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I haven't been honest with you: A pivot like no other

Today’s talking points:

I’m diving deep into my new and improved FOCUS operating system and how it can help make your income more predictable and consistent.

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As ambitious business owners, we're always looking for ways to make our income more predictable and consistent.

But what's inevitable for all of us is hitting the ceiling.

And there comes a tipping point where we either take specific action to continue our growth or we plateau and become stuck where we’re at.

That’s where my FOCUS Operating System comes in.

This allows you to run your business on a system so you can predict your revenue and hit your income goals month after month.

In this episode, I'll walk you through the 6 key components of the FOCUS operating system and how each piece can allow you to hit your income goals month after month.

The reality of running a business

First, let's address the elephant in the room. Though we might not always want to admit it, one of our biggest desires in running a business is income-related. When I look back through onboarding forms from clients, their desires, or market research I’ve done, it always comes back to income. People want to develop their business models to increase consistent income, hopefully significantly. They're hoping for more predictable income, wanting to feel confident that the income is there. They aim to hit their income goals consistently. We're always looking for ways to make our income more predictable and consistent.

But hitting the ceiling is inevitable for all of us. It looks different depending on the type of business you run, but it's a universal experience. We reach a tipping point where we either have to take specific action to continue our growth or we plateau and become stuck where we are now. Metaphorically speaking, breaking through the ceiling can be difficult. However, there’s a certain level of clarity that emerges when there’s a proven operating system in place to help you break through the ceiling and achieve what you want from your business. And that’s where my focus operating system comes in.

the Focus operating system

The focus method has evolved into this focus operating system. What I've realised is that I love helping clients run their businesses effectively, and that's exactly what I've been doing for so long. This system encapsulates that.

Let's go over the definition because business operating systems can seem very corporate, like a male suit-and-tie kind of thing. But I'm talking about something for you as a solopreneur. Essentially, it gets you on the same page with a clear vision, working towards the goals that will take you where you want to be, and it allows you to do that consistently. That's the vibe we're going for. It allows you to run your business on a system, so you can predict your revenue and hit your goals month after month, specifically related to income. By implementing this system, you can clarify, simplify, and achieve your vision.

I've designed my focus operating system to ensure that you are aligned with your vision, working towards the goals that matter to it, and equipped with the tools and processes needed to achieve them. On a deeper level, this system will help you get out of your own way, finding the right blend between working on the business and in the business. By strengthening the six key components of the focus operating system, which I'll cover in this episode, you'll build a business grounded in accountability and transparency. This will enable you to address and resolve many issues that can plague our businesses, supporting all your goals and activities, and helping your business run more smoothly and profitably.

So I’ll go through each component of this operating system because it is in a certain order in terms of implementation. So I'll go through each component and how each piece can help you and allow you to hit your income goals, month after month.

the new and improved focus operating system (previously the focus method)

Before we get into the details, I want to give you an overview of the system. The last time I talked about this, it was my focus method, specifically related to planning. I've completely overhauled it, making it bigger and more comprehensive. It's now the focus operating system, comprised of six M's.

Macro: This is your big-picture vision and 12-month goals. The process of getting more focused starts here. If you can clarify your vision, you'll make better and faster decisions across all areas of your business. So, this is where we begin.
Micro: This involves diving deep into your schedules and routines, and creating weeks that work in your business so you can get more of the right things done without taking all your time. It's also about understanding and documenting the core processes that make up your unique business.
Map: This specifically relates to mapping out your marketing and sales strategy, your income-producing activities, and ensuring that your offers and business model are aligned with your marketing and sales strategy.
Method: This is about creating accountability and discipline and then executing. It relates to my triple threat method, which includes monthly, weekly, and daily planning. This bridges the gap between vision and execution.
Meet: This is where we gather data. We want to make decisions based on data, not drama. This allows us to take the pulse of our business consistently and accurately, so we can take effective action.
Move: This is about exactly what it says on the tin. It’s you moving, being able to course correct and working on your mindset mastery. This is the last one in the system because it's important to recognise that each individual tool is as important as the whole and we need to implement this as a full system to be able to move forward fully.

So that is the focus operating system, macro micro map, method, meet and move.

breaking down the method

Now that we know the overview, let's delve into how implementing each part of this system can help you meet your income goals consistently.

macro

Our first step is the macro: the big-picture vision and your 12-month goals. As I've said on this podcast before, if you don't know where you're going, any direction will get you there. Clarifying your vision means you can make better decisions and solve problems much faster. When you’re rowing in the right direction, it leads to absolute domination, allowing you to drill down to exactly what you need to work on to hit your income goals.

There are many pieces to the macro section, but specifically for hitting your income goals, it boils down to what you offer and how you want to make money. Often, when people struggle in this area, their product suite is too mismatched. They have too many different things that people can come to them for, which means they’re wearing too many hats. This happened to me at the start of 2023 when I was mapping out my new product suite. I thought about covering everything my ideal client needs: a productivity membership, a course on launching, a course on content, and strategic planning sessions. But now, I’m focusing entirely on this operating system.

Simplifying your business and focusing on one area allows you to create clear goals and a laser-focused strategy to help you meet those goals and grow from there.

The big exercise we'll do together in this macro section is your two-page business plan. A business plan doesn’t have to be a massive document; two pages are all you need. We’ll walk through core questions to help you get clear on who and what your business is, where it’s going, and how it’s going to get there. This acts as your game plan, which you can look at every day.

The reason this is our first step is that it’s the foundation for the rest of the process. The biggest mistake I see people make is building a business and then trying to fit it around their life. Instead, we start with: What do I want for my life and lifestyle, and how will my business fit around that? I mentor you differently by focusing on how much money you need to make to be comfortable in all areas of your life. This includes paying expenses, investing in a mentor, paying personal expenses, a salary, pension, tax savings, and future savings.

micro

Which brings us to part two: micro. The micro aspect dives into our schedules and routines, building weeks that work effectively. Specifically, we'll look at how this helps you hit your income goals by creating a repeatable structure that focuses on the right activities to generate consistent revenue, while still leaving time for family, recovery and everything else.

This is about learning the principles behind an effective marketing strategy, which we'll explore more in step three, to bring in consistent client sales. You'll use these principles to design a weekly revenue-generating structure that is repeatable and sustainable for your niche and your strengths. If you can stack one successful week onto the next, you'll have a successful month, then a successful quarter, and after doing that four times, a successful year.

Since 2021, I've worked less than 25 hours a week. I take my son to nursery four mornings a week, pick him up, and spend every afternoon with my two kids. It's easy to work long hours because society champions hard work and rewards it. Although the "work smarter, not harder" movement is gaining traction, many still feel guilty if they're not working flat out. We've been conditioned to think this way, but working hard doesn't equate to better results. In fact, if we try to slog through an eight-hour day, we're only productive for about half of it. The rest is spent procrastinating, faffing about on Canva, or taking 30 minutes to respond to a simple email.

So, let's figure out what actually generates revenue. Do that and nothing else.

What if we cut out all the unproductive time so you can close your laptop and enjoy your life? And what if you could do that confidently, knowing you’re doing the right things to get results? You will likely never look back and say, "I wish I'd worked eight hours a day instead of five," but you might say, "I wish I'd spent more time with the people I love, doing things I love." This is about setting the hours you want to work within your current season, having strong boundaries around your time, and still getting the results you want.

The first part of this micro section is creating weeks that work: structuring your schedule to cut out the fluff and focus on what makes you money. This means prioritising revenue-generating tasks, creating clear boundaries, and hitting your income goals. That’s the plan.

The other part of this section is about your processes. It’s about finding your way, not the "right" way or the "best" way—just your way. Consistency is a word that comes up repeatedly. We can't fine-tune anything unless it's consistent first. So, this process part of the micro section is about understanding the core processes that make up your unique business.

map

This leads us to part three of the focus operating system: map. This is what makes my operating system different. Many business operating systems either don’t include this section or only briefly mention it in the vision piece, like identifying your ideal client. It's crucial to deep dive into this because your marketing and sales activities directly relate to your income goals.

Do you know where your next 10 clients are coming from? Do you know where your last 10 clients came from? This section helps you break out of the feast and famine cycle. I’ll walk you through my six P marketing method, which comprises:

People: Your ideal client.
Product: Your offers, the promises they make, and the transformations they deliver.
Process: The customer experience and the process you take people through.
Position: Your position in the market.
Price: Your pricing strategy.
Promotion: This is where my five-part framework comes in—attract, engage, nurture, invite, and delight.

If you nail these six P's in your marketing and sales framework, you can't help but hit your income goals.

Once you have that, we move on to part four, which is my favourite. By this stage, you have your vision, schedule, processes, and income-producing activities laid out. You know the actions you need to take. Now, how do you implement them? That’s where the method part comes in.

method

This is where we make your vision a reality. You’ve got your vision, your schedules and routines, your processes, and a marketing and sales plan in place. Now, this is where accountability comes in. I call this my triple threat method because it bridges the gap between vision and execution.

You are a visionary. You have all the ideas, and nothing exists without you and your beautiful brain. What visionaries often find uncomfortable is attaching discipline and accountability to making those big ideas happen.

The triple threat method is made up of three key pieces: quarter, month, and week. When you know what needs to get done and when, and are confident that it leads towards income, you know your priorities, you become more focused, and you get more done. You are working towards your 12-month goals in bite-sized chunks on a schedule that works for you. You are achieving and maintaining momentum, and that’s how you can achieve your income goals.

meet

Part five is meet, and I have a little analogy that I want to share with you about this. I love this analogy so much. For an aeroplane, for every one degree you are off course, you will end up being one mile off course after travelling 60 miles. It's called the one in 60 rule. Being just one degree off course at the start of a plane's journey will result in being significantly off course the longer you travel. Imagine you’re on a flight from New York to Tokyo, a journey that takes about 14 hours. If your plane is just one degree off course from the beginning, after flying around 6,700 miles, you would end up over 100 miles away from Tokyo.

This can happen to us if we go just one degree off our plan without catching it. We can end up like that plane, in the middle of nowhere, running low on fuel, wondering what’s going to happen. Without data to see where we are where we are going, or if we are heading in the right direction, doubt can eat away at us. We cannot accurately measure our business, and we can't hit our income goals because we don’t know where we are in relation to meeting them. Wasting time affects our income. This is why managing our data becomes so helpful. I encourage you to track a handful of key numbers in your business. Do not skip this step.

I know metrics can feel like a chore, and that’s why I recommend tracking only a specific number of metrics tailored to your business. Once you start tracking these things, you can see patterns, and that is how you predict the future.

move

Which brings us to the final part of this framework: move. This stage is all about implementation and integration - making moves. We work in a 90-day cycle so as you go through each 90-day cycle, you can catch any issues that crop up.

However, it’s important to note that this phase only occurs after steps one to five have been implemented. Action is the catalyst for revenue.

So this is more about how you can use the focus operating system to help you consistently achieve your goals, particularly your income goals, month after month.

In case you missed it, here is last weeks blog post - Think it's time for a pivot in your business? 6 signs to look out for