The Master Plan or Planning Ahead For Success In 2014

It’s only September but because time flies, I’ve started thinking about planning ahead and setting for next year. Have you started thinking about this? I think it’s better to think about it now instead of waiting until the craziness of the holiday season to get in the way. My plan is called “The Master Plan” because I watch way too much Parks & Recreation and I now think like Leslie Knope (and sometimes Tom Haverford).

I wanted to share with you how I’ve structured my plan, which is still a work in progress, but I thought it might help you to know how someone else does this. I created my plan in a spreadsheet on Google Drive with multiple sheets which I’ll get into a bit more later.  So here is how I thought about things to get my goals down on paper:

1. What are my big overarching goals?

These are the big goals. I thought about I how much money be making in an ideal world at some point down the line (not necessarily just 2014), how I want my work life to be structured because that impacts what I offer and how to get closer to my goal of being location independent.

2. What are the specific goals I want to work toward in 2014?

I would suggest choosing 3 goals for this part. My 3 goals are to grow my email list, my revenue goal for 2014 and to speak at and participate in more events.

3. What strategies will I use to make these goals a reality?

For growing my email list I listed these strategies:

• Pitch 6 guest posts per month with the aim of getting 4 accepted
• Use Facebook ads to promote my free content and get people signed up to my list
• Develop a PR strategy

It’s super important to break down each of your goals into strategies you can take action on. If  you set a vague goal and don’t define how to get there, you won’t take action on it and you’ll never get there.

Tracking my progress

I have a sheet in The Master Plan that comes from The Suitcase Entrepreneur book to help me keep track of things. I have broken down things to a monthly number and will fill in this spreadsheet every month. Here is what that looks like:

So let’s say you want to book 30 weddings during 2014. That means you need to book 2-3 weddings per month and of course some months will be higher and some lower but you need a goal. I also have a column that helps me track what % of my yearly goal I have completed which is a great motivator. Looking at this I know exactly what I need to do and what I need to track to make sure I reach my goals.

I have goal numbers for a lot of things on this sheet but it can be grouped together to sales, Facebook metrics, Twitter metrics, guest posts, email list metrics and Google Analytics data. It’s so nice to know that I have a plan for staying on track with my goals.

Business/Editorial Calendar

I use Google Calendar in practice, but I really liked putting down some information into 1 document about what I’ll be doing and when. I have a business calendar to keep track of what workshops, courses, events, etc I will be launching/participating in as well as an editorial calendar to keep track of my content. I’ve talked about the importance of having an editorial calendar before and essentially it just lays out what you plan to write about in your content. I plan out my blog post topics and some months have a theme that ties it all together.

Guest Posting Research, Outreach & Results

This is where I keep track of all of the blogs I’d love to write for/be featured on, all of their information and my correspondence with them. I also track the results of each guest post to see who I should write more posts for. I have a whole system for guest posting that I think could really help people so I will likely be doing a workshop on that soon.

The Money Sheet

I decided to put down everything I spent money on this year and evaluate each expense. Some expenses are non-negotiable whereas others were things I tried and courses I took. Putting down your non-negotiable expenses is crucial because it will help you formulate your revenue goals.

This is super important so make sure you do this: Write down all of your non-negotiable expenses and how much you need to pay yourself so you know what your break even point is. Take this number and work out how many weddings you need to book at your current prices to reach that number. Now, break that down to how many you need to book each month and it will be much more digestible. Now do the same thing for the amount of money you’d like to earn. How many weddings is that per month? This might bring your pricing into question and that’s not a bad thing. If your pricing is too low for you to realistically break even or make a profit, then you need to raise your prices.

So that is my master plan! Creating this has made me feel like I have so much more direction in business and that is an awesome feeling. I highly suggest everyone set goals, break them into strategies and figure out a way to check in with yourself to see how you’re doing.