Episode 97 Podcast Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):

Make this your year. If you’re listening to this, make this your year to get in there and make it count and make it your mission to make this your best year yet because you’ve planned to succeed, not just plan to fail. Good day everyone. Rob Kropp and Dan Stones here from Pravar Group and welcome back to the first episode of 2026. Welcome back Dan. How’s your break?

Speaker 2 (00:29):

Thanks Rob. Hi everyone. Yes, happy new Year. I had a great break. I couldn’t have packed much more in, actually we had a big family adventure, had a triple away this Christmas to Vietnam, so had an amazing time. It was fantastic.

Speaker 1 (00:43):

Good quality, present time with the fam.

Speaker 2 (00:46):

It really was. We were able to take my eldest, my son and his girlfriend away with us and we had a great time, had a really cool time away and just enjoyed it. A lot of laughs, a lot of fun new stuff that we hadn’t done before, places we hadn’t been. So it was amazing.

Speaker 1 (01:01):

Isn’t travel great? You just get to see different cultures, just different ways of living, experience, different food. It just kind of broadens the horizons and gives different perspective, doesn’t it?

Speaker 2 (01:10):

Yeah, I love it. I think it is. And just to be able to share those experiences that you can hang onto and they become memories over time and it’s just so good to be able to do that and to have that with grown children is quite special. I mean it’s been a long time since we’ve done anything like that, so it was really cool.

Speaker 1 (01:27):

Love it.

Speaker 2 (01:28):

How was yours? What did you get up to?

Speaker 1 (01:29):

Oh, we didn’t do too much. It was good just to be able to spend some quality time with the family. We just spent heaps of quality time together and I’m feeling fresh, ready for a good start to the year. Had quality family time. We finished the year strong, which I was stoked about both in business and personally and it’s just a great opportunity to have a bit of downtime and recharge the batteries and get cracking. I can’t wait for this year. Yeah, we’ve got a big year plan, don’t we? Not only on the podcast here but at Pravar Group and got some exciting things in store and yeah, I’m looking forward to the year ahead. It’s going to be great.

Speaker 2 (02:03):

There always is. I think coming into the new year at Pravar, it hits a bit different for us. We know exactly what we’ve got going on, we know, know what’s coming up in terms of events and the programmes all set, but I think it’s the challenge and the excitement about where clients are going to land this year and what they’re going to deliver this year is going to be huge.

Speaker 1 (02:21):

And today we’re going to be talking around planning and I love doing planning this time of the year and traditional business thought is to do planning on financial year, on financial year, but I don’t mind doing budgets and stuff over financial year, but there’s something real special about getting in and doing planning calendar year to calendar year. But yeah, you kind of come back from the new year, you’re feeling a little bit fresh, you’ve rounded out the year, it’s, you’ve reflected on it and now it’s time. It’s like right, it’s go time. Let’s crack on and set ourselves up for a big year. And that’s why I love this process and this topic that we’re going to get into today.

Speaker 2 (02:56):

Yeah, it is. And I think that’s the whole point. Tradies typically at this time do want, everyone does it really. Everyone’s sort of setting vague goals. I want to make more money, I want to get fitter, I want to do something different, I want to get away. Whatever it is, there’s no real plan on it, it’s just an idea or a wish or something they’re throwing out there that they’d like to have happen in their world. That’s different to setting a goal of what we’re talking about. And I think the other sort of school of thought is don’t do anything, just rock up and see what happens for the year and hope for the best. That really seems to be the second approach, but neither of those approaches work too well.

Speaker 1 (03:30):

Yeah, it’s one of those things that goal setting is so important because if you don’t have anything to strive towards, you say stay stagnant, you feel stuck, you’re not motivated, you’re kind of just going through the motions doing the same thing over and over and over. And again, as you said, there’s a big difference between hoping to achieve something and being real intentional about what you want to achieve because if you don’t have clear goals and a good roadmap on how you’re going to get there naturally you’re going to lack motivation, you’re going to lack drive, you’re going to lack urgency, you’re going to lack a bit of purpose in your business and life and you’re not going to feel fulfilled. And that’s why I love it so much is, and you run the risk of this last year being the same as the year before is the same as year before that. And that’s why this process is so important is because you get real intentional around what you want and why you want it. Next week we’ll talk about how you’re going to get there, but yeah, this is the first step in this whole process.

Speaker 2 (04:31):

It is. And I think the other thing worth mentioning is even if you had a great year last year and you think, well, let’s just roll on because it was so good. It’s only been a few weeks, let’s just let it ride. I think that’s the doorway to complacency and things like that as well. So you’ve got to almost reset the markers. You’ve got to move forward again, you’ve got to gear up and go again without it, you run a real risk even if you’re going well. So it’s not just for people who are sick of being stuck, but for people that want to keep moving forward. It’s just as important.

Speaker 1 (04:57):

As you say is better as all those available. And I think that that’s why January for us in particular for more of our ongoing programmes within our clients is it it’s planning season and we’re sitting clients down and going, what do you want and why do you want it? And we don’t get complacent on what we may or may not have achieved from the year before. It’s better is always available and let’s just strive to get better and better and better year in, year out. And that’s what makes business and life fun is you’re working towards building a better business and life in the end of the day.

Speaker 2 (05:33):

Yeah. Let’s kick off then, and I think rather than just jump into a whole set of exercise, there’s plenty of teaching to be done over these two topics, but let’s start off, if you don’t have a clear roadmap, and maybe as you listen to this, see if you can check in your mind if you’ve done this previously. This will give you a real hint that this is an exercise that you should be getting into or should be starting to build this skill of what we call goal setting and road mapping. So what does it look like, Rob, from your mind or you’ve seen enough of this with clients that haven’t got clear roadmaps. What do you see?

Speaker 1 (06:01):

Yeah, for me, you almost go through the motions. You’re just going through the motions of things. And from a business perspective, I think you chase work, not profit, you get stuck in firefighting mode. You’re reacting rather than responding. You’re not really stepping up and leading with purpose. And I think worse yet, you are working harder with no real results and even worse than that, your team don’t know where they’re going either. And so it becomes a bit of a cascading effect all the way down through the whole of the business. And so this is what happens when you’ve got nothing to strive towards. You’re busy, you’re almost being a bit of a busy idiot. You’re just going round and round and round in circles doing what you need to get done, but you’re not progressing, you’re not growing, you’re not expanding, you’re not moving forward and you’re just staying stuck and stagnant.

Speaker 2 (06:53):

Yeah, it’s night and day to when you do have this roadmap, when you do really get clear on what you are after and it’s like the first thing we ever asked clients and coaching. We can’t, in theory in practise I should say, we can’t coach people if we don’t know what they want, we’d be busy with them and we’d be just jumping into the same thing. So I think the difference is all of a sudden you get direction and direction gives you clarity. Clarity gives you confidence, and your decisions become clearer as you said. And you get from that confidence, you get results and I think that builds momentum. So it really is a momentum builder at this part of the year to set yourself up, like we said.

Speaker 1 (07:31):

Yeah, correct. We heard it just before Christmas on the client feature with Jerry Redman, episode 95. What that guy did in 12 months, we took him through this process, he’d been stuck and stagnant for so long. He was doing on average, say 250k quarters, 12 months later, he is doing on average 500k quarters roughly around those terms. And what that guy has been able to achieve in 12 months has been incredible. He set his goals in terms of revenue, profit time and what the business looked like. And for him lifestyle wise, we set up the strategic plays and he’s knocked it out of the park. And so if you haven’t done and you got busy before Christmas, make sure you go back and listen to that episode because that episode is living proof of what’s possible and what you can achieve in 12 months if you get this planning process right. And Jerry did that. What he did in 12 months was so incredible, wasn’t it?

Speaker 2 (08:29):

Yeah, it’s epic. And I can remember sitting when we were in the room doing the community day with our launch group where he sat down and did this exercise and he went through this process and you watch everyone do this, but to see someone actually follow through on it and hold true to it and actually deliver on it without forgetting what they did set up, it’s so inspiring to see when we do see that, and Jerry’s one of many.

Speaker 1 (08:52):

Yeah, you look at him, he’s doubled his revenue making more profit than he’s ever done. He’s completely off the tools, moved into new part markets, picked up new builders, his hours have come down, more connected with his family than ever.

Speaker 2 (09:04):

Confident as a leader.

Speaker 1 (09:05):

Confident as a leader, poised to take on the next phase of growth. This just shows what’s possible when you get this planning process correct.

Speaker 2 (09:13):

Yeah, it all starts from here. So let’s start with this exercise and no one better to take people through this on the podcast than yourself. So let’s start with the planning and goal setting exercises. You like to set it out.

Speaker 1 (09:25):

So the way I like to tackle this exercise is I like to say to a client when we first meet is going, okay, let’s pretend that we’re going to have a beer together and a nice dinner together in 12 months time and we’re somewhat future pacing ourselves down the line and we’re imagining that we’re in the future 12 months and we’re visualising what our business and life looks like as if we’re already living it. And what that does is gets you excited, gets you a bit motivated, it helps you see what’s possible as if you’re already living it in present tense. And that’s the first part of the planning process is touching it, feeling it emotionalizing that side of things. And so what I want you to be able to do listening here is imagine that. Imagine we are having a beer together in 12 months time and we are looking back and celebrating the 2026 year that it’s been. And you’re looking back and going, man, I knocked that out of the park. And then you’re thinking, well, what does my business and life look like? And we’ll go through a few questions in a minute, but it’s just holistically, the overarching question is what does my business and life look like? And what that does is put you in that position to be able to see and feel it and imagine what that space looks like.

Speaker 2 (10:49):

Yeah. So this is broad, this is broad strokes, this is whatever comes to mind. This is on the positive side, this is sticking with what you want. And don’t fall into almost like the vortex and down the rabbit hole of how would I possibly do it? Just keep thinking what do I want? What does it look like? What does it look like? Just keep repeating that question.

Speaker 1 (11:08):

And it’s what do I want in a positive tense? Not what do I want to move away from? And what I mean by that is where people go wrong when it goes to goal setting is I don’t want to feel unhealthy. I don’t want my cashflow problems, I want to work less hours, I want to make more money. I don’t want to feel this way. I want to spend more time with my family. They’re moving away from pain rather than moving towards pleasure, goal setting and planning is all around moving towards what you want, not away from something you don’t want.

Speaker 2 (11:44):

Yeah, really good point. It’s amazing how well people can tell you what they don’t want and have no idea about what they want.

Speaker 1 (11:50):

Correct. And because most people have never actually sat down and said, well, I, they’ve never asked themselves the question going, well, what do I want? What do I want my business to look like? Where do I want to go? What does family life look like? What does that mean to me and why do I want it? And very few people actually sit down and ask themselves those the big questions.

Speaker 2 (12:11):

Yeah. Well let’s get into those questions now. Let’s put a couple of markers out there to give people a sense of what this is. As we said, this is a broad exercise and hopefully as you’re thinking this through your mind’s running wild, which is great. So let’s just bring it back just a slight notch. Let’s start with, let’s do business first and let’s start with financially. So what’s a couple of prompts or ideas about how would you come up with what I want financially business wise.

Speaker 1 (12:36):

Financially? There’s two big questions. It’s top line, bottom line revenue. What is my revenue target as if you’ve already achieved it and what’s my bottom line net profit percentage that I’m chasing? So it might be $2 million rev at 15% net profit. And it’s two specific measurable, straight to the point numbers where you get a revenue net profit percentage, percentage number, and it’s nice and easy to be able to get them down on paper of something you’re striving towards.

Speaker 2 (13:13):

And if you’re mathematically inclined, you can do the maths, you can do it in either order, you can start from the bottom and then do the top. Or you can go from the top and then work out the bottom.

Speaker 1 (13:20):

Correct, because the principle there is you can’t hit a target that you can’t see. So financially, I always like to start with a financial target, but never forget, it’s a big reason of why you’re in business is to make profit. So I always start with profitability net, the financial side of things, top line, bottom line, and hit that target and off we go.

Speaker 2 (13:40):

Nice. Alright, let’s tidy up the rest of the business. One is a big, big topic again, but let’s see if we can keep it nice and tight operationally or just the business mechanics if you like operationally.

Speaker 1 (13:52):

There’s so much we can cover off here on the what, but we’ll talk about it in our next episode around not confusing a goal and a strategic play. We’ll talk about that in next episode, so stay tuned for that. But really when it comes to a goal point of view, operationally it’s what type of work we are doing and for who, what does my ground crew look like and what does my office crew look like? Now all the stuff around systems and processes, they’re more all the strategic side of things, so don’t worry about them at the moment. It’s what work for who. And then you’re really looking at your team element, what does my team look like to be able to deliver the work to make the revenue to be able to drop to the bottom line and the profitability side of things. So it’s the snapshot in that moment of time, what does my team look like to be able to hit those numbers in the financial section?

Speaker 2 (14:46):

And I like the words you use there to look like it takes you into that moment again, stay in the future, tents be 12 months out. One way I like to do this with clients is say to them, well, just imagine you’re having a Christmas breakup at the end of the year and you walk in on that day and everyone’s hanging around, who’s there? Who do you see? Have you got X on your ground crew? Have you got these people that work in the office? Whatever it is. But that’s what your crew looks like, office crew and ground crew. Alright, let’s go into more personal, but let’s sort of keep it tight again, lifestyle, we’ll call it lifestyle, but that’s the non-business side of things.

Speaker 1 (15:22):

Yeah, this is more around you and time and family and health and wellbeing and all those types of things. So the first big one is what are the numbers of hours you’re working per week and be really specific there you might say 45 hours per week and you might even be able to get a little bit more granular there to be able to go maximum of two nights per week and no weekends. So you can go 45 hours per week maximum of two nights, no weekends. So get really sharp in terms of what that looks like from an hour’s point of view. You might then set some goals around breaks and holidays. So you might say two weeks of holidays, one week in that school holidays, one week in that school holidays outside of the Christmas break. So get really clear on what that looks like from a breaks point of view.

(16:14):

You might set a goal around, well, what does my family life look like? So you might get really clear and paint that picture of what the family looks like. And then you might set a goal around, well what does my health and wellbeing look like? It’s a certain weight, a certain body fat percentage or whatever it is. And then you’re kind of balancing out the business side of things from a lifestyle perspective in terms of hours and family and breaks and health and wellbeing. You’re trying to just broaden the perspective to ensure that you’re staying balanced in your goal setting to balance business and your personal life as well.

Speaker 2 (16:52):

So do you think then as you talk about let’s take a number of hours you’re working per week, it’s easy to slap that on there and people can come up with that. Is it okay for someone to say, well, I’m picking up the kids two days a week from school. Is that setting a lifestyle goal at that point or is that something different?

Speaker 1 (17:08):

I would say so, absolutely. Because you’re setting a goal then to be able to go, well, I’m currently doing 65, I want to get it down to 50, but I’m doing this strategic play, but my real goal is from a family point of view, I want to be able to do that with my kids in the morning and drop ’em off.

Speaker 2 (17:28):

Exactly. Cool. That’s good. And same with holidays could be we’ve taken two weeks to go to the theme parks on the Gold Coast or whatever it is for you having that, if it’s not just coming to you as just a plain number and how many weeks and it’s that sort of thing and you get juiced up by the fact of, hey, we’ve had a two week holiday to the Gold Coast, knock yourself out, right? That’s an example of what you want or what you’ve done 12 months later looking back.

Speaker 1 (17:51):

Correct. And because a little bit of a teaser for what we’ll talk about next week because a system, a process, a job management system, a key hire, they’re all the strategic players to be able to make that time and those holidays a reality or it’s a strategic player to make the revenue a profit a reality. So this is why we’ve got to get really clear on what do we want? Because what we want dictates the strategic plays that we go after. That’s why this is a two step process. What first then how you can’t do the how without knowing what you first want in the first instance.

Speaker 2 (18:24):

Yeah. This is how you get excited about the year, right? This is why we get so excited about it because setting the goal and the things that people want to go and chase and working towards that, that’s the exciting bit. It’s hard to get juiced up. Let’s be honest about, hey, we’re going to write a new policy or hey, we’re going to go out and sift through a hundred resumes. That doesn’t get you going. But being able to have that goal really clear is going to make sure that you follow through. So I think that’s the point here is that all of these are what questions and we’re resisting the temptation to answer how you’re going to get it that comes next week. So just stick with what you want at this stage.

Speaker 1 (18:56):

Correct. And this is the problem that so many business owners have, and I know we’re starting a new year on this juicy topic around planning, but most people fail to plan. That’s the problem. Most people fail to plan. They’re stuck in the grind of going round and round and round and round in circles in their own business and their own life that they never stop to take perspective and ask themselves and sit down and go, what do I want? Where am I going? And what do I actually want from this bloody thing called business and life? And they just don’t give themselves permission to do it and it’s pretty sad. So make this your year, if you’re listening to this, make this your year to get in there and make it count and make it your mission to make this your best year yet because you’ve planned to succeed, not just plan to fail.

Speaker 2 (19:44):

Before we do the challenge, I think there’s one other thing we need to cover off, and that’s the idea of how people approach this. There is definitely different ways of doing this. So maybe just talk a little bit about how people feel when they first do this for the first time. Because it’s obvious that you’re going to feel maybe if you haven’t done it before, you’re going to feel a bit fish out of water and you’re going to be like, am I doing it right?

Speaker 1 (20:04):

Yeah, there’s a risk here. There’s a risk that you can set yourself up to fail through this process, which is dangerous. And this is where a little bit of self-awareness and a little bit of understanding around how you are wired psychologically, I suppose when it comes to goal setting and planning, you’ve got one group of goal setters who can shoot for the stars. They know they realistically want to hit 2 million, but they’ll go, we’re going to crack on and hit 2.5 and at the moment I’m doing 1 million, I’m going to shoot for two, but really I want a stretch and go to 2.5 and they set the goal of 2.5 and then they get to the end of the year and go, oh, well I hit 2.1, I fell 400 grand short of my stretch target, but who gives a shit? I’m $1.1 million better off than I was this time last year.

(21:01):

So that’s one, one school. And when I think of clients like that, they’re the big thinkers, the bigger guys, and they’re not afraid to be able to go that approach. The other side of the equation in a particular client reminds me of this was his name’s Jamie. And he couldn’t do it that way. And that was because if he set himself a stretch target and A, he didn’t believe it, or B, if he fell short, then he went into that beat up mode and he beat himself up that he felt like he failed and he might’ve set a target to go from one to two and hit 1.7. Instead of seeing that he’s 700 grand better off, he’s seeing that he was 300 grand shorter than where he fit. And so mentally it was bad for him. And so if you’re in that space, sometimes you’ve got to reign your goals in, hit it, achieve it, build the belief and keep moving. So this is where it’s about really understanding your own psychology and how you think and your motivations and your relationship with failure in success. That helps you determine how big your goals are and how you approach it.

Speaker 2 (22:13):

Yeah, and I think that’s permission that you give yourself to do it your way is really what we’re saying. You’ve got permission to do whatever you want, however you want to do it, just get on the page what you want to be able to answer that one question will be enough. So however you answer it is correct enough in this first attempt, right?

Speaker 1 (22:29):

Correct. And a 500 grand improvement to you who gives a shit? If someone’s striving for a $2 million improvement and you’re only cracking for 500, who gives a shit progression is better than standing still. So just as you said, give yourself permission to aim for better. Better is always available and let’s make it this year that you move forward rather than staying stuck. And even if you’ve had a great year last year, set yourself up to have an even better year this year by setting yourself a goal to be in a better position this time next year when you go through the process again.

Speaker 2 (23:05):

Yeah, I love it. Absolutely. Alright, shall we break down this challenge that we’ve got for part one?

Speaker 1 (23:10):

Let’s do it. Alright.

Speaker 2 (23:12):

First thing we want you to do obviously is get clear on what you want. I think we’ve said that enough by now, but let’s stop and think about two big questions. One is what do you want your business to look like 12 months from now? That’s the question. Now you can use the prompts Rob gave you, they’re great, they’ll work, they’ll help you and we’d recommend that you do. But just answer that simple question, what do you want your business to look like 12 months from now? Then you’re going to ask number two, which is what do you want your lifestyle, your personal life to look like, your non-business life to look like 12 months from now? Those are the two key questions, and if you can answer those, just get something on paper. If it’s stretch, great. If you’re going to put in realistic, great.

(23:51):

It doesn’t matter. Like Rob just explained, the next little piece of this is why do you want it? And just sort of give yourself that extra bit of spice, that extra bit of juice to say, Hey, this is why I want this. Because that’s the thing. When you start setting up strategic plays next episode and we start talking around, well, how are we going to do this? Probably not going to sound all that exciting. You’ve got to get the juice and the meat out of what you want, not how you’re going to do it. So that’s the thing that we’ve got here. So get your pen, start writing it down and don’t overplay this. Just give yourself the permission to just write something down on the page to have a marker out there for what better does look like for you in 2026.

Speaker 1 (24:31):

And I think the key here is get it down on paper like you said, Dan, because if you just think through this stuff, there’ll be reason, you’ll get to the end and you’ll conveniently forget that you set that, but you’ve got to get it down on paper and you’ve got to look at it every day and every week and every month, and then you get to the end of the year and you start ticking things off. So getting it down on paper, actualizes as it doesn’t, and that’s why this exercise, it’s a working exercise where you’ve got to get real with this.

Speaker 2 (24:57):

Yeah, absolutely. Otherwise, you end up doing what we really don’t want you to do, which is overthink it, get it out on paper, be happy with it, get excited by it. You’ll know when you’ve got it because you’ll be excited and whatever. It’s that excitement for you. It’s not like we said comparison. It’s not what someone else does. It’s not what it should be. It’s not what the industry expectation is. It’s not best practise. It’s your goal. What do you want? This is your chance to really set yourself up for a massive year.

Speaker 1 (25:23):

I love this topic and I can’t wait to come back to next week for part two because you really put these two together then. So I really love talking about this. This is what I love through our coaching process. If you’ve been listening here today and you’re like, I’m determined to make this my best year yet, and you want to start this year on a really positive note and be intentional around what you want and why you want it, then jump across to strategysession.com.au. Fill out the application form and book in a time that suits us both and let’s jump on a call and talk a bit about what you did last year. Where are you trying to go this year? What is it you want and how we can help you in coaching and let’s work together to be able to make this year a massive success for you. And I really look forward to talking to you and helping you achieve some amazing things over the next 12 months. What a great topic. Dan, should we wrap it up there?

Speaker 2 (26:23):

Yeah, we’re away. Let’s do it.

Speaker 1 (26:25):

Thanks for tuning in today. Get stuck into that challenge. Get some thoughts down on paper. We will come back to you next week with part two around the strategic plays. We’ll talk a bit about the difference between goal setting and strategic plays. We’ll talk to you about how you make these goals a reality then. So we will talk through that whole road mapping process next week. Stay tuned for that and looking forward to coming back to you next week for another episode here on The Trade Den. Until then, take care.

Speaker 2 (26:52):

See you soon.