Time out for simple empowerment. What the heck is that if it isn’t making your business money? Having a no bullsh*t focus, a solid plan, and working daily, incrementally, and consistently on the right things is taking that simple empowerment and channeling it into something useful….. Money for your business.

What’s the point of feeling good, warm and fuzzy if your pockets are still empty? Learning how to flex what you DO have, the technology you have access to, your lips to say a well placed “no”, and unapologetically moving low dollar, unclear, unaligned tasks clean off your plate, should be the core of your 2014 plan.

1. Goals Strategy. An intimate understanding of your goal is more than a New Year’s Resolution. What is your goal for the year? To be successful? What does this mean? What is success to you? What would a successful year look like with numbers? With clients? With books bought? With attendees at your events? What does the picture of a successful 2014 look like? Is it to make a lot of money? What is a lot of money to you, meaning, let’s quantify it. Is it $200,000? What does $200,000 mean to you and to your family? What is the ultimate reason for your goal? Understanding what you truly want to accomplish then what that accomplishment means to your life will provide a much needed jolt of energy when you are tired, down, frustrated, or discouraged. Knowing, understanding and LOUDLY stating clearly, that you want to reach 200k this year to make your family’s life stable, to finally quit your job, and to slowly start creeping out of debt is MUCH more powerful than a simple resolution. You are now quite intimate with the what and the how of why you are working so hard. Once you finish breaking down the answers those questions truthfully, you have set up the BEST platform to jump into strategy 2….

2. Systems Strategy. Adding systems is one of the first strategic items that you can implement in your business. Your focus for this strategy is to document items that you use often, or automate everywhere that you can in your business. If you can put all the codes and how to’s of a task on a document ready for your new assistant, how much time do you think you are saving from training? If you can build up a training program that once it’s done, it requires not one single thing from you again and your participants can watch videos, download documents and get automated emails every 4 days to assist them…. why not? Think like this, “ What can I implement in my business to make things easier, more streamlined, and automated?” You can document things like:

   1. What colors do I use often and what are the codes?

   2. What are the passwords for all of my platforms?

   3. Is my logo files in a folder?

   4. What are the steps I like to take to upload a post to my blog? What are the follow up steps? What checklist do I follow?

   5. What are the steps I take when I am planning an event? What event checklist do I follow?

   6. How to I figure out if I will take an opportunity? Can I create an opportunity checklist to make sure that I am aware of the pros and cons?

Basically, you are taking tasks that you do on a regular basis and creating documents that you can follow or that you can hand to your assistant to follow to make sure what you want done is done. Also, documenting your steps helps to make sure that tasks can get completed whether you are there or not, have a new assistant, or want to check off if something was done. How organized would it feel to have an assistant start on Monday and be able to hand her an operations manual that documents where to find your logo files, what font you want in your newsletters, what time to send your newsletter out, what template to use, what color code to use, what links to make sure to add, etc. etc as opposed to trying to search and find these things and send them to her one at a time? Creating the simplest of systems in your business saves you time so that you AND your help, can be working on the bigger picture.

3. Your 2014 Creation Strategy must be a priority in the new year. Why keep those ideas, those skills or those must have events to yourself? Why wait another year to start smartly packaging up that knowledge into easy to follow, step-by-step, sellable products? Now is the year, however, it won’t happen by simply wishing. You must have a plan in place, then take that plan and work backwards so that your daily, weekly and monthly tasks help you to reach your ultimate goal…..to have that beautiful product in your hands or neatly in a digital file on your computer, ready to sell. Your creation strategy needs a goal ( product you want to create) a tasklist ( your goal to do’s), a dream team to help you build it ( designer or writer) and a marketing plan to launch it ( multi-channel, multi-platform strategy). Sounds like a lot? No worries, we’ve broken all of your needs down in a FREE videos series here and an online course here. Get that creation strategy done NOW! It’s mandatory for your next strategy…

4. If you want to be known by more than your mother and your immediate circle you must create a Branding Strategy that you consistently work, tweak, and refine, and it must be solid. You want that global status, but how do you get it? What platforms do you need to be on? How often do you need to get on them? How types of information should you share? Are the people you want to reach interested in that type of information? While building your branding strategy you have a multitude of options. Your major first step, is to determine who you want to know about you? Basically, who is your audience? Who do you want to work with? Who would want to work with you? Who do you service? What do they need? What are their hurts? What are their obstacles? How will you reach them how often will you touch them, and how do you get your information and messages to them? To get laser focused on who that person is so that you can start to find them, I suggest reading “Book Yourself Solid“  by Michael Port. Then, once you have a solid branding strategy in place and know where and how to reach them, you need to focus on leveraging…

5. A Powerful Leverage Strategy is using your time, your resources and your energy to maximum capacity. Sometimes, saying no when saying yes is to the detriment of your goals or vetting a potential partner thoroughly before jumping into bed with them or getting a set in stone agenda before hopping in your car to a meeting or understanding all of the benefits perceived or stated before plopping your money down for an event. Technology leverage is making sure that you use the digital tools available to you to build your brand, to reach your audience, to create a powerful system, to grow your database and your profits. Time leverage focuses on using your “business time” to building key relationships, partnerships, and having focused strategic meetings that have a profit strategy angle…

6. But my money tho? Having a Profit Strategy is the most important strategy to keep your business afloat. A simple, “ How will this project make my business money”, is enough to save you the time and energy of a failed project. How does joining this organization help me make money? Does it focus more on camaraderie or empowerment or does it focus on making money? Does this free speaking engagement lead to money for my business? How? Am I clear on the profit streams? Are the profit streams in writing? Then why am I moving forward? Does the sponsorship of this event or organization lead to profit for my business? Are the attendees ready and open to spending money on my product or service? Are they looking for my product or service? What type of projects will my profit come from this year? Do I need to search for the opportunity and apply or do I need to create the opportunity myself. What are my costs for this year? Have I determined all of the events, conferences or trainings that I will attend? How will these trainings add to my profits? What am I expecting these trainings to add to my profits? How much money do I expect to make each month? From what?  How much money do I want to make this year? These are super important questions that many of us don’t ask ourselves before we open our wallets or to determine and claim the type of year that we really want to have.  A profit strategy is essential for today and to be in business tomorrow. Take some time, take the weekend, and answer those questions before you do anything else.

7. None of these strategies mean squat if your package is a jacked up, done at home, not professional word document. Time out for that. Your packaging has got to be TIGHT. Understand that putting in the work to having the BEST package that you can currently afford, is one of the things that might get your foot in the door. I can think of 2 times, that my pink yet polished packaged got me in the door within the last 2 months. I’m sure a “no” was sitting on the edge of their lips, but they had to open it, and once they did….. meetings were set. Give yourself a fighting chance and raise up your Polished Packaging Strategy as best as you can. Some of my packages have gotten me speaking engagements, business partnerships, hired for consulting, and basically grew my business. What has your package gotten you lately? Let’s fix it.

Winning is not working 24/7, even though you will have many clusters of non-stop project producing weeks. Winning is finding out how to get the BEST results, working your best angle, where your best clients are hanging out and building the best business you can. 

Get a strategy plan, get intimate with those goals, polish up your package and get clear on your profit sources. In 2014, we’re not just spending our time, we’re not just spending our money playing at business. We are making sure every nickel we toss out today comes back tomorrow dressed as a dime…. Don’t waste it. 

Ready to start putting your Strategy plan together? Join us for a Virtual group session on Feb 22nd by clicking here or a private session with me here…. Let’s do it!