PP 332: Haley Burkhead, CEO of Profit Planner and Host of the Profit Planner Podcast

Website: https://profitplanner.co/
Podcast: https://marketbeautifully.com/podcast/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/marketbeautifully
Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/profitplannerco
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/profitplanner/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0oiElIfUYbjfVPW5x3llzw
Twitter: https://twitter.com/haleyburkhead

Kim Sutton: Welcome back to another episode of Positive Productivity. This is your host, Kim Sutton, and I’m so happy to have you here today. I’m also thrilled to introduce our guest, Haley Burkhead. Haley is the CEO of Profit Planner, and also the host of the Profit Planner Podcast. 

Welcome, Haley. I’m so happy to have you here.

Haley Burkhead: Yes, thank you so much for having me, Kim. I’m so pumped to be on the show.

Kim Sutton: Listeners, I just had to share with you that you can never let your guard down on marketing, you should always be out there doing the best that you can just to keep up a presence because, Haley, if memory serves me right, we connected on Instagram.

Haley Burkhead: Yes, Instagram.

Kim Sutton: I love that. And I have to tell you, you are the first. You’re the first guests that I have gotten off of Instagram. I can’t say that I haven’t gotten any listeners, but bravo.

Haley Burkhead: Thanks. Yeah, I love Instagram.

Kim Sutton: Oh, me, too. I just wish I was better at it. Or better at keeping up with it. But maybe we can circle back around to that later. But I would love it if you would share a bit of your journey with the listeners and tell us how you got to where you are today.

Haley Burkhead: Yeah. It’s a long story, but we’re just going to shorten it. I first started freelance web designing maybe like 2013, 12, 13. And I was honestly in such a bad place at this time. And maybe whoever’s listening right now might relate to this. Because as entrepreneurs, whenever we work from home alone, it can be tough, it can really feel isolating. And honestly, it just kind of sink into that depression because you feel so isolated. And that was where I was at. I actually escaped two years ago from entrepreneurship. I was miserable. I blamed entrepreneurship for how miserable I was. 

So I actually took a full time job. I did the opposite thing. Most people go from full time jobs to entrepreneurship, I went from entrepreneurship to full time job and entrepreneurship. And from there, I learned a lot about productivity. So before, I was not being strategic with my time at all. When I took this full time job on, I knew just like you were entrepreneurs at our core. Like, there is something inside of us that makes us so different, and I knew that. So I knew that if I wanted to keep running my business, I was gonna have to get a lot smarter than I was. And that is where this Profit Planner brand has been born. I’ve learned how to create a profit plan, which is what we’re all about in the Profit Planner Community. I’ve learned how to prioritize all of my high priority tasks, and then systemize, outsource and automate them. I mean, it has been incredible just the transformation of taking this job. And I do have to say, I don’t have that job anymore. But all of the productivity that I’ve learned has really just, I launched my brand into what it is now and created systems around what I’ve learned while building this business.

Kim Sutton: Oh, my gosh. I was in a job, and I started my first business while in that job. I lost the job, tried to maintain the business, but there was definitely no profit plan there. There was the plan of spending more and hope more. And by the time, that business close. It was e-commerce, and I had no idea what I was doing. I was not using social media at all.

Haley Burkhead: Oh, gosh.

Kim Sutton: Yeah. But it was also 2005 to 2010. By the end, I was only making 25 cents a day. Yeah, I know. And then I went back to a job, but it was not what I was educated in. I was an interior architect. Listeners, if you’re listening to your first episode right now, I was an interior architect for 10 years when I started this business, but I lost my job when the economy tanked. And I went and worked at Chipotle, that didn’t teach me anything about productivity. Well, I guess, Dave, he taught me, we have a timeline when we need to get things done, if we’re going to need people as they come in. But it took years in this business to figure out productivity, and it’s still a constant struggle, but I found some of the tools that work for me. I would love to hear what some of the methods and tools that you learned, and what you are using in your business now to really help you.

Haley Burkhead: Yeah. I think a big major tool that has really helped me scale my business is project management. So what I do in my business is I teach service based business owners how to reach five figure months through profit focused productivity. That is like my main thing. That’s what I’m all about. And so what I teach a lot of, how to do that is through project management, automating an entire online product management system. I also teach people how to do a profit plan. So we break down that big dreamy revenue goal number. So let’s say you’re listening to this right now and you think, oh, if I could only make $150,000 this year in my business, I would be so thrilled and so proud of myself. So then a profit plan breaks down that dreamy number that’s in your head, and we break it down to where, okay, what does your day to day life look like? We put it on a color coded calendar so that you never have to ask the question, what do I do next? 

Again, it’s all in front of you. So that’s the second part. And then the third part is prioritizing tasks. I think it’s super important that you know what you need to be working on that’s actually gonna make you money. Because you can feel at the end of the day that you are working so hard, like if Kim is sitting there working so hard, and I know Kim doesn’t do this because Kim’s perfect, but let’s say that she wasn’t. Let’s say that she was working eight hours that day, okay. But in those eight hours, she feels like she’s productive because she’s working, but only two hours of that was actually productive, and actually moving her business forward, and actually making her money. That’s what I want to help you identify is what’s actually moving your business forward, and then triple down on that. That way, your business can scale a whole lot quicker and you can reach those five figure, six figure months that you want to.

Kim Sutton: Oh, my gosh, okay. So as a podcast host too yourself, I know you’ll understand and feel this pain. Between August and October, I think we’re in the month of 2017. I decided I was going to do all the editing and everything myself. Oh, gosh, and it’s a daily show. So I realized at the end of those three months when my bank account was severely suffering. But I was spending 75 hours a month being busy, but not productive. While I was being productive, but not in the profit planning method at all. I am sure because those 75 hours that my billable rate would have brought in some serious, serious income. And instead, I was trying to figure out how to pay the bills. I mean, we talked about how we met on Instagram. People can think that they’re on social media networking and they’re working. But at the end of the day, what do you have to show for that time that you spent scrolling? If that’s all you’re doing, I’m not saying that you shouldn’t be out there at all. What are some of the time traps that you see people falling into?

Haley Burkhead: Yeah. I think a big one is just like you said, working in your business and not in your business. And this is tough. So if you feel like you’re working in the weeds, and I do have to say, right now, I am editing my show. But I have made an entire systemized process to where I can crank out an episode, all of it edited within 10 or so minutes. And that’s including reporting an intro. So I am very efficient, very fast paced, very effective with how I’m editing it. And that’s mainly because I don’t trust anyone yet. I’m working on that part, but I do have someone that does the show notes, does all of that work that doesn’t take a lot of thought and strategy. That’s what I outsource. So I think a big thing is that we’re scared of giving away our money to people because we have this control issue, or we have this scarcity mindset with money. That’s like, yeah. And even beyond that, it takes sometimes months or years to get over that mindset. I totally understand. So while you’re working on that mindset, think about how you can systemize or automate what you’re doing. That way, you’re saving your time. 

For instance, a big one that I realized in the Profit Planner Community is the inbox. Suck in your inbox, and it just sucks all of our time. When I ran a four person agency last year, I turned my freelance web design business I was talking about into an agency. So oh, my gosh, my inbox sucked my time. I was spending maybe three to four hours a day in my inbox, it was crazy. But I learned how to automate my entire inbox using free tools with Gmail, and I went from three to four hours to 30 minutes a day running an agency. Not just typical, but this is a lot of emails. But I’ve automated an entire system with my inbox. So it doesn’t have to mean hiring people. It can mean just creating systems so you have to know what systems you create. That’s what I’m getting at. That’s what’s tough, and I know that can be a little overwhelming because there’s so much stuff in your business. But I would suggest to really breaking this down. 

I use the SOA method for this. And if you’ve never heard of the SOA method, it’s probably because I created it. But the SOA method stands for Systemize, Outsource and Automate. And so what our goal with this method is, how can you figure out what high priority money making tasks in your business that you need to triple down on? So I asked myself four questions. And these four questions determine every single high priority task in your business. I don’t have this list in front of me so I’m just gonna try to do stuff at the top of my head. So one, what are your income sources? So what are all of your sources of income, and this is list out every specific thing. So if you’re a web designer, you might do a website in a box, like a kind of pre-made template, that’s an income source, your custom. All three of your web design packages could be an income source. So that’s four different income sources. You might have a hosting service that you do affiliate work with, that’s five income sources right there. So list all of those out. 

Now, the second question I want you to ask yourself is, what are your community builders? So do you have a Facebook group? Do you have, I use Instagram stories as a big community builder for me myself. Do you do live? Do you have a Facebook Live show? What are your community builders to where you get interact? And don’t think like Pinterest, because Pinterest, you don’t really interact with your audience. So think about platforms, tools, or different things that you’re doing that encourage the community aspect of your business. Another one that I want you to ask yourself are traffic drivers. So what are your traffic drivers in your business? This is huge. So if you don’t know your traffic drivers, that’s what’s putting your business forward. This is the best way to scale your business, I think. Because if you can figure out your traffic drivers and automate them, that’s huge. It’s crazy.

Kim Sutton: Yeah. Listeners, you may have heard me talk about one of my Facebook groups that I had not even thought about being a community builder, a traffic source and an income source until one of my own team members said: “Hey, we need to monetize this.” And it’s the Virtual Assistant Job Facebook Group which I started four years ago, because I didn’t even think about the fact that, I started my business as a VA, I am no longer a VA, but I had the skills that I needed to not only build a successful virtual assistant business, but to teach what I learned to other people. And that group is, oh, my gosh, it’s huge. Now, that’s all I’m gonna, maybe like 15,000 people, it’s huge though. And there’s constantly people going to get the free opt in that I provide. It starts taking them through an email sequence. I share podcast episodes that compliment the emails. And I’m not selling anything until yet, but I didn’t realize at all, or it didn’t occur to me that that was an open source of recurring daily revenue that I really didn’t have to do that much except post in the group occasionally, get on and do a Live. But I have that opt in, and it didn’t take a lot of work at all.

Haley Burkhead: Yeah. It’s amazing how much time you save when you think a little bit more strategically. And real quick before I move on to this fourth question. You’ve asked yourself, I think it’s important to think, okay, what can I do to save me time because Kim saves so much of her time doing that, that now she has more time to work on her business, and be the CEO, like fill the CEO role in her business where she can now establish the vision for her company. She can be like the ship captain, she’s steering the direction of her business. She’s not sitting there working all the wheels of the ship, she’s directing where the ship is going. And that’s where Kim is supposed to be. And that’s where you’re supposed to be as well. 

Now, the fourth question you need to ask yourself is, what content am I putting out? So for me, I have the Profit Planner Podcast. That is my main source of content. I am all about my podcast. I also have a Facebook Live that I’m doing, that I just kind of upload to YouTube, and I’ve let my blog go. I’m turning my blog into a different live series. But my podcast is the main one. So list out all of the content that you’re putting on your business. Once you have these answers to these four questions, your traffic drivers community, your income sources and content, all of those answers are the only things you should be focusing on for the next three months. That’s it. I challenge you to only focus on those answers for the next three weeks and see how your income grows.

Kim Sutton: Oh, I love that. I love that. And you mentioned that you’re letting your blog go. I have not let my blog go, but my posting has been irregular at best. I do have the podcast that goes out daily. But listeners, if you’re thinking, how can I work something like that into my schedule? You don’t have to. You can even be guesting on other people’s podcasts or guesting on other people’s blogs and harnessing the value of their community to drive traffic to you, your products and your offerings. And I think that’s something that so many people forget about. It doesn’t all have to do about us making content specifically for our brand, but we can be out there supporting other people and be like a JV relationship, right? But I’m not talking about JV, but guessing another podcast can be just as huge as a JV partnership.

Haley Burkhead: No, I totally agree. And I’m so glad you mentioned that. I think, and I do want to mention, I’m not letting my blog go just because I don’t think blogs are a good idea. I think blogs are a great idea if you’re a good writer. So for me, I feel like I’m an okay writer, but I’m not the best writer in the world. I’m better in front of the camera, I’m better behind the mic, that’s where I love to be. So that’s where I’m really focusing on and diving into my business because that’s what gives me energy. I’m a major extrovert so it gives me energy. Like these conversations right now that I’m having with Kim, this gives me energy. I know that’s where I’m supposed to be. You may not need to be behind the mic, maybe you don’t. And I would suggest if you’re, it’s just because you’re nervous, definitely practice, that is you can totally get over that nervous feeling. I was sweating the first time I did it. But if you really feel like you are not that type of personality, that’s totally okay. Blogging might be what’s best for you. It’s just all about being self aware enough to know what type of medium you need to go headfirst into.

Kim Sutton: Oh, yeah, absolutely love it. And that’s why I don’t do Lives as much as I would like, or go live on Instagram. I’ve never gone live on Instagram. But to confession, well, I guess true confession is sort of rhetorical confession here. A lot of the time, I just don’t feel comfortable getting on. I get my kids out the door in the morning, and I’m so excited to get to work that I will just jump in. And some days, I just don’t feel camera presentable. I mean, I will go and get showered, and dressed, and do what I need to, but I personally just don’t like getting on looking like I do at this very present moment. I just don’t want to do that.

Haley Burkhead: Yeah. And then you also don’t want to put on makeup and get your hair all done just to go live for 30 minutes, and then you’re done. Yeah, totally get that, totally get that. And I don’t think that’s for everyone. I really don’t I think a lot of people are like, oh, Live is where it’s at. And yeah, I mean, Live is where it’s at. But if you don’t want to get on Live, that’s a conversation I think everyone needs to have with themselves and think, okay, how can I use my talent, my unique talent to better serve my business?

Kim Sutton: Absolutely. Absolutely. Have you heard the expression, rich people spend money to save time, and poor people spend time to save money.

Haley Burkhead: Yes, yes, yes, yes. I know you live in a smaller town as well. I live in a very small town in Arkansas, and I have had to really work on who I am around. I mean, I’m just being super vulnerable here. But even my family, to be honest, my family has the mindset that a lot of middle class people, they have a set income. As entrepreneurs, we don’t. We have a ceiling. But middle class people that are full time jobs do, they have a ceiling. So in their mind, all they have is time. So they can’t make more money in their job.They might be able to get a raise here and there, but they really do have that ceiling that caps them. So what they do is they get those coupons, they do all that stuff. As an entrepreneur, I can’t think that I have to completely shift my entire mindset of what’s gonna save my time, what’s gonna save my mental energy. I don’t need to even be deciding what I need to eat this afternoon because I need to be saving my mental energy for business decisions. I have to think completely differently than the way I was raised. And I think a lot of us entrepreneurs are in that boat too. 

Nothing against my family at all, I think I love that they say, I love that they have that mindset. I just know that I have seen it come to bite me in the butt with my business. I have tried to make cheap deals, and I’ve tried to if I felt like, oh, my gosh, this person, 30% off. That’s amazing. No, business is not a clearance wrap. Like that’s not the way you need to run your business. I just hired a $5,000 programmer after being burned by four programmers before them. They charge $500 for the development of what I was creating at that time. And compared to this $5,000 programmer, I was burned by all four, and then I wasted my money just to hire that $5,000 programmer. I mean, I just can’t stress this, this is not a clearance rack.

Kim Sutton: Right. Right. What would you have to say for listeners who are struggling to find clients? I’ve gone through this myself. They’re struggling to find clients. Somebody comes along who is not perfect, but they’re struggling with whether or not to take that person on because they’re afraid of missing out on the income.

Haley Burkhead: Okay, yeah, that is very tough. I think first of all, you should never ever take a client for sure if they’re demeaning in any way. That’s just for sure, no. But I also think you have to be smart about it. So figure out your niche. And I know this is super basic stuff, and you probably hear this all the time. I hope that your eyes aren’t rolling in the back of your head as I’m saying this. But seriously, figure out your niche, and then figure out who your target audience is. 

So for instance, if you’re a web designer thing, okay, my ideal client has been running her business for two years, she has been featured in the, or get super specific. She’s been featured in the Huffington Post, but she feels like she’s stuck in her income. She’s working too hard. How can I take that off for three web designs? Now, your solution to her problem is super specific. I think that you’re going to attract better people to begin with, but also if they’re not a right fit. I think it just depends. Because I know in my business, sometimes I’ve taken jobs as long as they’re not draining jobs. I’ve taken jobs to fund my new niche. I think you have to be super strategic about it, though.

Kim Sutton: I completely agree. I’ve never shared this on the podcast before. But when I first started my business, I was saying yes to everybody and everything that came my way. I did that actually for the first two to three years of my business. There was one client that I remembered that was having me research movies into specific genres and making spreadsheets out of them. That is nothing compared to what I’m doing today, but it was just completely mind numbing. I know it might work for some people, but it did not work for me. But I was so afraid that if I said no to that, that I wouldn’t have the money. But then I realized that by doing this work, I am holding myself back from looking for the work that I really love. But with that said, a lot of people, when they’re starting out their entrepreneurial journey, like I was, I wasn’t intending to become a full time entrepreneur at least as fast as I did. I had no idea who I wanted to work with. It took me those three years to actually figure it out. Who do you work with?

Haley Burkhead: Who do I work with?

Kim Sutton: Who is your ideal client, Haley?

Haley Burkhead: My ideal client is someone that is a service based business owner that’s looking to have multiple income streams. She wants to have five figure months, but stuck at making $2,000 a month or under right now. Man, it’s tough. She feels like she’s working so freaking hard in our business, but she’s just stuck. She feels like the harder she works, the more money she’ll make. But yet, she’s not making any more money. She’s frustrated because she’s taking away time from her kids and her husband while working on her business thinking, oh, man, just one more year, I just got to stick it out. And she doesn’t understand that through a profit plan, she could only work three days a week and make five times more. I want to help women that have the desire to hit five figure months, not just for the money, but because they have an amazing message and want to serve more women. And by making more money, you’re able to serve more people.

Kim Sutton: You are talking to the ME of those first three years.

Haley Burkhead: Yeah.

Kim Sutton: Oh, my gosh. Yeah, that would be exactly where I was in. That is where so many people are. What amazes me, though, is that those for people in a job, and I’m not saying for all people on a job, but for people in the job especially in small town America, 2000 a month is really awesome for some of us.

Haley Burkhead: Oh yeah, for sure.

Kim Sutton: But you’re so right. It amazes me now to see just like you were talking about before that there is no cap.

Haley Burkhead: No, there’s not.

Kim Sutton: Even when we’re service based. Just because our time may be full or maybe our time is not full. Maybe we are saying that we are only going to work on client work 20 hours a week, but we’re going to have evergreen products that sell themselves. Or like Haley, we’re going to build an agency so that we have team members that are taking care of it, there’s no cap. I mean, I’m driving back to the virtual assistant model. I’ve seen virtual assistant companies that have teams of 85 Va working underneath the owner. And now, the owner is making bank. There is no cap.

Haley Burkhead: No. And I think that’s what I want to help women discover is this mindset of, and even me, I struggled with this for a while a few years ago. I’m only worth $2,000 a month. Let’s say I’m making $1500 a month. And even that, I was so proud of myself, but I never had a dream of hitting higher. Because when I felt guilty for wanting more money, I felt like I didn’t deserve it. And two, I didn’t. I thought I felt like I was taking people’s money. I mean, when I first started my freelance web design business, I was told, why are you stealing people’s money? Because in the south, we give away everything for free. Yeah, for me to ask people for money for services was as if I was stealing money from them because that’s our mindset in the south. I mean, this is a very, very religious area, for sure. And it’s very much, you do not ask for things, you are a doormat. It’s like, you are not being a nice person if you’re asking for money. You should do everything for free. And that’s kind of the mindset here. And maybe you listening might understand if you’re living in a small southern town like I am, for sure. 

And I also want to mention, I actually do not run an agency anymore. I’ve transitioned my entire business model to a membership site because, and I think this is a good lesson, I was self aware enough to know that I was not meant to run an agency. I knew I could build a successful agency, and I did. But I was not truly happy. I knew that for me, I’m a very community oriented person. I want to like, for instance, someone just to get me this morning to let me know that she’s having her baby today, and she never paid me in her [inaudible], ever paid for a product. But that’s what I love. I love my community. So I knew that I needed to create a business that was community oriented. That’s when I created this membership site called a Profit Planner Lounge. And that’s what I do. That’s solely how I make my income. 

I don’t take on any clients. I do have a few consulting clients, and that’s a very limited application only. But I don’t do any agency work because I was self aware enough. I knew myself what would make me happy. And now, I have this membership site that seriously just brings me joy every single day. Like I wake up, I dream about them. I’m not kidding, I’m telling you, my whole life is just, I love this community so much. And I hope that in the future, you have a business that you love as much as I love my Profit Planner Lounge. Like that’s what I want for you. I want a business that’s not only bringing you more money, but bringing you so much joy. I want your business to bring you joy and not bring you down.

Kim Sutton: Oh, absolutely. And I can totally feel that in those first three years, I was stressed. I was not dreaming good about the business. But now, I’m at the point that I wake up before my alarm because I’m excited to work.

Haley Burkhead: Yes, me too.

Kim Sutton: Yeah. And pouring my coffee this morning, I had ideas for a client who I’m going to an event. Tomorrow, I fly out. And I was thinking, wait, are we selling this? Are we selling that? Because it was just something that we had never discussed. I need to set up for the systems for that. And well, that’s part of my chronic idea disorder too. I’m constantly coming up with ideas for clients. They have to tell me if they want me to just shut them off, but I get so much joy out of not only ideas for me, but ideas for clients. Seriously, I tell them before they even hire me, if you don’t want to hear ideas constantly, then you probably don’t want to work with me. And it’s important to know that, listeners. It’s important to know what your own qualities are that might not work with other people.

Haley Burkhead: That is very true. That is very true. I know I have the personality of, I want to be everyone’s best friend. That’s immediately, like when I met Kim, I was like, yeah, I feel like we’re best friends. That is me. I am a very kind of lovable friendly person is that extroverted part of me, but I know that doesn’t jive well with everyone. And that’s totally okay. For some people,  my personality can be a little bit overwhelming because you know, I’m a very big talker, and a lot of people don’t jive well with that. And so I think that’s good, and that’s why I like my podcasts because I think it filters out people. I’m not a very timid person, I am very straightforward. Like with my consulting clients that they’re doing something, I’m very, very straightforward with them. I am not beating around the bush, that does not go over well with some people. But if you listen to my podcast, you know that about me.

Kim Sutton: Oh, I love that. Because I was going to ask you when you’re a people pleaser, and that can be a double edged sword. Because I do want people to like you, but you can fall into the trap of saying yes to everybody and no only to yourself. How do you say no to yourself care because you’re saying yes to everybody else. And listeners, you’ve heard me talk about that before. I was sleeping two to three hours a night for a good year and a half. Don’t do that.

Haley Burkhead: Oh, my gosh, girl.

Kim Sutton: Yeah, I’ve done that twice to myself. Listeners, twice was enough. I’m never doing that again. I’m not saying that there aren’t nights that I just get so excited about something that I stay up later than I should, but I do. As an entrepreneur, I have the freedom that I don’t need to be up at 6:00 o’clock most days. Tomorrow, in the morning I have to be up at 3:00, but I’m so excited about that. I probably won’t sleep tonight because I’m just so excited. But that is not ideal. I would love it if you would just take a moment because I know you picked a little bit of interest earlier in the episode with people who don’t really know about the automation within Gmail. Would you take just a moment to share a little bit more about that?

Haley Burkhead: Yeah, yeah. Actually on my podcast, I had Jordan Gill from The Kolada Group, love her to death. So she had an episode all about automating your inbox, and this is where I learned it from. I did not want to take credit for this system because that was all Jordan, but it has been incredible. I’m actually in my inbox right now. If I go to settings, let’s see, I go to Settings, then I go to filters so I can actually add filters. So for instance, for my membership site, I get a lot of payment notifications, obviously. I would hope that I get a lot of payment notifications. So all those payment notifications are filtered into a payments label within my Gmail, and they’re automatically marked as red, and they automatically skip the inbox. So that makes it so easy on my end just because it’s already transitioned. I also have a like, for instance, this pod for this podcast. When I filled out Kim’s form to be interviewed, I put in the email address calendar at profitplanner.co, which is like an alias email. And then I have a filter that says, okay, if any email that comes to the calendar at profitplanner.co, I make it skip the inbox and it goes directly in my calendar. Because I do not like those calendar notifications, they clog up my inbox, too much time, mental energy drain, you don’t think it is. The thing is, as you don’t think, I can just easily drag and drop it to the folder. That is actually requiring brain energy that you do not need to use. I know that seems so crazy, that literally just took me two seconds. But you do not have to. Anything that you don’t have to think about, eliminate it from your life.

Kim Sutton: Hmm. I’m trying to think about my inbox now. Personally, I love the payment notifications. I love them. But it’s probably because I’m not getting so many yet that they’re overwhelming me. Someday, someday that’s like in the plan. But I I love, oh, this will bring up one more quick question. I love getting them on my phone. You’ve just received from, so and so, and I have like a cash drawer chime that goes with that. The notifications on our phone can take up so much time.

Haley Burkhead: I think so too. And I don’t want to say don’t use them. Because I know for some people, it’s such a good motivator especially when you’re not getting a lot. And Kim, I don’t know about you, I offer a lot of low price products, and my membership and of itself as a subscription. So I get a lot of payments, not just because, I mean, I am making a good amount, but it’s because I offer a low recurring subscription product. So I’m getting at least 20 emails a day of these payments, and that is draining. If it’s my phone, that would not only drain my battery, but also my mind. So that is why I’ve had to do that. Now, if you’re offering not just 27, $47 price sets, then you might want to get the notifications that might drive you and you’re not getting as many. But for me, I had to take them off, so it’s totally personal.

Kim Sutton: I actually had to turn off notifications for social media with the exception of, for some reason, my husband won’t text message me even though he has his cell phone. He insists on Facebook messaging me which drives me insane. But he doesn’t listen to the podcasts so he won’t hear this. But I had to leave Facebook Messenger on. Maybe I can convince him to change that. So Facebook Messenger is on. But for the most part, all others are off. Because if I don’t turn them off, then they are dictating my schedule. And yes, not me dictating my schedule.

Haley Burkhead: Yes, I love the way you just worded that. Yeah, you don’t want anything to dictate your schedule, period. Nothing should control your time.

Kim Sutton: Amen to that. Would you mind sharing your three favorite tools that you use in your business?

Haley Burkhead: Yeah. Oh, for sure. Asana. I’ve automated my entire project management system within Asana. Let’s see, Toggl. I use Toggl to do time tracking. Mmm hmm. GMO, oh, no, no, not just GMO. Kiwi. Kiwi for GMO. Now, that might sound a little crazy. But if you’ve never heard of Kiwi before, it’s not a fruit. It’s a desktop app, and it’s like a $10 one time fee. I know you have felt the pain if you use Google. If you have different Gmail addresses, which a lot of us do, you know that if you’re on a desktop, like a browser, you have to log in, log out log every time you want to switch to a Google Doc, it is the most annoying thing ever. Kiwi eliminates that completely. I wish I could share my screen with you, but I’m just going to try to explain this right now. Okay, so I have different icons that represent different Gmail, Gmail accounts on this desktop app. And within each little box here, there’s a sidebar that directly opens up a calendar drive, Doc sheets, PowerPoint slides, anything I want from that sidebar within that specific gmail account. Then if I move to the other tab, the other Gmail tab, then I can open up a different pop up link for any of those same things for that Gmail, the drive, the calendar, the docs. That has been an incredible lifesaver, and has helped me save a lot of my time for sure. So look up Kiwi, just Google Kiwi for Gmail, and there you go. I’m not actually not an affiliate for this. I am just obsessed with this app.

Kim Sutton: I will be looking that up. Oh, my God. My biggest client last night said: “Isn’t it time that you have an email with my domain?” And I’ve been working with him for a year and a half now. I was like, heck, yes. He’s like, that’s what I thought. So in the back of my mind, though, is like heck yes. But do I really want to be switching Gmail accounts? Thank you. It’s spelled like the fruit though, K-I-W-I?

Haley Burkhead: Yep, exactly, Kiwi. Yeah, definitely get Kiwi, and definitely get that professional email. I think it’s only $5 a month through Google, and that’s access to a lot of drive storage.

Kim Sutton: Oh, fabulous. Yeah. Listeners, there will be a link to all of Haley’s social media links, her website and the resources that we’ve talked about on the show notes page, which is at thekimsutton.com/pp332. Haley, this has been absolutely amazing. I mean, that Kiwi tip alone in my mind, but everything else. Wow. Where can listeners find you online, connect, join your membership community and all that great stuff?

Haley Burkhead: Yes. Thanks so much Kim. Oh, my gosh, I would love to hang out with you on Instagram. So come over and DM me. My Instagram handle is @profitplanner. And if you want to come join me on the membership site, I would love to see you. So I offer a seven day dollar trial, and I’ll do that just for you. You can get that at profitplanner.co/trial, and I’ll definitely give that link to Kim as well so she can put that in the show notes. But I would love to see you in the Profit Planner Lounge. Inside there, you can create your profit plan through the 90 Day Profit System, it will identify all those high priority money making tasks that I was talking about through the SOA method, and we actually take it a step further inside the lounge, which is great. Kim, you’ll love this because we create recurring routines on Google and automate those routines through high priority money making tasks. It’s just fantastic. And then we do a lot of Asana work for product management in there as well. And we do a lot of hot seats, office hours. It’s just great. Everyone is so excited to meet you over there. So profitplanner.co /trial, and then DM me over on Instagram. I’d love to meet you.

Kim Sutton: Oh, I love it. I just need to throw this out to you Haley coz I don’t know if you’ve heard of it, Listeners have heard me talk about it before, Focuster app, have you heard of Focuster?

Haley Burkhead: Oh, no, I’ll look it up, though,

Kim Sutton: Yes. Focuster is this great tool that allows me to make a task list. It can sync, I use Trello for my project management, but I believe it can also sync with Asana. And it adds new carts to my task list in Focuster, and then it schedules them right onto my calendar with any empty openings. And for me, it’s gamifying which I need. I see the bar at the top of the day, and it tells me how much I have scheduled. And even tells me how much over scheduled I am. I mean, for example today, it’s telling me that I’m seven hours and 15 minutes over my schedule with all the tasks that are on. But I did that to myself because I told that I was going to record like three weeks of solo podcasts before the other day today. But I set that up like three weeks ago so it just keeps on moving it to the next day. So I can really plan those, but I hate to see the red. We should never be seeing red in our bank account on our schedule unless that’s the color coding that you’ve set up your profit plan.

Haley Burkhead: No, yeah. No, it’s all green in the profit planning.

Kim Sutton: There you go. Yeah. Yes, definitely. Well, awesome. Thank you so much. And again, listeners, you can find all the links in the show notes at thekimsutton.com/pp332. Thank you again so much, Haley, this has been an absolute blast. And I’ve enjoyed every second of it.

Haley Burkhead: Thank you so much for having me. I seriously love talking to you. Love getting to know your brand better as well.

Kim Sutton: Oh, and me with you as well. Do you have a parting piece of advice that you can offer to listeners?

Haley Burkhead: Oh, yes, for sure. This is a little bit to reiterate what I said, but I hope that you know that you have the ability to make five figure or six figure months. I hope that you know that you’re so confident, that you have so much inside of you that needs to be shared to the world, and don’t let anything hold you back. Don’t let all those little decisions that you have to make through your day paralyze you make the decisions, move forward and execute, and know that you got this. You have a cheerleader in me and Kim, I am here cheering you on with virtual pompoms every step of the way.