Episode 97: Let's Make a Plan for 2022
Welcome back to Making Good, the podcasts for small businesses who want to make a big impact. I'm your host, Lauren Tilden. And this is episode 97. Two Making Good episodes are out today, why? Because this is December, and my holiday gift to my amazing Making Good community is doubled the podcast episodes all month of December. So instead of the regularly scheduled for Tuesday episodes this month, there are eight so happy holidays.
In episode 95 I walked you through my process of doing a year in review for your business. If you haven't listened to that episode yet, I would really suggest that you start with that one linked in the show notes before you move on to today's episode about planning for 2022. The best place to start and creating a plan for the year to come is to really take stock of where we've been and what we've learned. Episode 95 is all about that process. So if you haven't go have a listen to that one before coming back to today's episode about planning for 2022.
Before we get into today's episode, though, I wanted to let you know that the doors to Making Good happen are closing in just a few days on December 31. So what is Making Good Happen? Well, something that I know all too well is that it's one thing to learn the things that will help our businesses thrive. And it's another thing entirely to actually take the actions we need to take. It's the action that changes things for us, not the learning by itself. And that's what Making Good Happen is all about. Making Good Happen is a monthly membership designed to help you custom build a marketing plan for your business and more importantly, to actually take the steps necessary to see the results you dream of. Making Good Happen includes a private members only podcast called Making Good Happen. There'll be short and sweet episodes every weekday ranging from mini pep talks to journaling prompts to action items, deep work sessions, so kind of like co working on Zoom but with no video or audio to minimize distraction, guided monthly marketing plan creation, an online community of other like minded small business owners, accountability tracking of your most important deadlines, guest expert presentations each month and more. And so that we can all kick off 2022 with a bang, Making Good Happen is officially launching the first Monday in January, January 3 2022.
If you want to start 2022 with an intentional strategic marketing plan that you actually execute, coming out with me and some other really amazing small business owners in Making Good Happen. And speaking of other amazing small business owners, I want to gush a little bit about the folks we have signed up already. We have jewelry makers, candle makers, makeup artists, Live Event Services, photography, apparel, accessories, paper goods, calligraphy and so much more. Do you have a creative business that you want to take to the next level by consistently taking marketing action? Join us in Making Good Happen. The doors to Making Good Happen will be open until December 31 And then I'll be closing them for a while so I can focus 100% on the members who sign up in this first round. I've got some fun bonuses in store for those of you who get signed up before January. So if you're interested, this is a great time. If you know you're ready to join us head to making good podcast com slash MGH to sign up. And if you want an email sent to you with all the details you can go to making good podcast.com/happen I can't wait to work with you inside of Making Good Happen.
Okay, so let's get into today's episode, which is all about planning for 2022. You'll notice that this episode isn't titled goal setting for 2022 and that's because as powerful motivators as goals can be. In my book, they aren't nearly as powerful as the part of the process where we figure out how we're going to make things happen. Antoine de Saint Exupery, which I'm sure I mispronounced the French author who wrote The Little Prince said, a goal without a plan is just a wish. If you're reading Atomic Habits, which is the January book for Making Good book club, or if you've already read it, you know that the author James clear points to a lot of science and data supporting this idea. He believes the goals aren't nearly as important as the system as he calls it, the plan of consistent action that we take. He says in the book, winners and losers have the same goals. And this is so true. It's not the goals that generate results. It's the actions that we take. So today's episode is all about Yes, setting a goal but then more importantly creating the plan that will take us toward that goal. So let's get into the planning process.
Step one is to do your year end review. The first step in planning for the year to come is to review the past year. What went well, what didn't go well. What did you learn? What do you definitely want to do differently next year. Investing the time and energy to review your past year really pays off when it comes to making an informed and strategic plan for the year to come. So I would really encourage you to do your year review. If you'd like to reference my process for this check out episode 95 of Making Good which is all about the interview, the link is in the show notes.
Step two in this process is the destination postcard exercise. So this is where things get fun. Take out a favorite notebook, pen, a warm beverage, even light a candle if you want to really go wild. I recently learned about this exercise, which was introduced by Dan and Chip Heath in the book Switched. The term destination postcard probably bring something to mind for you. I know for me, I imagine a beautiful photo on the front of a postcard with writing overtop that says, sending love from the tropics or something, a photo of where I want to be. And that's exactly what this exercise is all about where we want to be. Imagine it's December 31 2022, just about exactly a year from now, you're writing a postcard and you want to vividly describe where you are both physically and in terms of your business. What does it feel like what has changed? In the author's words, a destination postcard is a vivid picture from the near term future that shows what could be possible. There's no right way to do this. But the idea is to clearly articulate where you want to be in a year's time, we'll worry about the how to get there part and the next step. For now just do some dreaming. Maybe your destination has to do with having more income. So your lifestyle can be different. Maybe it has to do with having hired some help. So you don't have to work as much I can literally go on vacation. Maybe it has to do with the impact that you're able to make. This is the part of the exercise that I would really let yourself dream in.
We'll get to the practical stuff very soon. Step three in this process is to identify a Northstar goal. My friend Mariah Tomkinson of Bloom Hustle Grow is a genius when it comes to planning and I really like her approach to set a single Northstar goal for the year. When you look at your destination postcard what big single goal would make that possible. When Mariah was telling me about this approach in Episode 39 of this podcast, which is linked in the show notes, I could not believe she only wanted me to choose one goal. She reminded me that there aren't really rules here. But the more singularly we can direct our focus, the better. So because I like to do things my own way, I chose to have one Northstar goal for each of my businesses. Good Sheila, Station Seven and Making Good. Now this episode isn't about smart goals. But one thing to keep in mind is that this goal should be specific and measurable, the S and the M and smart goals. On December 31 2022, we want to be able to look at the goal and easily know whether or not we've accomplished it, our Norstar goal might be a number of wholesale accounts, it might be a revenue number, it might be an amount donated or a number of trees planted, it might be a number of clients or a number of sales on Etsy, it's up to you.
Now one thing about goals is I want to give you permission to adjust this goal throughout the year if you need to. If after a few months, it looks like your goal was too much of a stretch or not enough of a stretch, you have permission to adjust it. Our goal should be motivating and excite us to take action not make us feel like they're so improbable and impossible that what's the point of even trying. So do your best here to make a goal that makes sense, but know that nothing is set in stone. And if we need to adjust as we go, we can always do that.
Step four is to identify the three to five strategies that will get us to our goal. This is the part of the process where a lot of the work that we did in the year in review really comes in handy. Hopefully from that review, we learned a lot about what works, what doesn't and what we know we want to do differently this year. And this stage, we're looking at our Northstar goal and we're coming up with three to five strategies that will be most important and moving us toward that goal. I'd recommend a bit of a brainstorm to start out with, let yourself free write about all the possible things you could do to make your North Star goal happen. Then based on what you know from your experience, or possibly by doing some research externally, narrow down these strategies to three to five main strategies that will help you accomplish your North Star goal. I think some examples here would be helpful. So for Making Good, this podcast, let's say my North Star goal in 2022 is to reach 100,000 downloads. My strategies might include implementing a Pinterest strategy to increase my reach, repurposing my content to give more life to what I've already created. Consistently hosts Clubhouse rooms to broaden my audience. Increase my guest appearances on other people's podcasts to broaden my audience. For Good Sheila, my paper goods brand, let's say my North star goal in 2022 is to hit 50 wholesale accounts. My strategies might include engaging with ideal stockists regularly on Instagram to build relationships, reaching out and following up with ideal stockist by email, sending samples to my ideal stockists to show them my product, wanting to new collections and promotions in 2022. For Station Seven, my retail store, let's say the North star goal in 22 is to increase our revenue from 2021 by 20%. My strategies might include revamping the website to optimize it for online shopping, planning consistent in store events to increase foot traffic, increasing the focus on further growing our email list and extending our email marketing plan and consistent retargeting ads for people who visit our site.
Your strategies don't have to be super, super specific as we'll be converting each strategy into specific actions and the next step. In this process, we're really thinking broadly about what kind of activities in our business would move us toward that North star goal.
Step five is to get clear on what consistent actions are aligned with each strategy. Here's where the rubber hits the road. Big results are the result of what we do on a consistent basis. So for each of your strategies, we want to break them down into actions you can take each and every week, if not day. We don't want to do occasional grand gestures, but rather consistent work day in and day out that moves us toward our goals. Let's look at a few of these strategies I listed before and then look at what breaking those down into concrete consistent actions might look like. For Good Sheila, one of my strategies was to reach out and follow up with ideal stockist by email. To make this specific and actionable on a consistent basis, I would identify actions as something like the below. Maybe every week, I commit to reaching out to 20 ideal stockists, and following up with 10 ideal stockists that we've previously reached out to. For Making Good, one of my strategies was repurposing my existing content more effectively. The actions associated with this strategy might be each week to highlight a previous episode on my Instagram and a carousel or reel, and promote a previous episode in my email. Sometimes, some of the strategies on your list might be concrete, finite tasks that have a start and finish point. For example, revamping the Station Seven website is not something that needs to happen every day all year long. It's a finite project. So for tasks like that, this is where you'd want to break it down into the smallest step by step actions. For me, it might look like selecting a new Shopify theme, choosing an any additional Shopify apps I need, redesigning each page, doing an audit of all product descriptions and improving them, figuring out what additional photos I need, etc. Now that we have our actions, it's time to plan your annual calendar, I find it helpful to physically print out some blank calendars with each month on its own piece of paper. Then I use a pencil to schedule things around and adjust as needed. The first step I recommend you take care of is to block out any personal time vacation time off birthdays, whatever time when you don't want to or can't be working.
The next step is to put in any big projects and launches in your calendar. For example, I just mentioned relaunching Station Seven's website, so I would assign that to a specific month. If I'm releasing new product collections, I would schedule those in so I can work back from there in terms of marketing and product creation. And this is also a great time to think broadly about your marketing focus throughout the year. There's a lot of seasonality to this specifically in the product based world. So you'll want to be promoting holiday items at a certain time period, then Valentine's Day items, etc. And if you do wholesale, those timelines will be earlier than for your retail promo. If you know you're going to be doing some big specific promotions or sales, you could include those into your calendar now. But it's not necessary to flush out every single detail for the full year at this time. It's also important to view this as a fluid evolving plan, planning that will help you but things change, deadlines shift, and being flexible with that is super important. Don't feel like anything is set in stone, but rather a starting point to get you going.
Step seven in this process is to plan month one. Now it's time to plan up January. Looking at your strategies and your actions for your Northstar goal, create a list of tasks that needs to get done each week of the month. And keep this list of Top of Mind maybe even physically in front of you on your desk. You may also choose to schedule out your marketing and plan for each piece of content now so you know exactly what you're doing. I go into specifics of how to build this monthly marketing plan in my program Making Good Happen. More details are available at makinggoodpodcast.com/happen. You also want to schedule some time into your calendar at some point in January to do this process all over again to create the detailed plan for February.
And step eight is to set yourself up for success. So now we've created your specific plan. How do we make sure that we actually stick to it?
I have a couple of strategies that I really like. Number one is accountability. This is the number one factor that keeps me taking action. When I've told someone else that I'm going to do something. I use the strategy in a couple of ways. First, I often say to my community on social media or by email, what my commitment is, for example, that I'm going to release an episode of this podcast every Tuesday. Because I know people expect it I make sure to make it happen. You can also use accountability with your close friends or business community. You can get an accountability partner or join a group like Making Good Happen, where you commit to what you're going to do and then this community of people is there to check in and hold you accountable to make sure it happens. Another strategy for this that I like is tracking, It's super satisfying to check your habits consistently. I find that having some kind of tracker where I get to x out each box that I complete something to be so motivating. If I've consistently reached out to wholesale prospects every single week for 20 weeks, I'm going to pull out all the stops to make sure I don't miss it on my 21st week. Finally, I would suggest that you be flexible. There's no room here for all or nothing thinking plans change, things don't go as planned, surprises come up. If you set a goal in the beginning of the year, and things don't end up panning out the way you expect. It doesn't mean that all is lost. And what's the point in trying change your goal if you need to, I recommend checking in every month with your goals, strategies and plans to see what needs to be adjusted, what plans have changed, and to make sure that you're always motivated and excited about what's ahead of you instead of overwhelmed and discouraged. Okay, so that's the planning process overall.
To review. Here are the steps in this process. Number one, do your year in review, you can reference episode 95 for a guide on this number to complete the destination postcard exercise. Where do you want to be December 31 2022. Number three, create one North star goal, number four, identify three to five primary strategies to get you there. Number five, get clear on what consistent actions are aligned with those strategies and build that into your schedule. Number six, create your annual calendar, number seven create a detailed plan for month one. Number eight, set yourself up for success.
So did you complete your 2022 year plan? Let me know on Instagram at @LaurenTilden. I'd love to hear what you have ahead of you. You can find the overview of this process on the show notes page at makinggoodpodcast.com/97. Finally, I would so love to work with you inside of Making Good Happen, my brand new membership kicking off in January, to reserve your spot before the doors close for a couple of months, make sure you're signed up by December 31. You can find the details at makinggoodpodcast.com/happen or if you're ready to sign up now, head to makinggoodpodcast.com/mgh. Thank you for being here and for focusing on making a difference with your small business. Talk to you next time.