A new year is a great time to get prepared in your business. You are given a blank canvas of 12 months to do as you please, but to make the most of them you should think now about what you want to achieve and then how you are going to achieve it.

Ready to make the most of the year ahead? Keep on reading to find out how to you can prepare for a new year and put your business in the best place possible to thrive.  

 

1 – SET YOUR ANNUAL BUSINESS GOALS

It is likely that you have a big goal for your business, but what do you specifically want to achieve over the next year. Taking the time to really think and then write down your goals will give you a focus for the year. Goals will help you to weigh up new opportunities that are thrown your way during the way and will be helpful when you are making decisions.

So what business goals should you set for your business?

 

• FINANCIAL – Unless you are already financially independent it is likely that you have a business to support yourself and therefore generating income in your business is vital. The question is ‘How much money do you want to make this year?’. If you want to take this a step further you might add in how much profit you would like to make, how much money you would like to reinvest into the company or how much money you would like to personally take home.
  
• IMPACT – Have you ever seen someone say they want to help 10,000 lose weight this year? This is an impact goal. This is where you focus on the number of people you are going to support through all the different stands of what you do.
  
• PRODUCT MIX  – Do you have a new product or service you want to release this year? Do you have something you would like to retire?
  
• AWARENESS – Is there anywhere you would like to be featured? Any awards you would like to be nominated for? Guest blogs you want to write or podcasts you would like to be interviewed on? Any people you dream of collaborating with?

 

2 – CREATE A GOAL TRACKER

Setting annual goals is great, but often an annual goal can feel overwhelming and far away. This is where creating a goal tracker with milestones will help you to keep your focus on the next thing you need to achieve, but ensure those milestones are moving your closer to your ultimate goals. For example, maybe your financial goal for the year is £84,000. If you break that down month by month this will mean that you need to generate £7k in sales.

This is a super simple way of breaking your annual income down, but if you have a business model that means there are peaks and troughs in your revenue then you might want to adjust your monthly targets accordingly. For goals that aren’t based on numbers, you can set milestones points such as have approached X number of people with possible collaboration opportunities or submitted your company for x awards. The key is to have milestones through the year so you know you are moving forward and don’t get to December and panic.

 

3 – AN ANNUAL ACTIVITY PLAN

The next thing I recommend you do is create a top line plan for the activity you will be doing. At this stage, you don’t need to fill in everything, but it is important to create the layout for two plans. The reason you need two different plans is because when you are running your business there are two things you need to be considering:

1 – WHAT YOU ARE PUTTING OUT INTO THE WORLD

2 – WHAT YOU ARE DOING BEHIND THE SCENES

 

Often I see people creating one activity plan, but creating two will enable you to be consistently present to the outside world, whilst creating a business that operates around your life.

For example, last year I decided to take a month “off” for my 30th birthday. The only work I w do is with 1:1 clients I was already working with, but I didn’t want to do anything else. As a result in preparation for the month off I was doing a lot behind-the-scenes preparing and scheduling content so that in the month everything ran on automation.

 

Start with the second plan first as you want to be creating a business around your life.

Firstly, you should plot is any period when you don’t want to be working. Maybe you want a social media detox, are going on a big trip with unreliable wi-fi or prefer to work in bursts. Mark those dates in the calendar first so that then you can make sure everything else you plan is realistic for the time you have.

Then you should have both plans side by side as you start to plotting in the following:

LAUNCHES – If you plan on having launches in your business then you need to plot these in. Launches are intensive periods where you will be expecting a surge of income, as a result, you want to make sure that you are as prepared as possible, to make it as successful as possible.

LIVE EVENTS / PROGRAMMES – Anything that physically needs you to be in a certain place need to be added into your plan. If you have a course that involves live training you might also want to block that in now as it is a time when you will need to ‘physically’ present even if that means from anywhere in the world with internet access. You will still have time commitments that you need to be aware of so you can keep to them.

AFFILIATE LAUNCHES – If you are an affiliate for a product or service that runs live launches they should plot these in. For example. I’m an affiliate for Money Bootcamp by Denise Duffield-Thomas, which does live launches a few times a year. Plotting in affiliate launches in your schedule in advance will mean they don’t sneak up on you and you can ensure there isn’t a clash with something you are personally running

Once you have filled that in you should be left with the spaces for everything else!

 

*BONUS STEP* – TAKING YOUR NEW YEAR PREPARATION TO THE NEXT LEVEL

Now if you want to get super prepared the next stage would be to start planning the theme for your key content: emails, podcast, blog or video show. For example, for PropelHer I post a blog every Sunday and send out a #MotivationalMonday email so I create a spreadsheet that has 52 weeks and a space for the blog theme, headline and email subject line.

 

DO YOU NOW FEEL CONFIDENT IN PLANNING FOR YOUR NEW BUSINESS YEAR?

I hope this blog has helped you feel more confident in preparing your year ahead. By following those 3 steps I have no doubt that you will be setting yourself up for more success in your business.

Prefer to work with someone else to get your annual strategy and plan in place? Planning is what I love to do, but I know others don’t love planner. So to help you out I offer a 1:1 strategy day where together to ensure you have a robust business and marketing strategy to help you grow your business in the year ahead. You can find out more about my strategy days by clicking here, and if you already like the sound of it you can book a free discovery call to discuss the programme in more detail and get signed up.