Ep 237 – Completing the Quarter

Episode Introduction: Month End – Month Beginning

Hello everyone, and welcome to “Mentoring with Geraldine, and the Bite-Sized Podcast”  

Now we’re at the end of the month, which also means we’re at the beginning of the month. There is, as you know, the worksheet in the podcast paperwork. 

So we always ask, what is your biggest win from last month? 

But this month let’s project forward. 

We’re getting on in the year, aren’t we? How did that even happen? 

One minute we’ve got Christmas, and school holidays, and presents, and chocolate, and now we’re coming into chocolate season again. 

But the year is getting on, so we do have to think about what’s happened in this quarter.

We’re three months in.

What is happening? 

• We’re at the end of March.
  • What have we done? 
  • What have we achieved?
  • Where are we going? 
  • What is our next move? 

* Quick Reminder About The Academy

We’ve been doing a lot of masterminds and workshops in The Academy.

In fact, The Academy is about to close, because in April we are working on “Coaching the Client”, and so we are going to close again.

We might reopen for just a little bit, and then we will reopen in August. 

You are going to be thinking:

“Oh, I don’t want to do anything in April because it is Easter and I’m going to be on holiday”. 

Most of it is going to be audio, so most of it you can listen to anyway as you go.

There will be email systems, rather than you trying to be on Facebook, so you can do them when you want to.

It’s all about “Coaching the Client” coming up. 

So I’ve got a lot of work and a lot of time, I’ve got to invest in the creation of a product. 

What’s Geraldine Been up to?:

Now I’ve already created product.

I’ve seen clients I’ve worked with. 

• When I look back at this last quarter (rather than just this last month), I can see:
  • Where my business has changed
  • Where things that I enjoy doing have changed

I’ve started writing a book, so I’ve got very clear objectives of how much I have to get done each quarter so that it is completed by July. So that by August, I can get into the printing process, so that I actually have the product to me, in September all proofread and done. 

So I’ve got some very strict timeframes that I’ve got to work to, coming up. 

Reflecting – Big Things and Small Things:

Yes, we always look back at the end of the month, don’t we? 

But we’ve also got to look forward, because this is an end-of-quarter discussion. 

So what have I achieved this quarter? 

What has gone well?

What hasn’t gone well?

What do I intend to do to recover from what has gone well? What hasn’t gone well? What do I want to move forward on from what has gone well?

If you are watching this on YouTube, you’ll see I’ve got a whiteboard behind me, because we’ve been masterminding in The Academy. 

So those people that I’ve been masterminding with:

Where are you in your ideas system?

You’ve created ideas around programs and packages for your clients, around where your business is going, and so now:

Where is your next step? 

How have you gone when we look back at what you’ve done, in that ‘big picture’ work?

Because when we’re reflecting, we reflect on a ‘small picture’, for instance:

How did that individual consult go?

How did that individual thing go that I created, that product I created?

Or that herbal mix I created

Or that compound I created for a client? 

How did it go for them? 

We ask them, don’t we?

“How did that go for you? 

How did that work for you?”

Well the same thing has to be done with regards our small things: 

How does my new design of my office work for me?

Well, I have to say that I dropped that whiteboard on my foot. 

This new design of my office isn’t really working for me.

 I’m going to have to move things around a bit.

 I’m going to have to gain some more space behind my desk. 

Goals – Last Month, and Projecting Forward:

What are my goals for next month? 

Did I achieve last month’s goals? 

Am I placing myself under too much pressure from last month?

What pressure am I placing on myself? 

What pressure are other people placing on me? 

Journaling. I’m not great at journaling. 

I’m more of a dot point kind of a girl. 

I’ve taken up quite a bit of art recently in the evenings.

I sit in front of the TV and I’ve got some watercolours that I sit there with (and I dropped them all down my front the other night). That was brilliant. 

Again, I need to reflect on the fact that I sent it all down my front and everything had to go in the wash. So I reflected on my space and I’ve got myself a little easel coming that can go on my lap, because I don’t want to get up from the sofa. This is my evening. 

How am I going to change where I am in the space I’m in, to suit my new evening activities?

So it’s, again, it’s reflection. 

I didn’t have to write it down. I just had to think:

“Oh no, I spilled down my front. What am I going to do about this now?”

I could have just shouted a bit and washed my brushes and got changed. 

But I thought – sitting like this isn’t doing anything for me physically, because I’m all scrunched up trying to hold everything – the cat is pretty unhappy because I’ve got a book in his space …

So how can I make this a whole better system for me? 

Sometimes just reflecting on some of the simple things that went wrong …

I’ve got a sore back at the moment, and I know it’s because of how I’m sleeping. 

It’s a very small thing. It’s a bit sore.

The massage therapist will deal with it, and it will be gone …

But this is something I have to reflect on. 

So how can I sleep without that pillow under my shoulder, so that I don’t get this crick in my back, that I wake up with? 

So we’ve got the small things and we have the big things.

For instance the budgeting at the end of the month.

How has my budget worked? 

Those people in The Academy have the budget spreadsheet to work through.

How is my budget going? 

Am I reaching my targets? 

What can I do if I’m not reaching my financial targets? 

1. I can quit. 
2. Or maybe I have to spend a little bit more time in my other job to gain some more money over there
3. Or what can I do differently in this job now:
   1. to offer things differently
   2. to create differently
   3. to develop something differently 

… so that I can earn the money I want within the business that I’m in and I can enjoy it even more.

• Is it that I need to start working with groups because people are being told by the media that things are really tight in their purse. 

It doesn’t matter that things are tight in your purse. You feel if something’s tight in your purse – you don’t need the media telling you 24-7 that your mortgage has gone up, thank you very much. I knew that. I got a message from my bank. 

We’ve placed pressure on ourselves, and others are placing pressure on us. 

There’s external pressure. 

You go to the supermarket and there’s fewer and fewer things in there, because the price is going up on everything. 

So we don’t want to think about that.

We need to think outside the square so that we can still put as many vegetables in there. 

So you can still buy fresh sauerkraut, rather than making it yourself. 

Reflect and Consider Changes:

We do have to look outside of ourselves and think:

Well, what can change?

Is it something really small like my sleeping position, or

Is it something really big like the number of people I have to get into my group?

“Maybe I do have to do that webinar I’ve been talking about and I’ve been cogitating on and thinking about”

Even if no one turns up:

What am I going to do with that information?

Am I going to cry into my socks, or 

Am I going to think:

“Well, no one turned up, because I didn’t advertise it properly”.

“I didn’t tell anyone”

or 

“I’ve advertised it really well. I’ve told everyone. Still, no one came”. 

“What’s wrong?” 

• Let’s speak to some of the people who started to engage, and didn’t finish engaging:
  • It might be the cost
  • but it might also be the name – it wasn’t enticing enough
  • we didn’t talk about the problem and the outcome like we should have

We have to do that reflection 

on what has worked

and what hasn’t

• Since we’re at the end of a quarter
  • What are we going to do going forward? 
  • How are we going to improve things for next month? 
  • Or just change things? 
  • What is it that you need to:
    • Change? 
    • Adjust?
    • Update?

Let’s Review:

This podcast is really all about you. It’s about you. 

Let me think back:

• How did I go with my clients? 
• How did I go with:
  • my ideas?
  • my programs?
  • my packages? 
• What have I, or haven’t I, shared with the world?
• What is it that I need to do, going forward:
  • to gain more traction, or 
  • gain more clients, or 
  • have more eyes on the prize? 
    • I.e. more people seeing my content, even if they’re not purchasing right now, just to increase my list. 
• What are the things that I can do, to do those things?

So I want you to think about that.

I want you to have a little think, and a write down, and maybe check your figures. 

Go back and have a look at your stripe numbers. 

Go back and have a look at your diary. 

• By looking at your diary, things might pop into your head:
  • about what you should or shouldn’t have been doing
  • or about somebody you could follow up
    • Find out why they didn’t purchase

Following up is really important

and making sure that all your follow up systems are in order

Signing Off:

So happy end of quarter, and happy beginning of quarter, and beginning of the new month. I look forward to catching up with you really soon. 

See ya. 

Thanks so much for joining me today. Don’t forget to rate, review and subscribe to the podcast, for the weekly episodes. If you’d like even more support and learning, then The Academy is for you. Here, you’ll find part 2 of the herbal discussions, more clinical learning, and case studies, to support your clients in practice. 

Bye for now.