[00:00:00] EMMA: If you want 2026 to look different, You have to design it differently. Don't you think? Not with a vague idea, not with a wishlist, although that's lovely, but with clarity, structure, and intention. And today I wanna walk you through that exact framework. I use this with our clients. I designed a masterclass at the beginning of 2025 called Roadmap to Success
[00:00:25] we. Start the year with that. It's a workshop, so this is probably really practical episode. And if you're walking, listen to it. You have to go back to it, I reckon. And so grab a butcher's piece of paper. I love butcher's paper. Who's with me? Love a piece of butcher's paper and text us, especially good stationary, just saying, put it on your kitchen table, and then listen to what I'm about to talk you through.
[00:00:47] You'll need to. Work out how you can map out your year in a way that feels doable, strategic, and most importantly, exciting. Because if you're like me, you will get bored. And as we've discussed in other episodes, we get bored easily as entrepreneurs. So there's that. But I love planning a fresh year.
[00:01:06] I love starting with a blank canvas and going. Ooh, what worked really well last year. We take that into this year and what didn't work, we get to ditch it. Yay. Now, before you sit there and roll your eyes at me, ugh. And think, Emma, I've done goal setting before. Sure. You haven't done goal setting with me, so.
[00:01:28] Let's do this. This is practical, clear and grounded, and what makes businesses actually grow, and more importantly, it helps you stay on track. So here's what we're talking about today. We're talking about setting the vision for your 2026 reviewing your offers and spotting opportunities. We're talking about getting comfortable with numbers.
[00:01:50] My favorite, mapping out the big projects that will move the needle in your business, and also creating accountability so you actually follow through. [00:02:00] This is your step-by-step roadmap. Caveat. If you do this exercise and then put it in the top draw for a year, probably won't work. Although I have to say, we do have a questionnaire that we get everyone to fill out, whether they're a one-on-one client or whether they're a part of thriving women.
[00:02:15] And it's so fascinating to me. I go back through the results mid-year and then at the end of the year I go back through everyone's, questionnaires just to see what did they wanna get. Done in the year, type of milestones they wanna achieve, et cetera, et cetera. No one else does it, and most of it gets done.
[00:02:31] There's something about just jotting this down and getting it done. Yeah, so you could put it in the top drawer. You could do it, put it in the top drawer and run the experiment to see if you get it done. I would prefer that you didn't. I would prefer that you put it somewhere, laminate it 'cause I'm a stationary queen, and have it up so that you can see what you're doing.
[00:02:48] Or better yet, get another big piece of paper with all the calendar months and work out what you've got on the go. Anyway, back to it. We are gonna set the vision. We always start with the vision because without that, you're kind of building blind and success looks different for everyone. For some, it's more revenue.
[00:03:07] For others, it's more time, flexibility, confidence, freedom, structure, or spaciousness. So you need to ask yourself,
[00:03:17] What does success look like for me in 2026? not a fluffy journal prompt kind of way, but in a real, what do I want in my business and my life to feel like kind of way?
[00:03:33] My suggestion as we go through this is that you think about the thing that comes to top of mind to begin with, and then you reflect more deeply. here's some of the questions I ask my clients. How do you want to feel as a business owner? What do you want your days to look like? What personal goals matter as much as business ones?
[00:03:53] Hint, hint. Health should be on there just saying. What would make 2026 feel like a [00:04:00] win? Get clear on those ones. Write those questions down, or listen to them and meditate on them. Right? Then write three to five goals for both life and for business. Clear, specific, actionable, not I wanna be healthier. No, no, no, but try, I wanna walk five days a week. Do you see the difference? One is vague. One is very specific, not I wanna grow my business.
[00:04:30] try. I wanna increase my revenue by 20%, or I wanna take Fridays off without losing income. Because your vision will set the tone and then the goals give it shape.
[00:04:41] Most people skip this next part and it's why they get stuck. This is about reviewing your current offers and opportunities, and so before you create anything new in 2026, look at what you already have. Ask yourself
[00:04:59] What offers or services or products are performing well?
[00:05:03] Which ones feel heavy or outdated or you've evolved and you just hate them?
[00:05:09] Where are the gaps in your offer suite?
[00:05:12] Is your pricing still aligned with your experience?
[00:05:17] Are you selling to the right people?
[00:05:20] So many women want to, I hate this word, pivot without fully exhausting what already works. Your current offers, services, and products. They all hold clues. Look at your data.
[00:05:38] Look at the energy, look at the demand, and be honest. Sometimes the best growth comes not from adding something new in, but from refining what already exists. This is why I don't mess with thriving women. Thriving women as a service is awesome. Do we tweak it around the edges? Do we [00:06:00] take some things out, add some things in?
[00:06:01] Yes, we do. But that one works well already. Don't throw out the baby with the bath water. Why do we even say that? That makes no sense to me. Anyway, we're gonna focus on numbers. Now, this is where people get really scared, but the truth is numbers and understanding your numbers. They give you freedom. They tell you the truth when your emotions get noisy.
[00:06:25] The number of clients who have rocked up to a one-on-one coaching session with me and gone, oh, I've had a bad month. And then I go, great. Open your zero for me. And they're like, what? Open your zero for me. Let's see how bad this month is. They open their zero and they're like, I've had a really good month.
[00:06:39] Mm-hmm. You're being led by our emotions right now, not your data. So we want to be led by our data. Yeah. I feel like there are two kind of categories of indicators. Lead indicator and lag indicator. The lead indicator is number of new inquiries that come in, number of proposals, sent events, hosted website traffic.
[00:07:00] They all kind of predict future success, right? And then these, the lag indicators could be the revenue, could be profit, could be conversion rate. These kind of have showed what has already happened. And of course you need both, right? So here's the thing that I want you to think about. Choose your revenue goal for 2026, high level, and then break it down.
[00:07:22] You wanna break it down into, quarterly, monthly. I go weekly because I'm a nutter. and so that you've got the revenue goal there. PS if your profit isn't 40% of that, you've got some work to do. So one of the things that everyone talks about is revenue. Now I could make a million dollar business. I could also spend.
[00:07:44] 900,000 on ads, so you know not much to take home. So we really wanna focus on profit, and 40% is the lowest that you would go. Ask yourself,
[00:07:56] How many clients or sales does that require?
[00:07:58] What [00:08:00] prices support that?
[00:08:02] And what actions generate those numbers?
[00:08:06] Numbers actually become less overwhelming when you break them down into weekly behaviors.
[00:08:13] So there's like running the business business as usual, all your offers and your services and your pricing and all the things, right? But then there's this other thing that happens, which is you kind of have to have some projects that you're working on maybe this year as a year of consolidation.
[00:08:28] You're just like, not businesses usual, change, nothing. I find that really hard because changing nothing is kind of, probably not where you'd wanna be at. So you probably wanna have a bit of a project plan and your goals tell you what it is that you want. So you need to choose a couple of projects. I, I have a project a quarter.
[00:08:46] if you've listened to any of the other podcast episodes, you'll know that that probably changes to two projects a quarter. But really shouldn't I have a project a quarter, but for you, just two, three. Three projects in 2026, not 10, not 15. And I'll tell you some examples of what that might look like. So you might have a project of launching a new offer.
[00:09:08] So launching a new offer means you need to create the offer. You need to stack the offer with value. You need to price the offer. You need to test the offer, you need to write the landing page, and then you need to market it. And then you need to sell it. Okay? So when I say launching a new offer, it's all of those things.
[00:09:21] One project. Probably can get done in a quarter. You might need to hire a team member. Also. Might take some time. You might need to create a lead magnet funnel. You might need to start the email list that you've been putting off for the last 15 years. Uh, you might need to rebrand your website. You might wanna run an event, which takes time.
[00:09:42] You might wanna start a podcast. I mean, come on in. It's super fun. Brianna will help you out. It's amazing. And once you have those three top things, break them down into really small steps so you know what you need to do next. For [00:10:00] 2026, oh, the thriving women haven't heard this yet. It's brand new. I have created a dashboard which shows all the projects and then you can put all your steps in.
[00:10:09] It shows all your revenue and your profit and what steps you need to take. Oh, they're gonna love it. Oh, they're gonna love it. Uh, and so we really wanna make sure that we are taking steps in each of the little spaces in order to make sure that your projects get delivered. For me. two weeks ago I decided that I was gonna write a book. Now that was not on the plan and when I told Serena she did these ones, of course you are. 'cause she's lovely and supportive. Now that's on top of things. I took nothing out of it.
[00:10:41] Probably highly wouldn't recommend. Having said that, this book just. I was able to do first 5,000 words very easily, so I know it's something that I am meant to actually share. So you wanna break down the steps. You wanna have your top three, and then you wanna break all the steps, down steps that someone else could take action on.
[00:11:01] So be clear with what it is that you're doing, because sometimes. We do these things and then we lose clarity. So you've gotta keep going back and getting that clarity every single time. Then I would suggest that you buddy up with someone, someone who's listened to this podcast and done the same thing, probably share your plan, say it out loud.
[00:11:19] Clarity grows in community, right? If you've got someone to go, how's that project going? Or What happened here? Or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Now I say all of this knowing that we have to be flexible and adaptable. So there's that as well, right? But don't just go, I'm flexible and I'm adaptable, and I go with the new moons.
[00:11:36] That's not going to be a plan that's going to help you with your business No offense to anyone who watches the moon, whatever. okay, number five is accountability and check-ins. This is like part, people forget, you know, you've got this beautiful plan and then it sits untouched in the folder, in the top drawer, et cetera, et cetera.
[00:11:53] So you need a structure to follow through with it. Here are the simplest ways that I know of. To do [00:12:00] that. It's a, a monthly check-in with yourself, so it's in the calendar and then you hold yourself to account. so that has a reminder system in your, in your diary or in your phone, whatever it is. An accountability buddy also helps.
[00:12:12] A quarterly review is awesome, and a dashboard or a tracker to help you update weekly. This plan is only as good as the rhythm that supports it, right? Because it's so easy to write this stuff out and then. You know, you just think that was so unglamorous and I don't wanna do that anymore. But sticking to the plan is the thing that you need to do.
[00:12:32] Also, I talk a lot about CEO time, and so I have CEO time every single, week, twice a week actually. And so you could put it into your CEO time. You really wanna commit to reviewing a plan once a month, then everything gets easier. And when I review my plan, I review my plan, but I also review my finances and I do all my other things as well.
[00:12:53] Before we wrap up, I really wanna ask, get you to sit with three kind of questions. I want you to think about
[00:13:02] What is one thing that you want to create or change in 2026 that feels really aligned?
[00:13:10] What's the thing? The second question I want you to ask yourself is,
[00:13:14] What is one habit that would make everything so much easier?
[00:13:19] Ps, it might be sales, just saying number three. The third question,
[00:13:25] What support do I need to make it my best year yet?
[00:13:29] Now, I wanna acknowledge for people that 20, 25 sometimes has felt pretty heavy, but we don't have to have another year like that. Like it's a new year, new you, and all that jazz.
[00:13:40] But you can actually set yourself up for success in 2026. Designing your year is about clarity, alignment, and action. Not perfection. We do not have to get this thing perfect. You just need a roadmap that helps you move forward with intention rather than hoping for the best. [00:14:00] And you get to choose what 20, 26 looks and feels like, and you get to start now.
[00:14:04] Yay. We love all of that. So if you wanna go deeper with this, we are here. We would love to support you. Obviously Thriving women is closed, but we can do that one-on-one or through some of our other programming. there is a cool service that we offer called A Month of Momentum. It's like a dip your toe in the water with Emma McQueen.
[00:14:24] People love it. When we do those kind of things, we look at the offers, we look at the numbers, we look at the habits and the goals, and then we design a roadmap that matches the life that you wanna live, not one that you feel pressured to chase. I hope 2026 is the best year yet for you. Bye for now.
