How to turn around your business in 3 hours

* Transcript created by AI – may contain errors or omissions from original podcast audio

Have you ever felt like you’re just going around in circles in your business? Like you’re working hard, you’re trying different things, but something just isn’t clicking. I recently had an example where a childhood friend of mine came in and gave me a ton of fresh ideas for my business, and it got me thinking.

A lot of times what you need is some fresh eyes to look at your business and to tell you exactly what to do next. In my business, I host strategy sessions where I do exactly this, so let me take you behind the scenes and share with you the exact framework that I use when I’m reviewing a business with fresh eyes.

Now, back to this friend of mine, she doesn’t even own a business, but I was chatting to her about my business, and she shared with me a ton of ideas that I genuinely hadn’t thought of. New ways to market, new audiences to touch, new ways of doing things.

And here’s the funny thing, I do this all day every day in my job for other people because I’m a business coach. I help other people see the opportunities that they are missing inside their businesses, and yet I couldn’t see these opportunities in my own. And this reminded me of something I see all the time.

We are too close to our own businesses. We’ve been in it for too long. And because we are so close to it, we can often miss what’s sitting right in front of us. A fresh perspective can change everything. And sorry, but no, AI can’t do this. When AI first came in, I was so excited. I was getting help with my copy and all the things.

But the longer that I’ve been using it, the more I realise that, at least at the time of this blog, it doesn’t have the same level of strategic insight and creativity that the human brain does. A lot of times the things that are getting spat out are generic, unhelpful, and really the more that you start to use it you really do start to see it.

And I’m actually using it less in my business because the stuff, like for example, on social media that really pops off, it’s my own ideas, it’s my own creativity. The emails that resonate the most with my audience are the ones that were written from my heart. And particularly when it comes to looking at something really creatively and really with fresh eyes, I believe it has to be a human.

So here’s what I would love for you to do if you are keen to, go down the path and have some fresh eyes look at your business. Now, obviously, this is something I offer, so if you like the sound of this, please reach out to me. I can share with you what it looks like for us to do a strategy session together.

It’s like a whole half day where I look at your business with fresh eyes. But even if you’re not in a position to financially invest to work with me, get someone who, ideally is a successful business owner, someone who can look at your business with a completely different lens and give you some, advice around it Because a lot of times when you are in your business, you are emotionally attached to it.

And I see this a lot with clients of mine. They love that team member or they feel really bad about letting go of that misaligned client because they’re a single mom or whatever. The great thing about fresh eyes is that we are not emotionally attached to it. I’m like, “But it doesn’t make sense to keep working with someone if they’re not delivering you any profit.”

So let me take you through the framework. Step number one, get crystal clear on your goals. So one of the first things that I always do with new clients is I’m like, “What are your goals?” Now, what I’ve noticed is that a lot of times there’s a default high level answer. So for example, people will say, “I want more revenue.

I wanna hit 10K month. I wanna hit 50K month. I wanna hit 80K month.” But when I dig deeper, there’s usually something sitting under what their surface level goals are. So I ask some questions. I’m like, “What does this look like? How many team members would you have if you were to be doing that? How busy would you be?

What hours would you be working?” And a lot of times I find that there’s actually some sub goals sitting underneath. So it might be like, “I actually just wanna work fewer hours, and I think that the key to getting there is earning more money. they might tell me a revenue number, but when I ask questions, they’re actually chasing more profit because they wanna be paying themselves more.

So getting it crystal clear on what you are actually after is the first step, and if you’re going through this with someone else, tell them to dig a little bit deeper and dive on into this. Okay, step number two, I always do, dive into the numbers. This is where my accountant brain really comes out.

I’m a qualified accountant, and I love to dive into my clients’ numbers. And rather than just subjectively talking about their business, we actually objectively dive on in and look at what’s actually happening with finances. So when I have a strategy session with my clients, I’ve done preparation beforehand, so I’ve gone through.

I’ve done an analysis of the numbers. I’ve prepared a couple of graphs. They can see how, things like their profit and revenues tracking over time. But if you’re doing this yourself or, with a biz friend, open up your Xero. Dive on in. What are the numbers actually telling you? What are the trends, the insights?

What’s going on with your cash flow? Your sales performance? How profitable are your clients? How profitable are each of your different offerings? Your numbers tell a story. Okay. The next step. Review your marketing. How are your clients actually finding you? Where are your leads coming from? What’s working?

What’s not working? Where are people dropping off in your marketing funnel? Do you have a pricing problem, an offer problem? Is it all about lead gen? When you actually step back and really, again, I love to use numbers when I’m really diving in and understanding this. What’s your email open rate? How many followers have you got?

But how much engagement have you got? What are the stats actually telling us? ‘Cause if you don’t know what the actual problem is, it’s very challenging to solve it. The next step is to build the plan. So this is where the rubber hits the road. When I’m doing this with my clients, I’m going through and I’m saying, “Okay, have you thought about, exploring this marketing opportunity?”

Or, “We really need to cut back on your team expenses. Here’s what I would suggest that we do. Here’s how we can cut those costs back.” So this is about building a practical roadmap. What are the key actions that will create the biggest impact? What are your sales opportunities? How are you scaling your business?

Are there systems that need to be improved? How are we increasing our customer happiness and retention? And then once we start to pull all of that plan together, what you want to be doing is developing your action plan. This is step number five. There’s no point having a look at the numbers and your marketing and saying, “Oh gosh, that’s not working,” or, “That is working,” and then not actually doing something differently about it.

So build your action plan. What are the steps that I’m going to do from here? Fresh eyes are so powerful. If you’ve been feeling stuck and going in circles, maybe you just need someone to look at your business objectively and help you identify opportunities that you can’t see. So if this is sounding like something that you need some support with, I’d love to put my hand up and offer to help.

My strategy sessions are really a deep dive, high impact session to just really come in, look at your business, and say, “Here’s what’s going on. Here’s what needs to change, and here’s a step-by-step game plan to get there.”

The details to book a session are in the show notes or you can drop me an email at admin@clarewood.com or a DM on Instagram and let’s chat about whether this is the right fit for you. And like I said earlier, even if you’re not in a position to do it with me at this point in time, find yourself a friend who can take you through this framework so that you can get your momentum and energy back in business and close out the year super strong.

* Transcript created by AI – may contain errors or omissions from original podcast audio