How to Make 2024 the Greatest Year Ever (with Systems)
Transform business from a random game of chance into a predictable game of inputs and outputs
Prefer to “watch” this newsletter?
Here you go:
Intro
It was 1st of January.
You were pumped.
You’d just set ambitious goals for the year.
Generate your first million of profit.
Build 5 kgs of muscle.
Visit South America.
Meet your future wife.
And so on.
Further, you told yourself that this year was going to be different.
This year, you’d actually stick to your plans, do the work consistently, and make your goals a reality.
Then, one month passed and you were back to grinding at your job working, putting out fires for most of the day; you stopped going to the gym because you’re too busy; you forgot about your plans to visit South America; and regarding women, who has time for that anyway?
Does it sound familiar?
I was like this.
I would start bold and pumped, but after a few weeks, all of my New Year’s resolutions would go down the toilet!
But a few years ago, I came across a way of thinking, a philosophy, that allowed me to stick to my resolutions and make my goals a reality.
It wasn’t one thing.
Rather, it was an amalgamation of different philosophies that revolved around successful people's habits, productivity, psychology, work management, and more.
This framework allowed me to achieve all the goals I set for myself:
To quit college and get a dream job in IT less than 6 months (that was 7 years ago)
To 10x my 9-5 income in less than 4 years (that was 2 years ago)
To quit my 9-5 to start a business that would replace my previous (handsome) income in less than 12 months (that was 3 months ago)
(All of the above were my New Year’s resolutions that became reality)
Further, I’ve battle-tested this framework with my clients to make sure it not only works for me but also for entrepreneurs from different backgrounds & industries.
These two testimonials relate directly to the framework that I’m about to share with you because I received it right after I had implemented it with them:
This framework works so well for making your goals a reality because it leads to greater clarity (”about what I want to achieve and how to get there”), which results in higher effectiveness (”All of this allows me to focus on the things that really matter in my life and business”).
Clarity (I know what I want and how to get it) → Effectiveness (I know what’s important and what’s a distraction) → Results
Today I’ll walk you through this framework.
Excited?
Let’s jump in!
The Process
The process consists of 5 steps:
Define the key areas of your business (and life)
Perform a mind sweep for each area
Define outcomes for each area
Define outputs for each outcome
Define inputs for each output
#1 Define the key areas of your business (and life)
Areas a key spheres of activity with a standard to be maintained over time.
For me, these are:
Processized (my business); it’s further divided into:
Processized | Build (improving my product & service)
Processized | Acquire (getting new leads and clients)
Processized | Deliver (improving clients’ results and satisfaction)
Growth (learning, exploring, improving character)
Relationships (friends, family, networking, romantic)
Health (training & diet)
If you have a business, you can structure it in a more detailed way by the most important “buckets” (like I did with mine) such as:
Acquisition (sales & marketing)
Delivery (onboarding, fulfillment, customer success, etc.)
Operations (finances, legal, HR, etc.)
Scaling
etc.
Creating such “buckets” helps you stay organized—especially in our information-saturated world, where everyone and everything is fighting for our attention.
What are your areas? Define 3-8.
#2 Perform a mind sweep for each area
If you’re like most people, your mind is full of thoughts, ideas, things you need to do, etc.
That’s completely normal. Nobody taught us how to keep our minds nice and clear.
That’s where Mind Sweep comes into play.
It’s an exercise popularized by David Allen which is about “brain-dumping” everything out of your mind until it’s clear.
This act of decluttering your mind not only helps you think better, but, since you can now see your thoughts, gives you a better perspective to judge information, and also makes space for new ideas.
All of this information will be used in the next steps. Treat it as the building blocks of your strategy. These are the “raw” materials that will shape your future strategy.
Action: Since you've identified different areas, perform this exercise separately for each one.
Aim for quantity. Refrain from judging. Let it all out.
This process should take approximately 10-30 minutes.
If you've never done this before, you'll experience a newfound clarity of mind.
#3 Define outcomes for each area
Okay, now it’s time to start organizing.
Outcomes are measurable and timely goals we want to achieve to make progress in an area.
Examples: “Generate 10k MRR from consulting EO 2024Q1”, “Complete a marathon in less than 4h EO 2024”, “Increase client retention rate by 15% EO 2024Q2”
It’s our measure of success.
Action: Define one yearly and quarterly outcome for each area.
By the way, this is where most people stop.
They define their goals thinking that somehow along the way they’ll figure out a way to achieve them.
This is why they fail.
To make an outcome attainable, you must make it tangible.
Just saying you’ll make $1,000,000 of profit this year is too abstract.
It's like saying you'll climb Mount Everest without planning the route or preparing the necessary gear. It's an ambitious goal, but without a detailed and practical approach, it's merely a dream.
This brings us to outputs.
#4 Define outputs for each outcome
An output answers the question, "What do I need to produce to achieve the outcome?"
It is the tangible result or deliverable that brings you closer to your desired outcome.
To better understand, let's use an example:
If my outcome is "Generate 10k MRR from consulting by the end of Q1 2024," I need to ask myself, "What do I need to generate to make this goal a reality?"
You can usually answer this question by reverse-engineering the outcome. For instance:
I aim to generate $10k per month from my consulting services.
Each consulting service costs $2.5k, so I need 4 new clients each month.
My historical data show a sales call close rate of approximately 20%. Thus, I need to book 20 sales calls per month (or 5 per week).
My average booking rate (ratio of booked calls to DMs sent) is 1%, so I need to send 2,000 DMs per month (or 500 per week).
So the outputs are the following:
4 new clients per month (given a 20% close rate) → 1 new client per week
20 sales calls per month (given a 1% booking rate) → 5 sales calls per week
2000 DMs per month → 500 DMs per week
If I produce these outputs, I'm confident I'll achieve my outcome.
By defining outputs, you minimize guesswork in business, transforming it from an unpredictable game of chance to a predictable process of inputs and outputs.
This leads us to the final step of the process—defining inputs.
#5 Define inputs for each output
Outputs can only get you so far because you can’t directly control them (they’re lagging metrics).
You can be manifesting the goal of acquiring 4 clients every single day, but if you don’t do the work required, nothing will change.
That’s why you need to define inputs.
Inputs answer the question “What do I need to do on a daily and weekly basis to generate the outputs?”
I usually like to separate it into on-time and repeating actions.
Let’s look at example inputs for the outputs defined in the previous step
Repeat actions
Send 100 DMs per day (to generate 500 DMs per week)
Iterate every 300 DMs (to keep the booking rate at 1% or higher)
Follow up with everyone who replied (to keep the booking rate at 1% or higher)
Track all objections during each sales calls and create a story to overcome each one of them
etc, etc, etc…
Singular actions
Set up the DM automation tool
Create the sales script
etc, etc, etc…
In sum
When you implement this process you should end-up with such a structure:
🪣 Area: key sphere of activity with a standard to be maintained
🎯 Outcome(s): timely and measurable goals to move the area forward
🏗️ Output(s): tangible results or deliverables to achieve the outcome
💪 Input(s): daily/weekly, one-time/repeating actions to generate the output
With such a structure, you’ll know exactly what you want to achieve (areas, outcomes, & outputs) and how you’ll do it (inputs).
Now the only thing left is execution.
This is where having a system that makes it easy to execute comes into play.
A system that makes it easy to track your progress, review & plan your work, stay accountable (tracking, reminders), delegate tasks, and so on.
That’s what build for my clients to ensure execution is as seamless as possible.
But that’s a topic for another time.
Until then, I wish you a successful, fulfilling, and productive year!
Best regards,
Simon from Processized
P.S. Whenever you’re ready, there are 2 ways I can help you:
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