SMME EP403 Why Planning is the Most Important Factor of Future Success

3:14PM Apr 28, 2025

Speakers:

Keywords:

Planning

spa marketing

leadership

business skills

Google Calendar

command center

weekly reviews

annual planning

next level growth

virtual training

time management

financial goals

business projections

pen and paper

digital information.

Welcome to Spa Marketing Made Easy, a podcast for spa owners who want to step up their leadership and business skills and step into the role as spa CEO. I'm your host. Daniela Woerner, CEO of Addo Aesthetics and Founder of the Growth Factor Framework Program, where we teach, coach and guide spa owners in scaling their spas to the next level of growth and unlocking freedom in their life and their business. I'm so glad you're here now. Let's dive into the show.

Hello, my dears, Daniela here and welcome to another episode of the spa marketing Made Easy podcast. Now I don't think it comes as any surprise for those of you who've been listening for a while that I am a SERIOUS planner, and this is not just in my professional life, but also in my personal life. My husband actually jokes that when we first met and we were going on vacation, I'm the type of person that wants to map out like, this is what we're doing this day, and this is what we're doing this day. And he who has lived such a structured life all the time, you know, being in the military, he wanted his vacations to be spontaneous and without plan. And so our compromise was, I actually planned spontaneity. So we went through and I said, Okay, this is what we're doing this day. This is what we're doing this way, and here is our day to be spontaneous. So that's who you're listening to right now, that type of person now, I spent 10 years with my husband while he was active duty, which meant a lot of moves, and that takes a lot of planning. He's been retired from active duty service for about two years now, but the past couple of years, and this year in particular, he was on travel for 80% of the time, not fun, definitely not fun, but without proper planning, not possible. So he's, you know, good news, he's moving into a new job now where travel is minimal, so the whole family is super excited about that. But the thing is, we all have these different parts of our lives, our businesses, our kids, our relationship with our spouse or partner, our relationship with our parents, our hobbies, our interests, we're pulled in so many different directions, which ultimately can make us feel like we're failing at all of them because we're not giving enough of ourselves, or what we define as enough to do incredibly well at any of them. Now maybe you want to take your daughter to dance every Wednesday, or maybe you want to leave work at two each day so you can pick your daughter up from school. Maybe you want a date night once a week with your spouse or partner. Maybe you want to learn how to play the cello. I don't know. You must plan to make time for these things. You've got to be intentional with how you're spending your time. Now, I know everyone on the planet has heard the Taylor Swift album and in one of her songs, and I'm not remember, I'm not sure which album this is, but it's one of the more recent ones that came out. She has this one song, but says, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. And I listened to that song, and I was like, Yes, ma'am, guarantee that that woman is planning years in advance that is an absolute must to accomplish her level of success. So you know and agree that planning is important, but you don't do it because you don't know, or at least you don't know how to do it in a way where you actually stick with the plan, and you don't want to spend all this time and energy creating a plan only to never look at it. Well, here's a couple of things that really help with that you need one centralized area where you can understand what is happening in all facets of your life. For me, this is Google Calendar. So I have a work calendar. I have a shared calendar with my husband. I have a kid stuff calendar, I have a food calendar. I can toggle on and off each of those calendars if it gets too busy when I'm looking at it digitally. Now this is kind of a whole new level, but we also in our home, have what we call a command center, and so we have everything digitally on Google Calendar, but we also have a command center that's like, lets you know, okay, this is what's happening each week. And here's the more detail, because, you know, sometimes your kids school will send home printouts of the calendar. Here's the picture, day, flyer, whatever. So we've got our calendar up there so we know what's going on throughout the week, and then we also have any important supporting material. So it that kind of couples with my next piece of advice is that you've got to do calendar reviews on a weekly basis. Now maybe you have a busy week at work and you need your spouse. To handle something that you typically handle. Are there any events at your kids school that may adjust your typical routine? So you're looking at all of these different pieces that are coming up. Because when we do our annual planning, you're setting out these recurring tasks. You're setting out the things that can be predictable, but there's always the things that get sprinkled in, right? So I meet with Christy once a week and Kyle once a week. So Christy is my administrative assistant. She handles all basically anything related to my calendar or what I'm actually doing. She is in charge of that, and so we have a meeting once a week where I can talk about anything related to Calendar, what's coming up, you know, all of that. So we're checking in with each other once a week. Then with my husband, we're doing this also once a week, usually on a Sunday, to make sure that everybody's on the same page and to account for the things that get added in, like, like, oil changes or doctor appointments or, you know, I'm thinking right now as I'm recording this, there's like, a breakfast at my kids school that I didn't know about that now is on the calendar, right? So all of these things that kind of pop up that you weren't necessarily aware of, oh, kids birthday parties, right? That those that's like a full time job is going to all these birthday parties. So you need to have a weekly check in with the appropriate people for those different facets of your life. You also need to reflect on what's working and what's not working with your schedule. Are you not giving yourself enough time to commute, or maybe you're not getting your workout in? Whatever it may be, we've got to reflect on that on a quarterly basis as well as an annual basis, as to what works well for us in this season of life and what doesn't. And that may shift year by year. It may shift quarter by quarter. It's important that we're checking in with ourselves. And one of the biggest things that I find is like, I'm usually up by sometime between five and six, and I don't leave the house until seven, but that morning time from five to seven, I'm getting myself ready. I'm getting my kids ready. I'm doing breakfast, you know, when I first started doing this, I would throw my workout in there and thinking, I'm gonna get this hour workout uninterrupted, you know? And then I realized that with kids and lunches and dogs and all these things, I'm awake, I'm just busy during that time, and it's just a time that gets blocked out as busy time on the calendar, not a time that I'm gonna get anything productive done. All right. Now, the beautiful thing is that you have the power to shift what's working and what's not. So when you're reflecting on, hey, what is working for me, or what is not, or I need more time for this, or I need to be done at this time, or I have a hard stop here, or, you know, whatever it may be, you get to change that. So next week, we are hosting a free virtual training called next level growth, and it is all about planning for the new year, for 2025 my friends, can you believe that? So we're going to dive into how to get clear on what it is that you truly want in life and business, so that we can build a business that supports those desires. Now, one of the trainings that I'm super excited about, that I'm going to be doing, is called How to create the schedule of your dreams with Google Calendar. And I'm going to get in there. I'm going to show you the technical side of Google Calendar. I'm going to show you how to create different calendars, how to color code them. And the reason this is so important, well, actually, there's multiple reasons that this is so important this specific training. First and foremost, you are a better CEO when you are balanced, when you're not rushing from one place to the next, and when you actually have time to sit down and have lunch. I mean, what a novelty, right? But it's actually really, really important. So one of the easiest shifts you can make is ensuring that you're eating regularly, that you're moving your body, that you're sleeping. Well, these are simple things that will make you more clear headed, which I believe will help you to solve bigger problems and accomplish bigger goals. The other reason is that it's going to give you a clear idea of how much time you have to dedicate to your business, right? We've got to build the business around the life we want to live. We need to understand how much time do I have for that. So from there, we're going to look at your financial goals. We're going to ensure that you're focusing on the right services, or maybe you need to adjust your offerings. Maybe. Be you need to adjust your timing, maybe you need to adjust your pricing, maybe you need to adjust the actual services that you're offering. Right? There's a lot of pieces there, but we're, we're putting all those pieces together to help you plan for your best year yet. All right, now I just want to say,

I know the level of joy that comes from getting a new paper planner. I know it. It's a rush. You might even have color coded pens. You might have stickers. They'll hold nine yards. I will never take that joy away from you. I understand what a pleasure it is to get a new planner and have all the intentions to make it so pretty and beautiful, spoken from a true pen and paper gal myself, use the planner. Color in it, write in it, you know, put your stickers in there, but ensure that you have the information digitally as well. This is something that I'm doing on a weekly basis. I take all that. If you guys are in any of our coaching programs, you know that you'll see me on Zoom and people are saying something, and I'm writing it down, not because I am, you know, going to send a follow up email or anything like that. I write it down, because it helps me remember when I there's something in the act of that pen to paper that kind of solidifies it in my memory. And that's really important for me, because as I'm coaching week after week, month after month, year after year, I remember what they told me on that call, because I wrote it down. If I don't write it down, I literally don't remember. So it's super, super important. I value pen and paper very much. I also just understand how vitally important it is to have the information digitally to help you to understand how you can set your business and your life up in a way that works for you. Okay, I promise it will make your life so much easier. So come hang out with me on Monday, October 21 it's from 10 to two Eastern time. It is going to be super workshop style. We are going to be on Zoom, and we're just going to be getting serious about planning, planning out your time and, of course, your business projections. So planning is truly one of my favorite, favorite, favorite things to do. There's going to be a link below this episode. I hope you get registered, and I cannot wait to see you there. As always. If you want to keep the conversation going, I want you to head on over to the spa. Marketing Made Easy. Facebook group, the number one free resource out there for estheticians focused on business building. We've got weekly marketing tips, a monthly goal setting and planning session, monthly esthetician business book club, plus a community of 1000s of estheticians committed to business building in the spa industry. I'll see you there.