Your 36-Month Year

A traveling salesman is walking down a country road when he sees something that stops him dead in his tracks. There, under an apple tree, is a farmer straining to lift a heavy pig high enough so that the pig can eat an apple out of a tree. When the pig is finished with this first apple, the farmer shuffles over to the next apple and the pig digs into his next treat. After watching this scene for over fifteen minutes, the traveling salesman cannot control himself and shouts out to the farmer, Hey, wouldn't it save a lot of time if you just knocked a bunch of apples out of the tree and let the pig just eat them off the ground? The farmer looks back at the salesman puzzled and says, What does time matter to a pig?

On today's podcast, we are going to talk about challenging your perception of time and how it is stopping your business from realizing its potential.

Welcome to the Business Brickyard Podcast with Howard Mann. Concise lessons learned the hard way about business, strategy, and life.

How would you run your business if a year was thirty six months long instead of twelve? While you consider that question, let me explain while I'm asking. Right now, you are thinking about the end of your month, your quarter or your year. You are likely at a mad dash to make or break your numbers from this same time last year and your targets for the full year. You push on the members of your team, you push on your clients, you press on your prospects and you make deals to attain a score you set in January.

This is exactly how it goes every year over and over. Sprint after sprint, quarter to quarter and year after year while never feeling like you can do the things that would create the size and scale of the business you truly want. All because of a calendar construct you did not create. You probably end each year with all kinds of crafty decisions where you push expenses off to the next year, you give special deals to prospects to sign as clients in this calendar year, effectively stealing revenue from your next year. It's a ridiculous dance, we never seem to stop.

Why? We watch news and hear about public companies we admire announce their quarterly numbers and see their stock rise and fall based on how they did and how they say they will do. So we measure ourselves the same way with our businesses. Why? If you are not a public company and do not have shareholders that are measuring you on quarterly or annual performance, then why does it matter?

Seriously. As long as your profit margins are healthy and cash flow is strong, then why do you care about the short term so much? Sure, there are annual employee increases to manage and taxes to pay that are based on a twelve month year. But you can change how you reward your team based on the long term goals that matter to you most. And they should matter equally to your team if you're communicating them well.

You simply can treat taxes as three known expenses across a 36. So imagine now that I roll out a new year for you, starting on the first of whatever is the next month that you're listening to this. And that year is thirty six months long. You now have thirty six months to build a business that will finally be what you really want at the end of this new much longer year. No arbitrary sprints, just the right amount of time to build something that will make you proud.

Anything is possible for your business in thirty six months. The secret is finally allowing yourself the time and space to execute a plan worthy of a thirty six month year. In the early months, you can plant seeds in new fields and build up the machine that will be able to produce massive results in months 24 and forward. A thirty six month year allows for patience. A thirty six month year allows everyone in the company to be aligned with your long term goals.

A thirty six month year eases the pressure that you deal with every single year. It's not fun for you, and you better believe that your team hates the q four pressure as well. Whether you wanna sell your business, double revenue, transform into new markets, or just double your profit, then you need to create as long a year as you need so you have the time and space to make the smartest moves to get there. Let patience be your business virtue. As Leo Tolstoy said, the two most powerful warriors are patience and time.

So how do you start to put this new mindset into practice? I want you to go get your current annual budget, and then add two more years to the right of the annual totals for this year. Just one column for each year after this one will suffice. Now, starting thirty six months from now, think deeply about where you want your business to be if you were not worried about the next quarter or just this next year. How much revenue, From what type of offerings would you be earning?

How and where will you want to refine, grow and evolve? Who will you need to hire? What type of changes need to be made to your infrastructure? What will it all cost? Now fill in those rough revenue and expense items for two years out first.

Then, and only then, work backwards and fill out where you need to be twelve months before that so you're on pace to hit the end of your thirty six month year. If you do this honestly, you should find that where you are pushing towards this year is way too focused on winning this year instead of winning the future you really want. And it's likely eluded you for many, many years before. Now rethink your current year budget to start to reflect these newer, long term plans. Sit with this spreadsheet for a few days and weeks.

It will be natural for your thirty six month goal to be infected by your twelve month thinking. Changing years of quarterly and yearly thinking will take some time. Just allow yourself to really imagine what you wish you could do if you just had more time to create lasting change. Remember, a twelve month year is playing someone else's game. It causes persistent short term decision making that is hurting the long term results of your business and the exponential growth and results you truly want.

The first day of the next month is the start of your thirty six month year. Start playing your game. Until next time.

This has been the Business Brickyard Podcast with Howard Mann. Be sure to subscribe wherever you like listening to your podcast or hop on over to businessbrickyard.com.