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How to Develop a Business Action Plan

So we're going go through this in three steps, and this will be in your workbook as well on page fifty two, but before you get going, let me explain with these three steps are so the first one is a filter, we're going to go through all the possible ideas, everything that's, any workbook so far in one page fifty two? So there's a lot of pages, fifty one pages of ideas that you go through all the ideas and possible improvements that you could make to your path, and you're going to filter it through that business school that you've set. The reason why I started the day with your goal for the next three months is so that now you can apply, it is a filter, the second step is to arrange, we're going to notice that all the things that you possible actions, some are one time actions like right my about page, so one time action you do it, you don't have do it each week. Other things are continuous actions I'm going to block once a week that's continuous ongoing, you're going to keep doing it in...

the third step after you've arranged them into what's one time and what's ongoing is to schedule it this where we're actually gonna look at your calendar, find a place that you can actually do this but let's get deeper into each of these as you start to fill out the filter section on page fifty two beltre ok, so we're going to start with your intention and goal remember in session one I asked you what your intention for this class was, what was the one thing you wanted to be able to learn or due by the end of the class, right? It feels like days ago it was in fact it is here's the thing about filtering you have to make a zillion decisions in your small business and scientists shown that we have a limited amount of willpower that means we can only make so many really good decisions in a day, so we want to automate as many of these decisions as possible. One of my favorite ways of doing this is making a filter I think about it is like the filter you use when you pan for gold, right? Like it's going to keep out it's going to let all the bad stuff all the things that don't aren't in line with your intention and goal flow out. So what you're left with is the goal because you're going to apply that filter all these possible actions, right? A lot of these air stones and some of these air gold, our gold in alignment with what your intention and your goal was we're going to filter out everything that doesn't fit and just focus on the things that d'oh it's my first question to you is what your intention for this class wass and what's, the bigger business school you're working towards, like both your north star, that five year goal and that one, your goal, and then and this is going to take sometimes you guys will probably do this over lunch, you're going to go through your work sheets and circle all the ideas that line up with his intention and these goals, and you can absolutely start doing this is I give you some examples, and I really like to think of it as a filter because instead of you having to make a zillion daily decisions instead, you just asked, is this the line with my goal? Does this get me closer to my goal? My inbox is really full of messages, but isn't this in line with my goal is my goal is to finish the book this year? Maybe my inbox is not a priority right now, it's that filter, you just keep applying it and applying it over and over. It will keep out all the stuff you don't want and allows and more of what you do want because, you know, we talked about how easy it is to build a business that other people think you should have how how hard it is to stay true to what you truly want in your business and a filter will help you do that if you if you've come up with a goal that's really in line with what you really want and you can use it as a filter to filter out all the noise, for example, I always find that I read a blogger post it's like ten ways teo, I don't get more twitter followers or get more shares on twitter or two gets more people pending your post get more pinterest traffic right? And I'm like I needed to all ten of these things right now, but if my goal is tio finishes book or to write this workshop is pinterest and getting more penders follows followers in line with my goal. Probably not, uh is getting like a huge facebook page in line with my goal of finishing, writing this thing or having a great client session today? Probably not so applying that filter lets you really just not dio aa lot of the stuff that the outside world is telling you you have to d'oh, there are also other filters you can use I like to use your north star as a filter just in general in life like if your north star is enthusiasm, I think somebody said in the chat room what uh, just a filter out. Does this make me feel enthusiastic? Does this not make me feel enthusiastic in case you miss session one and you're wondering why I keep saying north star, I guess we should go back and mention that your north star is a guiding principle of how you're making decisions in your business and your life. It's a thing you want more out of some of the examples we have gentle, sustainable acceptance, and that really will help you make some business decisions you can filter based on your north star in filter based on your goal. For example, if you decide that you really want to finish your book, this is your filter, everything that comes out you opportunities, ideas, people's requests is this online with finishing my book is it's not in line with finishing my book so you can weed out a lot a lot of stuff because it's not in line. Obviously we all have obligations. You'll have to continue to finish orders even as you work toward some other goal. But that is actually in line with your goal, because it's continuing your business running while you finish your book, another filter that I think people miss out on a lot is a probability. We like you need to have a profitable business your business is here to support you and to support the people you're serving so and we've mentioned this a couple times today people have asked questions about their pricing often you can decide if an opportunity is really an opportunity or just somebody asking you for free work if you put it to the profitability test this is actually provide me with a true opportunity or is this just me doing free work for somebody people get those requests a lot so how much you guys where did the filters you're going to use in your business and are there questions about filters in the chat room anything from you guys first okay feeling good? Is it several filters can I say I like being with my family could be a filter but then I'm like well then that means I shouldn't be working but here's the thing though, right? So you have multiple kind of goals for your life and north star's family is just one of them but your business has its own so I think when we're talking about filters you want to filter out things in this sphere so if being with your family than maybe you're going to filter out agreeing to do things outside of your home or if you want to be with your family you're going to filter out things that take you guys in different directions right so maybe your kid doesn't get signed up to play soccer because that means you actually spend last time together so it's not that you use the same filters in every area of your life unless it's something big like freedom or enthusiasm and you can use it in your business but not you know if you loved your work then you're not going to use it to totally filter out all work but you could use it to filter out work opportunities things that take you away from your kids things that cut into your family time we talked a little bit in session one about having boundaries around this is family time this is work time and having worked time it sounds kind of what's at the heart of that is feeling a little bit of guilt because your family is one of your top priorities you're feeling some guilt but then you have this time marked off for just work and so first of all permission to feel crappy about that because I know lots of moms dio but also just to know that it's ok like you are still prioritizing your family even if you also do something you really love you don't have to give up one because like you mentioned I think in session one that you want to leave a legacy for your kids you want your kids to know that you really followed your dream and you made something awesome so if you cut out your work because of your family, you'd be failing to do that, they wouldn't see that you're getting to follow your dream. Lots of nodding all around way still have some questions coming in about the way people are using some of these social media tools. It's a good question here from the k v I, and they ask if it's ok to repeat the copy that you're using on social media. For instance, say that you post the same quirky line or comment on facebook as you do on your block post, as on twitter or even the event page. Is it ok to kind of duplicate your efforts on these different tools? So this I want to say ten things at once, I'm kind of a kick from the things I could say. The short answer is a sure if that's in line with your goal, and if you think you have vastly different audiences in each places. But if your goal with all this is to connect and bring people closer and you know you have the same fans and all the places like aiken, see, my facebook page is smaller than my twitter followers because my facebook pages mostly people, were actually already my students or have already bought something. That's kind of where they connect is on the facebook page so if I said the same thing on my blawg that these people are reading kind of religiously and then I said it on my facebook page, I be just saying the same thing in both places now if facebook isn't a big priority for me, which is actually not then I then that might be fine so it's all about your priorities with where you're connecting with people, what to you think is most effective at building those relationships and then giving that tool and that part of your path your attention giving it, you know, putting in the work to make something different so for me often will post snippets of my block posts on facebook and lead them back to my blogged because that's where I no more connection happens, facebook is not as important to me, so I don't spend time getting like somewhat spent time there, but for you it might be totally different. Facebook might be where all of your people connect with you and connect with each other, in which case you'd want to be creating unique and engaging content there. Yes, I was recently out of workshop and they brought up something really great, they said a lot of people tried tio focus on all areas of social media and trying to grow everything that they end up not growing at all and instead of taking their energy, importing it into, like one or two outlets, that really, um that that really give that feedback and build the relationships and get what they want rather than trying to spend time on everything else because I'm not all gonna happen absolutely and it's all about filtering out everything else that isn't so I mean, if you if you have already, like built up platforms in each place, then you have a different question of how to talk to each one than if you're just building definitely start with one, get one under your belt and pick the one that's in line with your goals and your people and your best skills. So choose the one that's going to work best for you first before you brand shop to others because exactly exactly what she said, you can't grow them all at the same time because you can't possibly create content, you know, especially when you're just learning it and you're just building an audience there the next step and kind of taking your actions again. We're talking about how you make decisions, and I hope that you can use this to make all kinds of business decisions after you filter it through your own or start your own intention, your own goals. We're going to arrange and prioritize really like this picture. This was a sign a street side that I found in asheville that said, don't postpone joy because hopefully one of your things you're prioritizing is a joy and not postponing it until you've done something else. So you're going to look back on dh so this is the middle of page fifty two you're going to look back at all of the different ideas that you've circled all the different things in your book that you could possibly d'oh, and you're going tio prioritize which ones are most in line with your goals right now? Now, hopefully, the filtering process took out a good chunk of things you realize it would be really nice to do x and y, but that's not mind of michael's right now, but maybe it would be really nice to have a zillion facebook followers, but that's not in line with my goals right now, so you filtered those out so the things that are left you want to arrange them, you want to prioritize them based on a few different things. The first one, I always say, prioritize the thing you're most enthusiastic about. If you had an idea over the past two sessions and you're like, get wait to get started on this, you should do that. You should go with your enthusiasm because you're gonna have a lot more motivation. You gonna have a lot more energy, you're going be able to knock it out pretty quickly if you're enthusiastic about it, and the second thing is to choose what has the most impact again? What is going to get you closer to your goal? What is going to be the most powerful action you can take? And usually this is a bigger thing, like editing your home base so that it is more, uh, it pushes people to buy your product in a clearer way than it did in the past like that is going to be a big change they just do once that has a lot of impact, another way you can paradise things is what makes sense, like what needs to come before something else. So you need to make a facebook page before you can post to a facebook page, right? You need to first have a website before you can edit your website, you need to have in about page before you can editor about page, so prioritized all the list of ideas that you've had over the past two sessions based on those things enthusiasm, impact and just sense making this is a really big part of your workbook where I ask you to arrange the things, and what I've actually done here is I've given you each section that we've covered in the last three sessions and I've split it up toe ask you basically to go back to that section and pick the things that you want to prioritize out of it, you're not gonna have areas in each section because you felt heard some of them out. Maybe you are all set on spotting your sparkle and you totally know who you're right person is so when you go home, you're going to focus on fixing your home base. Maybe you're not ready to work on your home base because you actually need to go and do some things around your right person so in the area all the way through page fifty four, right down in the area, the ideas you had when we covered that section, so if you missed the other sessions, you want to go back and do the work book, he said earlier, someone was waiting to do the workbook until she was all done listening. I highly suggest you start filling it out as soon as possible because a it's really easy to put off when you're not feeling as inspired as when you listen and b you really can't go on and make a plan until you know you're right person, your message, your home base we laid this out in a systematic way so that you would get to this point and know so much about your person, your business and the marketing path you want to have so that's how it to arrange things and you can use the system to make any decision, you can filter out what you don't want, arrange what you do want, and then the next step will be to actually schedule it all in. But I want to ask you, when you look at all the possible things you could do, how are you prioritizing them enthusiasm, impact? Is there something you're just very excited to get started on? Because your writing we have a question when we have more questions about social media tools, but this one seems pretty, but this is pretty applicable to what we're talking about here from mary w, and they say that I put a lot of energy into my facebook page in particular, I have a lot of followers, but people consistently don't comment or like, no matter what I post and now I'm determining that maybe these air, not my right people, how do I drive the right people to my social networks? The number one thing is to talk directly to them, right? Create content that they most care about. Be speaking to them as if they're already there and the other people who aren't the right people will be like she's not talking to me and they'll go away the right people will find it useful. The other thing, of course, is to think about what your goal is. I find that I get lots of questions about social media and actually waited to talk about it until now, because it's not even close to the most important thing in your business getting followers getting responses does not build a sustainable business. What build a sustainable business is having a great home base where people can come get to know you and then by your work? Well, though the sustainable businesses having a customer path that's clearly cleared out for them to find you and social media takes a long time to build an audience. It takes a long time to get your voice clear. And for all of those reasons, I said that it wasn't great it's like just not great at being so specific, nailing people exactly what they are, where they are when you want tio it's much more effective to have a very clear home base have a way of contacting them every week, every other week with your email and making clear offer so that they buy your work so I always ask people when they ask about social media wait is that your goal like, is that your biggest goal is to get responses or your biggest goal? To get to know your customer better? And if you're not having the results you want on social media, try another way, you know, start writing blawg post that talk directly to your person start reaching out to the customers that you've had and asking them questions, start writing e mails that they get in their in box, where you end with a question people respond to me ten times more when I ask a question at the bottom of an email lesson than when I ask a question on twitter, I have, uh, I think ten times more twitter follow maybe four times more twitter followers than ideo email subscribers and I, but I get so many more answers, like measurably more answers to an email on twitter because, again, such a small percentage of people are saying what I tweet you were like nodding along when I was talking your way gotta clean house, get my about paige, decide in the shop, and then you have been a lot of work to do there. Well, good isn't good to, like realize that are you feeling less overwhelmed? Yes, with the filtering ok, does this serve my goal? Yeah, yeah, and at the end of the two, you know, our session to someone commented that they feel like their business is a hot mess and what I wanted to say it was like, but we're going to clear it all out because that's, the thing is, this is a system in which we generate lots of ideas, and then we filter out lots of ideas if you didn't have those ideas and you didn't get clear, clearer and clear about what the possibility wass even get really stuck, I don't know what to do, I don't know what to do. Well, now you have one hundred things you could d'oh it's a matter of just picking something like I said about clarity, taking action will give you more clarity, just just going home and working on that you'll feel better if you have a better about what else you going to do, so the last step in making decisions is to schedule and the schedule in whatever way works for you, and of course, this you can't so much to you guys are not in you're like, yes preach it. Um, so we have just do one other thing about arranging, and you will find this on page fifty five you guys are probably not ready to do this in in all of our you're still thinking and writing, but the other thing about arranging is that I wanted you to prioritize, and the second thing is, I want you to figure out what you've prioritized the few things you're going to definitely be working on first, what are one time actions working on your home page, deciding on a shopping cart, a onetime action on what our ongoing actions and the reason I ask you to distinguish the two because I find that people it kind of put too many things on their to do list, so if your to do list says block every day, well, it's never going to get marked off, right? Because every day is going to come a new and instead it might be right. A block post on x that's a one time action is perfectly fine. I mean, it's good, you're going to have one time actions in your business and you're gonna have routine actions. So in fifty five you go through the list of things that you've decided you are going to dio and break him up in the one time actions and routine actions. Routine action would be like showing up consistently on instagram or one time action would be setting up my instagram account, a onetime actually be getting clear on who I'm talking tio when I post on instagram, really writing out all the different things that I could share with her remember when we talked in session to about creating your ongoing content, we talked about all I made you list like twenty things that your people want to hear about from you, you can use that list to inform any ongoing contact you create, but by separating the two, you're going to see, oh yeah, these are things that I would never get done, and if you constantly have them on your list, you can get discouraged and feel like, well, I just never get to that, but by breaking it up, you'll see ok over teen action is to block every week, so it's okay, I mr week, I'll just go back to a next week. Where's is one time actions you can knock out and those air out usually the ones you're most enthusiastic about doing like your home major shopping cart, like go home, do those they're done, and then you've got some confidence to move onto the next things, and then I made fifty five island keep asking you to get more and more specific men. Now I want you to prioritize the top three things you want to add to your first, prioritize the top ten things you want to do that are one time actions and to put a date next to them and we're gonna talk about scheduling you also prioritize the top three routine actions because most people want to do like fifty things right? Okay so I'm gonna tweet three times a day and I'm a blogger every week I'm going to send out newsletters every two weeks and then I'm gonna post on instagram five times a day like no if you're not doing any of that yet figure out how to make a routine out of doing one of those things and we'll talk about experimenting in the next section and how to figure out what works best for you but that's the thing you want to just pick one thing one routine action to start putting into your calendar to start becoming a routine for you and that's how we're going to schedule in whatever way works for you and I actually find that people tend to fall on a spectrum of scheduling over here is me I'm free form I like to know in general what to dio but I don't like no each hour what I'm going to do each hour I have a list each day actually created list each week of the big project I'm working on I make a list for the day I go through the list in the order that I want tio I know I'm going to get most of it then there were the super scheduled and this is penny and she's a starship member and she has on her calendar every single line item in her calendar completely work with x on this project time ends eat lunch go for a run work with this person on this project that's super schedule that works so well for her she's really happy with that that would make me crazy and when I've worked in office jobs that wanted me to be super scheduled and I always feel like the outside world wants me to be super scheduled whatever wherever you are in the spectrum figure that out and maybe you experiment with it but put these things the things you want to accomplish the actions you want to take in a way that will make sense for you so for me I would just need to put a date out to the side I'm gonna work on my home page I'm gonna do that next week I'm gonna update my shopping cart I'm gonna do that by the end of july but if you're super scheduled break it up into chunks I'm gonna work on that for two hours from eight a m to ten a m on the twenty third you know and obviously you guys don't have your calendar here in front of you so you but if you know yourself and you know your hour by hour kind of scheduler pull out your schedule and make sure you do that because there's, actually something that penny has found and shared with us is that until she discovered that path for her, that scheduling she constantly felt behind she consulate felt like she wasn't getting stuff done, but now she wakes up. She knows what to dio just feeling awesome. So you want to find the way that works for you, and then I'd like to know from you guys, what are you filtering out? And what are you ready to take action on? And I know you guys still have to go through workbooks and circles some more things, but for example, you said your home page in your shopping cart. Somebody else wanna share? Yeah, to get my pitch letter going this week when I get back home. That's. Awesome. Yeah. And you know, that reminds me of the intention you very first set in the session, one about being an oprah magazine. Like the very first step. Would you would be free to pitch something? Yeah, and then that lines up with your goal of being in the holiday gift guide. You I love it that so perfectly in line, how about on the chat room, is anybody ready to tell me what they're going to take action on? Yeah, virginia says my first priority is getting my home page in order I can't wait to get started on my website I think a lot of people have been putting that off and when we went through in session to to kind of talk about the components of your web site the about paige think that's motivating a lot of people to revisit where they've been doing there I'm so glad to hear that so I'm one of the things I want to say about scheduling and I know you guys still need to go back to counter into it is that their big thing is don't over schedule because right now you guys have so many ideas we filtered some out we've arranged you're going to schedule, but you're going to be tempted to schedule five hundred things you're gonna be like yes, I did this on monday and this on tuesday and this on wednesday, but the fact is if you get over scheduled it's me easy to get overwhelmed but also to get discouraged because soon you'll fall behind because there's no way that we're all a super productive eight hours a day even if you worked in office job for eight hours a day, those people don't get eight hours worth of work done I know I've been in those offices you get more like two four hours of work done with lots of breaks in between so to actually get your stuff done be be comfortable if it takes you a little longer because the main thing is that you want to get some things under about you want to knock out some of those one time action make some of those routine things of routine because it's going to do amazing things for you the first thing is it's going to build confidence you are going toe realize you are a person who gets things done many people come to me after years of feeling like they made no profit, no progress at all in their business and they're frustrated that they're not farther they're frustrated that they haven't done more and so by actually going through this process of choosing what specific actions to work on, they get down to the point where they kind of don't believe that they'll do it so doing some things quickly getting them on their schedule getting them done but not overscheduling not promising yourself you'll do too much, you'll feel good about it. The other thing is that you will learn so much about what works and what doesn't were you okay? You kind of get into the my question how much time in the business or on the business, right, you probably get back although good um actually I don't know if I if I did have that in there let's talk about that though so so when we're talking about all this so there's time that you spend on the business versus the time you spend totally on your family right outside the business and you need to have clear boundaries around each I find but then in business first on the business when you're working in your business you're an employee right? You're like shipping things you're producing things you are just doing the things that maybe like an elf could do if they were really good off when you're working on your business you are the business owner you're the entrepreneur you're putting on your smart girl hat and you are like figuring things out you're planning your scheduling you're coming up with new projects you're maybe doing like research and development stuff is that people don't know about then the creativeness right what do you do the work right like a percentage right? I'm sure this individual like I'm a guy that's for the next two weeks like doing like you know, getting these one time things done and then I'll do the other but they write no that's where I get it and that's why I talk about scheduling it because in the ideal scenario you're going to find the kind of day that works best for you what I find for most people who do this full time ish now they have been between twenty and forty hours is that there's a time of day that they're very thoughtful and mental and can work on thinking through like like all of this stuff we've done is working on your business. You are making your business more awesome, but you're not. Actually none of you are in here making your product or painting, or like making the thing you seller shipping or talking to clients answering e mails. So if you can find a time of day that you do either task better, some people paint and write very first thing in the morning before they do any customer service you can find on the part of the day that works best for you and then it's really going to be the percentage of time that makes sense? I always say, do the thing that's harder when you're the smartest the most awake. So for a lot of us that's our creativity, like if you paint, you might need to be your freshest when you paint whether that's at ten a m arts at ten p m you shouldn't make that time sacred for doing your art, but then you should absolutely make sure that you're building in time to do the more thoughtful things. So there's, then there's also things that customer service, you know, answering emails, listing things in your shop, writing the descriptions. So it's about finding the time in your day that works best for other people are like instead of doing balance, they do like obsession, like I'm gonna paint for eight hours a day for a week, and then I'm not going to be able to pay for two weeks. It's what you do in that two weeks, you take your pictures, you write your descriptions, you start planning out what I want from a business in the next three months and you make a plan. Yes, that kind of goes back. What he said, I think with session one when it's ok to like there are those days, maybe it is a good time just to work on the business and then, yeah, yes, sunday's could be painting whatever exactly and that's so different for each business. But you do want to make sure that you're not just constantly working in it like an elf, that you're taking the time to step back and be the entrepreneur and think, where do I want this to go? What are my goals? What's online with my goals once you get that worked out, once we create a map at the end of segment for an even, just get to work, knocking it out. You don't have to always be questioning and that's actually nice thing about the filter we can only make so many decisions want to apply the filter let that filter make the decisions for you and you just do the things you know you need to dio because I think that's why people get so overwhelmed is there like it feels like we're always making decisions it feels like we're always having to decide shut should be tweeting now or should be painting now so I like to tell people tio be experimenting with what works but don't be so loose that you have no idea which morning so you should wake up in the day I say should and the ideal scenario is in which you wake up in the day and you know, okay, I'm gonna paint for two hours and then I'm gonna go do customer service and then I'm gonna go knock out my four marketing tasks or you know you think you're going to do that day and then you just have no creativity so you say ok, so I'm just going to deal with my email inbox because I'm not feeling creative it's ok? You can be flexible you're gonna be nice to yourself you're gonna be gentle but knowing ahead of time having figured out all of the tasks that need to be done, that means that you're not going which I do from marketing oh no that's my goal with this whole classes so that each day you're like ok, this is what I'm doing for marketing and then it's up to you to find the time of day or the time of the week uh quite a few of my clients would you like monday is for this tuesday is for this friday is for this and I even find myself doing that sometimes like monday is the day that I do aa lot of my writing that's free tuesday and wednesday I create classes there jane friday I kind of do everything that didn't get done earlier in the week you know? So whatever one of that path works yeah one of the things that I do because I teach and so I have that structure in my week is that I just mark out time on my calendar and I just call it projects and then I can put in whatever project I need but it's kind of like sacred time so then I don't let other people dr mae but then I also have like social media time and lunch that's all it was a big one radio but other like really specific things but to kind of give myself those visual blocks on my calendar where I think like oh, I could work on that right? So something like that the one time actions you come up with today would like fit into your project space where you say projects or do you mean projects that coming up? Well, it can be any kind of project, but it's like, ok, I have two hours here for whatever projects are on my list for this week that and I have to fit them in over the week that's where I get into trouble because it was have thirty projects and right five days in the way you need the filter. So so I wouldn't just remind you that you can use the system whenever you feel overwhelmed filter arrange schedule an experiment if you are feeling like you read a blood post or you just got excited about something and you have by thousand ninety is filtered them out based on your goals and your intentions, arrange them based on your priorities. What are you excited about what's going to have impact and then schedule them? And because you know you can read a lot about marketing, you can learn a lot about marketing, but if you don't actually take any action, it's not gonna matter at all and then experiment realize that what ever you filtered, arranged and scheduled might be all wrong and you need to try again, it might not be what she thought it was gonna be, it might take longer you're going to learn more and change, so then your homework just fill in the rest of the arrange pages in your workbook, and that goes all the way through page fifty five. So when you go back through your entire workbook off, leave, been filling it out as you've been watching. So you can go through your entire workbook, circle the things that are in line with your three month goal and then arrange them into a onetime actions routine. Actions and then scheduled them.