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Your 2026 Plan Is Already A Disaster

You just don't know it yet.

It's January. You've got a fresh spreadsheet. You took last year's revenue, slapped on 20%, and copied the formula across 12 months.

Congratulations. You just built a .xlxs fantasy.

Here's what's actually going to happen:

February shows up.
A client fires you.
Your best strategist quits.
A prospect ghosts after three "great" calls.

And your beautiful plan?

It sits in a Google Sheet that nobody opens until December when you realize again that you missed your targets.

But here's the thing everyone gets wrong about why this happens.

It's not discipline.
It's not mindset.
It's not "consistency."
Blah, blah, freakin’, blah….

You started a freakin’ agency.
You ARE disciplined.
You DO have the mindset.
Stop beating yourself up that “mindset guru” stuff.

The real problem?

Nobody ever taught you how to be a CEO.

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The Optimism Trap

Most agency plans are designed to make YOU feel good.
Everyone's got a purpose! We're all aligned! It's going to be GREAT!

That not leadership, skippy.

That's cheerleading to make yourself feel better.

Almost all agency plans assume your agency is different than it actually is.
You plan around this imaginary version that has unlimited potential, perfect employees, loyal clients, and stable markets.

Then reality punches you in the face.

Here's the straight skinny: If nobody does anything differently after you deploy a plan, it wasn't an actual plan. It was the agency version of a fantasy novel….

Stop planning like a cheerleader and start running your agency like an actual CEO. This webinar gives you the exact math to know if your revenue goals are fantasy or achievable, the hiring formula that turns expenses into profit, and a content system your whole team can run in under an hour a week.
Watch it, steal the worksheets, and finally stop winging it.

MAKE AN ANNUAL PLAN COUNT
Here is where plans fall apart…

Most people think that an annual plan is like a map.

In Q1, we are going to do this and in Q2, we will do that…

In Q3, we will hire these people…

All neat and tidy.

WRONG.

An annual plan is the very best time to identify the constraints that are in the way of your growth.

Ya. Annual planning is time to figure out WTF has been in your way, and figure out how to bust through that constraint. It’s a mindshift, because planning now changes from “Hmm…should we pretend our growth rate will be 11%, or is 14% better…?” to “What stupid things are we going to smash apart so that we can be the best goddamn version of ourselves we can be?”

Growth doesn’t happen by slapping some formulas into a spreadsheet…

It happens when you clear the field and move ahead.

I like to keep plans simple. Focus on Sales, Team, Money & Demand Gen. Everything else in a function of one of those. LFG.

SALES
The Only Number That Matters

Stop looking at your funnel. Stop obsessing over lead counts. Ignore the LinkedIn bro bragging about "1,104 leads in 90 days". They are just making crap up.

Revenue doesn't come from leads.

Wait - what?!?! Tim You are officially an idiot!
Of course revenue comes from leads!

A meaningful conversation has three requirements:

1. There is a short path to yes or no: You can’t have a meaningful conversation with "let me run this up the flagpole" people.

2. You are talking to someone who OWNS a problem: Not influencers. Owners.

3. They have budget influence: The don’t have to have signing authority, but they can say "here's my problem, here's a solution" and someone writes a check.

Everything else is NPCs. Background noise.

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Do The Math

Let's say your Q1 goal is $50K in new revenue.
Your average deal is $7,500. You need 7 deals.
If your close rate is 20%, you need 35 proposals.
If 35% of calls become proposals, you need about 100 calls.

Over 13 weeks, that's roughly 8-9 meaningful conversations every single week.

If the answer is "no," then your plan is already dead.

Fix the math or fix the motion.

One Motion. Always On.

Everybody wants to change so that they are doing some crazy new thing. But here is a different way to think about it. Pick one go-to-market activity you will do nonstop. Every day. Even when you're stressed. Even when your biggest client fires you. Even when there's too much work.

Referrals. Warm outbound. Cold outbound. Content. Events. Partnerships. Whatever.

Pick one. Commit. Never stop.

This is your baseline control. Everything else is experiments.

One Constraint. Five Tests.

Every quarter, pick ONE constraint to BLAST through:

• Not enough conversations?

• Close rate too low?

• Deal size too small?

• Sales cycle too long?

Then run five experiments to bust through it.

Partner outreach. Better angle matching on outbound. Systematized referral requests. LinkedIn ads. Weekly webinars. Whatever.

Track the baseline. Define the activities. Measure results.

By quarter end, you WILL have improved. Math doesn't lie.

As you kill constraints, every other part of your biz dev efforts will be better. Then you can test that freaky new tactic…because you have killed a constraint and build a better foundation.

TEAM
Who Do You Need to Hire

"I need a project manager" isn't a need. It's a job title.

Before you hire anyone, you have to be able to answer these questions:

1. WHAT OUTCOME TO THEY OWN? Not tasks. Results.

2. WHAT DECISIONS CAN THEY MAKE? If none, you're just hiring someone to ask you questions.

3. WHAT’S THE VISIBLE SUCCESS METRIC? "Doing a good job" isn't a metric. It's a vibe.

If you can't define all three, you can't hire.

BONUS→ Here's the how much can I pay them math: 
You can only pay as much as the profit generated by removing the constraint this person fixes. If hiring them generates $66K in gross profit, you can't pay them $150K. That's not being cheap. That's just math.

Who You Hire By Stage

Under $1M: Hire weirdos who figure stuff out. Not "what do I do next?" people.
$1-5M: Hire people who love the work and want to make it better. Not just their work…THE work.
$5M+: Hire specialists who thrive in structure. Virtuosos obsessed with their craft.

If you're a $2M agency hiring someone who wants a big agency salary and process? Disaster. Wrong person, wrong stage.

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MONEY
Your Money Needs Jobs

Every dollar that comes in has exactly four possible jobs:

1. Pay your salary (yes, you need to be on payroll)

2. Pay operating expenses

3. Pay taxes

4. Become profit

Allocate the dollars that way as they come in. (Ya. Decide your profit on the day you get the payment… crazy, right?)
Here is the simple list to make money management really simple:

1. Set the percentages for each of those jobs

2. Keep money in separate buckets.

3. Review weekly.

4. Distribute profits no more than quarterly.

Pro Tip: If your OpEx is above 65%, something's broken. Too many people or not charging enough. Probably both.
Pro Tip #2: Read Profit First by Mike Michalowicz - I swear you will not regret the time investment.

DEMAND GEN
Content: Your Team Already Makes It

"I don't have time for content" is a lie you tell yourself. “My team can’t create content” is another.

Your team generates reports, has client calls, develops processes, builds case studies, discovers tools. That's all content. You just have to capture it.

Record client calls. Grab transcripts. Shine it up. Share it.

That post is fuel for a machine that empowers your team to repurpose that insight from their perspective…so content, marketing & demand gen are suddenly a team sport.

One insight from your media buyer becomes:

• Their LinkedIn post (hitting an acquisition marketer audience)(

• Your email marketer's spin on it (hitting a retention marketer audience)

• Your CEO take (hitting a decision-maker audience)

One piece of content.
Three distribution points.
Three different audience targets.
Zero excuses to not be serving content to your market.

WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?
The Only Question You Need to Answer:

Are you willing to build controls & systems that let your team shine?

Because scale isn't a goal. It's a result.

You can't manufacture growth.

You can only create the conditions for it.

Your job, right now, is to put in the control structures.

• Know your numbers.

• Remove constraints.

• Capture your team's genius.

Do that, and scale becomes almost inevitable.

Our sponsorships are ads (obviously - duh). But some of the companies or services linked in our content may pay us a minimal commission if you buy something from them. Potential payment is never a factor in what we link to, and we have direct experience with every company or service where you can buy something that we mention in our content.