LINKS:

• www.katiewyatt.me/todd (90 Day Year Program Info)
• http://bit.ly/90DYVid1KW (Video 1 in the 90 Day Year Pre-Launch Series)

Hey empire builders, happy December, happy summer if you’re in Australia and winter for our Northern Hemishphere friends and happy festive season! I totally love Christmas and I kind of have an addiction to fruit mince pies. There i said it. But in this episode,  this is the first in a mini solo series i am doing about the EMPIRE BUILDING ESSENTIALS. It’s one thing to say we want an empire, it’s another to know what we need to DO to build one. And so we’re kicking off with FOCUS, a key pillar or foundational skill that is a MUST on the empire building journey. So I’m going to show you why you need it, how to get it and the pitfalls to avoid that will kill it.

There is a real theme to the success stories I’ve observed in 2016, and I believe this theme will be MY focus for 2017 and i honestly think it is the KEY to us going from day to day solopreneurs to honest to goodness Empire Builders.And that theme is FOCUS.Focus is about a few things. It’s about being brave and deciding what you’re focusing ON but also what you’re excluding – what you’re saying no to. There is SO MUCH evidence to convince us that multi tasking is impossible to do well, and the more entrepreneurs I meet and interview on the podcast, the more I see this as a theme of big success.There is a real problem I see in the culture I see in quite a few Facebook Groups of rolling from week to week and promo day to promo day with a new offer. I can tell you 5 examples in the last week where I have seen offers from people and I’ve thought, “what the? I didn’t know you were doing that now”. There’s nothing wrong with experimentation (that’s what business is all about after all) but you absolutely will not flourish and thrive if you are flipping about on what you’re doing and strategy week by week.Yes this is hard. Particularly for people who are new in business. I can remember myself trying out a number of offers before deciding where my focus was going to be. Product businesses, podcasting, e-courses …. and i think a lot of this is part of the journey in the early days of working out what skills you have that the market wants. But the fact is, my e-course offers were very lucrative and in-demand. And I faced a cross road earlier this year where I had to make a decision whether to go big with e-courses or stay with podcasting.And this is the first of the key takeaways I want you to consider about FOCUS: Work out what you’re saying yes to and why, AND work out  what you’re saying no to and whyAnd something Amy Porterfield actually said in a podcast episode rang in my ears. That if I shifted focus, I would be starting almost at square one again. And the launches I had done on PodWell had left money on the table. Every launch we do leaves money on the table. There are ALWAYS people who get really close to buying but they don’t. They are interested but it’s bad timing, or they weren’t quite convinced. And for the second launch third launch and so on, you will convert some of these people, and create more. That’s the momentum that comes from focusing and perfecting what you do. And so I didn’t go big on e-courses. Which isn’t to say I won’t. Course design and student experience is an area I have worked in most of my career and I really and truly love that work, and it’s likely I will offer it again.But what I spent a lot of time this year reflecting on is the business model I would take into 2017. And podcasting for brand and visibility growth is at the heart of it. I’m saying no to so many things. I’m saying no to e-courses and other opportunities. I’m saying no to most 1:1. My focus is on selling my podcasting course, my podcasting membership, and masterminds focussed around podcasting entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs looking for growth in visibility.As soon as I decided I wasn’t taking on new clients for 1:1, people started asking for it. Hello universe, come to test me. It’s almost been a relief to realise in the past few weeks that every available business hour I have left in 2016 is scheduled. It’s full. So I can’t take 1:1 and I’ve had to turn people away.Next takeaway I want you to consider is to Have a plan AND Have a strategy to achieve that planObviously this is the planning time of year!  we’re all heady with the excitement of cracking open a new pretty planner for 2017. I’ve been working my way through Todd Herman’s 3 videos that i highly recommend you watchAvoid context switchingJumping around and about, multi tasking. In his first 90 Day launch series video which you can get at http://bit.ly/90DYVid1KW Todd explains the science behind why multi tasking not only doesn’t work but actually makes you LESS effective. Context switching is another way of saying multi tasking, when you start one thing, then do something else, then FB, then oh yeah, I want to try that new software and so on and so on. Our brains HATE it. We actually can’t move our brains around like that and expect to gain traction.So I hope this has helped you identify where you might be losing your focus or can get better at focusing in on what you do.Here’s to an epic 2017!