How To Make 2024 Your Most Profitable Year Ever

2023 is almost over, and there’s only one question you should be asking yourself.

It's not, “How much money did I make this year?”

If you’re like most ambitious entrepreneurs, you’re already doing some mental math to see where your revenue will end up. Maybe you’re on track for a record year. Or maybe things didn’t exactly go as planned.

Either way, it’s time to start thinking about next year. Because the reality is, we’re entering into some very uncertain times.

A bunch of things are converging at once. The economy is going through major changes, AI is ramping up, and the online business world is getting crowded. A lot of things that used to work…don’t really work anymore.

Maybe you’ve already started seeing this in your business. Potential clients are taking more time to make decisions. Cash flow is tighter. But at the same time, there's a massive opportunity. Some coaches and service providers are thriving as a result of these exact same trends.

So here’s the question you should be asking as you think about next year:

“How do I plan for something that I can’t predict?”

What you can’t do is plan the whole year all at once. It’s too big of a timeframe to be helpful, and it doesn’t tell you what to focus on now.

You could try to break it down into quarters. This is a good exercise, but even planning for a 90 day period can feel overwhelming. And a lot can change in that time.

Here’s the truth: The game of business is played one week at a time. The winners in 2024 will be those who are able to stay focused on what they can control every single week.

If you can stack one successful week onto the next, you’ve got a successful quarter. And if you do that four times, you’ve got a successful year.

In the following chapters, I'll share with you how to do that.

Let's start with this question: What makes one week feel successful and another feel like a flop?

Hint: It's not just about how much money you make.

The way I see it, there are 3 things that make a week “work.”

First, you get the important stuff done.

When you reach Friday with your core to-do list complete, you feel awesome and know you’ve been productive. These actions feed into a bigger plan that leads you towards your quarterly and annual goals.

Second, you see the results of your hard work.

That could look like audience growth, appointments booked, clients enrolled. Ultimately, when we get cash in the bank, we win. We also get validation that our marketing is paying off.

Third, you get the balance right between work, rest and play.

If you slog out 12 hour days for a week, you might get a lot done. But it’s not sustainable. You need to be able to enjoy time with friends and family guilt-free.

So if you want to have a successful week, you need to take the most important actions in your allotted work time, have these actions pay off, and be able to close your laptop each Friday feeling excited to do it again next week.

But this doesn’t always happen, right?

The reality is, we don’t always perform at our peak. 

Have you ever had a whole day to focus on your business, only to find it’s 1pm and you’ve done sweet fuck all, even though you had the best intentions? You’ve started 6 different tasks, organized your books by color, and have 10 different tabs open.

Then you beat yourself up for your lack of focus and productivity. 

So you work longer, because the stuff needs to get done. 

Your work hours creep into your personal life, whether that’s attempting a 9pm laptop stint when your brain is half asleep or another Sunday where you tell your partner and kids you need to work.

It’s way too easy to reach the end of the week frustrated and full of anxiety that you’ve had no measurable impact on your endless to-do list. This is why most entrepreneurs suffer.

So why oh why can’t we just get the right stuff done - the stuff that leads to more growth, impact and income - in the hours we have each week, instead of wasting valuable time on things that don’t make us money?

If you want consistent clients and income, you need to be consistent with your marketing activities.

Easier said than done, of course.

Here’s what I see happen to most entrepreneurs:

1. When it’s time to work, you’re not that sure what activities to focus on

Every expert and their dog is suggesting a different way to grow your business. Podcasts. YouTube. Be a guest expert. TikTok. LinkedIn. Launches. Webinars. Blogging.

The list of things we could do in our business is endless. And since we’re brought up in a society that glorifies hard work, entrepreneurs get sucked into ‘Doing The Most’.

The mindset is this: if I work hard, my hard work will be rewarded. 

So you fill your days with scattergun marketing activities and hope that some of them will work.

But your business doesn’t care how hard you work, how long you work, or what affirmations you say before you go to bed. The only thing your business needs is for you to take certain specific actions.

And that means you need to be able to look at your to-do list and know how to prioritize the actions that will generate revenue.

2. When you do decide which revenue-generating tasks to focus on, you end up doing everything except that thing

I call this Creative Avoidance. It can take many forms. Procrasti-learning. Maybe if you just do one more course, you’ll crack the code? Procrasti-planning. Surely if you create a strategy document that will help? Procrasti-emailing. Let’s just tidy up my inbox so I’m in the right frame of mind to do the good stuff. 

These things feel like work. Or at least vaguely like work. But ultimately they don’t make you money.

This isn’t about laziness. It’s about fear.

You avoid the stuff that makes you money because it’s scary and hard. It normally involves talking to people, promoting yourself, and maybe even getting rejected.

But it’s this emotional labor that we get paid for as entrepreneurs. If you can learn to take imperfect action in spite of fear, your business will reward you handsomely.

3. When you finally get round to your revenue-generating activities, you don’t stick with them long enough to see consistent results

Sometimes, this happens because you’re trying to do too much at once, without support, and it’s just not sustainable.

Other times, you’re not sure if what you’re doing is working. You don’t see immediate results, or you see a different shiny object, and you end up changing tact.

But every time you change your strategy, you have to start over. This makes it very hard to get traction.

Plus, it’s not a fun way to run a business - you’re anxious all the time because you don’t have a system you can trust.

Any time you fall into one of these three traps, you end up working more but making less money.

Which means you never quite reach the successful week, successful quarter, successful year domino effect you really want.

It's not your fault. You just weren't taught any other way.

Fortunately, there's a much better alternative.

Your business does not care how hard you work. It only needs you to do a handful of things so you can make money. Everything else is optional.

On one hand, this can be overwhelming. Some days it might feel easier to just sit behind a desk for 8 hours and do what your boss tells you to do. But for those of us who crave freedom, it's a huge opportunity. If you can figure out how to get clients in one hour a day, you can do whatever you want for the other 7 hours.

This is where “Doing The Least” comes in.

When you’re Doing The Least, you’re trying to find the easiest and most direct path to the outcome that you want, cutting out all unnecessary actions. This allows you to make more while working less.

There are a few ways you could go about it.

First, you could use trial and error to figure these tasks out on your own. Whenever you get a client, you figure out what activities contributed to that sale. This actually isn’t a terrible strategy. But it takes a while. You need to keep yourself accountable and the temptation to Do The Most is strong.

Second, you could work with a 1-1 coach to identify your highest leverage activities and hold you accountable. This is faster than doing it on your own. But it’s expensive and you’re still on your own trying to make sure the things actually get done. 

Or third, you could join a course or group program to learn someone’s system for getting clients. But there’s a problem with most of these programs. They teach only what worked for them, and if the strategy isn’t a fit for you, you’re left searching for the next magic bullet.

This is the problem with all marketing tactics. They work for some and not for others. There are too many nuances and variables at play - like your niche, strengths and personality - for a one-size-fits-all approach.

That’s why we created Weeks That Work.

Instead of making you copy what we do, we’ll help you build out a repeatable weekly structure tailored to your specific situation and strengths. That way, you can close your laptop every Friday knowing that you’ve moved your business forward.