How I Planned my Second Half of the Year on a CEO Retreat
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Last week I took myself on a two day CEO retreat to map out the second half of 2023 and this episode of The Magnetic Woman podcast takes you behind the scenes and into the exact process I took myself through.
I share:
Why I take myself out of my normal environment and how it supports me when embodying CEO me
How I map out my strategy
What I consider when I go into the detail of a launch
What I map out in my launch calendar
How I run the numbers and what my revenue outline tells me (and helps me project future revenue)
How I manage my calendar
I truly believe that taking the time as an entrepreneur to look at the business in this way, will always create a more solid foundation from which to grow.
Success doesn’t look like one right way, however if you’re looking to scale to your next level I invite you into doing this - or a version of it - for yourself.
I hope you take away some key planning processes and strategies to support you to meet your next level, whatever that looks like for you.
LINKS:
Join my mastermind waitlists here
Check out my mid year review handbook here
Join Shamanic Secrets to an Abundant Business here
Book a connection call here
TRANSCRIPT
I am back from a week-long little adventure. I spent the first two days of last week mapping out the second half of the year, taking myself on a CEO Business Retreat, which very much inspired this episode of the podcast, and then I took myself and headed to Glastonbury Festival.
So I've spent most of this week, just getting very early nights and not walking very far at all, given that for four days I was doing about 20 to 25,000 steps a day. I've just landed, landed back into the house, into my space, into the environment, and into the business.
Today I wanted to share with you exactly the steps and the process that I took last week In mapping out the second half of the year.
Now I've done something similar a few times where I've taken myself away for a day to kind of be in CEO mode, and there was something very special about taking myself away for a couple of days. It's really powerful, I find to take myself out of my normal environment, ultimately a celebration of where I've come from and where I'm going. A real celebration of myself, a celebration of the business, the women that I feel so delighted to work with, and also simply getting into a different environment I find really fuels that creativity and it was good to give myself that space.
So if you know that you want to get into c CEO mode and map out your strategy and go into your vision, I absolutely recommend getting away somewhere. Doesn't have to be somewhere far, even if you just take yourself to the beach for the day or a hotel for the day, or somewhere like a working space for the day.
I find that just getting yourself out of where you normally work can be very powerful in the process of meeting future you.
I thought I would take you through the steps that I took myself through over those two days. So, the reason why specifically doing this at this point of year of the year was so important is that for me, July and August is a season of the business where I really slow down, and this year specifically, I'm looking to take the majority of August off.
Now, when I say off, I'm still servicing clients. There will still be weekly podcasts. There will still be weekly content and I still will be working sometime in the business. I have another podcast episode sharing with you how I map out the summer holidays as a mother and an entrepreneur so watch this space for the future episode there.
But for me, I don't enjoy taking kind of really long periods, completely off. That's not how I run as a CEO and for me, I like to be able to dip in and even if I'm not necessarily taking action, have at least a day or two a week where I'm very much in the business looking at data, and taking the action that's required for me to take in order to keep the business moving.
That's just me, that's my kind of personal preference when it comes to being off. Now, of course, in August I will be taking a couple of weeks completely off and one of those I will be continuing to be very much client facing and servicing my clients and one of those weeks I will not be. I've very purposely mapped out the end of one cohort. The Expansion Accelerator is the only mastermind that I have that is cart open, cart closed. The Magnetic Business Method and Expand to 7 are open all year round, so, I will continue to be servicing clients at that time, but the final two weeks of August, I will only be holding those two masterminds until we go into the launch in September. Then at that point, that third mastermind will be part of who and how I'm servicing my clients.
Me mapping out the second half of the year actually came, the beginning of this year, knowing that I wanted to slow down for the month of August. I'm going to have a whole bunch of time with my daughter, and yeah, it feels good to have put everything in place in that way.
Let me take you through the process, what I worked through, what I anchored into and tuned into over the two days of my CEO retreat.
It started with the process of tuning into what I have achieved so far.
What has worked, what hasn't, what could be better?
How could it be better?
What have I personally learned?
What have I learned about myself?
What have I enjoyed?
What have I least enjoyed?
I have a Mid Year Review. If you haven't downloaded this already, I absolutely recommend that you do. I base this process on that handbook where I really look at all of these things and ultimately what I'm doing here is yes, looking at how we can optimise things that aren't working, but the essence of this is me celebrating everything that I've already achieved in the first six months of the year, of which there is a whole bunch of incredible, incredible celebrations and wins.
That's always my starting point to reflect and review and feel the power of what has already been achieved.
From that point, I'm then able to feel into the vision for the future. What I did at Farmhouse, where I was away staying for those two days, is I made some cacao and I got out in nature and I sat with my cacao and let myself be fully immersed in what the next six months get to look like for me.
From here we get into the strategy.
So I then looked at my yearly strategy planner. We call it a Magnetic Strategy Planner in my world, in my masterminds, and I looked at what was launching monthly from June to December. Now, what that looks like in my world right now is we had five spaces available to join the Masterminds before we close the doors for July and August. That means there's two spaces left.
We have a couple of bonuses right now, and we are also launching Shamanic Business, which is a six month group program within the Magnetic Year that I will be announcing in the next couple of weeks. Very exciting.
So that's what we're working on in June and July. Also in July there will be a birthday sale. In August, off, flow and between kind of July and August, the majority of our content and efforts, podcast, marketing will be directing people to the mastermind wait list, knowing that in September we will open up a conversion event and launch for the Masterminds of which there are three for each stage of business.
Then at the end of September, beginning of October, the Mastermind starts. Within the month that the Mastermind starts I don't ever add anything else to my calendar, because that really is the month where I'm going all in on looking at my clients, their websites, their Instagram’s, their questionnaires with their objectives and their goals for the container.
So I spend a lot of my time in those launch months or post-launch month really tuning into my clients and getting super clear on supporting them to identify exactly what they want to achieve in that six month period, and then doing the research that I need to do as their business coach in order to facilitate and support those goals.
Then in November there will be an online retreat and then we'll also be doing another 1111 sale. Then December, typically I use that month as a reflect, a review and optimisation, a clearing. I do a lot of sort of clearing in the month of December ready to start the new year fresh. So that's me mapping out, June to December, and then knowing that the Mastermind launch is kind of the bigger core launch for the second half of the year.
This is where I go into, yes, my Capricorn Moon is speaking to you right now, another separate spreadsheet, and in this spreadsheet it's a Launch Calendar, which really looks at the specifics of that launch from pre-launch to cart closed. Within this, there's Facebook ads, organic outreach, bonuses, pricing structure, content strategy, all of the things involved within that launch from, as I say, start to finish.
This helps me see the bigger picture, have a really, really clear timeline and from that, a really detailed plan of what needs actioning and when.
From there I add that to Asana, which is the system that we use in the business so that everyone in the team knows what they're doing on a reoccurring basis and on a project by project basis, such as this one.
So from here, I then looked at team and knowing that there was going to be a really clear action list of everything that needed to be done, not just for this project and launch, but in the kind of wider area of the business or areas of the business we have made some small tweaks and changes in the systems that we are using, certainly relating to the podcast and as such it means that we will be doing a team hire, taking on a new VA/PA to support me and the evolution, should we say, of the podcast, which is our kind of fastest growing or biggest growing area of marketing right now.
I'm looking at team at this point and just tuning into all of the things that need actioning and supporting in the business and looking where the gaps are. Now this is where I identified that it was about time to bring someone on to support that role and that area of the business.
So, Systems, strategies, and then team.
From here I go into content. So my role in the business, still to this date is content and the podcast is our hero piece of content. On the strategy plan I make and finalise all of the themes for each week based specifically on and specifically in relation to what needs covering ahead of the Mastermind launch.
I say this time and time again, but we as business owners have got to make sure that what we are marketing, the themes that we are covering is relating to what we are selling. So for me, I map this out based on what I know I'm going into launch for, and also based on what we are seeing in terms of trends in the marketing space.
Which at this point in time in June, 2023 is a very much lifestyle content, behind the scenes, we are finding that anything kind of a day in the life of is really, really working. With that in mind, I mapped out a few themes for the podcast to cover in July, August and into September.
So knowing that actually for the second half of the year we will start to batch podcast episodes more than we have done in the past, especially for July, August, September it means then I can concentrate on servicing my clients leaning back for that month of August.
And of course, making sure that when it comes to launch, there's everything in place so that I can be doing what I want to be doing as part of that launch, which ultimately is having those sales conversations, being live, creating content that really speaks to my ideal client and giving as much value as I can to you, my wonderful audience.
So there we have strategy down into the launch calendar and then into the specifics of the content.
Then at this point we go into the juicy details of finances, and this is where I look at:
The overall revenue of the business to date.
The profit margin.
Where our expenses are going.
Is there anything that needs refining or tweaking there?
Then I go into the exact revenue that we are currently making for each container that I hold.
So we have three Masterminds, The Magnetic Year, and right now currently in a live launch for Magnetic Visibility. From there, I can go into projections for the second half of the year and the structure that I always use is a good, better, best.
Right now we have 15 women in The Method and six each in TEA and Expand to 7. So I know what that next level up looks like and what that we will do in terms of the shift in revenue and this helps me see what action and focus I need to bring to get to that next level.
Honestly, at this point, I feel incredibly proud that we are likely at a stage soon where the doors will close and we will revert to a wait list structure, which means that as places open, because we have so much retention in the business, as places open, we'll reach out to the wait list first before any other platform.
And that's a really epic place to be. It's very much my intention that I set in September 2022 when I launched the two additional masterminds. So the fact that we are six months in and kind of knowing that within a year we'll likely get to that point is mind blowing, but also was very, very intentional in terms of the goals that I had for myself and the business.
So pat on the back for me there and thank you to all of the people that have made that happen. I adore my clients and it's really testament I think, to the spaces that have been created and, I say have been created, there's a reciprocity there that, actually the women in that space make it what it is.
So we're very lucky that we're getting to that point there, and I suppose with this in mind, if you have been thinking about joining one of my Masterminds, I would definitely get yourself on that wait list to be the first to know when we're going to be opening the doors for the September launch in 2023.
Looking at the financials in this way also helps me look at where there's a focus needed in the business, where the revenue's coming from and then as I say, I look at the expenses within those containers and it really helps me to see kind of where the profit's mostly coming from within the business.
To give you an example of why this is so important when I'm looking at this with clients, sometimes we might find that the container in which they're giving the most number of sort of time and energy, the most number of hours, it's actually making them the least revenue. So from a business point of view here, it might need refining so that it's making business sense if of course building revenue and profit is a focus for them.
So I really, really like looking at the individual containers that I hold, what the revenue is, and then obviously seeing kind of where that growth could be based on knowing the time that I have to give to each container.
So looking at the business overall and the financial specifics here gives you a really good bird's eye view of everything that's happening within the business now.
I do break this down on a quarterly basis and look at it on a quarterly basis because we have a number of people that come into the Masterminds on a quarterly basis. Of course I'm always refining where our expenses are being spent, what's coming in, what's coming out and I typically look at this kind of overall every month, but it's really good to look at it in a broader way every six months or so as well.
So next is me then looking at my calendar.
I'll look at my calendar, I'll look at dates, and I'll clear up anything that might need clearing up. I'll look at the second half of the year where I might want to take time off, make sure that that is labelled in the calendar so that nothing's going in. Just get super, super clear on how I want to be spending my time. You might have heard me speak to this before, but I have a client week and a non-client week and of the two non-client weeks, one will be a week where there is certain things that go into my diary.
For example, we're in a live launch of Magnetic Visibility right now. That's in that week. Then I try to keep a week completely free with very little sort of online requirements, no zooms. That means that that's a week that I can either take time out, I can integrate, I can have space, or if there's a bigger project that I'm working on, such as a new launch or I'm upgrading a lot of content within one of the programs, I've got the space to do it.
So obviously when I'm looking at my calendar, I'm earmarking kind of those half term dates as well and of course, trying to help align any half term with that week that I have off, knowing that I then get to take that week off with my bambino.
I'm really looking at the kind of calendar overall and making sure that it's working for me as much as I am working for it and in this particular CEO retreat that I took myself on, what I have come to realise is actually I would love to have my Mondays and my Fridays off as it were.
So I sort of take Fridays off, I would love to have Mondays as my CEO day and then what that means is my calls are currently on a Monday, will move to a Tuesday. So again, it's all about calendar optimisation based on kind of how I want to be working in the business. I think it's important for me to share here, the reason why I find that those days and those specific weeks are so important is that I need clear days for me to be able to put my CEO hat on and do the bigger bulk of what my role is in the business, which ultimately is strategy, content, and sales.
I am the person who creates the idea, and whilst I have a team to support, execute, that the bulk of that ideation comes from me. The bulk of content comes from me. The sales conversations are all down to me, and I love that I choose to take those roles, but obviously as CEO, I need to create the space in order to do that efficiently.
So that's why kind of I work my calendar in that way.
Then I ended my mini retreat. It was solstice, so I did a solstice ceremony. I created a shamanic dispatcher, which I will share more on, in a later episode of how to create, and it's very much a prayer and an offering to the earth, to Passion Mama and Father Sky.
Then, I celebrated. I definitely had an evening where I ate delicious food and drank delicious wine. I sat in front of the fire and read my book and just really sat in awe of everything I'd created and was knew I was creating and will be creating in the future. Then I spent the last morning having a very slow morning swimming sauna, slow breakfast and then I got in the car and drove to Glastonbury.
It was a delicious 36 to 48 hours spent, and I recommend it to you all.
I recommend taking time out to put your CEO hat on and give time and space to the business.
I believe in creating a ripe relationship with everything in life. I believe that we are always in the energy of reciprocity. We get to be in the energy of reciprocity and my business gives me so much and so for me to be able to give some time and attention to the business to show it and tell it and allow it to feel how thankful I am was such a beautiful experience and example of the power of reciprocity.
There we have it.That is how I have mapped out the next six months of the year ready for 2024.
Yes, I already mapped out a few things that I knew we would be launching in 2024 on a very much an overview basis. So there we go. If you have any questions, I would so, so love to hear from you. You can find me on the gram @pandorapaloma_
If you yourself have enjoyed this episode, please do share with your audience, and if you know that someone in your world would benefit from listening to this, please do share it with them. Sharing is caring.
Some resources for you as well.
The Mid Year Review which is a really lovely way for you to reflect on what you've done and what gets to be ahead for you in the second half of the year.
The wait list for the Masterminds. If you know that you are looking for some business mastery, quantum transformation and visibility support in your business over the next six months, certainly into Q4 of the year.
If you are looking for a whole bunch of resources to support your business self, activate your magnetism and meet your next level in business, you can head to my Self Leadership page.
I hope you have enjoyed this episode of the podcast and I thank you for listening from my corner of the world to yours.
Have a beautiful, beautiful rest of your day.
Lots of love.
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