E28: The Guiding Principles Framework To Make 2025 Your Best Year

December 19, 2024 Sean Garner

Ready to make 2025 the best year ever for your business?

This episode dives into the essential framework for success: guiding principles. From crafting a mission statement that inspires action to identifying the key characteristics your team needs and implementing critical daily actions, this framework ensures clarity and results.

Whether you’re just starting or scaling, this episode is packed with actionable advice to help you dominate 2025.

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Sean Garner

Sean Garner is a marketing consultant and Certified StoryBrand guide dedicated to helping small business owners grow and dominate their industries. He created the Marketing Domination podcast to teach people how to combine storytelling with strategic marketing to help businesses connect with customers and stand out online.

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EPISODE 28 TRANSCRIPTION

Introduction

Sean Garner [00:00]: All right, check, clap. Sync the audio if we need to. This episode is going to be all about goal setting and making sure that business owners are set up for a successful 2025. We're recording in 4K, let's make sure.

Sean Garner [00:31]: Okay, we don't need that. We've got this. We've got that recording up to 4K. Boom. All right, here we go.

Sean Garner [00:51]: How can you make sure that 2025 is the best year ever for your small business? I can tell you this, it's not going to happen by just writing down some goals and coming up with a little to-do list. It's only going to happen if you follow a proven system that guarantees results. In this episode of Marketing Domination, we're going to show you the framework you need to make sure that 2025 is the best year ever for your small business.

Sean Garner [01:25]: Sure, we'll go with that. Why not?

Why Most Small Businesses Fail at Goal Setting

Sean Garner [01:33]: As we approach the end of 2024, I don't know about you guys, but I'm starting to plan out 2025 for all of the different companies my wife and I own. As I'm doing that, I realize the way we do it is probably different from how I see most small business owners doing it—and that’s why they’re not hitting the results or reaching the goals they set for their businesses.

What I want to do in this episode is share a framework that one of my mentors, Don Miller, shared with me. If you follow this system, it will help ensure you actually hit your business goals in 2025. One thing I’ve learned over my years as an entrepreneur is that when I first started owning businesses, over 15 years ago, I didn’t care about a lot of the stuff we’re going to talk about today. Things like mission statements, core values, and goals didn’t seem to matter to me. Back then, I was just trying to pay my bills.

Maybe that’s where you are right now—just scraping by and worrying about whether your business is going to make it over the next few months. I’ll tell you this: as my wife and I have grown to owning five different companies, some reaching seven and eight figures, these things have become absolutely essential. If you ever want to reach those levels, you need to have these things in place. Otherwise, you’ll find yourself, like we have with some of our businesses, having to go back and put them in place after the fact. The bigger your business gets, the harder it is to fix these foundational things.

What we’re going to do today is go over a framework for creating something called guiding principles. If you don’t have these, you’ll likely end up feeling how you might be feeling right now: reactive in your business. You may have goals or to-do lists, but nothing ever actually seems to drive the business forward. Instead, you just stay busy with tasks.

The Importance of Guiding Principles

Sean Garner [03:49]: ...but they’re nothing that’s actually contributing to the bottom line of your company. By following this framework of guiding principles, you’ll ensure not only that you stay on target, but also that you’re able to motivate your team and drive them to help grow the business you’re called to build.

So, the first thing to understand is what’s included in your guiding principles. Guiding principles consist of three different things: Your mission statement, Your key characteristics and The critical actions you have to take.

I’ll break each of these down and share how we apply them in our businesses so you can get some ideas. A lot of this might sound ethereal or like it doesn’t really matter—like you need sales today—but trust me, if you put these things in place, they’ll create a process that will drive results. Maybe not today, but they’ll set you up for consistent, scalable growth.

The first component of guiding principles is your mission statement. Without a mission, your business will be aimlessly firing off, trying to be proactive but not actually achieving anything meaningful. The biggest mistake I see businesses make when creating their mission statement is that they make it for their customers. Your mission statement isn’t for your customers. It’s for you and your team. It’s about clarifying your purpose so everyone knows what the mission is and has a clear end goal to work toward.

The mission statement is not something you’ll put on your website or use as a customer-facing tool. If anything, it’s something you’d share on your employment or recruitment page to attract the type of people who want to join and contribute to your business’s mission. Many businesses try to make their mission statement about their customers, but your customers already have their own mission. Your role is to guide them and help them succeed in their mission through the product or service you provide. That’s the first mistake to avoid.

Creating a Strong Mission Statement

Sean Garner [06:12]: The second thing I see when people create mission statements is they make them too ethereal. They’re not concrete or specific. As a StoryBrand Guide, I love clear, direct messaging, and your mission statement should reflect that. Let me share a framework within a framework to show you what makes a really good mission statement.

Here’s the formula: We will do X by Y because of Z. Let me break this down.

The first part of your mission statement should include three economic priorities or objectives. Your business exists to make money. Even if it’s a nonprofit, if you’re not bringing in donors or revenue, the business won’t exist. So, the mission must acknowledge the importance of making money.

Now, it’s not all about money. I hear people say, “I just don’t care about the money,” or team members saying, “It’s not just about making the business owner money.” No, but if you want a job, if you want the business to grow, it has to make money. On this mission, you need three economic priorities or objectives to focus on as a business.

For example, in our businesses, we break these down into specific targets. These could be revenue numbers, product sales, or other measurable goals that fit your business. For our IV therapy clinic, we have a specific monthly revenue target, a membership sales goal, and a focus on increasing Google reviews to enhance local SEO. For the marketing agency, our targets include a specific number of retainer clients, software client subscribers for Story Guide Funnels, and websites or sales funnels to build.

Sean Garner [08:36]: Including these financial objectives in your mission statement achieves several things. First, it gives a clear target for what your company is building. If your objective is vague, like “we just want to make more money,” you don’t know when you’ve hit the goal. You need something specific to strive for.

Second, it normalizes conversations about finances and revenue with your team. Many business owners keep these numbers too hidden. I’m not saying you need to share everything, but your team should understand that running a business costs money. To keep paying them and providing jobs, a certain level of sales is necessary. Before I became a business owner, I assumed companies made far more money than they actually did.

Here’s the formula: We will do X by Y because of Z. Let me break this down.

And after owning multiple businesses, you start to see costs, taxes, insurance, unemployment, payroll taxes—everything. You realize it takes far more sales to generate the profit a business owner needs. If we normalize these conversations with our staff, they’ll start to understand this isn’t just about making the business owner more money. It’s about ensuring the business can sustain itself, continue providing jobs, and even create opportunities for greater financial blessings and incentives for employees as the company grows.

Step one of the mission statement is it needs to include those three economic objectives. Step two is it needs to have a specific deadline. For me, I like to go no further out than 12 months, but I would say never go further than 24 months on your goals or mission statement.

So, instantly I hear people say, “That means the mission statement is going to have to change.” Yes. Your mission statement should constantly be changing and evolving. It should change for two reasons: one, you hit the goal; or two, you miss the goal. If you miss the goal, you need to pivot and figure out what needs to change to go back and hit it. If you hit the goal, you need to reset and update the mission.

Sean Garner [10:55]: Imagine this analogy that Don gives: the mission statement for a football team being, "We want to win the Super Bowl some year." That doesn’t inspire action or drive the team forward if it just has to happen some year. But if the mission is, "We want to win the Super Bowl in 2026," it sets a very specific, measurable deadline. You’ll know if you actually hit your target or not.

I think a lot of times, people are afraid of setting concrete deadlines because they think, "What if I miss it?" That’s okay. You might miss it. What’s important is that you’re doing everything to ensure the rest of this framework is in place so you can hit it. We want a goal that both us and our team understand, so we know what we’re striving for and have metrics to show how we’re performing against that goal.

If your goal is vague, like “I want an eight-figure business,” and it’s set for someday, that’s not going to inspire action. What if “someday” is 50 years from now? That’s not helpful. But if you have a specific revenue target you want to hit within 12 months, it’s much easier to work backward and ensure you’re on track.

So, in addition to those three economic objectives, your mission statement must include a specific deadline for when these objectives should be accomplished.

The third thing your mission statement needs is the “why” behind it. This is where you articulate why achieving this mission is important. And it can’t just be about making the business owner more money. That’s not going to inspire your team. You can’t say, “We’re going to hit $200,000 in monthly revenue because your boss wants a bigger paycheck.” That’s not motivating.

What motivates people is the bigger cause—why your company exists. I believe all small business owners are called to what they’re doing and should pursue it with the highest level of excellence possible. For example, at our agency, our “why” is this: we believe small business owners shouldn’t be held back by bad marketing. They should be able to compete with bigger, larger brands that can spend tons on marketing. The business that offers the best service should be the one that stands out.

Sean Garner [13:14]: And so that's why we do what we do. We love and are obsessed with small, local business owners because we want them to compete with these bigger brands by having the solid marketing systems and strategies they need.

With the IV therapy clinic that we own, our “why” is that we believe many common medical and chronic issues people deal with can be improved or treated with consistent, good wellness practices. That’s why we have the IV therapy business.

So we need to have a “why” behind what we’re doing. It’s not just about the money, but we need the money to accomplish the “why.”

To recap the first part of the guiding principles for your mission statement: We will accomplish X by Y because of Z. We will achieve three economic objectives by whatever deadline we set. Again, I recommend a timeline of six to 24 months. Twelve months is a good sweet spot, especially with the new year approaching. This allows you to evaluate progress and adjust as needed.

The “why” behind the mission is crucial. It can’t just be about making more money. Personally, I am obsessed with my customers. I think about them all the time—their problems, their businesses, and how we can help them. Because of that obsession, we are dedicated to what we do.

For example: With our marketing agency, we are obsessed with helping small business owners succeed and thrive in their industries. For the IV therapy clinic, we are obsessed with helping people achieve optimal wellness. For our Airbnb properties, we are obsessed with providing our guests a place to unplug, connect with loved ones, and relax.

When you’re obsessed with your customers and solving their problems, the “why” behind your mission becomes much clearer and more meaningful.

If you want to hit your goals for 2025 and establish these guiding principles, the first thing you need is a mission statement. You need to know exactly what you’re striving for.

The second thing you need is key characteristics.

Key Characteristics for Your Team

Sean Garner [15:31]: Whether you have a large team, small team, or you are a solopreneur that maybe just uses some contract labor every once in a while, you need to know the key characteristics that are needed to accomplish the mission that you've set out. So with this, we need to know why we have the key characteristics because we want to know, one, who do we need to become as the leader and as a business owner? And then two, who does our staff need to become in order to reach this goal? And then three, who do we need on the team? Maybe if you are, whenever you go to look to hire your next employee, if they don't have these key characteristics that you decide are going to be what's needed to push the business forward, well, maybe this isn't the best fit for them. And I would say, just go ahead and save yourself the time. Now, if they don't have the key characteristics that you set up, you shouldn't hire them because it could cost you a lot more time and money firing the wrong hire. So just take the time to actually hire the right person for you.

Sean Garner [16:29]: And when you know your mission, you know the type of people that you need. So the thing with the key characteristics that you want to make sure that you include is that it's very specific towards the mission that you've set. You don't want to have something that's broad or too general here, like integrity. Hopefully, everybody that you hire should be people of integrity. If not, they're probably going to be in prison one day. They should be people of high integrity. That's something everybody should have. We want it to be more specific to what the role is that they're hiring for. So, for example, with that, one of the key characteristics that we have for the IV therapy clinic is they have to love people and love serving people. They have to be very servant-minded with what they do. So when people come in, we want them to have a relaxing environment. We don't want them to think about anything. We want it to be very stress-free. So we want to be thinking about everything that we can do, like getting them a warm blanket, getting them a cup of hot tea, prepping everything. So it's a customer-service-based experience where it's not just coming in. It's a very medical but also relaxing spa environment. We want to serve people whenever we do that.

Sean Garner [17:36]: Some of the key characteristics that we have for the marketing agency are people that take ownership. So our team is very small. We have a staff of less than ten people on the agency side. And because of that, people need to be able to take ownership of their area and their tasks. If they mess up, they need to take ownership of that.

Sean Garner [17:50]: I, as the leader, need to take ownership of everything and make sure I’m leading and guiding my team in the right way. They need to be problem solvers. They need to be critical thinkers. You need to be able to not just point out problems but provide solutions to those problems. Those are the kinds of people we’re looking for. Technology and tools are always changing, so you have to have a growth mindset. Just because you’ve been doing something one way for years doesn’t mean it’s always the best way. We need to find ways to keep improving. You need to have that growth mindset.

Sean Garner [18:22]: The fourth thing is that I want people who are clear and direct communicators. If you’ve been around me—probably haven’t—but with me, I’m a very clear and direct communicator. I don’t beat around the bush. I want to tell my team exactly what we want to do. That’s why I personally love the StoryBrand framework and creating guiding principles like this—it’s clear, it’s direct, and it’s actionable. We’re not going to beat around the bush. We want to tell people exactly what to do and what’s expected of them. That way, there’s no, “I didn’t know,” or “You never told me that.” No, we want to be clear and direct communicators.

Sean Garner [18:57]: Also, with our agency, we move very, very quickly. We work with a lot of clients, so if someone is blocking someone else, they need to be clear and direct about the issue so we can remove those blockers. The last thing is we want to do everything with excellence. As a Christian, I believe we do all things unto the Lord. This work is my worship, my calling. So I want to ensure that we do everything with a high level of excellence, that we’re not just checking boxes.

Sean Garner [19:26]: So, the second part of your guiding principles is having your mission statement. The third thing is identifying the key characteristics of the people you need—or the person you need to become—to accomplish that mission. Now, the third and final thing we need to ensure we’re going to hit our goals and accomplish this mission is determining the critical actions. What are the daily things we must do to support the types of people we need to hit our goals and mission?

Sean Garner [19:52]: This doesn’t include big goals or individual to-do list items. These are repeatable things you can do every single day to ensure you’re moving the mission forward.

Critical Daily Actions for Success

Sean Garner [20:13]: For example, with our IV therapy business, some of the critical actions that the staff has to do every single day include following up with all of the patients from the previous day. We check in on how their service was, ask if they need anything else, and see how they’re feeling. This ties back to our mission, where we’ve got those three economic objectives. Following up often helps us achieve two things: we get a Google review, which is one of our objectives, or we can get the patient scheduled for their next booking. If we didn’t follow up, we might miss out on both of these opportunities. So, that’s a critical action we have to take every day.

Sean Garner [20:50]: The second critical action is asking every single person, as they check out, if they’ve heard about our membership programs. If we want to sell more memberships, we can’t just expect people to discover them on their own. Every single team member needs to ask, “Hey, have you heard about our wellness membership plans?”

Sean Garner [21:09]: The third critical action is asking every person who comes through the clinic for a Google review during checkout. We say, “Hey, we hope you had an incredible experience today. We’d love it if you could take five seconds, scan this QR code, and leave us a review on Google. It really helps us serve more patients like you.” These actions aren’t huge, but they need to be done consistently.

Sean Garner [21:34]: From experience, I’ll tell you, if these actions aren’t written down or consistently communicated to your team, they will get missed. You might do them for a little while, but eventually, they’ll fall apart. You’ll become reactive instead of proactive, especially if you don’t have a mission, hire the wrong people who lack the right characteristics, or don’t prioritize your critical daily actions.

Sean Garner [21:57]: For the marketing agency, one of our critical actions is filling out a DSU, which is our Daily Status Update. We value clear and direct communication, so we need to know what’s in the pipeline, what everyone is working on, and any blockers they’re facing.

Sean Garner [22:13]: Another critical action is reviewing the pipeline daily for blockers. When someone starts their shift, they go into the project management software, review the pipeline, and identify any blockers or potential issues. This ensures we can move quickly and serve people by delivering results faster.

Sean Garner [22:32]: The third critical action is hitting all deadlines. Whenever someone is assigned a task, it has a deadline based on its type. By always hitting our deadlines and removing blockers in the pipeline, we ensure everything stays on track and our mission continues to progress.

Aligning Mission, Team, and Actions

Sean Garner [22:36]: And that the teams are clearly communicating to each other what they need, where their blockers are, and what they worked on that day. Those small daily habits are what we need to drive the business forward so we can hit our mission.

Sean Garner [22:51]: If you want 2025 to be your best year, you need to create your guiding principles. You need a mission statement. That mission statement should list the three economic objectives you have as the business owner. You need a specific deadline for when you want to hit those objectives and a clear explanation of why this is important—not just to the team, but to the bigger picture of why you’re doing this and why you’re called to be a small business owner serving your customers.

Sean Garner [23:17]: The second thing is identifying the type of people you need. What characteristics do you need to develop in yourself, in your team, or in new hires to ensure you’re able to hit that mission?

Sean Garner [23:29]: The third is defining the key daily tasks or critical actions that you and your team must take to stay on track for 2025.

Sean Garner [23:38]: Do this, and I promise if you truly put it into place and regularly communicate it—at least once a week in a staff meeting with your team, or if you’re a solopreneur, set a recurring meeting for yourself to review it—your business will grow.

Sean Garner [23:54]: Now, this is all just a small part of something Don Miller has created called Small Business Flight School. This program includes your guiding principles as part of its leadership focus, along with six other areas. It covers everything from marketing and sales to creating profitable products that convert and everything else you need to know to build a successful business.

Sean Garner [24:14]: If you’re interested in checking it out, click the link below. It’s an incredible program that will help you grow your business. Or, if you know what needs to get done but need a marketing agency to put those things in place so you can grow and dominate in 2025, reach out to us.

How to Review and Update Your Guiding Principles

Sean Garner [24:51]: I would love the opportunity to speak with you. Click the link down below and book a call with me. We’ll hear more about your goals for your business so we can see if we’re the right fit for you. We’re in the business of helping small local business owners grow and dominate their industry. We do that with messaging, websites, sales funnels, automation, SEO, search engine optimization, content marketing—all those things. We’d love to serve your business.

Sean Garner [25:18]: Put these guiding principles into place so you can make sure 2025 is the best year for your small business.