EP # 186 - Staying Focused and Aligned: Monthly to Quarterly Business Success

Discover the secret sauce behind consistent business growth! 
In this power-packed episode, Maggie Perotin reveals how successful business owners consistently hit their goals monthly and quarterly. Learn the exact system to transform your business from reactive to strategically driven.

🔑 Key Takeaways:

• Why do some businesses consistently grow while others struggle with basic to-do lists
• The importance of strategic alignment from monthly activities to annual goals
• How to implement effective monthly GPS check-ins
• The power of quarterly vision alignment
• Real success story: How a lease audit business doubled its revenue using this system

📋 Implementation Checklist:

1. Schedule monthly reviews (1-3 hours) in the first week of each month
2. Document what's working and identify success patterns
3. Perform quarterly alignment checks
4. Plan resource allocation strategically
5. Establish and track success metrics (both financial and operational)

💡 Monthly GPS Check-in Questions:

• What patterns are emerging in our success?
• How do these align with our quarterly objectives?
• What adjustments are needed to stay on course?

🎯 Action Steps for Listeners:

1. Review your 2025 strategic plan
2. Map out February goals aligned with Q1 objectives
3. Create a tracking system for measuring progress
4. Schedule your monthly GPS check-in

If you're ready to stop leaving your business success to chance and want to implement a proven system that drives consistent growth, let's connect!

As your business coach, I'll help you master the T.O.P. CEO Formula. This powerful framework not only scales your business but transforms it into a sellable asset while giving you more freedom to enjoy life.

Through our partnership, you'll get the strategic guidance, accountability, and expert support needed to turn your business vision into reality.

Don't let another month or quarter slip by without the right systems in place.
Book your complimentary strategy call today, and let's map out your path to sustainable success. Your future self will thank you for taking this step!

Connect with Maggie:
IG - https://www.instagram.com/maggie.perotin.s2l/
LinedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/maggie-perotin-business-and-leadership-coach/
Website - https://stairwaytoleadership.com/

Transcript

Hello, my dear listeners to Diamond Effect podcast, business owners and CEO. My name is Maggie Proraten and I'm your host and today we'll dive into something that can completely transform how you run your business. As long as you implement it. So here is a question I have for you first. Have you ever wondered why some business owners just hit their goals month after month, quarter after quarter, year after year, they grow while some others struggle to go through their to do list every week or every month?

That's why today we're going to crack this code and I'm going to show you exactly how to keep growing your business month after month or quarter after quarter, but especially year after year and master that. So it's repeatable game changer for you. So I see many business [00:01:00] owners run their business kind of ad hoc, like they have this to do list that's driven sometimes by their plans or goals, but very often by what's going on in their business right this moment. They struggle to strategically drive their business and direct their business to continuous growth.

And so it looks like when they do certain things, whether it's marketing or sales or. Team building, it's ad hoc, not thought through. Very often, they don't track the results of what they're doing. They don't even track progress of how whatever actions they're taking, moving them closer to the goals you want to achieve, and hope for good results to happen.

Whereas when you think about professional businesses, larger businesses, even [00:02:00] smaller businesses who already established that they're very methodical and strategic in how they grow. Not only they have strategic plans, but they have quarterly goals, they have proper KPIs, things that they track that tell them exactly whether they're on track or not, and on a regular basis, they review it so they don't leave the results to chance. They take ownership of the results and know quickly if something is not going the way they predicted to then react and change. And that's what we did in my corporate leadership roles in my department.

We had regular monthly meetings, not only with our financial analysts, but operations and our leaders to check how we were doing in comparison to the goals we had set and strategize on a regular basis to ensure that even if, we had a week or a quarter, we could catch [00:03:00] up in the following months by Activities or actions that we took because we did not leave things to chance.

So I want to teach you today how to do it even if you have a small business, even if you're a solopreneur or a small team of 15, 20, 30 people. The most successful businesses have this strategic alignment that happens throughout the year that's driven by their strategic plan. And I talk about strategic planning quite a bit on this podcast. But today I want to focus on your monthly check- ins or at minimum, quarterly check ins.

Once you have your plan broken down into quarters and into monthly actions, and as you implement it, you want to do like a GPS check. So strategic alignment bridging to [00:04:00] make sure that either you're on the right path, or if something took you off the path, you can come back to it. So first, your monthly GPS check ins. They are very crucial, and we talked about them earlier this week in Maggie's Moments, so if you haven't listened to it, please go back and listen to it. It's three minutes, so a very short video. But here is the magic. Every month, each monthly review should answer these three key questions for you.

What patterns are emerging in our success? So when we're getting the result that we want. Why are we getting them? How are we getting them? Is there something repeatable that we can keep repeating and maybe just getting better, right? How do these align with our quarterly objectives? As we have those monthly successes, where are they taking us in terms of our [00:05:00] quarters and what we planned for?

And then, what are the things that might not be working exactly how we want them? What adjustments do we need to do to come back on course and stay on course?

Now, let's talk about quarterly vision alignment. This is where Some business owners miss the mark. Your quarter isn't just about three months stuck together. It's a strategic chunk of progress throughout the year that leads you towards reaching your annual goals. 

Let me give you an example with one of my clients who had a lease audit business, and they were doing okay with planning, but were stuck in like high five figure revenue. But when we implemented the strategic alignment system month to quarter, quarter to a year, something incredible happened, because she started seeing patterns in her client [00:06:00] acquisition, especially that her client acquisition cycle was longer. She wasn't catering to individuals who were making purchasing decisions very quickly. She was dealing with organizations where that purchasing cycle lasted sometimes few months. 

So how she adjusted to match with her monthly and quarterly goals and implemented that alignment within six months, she crossed the six figure revenue mark and ultimately at the end of the year, she doubled her business. With today's episode, I want to encourage you to implement those monthly check ins in your business. 

And here is your implementation checklist to help you do just that. 

Your monthly reviews, schedule them for the first week of each month. And depending on the size of your business, there can be anywhere from an hour to three hours a month.

[00:07:00] That's not that much given that this is really your CEO time where you will move your business forward because you're working on the business, not in the business. Then document, of course, as you're doing that review, what's working and why, so you can recognize certain patterns. You know exactly how you're growing the business, which strategies are working, so you can get better, maybe put more resources into it. You can spend more time or more money or automate certain things for them to work even better for you. 

Then you want to do this quarterly alignment checking. So looking, okay, if I'm now planning for the following month, let me just make sure that I'm aligned with my quarterly goals and annual goals.

Next step is: Once you have the plan for the month, then think about resource [00:08:00] allocation. Maybe you've added a project that you're going to work on. How are you going to allocate your time, energy, money? And when you have a team, how are you going to delegate certain parts of that to your team members? 

And then, of course, make sure you have success metrics. So you're checking how you're progressing. You're tracking and checking, and those are not only financial metrics, but also operational metrics, and you want to be able to track them monthly, and then quarterly, of course, and annually. Now you may be thinking, okay, Maggie, that sounds great, but I don't have time. I barely have time to plan my day, not to mention doing weekly planning as you teach me and then now monthly planning. And all I want to say that, yeah, we never have time for things that are not urgent, because time just fills up [00:09:00] itself with busy day to day things.

You need to create time, and it's possible because I know how to do it, and I teach my clients how to do it. When you create time, it will pay off itself, not only in amazing results, but actually in less issues and will save you time down the line.

I remember when I was Just in the reactive mode in my corporate career before I implemented my planning habits that I'm teaching you right now. I was just going off of the to-do-list, ticking things off, but usually adding more every day to my list. Always felt overwhelmed, never progressed as much as I wanted in my goals, but when I finally put a stop to that and created that strategic alignment going from my annual goals to quarterly to then monthly [00:10:00] goals and then weekly planning my actions and then starting to review with my superiors, with my partners and finance.

I could lead my team better. They were accomplishing more things. They were becoming more effective, but also as a leader, I was more effective. I got more things done. Without actually adding time to my schedule. And it got to the point where I wasn't overworking anymore because we were moving forward so effectively.

So those things work. Yes, in the beginning, it might take intention, it might need help from a coach. to put those things together and shift your schedule accordingly, but the way you will transform your business and also how you work in it and how you feel will be incredible. Through planning, it's not about just Adding that [00:11:00] time to whatever you're already doing, but actually converting some of the time that you're probably wasting, being busy and maybe doing things that shouldn't be done at all, into that proactive work on your business, that will help you move forward so much faster, with less overwhelm and less stress.

So here is what I want to encourage you to do right after listening to this short episode this week. Pull out your 2025 strategic plan before it starts collecting any dust. Now look at your quarter one goals and map out February. And if you're not ready to do it now, at least schedule that one, two, three hours early next week and do it then. 

And then also create a tracking system or decide or some measurement metrics that will tell you whether you're progressing in the right direction. And then have a way to [00:12:00] track it. So during those monthly GPS check ins, you can quickly look at that.

Success isn't built in one day or a month or even a quarter, it's built through consistent strategic actions that's aligned with your bigger vision and as a CEO, that's our job to balance the short term needs of the business and the, bringing in money in the cash flow and so on.

And while directing the business to that long term vision. And if you're ready to take your business to the next level and you know that without help and support you're not going to implement what needs to happen and you also want another brain to think and help you through strategy and potential improvements, I can help. My top CEO formula, it's a very powerful tool to help you scale your business, set it up as a sellable asset, [00:13:00] and also enjoy life while doing so.

So all you need to do is book a free strategy call with me. I always share the link in the show notes and let's talk about it. And if this episode resonated with you, I would love to hear your biggest takeaway. So share it on LinkedIn or on Instagram, tag me. I'll leave my links to my social media in the show notes as well.

Have a fantastic week and see you next week.