662: Focus, Flow and Control: Marketing P.L.A.N.S., Time-Blocking, Leverage, Planning, Systems, Strategy, and Actions with Diane Conklin

Speaker 1 0:00 Marketer of the day. Episode 662 focus, flow and control, marketing plans, P, L, A, N, S, time blocking, leverage, planning systems, strategy and actions. With Diane Conklin,

Robert Plank 0:20 Robert plank here with a quick question for you. Do you suffer from feast and famine in your business? Do you have that roller coaster income? Do you have some months where the money is great and other months where the money is not so great and you're struggling? Do you have some days or weeks where you wake up, you get out of bed, you get right into your business and things are running super smoothly, and other times, when you're just can't get focused, can't get motivated. Well, you need to have focus. You need to have a plan. You need to have a system, and you need to have some sort of consistency, dependability in your business. That way you can get out of scarcity and get into abundance. And Diane Conklin, from complete marketing systems.com, and from plan, grow and succeed.com, is here to help you out with that. If you don't have a plan, what the heck are you doing? Where are you going, and how will you know when you get there? Imagine trying to drive across the country without a map or without looking at any road signs, it would be suicide. It would be insane. If you don't plan, you have no focus, you're all over the map. You're reacting, and you're just responding to whatever the day hits you with. And that means that you're always going to be struggling. You'll always be at the mercy of whatever emergency or whoever is urgent, and it's time to take some of the power back. Diane is here to help you do that with her plans system. You're going to want to pay very close attention to that, and I'll let Diane do it. So Diane, glad to have you back on the program.

Speaker 2 1:52 Hey, Robert, Diane Conklin, here with complete marketing systems. Calm. And I just wanted to say thank you so much for inviting me back for another amazing interview, and exclusive interview, actually, for the market of the day podcast with you. I'm honored to have been asked back and to be with you again and to hopefully share some great and amazing information and stuff that your listeners can use. So want to talk today about planning. I know this is something that so many entrepreneurs and so many business owners and so many people in marketing, poo, poo a little bit, right? I don't need a plan. What do we need to plan for? Right? So here's the reason that I'm going to tell you that you need a plan, right? So the question is this, do you go about your day, about your business in a way that is haphazard, or do you go about your business in your day in a way that is planned and structured? So people say to me all the time, Diane, I don't know how you get so much done. They know I get so much implemented thing. And I don't know, you know, I can't get these done, these things done. We can't get things done because you're all over the map, right? And you're you're reacting to and responding to things all day long, instead of being in control and being in the flow of your day, right? So I'm a big, big time blocker person, and I do that as part of my plan, right? But here's what I know, if you have a plan, you have structure, you have focus, you have direction, as opposed to, I'm willy nilly and I'm going to throw mud on the wall. What I often say to people who do the butt on the wall thing is, look, that's fine. You can and we all do a little mud throw. Let's just be real, right? We all do. It's part of business, it's part of life. It's part of being spontaneous, right? And that's fine, but if you run your entire business that way, you spend a lot of time cleaning things up unnecessarily. You spend a lot of time in waste, what I call waste mode, right? Because think about it, right? When you throw a mud on the wall. Imagine a picture of somebody throwing mud on the wall. What happens? Some of it sticks, but the majority of it runs down the wall, and it it makes a big mud puddle, right? And somebody's got to go clean that up. It's waste. And so there's so much waste when you, when you run your business that way. So I thought that this might be an interesting topic. I sort of look at planning at the beginning of every quarter, and certainly toward the end of every year, for what's going to happen in the following year. So let me just start off, Robert, if you don't mind, with the acronym that I use for plans, sort of what I call the foundation, right? The foundation of what you do in your business. So it's an acronym. P is for plan, L is for leverage, right? How are you going to leverage your business? That's a big part of of this planning to leverage your business so that you're not a solopreneur or somebody that's doing everything in your business by yourself, a in plank. Is action, right? What actions are you going to take? What focused, distinctive actions are you taking? What massive action are you taking to get where you want to go in your business? The end stands for next. What's next in your business? What are you doing now, right? So I'm stuck in two ends here. What are you doing now? What are you doing next? Because if you don't have your next thing planned when you're doing what it is that you're doing now, then people don't know what's next, and people won't follow you into that next thing. The S is for systems. You know, it's often said that we don't manage people. We manage systems and people manage themselves, or they don't right systems and strategy, right? Really big on the strategy piece of this, because so much of what we do has to be strategic. Forget about the tactics that are going to work today or tomorrow for the next month, and then you're you got to figure out what's next, right? The strategy piece. So again, this is what I look at as sort of the foundation of your business plan and prepare, work on being having leverage in your business, which you can do a lot of different ways, with technology, with people with you know, other with money. There's a lot of ways to leverage, taking massive focus, directed action. What are you doing next? And what are you doing now and then? Strategy and system. So kind of an acronym for that, that hopefully will will be helpful for some folks. Here's the other thing that I would say, think of this too. When I talk about planning, I'm talking about having a marketing plan, right? Not a business plan. You need a marketing plan in your business so that you and your team, if you have one, and if you don't, that's fine too. Know exactly what it is you're going to do on a day to day basis, on a weekly basis, on a monthly basis, imagine walking into your office, whether it's it's a physical office or you have a virtual office, right? And every single person who works with you, for you again, could just be you, knows exactly what you need to do on that day because you've got a plan. It's on your marketing calendar, and you've got the detail of what are we doing this week, what are we doing this month, what are we doing this quarter? To get us to the goals that we set, the plan that we set for the entire year, right? So again, I want to Alana, also stress, Robert, that you're doing this plan, but it's in pencil, right? Because, as a really wise man said to me once, Diane, you need to be like the palm tree. And I think this is a great analogy for our businesses, right? The palm tree. Think about what happens when the when the hurricanes and the big winds come in a palm tree, you know, it bends. It goes to the left, it goes to the right, it goes, you know, it's almost to the ground, right? It might bend, but it doesn't break. It's how the palm tree is made. It's flexible, right? And it's so flexible that I've actually seen palm trees that are almost on the ground and will then start to to grow back up when the sun comes up, because they grow toward the sun. So that's why I say we want to do this marketing plan in pencil, because things are going to change and things will come up that you say, You know what? I do want to do that, and that's not on our marketing calendar for this 90 days, but I think that's a great opportunity. And so it gives you the ability to take something off that you were going to do and put it on the next 90 days, and to really have the ebb and flow and have flexibility while still having that plan, while still having the ability of for your people and for you to know what it is that you're doing every single day in your business. Let me back up for just a minute, because there are a lot of people who spend a lot of time and energy and sometimes a lot of money, working on a business plan. It's my contention that there's really only two reasons that you need a business plan. One is that if you're going to angel investors, or some kind of investors for money, or if you're going to the bank for money, then you would definitely need a business plan. For most of us, small business owners, entrepreneurs, people who own businesses, for most of us, we're not doing that, and because we're not doing that, you can invest or spend a lot of time doing a business plan that nine months a year down the road is completely different, and you've invested hours and hours and hours of time, energy and money into a business plan that's now useless, whereas your marketing plan, you're never going to do a marketing plan for more than 12 months, and that's sort of what I call the generic plan. And your specifics for your marketing plan of what are we doing? You know, when are we sending emails? When are the ads going out? Those kinds of things are going to happen in a 90 day period, because you really can't work in your business because of this flexibility, because of the palm tree approach that we take. You really can't work in your business in much bigger you. Increments, if you will, than a 90 day period. So we plan for the entire year, the generically what we're going to do, and then specifically, week by week, month by month, we do that day by day, in a 90 day sort of of thing. And so here's the question that I would ask you, for those of you who, who, who have this idea that you don't need a plan, the question I would ask you is this, if you don't have a plan, what are you doing? Where are you going? How do you know when you get there? I know that's those. Are those seem like tough questions, right? But here's the thing, most of the time, what I find is, if you don't have a plan, what you're doing is you're more than likely following what other people in your industry are doing. You're following the the path, the general path. And I've got all sorts of examples of this from from my own business, working with so many different kinds of businesses, I see it all the time. Don't really have a plan. And so what you do is, you do what everybody else is doing in your industry, right? And where does that get you? It doesn't. It doesn't make you a leader. And if you're listening to this, if you're one of Roberts listeners, then you're a leader. Or you want to be a leader in your own business. You want to be a leader in your industry. You want to be somebody who's out there, you know, trend setting, if you will. And so how do you do that? If you don't have a plan? Think about some of the greatest leaders that in history, the greatest leaders of our time, the greatest leaders that you admire and think about, ask yourself this question, did they have a plan, or did this they just go out and say, let's just go figure this out as we go right, think about the greatest business people of our time, the greatest business people in history the greatest, the business people that you admire the most. And it could be anyone you know, there are certainly names that come to mind for me, but those might not be yours. But think about those, the business people that you admire the most. Did they have a plan? Are they leaders or are they followers? Do they just go out and willy nilly do things and again, it's sometimes easy for us to miss this piece of it, because we see their successes, right? We see what, what comes out of the end that we see. We don't see that behind the scenes thing, right? So, how, how do you you're you as the business owner, should be the visionary. How do you be a visionary in your business if you don't have a plan, how do you how do you lead, and how do you lead the vision, right? If you don't have some sort of plan, if you don't have a goal, and I kind of use those words a little interchangeably from from time to time, right? So the question I would and again, I know these are tough questions, right? And I think that's part of the reason, Robert, that you asked me, you asked me back on your marketer of the day podcast, is because I do ask the tough questions, and I'm okay asking the tough questions, because that's how you grow and that's how you move forward, right? So, you know, we talked about the business thing, but you know, would you follow somebody into battle, into war, that who didn't have a plan, right, who just said, well, let's just go out there and we'll just fight and figure it out, right? Would you follow? And that's just it, right? You're looking to be the leader, right? So I think about, I do a lot of analogies in my life and in my business about sports and athletes. So a sports team, look at a sports team, there's a new plan for every game. There's a new strategy depending upon the opponent, and those kinds of things. And you might say, Well, Diane, that's not applicable. Sure it is. Because every new promotion, every new product, every new service that you offer is a new game, right? It needs a new strategy. Needs a new plan. It needs marketing for that, individual athletes, think about the things that they that they plan. They plan their meals, their nutrition, their workouts, their travel. You know, again, they're studying film, all of these things have to do with them being leaders and their planning and preparation for the next game, the next match, the next team, right? And so I love to use examples like that from different industries and from different parts of the world and parts of life, because they really are applicable to everything that we do in our businesses, right? So the question again I'm going to ask is, do you want to be average, or do you want to be world class? Right? The world class athletes are the ones who have people helping them plan. They have multiple coaches. They've got, you know. Advisors. They have. You know people that they look to same thing, right in businesses, your your biggest the people in business who are most successful are the people who have help, the people who are really out there, who are doing the thing, who are our world class, they're the ones who have help, they're the ones who have a plan. They're the ones we're moving forward, right? So I'll just give you a quick example of this. I have a client who has been working with me for a while. She came to me and she said, if I can make $5,000 a month, I am working with you, I would be happy. And this is a couple of years ago, but interestingly enough, talking about this whole planning thing, right? One of the things that I do at my fall event every year, which I have coming up November 7 and eighth here, is we do a marketing plan. We do this planning process that I've been talking about, and she came to mind of, I think it was the November, October or November event a couple years ago, and then she came to my April event. I do two events, one in the fall, one in the spring. And I got this amazing note from her as she was coming to the April event. She had been to the to the November event the year before, and she said, I just grabbed my my my annual financial goals, my monthly financial goal sheet and my annual financial goal sheet, as I was getting ready to pack to come to to your event, she said, I just I attacked it up on the bulletin board. She said, I grabbed it, and out of curiosity, I looked at my gross revenue numbers, the projections, and then what the actuals were. And she said, when I sat down and did my marketing plan in November, the template said I would, I wanted to do $66,575 in gross revenue in that three month period, January, February, March. And she said, interestingly enough, she just went through her accounting systems and her combined number, her, or her number at that point, was $65,616 so she was within about $1,000 about 900 bucks, just by having that plan and by by looking at it and then setting down and looking at The 90 days, big, big difference between 5000 a month, and, you know, 240,000 projection for the year, right? 66 65,000 in a 90 day period. And my point in telling you that is really simple, right? It's just that the difference was having a plan. The difference was having that focus. The difference was saying, Okay, I'm going to go from an average business owner in the next 90 days to a world class business owner. I want to have this plan. I want to think about, I'm going to leverage my business the actions, the specific actions I'm going to be taking. When I think about what I'm doing now, what I need to be doing next, right? I need to put some more systems and be more strategic in what it is that I'm doing, and so just that thing made that big of a difference in what she was doing, and it can make a huge difference in what you're doing in your business as well. So Robert, I hope that's helpful. Just quickly, I just wanted to let you know, talking about the November event for your folks, if they've got interest in attending and working on this plan, it's a two day event. My guarantee is you'll walk away with your marketing plan for the next year, as well as the one thing that you want to work on in your business while we're there for two days. So if you have an interest, go to www dot plan, grow and succeed.com. And by the way, Robert, for your folks, I'm going to do something really special. The we're still in early bird at 497, regular price on that is 997, but for your folks, if they will put in VIP in the promo code, they can come for 197 so again, just check it out. Go to plan, grow and succeed.com all the information is there special for your folks, Robert, because they're listeners of your marketer the day podcast, if they just put in the promo code VIP, they can come for $197 investment full 100% money back guarantee on that they come and aren't satisfied. So hopefully, hopefully that was helpful. And again, thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to share and come back and and talk a little bit about something that lot a lot of people are talking about, and certainly not a people a lot of people are doing, which is developing a plan, having a marketing plan for their business so they can leave their business so that they can move forward in ways that make so much sense, that get them where they want to go, instead of having the same year over and over and over again, same frustrations over and over and over again, because they're sort of willy nilly right. They're throwing mud on the wall. They're taking things as they're come. They're saying yes to too many things. They're overwhelmed. They do all that when you have this mark. Calendar. It's really easy to take a look at the calendar and say, You know what, I would love to do that promotion with you, but I'm in the middle of XYZ right now. You can't do it. Can we do it another time? Can we do it during this month? Or to simply be able to say, thank you, it's just not the right time, right? It's hugely powerful when you have that kind of of leverage in your business, and you have that kind of knowledge in your business, because you have your plan, and your plan is set, and you're you're ready, right? It's also great value, because if that same situation comes up and you want to do the thing, because you think it's a great opportunity, it gives you the ability to move something that you're doing over a month or two months or into the next quarter, and to be able to take advantage of that opportunity and still have your sanity inside of your business. So hopefully that was helpful. Again. Robert, thank you so very much. I'm Diane Conklin with complete marketing systems calm. If you have any questions or anything I can help anybody with, please reach out and again, if you go to play and grow and succeed.com put in the code VIP your special for your folks, Robert, they can come for an investment of only $197 thank you so much. Have an amazing day, and I hope to talk to you again really, really soon.

Robert Plank 21:16 Excellent. I hope you're paying very close attention to Diane's plans plans set up for you. And that is, once again, P equals plan, L equals leverage, A equals action, n equals next or now, and S equals systems and strategy. And once again, if you are interested in that event, Diane has coming up. That is plan, grow and succeed.com. And remember to use promo code VIP. It is possible to have that degree of sanity, calmness, reliability in your business, but only if you take some of those steps to work smarter and not harder. So thanks again. Diane Conklin, from complete marketing systems.com We'll see you there, and we'll see you next time as well. This is Robert plank, and would you like to be a guest on the program? Do you have an idea for a future episode, or do you just want to tell us how we're doing? Get in touch with us right now at marketer of the day.com/ask to let us know you.