Franchise Freedom Annual Review: My MAP System, Automation, & The 30-Minute Secret (Franchise Coach)

Franchise business advisor Giuseppe Grammatico delivers the full annual review for escaping the corporate trap and achieving franchise freedom. Learn the MAP goal-setting system, the 30-minute time-blocking secret for busy executives, and powerful automation/outsourcing strategies to prepare for investing in franchise in the New Year. 

Choose the right path at https://ggthefranchiseguide.com. 

DISCLAIMER: The information on this site is for general information purposes only. Franchising involves risk and careful consideration should be given before making any decisions.


00:00 Introduction and Accountability
00:10 Weekly Brain Dump Strategy
00:38 The MAP Method: Goal Setting and Daily Habits for Franchise Freedom
00:38 Welcome to Franchise Freedom Podcast
01:13 Annual Review and Goal Setting
02:11 Creating a Massive Action Plan (MAP)
03:04 Daily Habits for Success
06:37 Financial Planning and Automation
07:22 Family and Personal Time Management
07:57 Business and Outsourcing Strategies
10:04 Financial Tracking and Professional Scheduling for Entrepreneurs
11:50 The 30-Minute Time-Blocking Secret for Busy Corporate Executives
14:54 Using AI for Goal Tracking
16:49 Automating Your Business: The Friday Brain Dump & Outsourcing Strategy
17:18 Conclusion and Final Tips

Connect with Franchise Freedom on:
Website: https://ggthefranchiseguide.com/podcast/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/giuseppe-grammatico/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GGTheFranchiseGuide

X: https://x.com/ggfranchguide

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ggthefranchiseguide/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ggthefranchiseguide

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/franchise-freedom/id1499864638

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/13LTN5UzA57w2dTB4iV0fm

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ggthefranchiseguide

The Franchise Freedom: Discover Your New Path to Freedom Through Franchise Ownership, Book by Giuseppe Grammatico https://ggthefranchiseguide.com/book or purchase directly on ...

Transcript

Giuseppe Grammatico: 0:00

But the point in all this is that it's holding you accountable. You're reviewing it daily, and then you're actually looking at the daily habit of things you have to do on a daily basis to get you to this. Fridays are a good day to do a, weekly brain dump of everything on your mind. Things that are not working, things that need to get fixed, address, follow up. Whatever it is, write it all down and just go down that list maybe for the first hour on Friday. That's super important. Do that brain dump every Friday. What's keeping you up at night? What's outstanding? Who has to get back to you? What follow-ups do you have? What's on your to-do list? Write it all out. Break it up into categories, and then figure out, okay, when are you gonna tackle it? Put it on the calendar.

0:40

Welcome to the Franchise Freedom Podcast, where you can escape the corporate trap through franchise ownership. Here's your host, Giuseppe gr, the franchise guide.

Giuseppe Grammatico: 0:53

Welcome to the Franchise Freedom Podcast. I'm your host, Giuseppe Grammatico, your franchise guide to show where we help corporate executives experience time and financial freedom. Thanks for joining us today, we're gonna mix it up end of year. Wanted to do some planning, some review and offer any assistance and guidance. Hopefully everyone finds this helpful in planning for the new year. I do this every year and it's really kind of a review. I like to review the year, see how things went. Did we hit goals, did we not? The reasons why not to beat yourself up, but just to kind of analyze and see where, what tweaks need to be made throughout the year. So, hopefully you find the information helpful. One starting point is really a kind of year in review. Listing out, as I showed in previous episodes, what your goals were for the year. I'm gonna share my screen here in a second, but, breaking it up into the various categories and I understand if you're listening in, you can go to the blog, the blog lists, the audio, as well as the YouTube link. Just go to ggthefranchiseguide.com/podcast and click on this annual review. You can go directly to YouTube, look me up there. We'll have the video version so that you can take a look and, look at the spreadsheet that we're creating here. It's a very basic spreadsheet, that I put together on Google Sheets. So let's see. All right, so we got it. We got it up here on the screen. So this is my spreadsheet. Lemme see if I can make this a little bit bigger. Perfect. Awesome. So this is just a sample spreadsheet that you can use. You can create as much as you like, add as much as you like. Add different fields and tabs and things like that. But ultimately, this is what works for me. You'll see in the upper left hand corner map. It's a massive action plan. I stole that from Tony Robbins from decades and decades ago. This is something I use as a visualizer. I really open up this document. It's one of the first things I look at in the morning, and it helps me to review goals and daily habits. I kept it blank here. This is more for as an example, as everyone's gonna have different goals, and things like that. And for business if, you don't have a business, what you're gonna do in order to find that business. And that would be the bottom here. But one key takeaway, and I started talking about this from the book, I read Atomic Habits, and you've probably seen podcasts and information around the book is that goals are great. I wanna lose, we'll do health. We'll call it, 10 pounds, just write 10 pounds. To lose 10 pounds, what are the daily habits that are gonna get you there? And it may be 10K steps a day, and then, 15 minutes of weights, or gym. You're gonna cater this based off of what is the right fit for you. You may be in maintenance mode, so this 10 pound weight loss may be just to maintain weight and it may be to gain energy. I put this together and if you'd like, you can add 2025 goals to see where you're at. But these goals are great, but 10 pounds okay, let's break that down. We'll just throw a number at, you have to burn an extra 200 calories a day, and that equates to at least 10,000 steps plus 15 minutes weights or gym. And you can play with this, you can use ChatGPT to analyze all that, put together a plan. But the point in all this is that it's holding you accountable. You're reviewing it daily, and then you're actually looking at the daily habit of things you have to do on a daily basis to get you to this. So that this isn't gonna happen in January of 2026. This is, it's gonna be, little by little, and this could be adjusted. You can maybe bump this up to 20 pound weight loss, or you could leave it the same and do 20 K steps. You can alter those without changing too much, right? We wanna be consistent. We wanna make sure we're still on plan. I find this helpful because it's a constant reminder. It takes all of 10 seconds to review this on a daily basis to make it a priority. If you want to take it to the next step, is scheduling these daily habits right on the calendar. So grabbing your Google calendar and putting on there from eight to 9:00 AM or seven to 8:00 AM whatever the time is. Or you wanna break it up a half hour in the morning, half hour after lunch. you're gonna do 5,000 steps in the morning, 5,000 at lunch. And then 15 minutes, weights or gym. Maybe you just do that in the morning. By putting in time blocking, it's holding you accountable. So you're actually saying, I'm gonna take care of this. It's scheduled. I don't miss meetings. I'm not gonna miss a workout. You're gonna treat it the same way. You're also gonna make sure to put that in that you're busy. So it shows that you're out of the office. So if someone is trying to book a call in that timeframe, they will not be able to because you have that scheduled time. I usually do this early in the morning so that it is not in the way of calls, but depending on what your schedule is, you may have kids, you got drop off, pick up, whatever the case may be, work with the time you have. I think, the game changer for me is adding it right to the calendar. That way it's a constant reminder of what I need to do. Same goes for all the other aspects. You look at what you did in 2025, what was off. So going back to even health was to lose 50 pounds, was that just too aggressive and, you lost 30. Well, that's a major accomplishment. You have 20 more and that will be your new goal for 2026. You wanna make sure that you're not too aggressive. You want that quality of life, to be there. You don't wanna be working out five hours a day. You want it to be something manageable that you're gonna enjoy. And the key is sustainability. You want it to be sustainable. Something that you could do every day, whether it's five minutes or 50 minutes, that you enjoy doing. And if it's not maybe weights, maybe it's going to the park, going to the beach, wherever you live, and taking advantage of your environment. Finances, I like to do, monthly. I have a spreadsheet. You can add in there all your investments, 401k, cash, checking account. That way everything is electronic. You have direct access, you can send that to your accountant or financial advisor. goals of income, and also, the investments, right? Income is great, but we need to save that income, especially if retirements around the corner, so you wanna track that. And I would say monthly at bare minimum. Sometimes balances, all update weekly. It's a great way to stay on top of things. It's also a great way if there's a mistake on a credit card. I remember last year, someone actually, we don't know what happened, but there was a false charge on there. So if there's any mistakes there, taken care of, and it's great for budgeting. You know, why are we spending so much? Do we need to cut back? Do I have double subscriptions? Whatever the case may be. Family I like to put directly on the calendar. So whether that be on Saturday, Sunday, doing some type of event and then having habits in there such as, dinner together. Six o'clock, five days a week, two days, three days. For us, it's a little difficult with the different programs and sports, and events and activities. So we try our best, but to do something together as a family on Saturdays. That's what works for our family. And it may be different for yours depending on obviously the kids age and things like that. House is just something I put in there, things to do around the house. I try to outsource as much as possible so that I can focus on the important stuff, as well as business. We outsource marketing, our podcast production and things like that. But what are the daily things? I have kind of a step-by-step. So Monday is content creation. Tuesday is designated for calls. Wednesday, the podcast. Thursday is creating additional shorts and anything missed throughout the week, and then Friday I do a full review of the week, things that need to get done. I do what I call a brain dump every Friday. That brain dump is everything that I need to get done, and I add it as a link. So you can add a task or add it as a time block directly on the calendar on Saturday. When I'm not working, it may be to check on the website or I'm working on our website. You're gonna time block that for maybe an hour uninterrupted, get that all taken care of. But the biggest thing again, is number one, holding yourself accountable by looking at the 2025 goals, writing your 2026 goals, the daily habits, putting those daily habits directly into your Google Calendar, whatever calendar you use, that way it's front and center. You're treating it just like any other event. Fridays are a good day to do a, weekly brain dump of everything on your mind. Things that are not working, things that need to get fixed, address, follow up. Whatever it is, write it all down and just go down that list maybe for the first hour on Friday. That's super important. Reviewing things, automating as much as you can. There are some great websites out there that utilizes profit first and what happens there is that for every dollar that comes in, you may allot. From the business, maybe it's 20% for taxes, on the revenue, 20% or more for salary; 50% for operational expenses. And the list goes on and you can automate those into buckets, into different accounts. So that once that first thousand dollars hit, the 200 goes to taxes, the 300 or so goes to salary and all the other categories goes into those buckets. That way, at the end of the month, you're not short. You have enough for taxes, you have enough for payroll and salary depending on your business and it really automates things for you. It's less thinking and it helps you budget. So, if you're not bringing in revenue, maybe certain areas need to be cut back on.'Cause you're staying true to those percentages that you've put together and automated. And again you wanna try to stick with them. I wouldn't change things immediately, but maybe it's a quarterly review. Put those goals in there, something that's manageable. Don't overdo it. At the same time, you want them to be challenging. You don't want them to be easy goals. Something that's sustainable. So again, if it means, being on the phone for two hours a day, is it realistic to say you can be on the phone for six hours a day? It may be for some, not for others. I know that's not the case for me. So put together something. Maybe the starting point is an hour, and work your way up to two hours of outbound calling, following up with everyone. And that could be a goal. It may be to talk to one new person. Follow up with 10 people in the pipeline, people that you've spoken with currently or in the past. That could be, there's no right or wrong here. But the trick is, I think the secret that's helped me over the years and, I wish I had come across this concept sooner, read the book sooner, is the daily habit of what it is. Hey guys. Thanks for listening. I hope you're enjoying the show. As a thank you for being a valued listener, wanted to offer you a free copy of my book, franchise Freedom. This book was written back in 2020, and it's my exact blueprint in helping you find that perfect franchise. I wrote it based off my experiences and wanted to pass that along to you. Wanna chat today? You could book a call directly on our website. Top right. Side of that screen and you can schedule a 20 minute call. We'll dive into if a franchise is a good fit. I help you get qualified and figure out what that perfect franchise match may be. So I hope you take me up on my offer. Once again, franchise Freedom. Download the book today for free or book a call with me directly, and we'll help you bypass all that information you find online. Most importantly, figuring out. If a franchise is the right fit, and then figuring out what that perfect franchise looks like. So thanks again for listening to the show and back to the show. So for finances, maybe it's not a daily, maybe it's gonna be a monthly or at least a weekly update of balances and a monthly update of all the finances. I do a quarterly update with my accountant and a quarterly update with our financial advisor to review what's going on. Your attorney, maybe as needed, or once a year checking call. Get those just all scheduled. I schedule mine for the year. and then if we have to change'em, it's really simple. In Google Calendar, you just drag and drop to a different date. That way it's less thinking, it's less remembering, and it holds you accountable because you know that if you're meeting with the CPA in a week, you wanna make sure all your numbers are in the financial advisor. You wanna update them on your finances, right? If you have some extra cash to invest or if this has been a slow year in the business, you know, maybe you can't max out your step IRA contribution or 401k. Attorney, check in call. You know, if you're doing your estate planning, making sure you have a successor plan, a person that takes over your business, if you have a business now. If you do not currently have a business, what is your goal? To own a franchise in the first half of 2026? Great. What are the daily habits and maybe a, for example, everyone I work with we're talking daily and I give you homework. So it may be a 30 minute call, I'm sorry, weekly. So it may be a 30-minute call once a week with me. Email whenever a question or concern comes up. And then homework, you know, watch this podcast, give, your franchise some thought. Come back to me with analysis of the three franchise companies you're looking at. Daily or weekly habits, maybe you put on there 30 minutes a day dedicated to phone calls and research because, it's gonna vary. So these are things, and again, you can designate a time. So if you are in the office all day and your lunch is 12 to 1, and that's your only time, block it out. Leave the office, grab a conference room, do your research, bring your lunch to work. That'll save you a ton of time. And that way you can eat for the first five minutes and then go right into your phone calls, you know, your research at your desk. If you're at the office and maybe talking with a local franchise owner, that's part of the research that you're gonna be doing, the due diligence. So those are some things, and, whenever I work with someone, we discuss this, we work on this as part of our coaching, which, there is no fee for any of the coaching and services we offer to you. We are paid just like a real estate agent or an executive recruiter. So we go through things like that. So when people tell me I'm overwhelmed, I'll take a step back and say, okay, you know, why are you overwhelmed? Well, I only have so much time in a day, so let's work within your means. So if you have no more than a half hour to invest, let's figure that out. Let's let the franchise company know that, that, you know, maybe you need to break up the calls, at least for now. But the intention is to eventually leave the job and run the business full time. Or maybe, it could something that could be accommodated where you're at home by six and the call's done at six. You know, everyone's in different time zones. So, always be open and honest and, you know, you can always ask, they can always, they can always say no, but, maybe structuring early in the morning before you get into the office and your drive in. Maybe just watching a prerecorded webinar for that day and that's your 30 minutes. Great. Check that off. And you can check these off, there's columns here so you can check'em on, you know, you can just put an x that it was completed for the week, whatever the case may be. again, just use this as a resource, as a template. Now this is in a Google Sheet, and the reason I do it in Google Sheet. Is that I can access it on my tablet or phone, anywhere. I can give people access if it's an accountability person, a business coach, my CPA, my financial advisor, whoever that person is, gets full access to this information. Now, if you wanna take it a step further, you can download this and there's, right here, file. You can download into Excel and that'll create an Excel file. The only reason I would do that is that if you are looking for an analysis, just say like, I have different tabs here. I just created this for today, but I have some more business notes. My workouts and health are there. It creates a plan based off your requirements. So three days a week to lose 10 pounds. So if you're not certain, and if you wanna stick more with the goals. You can enter the goal, 10 pounds for the year, gain more energy, you know, your preferences. I prefer walking and working out no more than three times a week with dumbbells at home. I don't wanna go to a gym, whatever the case may be. And it will design a plan. You could do it for finance, you can do it for business and prospecting and things like that. Can even analyze your calendar. So there's a lot if you give it access, and I think there's different levels. I have the plus version of ChatGPT, which is currently, or at least I'm paying I think it was like$10 a year. So utilize AI where it, it could be helpful. Let it analyze it. You can tweak it. It can actually create, believe it or not, this spreadsheet for you. You can say, this is what I want on left side. So I wanted to say MAP at the top left hand corner, my categories are family, finance, health, house and business. Add in the 2025 goals, 2026 goals, and separate columns, as well as daily habits. Maybe, you know, all the goals and you're gonna utilize chat GPT to create those habits and all into an Excel spreadsheet. You may know the habit, so that'll be one less prompt. But, you know, I would play around with it, give as much detail as possible, that way you can create that spreadsheet. You can even say, Hey, highlight, the goals in blue Daily Habits in yellow. I was able to do that, change the fonts, change if it's bold, underlined, whatever the case may be. It can even create a checklist for you, almost like a PDF document or Excel that you can use on a daily basis. You can print it out or you can just view it right on your phone and check those off kind of as a task list. You can have it added to your calendar. So I would utilize the ai, it's really inexpensive. There's a lot of free stuff out there that can do this and automate it for you. I hope you all found this helpful. This is a great time of year, things are kind of slowing down. You got Thanksgiving, you got the holidays around the corner, take advantage of that. Take a look at what worked. If you're thinking about a business, why do you want a business, what don't you like about the job and what is, in your own words, research aside, what does this ideal business look like? Is it something that could be run from home with little to no employees? What's the venue? I always say, are you going to an office? Are you going to a brick and mortar location? You know what, what hasn't, worked? if it's low energy, double down on the health, maybe it's time to hire that coach. Or try this method: maybe having ChatGPT kind of figure out the best means, most efficient way of working out and kind of taking it from there. Do that brain dump every Friday. What's keeping you up at night? What's outstanding? Who has to get back to you? What follow-ups do you have? What's on your to-do list? Write it all out. Break it up into categories, and then figure out, okay, when are you gonna tackle it? Put it on the calendar. And, if it's a bunch of stuff outside the house and you're just behind on work do the stuff that is gonna have the most impact. And that's your workout, your health and fitness and your business. Maybe just hire the landscaper to power wash and clean out the outside. That way you take four or five different tasks off your plate, so that you can focus on the important stuff, which is also family. Is it spending all day Saturday, working on cutting the lawn, or do you just hire someone out take the family out on the boat or, whatever you guys do on the weekend. So anyway, great time of year, I recommend you figure out the daily habits and the goals review last year. Put everything on the calendar, at bare minimum, you're reviewing everything monthly. I would put automated, your professionals, put those on the calendar. Maybe do the whole entire year, quarterly calls, or twice a year and this way you've got a great starting point. Review this daily, do not miss this. Maybe there could be a reminder added. You can put it right on your Google calendar, call it map MAP and have it repeat every single day in the calendar event. You can review it from there. It's whatever works for you, whatever's best for you to. get it done and to follow through. Again, I appreciate your support. I like to use these tips, the daily habits, something I added last year. Anyway, we can help if you have any topics, let me know. We'd love to cover those on a future episode. If you wanna chat, go to ggthefranchiseguide.com. Top right, side of that screen, you could book a call with me. There's a few questions you can input your info, we send you out a free gift, you would love to answer. No silly questions, we just have a general question: How to start? Where to get started? Would I even be qualified for a franchise? You may be a good fit, but not qualified in that. You need some additional capital or time-wise, you're just waiting on a project to be completed, to free you up in time. Whatever the case may be, just hit me up, book that call. There's no cost. It's 20 minutes and we'll figure out together if a franchise is a good fit. If it's not, or if there's a lot going on, we'll put together a proactive follow-up plan. Thanks again, guys. Let me know in the chat, in the comments, what your thoughts are if you have any questions. And again, if you wanna see the actual spreadsheet we created. Go to YouTube or right on the website, click on podcasts. We'll have an audio followed by a blog and then followed by the YouTube video. Hope you enjoyed it and found this helpful. I'll talk to you guys soon. Bye-bye.

20:30

Thanks for tuning in if you want to learn how to make the transition from corporate to owning your franchise. Join Giuseppe on the next episode. You can also follow on all social media platforms and achieve financial and time freedom today.