Podcast Episode

TRANSCRIPT

Hello and welcome back to the Sales Show. My name is Maree Kirkpatrick, and by goodness, am I glad to be back for 2025. I want to bring you some amazing guests in 2025. I want to give you some really great tips and strategies. But let's kick off by first, let me say Happy New Year. Now, I'm probably not the first person to say that to you. I'm probably like the 50 billionth Earth person, but Happy New Year. I can't believe we've made it to 2025. And I'm super pumped to see what is in store for not just you, my listeners, but also our beautiful clients in her sales club and my VIP clients, as well as my own business.

We've got some really big goals that we are striving for in 2025. Let's address the biggest thing at the moment that's happening. Good old month of January, that month where you kind of don't know what day it is at the start. The month where you are setting goals, potentially you're getting really clear on what you want 25 to look like, feel like, what you want to accomplish, and all that. But let me tell you something: if I see one more vision board or one more Instagram feed with things that people are looking to achieve, I might scream. The reason why is because it's one thing to just kind of hope that we get stuff or that we are like, Yeah, I want to get this or I want to do this in 2025. But my true question to you is, what is your plan? What is your strategy behind that? And what do you need to do to really kick those goals and kick hard?

So this year we're going to be doing things a little bit differently. I want to say forget the fluff, but I'm not sure I've really done much fluff. So I want to forget the fluff and the wishful kind of thinking of I'm gonna meditate, and I'm really gonna like draw things into me, and I'm just gonna sit back and wait for things to come to me. No, that is not what we do here. We are looking to give you some really clear strategies and tips that are going to help you strive and really go for the things that you really want to. When I was doing my goal-setting session for myself there, I did a brain dump of 50 or 100 things that I would like to achieve in 2025. Now this is a time where I let my brain go crazy. There's no filtering it, there's no setting timelines, and there's no being realistic about it. It's just a complete brain dump of everything that I would love to happen in 2025. Will they all happen? I don't know. They've never happened. I've never had all 100, or I think it's 50. All 50 happen in one year. But what it does is it allows me to get really clear on what it would. What if I could wave a magic wand? What would that look like? And then from that I want to look at what those clear goals are that I'm looking for.

So today I want to give you three things to truly unlock your 2025. So I want to talk about how to set those massive goals, clear goals with a real plan to achieve them. I want to go through how to stay consistent without losing your mind or your Netflix subscription. And I want to talk about how you can land more clients with strategies that actually work. When I went through our planning day with our WHO sales club members and I gave them the annual sales accelerator planner, one of the ladies said to me, Wow, this is so sexy. And she has bought planners year on year on year from all over the place. She's bought business planners, she's bought life planners, she's bought diaries, she's bought it all. And to see that her visions are so clear and she's got the action steps towards that for me gives me a warm fuzzy feeling because for everyone, every single woman in business, I want you to succeed. I don't want you to keep hitting your head against the same wall. I don't want you to be self-doubting about where you're at and what's actually going on for you and how you get to those goals in your business.

So here's the kicker. Throughout this episode, I'm going to share a secret weapon that I've already mentioned that will make your goal setting and your strategy so much clearer. And it is, as I said, the sales accelerator and your planner. And it's not just some fancy diary. It's not some fancy notebook. It's not just something that you fill in at the start of the year and then put away and never look at again. It's actually a daily diary with note sections, goal planning, strategy, and the side of it. We look at your cash calendar and what that looks like for you to bring in more cash in 2025. So it's really that blueprint to actually smash a goal, staying on track and making sure that this year doesn't. This year's not just about you growing; it's actually about you exploding and exceeding your expectations and what that really looks like for you. And so you will have the opportunity to purchase the sales planner, the sales accelerator, and your planner, if you would like. It's only $49. And some people have said to me, Wow, Maree, $49, that's quite expensive for a planner or a digital planner. Here's the thing. How much is it worth for you to have a really clear strategy? Your goals are mapped out, broken down into monthly goals, weekly goals, and actionable steps for you to take so that you know how much money you're going to be bringing in and what steps you need to take to generate that income. And you've got a really clear. Yeah, it's a blueprint, I guess, of what each month looks like for you in 2025. So it's not just about keeping on that rat race or being on the hamster wheel, I should say, of constantly just thinking about how am I going to get more clients, how am I going to bring in more cash? We actually have a plan for that, so stick around, and I'll let you know how to get that. But let's get into the big goals, the big action steps that you can take.

The first piece of that puzzle is setting goals that don't suck. When I say goals that don't suck, I mean it's not setting goals so that you fail. It's about setting goals that are achievable. It's about setting goals that light you up so that by. It's not by the end of February that you're born, and you're over it, and you're looking for the next shiny object. What I see people do is, and this happens throughout the whole year, and when people aren't really clear on what their goals and their strategy are, they keep buying the shiny objects. They keep going, Oh, I need that course. Oh, I need to go and work with that person. And they're literally throwing money at what they think are going to be the solutions. But if they have that clear plan and your clear goals already mapped out, you know where you'll be spending your money. You know where your gaps are in your business. You know what those next steps are that you need to take. So we don't want goals that are flimsy or New Year resolutions or New Me, New You, New Year, New Me, or whatever it is. And it's not just about having, like, fluffy goals of, like, I want to get more clients in 2025. I want to know if you are aiming for one new client or 100 new clients. make more money in 2025.

Well, that's all great. But what does that actually mean? Are you aiming for one new client or 100 new clients? dollars or more money of like an extra $100 thousand dollars, $50,000? And I want to be so clear that when you set those goals, it's like, right, I want to be making 35k a month consistently. I want to be making 50k consistently. I want to be hitting 5k consistently, whatever that number is for you. And I don't want it just to be like, Oh, here's like a random number that I think I can get to. Let's program it out and know how many of your programs you need to sell, how many of your VIP strategies you need to sell, what sort of funnel you need, and how you are filtering the conversion rate. your sales process to have that high conversion rate? So I know you've probably all heard before about what I want you to do, which is step two and reverse engineer your goals. smart goals and things like that, but I want to kind of just really narrow it down and make it less like stock standards, less cookie cutter. So the first thing when you set a goal is to be really freaking specific, not like get more clients, as I said, not like 100k. You want to know what success looks like for that goal. Instead of saying you want to grow your business, go something along the lines of I want to sign 20 new clients by the end of June, or I want five new clients a month, or I want to increase my database by 10% month after month.

Clarity will give you so many more action steps for you to implement. And then what I want you to do is step two and reverse engineer your goals. Once you've set that big, juicy goal, ask yourself what has to happen to get there. So let me give you a prime example, and I'm going to open the curtains to the back end of my consulting firm. When I did my annual plan, I set a goal for annual revenue. And so I was like, yep, great, this is what I want to achieve. I then worked out how much that means for me in my pocket because my business and I are financially separate. I want to know what sort of profit that drives in. I want to know what sort of tax I'll be paying, what sort of cash flow I have for expenses, and all that sort of stuff, right? And so once I hit that revenue goal or jotted it down, I was like, okay, let's, for example, say it's $500,000 for 2025. I then went through the spreadsheet of how many members I want to have in her sales club and how many VIP offers I want to be selling. What sort of offers am I going to be creating? If I'm creating new offers for 20, 25, like, what does that all look like? And you want to reverse engineer. When I did this, I was not even halfway to my financial goals. So, for example, if my goal was 500,000, when I actually put in how many of each product or offer I wanted to sell, I was sitting at about 2, 20, and 2:50.

Now, you don't have to be a genius to realise that there's a big difference between 250 and 500,000. And so for me it was like, right, what do I need to do to get to that 500,000? Do I need to sell more? Do I need to increase my prices? Do I need to look at other offers that I'm going to be creating? What do I actually need to do? And because I could reverse engineer it, it made it so much clearer what that looks like. So I've then taken those goals for specific offers for VIPs for her sales club and broken it down into what do I need to do to market that, to get that number into our programs, our memberships into VIP services. And then step three is actually mapping it out. So this is where the planner comes in beautifully, and it becomes like your bible. It's something that I carry around with me all the time. I know some people think it can sound a little bit crazy, but I actually take mine on school pickup. And when I'm sitting in line, I'm writing things down, I'm planning things out, I'm mapping things, I'm tracking things. It's literally like my bible. And so it's built to take your yearly goals and break them down into those monthly priorities and then into your weekly actions. It's like your GPS for your success, and you know exactly what your next steps are. It then also means that you can go back, and when you do your CEO dates, you can see what's worked in that month, what hasn't worked in that month, what you need to be more consistent with, and what you need to tweak and optimise for your sales to be high converting. And I just want to also have a little bit of a rant for a minute. Can we talk a little bit about, like, the manifest, your dream trend thing that I see happening? I love a good intention-setting session as much as anyone else. I meditate, I do abundance work, I do money work, and I do all of that. But if your plan is just to vibe your way to the next income goal for you or to that next growth level for you within your business, You're going to really struggle, and you're going to find yourself looking for different avenues to do stuff where I believe you need a plan, not just a visual side of it. We don't just want to have the pretty pictures and the hopes. We will actually want to have that plan that we can execute in 2025.

Step two is looking at consistency. Now one of my words for 2025 is actually consistency. And this goes across finances, investing, health, business, family, relationships, all of it. I think consistency is really friggin sexy. So not so glamorous. But it is a huge secret to success. I don't even think it's a secret. I just think some people go, Oh yeah, I'll start with consistency. And then we don't actually end up being consistent, which sucks. I actually got a bangle made. I actually got two bangles made. I got a gold one and a silver one to use, you know, for the wardrobe and stuff. And it means that every time I want to not do something or every time I want to pull back and not implement something or say that I'll do it later, I literally look at my hand, and I'm like, Oh, consistency, damn it, I've actually got to go and do it. That comes to my exercise, that comes to the business, that comes to podcasting, that comes to client work, it comes to consistency in my family, with my kids, and quality time and all of that. But here's the thing. Consistency isn't always exciting; it's not always sexy. But it brings results. I know it brings results. Sometimes I smack myself in the head and think, Maree, you know what works? You know if you do things regularly that it works. So why don't you do it? Like, what do you need to do to have that consistency? Hence why I got bracelets made for 2025.

But let me give you a few quick tips on how you can make consistency your superpower. So number one is to create micro habits. So break down those big tasks into tiny little ones that you can do either daily or weekly and that you can actually track and map out. Maybe it's 15 minutes of lead generation on outreach, or maybe it's 10 minutes of follow-up every day or every week. Or maybe it's just sending one personal email. Personalised, not personal. Well, it can be personal too, but personalised email every morning to touch base with someone to check in to see how you can help serve them and move them forward. Number two when it comes to consistency is tracking your progress.

Now, I am not a raging fan of spreadsheets, but I love to see data. I love to see what's working for people and what's not working. And the only way you can really see that is by tracking. Track your progress. So every week, take five minutes to check in. If you're a coffee drinker, sit down and grab yourself a cup of coffee, or I don't drink coffee; I wish I did sometimes, but I will go and take myself out for a hot chocolate. I will take my planner with me, and I will be able to go through and see what cat was made during that week, what activities I did, what didn't get done, what did work, what didn't work, what's currently working, and what's not working. And all of that is built into the sales accelerator planner, and it has those weekly check-ins built in to keep you accountable. So I put my CEO dates in there. I have a goal; there's a goal section, a monthly goals section, a weekly goals section, and then there are the steps down the side of what you need to do with checkboxes. Everyone loves a good checkbox, right? And so you really want to track what's going on, what needs to be done, and what. And it's not always what needs to be done. From a client work perspective. Right. I am the first to admit that sometimes I do get stuck on working in the business, on a lot of client work, because when someone comes and works with me as a VIP or in her sales club, I take it personally. I don't know, some people like, oh, business isn't personal. Yeah, friggin is for me, and I'm not even going to be sorry for that. And so for me, I need to actually make sure that I'm planning the business stuff, the business growth, the next steps, the 10X actions, and things like that as well. And then number three is plan for the chaos. So life happens. At the moment I'm in the middle of school holidays, and not just school holidays, but daycare holidays as well. So everyone is home. Absolutely everyone is home. So for me it's about planning what needs to happen and what my main priorities are around all the chaos. If you've already got your priorities mapped out and backup plans written down, you're less likely to give up when things get messy. Let me give you a prime example.

This podcast that I am delivering to you at the moment, I'm recording in the evening because my house at the moment is hectic during the day, between babies, toddlers, and school-aged kids. It's all happening, and it's noisy, and it's sometimes stimuli overwhelming. So I have planned some time in the evening to be like, What do I need to achieve for things to keep moving, and what are those really must-do priorities? Not all the things, just those key, needle-moving things that are going to move everything forward. And let's be honest, people don't tend to fail or not hit their targets and goals because they're lazy. They fail because they don't have a plan or a system. Maybe it's a plan and a system that is also about making sure that we're planning for the humanness that we have. The overwhelm, the fatigue, the couldn't be bothered. Sometimes it creeps in. But consistency isn't always about being that superhuman. It's about having the plan and sticking to it even when we don't feel like it, because we know that those are the steps that are going to move us forward. And then in section three, let's look at getting more clients. The holy grail of business. And I know that I've harped on about this in so many podcasts, in so many masterclasses, and in so much with my clients, that the way to grow your business is to get more sales, to get more clients. Because at the end of the day, goal setting can be amazing. But if you're not bringing people in that are going to pay you, if you're not going to onboard beautiful, paying, connected clients that you want to work with, your business isn't going to go anywhere. So the best way for you to get more clients, I believe in 2025, is to focus on that connection. Send people personalised messages; don't send people through ChatGPT-generated emails that aren't tailored to your brand or to just random template-type stuff. We want to get personal; we want to get connected; we want to follow up with people in a space of I know where you're at; I know how I can help you, and here are some steps to move you forward. People buy from people that they know, like, and trust—people that are their people. I've asked people in the past what makes them want to work with me, and they'll say, Oh, you just said this one thing that's like, She's my people. And I think one of my clients said to me the other day, it was when I said something like, You don't want to work with Muppets, and she was like, Yeah, I don't want to work with th Muppets." She's my person. That for me is personalised. That for me is like, I know you don't want to be working with everyone. I know you may think at times that you need to work with everyone because you've got financial goals, but it's about working with the right people, and the best way to do that is to connect with your people. The second thing that I want you to do is to look at giving people a reason to act. Now let's talk to them about their benefits, the benefits of working with you, the outcomes that they're going to get, and the feelings and emotions that they're going to have from working with you. Not just coming by this, but actually the real results and momentum that they're looking for. And that's going back to your messaging. What are people saying that they're looking for? What are they thinking about? What are the conversations that they're having in their head that makes them go, Do you know what? That's what I need. And that's the step forward that I need to take. Make sure that it's really authentic, though. I remember when I was lining up to do even these podcasts at the moment that I'm talking to on, I thought, wow, it's got to be like polished, and it's got to be this, and it's got to be that. And then I thought, well, I'm not always that polished. Surprise, surprise. If anyone's been to any of my masterclasses, I get ranty, I get passionate, I get. I get intense about stuff, and I used to apologise for it, and I'm not anymore. Because that, for me, is authentic. Maree. I am who I am. I'm not going to change for anyone. I am really clear on what it is that I stand for, and I'm willing to make a change in the industry of women in business. I don't want people to keep buying things that aren't going to drive them forward. I want people to learn how to sell and to have that life skill.

So no matter what it is that you're selling, that framework is still there; that skill set is still there about what you need to do and how you do it to get across to your ideal client. And then number three on how to get more clients for 2025 is pretty freaking obvious, but it's to deliver insane value, right? Free resources, masterclasses, webinars, rants, lives, whatever that is for you. Show up the best way that works for you and your clients. So I remember I had a, you know, good old memories show up from, I don't know, maybe eight years ago. And I remember being on this business retreat when I started one of my first businesses. And it was one of the e-commerce businesses that we had. And I remember going to this retreat to focus on the business and blah, blah, blah. I had a small human at that stage as well. He was my firstborn. And I remember sitting down and talking to a lady that I had met many, many, many years ago and who has been a huge influence on me, learning to sell and teaching women how to sell. And I remember her sitting down next to me at dinner one night or having a glass of wine. And she said, I don't understand, Maree. I've known you for a little while, and I don't understand why you have a business where you are behind a computer and you're not the face of the brand. And it's not really, I don't know, I just don't get this vibe that it's you. And I was like, Oh, I was gutted. And I wasn't gutted because of what she was saying to me. I was gutted because I knew what she was saying was true. And it sucked. It really sucked to the point where I went back to my room that night and I cried. There's no sugarcoating it. I bawled my eyes out. I was crying in the shower. I was frustrated. I'd spent all this money on going to this retreat. And what I really needed to do was to sit down with myself and be like, How do I want to show up in this world? How do I want to show up in business? And I turned to her and I said, I actually want to be doing something similar to what you do and helping business owners from a sales perspective and a business growth perspective.

She was like, What are you waiting for? And I was like, "Don't." I went home. And then I remember going home. This is like a little sidetrack. I remember going home, and hubby was like, Hubby always wants me to get the most out of stuff, especially when he's got to look after small humans on his own. He's like, You better love whatever it is that you're doing or get a lot out of it, because I am on the firing line with small humans. And so he was like, How was it? And I. And I started crying. And he was like, "What?" This isn't really what I was expecting. And I said, I've got to change what I do. Like, this isn't the real authentic me. And he was like, okay, yep, cool, let's do it. Let's go for the ride. And hence, Maree Kirkpatrick Consulting was born a little while later. It wasn't just you who went to the retreat and changed things. Like I. There was a lot of personal growth there for me, but it was like, what do I really want to be doing? What do I want to be delivering in this world? And if you have met me in real life, you will know that I'm so passionate about sales. I'm so passionate about women making money.

Our business supports a local domestic violence shelter because I want women to have that life that every woman deserves. And if she's raising children, I want her to have the financial backing for that as well. So deliver that insane value. Serve the people that need your help. And so that kind of wraps it up for me for today's episode. When it comes to planning, when it comes to goal setting for your 2025, make sure that it's not just writing things randomly down on a piece of paper. Even if you need to do a couple of what I call shitty drafts, like that first brain dump and brain dump and brain dump. And you'll see what those themes are and what those goals are that you want to be achieving. And then go back and think, what are those action steps? What are the goals that I need? What are the quarterly goals, monthly goals, weekly goals, action steps, and all of that? And if you would like some help with that, the sales accelerator planner walks you through all of that. We talk about Topper Funnel marketing channels, we talk about podcasting, we have newsletters in there, and we have cash calendars all ready for you to map it all out and brain dump it through in there. So that is a wrap. If you want 2025 to be the best year yet, you need a clear plan. If you need, if you have that clear plan, then the next step is to really stay consistent, even when it's freaking hard. And then you need to be proactive about bringing in cash and making sales. And as I've said before, I feel like the easiest way to do that is with the 2025 Sales Accelerator Planner. It will give you that roadmap, that accountability buddy, your secret weapon to turning your big goals into huge wins. And for 4 dol 95. For 4 ninears, 95. No, I lie. It's only $49. There you go. You've already saved 95 cents. It's probably the smartest investment you'll make all year. It will save you money by not having shiny object syndrome. Every time someone launches a new course or people are pumping Facebook ads or Instagram ads at you because you're a business owner, it'll be that really clear plan and strategy that you need. So all you need to do is head over to mareekpatrick.com/planner. You can download it there; you can use it digitally. I know some of my clients have popped it onto their I have it on both my remarkable as well as I got it digitally printed. I didn't get digitally printed. I don't even know if that's the thing. I got it printed at our local printer so that I can write on it. Another little tip that I discovered, and he's like, This wasn't even in the plan. But I shared it on her sales club. Because I know in the past I've bought pretty journals or diaries and things like that, and I've been really scared to write in them. And so I was like, what can I do to do this differently? And I was writing out the family calendar. So getting across school holidays, getting across school events, all of that. And if you are a parent, you will know that things change, that plans change, all of that. And so I was like, how can I have a pen there with different colours but also be able to erase it? So I want to find erasable coloured pens so that I can change things up if I need to move things around if things change as well as have that visual. I love pretty things. I love visually pretty things. So go over, head over, and grab it. Mareekirkpatrick.com planner and make 2025 your best year yet.

Thank you for joining me today on the sales show. Now go plan, sell, and dominate 2025.