionate about training and mentoring and
serving as a supervisor for newer therapists.
She has a strong belief that the community
at large is stronger and healthier when therapists
befriend and support each other.
The other hats Allison wears are wife, adoptive
(01:06):
mother, biological mother, daughter, sister and friend.
She enjoys swimming, a good long walk, quiet
music, a good cup of coffee and slowing
down with a good book of poetry.
Welcome, Allison.
It's great to have you on the show.
Thanks so much.
It's nice to be here.
Today, we're going to talk about something that
I love.
We're going to talk about starting with the
end in mind or the question, what does
it look like when we're done?
(01:28):
I'll preface that by saying Stephen Covey actually
quoted me in his final book before he
died.
He died in a tragic bicycle accident riding
downhill.
I have to be careful with that because
I love bicycling.
Before that, we were just beginning to get
to know each other.
He quoted me in his book.
I've been a huge fan of the book
that made him famous, The Seven Habits of
(01:51):
Highly Successful People.
I started with the end in mind was
a huge piece of that.
I'd like to start with that, but before
I do, I want to introduce everybody to
Mark Bluster.
Everybody's saying, why is this guy on the
line?
We usually have just two of us, but
Mark is one of our facilitators and one
of our business advisors who's been working directly
(02:11):
with Allison on the things in her business
for the last year.
We want to hear from both horses' mouths
how this is working.
I'm going to be more the fly on
the wall today, but I'll get it started
and then I'll be annoying here and there
and jump in.
Let me start with how either one or
both of you would work with that statement.
(02:34):
What does it mean, or that question, what
does it mean to start with the end
in mind?
What does it look like when you're done?
What did you mean by that?
Mark, maybe you start with how you saw
that.
Yeah.
Let me start.
I think I can be accused of, in
the past, doing a lot of work, running
as fast as I can and not have
(02:54):
a clear idea of when I'm accomplished, what
I needed to accomplish, what it looks like.
What I found in a lot of my
businesses is that once I had clarity of
what does this business look like when it's
serving me and impacting the most people possible.
(03:15):
And when I did that, it opened up
possibilities that were, frankly, hidden prior to just
go, go, go, go, go.
And so, I love to start with that
question with all of our business advisor clients
because, to me, without that, we're hitting the
(03:36):
go button and we really have no clear
intention or no clarity of where we want
it to be.
And I could then be mistaken and start
sending them in directions or making recommendations thinking
I know what they want it to look
like, and yet I really don't.
That's my definition.
So, you're basically trying to avoid what I
(03:56):
call the Alice in Wonderland problem?
Yes.
I can't remember which character it was, but
which road do you want to go on?
I don't know.
Well, then any road will do.
That's right.
And that's the way we mostly do business.
I call it the random hope strategy of
business.
I'm going to work really hard and hope
something good happens.
Starting with the end in mind gives us
(04:17):
a much better angle on that.
So, Allison, how did that settle for you
when Mark brought that through as one of
the first things to talk about?
Oh, it was so helpful.
And I feel like I should self-disclose
that I'm not a visionary at all.
And so, that question, I was able to
interact with that question probably more than if
(04:38):
it had been asked in a different way.
You know, what do you visualize for your
business?
But the question, what does your business look
like when it's done, was a really fun
thought experiment that got my head in a
different place as we started working together in
this mentorship relationship.
So, it almost felt like permission to me.
(05:00):
I can be an implementer really easily.
So, getting out of the weeds is something
I need help with.
And what a welcome question, I think.
I would guess if you're normal, like most
business owners, that's not a question you ask
yourself.
We just never think of that.
It's just like, well, we just keep going
and we got to pay our bills this
(05:21):
month.
And I think that might be how I
would describe myself, maybe as a little bit
more of an opportunist than that, but like
almost a good enough.
If things are good enough, then they're good
enough.
But that's also not enough leadership for me.
Mark, what did you see with Allison that
made you want to ask that question or
(05:41):
how did you respond to it when she
said it?
Well, for me, what was so exciting because
we were doing our meetings over Zoom is
it was literally almost like a light bulb
went on.
And what Allison said, I think is really
true.
It almost, for the first time, gave her
permission to think about her business in a
(06:01):
different way.
If you will, Chuck, it gave her permission
to figure out ways how her business can
serve her in her ideal lifestyle, where before,
I don't know if that necessarily was the
implied or implicit case for her before.
And that's when it got exciting because then
we just had all this kind of fun
(06:22):
brainstorming what it looks like and why and
really what has to happen then from there.
So it was just really, it was such
a thrill.
And I think I told her every time
I talked to her how much it just
gets me more jazzed than her sometimes.
I think I'm just like, this is wonderful.
Yeah, I put it on the back of
the first book, Making Money is Killing Your
(06:42):
Business.
And it was actually a placeholder put there
by the guy who was doing the graphics
on the book.
And the big, bold statement is use your
business to build your ideal lifestyle.
And I remember feeling almost guilty about that
when he stuck that on there.
And we never took it off because that's
(07:04):
really why we should have a business.
But somehow we just never think of the
end in mind or what it looks like
when we're done.
It almost feels like we shouldn't.
And so getting permission, that's not something you
just experienced by yourself, Alison.
I think all of us experienced that at
some point.
Yeah, I think that idea of the ideal
(07:25):
lifestyle feels like another way to ask, you
know, what does your life look like when
your business is done?
And that's been a really intriguing thought experiment
to play with.
Also, I really love that invitation as well.
Did you guys use the two-page strategic
plan to play with this, Mark?
Yes, and that's exactly the best segue to
(07:45):
say, because with that fun that we had,
with that experimentation, with that playing that we
were doing, to visualizing, to really understanding what
does this look like when it's done and
it's serving me?
We then were able to start really at
the top.
So what are some strategies that will help
us get there?
And then what's standing in your way to
(08:09):
do that?
So we asked those questions.
She had already, Chuck, an incredible big why.
She had a great vision.
She has an unbelievable mission statement.
We just reviewed those.
We asked a few clarifying questions.
But those, for the most part, she's really
put some great thought into that.
It's when we were able to play around
with what your business looks like when it's
(08:30):
done, and then put those down into strategies,
and then put those down into actually rocks
that need to be done for the year,
the quarter, and then the month.
And then when we met, that was kind
of how we used our meeting after we
did our initial check-in.
And Allison maybe can explain some really big
(08:51):
rocks that she's accomplished this year as a
result of using this methodology that, on the
surface, for a lot of people, I think
would seem overwhelming when you say what had
to be done.
And yet, it seemed that it happened with
ease because she just followed the process.
And before you do that, Allison, I want
(09:12):
you to jump in on that.
Let's not forget that.
I just want to, for our listeners, what
is the big rock?
You said a little bit about it.
But the big rock is, I learned in
13 businesses that when I have eight things
I want to accomplish in the year, I
get none of them done.
When I have three things, I get all
of them a third or a half done.
When I have one or two things, I
(09:32):
tend to get them done.
And so what's the one big rock you
want to crush this year to help you
get where you need to go?
So at the end of the year, you
could say, if I get this one or
two things, sometimes three, that makes this a
successful year.
So that's what we're talking about.
So yeah, jump in and share with us
what were some of those, what did you
find as the big thing in your business
(09:55):
that you needed to do in that 12
months?
I would say the big two things that
I really prioritized this year were to, I'm
going to state it in a past tense
because this morphed over the year, but I'll
share what I started with at least.
To hire, train, and delegate to an office
manager.
(10:15):
I'm in a position where I'm doing too
much in the business and I need to
really delegate.
And that also gives me some freedom to
breathe outside of the business too.
So that was one, was to hire an
office manager and to complete delegation to them.
And then to find a new office location.
Our business needed a new office to help
(10:37):
it grow a little bit.
So those were the two big rocks.
There were a couple like secondary things, community
development, something that I always want to keep
on like the forefront of my mind and
I need to work to keep it on
the forefront of my mind.
So I put it down as a rock.
And then we actually did a lot of
work together on financial stability too.
(10:58):
And I see that as an ongoing work.
You've been doing this stuff for your whole
life and you're now delegating to an office
manager who you didn't have and now you're
hiring one.
Was there any roadblocks behind that?
My goal changed actually as I got into,
I think it was like probably the process
of writing that job description.
(11:19):
I realized that I had an opportunity within
my practice to help make that work more
affordable as well.
So that was a piece of it.
I host student therapists in my practice regularly.
And what they need from me is direct
service hours.
(11:40):
They need contact with clients.
And so part of what I wanted to
delegate to that office manager was our intake
work.
When new clients reach out, looking for a
new therapist, I was going to ask that
office manager to do that work.
And then it occurred to me that we
have people joining us asking for that work.
And so when I started to have these
(12:04):
thoughts, I thought maybe I can get a
student therapist into that position and they can
do the intake work.
They're getting the direct service hours that they
need and I don't have a person on
the payroll doing that work.
Mark, how did you see Allison's mindset evolve
around this?
Because this is a big deal for all
of us in hiring people to replace things
(12:26):
that we know we can do and love.
Yeah, and we had those conversations.
And it started again with the big why
and what does it look like when the
business is done serving you?
And so it made it so much easier
to have the conversation, well, how will this
help you get to where you want to
(12:46):
be?
And because of that, Allison actually has a
lot of creativity, but she didn't have the
clarity that the creativity could have served.
And so it freed up.
And so we started in one direction.
It's that bad plan carried out violently, oftentimes
get good results.
But she had an epiphany because of the
(13:08):
clarity of what that business looks like when
it's done.
And it was so exciting because we just
kept having these new brainstorm sessions using the
same data that we got in the beginning,
but just refining, oh, it could look like
this now.
Oh, it can look like this.
Oh, that's even better.
And that was the really unique, I think,
(13:30):
aspect of our mentoring is to see her
take that clarity and actually use her creativity
to build that ideal business and ideal lifestyle.
So you guys use what I like to
think of these things in terms of principles
that work for all of us, all of
our listeners, and used a really important principle
here that I think is lost so often
(13:53):
because we're so involved in just trying to
make today work and the tyranny of the
urgent and all that stuff.
The principle that I hear here that I
understand here is that you worked with the
result and did not focus on the process.
And we're wired the opposite.
We want to know how.
(14:14):
How is our best favorite question?
How am I going to do this?
How am I going to do that?
And instead, we need to be asking ourselves,
where are we going to end up with
this process?
What result do I want?
So what and where take precedence over how?
And if you both said it so clearly,
I just want to emphasize it for our
listeners.
If you have a real great understanding of
(14:35):
where you want to end up, that's the
result that will inform your how.
And you can figure out how one little
step at a time because you're always looking
at that marker out there saying, am I
getting closer?
Am I wandering?
It's all about the result.
And the process will unveil itself.
And that's just unnatural for us, I think.
(14:56):
Did you experience some of that, Allison?
Switching from the process to the result?
Yeah.
And the result, I would frame the result
as what do I want off my plate
this year?
A little bit, right?
And once I had that list of tasks,
one option was to hire one person to
(15:17):
do all of those things.
But once I had that list of tasks
in front of me, I saw different ways
that I could delegate those, maybe not to
one person.
And what Mark was supporting as a part
of this process was he was just encouraging
me to do the research on all of
it.
If one person were to do all of
(15:38):
those things, what would that cost be?
If you were to separate it in different
ways, what would that cost be?
And what I ended up doing was delegating
that intake work to the student therapist, and
that's unpaid work for me.
And I hired a professional billing company to
do the billing.
That was another thing on that task list
(16:00):
that I wanted to hand off.
An office manager could have learned that.
I would have been in the teaching role,
and I would have been very involved in
coaching for a long time, I imagine.
But hiring a billing company, it took a
little bit of work to hand that off,
but they know more than I do about
billing in the end, so the long-term
(16:23):
stress expense was lower in that way.
So that's another great principle I'll pull out
of that is that basically is, I learned
this in my first eight or nine businesses.
I'm a pretty slow learner.
But I finally learned it, that I shouldn't
get in business.
And let me back up.
As a human being, I should always try
and improve the things I'm weak at as
(16:45):
a human being.
But as a business owner, it's just the
opposite.
Anything I'm not good at and I don't
enjoy doing, I should delegate that, give that
to somebody who is good at it, who
loves doing it.
And again, that's not intuitive.
We think, oh, I'm terrible at fill in
the blank.
I need to get better at that.
No, you don't.
It'll just make you worse at what you're
(17:06):
really good at.
So I'm sure you guys had fun playing
with that principle is just figuring out what
am I good at and give the other
stuff to other people who are good at
that so that I can just get better
at what I'm already good at.
It's a hard thing for us to figure
out.
How did you guys use the strategic plan?
I'll let you guys take it from here
for a little bit.
But to work on these big rocks, delegating
(17:29):
to an office manager and getting a new
office location and then the financial stability, how
did you use a strategic plan to help
you do that?
Yeah, Allison, I'll start a little bit of
my observation and then let the audience know
if you felt this way or if you
saw it differently.
(17:49):
But what I saw is two things.
The tools only work when you use them.
So it's one thing to talk about what
your business looks like when it's done.
It's another thing to set up strategies and
big rocks for the year, the quarter and
the month.
But then what really puts the power, the
(18:09):
leverage is the twice a month we followed
up with that.
And I think that helped to add focus
and clarity.
So it was a living, breathing document with
permission to make changes to the process because
it wasn't about the process, like you said,
it was about the results.
(18:30):
And it was that consistency that I think
really helped Allison open up the possibilities for
her.
And one of them was a big one
was the medical billing.
And it was something that we knew subconsciously
was possibly even affecting her growth because she
knew that as her practice grew, that meant
more work for her in billing.
(18:51):
And she despised billing.
She was good at it, but she despised
it.
Right?
And it drained her, though.
And so that was the conversation we had
of, oh, well, what happens if you shift
things around and then have somebody else who's
really good at it do it so you're
freed up to do the other things you
really love?
Allison?
Yeah, I'm just nodding my head in agreement.
(19:14):
I think a lot of what we did
was, you know, after you asked me that
big picture question, what does your business look
like when you're done, then we named the
rocks for the year.
I consider those yearly goals an annual goal.
And then we created quarterly goals to support
those rocks.
And we were even working on a monthly
basis to start.
(19:34):
So we had monthly goals as we started
to really chip away at those.
And we made so much progress.
We're kind of back to quarterly goal setting
now.
So yeah, I think it was really just
kind of chipping away at the bigger goals
by making them bite-sized.
And Mark had a lot of great ideas
(19:55):
for, you know, why don't you look into
this?
Here are some references or some things I've
used that have been successful for my businesses.
Just little tidbits to guide the process as
well.
Yeah, it's great.
Eat the elephant one bite at a time,
right?
Yep.
Yeah.
What else?
How else did you use the two-page
strategic plan?
We have the 12-month, three-month, one
(20:16):
-month, second page.
And the Vision Mission and Values Vision Mission
on the front page.
What were some ways that you found having
a tool like that?
Let's start with this.
How did you keep that alive?
Because a lot of times we write stuff
down like that.
We make a fancy document.
And then we put it on our shelf
to make our shelf look good.
I call those shelf help books.
(20:38):
We have shelf help books that help our
shelf look good.
Well, you have a shelf help plan that
helps your shelf look good.
How do you keep it relevant?
I've slacked in my practice a little bit.
But it's still alive enough to mention, I
guess.
I look at my book.
I have a notebook that starts with my
ideal lifestyle.
(20:59):
I have a graphic that represents what I'm
working towards.
Next page is my strategic plan.
And I look at that.
And then on to the quarterly goals.
And so I look at it regularly.
I was looking at it weekly.
That's why I feel like I'm slacking.
(21:20):
And you're okay because I'm guessing most business
owners don't look at a annual plan more
than once a year, if that often.
They put it on their shelf because they're
too busy with all the other things that
are going on in life.
So I love the simplicity of what you
just said.
I look at it.
That's how I keep it relevant.
It's pretty much that simple.
(21:42):
That doesn't make it easy because we have
to discipline ourselves to carve out the time
to look at it.
But when we look at the things that
are important, they impact the way we do
the things that are daily and seem small
and lacking in importance.
They aren't.
We can eat the elephant one bite at
a time as long as we look at
the elephant and say, okay, what's next?
(22:05):
So I love the simplicity of that.
Mark, do you have any thoughts on that?
I think it's spot on.
And I think what we did is we
brought it alive every two weeks.
Every two weeks, we'd revisit the not the
annual because we already set the annual and
when we set our quarterly, they were there
to support or complete our annual goal and
(22:26):
we support the monthly.
It was there to support our quarterly goal.
So once we got the quarter done, then
we go back and we look at the
annual to set the next quarter up.
And so it's just that continual.
You don't have to revisit it all, all
the time.
Just the things that are most relevant and
the things that will then can be actionable
that week, that month for you.
(22:47):
Yeah, it's a great way to say, if
this is what I want done a year
from now, then what should I do within
the next three months?
And all I have to do that is
four times.
If I do that four times, I get
the month, the quarter or the year done.
Well, that's what I want done in the
next three months.
And what should I do in the first
of those three months?
And so we eat the first month.
Obviously, when we're looking at that first month,
(23:08):
what should I do this week?
And now this week becomes relevant for getting
through the next year, instead of just getting
through the week, which is the way I
think most of us do things.
So brilliant.
I love it.
Did you find any rocks along the way
or any roadblocks along the way, Alison, in
getting this stuff done and using this planning?
(23:29):
Was there any struggles for you in changing
your mindset or just implementing this?
I think one you mentioned was just staying
with it.
Sometimes we lose the regularity.
But was there anything else?
It doesn't have to be.
I'm just fishing.
I think the only thing that comes to
mind is a little bit of overwhelm.
When we started, it was easy to break
(23:53):
these big goals into smaller pieces.
But I'm thinking back to January and February.
I walked away from our meetings with a
to-do list of 19 to 20 points.
And they were all manageable, truly.
And I was able to get through them.
But it took a little bit of mental
management to say, I'm going to do a
(24:13):
little bit today, and then I'll schedule some
for next Thursday.
And then I'll do some more the following
week.
I appreciate your transparency on that.
It's always different.
I just got off a Zoom call with
a client today, and they have one thing.
That they have to do in the next
two weeks.
And last week, they had like 11.
(24:34):
But there were 11 little tiny things.
And this is one big thing.
It's going to take them the whole two
weeks to get it done.
So it varies.
It does.
And I was able to see improvement over
time, too.
We started with a lot.
And I've worked really hard this year.
But my to-do list hasn't been that
(24:55):
long for a while now, too.
Brilliant.
That means something.
That's the tyranny of the urgent versus the
priority of the important.
We talk about that constantly.
And what you're telling me, what I heard
you say, was that the strategic plan is
an important thing that's not urgent.
Nobody has to do one.
But because you did one, you just said
(25:17):
something incredibly important to every business owner listening
to this podcast.
You have fewer things on your to-do
list.
Because you paid attention to a few important
things.
And that's the point of this whole process.
The more I pay attention to the important
things, the fewer to-dos I will have
(25:37):
over time.
It does lessen the load and create freedom
for us in our business.
Mark, thoughts on any of that?
I think she nailed it.
Speed of execution.
We executed on some really important items.
And as we did, Allison started to see
more and more time free up.
(25:59):
And she started to see other business metrics
improve dramatically.
And so it's a snowball effect.
And now the momentum's going.
So it takes very little effort to go
down the hill.
But climbing up that hill can take a
lot of effort.
But once you're at the top, and now
you're going down, that's what's happened this year.
And that's what Allison's experiencing.
(26:20):
And it's wonderful to see.
Yeah, I love that.
Paying attention to the important reduces the urgent.
It's hard for us to grasp that until
we've actually experienced it.
So I appreciate you coming on and sharing
that.
Allison, how can people get a hold of
you and your company?
Well, we've got a website, benedictioncounseling.com.
(26:42):
That's where we live.
That's probably the easiest way.
Yeah, I've got my personal, there's a button
to email me on the website.
Excellent, benedictioncounseling.com.
Brilliant.
Well, we just scratched the surface.
Hopefully, if anybody wants to get to talk
to you about how they would do their
(27:02):
strategic plan, I love for people to talk
to the people we work with.
Because you're on the ground in the trenches
doing the same thing they're doing.
And it's very identifiable.
So if anybody wants to get a hold
of Allison for that, or to just work
with your company and find counseling, that would
be great.
We'd love to have them do that as
well.
Pleasure to have you on, Mark.
Great to have you on as well.
(27:23):
As well.
And let's all figure out how to make
more money in less time and get off
that treadmill.
Let's keep going.
Appreciate you guys.
Thanks, Chuck.
Thank you.
That wraps up another episode of the Get
Off The Treadmill podcast.
If you found this podcast helpful, please subscribe
and hit the like button to ensure you
are receiving the latest tools you need to
(27:45):
grow your business and to get off the
treadmill.
If you want more information on the 3
to 5 Club, the Crankset Group, or to
book Chuck as a business advisor, speaker, or
workshop leader, you can contact us at grow,
G-R-O-W, at cranksetgroup.com.
Until next time, have a great week.
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