Your Business Wish List: Dream Big & Spend Smart

We are going to dive into a topic that I enjoy, which is spending money. We are going to be talking about investments in your business and things on your business wish list. Also, we are going to talk about how to make strategic and wise decisions to help your business grow instead of being caught up in shiny objects syndrome and spending money on everything or being so confused and scared to spend money in your business that you do nothing.

I talked recently about some things that I’ve spent money on in business lately. I want to walk you through a little bit deeper how to make those types of decisions so that you can feel really good about them and move your business forward. So let’s jump in.

The first step we need to do is figure out what is on your business wish list.

I like to call it a wish list one because it sounds much better than that B-word, budget. It also makes this a fun because I want your dreams and aspirations, your hopes and your goals to all be reflected as we do this planning.

This is the exciting part about being a business owner is that you get to make these decisions. I want to empower you that you can make them strategically and smartly. The first step is to write out a list. If you have my new tool, Take Home Target, I have a really simple and easy way that we can list this all out. If not, just grab a sheet of paper. Write down your wish list of things you would love to spend money on in your business. Some ideas to get you flowing would be some kind of new software or equipment, maybe branding or brand photos. It could be a course or some coaching. Maybe it’s an office space or some upgraded equipment.

Another idea could be you have some contractors you want to hire or some legal things like a trademark or an LLC. Maybe it’s time to get your bookkeeping in order and start using QuickBooks. Another idea could be joining a mastermind or go to an in person retreat or event. These are all of the types of things that if you have your eye on, I want you to list out.

Writing it down does not mean you have to go and buy all of these next month or even this year. It just helps get some of these ideas out of paper. We want to write those goals down on paper because sometimes it takes seeing that goal to really help your mindset shift and level up your business to know you eventually want to be at this stage of business.

Writing that down really helps. You don’t have to show anyone this list. If this feels very personal or difficult to do, you can keep it to yourself and that’s okay. I want you to dream big here and really think about what should be on this list.

Some common mistakes that I see here are one, just not doing this at all. Then you can willy nilly spend money. We can do that in business sometimes. We just spend little amounts of money on many tools, but those really aren’t moving the needle forward in our business. Whereas if we saved that money, we could have enough to spend on some of these things.

I want this tool to help you keep away from shiny object syndrome and have a smart plan for your money. Another mistake I see here is just having too many shoulds or hindrances like we just mentioned and really feeling those mental blocks. Thinking things like I am NOT Advanced enough, or this is just a little side hustle. Or I don’t really need that in my business right now. If this is something that you have thought of more than a few times go ahead and write it on the list. It won’t hurt.

The next step is to go back through your business wish list and get a ballpark idea of how much these things cost.

Some of this will be really easy. You’ll be able to find that piece of equipment or mastermind and just put the $10,000 price tag in that box. But some of these might be a little bit different because you may have to research.

Go back through your list and see an average price of how much each of these things cost. It will also help inform us how to prioritize the list. Go back through and get a ballpark idea of the price and then we’ll move on to the next step.

The next step is to prioritize.

Not all investments are created equal and some impact different parts and pieces in our business. Some can directly help impact revenue. Others help improve efficiency or the perception of our brand or even our own peace of mind. So we’re going to walk back through and categorize these wishlist items into these different groupings.

You’re going to want to decide which ones are revenue generating:

• Ads
• Sales training
• Mastermind
• Course.
• Equipment or things that allow you to directly take on more clients.
  Anything that would help generate more revenue is kind of in that category.

We want to look at time saving investments:

• Automations or software that helps with workflows
• Hiring a VA or another type of contractor or an assistant

Then there’s some professional development:

• Education that you need as a leader and business owner
• Type of networking events that would help to do multiple things in this list but also help you develop professionally

Then is it more of an aesthetic investment:

• A website upgrade
• Your office decor

Don’t spend too much time here. We don’t want to overanalyze this one, but sometimes it does help to see if you have one category that has my whole list. Then I know, okay, this is definitely what I need to prioritize in. If there’s other categories, you may need to decide what is the most painful thing or most frustrating pain point in business. Then you can decide, that’s what I’m going to prioritize.

Maybe you need more time, you need to save time, or you need to get out of the weeds and be able to be the leader of your organization. For some it’s time to really focus on the automations and workflows and technology. For others, it’s their brand and aesthetic really needs an upgrade. Again, we don’t have to go through your whole list this year. So it’s time to prioritize.

This is one thing that I have been going through is prioritizing even for each quarter what is important at that time. I have some things for the late end of this year and even early next year that’s not exactly super pressing, but I know that it’s going to become a pain point later. So it’s still on my list.

It’s okay to prioritize things. I often run that prioritization by some friends or trusted advisors, because sometimes it can be easy to focus on what feels easy to do instead of what is maybe some pain that we actually do need to work through. The simplest example I can think of this is your bookkeeping. Maybe you feel overwhelmed and confused by all of the numbers in a spreadsheet or your software and you just don’t quite understand it. Or you’ve been made to feel dumb in the past by some other financial professional. Maybe it is you’re behind, you don’t know how to catch up and you don’t understand any of the terms.

Sometimes that is the thing that we need to focus on is overcoming the hard part or the thing that we kind of fear because that will really help move our business forward. Don’t get caught in doing the thing that’s just easy, but really think through, what is the priority in my business for me to work out soonest?

Another question you can ask yourself is what is going to give me the biggest return in the next 6 to 12 months. Sometimes that will help us prioritize to what is really important in our business and what can wait. 

After we’ve prioritized, then we need to organize.

We need to determine in which month or which quarter we want to actually make this investment. Sometimes what will inform this is how much revenue you’re bringing in. You may not be able to cover all of the things on this list. And that’s okay. The prioritization really helps us. If it is something we are really prioritizing, then it will help us know which month or which quarter we’re going to estimate to put it in. And then all the other things can just flow from there.

If Q1 your goal is your branding, and then Q2 is going to be some time saving planning items, that’s great. You’ll have it all laid out like that. If you don’t quite make your sales goal or meet your goals, then you can always adjust it and shift it around. That is why I like to lay it out like this. Then I revisit it, sometimes every month, but typically every quarter, just because I want to make sure the priorities haven’t changed.

Sometimes that happens in business. We grow excessively at a rate that we didn’t expect or things are slow and we may need to switch to the revenue impact. That happens, but I don’t want you to make decisions out of stress. I want you to make them strategically. A tool like laying this out will really help you to be able to do that.

Looking at investments is an often missing piece that I see when we’re talking about a sales goal. You might be wondering, well, how does this relate to my sales goal? Well, we need all of these pieces that we’re talking about in order to make up that goal so that you can survive and you can pay your expenses and yourself because that is a really important piece of business. We also need to have enough money for taxes then we can make these investments that we want to make.

So often people will think about taxes and they’ll think about paying themselves. They’re missing these huge chunks in their sales goal because they haven’t covered their expenses and they haven’t covered the things that they want to invest back into their business.

I hope this helps you and get your mind thinking what those things are that you want to invest in. And then how can you make that happen this year?

The key takeaways are to write out that wish list, to categorize it, prioritize it, and organize it.

If you need a simple tool that will help you do this, check out Take Home Target. It is all laid out for you in a pretty spreadsheet. It also is doing a lot of the calculations for you so that it’s very simple and easy.

Remember, you can invest in your business without stress. You just need a plan. Whatever it takes, I am going to help you make that spending plan. I want you to feel really good and confident about your decisions.

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