This year has officially flown by, as they tend to do, and we have now crossed over into Q4. Now if this year hasn’t quite gone how you envisioned, I have good news. It is not too late to turn it around. It can be really easy to just want to wash our hands of a year if it hasn’t gone according to plan, but we still have an entire quarter. That’s a significant chunk of time!
And a lot can happen in a quarter and there are a lot of opportunities to explore. For example, you can either lay foundations to kickstart next year off to an amazing start, try out a new strategy, or get clarity on what’s working – and what’s not – and start to course correct if needed. A full quarter also means you’re giving each of those options enough time to see how they work (remember, 90 days is typically the time period you really want to be giving to get enough time and data to see if something is going to work or needs to be tweaked).
One thing about Q4 is that it can come with a lot of pressure. After all, if the year didn’t go according to plan, Q4 can feel like the last chance to hit numbers or achieve the goals you set for the year. In some industries, Q4 can literally make or break a year, especially with the holiday push or busy season. Now just to clarify, when I say Q4, I mean the fourth quarter of the calendar year, which is October 1 through December 31.
In episode 6 we talked about quarterly North Stars. As a quick refresh, a quarterly North Star is what your focus is going to be on for the quarter. And today we’re going to expand on that a bit, but with a specific focus on the last quarter of the year. Today we’re diving all into how to ensure that Q4 is your best quarter yet.
-Evaluate why you haven’t hit your goals yet
This is not to crap on why you haven’t hit your targets. But there is always a reason. So first and foremost, we want to find out what that reason is. Because when we have the information and the knowledge as to WHY we haven’t hit those targets, we can work backwards and then find a solution for the HOW to hit them moving forward.
What I have seen time and time again is that clients are not reaching their quarterly goals is because they’re working towards something that they don’t actually want. It’s usually something that they previously thought or said they wanted, but something has shifted and that thing is no longer aligned or no longer something they want to move towards. Which can feel really frustrating because it literally becomes this loop. WHY am I not hitting this target. WHY am I not attaining this goal.
And until you’re clear on the underlying reason, you’ll continue to stay in that loop.
Now some of these are “easier” fixes, and when I say easier, I have air quotations here. Because sometimes it’s just a matter of needing enough data to see what’s working and what can be tweaked. So for example if you notice that people are coming through your funnel but NO one is converting whereas they used to convert at 53%, okay let’s find out why. Maybe it’s something as simple as a broken redirect link. But you can’t know that until you analyse the data, see where things aren’t working, and then dive in further.
Some of these are more difficult. So maybe you’re not showing up and talking about your offers enough. This is a problem of visibility. So WHY are you not showing up? Is it because you’re spread too thin and need to hire support to help you get content out? Or is it a deeper issue that you feel like you’re not good enough, so you’re not taking action and showing up. Both are a visibility problem, but they have vastly different underlying problems that require vastly different approaches.
-Get clear on your yearly goals and quarterly North Stars
Expanding on the previous point, revisit what your yearly goals were and what your quarterly North Stars are for Q4.
Are those goals still aligned? Is that quarterly North Star still truly what you want and need to be focusing on?
Life happens, which can cause business goals and capacity to shift. It can be really easy to push something to the next quarter or focus on something that is higher on the priority list. And there is nowhere this is more evident than Q4.
Sometimes those pivots are needed and work out perfectly. Other times things get bumped and it can be hard to get back on track.
So take some times to take a look back at your yearly goals and revisit your quarterly North Star. What is the biggest thing that you need to work on THIS quarter to move your business forward and achieve that goal?
-Work backwards
One you’re clear on why you haven’t achieved your goals for the year so far, or at least analysed to see if you’re on target or if things need to be tweaked, and then determined the biggest thing that you need to focus on this quarter to finish the year out strong, work backwards.
To work backwards, you’ll make a list of everything needed to achieve your goal. So let’s go into an example right now.
Let’s say your big push for Q4 is to book out your program. Let’s say you already know which program you’re wanting to fill and you already know the transformation it provides to your clients. If you’re not clear on that, work on those things FIRST. But in this example, let’s say you already know those things but you want to fill your program for the January cohort. What are the gaps? What do you need to do?
Obviously step one is you need to get visible. Okay so what does that look like? What does getting visible entail?
That means marketing and showing up and talking about your program. So in order to do those things, you need to create content. Content for social media, content for your email list, content if you go live. Okay great, let’s get even more specific. How much content do you need? Maybe you need 15 solid pieces of content for socials and you can repurpose 5 of those to your email list and do a training that funnels people into your offer.
How are you going to create those 15 pieces of content? Are you going to write content for 30 minutes every single day? Are you going to batch and knock it all out in one go? Are you going to post it on the fly? Are you going to preschedule it?
For your live, are you going to pop up live on Instagram or are you going to create a masterclass that requires people to sign up? If you create the masterclass, you’ll need some type of landing page, basic signup form, and some type of email content. Then you’ll want to make sure that you have reminders going out so people don’t forget to attend. And if you have any giveaways for people joining live, you’ll want to figure out what those are and how those giveaways are going to look.
So now that you’re clear on how you can get visible and what’s needed in order to actually do that, you can determine how this is all going to happen. Being proactive versus reactive is going to support you 10 times more every single time, so here’s where planning and actually working backwards is so helpful.
When I asked a second ago about content if you were going to post on the fly or preschedule things, prescheduling is a definitely the more proactive way to go. But the point here is if you already know what you need to do and what is coming up, you can set yourself up for success to actually fill that program instead of looking back at the end of the quarter trying to figure out what went wrong.
So whether that looks like time blocking once per week or creating content for 30 minutes every single day, there is no hard and fast rule here on what’s going to work best for YOU. But I just want to reiterate here that actually having a plan and tangible steps that you can execute is going to be a gamechanger for actually helping you hit your Q4 goals.
And then going back to our example, once you’re clear on how you’re going to get visible, you need some type of sales process. Are you letting your content do the heavy lifting or are you going to try to get people on sales calls and convert them there? Both options will work but they both require different strategies. If you’re booking sales calls, you need to make sure you have a CTA pushing people to the calls. Based on your conversion rates, how many calls do you need to book in order to fill an x person program? Get specific.
The sky is the limit in how you can structure things to book out your own January cohort, but having an actual plan and steps you can take action towards, like legit steps, not just randomly posting here or there and throwing spaghetti at a wall and hoping you’ll eventually convert people here or there, that can be a big difference between a successful launch or Q4 or goal achievement and one that flops.
When working backwards, there are several things that you can do to help.
-Clarity on the goal
This one we’ve dove into already, but before you skip ahead and start looking at all the other things you can do, it’s crucial to get clear on the goal so that you’re actually taking the right action.
-Delegate
Shift the things you can to your team. Customer service, graphics, helping get your funnel setup, testing your emails, all of these are important, but you do not need to be doing them all. Outsource and delegate what you can so that you’re freeing up your time for those higher level CEO tasks and you’re giving yourself more bandwidth to actually focus on the things that move the needle forward.
-Time management/scheduling
Do you struggle with getting things done because there isn’t enough time in the day? You can delegate quite a few things and get them off of your plate, but you can’t delegate everything. Time management, scheduling and even batching can be your best friend here. Block out a set time to work on x, y or z. Schedule and automate the things that you can – you’d be amazed at how much time and mental energy this saves you over the course of a week, let alone a year.
If you do better sitting down and batching things all in one go, run with that. If you do better blocking 30 minutes every morning, great, that’s okay too! The point is to find a rhythm that works for you. Just because the big gurus say you have to do something in some specific way doesn’t mean that’s actually true. Find what works for YOU and run with it.
-Small, consistent action
I know, I know, this one is beat to death, but legitimately it’s the small, consistent actions done over time that add up over the long run. There’s this graphic I saw recently talking about how important those small, consistent steps are. So the first graphic was someone taking a tiny step up. So like it was a physical depiction of them taking a step up, so just imagine you taking a physical step up on the first step of a staircase. Not a huge deal, right? But then the second graphic showed how those seemingly insignificant steps added up over time and 7 days later, the little graphic showed this little stick figure at the to of the stairs.
It’s like that in business too. Imagine how many steps you can take up by just making one teeny tiny step every single day. And imagine the impact after a week, a month, a year. This is what we’re going for here. It doesn’t feel like a big thing to take one small action today. But if you do that today, tomorrow, the next day and the next and the next, you will conquer some HUGE things in the not too distant future. So just keep that in mind.
And I know we all KNOW this. But sometimes it can be helpful to just have that reminder. And it’s imperative to take the action in order to achieve your goals in Q4. And now is seriously the PERFECT time. We have the whole quarter ahead of us. With that said, if you’re tuning in later on, these concepts can be applied at any time, just like quarterly North Stars.
-Support
I cannot stress this enough, but surround yourself with supportive people. Whether it’s a mastermind, a coach, a friend group that pushes you, an online community of other entrepreneurs, etc. Whoever it is, share your goals with people who will help push you and also help encourage you when you’re feeling down and like things aren’t working. We have ALL been there and having people who get it and help hold you accountable AND who help push you is an absolute game changer. If you’re looking for a supportive community of other 6 and 7 figure entrepreneurs who get it, will help push you, and help you actually achieve your goals, go sign up for the Mastermind waitlist. We’ll be opening doors to the next round soon.
As we wrap up today, I just want to reiterate that you can absolutely ensure that Q4 is the best quarter yet. Get clarity, take action, and keep going. I would love to hear what you are working on this quarter and how you’re going to end the year with a bang.
