Profit by Design

Do you ever feel as though your marketing messages are lost in a sea of digital overwhelm for your clients and customers? If you aren’t being heard, your message dies. This has significant implications for the health of your business. Learn how to harness the primordial laws of human perception to stand out as Dr. Sabrina interviews Jamie Mustard, author of The Iconist. Jamie teaches the science of what causes anything to stand out in the modern world. Through his work, Jamie has observed the primal laws of BLOCKS™, which explain why anything stands out and endures in the mind or fails to.  In his book, The Iconist: The Art and Science of Standing Out, through pop stories and comprehensive research, he shows how BLOCKS™ solve the problem of us all being made invisible as we compete for less and less available attention in a messaging and media over-saturated world. He teaches how BLOCKS™ allow anyone in any field to stand out at will based on the natural primordial laws of human perception. As host of a popular RadioActive talk show on KXL101.1 FM in Portland, OR, Jamie interviewed hundreds of designers, innovators, artists, and agents for social change who are having an impact all over the world.  An avid consumer of popular culture, Jamie is a graduate of the London School of Economics. He is obsessed with the economics of attention and has consulted for Intel, Cisco, and Symantec. He breaks all this down into why we entrepreneurs need to have a simple way to get our message across in terms of marketing and branding, as well as why this is important for our teams and our overall quality of life as entrepreneurs. Prepare for an eye-opening and fascinating conversation! The Profit by Design Podcast is a Tap the Potential production in collaboration with Small Business Consulting Group.  Show Highlights: In 1950, a person would be exposed to approximately 250 advertising messages in their day-to-day life. By 1970, the number of advertising messages in a day increased to around 2,000. The last time this was studied was in the late 1990s, and 5,000 - 7,000 advertising messages a day is what a person was exposed to. This was all before the internet hit full stride and before social media. Today, the number of advertising messages we are exposed to on a daily basis is estimated to be 10,000 - 15,000. A person can’t process even 1,000 of these messages, so what this means is that anybody trying to communicate is just one of tens of thousands. Jamie’s book, The Iconist, offers a solution to this very real problem. “Continuous partial attention”, a term coined by Linda Stone, who did some research for Microsoft and Apple, means that we’re being bombarded by so much information that we’re only partially paying attention. As a business owner and entrepreneur, this is a huge thing when you’re trying to get your business noticed. To be iconic is to be the first choice. Anything busy in a world overloaded with content, no matter how good it is, instantly gets discarded. People have to have an idea of who you are and what you’re offering them before they have a chance to think in their lizard-brain. Jamie discusses a chapter in his book called, “Road Signs” and how warning labels work. The book teaches you how to turn some aspect of what you do into something that has the same power as a STOP sign so you get that instant fixation. As long as there’s something behind it that’s genuine and real, people will engage further and remember you. “What is the best thing about myself that intersects with what my customer most cares about?” The answer to that question is what you present in a bold way on your website. Then, they can learn about all of your other strong points that you have to offer. “Drag" is when you’re presenting all of the busy stuff but you haven’t self-identified the best of what you have to offer that your customer is wanting. Some psychological ramifications of too much choice include paralysis, anxiety, dissatisfaction, and depression. These same psychological ramifications happen to apply to feeling like you can’t get noticed because there’s too much content around you. Science and research show that when we present complicated things with big, bold, simple imagery, it changes the way we relate to complicated information. We retain more of the information and appreciate it more. Adults crave this elementary communication even more than children do. A BLOCK™ is the anatomy of what makes something iconic. Dr. Sabrina relates how in Mike Michalowicz’s book, Profit First, the Profit First Equation of Sales - Expenses = Profit is a great example of a BLOCK™ and the way it makes the Profit First concept iconic. BREEED - Blocks Repeated Exhaustively Everywhere Equals Demand. This is the snow-ball effect. Jamie shares his poignant backstory and how he came to be interested in the subject of his book. Links and Resources: What do you need to do next to take your life back from your business?  Take our Assessment at: https://www.tapthepotential.com/assessment Get the Book!! How to Hire the Best - Contractors Editionwww.TapThePotential.com/book How to Hire the Best Toolkit www.TapThePotential.com/Toolkit Get Your 2020 Action Planner Now! The Pumpkin Plan Action Planner 2020 https://www.tapthepotential.com/planner Dr. Sabrina’s WEBSITE Dr. Sabrina’s PODCAST - PLEASE RATE & REVIEW! For Resources & Tools from Sponsors - https://www.profitbydesignpodcast.com Subscribe & Share Podcasts! - https://www.profitbydesignpodcast.com/podcasts/ Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ProfitByDesign/ Connect with Jamie! Jamie’s Website Jamie’s Email Buy Jamie’s Book HERE Books: How to Hire the Best - Contractors Edition by Sabrina Starling, PhD How to Hire the Best: The Entrepreneur's Ultimate Guide to Attracting Top Performing Team Members by Sabrina Starling, PhD - Will be published Sep 15, 2020 The 4 Week Vacation: Work Supports Life Not the Other Way Around by Sabrina Starling, PhD - Will be published Dec 1, 2020 Profit First: Transform Your Business from a Cash-Eating Monster to a Money-Making Machine by Mike Michalowicz The Pumpkin Plan: A Simple Strategy to Grab a Remarkable Business in Any Field by Mike Michalowicz The Iconist: The Art and Science of Standing Out by Jamie Mustard The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less by Barry SchwartzMentioned in this episode:Join us August 5th - 7th for the FREE Better Business Better Life Jumpstart WorkshopWe know that small business owners need a growth plan that delivers. In this 3-day workshop, you’ll understand how to: - Design Sustainable Profitability: We’ll help you calculate your profit potential and design a plan for profit in the year ahead and many more to come! - Simplify Your Business: Discover the profit that’s hiding in plain site. Then you’ll see a clear path to simplify to grow. - Identify Your Unique Value: What if you could charge more and free up your time? You can once you identify where you can deliver more value than anyone else. Visit https://tapthepotential.com/jumpstart to get registered today!

Dr. Sabrina invites a valued member of the Tap the Potential team to join her on today’s podcast.  As a Tap the Potential strategist, specializing in Profit First and Pumpkin Planning, Stacey Seguin supports Tap the Potential’s efforts in identifying ways for clients to save money, MAKE more money and free up their time.  Listen in to this thoughtful conversation! It’s a peek inside the internal discussions of the Tap the Potential Strategist team. Tap the Potential clients have more time for what matters to them and more money in their bank account than they’ve ever had. This conversation offers a fly on the wall glimpse into how our strategists accomplish this with our clients.   Show Highlights: Being a business owner and entrepreneur is a lifestyle that can easily lead to burnout.  Stacey relates her own compelling story of entrepreneurial burnout. The Tap the Potential team has compassion for what business owners are going through because they’ve all lived that life.  Fortunately, there can be great things waiting on the other side of that burnout. A powerful, simple question: What has to change in order to make this possible? Getting sleep and regular downtime is imperative to reducing stress. A comparative advantage (vs. competitive advantage) creates opportunities for an increase in profit. Discover why your industry standard may be your own self-imposed glass ceiling. Tap the Potential focuses on ways to better their clients’ businesses. Stacey and Dr. Sabrina field a question on a business owner’s desire to open a second location. How to know when you are maximizing the profit potential in your business.   When we decide to sell our business, we need to be able to show that the business can support a C-suite executive (or several!) and pay appropriate compensation. If we can’t, it’s not sellable. Links and Resources: What do you need to do next to take your life back from your business?  Take our Assessment at: https://www.tapthepotential.com/assessment   Get the Book!! How to Hire the Best - Contractors Editionwww.TapThePotential.com/book   How to Hire the Best Toolkit www.TapThePotential.com/Toolkit   Get Your 2020 Action Planner Now! The Pumpkin Plan Action Planner 2020 https://www.tapthepotential.com/planner   Dr. Sabrina’s WEBSITE Dr. Sabrina’s PODCAST - PLEASE RATE & REVIEW!   For Resources & Tools from Sponsors - https://www.profitbydesignpodcast.com Subscribe & Share Podcasts! - https://www.profitbydesignpodcast.com/podcasts/   Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ProfitByDesign/   Books Mentioned: How to Hire the Best - Contractors Edition by Sabrina Starling, PhD How to Hire the Best - Entrepreneurs Edition by Sabrina Starling, PhD - To Be Released The 4-Week Vacation by Sabrina Starling, PhD - To Be Released Profit First: Transform Your Business from a Cash-Eating Monster to a Money-Making Machine by Mike Michalowicz The Pumpkin Plan: A Simple Strategy to Grow a Remarkable Business in Any Field by Mike MichalowiczMentioned in this episode:Join us August 5th - 7th for the FREE Better Business Better Life Jumpstart WorkshopWe know that small business owners need a growth plan that delivers. In this 3-day workshop, you’ll understand how to: - Design Sustainable Profitability: We’ll help you calculate your profit potential and design a plan for profit in the year ahead and many more to come! - Simplify Your Business: Discover the profit that’s hiding in plain site. Then you’ll see a clear path to simplify to grow. - Identify Your Unique Value: What if you could charge more and free up your time? You can once you identify where you can deliver more value than anyone else. Visit https://tapthepotential.com/jumpstart to get registered today!

If you’re working too hard for too little return and struggling with entrepreneurial burnout, you don’t want to miss today’s episode with Dr. Sabrina. Dr. Sabrina reveals 3 simple steps to take your life back from your business. These are tangible action steps that you can do right away so that in just 7 days, you’ll be experiencing a better quality of life than you’ve likely experienced in quite some time. Who doesn’t want that?     At Tap the Potential we know you want to be freed from the constant demands of your business. In order to do that, you need a business that supports your life vision.    The problem is you have a cash-sucking business taking over your life, leaving you frustrated and discouraged. We believe work supports life, not the other way around.   We understand you are paying a team AND you’re STILL having to do it all. There should be accountability. It shouldn’t be this hard, which is why, through our proprietary coaching system we help thousands of business owners like you have more time for what’s important to them and grow profit by 300-800%.   Here’s how we do it: First, take our Assessment at Tap the Potential.com/Assessment Next, meet with our Success Team Lead to debrief your results. Then, join our Better Business, Better Life Program™   By the end of your first year in our Better Business, Better Life Program™, you will have more time for what matters to you and more money in your bank account than you’ve ever had before.   Start by taking our Assessment at Tap the Potential.com/Assessment   It’s time you stop working so hard for so little return and take your life back!   Show Highlights:   If our mindset is not in the right place, we end up treating the business and teaching those around us (team members, our clients, our customers) to rely on us for everything. This is how entrepreneurs become the bottleneck. What served us well in early entrepreneurship is no longer serving us as the business matures. The 3 Simple Steps to Take Your Life Back are: Recognize that your mindset has to shift. Practice being unavailable in your business. Assess the weaker points in your business with Tap the Potential’s Business Assessment   Dr. Sabrina walks through and thoroughly expounds on each step. What steps are you going to take? Dr. Sabrina would love to hear the steps you take. Post your action steps in the Profit by Design Podcast Facebook group.       Links and Resources:   What do you need to do next to take your life back from your business?  Take our Assessment at: https://www.tapthepotential.com/assessment   Get the Book!! How to Hire the Best - Contractors Editionwww.TapThePotential.com/book   How to Hire the Best Toolkit www.TapThePotential.com/Toolkit         Dr. Sabrina’s WEBSITE Dr. Sabrina’s PODCAST - PLEASE RATE & REVIEW!   For Resources & Tools from Sponsors - https://www.profitbydesignpodcast.com Subscribe & Share Podcasts! - https://www.profitbydesignpodcast.com/podcasts/   Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ProfitByDesign/   Books Mentioned: How to Hire the Best - Contractors Edition by Sabrina Starling, PhD How to Hire the Best - Entrepreneurs Edition by Sabrina Starling, PhD (Coming Sept 15) The 4-Week Vacation by Sabrina Starling, PhD (Coming Dec 1)Mentioned in this episode:Join us August 5th - 7th for the FREE Better Business Better Life Jumpstart WorkshopWe know that small business owners need a growth plan that delivers. In this 3-day workshop, you’ll understand how to: - Design Sustainable Profitability: We’ll help you calculate your profit potential and design a plan for profit in the year ahead and many more to come! - Simplify Your Business: Discover the profit that’s hiding in plain site. Then you’ll see a clear path to simplify to grow. - Identify Your Unique Value: What if you could charge more and free up your time? You can once you identify where you can deliver more value than anyone else. Visit https://tapthepotential.com/jumpstart to get registered today!

If you’re finding yourself wading through the weeds of your business and finding it difficult to follow through with your intentions, then this episode is for you! Dr. Sabrina shares insight into a mindset that helps you grow your business. She explains the difference between a high-value activity and a low-value activity and introduces tools that help you to stay focused on those highest value activities that grow your business.    If you’re needing help with staying on track or if you’re just looking for some fresh inspiration, listen in as Dr. Sabrina provides strategies to get the most out of your time and effort so that you can make your own time as an entrepreneur and as a business owner worth $10,000 an hour.   Show Highlights:   What are the things going on in your business that you really like, that are going well, and where you really shine? What are the things going on in your business that you don’t like, that you find frustrating, and that make you feel bad? Everything that is going well right now is the result of $10,000 an hour thinking and ON your business actions you have taken in the last few years. Everything that is not going well right now is the result of a gap. This is where there is a need to put focused attention on either the strategy, or the systems, or the people in your business. Strategies, systems, and people fall into the realm of $10,000 an hour activity. What is going on in your life? The fallout of what goes on in the business impacts our life. Creating an asset is an example of $10,000 an hour activity. The return on investment of your time and energy will be realized over the long-term. What’s the most valuable thing that I could do right now that could have the greatest impact? Dr. Sabrina shares a personal story that led her to asking herself this question. It has become the go-to question that helps pull her out of the proverbial weeds. Another powerful question to ask yourself is, “What’s the one thing I can do such that everything else will be easier or unnecessary?”  Ask yourself this question at the beginning of the week. The answer is your $10,000 an hour activity for the week. Dr. Sabrina invites you to take her 10-minute assessment to discover gaps in your business plan and the actions to take to close them. Dr. Sabrina explains the 80/20 principle. 20% of our time produces 80% of our results. Low-value activities squeeze out the time and mental space for the high-value activities. Value your time by delegating and systematizing. Work in your zone of strengths. Dr. Sabrina covers the lies we tell ourselves as entrepreneurs. Apply the 80/20 principle to serving your top 20% clients and customers.  Here are some distinctions between $10 an hour, $100 an hour, $1,000 an hour, and a $10,000 an hour activities. Team members should look at what they’re doing in the business. Be open to shift activities to the right person to do them. Here’s the importance of accountability and how to work it into your business plan.       Links and Resources:   Get the Book!! How to Hire the Best - Contractors Editionwww.TapThePotential.com/book   How to Hire the Best Toolkit www.TapThePotential.com/Toolkit   Interested in Tap the Potential’s Exclusive Small Group Coaching Program? The first step is taking our Assessment at  https://www.tapthepotential.com/assessment   Get Your 2020 Action Planner Now! The Pumpkin Plan Action Planner 2020 https://www.tapthepotential.com/planner   Dr. Sabrina’s WEBSITE Dr. Sabrina’s PODCAST - PLEASE RATE & REVIEW!   For Resources & Tools from Sponsors - https://www.profitbydesignpodcast.com Subscribe & Share Podcasts! - https://www.profitbydesignpodcast.com/podcasts/   Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ProfitByDesign/ Books Mentioned: How to Hire the Best - Contractors Edition by Sabrina Starling, PhD How to Hire the Best - Entrepreneurs Edition by Sabrina Starling, PhD - To Be Released The 4 Week Vacation by Sabrina Starling, PhD - To Be Released The Pumpkin Plan: A Simple Strategy to Grow a Remarkable Business in Any Field by Mike Michalowicz The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results by Gary Keller Did You Miss Dr. Sabrina’s Interview With Rochelle Rizzi on The Ups and Downs of Entrepreneurship? Listen To It HERE!Mentioned in this episode:Join us August 5th - 7th for the FREE Better Business Better Life Jumpstart WorkshopWe know that small business owners need a growth plan that delivers. In this 3-day workshop, you’ll understand how to: - Design Sustainable Profitability: We’ll help you calculate your profit potential and design a plan for profit in the year ahead and many more to come! - Simplify Your Business: Discover the profit that’s hiding in plain site. Then you’ll see a clear path to simplify to grow. - Identify Your Unique Value: What if you could charge more and free up your time? You can once you identify where you can deliver more value than anyone else. Visit https://tapthepotential.com/jumpstart to get registered today!

If you’ve ever felt alone or lost your way during your entrepreneurial journey, you’ll want to listen to this riveting and inspiring conversation between Dr. Sabrina and her guest, Rochelle Rizzi.   Rochelle Rizzi is a member of the Tap the Potential team and she also has her own business, Le Vrai Nord. Rochelle has a powerful story to share with you about her entrepreneurial journey. Rochelle’s story is one of losing yourself in your business, facing our greatest fears and rising again. You will resonate with many of the touch-points in her story.    As an entrepreneur, a writer, a systems-thinker, and motivational leader, Rochelle aims to be purposeful with her own life and a reliable, passionate partner to her own clients.   As a career, Rochelle is a marketing and operations strategist for her clients. Her love of culture, creativity, and communications brings together teams for measurable successes while having fun and building employee engagement.   Rochelle is the mother of four beautiful boys and lives between Tampa, Florida, and East Lansing, Michigan, traveling the world as much as possible in between all the basketball and baseball games.   Show Highlights:   Rochelle describes how she came up with her company name, its unique meaning to her, and the decision she made to reach out to Dr. Sabrina. The financial lessons Rochelle learned before she started implementing Profit First were devastating ones. Rochelle shares how she conceived her vision while frustrated. “What If” Dr. Sabrina divulges the dark point in her own life that solidified the need to create a business that didn’t rely on her. Why Rochelle has taken the 4 Week Vacation™ Pledge.  What’s it like to work with Tap the Potential? Rochelle details how it is important to her. Dr. Sabrina explains the draw of immutable laws. Be clear on who you are, what your business is meant to do, where your sweet spot is, and what kind of people you want to cultivate. Rochelle imparts the business wisdom she gained along her journey. Self-doubt sets entrepreneurs up to be extremely susceptible to depression in the low moments of our businesses. It is important to remember, especially during these times, that suicide and depressive thoughts are fleeting thoughts and these thoughts will pass. You are more than the success of your business! It’s important to surround yourself with the best people.       Links and Resources:   Want to work with Dr. Sabrina and the Tap the Potential team to transform your business into a highly profitable, great place to work and get your life back? The first step is taking our Assessment at  https://www.tapthepotential.com/assessment Get  the Book!! How to Hire the Bestwww.TapThePotential.com/book   How to Hire the Best Toolkit www.TapThePotential.com/Toolkit   Get Your 2020 Action Planner Now! The Pumpkin Plan Action Planner 2020 https://www.tapthepotential.com/planner       Dr. Sabrina’s WEBSITE Dr. Sabrina’s PODCAST - PLEASE RATE & REVIEW!   For Resources & Tools from Sponsors - https://www.profitbydesignpodcast.com Subscribe & Share Podcasts! - https://www.profitbydesignpodcast.com/podcasts/   Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ProfitByDesign/   Books Mentioned: How to Hire the Best - Contractors Edition by Sabrina Starling, PhD How to Hire the Best - Entrepreneurs Edition by Sabrina Starling, PhD - (Coming in September) The 4-Week Vacation by Sabrina Starling, PhD - (Coming in December) Profit First by Mike Michalowicz   Connect with Michelle! Rochelle’s Website Rochelle’s Linkedin - Rochelle Rizzi Rochelle’s Linkedin - Le Vrai Nord Rochelle’s Facebook Rochelle’s Instagram Rochelle’s Compass Rose Blog   New Beginnings by Rochelle on the Tap the Potential Blog https://www.tapthepotential.com/newbeginnings/Mentioned in this episode:Join us August 5th - 7th for the FREE Better Business Better Life Jumpstart WorkshopWe know that small business owners need a growth plan that delivers. In this 3-day workshop, you’ll understand how to: - Design Sustainable Profitability: We’ll help you calculate your profit potential and design a plan for profit in the year ahead and many more to come! - Simplify Your Business: Discover the profit that’s hiding in plain site. Then you’ll see a clear path to simplify to grow. - Identify Your Unique Value: What if you could charge more and free up your time? You can once you identify where you can deliver more value than anyone else. Visit https://tapthepotential.com/jumpstart to get registered today!

In keeping with the theme of “Designing for Profit in 2020”, Dr. Sabrina sits down with her guest, Christine Rico, to shed some light on things that we may not be thinking about in our business that have a pretty significant impact on whether or not we’re building a profitable, sustainable business.    Christine Rico is a good friend and colleague of Dr. Sabrina. She is the owner of CFO On Speed Dial and a fellow Profit First Professional. Christine is a financial consultant, business growth expert, and social entrepreneur who got her start in financial management while keeping the books for Cooperative Home Care Associates in the Bronx, NY more than 20 years ago. The Cooperative was then a start-up and is now the country’s largest worker-owned business. At CFO On Speed Dial, Christine and her team help business owners set and reach financial goals and build companies that are making healthy, sustainable food products, installing renewable energy systems, and growing high-impact consulting businesses. Christine works with companies to improve profitability, craft expansion plans grounded in the company’s overall goals and vision, and get the cash that businesses need to grow. She is on a mission to close the gender-revenue gap by helping women-owned companies accelerate growth.   Show Highlights:   Christine and Dr. Sabrina discuss a recent blog post of Christine’s, which celebrates growth in the number of companies owned by women but highlights the appalling percentage of revenue that these women-owned companies bring in. This is what she calls the “Gender Revenue Gap”. Growing your company in incremental steps for the short term may be reality, but you have to know where you’re going.  If you don’t have a big dream that you’re aiming for, it’s really hard to get outside of the day-to-day and what you think you can accomplish next. What is your big dream?  What impact would it have if your business is bigger? Christine shares her vision and the impact she hopes for with CFO on Speed Dial. Christine recommends reading Profit First by Mike Michalowicz for structure in how you think about cash in your business and gives an overview of her five fundamentals needed in order to move to the next level in business. Dr. Sabrina shares her own personal story about her introduction to the Profit First philosophy. The distinction between social impact and charitable giving and some ways we might be thinking about these in our business. Ideas on how to measure impact. Christine describes the role of a CFO. Checklist of infrastructure needed to scale a business.       Links and Resources:   Blog post mentioned   Get  the Book!! How to Hire the Best - Contractors Editionwww.TapThePotential.com/book   How to Hire the Best Toolkit www.TapThePotential.com/Toolkit   Are you on track to creating a highly profitable, great place to work that lets you take a 4 Week Vacation™?  https://www.tapthepotential.com/assessment  This Can Be Used As A Strategic-Planning Tool!   Get Your 2020 Action Planner Now! The Pumpkin Plan Action Planner 2020 https://www.tapthepotential.com/planner   Get Your FREE Wheel of Life Here! https://www.tapthepotential.com/wheeloflife   Dr. Sabrina’s WEBSITE Dr. Sabrina’s PODCAST -  PLEASE RATE & REVIEW!   For Resources & Tools from Sponsors - https://www.profitbydesignpodcast.com Subscribe & Share Podcasts! - https://www.profitbydesignpodcast.com/podcasts/   Interested in Tap the Potential’s Exclusive Small Group Coaching Program? The first step is taking our Assessment at  https://www.tapthepotential.com/assessment   Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ProfitByDesign/   Book Mentioned:   Profit First: Transform Your Business from a Cash Eating Monster to a Money-Making Machine by Mike Michaowicz   Connect with Christine! Christine’s Website Christine’s Facebook Christine’s Twitter Christine’s Linkedin Christine’s Gender Revenue Gap Blogpost Get Christine’s Ready to Scale ChecklistMentioned in this episode:Join us August 5th - 7th for the FREE Better Business Better Life Jumpstart WorkshopWe know that small business owners need a growth plan that delivers. In this 3-day workshop, you’ll understand how to: - Design Sustainable Profitability: We’ll help you calculate your profit potential and design a plan for profit in the year ahead and many more to come! - Simplify Your Business: Discover the profit that’s hiding in plain site. Then you’ll see a clear path to simplify to grow. - Identify Your Unique Value: What if you could charge more and free up your time? You can once you identify where you can deliver more value than anyone else. Visit https://tapthepotential.com/jumpstart to get registered today!

Developing emotional intelligence as leaders, and specifically the ability to master our thinking, is critical as small business owners. If there’s an area in your business or your life where you’re feeling stuck, frustrated, or just not happy with the results you’re getting, you’ll want to listen to Dr. Sabrina Starling’s fascinating conversation with her guest on today’s podcast. Kim Ades is a good friend and long-standing colleague of Dr. Sabrina’s. She is also President and Founder of Frame of Mind Coaching™ and JournalEngine Software™. Kim is an author, speaker, entrepreneur, coach, and mother of five, and she has 15 years of experience coaching many of North America’s most respected leaders. She is recognized as an expert on performance through thought mastery. She uses her own unique philosophy and quirky coaching style to help her clients deal with core issues and shift their thinking in order to yield extraordinary results.    Show Highlights:   Kim explains the idea behind “thought mastery”: Every outcome starts with a thought. Both positive and negative thoughts will impact our performance and therefore, our outcomes.  It is possible to improve our results by simply changing our behaviors or the actions that we take, but there are many consideration before doing so! When you look at your life today, it’s a result of your thinking yesterday, and the preceding days. The results that we want are usually something tangible, but when we truly master our thoughts, we start to leverage our thinking not to get specific outcomes but to get certain feelings that supersede the idea of specific outcomes. Kim shares her personal story of how she became interested in coaching and thought mastery. When you’re holding on to a thought and cannot let it go, you have to first understand what it is that you’re really holding onto before you can move forward. We often have false beliefs that contradict our key desires. Our behaviors can directly contradict our deepest desires, and yet we continue to do them. We often take actions that take us away from what we really want. Kim describes the key signals that indicate someone’s thinking is not leading them  where they want to be going.  Pay attention to your emotional state! Kim and Dr. Sabrina reflect on trust within leadership and teams. Kim offers steps to take and questions to ask yourself to start working toward thought mastery.       Links and Resources:   Get  the Book!! How to Hire the Best - Contractors Editionwww.TapThePotential.com/book   How to Hire the Best Toolkit www.TapThePotential.com/Toolkit   Are you on track to creating a highly profitable, great place to work that lets you take a 4 Week Vacation™?  https://www.tapthepotential.com/assessment  This Can Be Used As A Strategic-Planning Tool!   Get Your 2020 Action Planner Now! The Pumpkin Plan Action Planner 2020 https://www.tapthepotential.com/planner     Dr. Sabrina’s WEBSITE Dr. Sabrina’s PODCAST -  PLEASE RATE & REVIEW!   For Resources & Tools from Sponsors - https://www.profitbydesignpodcast.com Subscribe & Share Podcasts! - https://www.profitbydesignpodcast.com/podcasts/   Interested in Tap the Potential’s Exclusive Small Group Coaching Program? The first step is taking our Assessment at  https://www.tapthepotential.com/assessment   Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ProfitByDesign/   Connect with Kim! Kim’s Website Kim’s LinkedIn Kim’s Facebook Kim’s Twitter  Kim’s Instagram Kim’s YouTube Channel Kim’s PodcastMentioned in this episode:Join us August 5th - 7th for the FREE Better Business Better Life Jumpstart WorkshopWe know that small business owners need a growth plan that delivers. In this 3-day workshop, you’ll understand how to: - Design Sustainable Profitability: We’ll help you calculate your profit potential and design a plan for profit in the year ahead and many more to come! - Simplify Your Business: Discover the profit that’s hiding in plain site. Then you’ll see a clear path to simplify to grow. - Identify Your Unique Value: What if you could charge more and free up your time? You can once you identify where you can deliver more value than anyone else. Visit https://tapthepotential.com/jumpstart to get registered today!

If we aren’t designing our businesses and our lives in the direction that we want to go in, it’s too easy to let the business run everything. If this is a rut you’ve fallen into, or a rut you wish to avoid, listen in to Part 4 of 4 in the Strategic Planning Series as Dr. Sabrina and Mike hash out money and cash flow in both the business and personal life, and the concept of “break-even to thrive”.   If you missed the first 3 parts, be sure to go back and listen to them so you have all the tools and direction you need to make your vision for 2020 a reality.   Show Highlights:   The concept of “break even to thrive" includes so much more than covering expenses, employees, and costs of goods sold. It also includes appropriate budgets for growing the business, budgets for investing in efficiency, proper compensation for the owner and the A-player team members, and investing into the business. Clients that have been doing “Profit First” for 12-18 months discover they have more money in their compensation account than they’ve ever seen before, and often feel guilt. It’s hard to find money to attract A-players when you have tight cash flow. You must learn what you really need to feel good and for your team to be healthy and for this to be a great place to work. Don’t forget to budget for your own coaching, training, and the development of the team. Dr. Sabrina and Mike offer suggestions on how much to allocate and where to find that budget. Budgets for traveling to conferences often get overlooked, as do retreats. Retreats should not be treated as a luxury. Dr. Sabrina explains why she doesn’t suggest investing in all team members until you’ve really analyzed who you have on your team as A-player’s. It’s critical as business owners to invest in ourselves to get that higher level support. Investments in training and development should be bringing a return on the investment and it’s that return where the business starts to grow, you get better team members, and the whole business operation becomes more efficient through the investments in training and development. Mike discusses the wisdom of having a mindset shift if you’re prone to having the “shiny object” syndrome. Investing in things that you think will take you to the next level is not as important as investing in yourself and your employees. Dr. Sabrina shares her personal headspace when she first started investing in coaching. There’s a big “gulp factor” as you move from “break even” to “break even to thrive”. What did your business do for you in 2019? What do you want it to do for you in 2020? Where did our businesses fail us in 2019? Dr. Sabrina and Mike take turns being in the hot seat! Profit by Design Podcast is about designing businesses to support the lifestyle we desire. Mike shares his excitement about reading Jeffrey Gitomer’s latest book, Get Sh*t Done: The Ultimate Guide to Productivity, Procrastination, and Profitability and how he plans to implement the tools and tips to carve out the time he needs to push things forward. Dr. Sabrina and Mike share some tips about what has worked for them in reaching their goals.     Links and Resources:   Get  the Book!! How to Hire the Best - Contractors Editionwww.TapThePotential.com/book   How to Hire the Best Toolkit www.TapThePotential.com/Toolkit   Get Ready for 2020!! Are you on track to creating a highly profitable, great place to work that lets you take a 4 Week Vacation™?  https://www.tapthepotential.com/assessment  This Can Be Used As A Strategic-Planning Tool!     Join Tap the Potential’s Exclusive Small Group Coaching Program:  Start your journey with us by taking our Assessment: www.tapthepotential.com/assessment     Get Your 2020 Action Planner Now! The Pumpkin Plan Action Planner 2020 https://www.tapthepotential.com/planner   Get Your FREE Wheel of Life Here! https://www.tapthepotential.com/wheeloflife   Dr. Sabrina’s WEBSITE Dr. Sabrina’s PODCAST -  PLEASE RATE & REVIEW!   For Resources & Tools from Sponsors - https://www.profitbydesignpodcast.com Subscribe & Share Podcasts! - https://www.profitbydesignpodcast.com/podcasts/                 Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ProfitByDesign/   Books Mentioned: Get Sh*t Done: The Ultimate Guide to Productivity, Procrastination, and Profitability by Jeffrey Gitomer   Listen to the First Three Episodes of Dr. Sabrina’s End-of-Year Strategic Planning Series Here! Part 1: Episode 67 Part 2: Episode 68 Part 3: Episode 69Mentioned in this episode:Join us August 5th - 7th for the FREE Better Business Better Life Jumpstart WorkshopWe know that small business owners need a growth plan that delivers. In this 3-day workshop, you’ll understand how to: - Design Sustainable Profitability: We’ll help you calculate your profit potential and design a plan for profit in the year ahead and many more to come! - Simplify Your Business: Discover the profit that’s hiding in plain site. Then you’ll see a clear path to simplify to grow. - Identify Your Unique Value: What if you could charge more and free up your time? You can once you identify where you can deliver more value than anyone else. Visit https://tapthepotential.com/jumpstart to get registered today!

Welcome back to Dr. Sabrina’s end-of-year strategic planning series! This episode is all about your life! At Tap the Potential,  we believe work supports life and not the other way around.  Going into 2020 we need to be strategic about our life and how we set our business up to support the lifestyle that we want to have. What has your business done for you lately?   Go ahead and grab a notebook or journal and a pen, and be sure to write your answers down.   Show Highlights: Dr. Sabrina invites you to download the Wheel of Life tool to use during this episode and explains the concept behind it. How are you growing yourself as a person?  Completing the old process - this is an exercise shared by Dr. Sabrina from her first coach, Lisa Kramer. This gift-to-yourself is a powerful end-of-year exercise ritual that Dr. Sabrina has participated in for about 15 years.   Step 1: Look at all the different areas of your life that are reflected on the Wheel of Life and list out your wins, successes, and breakthroughs during 2019. Conversely, list out your losses, disappointments, and breakdowns in each area of the Wheel of Life. Step 2: Create the new. Write out your list of wins, successes, and breakthroughs that you want to have for 2020. Be very specific and write them as if they’ve already happened.  Step 3: Go through each area on the Wheel and rate your current satisfaction in that area. Lower numbers reflect lower satisfaction, higher numbers reflect higher satisfaction. Step 4: After rating each area of the Wheel, shade in your ratings. This gives you a visual image of your current experience in your life. If we think about the Wheel as a tire on the unicycle of life, if we have areas on our wheel that are not fully inflated, we’ll be in for a bumpy ride on this road of life. If we have low ratings across the Wheel, we’re having to go through life with a deflated tire. Consider picking out one area on the Wheel that you’ll be very intentional about improving in 2020.  What is it in your life that you’ll choose to focus on? Think through the actions that you need to take to increase your satisfaction with that area in your life. Dr. Sabrina discusses high-quality leisure time versus low-quality leisure time. In the book Digital Minimalism, author Cal Newport goes into all the different ways that we become addicted to social media, and the things that happen within social media that feed that addiction. Newport suggests that we get as strategic with our leisure time as we do with the way we plan our businesses. What is it that you’ve wanted more time for in your life in 2020? Start using that time that you intentionally carve out from your business to support your interest in those endeavors. Dr. Sabrina shares a few things that has set herself up for success on her current 4 Week Vacation™: She deleted all of her social media apps from her phone so that she does not have access. She has given thought to the leisure time activities that she wants to be intentional about pursuing. She has committed to being more strategic with her leisure time while on sabbatical. Creating a vision board for 2020 can be a profound activity in terms of insights and ‘A-ha’ moments. Start with old magazines and cut out the pictures that speak to you. Put those images on the vision board. Also, look for pictures that support your vision for 2020. You can design this board any way you wish. The more we hold our vision in front of us, the more likely we are to spot opportunities that will help bring that vision to fruition.    Links and Resources: Get  the Book!! How to Hire the Best - Contractors Editionwww.TapThePotential.com/book How to Hire the Best Toolkit www.TapThePotential.com/Toolkit Get Ready for 2020!! Are you on track to creating a highly profitable, great place to work that lets you take a 4 Week Vacation™?  https://www.tapthepotential.com/assessment  This Can Be Used As A Strategic-Planning Tool! Get Your 2020 Action Planner Now! The Pumpkin Plan Action Planner 2020 https://www.tapthepotential.com/planner Get Your FREE Wheel of Life Here! https://www.tapthepotential.com/wheeloflife Dr. Sabrina’s WEBSITE Dr. Sabrina’s PODCAST - PLEASE RATE & REVIEW! For Resources & Tools from Sponsors - https://www.profitbydesignpodcast.com Subscribe & Share Podcasts! - https://www.profitbydesignpodcast.com/podcasts/   Join Tap the Potential’s Exclusive Small Group Coaching Program:  Start your journey with us by taking our Assessment: www.tapthepotential.com/assessment   Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ProfitByDesign/ Listen to the First Two Episodes of Dr. Sabrina’s End-of-Year Strategic Planning Series Here! Episode 67 Episode 68 Book Mentioned: Digital Minimalism by Cal NewportMentioned in this episode:Join us August 5th - 7th for the FREE Better Business Better Life Jumpstart WorkshopWe know that small business owners need a growth plan that delivers. In this 3-day workshop, you’ll understand how to: - Design Sustainable Profitability: We’ll help you calculate your profit potential and design a plan for profit in the year ahead and many more to come! - Simplify Your Business: Discover the profit that’s hiding in plain site. Then you’ll see a clear path to simplify to grow. - Identify Your Unique Value: What if you could charge more and free up your time? You can once you identify where you can deliver more value than anyone else. Visit https://tapthepotential.com/jumpstart to get registered today!

Too many small businesses are suffering due to a lack of strategy. Too many small business owners are working way too hard due to a lack of strategy.  It’s easy as business owners to get bogged down in the weeds of business, doing the doing, and neglecting the why of what we’re doing and how we’re going to be more effective and more strategic. Join Dr. Sabrina on this end-of-year strategic planning journey to set yourself and your business up for greater success in 2020.  Go ahead and grab a notebook or journal and a pen, and let’s get started! Show Highlights: Vision 2020 for yourself: How do you want to experience it? Dr. Sabrina asks a powerful question. Take notes during the coming week on the thoughts and ‘A-ha!’ moments you experience around this question. Start the question with your personal life, rather than your business. Consider pausing the show, and write down your answers right now and see what comes up. Be sure to write in present tense. Dr. Sabrina suggests different aspects of your business that need to be considered. Now think about the different aspects that will support your business in being healthier, stronger, and that will give you a better quality of life. Think through profitability. Imagine that it’s December 31, 2020, and you have really strong systems in place in your business. Every team member, including the owner, deserves the opportunity to be away from the business and their role be covered. You need to design your business that can operate independently of any one team member, including the business owner. Business owners who have strong systems and a great team in place are well-positioned to take a 4 Week Vacation™, or simply be away from the business to pursue other interests or take care of things in the family that needs attention. Look at your leadership. In small business, our culture is a direct reflection of us as a business owner. Imagine again that it’s December 31, 2020, and you have built a top-performing team. You no longer feel like you’re having to scramble to cover open positions. You have A-players who are working together to create a highly profitable, great place to work. You have highly-engaged team members in the right seats in the business working from their strengths. They know and support the team’s goals. Allow yourself to embrace that vision and experience what it would feel like. What do you want to move forward and accomplish? Zero in on what would have the greatest impact for you on the experience that you want to be having as the owner of the business. Dr. Sabrina shares some of her own vision for 2020. Links and Resources: Get Ready for 2020!! Are you on track to creating a highly profitable, great place to work that lets you take a 4 Week Vacation™?  https://www.tapthepotential.com/assessment  This Can Be Used As A Strategic-Planning Tool! Get Your 2020 Action Planner Now! The Pumpkin Plan Action Planner 2020 https://www.tapthepotential.com/planner Get the Book!! How to Hire the Best - Contractors Editionwww.TapThePotential.com/book How to Hire the Best Toolkit www.TapThePotential.com/Toolkit Dr. Sabrina’s WEBSITE Dr. Sabrina’s PODCAST - PLEASE RATE & REVIEW! For Resources & Tools from Sponsors - https://www.profitbydesignpodcast.com Subscribe & Share Podcasts! - https://www.profitbydesignpodcast.com/podcasts/ Join Tap the Potential’s Exclusive Small Group Coaching Program:  Start your journey with us by taking our Assessment: www.tapthepotential.com/assessment Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ProfitByDesign/Mentioned in this episode:Join us August 5th - 7th for the FREE Better Business Better Life Jumpstart WorkshopWe know that small business owners need a growth plan that delivers. In this 3-day workshop, you’ll understand how to: - Design Sustainable Profitability: We’ll help you calculate your profit potential and design a plan for profit in the year ahead and many more to come! - Simplify Your Business: Discover the profit that’s hiding in plain site. Then you’ll see a clear path to simplify to grow. - Identify Your Unique Value: What if you could charge more and free up your time? You can once you identify where you can deliver more value than anyone else. Visit https://tapthepotential.com/jumpstart to get registered today!