When it comes to my business plan, I’m super mindful not to fall down the trap of simply setting an unmanageable set of goals, in fact what I’ve spent the last few years refining, is a more strategic approach to my business planning, which allows me to focus specifically on the goals that support my overall business aims and that details how exactly I plan to achieve those goals.

To begin (after reviewing 2018), I identify what my overall business aim for the forthcoming year is and I try to answer the question:

What is it that I really need my business to do in 2019?

For me the answer to that question and my overall business aim for 2019 is: 

To create regular, predictable and sustainable income from my business that covers all of my financial needs.

With this in mind, I then set about identifying the three priority areas, I believe I should focus on, in order to achieve this overall aim. I call these my strategic priorities and for 2019, these are:

1. Content (to create and disseminate more content in order to share my expertise, grow my audience and serve more people)
2. Outreach (to be more organised in my outreach activities so as to serve and connect with more people)
3. Revenue (and to increase overall revenue, both active and passive)

Next I think about which goals it makes sense for me to set under each of these priorities and then under each goal I write out the system(s) I will put in place to achieve it (hat tip to George Kao for the idea of creating systems to support goals). Then I schedule time in my calendar to implement the system. See below for an example:

The strategic priority is: Content

The goal is: Follow a regular and consistent schedule of creating and sharing content with my audience

And one of the systems under this goal is: To write one new blog post every week.

For details of my full plan, including my three strategic priorities, the goals that sit under each and the systems I will follow to achieve these goals, keep reading.

My Overall Plan

Strategic Priority 1 – Content

Goal 1: Follow a regular and consistent schedule of creating and sharing content with my audience

The system(s) by which I’ll achieve this goal: 

• One new blog post every week.
• One Soulful Strategies e-letter every week.
• One post on FB Business Page every day.
• One post in FBA Group 3 x a week.
• One new video every week (alternate between live and pre-recorded).
• 6 New Female Business Academy classes plus interviews with guest teachers during 2019.

Goal 2: Repurpose all appropriate existing content

The system(s) by which I’ll achieve this goal: 

• Create a Free Resources library on my website to share existing resources.
• Re-purpose old newsletters for social media posts and blogs.
• Re-run Spring Clean Challenge.
• Re-run Turning Pro Challenge.
• Re-run Facebook Live Challenge.

Goal 3: Disseminate content widely and regularly

The system(s) by which I’ll achieve this goal: 

• Create and execute a FB Ad campaign to promote and share free content and low-cost offerings.
• Re-share popular content on Facebook each week.

Strategic Priority 1 – Outreach

Goal 1: Implement a CRM solution and populate with business contacts.

The system(s) by which I’ll achieve this goal: 

• Add in 25 contacts a week.
• Update contact notes in Capsule daily.

Goal 2: Create and execute an outreach strategy.

• Reach out to 10 people each week (new and existing contacts, former clients, people who engage with my content on social media etc).
• Send 2 referral emails a week.

3. Revenue

Goal 1: Generate more passive Income from existing products

The system(s) by which I’ll achieve this goal: 

• Create and execute a marketing strategy for The Business of Coaching workshop series and the Female Business Academy.
• Turn Spring Clean Your Business and the Turning Pro Challenge into entry level products.

Goal 2: Enrol 2 new coaching clients a quarter

The system(s) by which I’ll achieve this goal: 

• Content Plan and Outreach strategy represent the system for this goal.

Goal 2: Enrol 30 new members into the Female Business Academy

The system(s) by which I’ll achieve this goal: 

• Share details about individual classes on a weekly basis on Facebook and Instagram.
• Conduct and share interviews with all of the guest teachers on blog and social media.

You see how it works? It’s not enough to simply set the goal, what we must do is to identify how we’ll achieve it and then focus on that system above all else. It’s the system that we want to schedule into our diary and truly commit to getting done.

So you see, when we’re clear on our business aim for the year and we create a context for our goals with strategic priorities and systems, our business plan starts to look a lot more supportive of our business success rather than an unwieldy and overwhelming list of goals.

Do how about you? Have you written your strategic plan for 2019 yet? Are you planning to? I’d love to know in the comments below.