Tina Tower [00:00:00]:
Hello and welcome to her Empire Builder show. I am Tina Tower and thank you so much for joining me. Today we are talking about long term planning. So back in the day long term planning used to look like what's our ten year plan? What I mean by long term planning in today's context is the three year plan. And I honestly think that three years is as long as you can go with while still being a little bit realistic. Because let's be honest, the market is changing so quickly that if you go out past three years, your chances of being accurate are very, very slim. So what I want to talk to you about today is how to make a three year plan for your business that buys back your time. That can give you something that is not only a thriving, growing, high revenue business, but also feels really great.

Main Episode

Tina Tower [00:00:51]:
That also gives you the free, freedom filled life that you are looking for. Now there are different stages where you can feel like instead of you running the business, the business is running you. And what I mean by that is instead of you being like, these are the hours that I'm going to work or these are, I'm coaching someone at the moment, right? So we're doing one on one coaching. And she said to me my goal is to have every Friday off. And I was like, so why don't you have every Friday off? She was like, well, there's always something. I can never take the Fridays off. The good part is I don't have appointments on the Friday but I never take the day off. And I was looking at that and going that is the business running you instead of you are running the business.

Tina Tower [00:01:36]:
And we don't want to have that, we don't want to have that take place. We don't want to grow for the sake of growth. We want to have a business that's serves your life, whatever that looks like. So for me that looks like a whole lot of travel. For this year, for example, 2025, I will go overseas. I started the year in Indonesia. I went to America in March, I went to America again in July. I went to Dubai and Abu Dhabi in August, no, in July also.

Tina Tower [00:02:09]:
And then Europe with my husband in September and, and then New Zealand in December. So six overseas trips in the year. For some people that would be excessive. For me that is just the right amount and it is the reason I have built the business that I have built and the way that I have built it is so that it can enable me to do that. Now some people, they have no desire to travel that much. That is totally fine. Maybe instead of traveling that much, you can, you want to do a three or a four day work week. So whatever that looks like to you in your business.

Tina Tower [00:02:46]:
I think one of the keys to success is going what are the things that are most important to you? And how can you architect the business design around that to give you the life that you want? Because the effort has to be worth the reward. Otherwise what are we even doing here? So you don't have to wait to create that freedom. Often you do need a plan to be able to create it though. So things don't happen instantly. Sometimes, especially at the beginning, it will be a slow burn. You've got to work towards where you want to go. And this is where the three year plan comes into play is because then you can build a foundation towards that ideal life that you are trying to create. All right, so let's get into it.

Tina Tower [00:03:34]:
First I want to talk about the trap of short term thinking. Now this is something that I find leads people to the situation where you wake up one day and go, oh my gosh, like how is this my life? Like how did I get here? I didn't want this, like wrong way. Go back. When you're in that situation, that is usually when you haven't had the planning, when you haven't identified something going forward and going, hang on, this isn't what I want. Like let's change direction here, let's work towards, towards where we're wanting to lead. And that can look like just this obsession with launching nonstop. I'm working with someone at the moment who has been on 12 week live launch cycles and they're exhausted because if you're running a 12 week live launch cycle, it means that you go into pre launch six weeks in advance. You're starting to really ramp up your marketing.

Tina Tower [00:04:28]:
Three weeks out you're promoting your live training week. Then you've got your launch week. It's. And then you've got your new cohort. Each of her cohorts go for eight weeks. So by the time she's halfway through the live delivery of the cohort, it's back into live launch mode for the next round. It is a treadmill. Like that is a cycle to be on.

Tina Tower [00:04:48]:
And so that is a lot of short term thinking. That is a way to. It may have got her to where she is now, but it won't give her the life that she's looking for going forward. And so something has to give. Either she needs a different strategy, which is what we are working on together, or needs to Outsource a whole lot, which means cutting a lot of that revenue and putting it into team that can manage a lot more of those launch components. So it's not so demanding. So you want to look at when you're like, what the decisions you're making, how much are they the short term serving thinking and how much of it is going to serve you in the long term. And I am all for like, do what you have to do until you can do what you want to do.

Tina Tower [00:05:27]:
There's certain things that you will do short term, but you want to know like, it has to serve your plan in the end. It has to feed into. There has to be a reason why you're doing it. The other trap that you have of the short term thinking is that constant urgency and having endless content output without leveraging it. Every time you're putting out content, making sure that you're milking it for all it's worth. Take this podcast episode for example. We've got it on video. We're putting the video long form on YouTube, we put the audio long form on all the podcast platforms.

Tina Tower [00:06:04]:
So it goes out through Libsyn and then it comes out over Spotify and Apple and everywhere else that it goes. Then we take that content and we cut it into shorts so that we have these punchy little bits that we can use for shorts. Then we take the education elements out of it and we create the carousels with that. Now it's also going into Delphi, which is our Tina AI bot that we have in there. So it's feeding the knowledge of that. So one bit of effort output for me that can go across multiple streams. So you want to make sure that you're leveraging all of the content so that you're not creating and recreating things that you could be doing a lot more with repurposing. That short term trap is when you create based on what's trending instead of what's timeless.

Tina Tower [00:06:56]:
Now this is a really hard trap for course creators not to fall into because, you know, I'll see it all the time as well. Like on Instagram, it will tell you like, these are the things that are trending right now. And it has you like being constantly responsive, reactive, sorry. Instead of being able to go, you know, these are the things that I know is going to solidify what I'm known for, my thought leadership. It's going to be sustainable. You want to really go for that sort of thing. And the other is not to have revenue goals without lifestyle goals. What I See with that is people just running themselves into an early grave with no point of it.

Tina Tower [00:07:40]:
And this is where I think the three year plan really comes into play is because sometimes when I said before, you've got to do what you've got to do until you can do what you want to do. But those things that you don't necessarily love doing that take a lot of energy and a lot of effort, that there's a point to doing that you have the lifestyle goal and that effort is totally worth the reward. So when you've got your plans in place, you know what you're willing to do in order to get there. If you keep building for now, you'll keep staying stuck in the now. What we want to build for is where you want to be, not just where you are right now. So step one to doing that is to define what you want your future life to be. Paint the picture three years from now. Think about where you are right now with how you're living.

Tina Tower [00:08:33]:
One thing I know for sure is your past doesn't necessarily dictate your future. You can change direction at any time you choose. Life can change so quickly. I know that the first three years of running her Empire Builder my life in 2019-2022 was so incredibly different. In 2019, I had written down the goal to be able to make $20,000 a month. I was like, if I can make a recurring revenue of $20,000 a month, Holy guacamole, what an incredible business that will be. That was my goal. And then by the end of 2022, when we were doing a minimum $100,000 a month, and I could not believe the change in everything, the change in capacity, the change in lifestyle, all of it.

Tina Tower [00:09:24]:
But a lot of that was built because I had the vision of what I wanted to create and I had the lifestyle that I wanted to be able to have. And I was willing to do the things that I needed to do in order to get myself to that direction. So when you're looking at three years, I want you to know the reason I share that story is not to br even though I'm pretty proud of what we did, but it's more to show you that your situation can change really, really quickly, especially in the digital industry. And so the things you want to think about from three years from now is how many hours do you want to work? Like, what do you want your day to day to look like? Because that's going to dictate how much team you're going to have the Shape of your business, what sort of services you're going to offer, your deliverability, all of that sort of thing. You also want to look at what does a week in your life look like? Are you going to be out seeing people? Are you going to be on stages speaking? Are you going to be doing podcast interviews? Are you going to be in an office? Are you going to be working from your laptop? What sort of thing are you going to look like? The more detail that you can have, the easier it's going to be to create because you'll be able to see that vision so clearly and know what you're working towards and know what's going to be worth it. The other is how much money are you going to be making? What is your goal for that? I'm working with someone at the moment and their goal was to go from $200,000 a year to $250,000 a year. And I was like, that's a really beautiful goal, but let's be more ambitious than that because actually to increase by 25% in this day and age is actually not that much of a stretch. We can do a couple of things, you can change a few things in there and you will get there in a year's time.

Tina Tower [00:11:17]:
That's a difference, but it's not too much of a stretch. What I want you to think about is if all your dreams came true, if you got everything you ever wanted, how much money would that be that you're making? Then you can reverse engineer it so you can go completion backwards and then you can look at all right, if I know I wanted to have a million dollar a year business, this is what my life would look like. These are the things that I would have to do to get there. And then you start going, process of elimination and going, am I willing to do those things in order to have that as my reality? And some of the things, the effort will be worth the reward, but some of the things may not. You may choose to go, you know what, I'll take a $500,000 a year business because it means I don't have to do these things. And I'm okay with that. But we want to make the decision really consciously. And I don't want you to put the ceiling on yourself because there's always a strategy to get to where it is that you want to be able to get to.

Tina Tower [00:12:13]:
The other thing that you want to think of in your three year vision is what role do you want to play in the business? So are you there all the Time. Have you stepped back? Are you the face of the business? How visible do you want to be? And that is going to be, that is going to give you a really accurate picture of what you are working towards. So you want to use a lifestyle led business planning, not the other way around. It is the way, it's kind of like profit first, you know, pay yourself first, create your life first and then let everything else serve that vision. A really good way to do this is if you find it hard to go there. Like just get out your journal and just start thinking about what does that perfect day look like in your life three years from now? What could that be? Number two is to audit your current model. So look at your revenue and look at how sustainable, sustainable it is as AI comes in. Because for a lot of people your revenue sources like your offers need to be optimized as AI is coming in.

Tina Tower [00:13:20]:
For some people they've been doing like pure information products instead of more transformation products that have elements of community and connection in there, which will be harder as time goes on to produce the same amount of revenue that we have traditionally in the past. So you want to look at that, you want to look at your current model and go, which products have been the easiest to sell? And then cut off some that are like, there's no point if you are putting in an A grade launch effort to something that's just not hitting, it's just not sticking. People aren't picking up what you're putting down. If you know that your sales skills are good, your website is good, your messaging is good, but people just, just aren't clicking with it, try something different. If you've got another product that is doing so well, I would be forgetting about the other one and just double down on the one that is easier to sell. You want to look at what feels heavy and what feels light and choose the one that feels lighter. Choose the path of least resistance. I don't think business is easy, but I do think it can be massively leveraged.

Tina Tower [00:14:28]:
I do think it can be really simple, scalable based on choosing the path of least resistance going, how can I get the biggest amount of reward, the biggest amount of return for the minimal effort that you need to put in? Look at where you are over delivering or undercharging. That is often quite a polarizing part in there as well. And then look at all the leaky buckets that need tightening. So your leaky buckets could be things like subscriptions that you're paying, different team that you've employed that you don't need anymore. It's a really hard reality of AI coming in is a lot of the team that we employed, what took three people to do the job, now takes one person to do the job, or no people at all really looking at that and going where can you fix those leaks? Fix the leaks? In team, in systems, are you spending a lot of time doing things that can be systemized, that can be automated? Are you leaking energy? Because you're putting time and effort into things that don't need time and effort. You're better off always to put more time and effort into serving people, into connecting with people. So if you've got a whole lot of time and effort going into backend admin things or design or different things, put it into the people. The people is what matters.

Tina Tower [00:15:48]:
That's how you create great transformations for people. That's how you create great impact, is by knowing humans, is by connecting with the humans, figuring out where they're at, what they need, and then helping them get there as quickly as possible. And that is how you get success every single time. A good idea is to create a stop doing list. The stop doing list can be just as important as the to do list. So we want to have those. Step three is to build for a recurring and a leveraged revenue. What you want to look at is your recurring monthly revenue that you've got going on that can look at.

Tina Tower [00:16:27]:
Have you got a model that has membership or mastermind in it so that you can have some predictability in your business and not be relying on like this. This launch cycle that I was talking about before with the eight week course where you're constantly having to buy new customers and you're constantly on this launch hamster wheel. So having I'm a massive fan of live launches, but also of having that monthly recurring revenue so that you have that sustainability and a little bit of that predictable cash flow in there as well. So having payment plans, having retainers, if you're coaching people, having memberships and then you've got your evergreen products. So I love having evergreen products in there, having your funnels all tight, working really well, having AI learning paths. So have you got a model that people can access you through like your AI bots or your custom GPTs or a way that you can take the knowledge that you've got that maybe traditionally would have been its own information product that now you can build out some sort of AI product that can help transform and help guide people through without having to go into your highly level programs then you want to have live, but leveraged. I think that as time goes on with the rise of AI, that live is going to be even more important than what it has been in the past. I always think it's been important, but it's so much more so now where you're having live launches, where you've got that limited time offer, having high ticket programs so that you've got higher touch points, higher connection with people, higher results for people, having VIP experiences.

Tina Tower [00:18:08]:
So looking at how you can enrich people's experience, so much of what we're seeking as humans is transformation and experience is being there, live in the room with someone. So I want you to build slow and smart, not fast and frantic. And while I do think the beginning, you want to get through that as fast as you possibly can. When you're looking at your three year plan, you want to go, how can I go? Measured in a way that's going to be the smartest path that I can choose with the knowledge that I currently have. So that you can get the results that you are desiring. And you want to focus on the assets, focus on the results, not necessarily the output. So when you are looking at something, what I want you to do is go, what is that end game that you want? Not necessarily looking at how much effort it takes you to deliver because the two things don't necessarily correlate. What you want to be able to do is go, what is the result that you can get for people and how can you get that result in the most leveraged possible way? Step number four is to design for energy, not just efficiency.

Tina Tower [00:19:24]:
This is where it's things like on your calendar, for example. What I want you to do is look at your calendar and like I'm doing this now, we are in at the time of doing this. It's going to be September 2025 and I have already like nearly finished doing this for 2026 is that I'm looking at my whole calendar and before anything gets in there, I will put in my trips. Because travel is one of the most important things in my life. It is why I work, it is why I go above and beyond, is so that I can have exceptional experiences. I love having wonderment, I love stepping off a plane, not knowing what I'm going to see, not knowing where I'm going to go, not going, what I'm going to eat. Like all of I love those experiences. And so it is worth it to me everything that I do.

Tina Tower [00:20:17]:
And so I want to be able to go, when am I going to do that. I'm going to block that time first. I'm then going to look at what are the kids commitments, how can I put them in there? I'm going to put in key birthdays, I'm going to put in key milestones, then I'm going to work out when are my live events that I'm going to run for her empire builder and Empress circle and my impact mastermind and put all of them in. I'm going to curate that calendar first so that I'm looking at something that brings me joy and then I'm happy for all of those holes to be filled with all of the other things that I've got to do because I know that the key time, like I took that time for myself, like I architected how I want that to look. So you want to do that. You also want to block out the space that you need first. Because if you don't block out the space, my friends, the space will disappear. There is always more to do that.

Tina Tower [00:21:10]:
If you haven't blocked it out, it will not be there. And then you'll be in that stage where you're like exhausted. So you want to know what your zone of genius is and then you can start to delegate the rest or not do those certain things. When I say design for energy, not just efficiency, I really want you to look at your CEO time so that you can block that out and have time for creativity, have time for vision and have time for rest. I know I get most of my good ideas where I think more strategically and where I think more. Bigger picture is when I go for a walk or when I am laying in the sauna or when I am in the shower. They are my three different times where I have my best ideas, where I have those, you know, those light bulb moments where you've maybe been thinking about something and dwelling on it for a couple of weeks and all of a sudden it'll just seem clear. You'll just be like, oh, that's what I need to do.

Tina Tower [00:22:08]:
Like, this is the path, this is my new idea. This is where I'm going. They always come. Not when you're sitting at your desk going through your emails or going on to the next task. And so it's really important to be able to fact factor in that time so that you can get those beautiful ideas, so that you can create that space in your brain to let those ideas drop in, to let that come to you, so that you are using your energy really, really well. Protect your energy. It's one of the most important things, so how you get more energy in your business is using a lot of that AI, using a lot of automation, having a great VA in your business, having that team support someone that you really trust to be able to be there to support you. Because freedom to me isn't the absence of work.

Tina Tower [00:22:56]:
Freedom is not the absence of work. It is the presence of choice. And if you have been choosing how you live your life, how you allocate your time, then that is going to feel like freedom. Even if you're working hard because you chose that, what a privilege it is to be able to do the work that matters and to us to be able to be tired from the work that we chose to do. And so I want you to really be able to flesh that out so that you're choosing the thing that you actually want to do, like your reality and your dreams are matching together. So I want you to remember you didn't start this to hustle forever. If you are feeling like you're in that cycle where you are hustling, getting your hustle on. What I would say is you probably need some planning.

Tina Tower [00:23:47]:
At the end of every year, every November, I do a two day planning event in person in the central coast, two hours north of Sydney. I know it's not the easiest place to get to, but it's where I live so you can come visit me. It's a beautiful, beautiful place, great location, beautiful beaches, really great bushwalks, Great place to stay for a couple of days. But come and join me in the room with a hundred other entrepreneurs where we do day one of life planning so that we can take that helicopter view and do all of our planning. And then day two, we are doing business planning. And that way you'll go with 2026, having a beautiful vision for what you want to create and create it like intentionally and purposefully. So I will link to that in the notes, or you can just Instagram or Facebook message me the word planning and then you will get the link to be able to book into that planning day. Because I'd love to see you in person.

Tina Tower [00:24:52]:
But either way, take some time to take that helicopter view and start planning your business. Because your dream life does need structure, it needs planning, it needs organization, it needs boundaries. So, so that when you are actually living it, you're like, this is what I wanted. This is fantastic. Sign me up for more of this. I will see