 Hey, good afternoon everybody Tom Stewart here. I'm with Liz Trotter our guest today for smart business moves is Sarah Thompson. Hey Sarah How are you today? I'm great. Thank you Talking about celebrating our age and we're all doing it in different ways. I didn't shave today Sarah's kind of letting her hair do a natural thing and Liz put on a shirt today Yes There you go All right, so Tom before we went live you said there was some breaking CDC news and I said don't read it read it live So tell us what it is It looks like the CDC and this just popped so I haven't even had a chance to read it But it's recommending a short of COVID isolation Period they're saying that I'm sorry finally Yeah, so that the the evidence is growing that people with Coronavirus are most infectious in the two days before and the three days after symptoms develop and They're shortening the Let's see Health officials are cutting the isolation restrictions for Americans who catch coronavirus From 10 to 5 days and are similarly shortening the time that close contacts need to be quarantined Nice shortening that to what the close contacts It's not saying Quickly, I guess it used to be did it be last week the agency loosened roles that previously called on health Care workers to stay out of work for 10 days if they test positive the new recommendation said workers Go back to work after seven days if they test negative and don't have symptoms In the agency said isolation is time could be cut to five days or even fewer if there are severe staffing shortages Wow, that's crazy right there Um, so what isn't clear though? Do you have to test negative after five days to be out of ex isolation? I presume that part I think is gonna be a problem because I actually just took a COVID test yesterday and I'm still positive Yep, and that's been what a month But which test I was the binax So maybe I need to go get the the PCR or something done Maybe that would be the way well, that's good news for staff Yes Yes, it'll be wonderful. I don't like the thing that they said in there It's to help with staffing so it makes it sound like Oh I'm sorry that we're gonna have to make y'all sick, but it's a staff Well the airlines have been pushing for this because they've been cancelling flights right and left My gosh, did you see Christmas Day? Crazy that was crazy So I was feeling so sad for those poor people on Christmas. I mean, oh gosh of all days It's it's such a bum. I'm gonna get you know your flight bump to cancel Any day of the year but on Christmas. Oh, I felt bad for people So, uh, so today we're talking to one of the and one of our groups about this idea A little tongue in cheek, but what do you think? So somebody says You know, don't come clean my house today because I have COVID and we respond with And we respond with Oh, no problem. We have an employee that has COVID, but she doesn't have any symptoms Yeah, what do you think? How do you think that'll go over? Yeah, well, well, well if you have COVID let us know and we'll match you up with an infected cleaning technician asymptomatic Come on. I did say that already said somebody about symptoms Thanks, Elena. Um, I have my moments. Yeah, sometimes it gets me into trouble just saying more than once So the whole by next thing and we've been having a lot of fun with those around our house over the last week or so and You know, I was expecting like too bright colored lines and started reading the instructions a little more carefully and Even when there's a little faint line they say you're positive. Does it Matter like if the line is faint. Does that mean maybe you're not as infectious as you would be if it were It's like a pregnancy test, Tom If it's there Okay I do know that when mine I I took three of them because I wanted to take different lots and that the line the second line popped up before the first line And it was really dark really fast like within I don't know 30 seconds So it was very quick and very dark. I don't know what that meant But I was like, well, I don't think there's a doubt anyway. Did you feel bad? I remember I was sick I was really sick. I kind of had I kind of had a clue But not the first time first time I had it. I was sure I had a cold I feel left out Yeah No, good for you. Good. But I do have I do have about 30 um tests Over-the-counter tests and I just I hoard them a little bit Um and pass them out to my offices and we use them, you know Just to get get office staff that are questioning it back in as soon as they can so Yeah, that that that is really good. I have loved having those over-the-counter tests They've been really really helpful Yeah, they're really hard to find right now You got an amazon them when you can That's my map. Yeah, that's what I do too. Just keep getting them sent they keep coming I had them sent from walmart last time and I got them all took me a little bit longer Walmart you can get a deal if you can find them They're like 14 dollars for the bynax for the the the the two kit and I've never found them that cheap anywhere else Yeah, and every morning we check the website But you've got a there's only selling them in the stores can't get them online But you gotta get there early because they're they're they go fast Yeah, it's that time I guess with the new Um, what is it omicron? Yeah, every it's spreading so fast everybody's getting it Tom I was hoping that you would be able to give us some some information about omicron because It's all over the place when I'm all different stuff and I don't know if it's just being politicized What I heard last was The people that are getting it are only that are mainly vaccinated people So see we told you not to get vaccines because now look what's happening No, there you go. Liz. You just gave us a sound bite You got pretty much Is that is that like I think they just kicked us off of facebook now All right, so that is not the going thing. That's not what the data says No, but it hasn't they say it has an incubation period of like two to three days and it's uh growing really fast and Sarah, I mean the good news is if you haven't had covid but kind of feel left out hang in there. It's uh, you know The odds are odds are looking good Oh, I got my booster. I got my booster on personally. So, you know, I'm Maybe I'll get to the fourth shot by the time I actually get covid Oh Yeah, I'm wondering when they're going to start offering those I mean, I think that you can just kind of like go anywhere now and get a fourth shot if you want to and I mean, just I don't have a card or whatever. I mean, they're just handing shots out like like candy now Yeah, they're happy to be boosterizing people for sure yeah And they're thinking us I read something that Maybe when you're four months out from your booster, you it might be a good time to be thinking about a fourth shot if if you want to go that way Thinking you're Has it been out that long right six weeks? Oh, I know it's been longer than that. I got one in early october right after right after foundations Oh, that's right. I remember now. Yeah, so it has been a while All right. Well, let's get on track with our topic for the day because here we are Wasting time and we've only got five days or four. I guess four more days this year Can't be wasting any of these hours crazy Yeah, so sarah tell us a little bit about your How you go about annual planning or what you do at the end of the year what you think about etc Yeah, well and and this is When you have your budgeting month why kind of flow that into Goal setting and so this is when we're getting to the end of the year We have all of our numbers pretty much collected. We know where we're going to be and we can start setting goals for next year But I like to think about you know, we've got budgeting money that everyone everyone knows about that Thinks about that. I like to think about also how i'm going to budget my time um based on my goals and how i'm going to budget my resources and so You know even thinking about staff work where we want to budget staff time and resources So I like to package all those up when I think about goals Yeah, tell us more about that because nobody this month has talked about budgeting time at all resources the only Thing we've heard is um budgeting money so far. I'd love to hear more about that Well, um, so for me We've got business stuff and then we've got personal stuff And so for me as an owner i'm thinking about where I want to put my time um Prioritizing my goals. So the other day I listed out, you know, what are my what are my personal goals? What it's most important and then where have I been spending my time? So if I put for example family up here And work down here as number two or three is that really how I'm spending my time? um And just kind of mentally thinking through that thinking through how I've been spending it Lining that up to my priorities or what I want to be my priorities And then making a plan to kind of re shift and refocus that Going into the next year All right, so So you you think to yourself, okay? What's most important to me going into 2022 is my family first my business second And my maybe my personal life third just as an example And then you look at what you've been doing you're like, hey If I'm saying family is first, why am I budgeting nine hours a day to work? And one hour a week to family And so you just sort of not saying that you make it even like business like families first So the majority of my time is going to be but you're maybe putting that into your calendar first and making sure that it's there. Okay Awesome And have you been doing this for a long time sarah? Is this like a new thing you're doing or um the time as I've grown in the business I've had more flexible time and so I think to me It's it's kind of Morphed a little bit. So it's not as clear cut what I'm spending my time on is not, you know Going into the office from a certain time period to a certain time period. So my my time is flexible but it is also um I can mismanage it if I'm not careful because it's not as clearly defined So I think it's more important for me to Um Really scrutinize that how I'm spending that time and what I want to do So I don't um, you know find myself a year later and I haven't I've put more more time into work But I didn't have to whereas I could have developed myself in a different spot and I should have spent the time doing that Um, yeah, so it's I've always budgeted. I've always planned um Goals for the business, but I'm not as consistent with myself So also what I'm hearing sarah is you're kind of equating budgeting to managing So you're budgeting it. You're saying that this is what I want to spend and then you're also managing it making sure that that's actually happening So I I don't think that a lot of our viewers today are in your same boat where they have all this free time and they and I like this because most of the time I think people have this idea that hey when I get to sarah's level Awesome, I won't have to budget and manage my time I won't have to because I could just like flow through my life easily. But what you're saying is You're actually doing the more Yeah, I mean you could flow through your life easily if you don't want to you know I have a business didn't three or four years or if you don't want, you know if you just want to let something go like that, but Um, I think you just have to be more strategic about it It's my favorite word. Yeah Yeah, you've got more flexibility. I mean speaking I remember back it was a time where Budgeting my time was a matter of survival You know, I've got like this really long list of things I've got to get done and if I don't you know, I'm not making payroll and not putting food on the table When you get past that then it's I can do whatever I want to do But if you're not doing it with some type of intent and purpose You're just kind of wasting your time And that's that's that's scary when you really think about it, you know Yeah And that's how I mean don't you guys think that that's how people get to the end of the year? And they don't know Like why aren't they where they wanted to go? It's because you actually never set out a plan to go where you wanted to go You you just wanted to be really comfortable So Yeah, I just wanted to do what you wanted to do and When you do what you want to do whenever you want to do it, this is where you get Kind of just in the place you are right now But you don't want to you don't want to get to that point and then do nothing Yeah Yeah, absolutely, but I think the sarah. That's what you're saying Is that Now that you have the capability to do that you can be more flexible But it's not that you are less strategic You're now just making sure that you do it because you don't want to find yourself in a worse place So yeah the same thing is just for a different Different reason maybe before it was like to stay alive I needed to do it and now you're you're thinking is more to enjoy your life to get to your next stage to Those types of things, yeah Yeah, it's and it's to keep to keep things going in the right direction. That's what I think about Um, so I don't have to be at the office to unlock the door at a certain time It it's easier to plan my time when you have something like that to do But I need to make sure that we're heading in the right direction that we're growing That we're not over growing, you know that that we're not becoming complacent Because one to line up with one of my goals is to continue to grow and so I think if you if you don't plan that If you don't budget your time and think about how it mixes or how it matches up to your priorities, you're Kind of gonna you're gonna float away That's the way I think about it Your time will just float away. You won't even know It'll be like a time. It'll be like our client That just didn't know where a hundred thousand dollars went It's just gone and you know, I'm I'm I'm kind of feeling guilty a little bit and this is like What you're describing here is is too often at least my saturday ammo It's like, you know, I don't have any commitments on saturday I can work on whatever I want to work on and You know, maybe I'll sleep in a little bit Maybe I'll enjoy an extra cup of coffee or maybe but before I know it I've just kind of blown the day and maybe I got a couple of things done But I really didn't use it as as wisely as I could have and I don't know. I've got to you you've got me thinking sarah Maybe I gotta but sarah you have some days where you don't have a plan, right? Yeah days where it's like free flowing if your priority So and that's the thing tom. Maybe that lines up perfectly with your priorities. So if your priority is Is health and you know, you spend one day a week sleeping in and relaxing and um, we've just recently talked about building in margin to your calendar, um Here I thought I'd share the book that I'm reading with my managers Just, you know, nice workbook Mm-hmm 2.0. Yeah 2.0. So reading that with my managers Um, which has been a challenge to build in that time But that's something important that is an urgent. Um but you know that brought up a couple couple of Um weeks ago, we're talking about building in the margin and so that's also part of that That scheduling and budgeting your time So tom you're fine Okay What if he said it was friday saturday and sunday sarah, would you still be sometimes going into monday? Yeah If that's what he's got and it lines up with his priorities and that's great Intentionally, I think that's the key just like when you're budgeting your money I mean you can make changes, but not everyone's budget is going to look the same not everybody's Goals and values. Um as far as how they're going to spend and grow is going to be the same So And actually they shouldn't be the same. They shouldn't be we're talking about that today also because so we used to talk in groups about goals and then we started using the Oh, what's it called? Like you remember now the platform the 40x four disciplines of execution platform For yeah 40x operational platform And they talk in terms of wigs and leads and lags and stuff And so I switched everything over for all the groups so that we're all talking about wigs And I had the question today, you know, because we did that a couple years ago Had a question today from somebody. Why do we call them wigs? Why why why not just call them goals? Isn't it easier? and my response was no it's not easier because The wig what that stands for is wildly Important goal and that's what it needs to be not just a goal that you throw out there But a wildly important goal to you Not something that's wildly important to me Not something that somebody else says hey You need to be this size company or you need to get here What do you care about? What do you love? What are you passionate about? It needs to be important to you And some people are wildly important about revenue, right? That's the goal That's they're that they care about revenue and some people like tom. We talk a lot Really big deal profit, you know, what what's the profit in that and the company and then there's other people that are like I I just can't none of those things don't motivate me at all Okay, to your points. Sarah needs to be important to you Not not to somebody else Tom what you got in your ear there Since you're sharing your ear. I was just curious what's in there It's the thing that I use so I can hear what you guys are saying without having my speakers on and having lousy feedback that None of us like Are you getting bad feedback for me because my thing broke. You're okay. No, you're good. Yeah, as long as some of us are Disciplined in doing it this way. We're good. Good. I'm glad it's you tom. I got your I got your back. Liz I appreciate that All right, so sarah. Can you talk to us about this? So I I'm pretty sure that most of the people on this That are watching smart business most today or in reruns No, no about you. No, at least Some basics about you. They know that you have been in business a while. You're in Iowa You have a very small market. You're considered very successful yet. You're a very strategic person. You're a smart thinker So can you tell us about How like how often have you been following this? Would you consider like your goal setting your planning? A long time and money and all the other things that you do Would you consider them part of your success or something that you learn to do because you are successful? I would consider it part of our success in business because we've done it consistently every every year goal setting Money or you know goal setting how we're going to be spending in our budget or goal setting how we're going to be You know where we want to go basically and so We focus on those goals we get them set we focus on those goals and then we track how we're doing with the With the intention of doing better every week and we track every week So we talk about it every week as an office all together. We've got two offices now We just do a big group zoom meeting because We're 30 minutes away. We share a lot of resources we We help each other And we have shared admin between the two offices. So we all meet together and we're focused on um What did we do last week? And then you know, is it are we going in the right direction? And so everybody brings something to the table Who works in the office? They'll bring numbers to the table that they're responsible for Um, and I think that's been critical in keeping us We are a we are a what is our revenue? What is our you know? What is our? Is our technician full-time equivalent count? We want to we want to see where we're going And we're usually pushing to go forward You've always been very data driven very very since I've known you you've been very data driven and on a weekly basis Yeah, we built that in and you know, sometimes talking about budgeting your time That can be an annoyance Say i'm gone, um, you know, sometimes i'll get the well, are we meeting like yes, you're meeting you're doing it You know let it we just really have to protect that hour on every monday um And bring us together and get our numbers put in and And it just it's super important Can you tell us about that process a little bit because I know there's a lot of discussion Everybody knows that you need to know your numbers and you know my you know monitor your kpis But I don't think everybody has the same understanding of what that really means and You know a lot of a lot of discussion about what do you measure not as much discussion about Well, what do you do with the stuff that you're measuring? So You're looking at revenue and full-time equivalent And what does that process look like? Are you comparing it to a budget? What happens if the numbers aren't what you want them to pay? Yeah Oh That was gonna be my question because Yeah, well the Number one the main goal for me is to to keep everybody pointed in the same direction So, you know, we went through coven we we haven't we in aims. We didn't hit our goal Last year and we didn't hit our goal quite hit our goal this year Um, you know, so we get a little sad. Um, we try to figure out what we can do We might even lower the goal but the point of coming together and talking about the kpi is whatever kpi is important to your company um Is that we're all looking at it and we're all we're remembering you know How many clients quit how many how many clients have we added, you know, what's our quality score? What's our clinic response score is it going up and down and then we can talk about it's going down, you know What does that mean? That's that's an alarm. That's something to look at and then we can assign duties from there. Okay This is what we're seeing You know Schedulers you're going to call up the clients who aren't Responding and so it helps us develop, you know Our action out of that watching those numbers and talking about that together and we all can see the interconnectedness um, so We've had step, you know, we haven't had our same staff for 15 years, but anybody we get in um into our office they just get They just kind of soak in the fact that they're responsible for these numbers and they affect so they affect their bonus You know, they affect what we celebrate they affect Kind of our sense of pride So it's not just, you know, that we care about those numbers. It's what effect it has on the company and and directing our next move But you're very much creating this team environment. We are doing this together. Yes Everybody's going to benefit, but we're all part of this It's not you can't do it on your own. I can't do it on my own. She can't do it on her own We all are part of it. Yeah. That's why you have them bring the numbers. I love that Yeah, you could get the numbers yourself and have them all in a Spread sheet and have everybody come and then talk about the numbers But I love that you make them get the numbers You bring the numbers to the meeting you tell us about your numbers. Uh Like I I've been preaching on that for 10 years. I love that so much. Thank you Let's talk about the number for a minute though. They come forward and say our full-time equivalent is 52 Is there something to compare that with is that good or is that bad? Is there a goal that they're showing? Yeah, so I'm just real real world example. We and we use We used to use a piece of paper. We use air table now to track all that So we have it set up an air table. Everyone enters the number So if we're entering, you know, what the full-time equivalent is That's being compared against a column that shows what our goal for full-time equivalent is So so we can see oh, we're down, you know Six people from our goal Um And those goals the manager will adjust those goals up as needed. Um, but yes, we're comparing them against what we've set as our goal And that's been consistent with all the numbers. We're looking at a weekly change So Just a quick role play a little bit. I show up and said, okay. Well the goal is 52 And we've got 45 Okay, I just reported my number and I'm like, I guess looking on a zoom call Waiting for somebody to like throw something at me. I mean what happens at that point So Along with that number They would also be reporting How many interviews have we had? How many people showed up? To the first interview how many people showed up to the to the one-on-one interview How many people they hired out of that? So so that's the full-time equivalent is the result of these different pieces that lead up to it um and so In that reporting Uh, then we would have a discussion, you know, um, do we need to bump up the indeed ad spend? You know, what else? What else can we do? What else what else do you have to suggest and that's open an open discussion? Um If I'm coming with a number if I miss my number I better have a pretty good story that I have and we're working really hard this week doing all these things to Get that number to where we want it to be Yeah, yeah More than a story. You better have some numbers That are defining your story. Don't just come right story. Show me the numbers that tell me the story I don't win these ads. I got, you know, these candidates But I set up these interviews Half of them didn't show up, but I was still able to speak to This morning So we're gonna talk about do we need to change the ad, you know, why is the ad spend low? Have we have we tried a new ad? And so that's where we're gonna troubleshoot it and we usually talk about most of that to go and we talk about it often enough That we know what some of those key triggers are Um, yeah, diana copied our meeting Yeah, um, and And I'm not a punitive person, you know, nothing terrible happens in the meeting if somebody Has a bad number. We can usually all see the collective reason and so Whether it's how many jobs we were able to schedule Um, we're also gonna have a number that's going to show us how many people Were off that week. So how many days of production did we lose essentially? So it is all a big puzzle That fits together and they can see that Sarah this is basically you here if you listen in sarah, you'll hear not you sarah sarah mitchell Here that she's talking about monday check-in Right, this is just monday check-in that she's talking about And if we're not getting where we where we wanted to go it the conversation is now What did we do wrong last week? That's a very small portion of the conversation It's like the numbers tell that story the bigger part of the conversation is What are we doing this week? To get to where we need to go Last week is over can't do a whole lot about that. But what are we going to do next week this week to get to where we want to go? I think a lot of people do want to hear about your bonus program sarah how that works But before we get that real quick One of the things that we hear from people all the time that we're coaching is They they they'll say it like this. I can't set goals and besides what does it matter? It's if I do anyway, and I don't meet my goal. It's just depressing. So I just don't want to so talk to us about how how Not meeting goals is Can be something that can move you forward faster that it's not something that stops you and you just like Oh, okay. We didn't meet our goals forget it. Let's just Like go willy-nilly now talk to us a little bit about that Well number one I would And I can't quote it, but I would argue that that it's false if you have a goal that you're focusing on you're way more likely To meet it you're way more likely to be going the right direction than if you don't have a goal Yeah, and I think that I think that's uh been proven So we've had we've had times when it's been depressing when we haven't met our goal And then we're all sitting around brainstorming, you know, what needs to change What can we do differently? How can we push forward and is our goal realistic? So that's a fair question sometimes And I think as a as an owner Or a manager whoever's setting those goals you have to look at the environment You know, did you set those goals realistically? Which is Part of the the what I'm doing now the beginning of january end of december I want to set a realistic goal and if I need to shift it if everybody is pulling their weight if everybody is doing their best Um, yeah, if my goal is super high or something happened covid happens Obviously, you know, we're gonna scrap that goal and we're gonna we're gonna move on to something that's more um That's more realistic So when we set gold we want to hit we want our revenue goal. We want to hit it about half the time nine And doing our best we want to be able to hit it half the time if we're hitting it more than half the time Then we reassess it and we raise the goal All right, sarah mitchell. Did you hear that? She's not expecting to hit the goal every time Considered that that was a good goal then that was too easy. She needs to have you need to stretch it a little bit more You want to be meeting that goal about 50 of the time That's the same thing like in sales if you're getting every sale your prices are too low So it's the same exact idea. It's the same psychology that you need to Not meet that goal every single month. So for the what do you say to those people that are like, uh, I can't handle it But I can't handle it They don't say that Okay, so sarah. So here's what sarah mitchell. Here's what sarah is saying Is yes, they get sad. You heard her. She said it now twice. She said earlier in the show She said that they get a little sad and then again just now she said yeah, they get sad But you heard what she said really quickly right on top of that. She never says we get sad period We get sad comma, but then we start brainstorming and we start figuring out what we're going to do next and that is a Is a um a process that binds the people even closer together So it makes people even stronger to have a little bit of a challenge with the goal They try harder. They work harder. They think more everybody puts in their input and they create a stronger bond So don't put that piece All right, so tom. I really wanted to talk about not meeting goals because I know that a lot of people really really struggle with It is and You know if you set your goals too high and you consistently Don't meet your goals and you kind of develop a culture of You know, okay another goal great, but it doesn't really matter because we're not going to meet it. We ever we never do so um That's kind of the goal one of the beauty beautiful things about checking in weekly and being able to modify those goals You have lots of opportunities to modify the goal. It's not set that goal at the beginning of the year January 1st There's our goal for the whole year and if we don't just keep working toward it if we don't get it. Oh, well Keep modifying We have hit on that idea a lot this month, but I know people still struggle with that so I like sarah your um Your methodology for checking in weekly and knowing that that's your job to make sure that it's relevant Because um, are we meeting it 50% of the time you've got another a data point to look at to see how And and I think it's important to set your expectation early and um Sometimes the harder is the longer you're in business and then you get new new office staff and somebody comes in You need to keep reminding them. That's my job. Um I'm going to look at this every quarter And then reassess So you've got to kind of set that expectation that you know, yeah, we're meeting our goal. Yes, it will get more challenging Um, it's not a bad thing. It's not a punitive thing if you raise the goal and I think that's important to explain um And then so quarterly and I'm going to admit something here in one of our offices. I did not change the goal um For about six months and they were meeting their goals. They were rocking it um, but As a business owner, I should have been monitoring that more closely and I should have raised the goal a little bit higher. Um And and so that's that's your job. You just need to be conceptual Do you think there's a psychology that can develop? It's like well, we're hitting our goal. We don't want to Go too much over it because then we'll just have it'll be harder to hit next quarter Um, I've not found that in the people and that I've had and I think it's It's helpful that um I don't know, you know, I just think that we're we've managed to be very collective in our approach and everybody um Wants to do better So if somebody wasn't hitting their goal enough, you know, other people would still be pushing them other people would still be You know Daniel would want to be hiring in more hiring. You know, you want to fill those you want to fill the jobs and so It's almost impossible to to just try to Skate and you heard what she said tom. It's setting that expectation early So she's setting it early and consistently she keeps setting that expectation. So And she also said that she's confessing something. You don't confess good things. You confess bad things So she's saying I should have done it at the second quarter first quarter when they met all their goals She should have raised the goal. She did and but she recognized it that she should have and You know, I think that again goes back to those expectations If you don't raise it now the third quarter is going to be harder. Now you raised it Now it almost can feel unfair because you're making it every time But it's if you just do it the way she said in the beginning set the expectation We expect to hit it 50 of the time and that's If you're getting it every time that's not good. I am raising the goal It will happen And I think that's just as important to lower your goals as well and explain why When it's merited So, um, we have a very open we can have a very open communication with our office staff collectively You know Why why isn't this being met if it's not falling on a person's shoulder if it's not a clear Failure in one specific department. Yeah more of an overall You know if it's a staffing If it's it's bringing people in and we're spending all we can spend and that's the problem then that's going to affect our revenue goal or if it's That we had to fire Some clients that's going to affect our revenue goal, but that's a collective decision we make out loud and You want to be fair too. You want to make sure you're being open Well and going up and down Shows, you know, that's that transparency. Yeah for people It builds trust they're able to see okay, so I can trust this process even if they're Now I see they're actually going in my favor too And it sounds like at the process really is the magic behind all of this the goal is what the goal is It needs to be, you know perceived to be attainable. Sometimes you hit it sometimes you don't But regardless you're going to make more progress and you're going to get better results by having the process and having a goal Then what you would if you just kind of say, okay, let's just do the best we can every way, right? All right, so now everybody wants to hear about the the bonuses sarah go ahead and And talk to us if you would about how you go about that and Well, so we have two offices. So we have two separate Goals and we focused we make it a revenue number Um, because everything is going to flow into that revenue number. So that's going to be the tell um and so we bonus on Let's see if I can get this in a succinct way we bonus on the Um, we have a goal anything above that goal we take and we bonus our office staff um Up to a certain percentage So what I do is I look at my profit percentage Say it's 15 And then I take 15 percent and I divvy that out to our different office staff So the sales the manager might be higher But we also have a bonus for But you know kind of down to the bookkeeper because they're dealing with clients and And communicating with clients and so everybody gets a a little percentage Um of the that's a percentage percentage of the profit. Yes So How do you determine sarah? What percentage people get is that whoever is most closely tied whoever's um Whoever's been in the business the longest How do you I mean basically it's um sales manager Hold on sales manager um marketing and scheduling The If we do a field staff in that particular office And then bookkeeper. So I take I take 15 percent and I just spread it out over the amount So if you have five people everybody gets three percent No, we weighed it heavier. Sorry. So we're weighting it heavier was on those on the order So first is sales and then manager. I got you. Okay And the numbers are gonna change based like if our and that's also a stop if my Profit goes down below 10. We're gonna Stop and have another conversation. Right. Um So it's almost like a percentage of the profits over a certain threshold So if 10 is your floor if you don't get 10 you get nothing But if you get 15 percent then we're gonna play we're gonna share some of that five percent Yeah, I mean honestly when we went In aims and we lost more clients, you know, if we're sharing five percent We'll just share a little one, you know, we'll we'll divvy out five percent But that's And that's the number that I'm watching in the background and need to pay attention to And I use that to make my adjustments as well And how often do you do bonuses sarah's asking is it um quarterly? It's a week. No, it's a weekly number. So they know what they're getting immediately And then we pay it out once a month Okay, so it's a monthly bonus payout sarah Wow Okay, but they're seeing it every week So they know they're getting it right and that actually is a really important piece of it knowing what you're getting you see the so So there is a huge amount of information about what incentivizes people and what doesn't and what demotivates them also And one of the pieces to make bonuses work is that people need to see that they are direct activities What the result is what is the the lag measure of their direct activities? Otherwise it won't work And so that weekly being able to see okay I did this and this is what i'm getting even if it doesn't pay out is huge that makes a huge difference Right there that weekly meeting is a great place to be able to see that All right, so I think sarah mitchell has another question over there 15 of profit. I guess what i'm hearing is that kind of varies depending upon business conditions and how much profit's actually being made and I guess you you put some judgment into that. You're not locked into Something So for example, sarah, let's say that her goal for for the month is Easy numbers. Let's say her goal for the for the month is a hundred thousand dollars. Okay, so if they make um a hundred and ten thousand dollars, then it's the ten thousand dollars that is It's 15 it will be 15 of the 10,000 Yeah, yeah, not 15 of the profit. It's 15 of the Money that revenue above the goal right revenue right sarah. All right So hopefully that is more helpful sarah Um And I you know, I I beat up on people a lot about bonuses because people bonus Badly all the time and it works it works against them This bonus system can work because it has all the pieces in order in the right way and but if you Just change even the smallest of things it can work against you again. It could backfire What is this prefer in a big way? And I want to say they these aren't huge bonuses. I mean Our ankening office has been growing. They've been killing it um Their bonuses have been bigger than we've had This last this last two quarters have been bigger than we've probably paid out in a long time um, some of that's because I you know Was I was surprised at the goal that they were able to make? um So but I will say it's not a huge Not a huge amount of money. So it is a bonus on top of good pay And I also think that's important Yeah Yeah, especially nowadays We've been talking a lot about that right that your your base pay for people Needs to be a good amount of money. There's also one more thing that sarah is saying that Do you see how she One of the things that's really working for her is she's not expecting you to get a bonus every single Time half the time you're going to get the bonus What that does is that set you up in a situation where people are feeling like it is actually a bonus that they're getting Where when they get this bonus every time supposedly a bonus then they miss it one time Now what has happened is It's punitive It feels like they're being punished and that's one of the ways that your bonusing can work against you. So that's Really really important piece to why you want to set this up whatever your percentages I like sarah's percentage 50% awesome easy for people to see right four weeks out of the month Two there are four weeks in the month two months two weeks. I got the bonus two weeks. I didn't good. I'm right on par I'm doing well one week. I didn't get a bonus three weeks. I did and I know I think sarah might change that goal next. She's gonna push a little harder on that right, so That that just those nice parameters is great But also where you're not getting the bonus that's really really important you guys for those of you that feel like You want your people to get it every time bad thinking bad bad thinking Do your cleaning technicians participate in any of this or is it Limited to your your leadership team. Yeah, this is all of our office staff except for our supply person in one office Because they all touch in fact an internal client or an external client Our cleaning staff Our only bonus thing Only bonus thing they're going to sing on, you know, their reviews And their reviews score so And that's a monthly bonus, but If you have a strong, yeah, you have a I found my office staff is so much more They're so steady compared to our our technician population coming and going And that they are the they are the key to a consistent You know being able to to have cleaning staff come and go because they're consistent. They're focused We're all focused on the same thing Yeah, focus on the same thing. It's huge huge So What else do you think that people would be really benefited by knowing around the process sarah of goal-setting budgeting You shared a lot today that I think is really people truly Um I think involving your key office staff and I know it's been talked about, you know, so I think it's important to get your goals in mind as an owner and then share those goals with maybe your managers See if there's something you're missing see if it's See if they agree really because they might have a better idea Then you know if that's reasonable or not reasonable and then you can talk about why or why not And then we share that with our then our office staff all knows the goals And then tom we do tie that into our technicians. So Our goal setting kind of flows into an eventual meeting with office staff where we say things like Guess how much we spent last year and we throw out real numbers and we have a kind of a fun guessing game because it's Always surprises people and then you know we want, you know, we're We're gonna say this year. We're a three million dollar company this year. For example, we're we share all of those things in our office staff meeting and then we share our goals for cleaning staff, I should say We We turn it into house numbers and so we turn our revenue goal instead of saying, you know, it's Whatever the new revenue goal is we're going to turn that into how many reoccurring clients We're trying to get and keep and then parlay that into You know your quality keeping more clients The ones that we have will help us reach that goal faster than turning And having new clients. So we we just really use that and spiral that up into something that everybody can focus on I think Bigger picture and the bigger you get I I think it's really important to remember to loop in your Technicians and make sure that they know that you have goals and you're going to celebrate things and where you're going So the buy-in is what you're talking about and the and when you first started explaining the system You were talking about you come you come to the table with that first meeting With your ideas of what you want, but they're not set in stone at that point They're they're they're open right now. This is what I'm coming to the table with and I'm asking you guys What do you see should they be bigger? Should they be less? Are they too stringent? Can we can we what do we need to do and then my guess is I know you didn't say this part But my guess is that you take the feedback and you modify your goals based on the feedback Sometimes of course you're going to get feedback that Doesn't make sense for good reasons, but I'm guessing especially with your staff. You've had for quite a while that You get you get feedback that will create more buy-in and get people more motivated more dedicated when you Change up the goals, even if it's just a small amount toward toward the goal Uh, all right diana has a question here. Hey diana Do we share the revenue goals with the field staff? We don't and that's where we turn that revenue goal number into how many houses do we need on a recurring basis? So we give them that so ankeny has a goal of three or ankeny hit 300 homes On a recurring basis. So their goal next year might be 340 So we're gonna talk about it in terms of how many homes that is Well, that makes so much more sense because that's what matters to we're talking about the same thing over and over again What matters to the people and what matters to the technicians is how many homes are cleaning? That's what I know. I know about homes. I I don't know about revenue I like I I don't know how to think about revenue But I know how to think about homes And I can see on the chart or on the list or in the slack channel or whatever We got another home. We lost another home. We got four more. Mrs. Brown. Mrs. Johnson. Mrs. Smith and Mrs Whoever stew or no, I don't slack channel that info, but that would be great Well, whatever. However, I I you somehow you present it whether it's in a meeting or Wherever you present it you're presenting it to them in a way that they're able to see we're meeting the goal We're not meeting the goal. We're we're losing ground We're gaining ground where they're able to feel themselves as part of What's going on at page clean that it's not happening around them and that they're not they feel like they're part of it Which is you guys all know I'm always harping on matter meaning measure and autonomy this This shows them how they individually matter how there's much bigger meaning and what they're doing And there's a measure to help us see what that is and you've got your own autonomy there because you are Creating part of it yourself. So, I mean that's like that's win win win win and to diana's Um comment. We will say when we reach a milestone we will put it into perspective for them So we will say, you know, you're working for a million dollar company There are this many like us and so we want them to feel that proud. But yes on an ongoing basis We're we're not sharing All our revenue numbers Well, we are like approaching the top of the hour sarah. Is there any uh other last thoughts you'd like to share? Or anything you'd like to share about, you know, what you're up to or what? What you're looking forward to If anyone's going to be if anyone knows, um About conquer the conquer summit or happens to be going to the conquer summit. I'm going there. I'll be there January I believe it's fourth But I'll be in florida for that and I am a new conquer coach So that's what I've spent some time um prioritizing and and spending some of my time working on learning and growing on a Kind of new little tracks. So that's that's what I'm up to That's fun. So where can people get more information? There we go. Thank you. Good job, tom Yeah Yep, you got it. So and I know that brandon spoke at uh Came to vegas and so some people might have met him and know about the conquer team that way I uh posted the link in chat. It's go dot conquer now dot com and uh I guess this has oh my goodness. Look at all the folks here when it when is this event in florida? It's happening. Well, I'm going on the second. I believe it's happening on the fourth and I believe they're I believe they're sold out So of of january So if you're not you're not going it's only it's less than a week two weeks away, right? So yeah, so there are a couple Made service coaches specifically and now I'll be on there later Um, so I just graduated and so that's exciting. You'll see elena and Alonzo's there and I'm excited to join the team And represent another woman Yeah, nice exciting Well This is awesome. This is really good information sarah. Thank you for for joining us. Um, it's uh It's an affirmation hearing this coming from somebody who actually implements it and gets the the the awesome results I mean it gives it a lot more credibility, I guess It's easy to talk about it. But uh to hear it coming from somebody who's actually doing it is something different And here after you're doing it too. You're doing here after year It's not just a one-time flash in the pan thing. We all get lucky every once in a while But if you can do it consistently you're doing something special absolutely So we're pretty much wrapped up for today. I guess we'll be back Um Wednesday. Yeah, today's monday. So we'll be back Wednesday Last one of the year. Yeah Um, is is rj gonna be our guest? Yeah, rj is gonna wrap up goal setting budgeting and and Put it all with a nice pretty little bow on it for us. No, he's great. That'll be fun. Yeah Well, this was great sarah really really helpful for a lot of people. We have a lot of people saying the same thing The super great So, um, again, thank you sarah. We'll see you guys wednesday five o'clock eastern. Bye y'all. See you wednesday. Thank you