5 Keys To Transforming Your Business And Living The Life You Want

Sara Nay (00:00): Welcome to the agency spark podcast. This is your host, Sarah nay. And today I have Gale Adobe co-founder of Gale Adobe coaching and consulting firm that has helped designers, architects, and other creatives increase their profitability by up to 512%, no matter which hat she is wearing, her goals are simple to empower design industry clients to differentiate themselves, drive measurable results, achieve business projections, and create personal satisfaction through game-changing strategies and business practices. So welcome to the show, Gale,

Gail Doby (01:01): Thank you so much for having me, Sarah. It's a pleasure.

Sara Nay (01:04): I'm really excited to have you here today. And the topic that I want to explore with you is the five keys to understanding how to transform doing business into living the life you want. So let's hear it. What are these five keys?

Gail Doby (01:17): I think they're probably way more than that.

Gail Doby (01:20): So we will probably just pick a couple that I think are ex exceedingly important today. And I really think that what happens for a lot of people, even for those of us that might be leading other clients in other businesses that we try to help is that sometimes we forget about why we're doing what we're doing and deciding exactly where we want to be. And so we're looking every day at what we need to do today and not necessarily what the big picture is for our lives. So I think that's one of the first things is to get clear about what it is you want to accomplish in your life, what your purpose is and decide from that, what your activities are. And then the second thing is to work backwards. So whatever that timeframe is, whether it's two years, three years, five years, 10 years having some sort of an overall framework that you're working toward.

Gail Doby (02:15): And then just being really clear, only two or three key things that you want to accomplish. That would be number three. And if you focus just on two or three things, but they're the ones that ha are the levers for your business, that's where you're really gonna see the big impact and the big change. The next thing is number four, I would say that you need a financial blueprint for your business. You need to know exactly what it is you're trying to accomplish financially and how that relates to your personal finances. Because if you don't have that, then you may be working towards something and maybe not hitting all of those goals because you don't have it related to your personal financial goals. So I think that's really essential that you have that part as, as well. And then the other part is making sure that you are accountable to someone else. I don't care how good you are at what you do. You have to have someone else who is going to be there with you, keeping you accountable to your goals so that you actually achieve them because otherwise is very easy to slide because we really don't have anybody else that we're reporting to. So if you can add that in, you are destined to be successful,

Sara Nay (03:25): Really great stuff. We're actually just having a call with my team. And we were talking about with the time management, I'll start there. That piece that you talked about is a lot of times people get stuck in just like here's my to-do list for the week. These are things I have to do, but aren't thinking about the big picture. Like how do the things you're doing today influence where you're trying to get in one year, three years or so forth. So I couldn't agree more. I think absolutely starting with the why or where you're going is essential. And then that helps you prioritize what you should do. And I had someone on this podcast recently and they talked about how with to-do lists. Sometimes it feels good to just like check simple things off that are fast, because then you feel like you're accomplishing a lot and I'm guilty of that. Absolutely. Where it can get distracting. And so it's always not just, what's easy. It's, what's making the impact towards the direction I'm going, I think is essential.

Gail Doby (04:17): One of the things that I love those cuz I'm a constant learner. I'm reading all the time and I'm trying different things. And I've been looking for years for a really great planning guide, something that I can use. Cuz I like to write with my pen on a piece of paper, I really enjoy that. I do have my whole schedule on Google and I have somebody else that does my scheduling. But if I'm gonna block out time, I love Cal Newport's, uh, planner. So if you are looking for something that's really great to keep you on task and to keep you focused on what it is you're supposed to do. It's a simple planner, but I love it. It is just brilliant for me because I have a lot of detail anyway. So if I can use something like this, where I'm staying focused on, here's what I need to be working on today. That's going to get me toward that goal. And you're blocking that time out day by day, week by week, you are going to achieve your goals. You'll probably surpass your goals as long as you're focused on those things.

Sara Nay (05:17): Yeah, that's great. I wrote that down. I'm also gonna have to take a look at that planner. So I appreciate you sharing that resource. And then in terms of the goals, obviously that relates to your finances as well. So you need to understand what's happening financially in your business on a day to day basis, but also having goals in place in terms of where do you wanna be in one year, three year, five years. And so any suggestions on how someone can accomplish some more of that strategic planning and the direction they wanna go with their business financially?

Gail Doby (05:45): Yes, first of all, and for example, what I do with my clients is I have them give me financial information so I can see your dreams. This is what they're going to cost you. This is what your lifestyle costs you. So based on that, it costs you this much to operate plus to pay for all those things in the future. This is how much cash you need to generate from your business every year so that you know exactly what your net profit needs to be. And then I build a budget for my clients for three years, which is bottom up. So we figure out if that's our goal, how do we get there? How do we charge? How do we make money? How do we manage our costs? And so if we put everything into that framework, it's hard to miss cuz you are going to achieve more. If you know exactly what your business needs to generate.

Sara Nay (06:32): Yeah, absolutely. That's I work with a lot of marketing consultants and agencies that are just getting started. One of the number one challenges I see all the time is how do we determine what to charge or how much to charge. Yes. And oftentimes when they're gaining confidence, getting started, they're charging way too little. And so it's, I love how you have a whole framework to determine ultimately what you should be charging to reach your specific goals that you help them set. So I think that's great

Gail Doby (06:57): If I could share something that I think is so critically important, a lot of people come to me and they say, all of my colleagues are charging $150 an hour. And I said, what are you charging? Well, I'm charging a hundred dollars an hour. Why are you charging a hundred dollars an hour? Because I don't think I am at that $150 level. And I said, but how do you know what? You should be charging based on what somebody else is charging that doesn't even begin to talk about how much it costs you to operate your business. So unless you know what, it costs you to operate your business. You don't know what you need to charge. Yeah. So that's one of the keys, because what I've seen is a lot of people make that mistake of saying, okay, I'm gonna compare myself to others, bad mistake. Yeah. And then they use their numbers as their numbers and those are not your numbers.

Sara Nay (07:45): Yeah. I agree. And then beyond that, a lot of times, if you're just competing on price with some of your competitors, it's how do you, how can you get to the race to the bottom in some cases? And that's like the worst scenario to be in it's you don't wanna be just offering stuff for less money. It's like, how can you provide more value to your clients? So you charge more and you charge what you're worth.

Gail Doby (08:04): Exactly. And I think that brings us to the idea of making sure that whatever you're deliverable is to your client, that you're stating it in terms of a promise, what is it you're doing for them? What is that result? You're giving them. It's not about the tasks that you're doing. It's about the result that you're providing are if through the marketing efforts, if you're a marketing agency and you're helping a client, can you show that you've grown their, their business by 20%, a year or 40% a year, if you can start equating it to numbers, this is where people really understand the value of what you

Sara Nay (08:41): Do, you know? Absolutely. And the last piece you touched on before we wrap up is accountability. Yes. And so I couldn't agree more on that. I'm involved in a lot of different groups in terms of networking and mastermind and holding accountable. I have some great mentors, all that stuff, if someone's okay. Yes. I know I need to be held accountable, but I don't know who to hold me accountable. Do you have any advice on how someone can seek out someone or a group they could be

Gail Doby (09:02): Part of? If you can find somebody who's further ahead on their journey than you are. Yeah. That would be the perfect person to go to because they're going to push you. And second of all, if you are going to find somebody and ask them to be your mentor or your guide, then you need to show up and you need to be accountable and you need to say, okay, this is the goal I'm shooting for. And every once in a while, check in with them and say, I just wanna let you know, I accomplish all the things we talked about and now I'm working on this. And if you start doing that and create that feedback conversation, you're going to make them feel better because they are donating their time in many cases, unless you're in a paid mastermind or in a paid coaching situation. And so you want them to know how much you value their time. So always give them feedback because people are very generous. As long as you let them know that it actually helped you. And that they've done some good in the world.

Sara Nay (09:59): Yeah. I couldn't agree more. I mentor or coach a couple, a few people as well. And I have over the years and like when they actually show up to meetings and they did the work and they put it in and they report back and they had success like that encourages me to continue to give more and more because they're actually putting in the work and showing that they're committed to the relationship. So I think that's great advice. Awesome. Gail people wanna connect with you online? Where can they find you to learn more? That's

Gail Doby (10:23): Great. It's www.galiladobe.com. G I L D B y.com. We are rebranding. So you may get forwarded to our new company, which is called Pearl collective go for right now to

Sara Nay (10:39): Love it. Thank you so much. Galil for being here and thank you all for listening to the agency podcast. This is your host, Sarah.