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Welcome to the Candy Valentino show, the podcast for founders, investors and entrepreneurs where we have honest conversations about what it takes to grow your business, build more wealth and create financial freedom.

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Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of the Candy Valentino Show. Thanks for tuning in with me today and Happy New Year. Depending on when you are listening to this, we are dropping it just in the beginning of January of 2025. I cannot believe that we are into a brand new year and because of that I want to jump into something that I think is critically important that we do now that we lay the foundation how to have a successful year, how to draw the blueprint for every single thing that you want to achieve, do, become, create and accomplish throughout 2025. This is the perfect time to strategize, to really set your intention, to look at what your finance, your business, your health, your spiritual goals are for the year and really get in sync with what you need to do, the action plan that you need to deploy in order to create that success. Because like I always say, ideas are cheap, they're free, they're easy. It's not going to change your life. It's the implementation and execution of the idea that will. And it's so simple to sit and dream. It is really hard to execute. And unfortunately I have seen so many business owners closing their doors this year, going backwards with their revenue, having massive challenges in their business, investors losing millions of dollars throughout different investments and fraudulent funds that they invested their money in. And people the wrong people that listen to on social media. This last year was really difficult for a lot of people I personally know, just on the fringe of people that follow me and things that I've seen. I've seen five or six different businesses close in various industries across the country and man, it is so sad when that happens because it's not just a business, right? It's the people within the business, it's the families, it's the founders that invested everything, it's the employees that really showed up Every day for that business to succeed. And now there are story after story after story of business owners not making it, not surviving. It's really why I wrote my last book, the 9% Life Changing Secrets of how to create more revenue for your business and more freedom for yourself. Because 91% of all businesses fail in their first 10 years. And all of the reasons through the research that I did, over 2,000 businesses and 17,000 entrepreneurs, we know that it all comes back to finances, to money. So setting our business up to be successful, to have intention to setting our year up, to planning it out, is so critically important. So I want to actually break into three distinct parts and I want to use an analogy because you're going to be like, all right, why'd she pick these specific words? Well, here's the deal. When you're building a house, right, like so many of you know, I've been real estate investing since I was 20 for a really long time. And when you're doing a massive renovation or when you're building a house from the ground up or property or commercial property, it doesn't matter what it is, you always have to have a clear vision. You need to know what you're building. You have to have a blueprint, a set of plans of which you're going to build that house on or that building on. And so often in business or in anything that we're looking to achieve, even investing, we want to build a big portfolio. So often people just take that adage of just start. And of course there's truth to that. You do need to start because oftentimes you'll never feel ready. But you also need to have a plan so that you can set an intention of what it is that you're going to create. You know, when we're building a property or when we're building a house or storage sheds or multifamily, we know what it is going to look like. We have already done the analysis of the numbers. We know how much the investment is going to be, we know how much the return is going to be. We know what the rent roll is going to be. We also know how long it's going to be before we get a return on capital. All of that's planned out in the beginning. And then when you look at the construction side of things, we need to know, are we building a ranch? Are we building a two story? Are we building a 10 story building? Because depending on what it is, our blueprint will determine what type of foundation we need. If we are laying a Slab. Obviously we can't build a 10 story house without having massive reinforcements and footers and digging and everything that we need in order to support that structure. Building a business, building success and anything is the same. You have to have a clear vision with what you're building and you need to take time to develop the blueprint in order to make sure that you can get there, to have that methodical planning. And so often entrepreneurs will get caught up in this constant ideation, but really where success lies is in consistent execution. That is what has turned businesses around. Of entrepreneurs that I've worked with, that's what's helped people become massively successful, get out of debt, all the things I help people do. That is the one key thing that separates the people from just wanting to do it versus as those who actually do is consistent execution. I worked with an entrepreneur last year and it was, I think beginning of January is when we started. And he was doing okay, like his business was, you know, surviving, I guess you could say he had decent net profit, but it wasn't doing as well as it could have. You know, there was another, it was a family owned business, there was another owner involved. There's just a lot of complexity, a lot of chaos, to be honest. And really it was kind of like there was no plan. The capital that they were investing in the business didn't really have a plan of how that was going to get a return inside of the business, whether that was revenue or profit. The people that were hiring, it was just kind of like, well, we're just hiring people because we need to keep up. As opposed to really understanding what revenue was per employee and what profit each one of those departments brought in. And really when I start to unravel what the two brothers were dealing with and where their challenges were, it really was the lack of planning. And when we were able to really turn a few valves in their business, we were able to exponentially grow not only their top line revenue, but also their profit and their net profit margins in the company. Because we were able to identify that with a plan, with really understanding where each dollar went, how that was going to return profit to the business. We were able to be like a sniper and really determine where exactly are these dollars going and what's it going to bring back to the business. That methodical planning with consistent execution is not only what turned their business around, but doubled their profit in 2024. So I want to share a few things with you that I do and did with these clients. And the first is laying the Foundation. Again, we go back to the house analogy or the building analogy. Thankfully, with building, there are planning commissions and OSHA and all sorts of different zoning and rules and requirements of what things need to look, what exactly it needs, the structure needs to be. There are inspections and permits and people that make sure it looks the way it's going to look before you put that drywall on or before you sell it to someone or before someone moves in. With building a business or investing, there aren't any of those things. So really it's like the wild, wild west. You can pour the slab and then build a five story house and then wonder why it crumbles to the ground. That's kind of business, right? People don't understand sometimes that you have to build that foundation. And that is really tough sometimes for really good entrepreneurs because a lot of good entrepreneurs like to create and ideate. They're not really solid with follow through and they certainly don't love to plan. But what really separates the good entrepreneur from the great entrepreneur, from the success to having sustainable success, is the ability to lay the foundation. And January is a phenomenal month to do this. So how do we do that? Number one, reflect and review. Start by reviewing your previous year. Year. You can review quarters at a time and months, but man, there is nothing like reviewing an entire year to analyze what worked, what didn't, and why. And really use this data to understand your business's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. And this is where I always deploy a SWOT analysis. And if you haven't done this, you can literally google SWOT analysis and go to the images. There's probably a ton of them there you can just print out. I actually have one in my book as well. I also have one in the 9% Edge planner that we just released on December 18, which is an action guide to the book, which basically takes what I'm talking to you about right now, but puts it in front of you in paper so that you can take day by day, week by week, month by month. It's for a whole quarter to set you up for your most successful quarter yet. It's in there as well. I love this and this is a really great opportunity to do this. If you haven't and if you do it annually, great. This is when I do it annually. What makes a leader? It's a tough question, but one thing's for sure, a true leader leads by example. And a true leader takes risks. Risks too. They plunge into life with determination. 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Build your Range rover sport@landroverusa.com this is a message from our sponsor Intuit TurboTax Taxes used to be waiting and wandering and worrying if you were going to get any money back and then waiting, wandering and worrying some more. Now taxes is matching with the turbo tax expert who can do your taxes as soon as today. An expert who gives your taxes their undivided attention as they work on your return while you get real time updates on their progress so you can focus on your day. An expert who will find you every deduction possible and file every form, every investment, everything with 100% accuracy, all so you can get the most money back guaranteed. No waiting, no wandering, no worries. Now this is taxes. Get an Expert now on TurboTax.com only available with TurboTax Live full service real time updates only in iOS mobile app. See guarantee details@turbotax.com guarantees so the SWOT is just basic overview, right? Then we really need to get into reviewing the numbers, reviewing your P Ls, reviewing your cash flow statements, reviewing your POs. If you use a point of sale system or a CRM or however you're managing and viewing your sales and depending on the software that you use, is there an option that you can look at your sales that the revenue that it brings in and also to be able to identify the expense of that revenue so you can determine how much profit each of those verticals of revenue or customer segments are actually bringing into the business. Oftentimes entrepreneurs will look at the gross sales that a segment or a vertical is bringing in, or even a customer segment or a product type, but not actually stopping to identify if that is profitable and if there would be a better use of resources and time by eliminating something that isn't highly profitable to the business regardless of how much revenue it brings in and shifting your focus to something that does bring in more profit. Sometimes these little shifts if you do Enough of them can really increase not only your profit, but your business efficiency and the amount of money that you take home that you can then invest into other cash flowing assets. The next thing in the foundational section of really reflecting and reviewing is looking at your marketing strategy, your marketing plan, whether you were doing Google or meta ads, TikTok, networking events, trade shows, whatever it may be, take a look at what you spent and can you identify what revenue came. Now obviously if it's digital marketing, you can see that pretty easily, right? You can see what your return on ad spend is, but also make sure that if you're paying other people to create those ads, to manage those ads, that you also add that in to the total ad spend. So often I see people and ad agencies very creatively only talking about the return on ad spend. Meaning you spent $10,000 in ads and oh, you brought in $25,000 in revenue. But if you're paying that company 12,000 or 10 or 5 to manage your ads and you're paying someone else to create them, and your team time is on the phone managing these different campaigns, that all ties into the overall expense. So make sure that you're not overspending and not actually getting a return on that investment. You know, just last year I think about somebody that was at one of our boardroom events and she was spending a ton of money on Google and on TikTok and all of these different digital ads. And I said to her, I said honestly, I think that the reason that you're having a challenge is that's not where your audience is. And she was bleeding money out of her bottom line trying to do so. I said, you know what I would do is I would join BNI Business Networking Group. If somebody hasn't heard of it, you should Google it. BNI Business Networking International I think is what the BNI stands for. I was like, and you should maybe go there and like go to a couple different types of networking groups like that. And sure enough, she told me the next time I saw her, she's like, oh my gosh, Candy, I actually did it. That's what's so great about working with awesome entrepreneurs when they actually execute the information that you give them. She's like, I did exactly what you said. I stopped spending money on ads, saved thousands of dollars a month, went and joined a couple business groups and ended up getting a six figure contract within months. And that's why it's so important to review your marketing plan to make sure that whatever return you are getting is actually Profitable so that you know whether or not you should adjust it. All right. There's so much more I could, I literally feel like I could do a huge event on just how to set this up. But for the sake of your time, I'm going to get into number two, which is forecast. All right. Now the 9% edge planner has this exactly in there. So you can do this step by step. We take a look holistically at all goals and not just business goals, because again, I've seen so many entrepreneurs that are only focused on business and they don't integrate other areas of their life, their relationships, their kids, their spiritual health, their physical health. And so they go all in on one thing and a lot of other areas start to suffer. So I really like to do more of a holistic goal setting which is across all different areas of your life. And you can also work with. If you don't want to get the planner, you can also get a mandala chart. And again, you can just Google that as well as smart S M A R T, which stands for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time bound goals. The 9% edge planner or the Mandela chart. And these smart goals will help you really identify what you want to accomplish and then how to break it down. I actually call it capture and chunk. I try to keep it a lot simpler, but in order to properly forecast, we really have to break each of these goals into bite sized pieces. And that's really what the smart goals framework does. Now, forecasting in life or in business is really taking a look at best case, worst case, and most likely outcomes for various things. My fractional CFO clients, we always do financial forecasts based off of the data that we have from the business. It's kind of like, okay, based off of this, what do we think that the business is going to do? What clients are coming in, projects are coming in, or product sales and specials, promotions that we've got coming up that we can start to just forecast what potentially could come from that. And then how do we adjust those forecasts throughout the year. And it's obviously like a living, breathing document that is constantly refined. If you don't have something like this, it's. I would highly recommend that you start if you're working with a bookkeeper. Depending on the firm that you're working with, they may be able to help you with this. It is a little more advanced. You could always reach out to us and see if it's something that we could help you with. But having a financial forecast is like the turn by turn direction when you get in your car and you're going to a destination. In this scenario, the foundation is your destination, your address, right? That's where you are deciding. This is where I want my life to go, my business to go, my finances to go, my investing, my relationships, my health. This is where I want it to go. You outline a forecast in order to understand what are some potential roadblocks. These are your step by step, your turn by turn directions that comes from having this plan. And then how do you measure knowing that you're getting there or that you're closer or that you're far away? That is where KPIs come in. Key performance indicators. Every single goal that you have, whether it's monthly revenue or customer acquisition cost or marketing expenses or employee performance metrics like revenue by employee or productivity and efficiency, whatever it may be, you want to develop just a minimum of three. And don't overdo it. Because sometimes, unless your business is already doing 25 million or more, you don't want to have dozens of KPIs that you measure. You want to keep it simple. Because if it's simple, we can duplicate it, we can identify it, and we can talk about it. Making sure you understand your KPIs so that everyone on your team, depending on what position they're in, understands what they are and knows what's being monitored, will really help you overall get there.