Having a business game-plan sets the course for your quarter and your year.
Without it, you don’t have a roadmap to travel on so you can get off track and lost… With it, you have more clarity, direction and inspiration.
There’s a way to design your plan so that it feels exciting, and there’s a way that feels depressing…
A study done by the University of Scranton found that 92% of New Year’s Resolutions fail. Why?
Because most people don’t have a successful plan to go with their goals.
We all need a clear plan for our business. Creating a clear business plan at the beginning of the year will help you achieve greater business success in 2021.
Today I’m sharing with you a powerful process that you can follow to create a successful business this year.
Here are 3 things your business needs to create a successful 2021 game-plan…
1 – Have A Clear Vision
The first essential element you need is a clear vision.
I recommend that your vision is always based on your ‘why’.
A powerful vision has a few elements to it…
1. Match your vision up with the identity of the person that you want to become.
I’ve done goal setting with clients for years and I’ve noticed the difference between people who match their vision with their future desired identity and those who don’t.
When I first started out as a personal trainer in 2001, I would get people to set goals around their weight.
After a while I realised that what was more powerful for many people is attaching their vision to an identity, for example being the kind of person who consistently goes to the gym, maintains a certain dress or pants size, does a marathon, or competes in a contest.
Make your goals line up with who you want to be. This is super powerful.
Think about the identity of the business owner you want to be.
Do you want to be a thought leader? Do you want to disrupt your industry? Do you want to be a fully booked coach? Do you want to be more courageous?
I’ve been a goal-setter since I was about 8-years-old. My first memory of setting goals was having a big scrapbook with a picture of dogs on the front of it. I would sit there on a Saturday afternoon and write my goals.
My goals back then were to have a million dollars, have a pet gorilla and own a lolly shop. Goals have always been a big part of what I do hahaha…
But when I was about 20, I started listening to Tony Robbins and that was when I really started writing my goals properly.
2. Break your goals into milestones
The second important factor is to break down your goals into achievable milestones.
This is a big game-changer.
If you want to be a guest speaker on a podcast, for example, you want to think through the steps you need to take to achieve this. What steps will you take to make the goal possible?
If your goal is to do 50 Facebook Lives this year, write out your plan for how you are going to do it. For example, you could lay out your steps of doing 1 Facebook Live a week to hit your goal.
3. Set Defining Words And Intentions
Every year I set 3 words for the year and these are the characteristics that I want to crown my year with.
In 2019, my words were discipline, fun and courage. And these words really shaped who I was in that year.
These aren’t tangible goals, but for example, if I’m the character trait of ‘disciplined’ then I will get my goals. If I’m courageous, then I’ll do consistent Facebook Lives and run more webinars and I will set my income goal higher.
In 2020, my words were explosion, ease and example. My life kind of exploded in the best possible way. Ease didn’t really happen as much as I would have liked, but that’s coming haha.
My 3 words for 2021 are fruitfulness, fulfillment and freedom.
Fruitfulness is being fruitful and having lots of self-care time, nature walks and taking time away from the business. However, when I am working in the business I’m really focused and productive.
Fulfillment is making sure you’re fulfilled in what you do. Tony Robbins says that success without fulfillment is the ultimate failure.
Fulfillment is so important, especially if you have a massive vision and you’re in this for the long haul. Fulfillment comes when you are aligned with your values.
So you want to build your goals around your values.
Do you want to know what you value?
Look at your bank statements and see what are you spending your money on, because what we spend our money on is what we value.
Look at your home. What is on your walls, your bookshelf?
Look at your Google history.
All of these things tell us what our values are. And you can have different personal values to your business values, but they have to line up with the core of who you are and who you want to be.
One of my business values is radical resilience. Being resilient means I’m not going to stress out when things go wrong. I’m not going to react when technology isn’t playing the game. I might get a bit annoyed in the moment, but I’m not going to let it ruin my whole emotional state.
Authentic expression and creativity is another value I hold. I choose to show up, be real, and not be perfect. I share my vulnerability and my struggles to my communities.
I’m listening to a great book called ‘Extreme Ownership ‘and it’s the concept of radical ownership and responsibility. It’s owning our stuff and not being stuck in blame and excuses.
Extreme ownership is taking 100% responsibility for everything in terms of my thoughts, my actions, my beliefs, my values and my behaviours.
If you haven’t revisited your values and aligned them with your vision, I recommend that you take time to do this. Our vision can change and evolve over time, so it’s good to revisit them.
My vision is to equip, support and inspire millions of people to live on purpose, doing what they love, creating and contributing from a place of abundance and freedom. My vision is to help people be authentic and live the fullest expression of their potential.
Sometimes we need to grow into our vision. My vision is to inspire millions of people, but you start where you are at. Your vision needs to be inspiring, aspirational and energising.
If you haven’t revisited your vision wall recently, then I recommend that you do that. Put your vision up on your wall. Have it actually in your face and then make your decisions based on your vision.
Your mission then, is how you are going to outwork your vision. My mission is supporting and equipping business owners and leaders to do what they love and feel they are called to do. It’s to encourage business owners and leaders to use their unique brilliance and make a significant impact in the world.
When you have your vision and mission, then you can work out your delivery methods for how you will get your vision into the world.
2 – Have An Up-levelling Mastermind
Having a mastermind small group is one of my favourite things for enjoyment and group.
The whole purpose of the group is that it’s designed so that everyone grows into the best version of themselves and they do it together.
Doing things together is more powerful than everyone doing things individually. I love to do visioning with other people.
My sister Vicki and I do a regular summit. We call it our ‘KV’ (cavey!) Summit. We get together either in Australia or New Zealand, usually at a holiday resort or Air BnB.
If Vick is over we usually go to the Hunter Valley or Port Stephens. We spend 3 days together visioning, planning, goal setting and breaking things down into milestones at our summit.
This year we did our summer online because we couldn’t travel.
I also did a vision day with my partner Josh. We went to a beautiful park with a view and we just sat together and did the wheel of life. We talked about what we wanted, and did some coaching together which was awesome.
I did a mastermind with a couple of friends at my house also, where we literally spent 12 hours, visioning and planning. One person would take the hot seat and the other 2 would coach. It was incredible.
2020 was a huge year, and it was so good to sit back and re-vision what I wanted 2021 to look like.
I had to up-level my vision and doing it in a mastermind is so great, as everybody knows what each business vision is, and what goals they have.
Being in an up-levelling mastermind helps you stay accountable. You inspire each other and collaborate to bring out the best in each other. When you spend time with people who are going places and are reaching the heights, it’s going to rub off on you.
Who are you surrounding yourself with?
Are they influencers and high achievers? Do they want to push themselves? Do they want to hold themselves to a higher standard and potential?
Do they consistently want to meet you and not just have random meetups?
Are they committed to being reliable and supportive?
Having a supporting mastermind group is a game changer.
The great author Napoleon Hill talks extensively about the power of being in a mastermind and how it’s been such a key to his success. He is one of the world’s greats, so he’s worth listening to.
3 – Have A Focused Action Plan
Having a focused action plan where you know what you’re doing every day and every week and also where you’re heading towards that quarter is such a game-changer.
An action plan makes sure you’re not waking up in the morning and opening your laptop and getting lost in the sea of the internet and getting sucked into the internet black hole.
I moved house recently and I’ve created a bit of a different space in my office and set up my environment in a way where I don’t come into my little office until I’ve done all my morning self-care routine.
My morning self-care routine gives me a fresh mind and I can then sit down and know exactly what I’m doing each day.
I plan and schedule my day the night before. It sounds so boring, but we have to know what we’re doing, otherwise we will just waste so much time.
I’ve wasted so much time getting sucked into the internet and lost down rabbit holes. Instead of creating, we ended up consuming and it’s such a waste of our talent and our ability.
Without a game plan we become lost. Sports players have a game plan and they know if they are clear on their plan, then just need to execute it. The coach develops the plan for them.
To make your action plan, I recommend that you start with a brain dump of your priorities that you want to do for this year. It could be that you want to do more online networking, run more workshops, learn and develop certain skills like increasing your copywriting or sales and marketing skills.
Once you’ve got your priorities, then work out how you are going to measure your KPI’s. You might say you are going to spend 2 hours a week doing a Facebook course, learning how to create Facebook ads and test and measure them.
Or you might want to write 50 articles in 2021. So you set the big goal and then you set the numbers and steps to get you there.
An example is if I want to earn $100,000 in 2021 and you break that down by financial quarters. Then you have to earn $25k per quarter. So you would then work out how many clients you need each quarter to earn your target income.
Typically the year starts out slower and the growth increases throughout the year, so you might be a little bit more conservative in the first quarter. You then work out what you need to do to get those clients. That may be doing a certain amount of webinars or it may mean you need to create 5 new freebies and funnels with nurture sequences.
You work out the numbers so you have a focused action plan, so you know exactly what you are going to be doing on a Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday. Focused action plans help you keep on target with your goals and vision.
I’ve tried so many goal setting methods over the years, and I believe the 3 best things you can do straight away to ensure you are successful in 2021 is:
1 – Have a clear vision
2 – Have an up-levelling mastermind
3 – Have a focused action plan
If you’d like help creating a successful year in your business, my next free event is happening on the 6th of February, 2021.
I’ll be sharing how to write compelling copy that is going to help you attract new clients in 2021.
See you over there,
Kat
P.S Want to chat one-on-one instead? You can book in for a free strategy session here.
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