The Business Plan Inspiration

It’s 3pm on Saturday 31st December, 2016 and I have a little champagne beside me at my desktop whilst I write this little ditty which is written more for myself than for you.  However, I hope than in my sharing this process, you may draw inspiration from it, in the same way I drew inspiration from Chris Brogan to create this mini business plan.

This idea of this mini business plan is to provide a mantra that you can refer to throughout the year. It acts as a grounding point whenever you feel adrift.

MANTRA: A statement or slogan repeated frequently.

The Goal

Pick 3 words. These 3 words need to symbolise your biggest hopes or goals for the coming year.

My 2016

I just deleted this paragraph about how my 2016 went because what’s the point in looking back. This blog is about looking forward. However, if you’re interested, these were my 3 words for 2016.

My 3 Words for 2017

Consistency

This is the main area that I’d like to see some improvement in my own social media. Honestly, I don’t yet practice what I preach here. Yes I meet all my posting goals for customers, but for my own business I want to set a more exemplary example. I’ve messed around with it a bit in 2016, so for this year I think it’s important to recognise that every day posting is not achievable with my current schedule. So I’m switching it up to less frequent posting with more consistency. This includes videos, Instagram stories, Instagram Live and Facebook Live as well as visual posts. I’m starting with a more comprehensive plan and I’ve upscaled my strategy. I’m looking forward to implementing this with some class this year.

Sales

It sounds crazy to have to put this into my 3 little words, but that’s just what I’m going to do. You probably think that sales is a cornerstone of any business and normally that would be true. However, my caseload has been at maximum capacity so sales have quite honestly been put to the side. This was also due in part to the fact that I’ve been uncommitted to my target market. I know, cray cray, right! Talk about marketing 101! But if you’re in business, then I hope you have a little compassion for a girl who’s taking her time figuring it out.

Productivity

Improving my productivity is on my list always. However, the reason it’s making it into my 3 words this year, is because it now needs to take a serious front seat. I’ve spent much of 2016 researching and adjusting lots of different systems and software options. Now it’s time to stop looking at shiny things, pick one or two and get on with it. Productivity means making sure that I’m doing the things that make me money first, and everything else next. Sometimes this means doing the things I like doing least of all first…but that’s when the magic happens so I’m told. No more courses to boost my self-esteem – I know what I’m talking about. Now it’s time to prove that to everybody else and get on with the job.

2016 has been a major confidence-boosting year. I have seen a market that was previously pretty untapped (I’m talking about social media marketing) to exploding overnight. My competition has increased so much that it would be daunting to anyone. Instead of being frightened by that, I’m buoyed by the change. In fact, one of the things I love most about specialising in digital marketing is that it’s a challenging, changing industry. Since I took things slow this year and lay down some quality foundations, I’m starting 2017 with a super positive attitude, a quality work-life balance and an excitement that was seriously lacking from the beginning of last year.

Happy New Year everyone!

Edit from 19th January 2017

One of the processes  I went through after initially writing this blog involved going through each hour of my working week and allocating it a specific task. This was right on track with one of my three words, “Productivity”. However, what I found was that there wasn’t quite enough time in my working week to achieve all of these three words. In fact, for “Sales” I was only able to allocate an hour per month! So it seemed a bit ridiculous to maintain this as one of my focuses for the year. It’s simply not enough time to do it well.

Why did I have to keep the sales to an hour a month? Because I’m dedicated to quality in everything that I do…my work, my family, my relationships, my health, my mental state and my fun time. The real reason I can’t increase my hours is that I have a young family and that’s limiting the amount of quality work time I can allocate. I can’t increase my hours but I can make my existing hours more productive.

This is temporary. The kids get older. However, I have made an amendment to my three words as follows:

• Consistency (yes that’s for work projects, meal planning, health and fitness, catching up with mates, family time, sleep time and anything that will help me be a better me)
• Family (I’ve swapped out Sales for Family because it has to be a big part of my life whilst the kids are young whether I like it or not…so I might as well embrace it fully)
• Productivity (not just work but all elements of my life including Thermomix planning, my time at the gym, my rest time, my social time)

The moral of this story is….goals were meant to be moved!