June is right around the corner, so you know what that means? Time for another fun monthly freebie!
When I was outlining the designs I wanted to create for my new round of freebies this year, I original had listed that I wanted to create a printable travel packing list for June just in time for summer in the northern hemisphere. However, things change of course, and with most of the world still on lockdown and social distancing, I thought that insert design wouldn’t be the most applicable. Instead, looking at my own life for inspiration, I realized I was watching a lot more shows and movies now and that I needed a little tracker to help me remember all the titles I wanted to watch and their schedules. So, that is what I decided to create for us for June. A Television and Movie Tracker insert!
The Television & Movie Tracker Insert is a FREE Planning Printable you can use to keep track of all the television shows, series and movies you want to watch. The versatile design makes it easy to list out the title of your show or movie, then circle the day of the week the show airs and below that the time. You have room to denote the network or channel for reference, whether you have your DVR set to record the show and finally if you have watched it. Simple as that- now you have one simple insert to use as reference when you are planning out your week so you make time for all the shows, movies and series you are interested in!
The insert is delivered as a printable PDF file sized for half letter 5.5″ x 8.5″ without cut lines when printed at 100% scale, but feel free to print in larger or smaller scale as needed.
And of course, if there is anything you need from me, any questions you have for dealing with your productivity or life during this challenging time, please let me know how I can support you and bring you the solutions or resources to make things a little easier for you!
I have been reevaluating my plans for the rest of May and have decided to cancel the two live streams I had scheduled for this month. I would like to establish a new schedule starting in June once I have my thoughts in order, but for now I just need some time and space to work on things behind the scenes. Thank you so much for your interest in my live events and I hope to have you join me for another in the future!
Today, I just wanted to quickly update you on the next two live stream classes I will be holding for May. I know for the past few weeks my schedule was up in the air, but things have calmed down now and I have set my final two live classes for the month.
• Saturday May 23rd, 2020 @ 2PM EDT: HOW TO GET CLEAR ON YOUR BUSINESS GOALS
• Saturday May 30th, 2020 @ 2PM EDT: JUNE PLAN WITH ME
I would love for you to join me live for these events, so please do mark your calendar and set a reminder. If you are on my email list, as always, you will receive an email from me before class begins with the link and reminder. I may begin sending these reminder emails a little earlier than I have just to ensure everyone has a chance to join on time!
This week I celebrate my sixth year in business! That’s right, six years ago I left the safety and security of my Fortune 50 sales and marketing job to go full time for myself creating a business and income via social media! I had no clue at the time that just one year later I would have completely replaced my income and grown my community online to over 50k regular viewers, subscribers and followers, and now six years in, have created a steady six figure business with a following of over 125k! If you had asked me when I had gotten started to say what my business would look like in a year, let alone six, I most certainly couldn’t have predicted that my online shop where I sell digital products and services would become my dominate area of income, and that I would be shifting my focus to develop educational programs aimed at helping small businesses replicate my success. But despite all the success I have found in the last six years, I know that I also made plenty of mistakes, especially in that crucial first year of business. No business or person is perfect and I think I fell into some very common traps as I started my business that brought me a great amount of insight into the way I run my business and the direction I want to take it in the future. So, for your edification and perhaps amusement, here are the 5 mistakes I made in my first year of business and the lessons I learned from each of them!
Mistake #1: Work Extremely Hard
I think there is a major misconception that if you work really hard you can make a business a success, as though sheer force of will and effort will make it so, but unfortunately that’s not the case. When I left my job to go full time for myself, I took on a major amount of work, committing to producing five videos a week for my YouTube channel, thinking that this great effort would bring me success. Although I wouldn’t say this was a futile effort, it certainly wasn’t as effective because I was doing a lot of work but it was all over the place. The main problem was that I didn’t have a plan. I just thought I would make a bunch of videos and that would bring me a greater audience. Once I stopped this nonsense and made a plan for what I wanted my YouTube channel to become, I suddenly found that I was able to make fewer videos a week, but because they were focused against my plans for my channel, a cohesive vision quickly came together and my subscriber count grew astronomically!
Lesson Learned: Hard work is useless until you have a clear plan
Mistake #2: Make sure your products and services are perfect before launching them
When I started my business May 2014, one of my major goals was to get a shop up and running where I could sell my printable inserts. I had been asked by numerous members of my community to sell the printable inserts that I had created for my own planner and I thought that the printables would be a nice (albeit small) passive income. I did a lot of research figuring out how to set up a shop on my existing website, and spent way too much time anguishing over whether or not my inserts were high quality enough to sell. It took me until October of that year to finally launch my shop, and once I did, my inserts were met with overwhelming praise and support. I immediately regretted taking so long to get the shop up and running. That small income I had originally expected surpassed my expectations the first month of my launch and then that small income became larger and larger as months progressed and more products were added to my shop. What started off as an idea for a small side income turned into the majority of my monthly income which eventually lead me to replace my former salary in just a few months!
Lesson Learned: Done is better than perfect
Mistake #3: Try to help everyone
Within that first year of business, I experienced an extraordinary amount of growth. I know for some, my numbers may seem small, but I have been able to exceed every goal I have set for myself in terms of my community growth. When I first started off with my business, I told myself that it was of the utmost importance that I gave each and every member of my community my time if they reached out for my help, and in the beginning, this was not a problem for me. As months progressed, however, and I began to get more and more questions and emails from members of my community asking me for help, I began to realize that I wouldn’t be able to personally help everyone. There was just not enough time in the day for me to respond to each lengthy email from a subscriber with an equally lengthy email. I can’t reply to every comment, and I can’t answer every question, I’m just one person trying to do my best for my business. This was probably the most difficult lesson for me to learn, but over time, I began to train myself to give short and succinct answers to emails, to use links to my videos and blog posts to help me save time answering questions and to rely on the help of my more informed community members to pick up the slack with frequently asked questions. Although I’d love to have long email chats with my community members, I know that my time is precious and that I can help more people in less time with my new strategy, which means I can give more of myself in other areas.
Lesson Learned: It’s not personal, it’s business
Mistake #4: Make sure you look busy!
I don’t know if this mistake was something I inherited from my years in the corporate world at a Fortune 50 company, but early on in my business, I became keenly aware that I needed to make sure my community thought I was very busy because busy equals working hard! As a blogger and YouTuber I knew that I was something of an (extremely) minor public figure and that people would begin to notice and comment on how I spent my time. If I didn’t look like I had a lot of work to do I thought no one would respect me. The problem is, I have always been the type of person who likes to get their work done quickly so I have more time to do what I want instead of what I have to do! I have an arsenal of systems and hacks in place that I utilize everyday to make sure I’m getting my work done in less time and that’s the way I like it. To me, it’s not about keeping up the appearance of busy. Busy is bullshit! Way too many people like to consider themselves busy as though it’s some sort of measure of self-importance. Everyone has things to do, some people have more than others, but everyone makes choices for how they fill the 24 hours that they get in a day, so don’t let the concept of being busy create some sort of excuse for you not to achieve certain goals, and don’t let the busy peer pressure make you feel inadequate if you happen to have a simpler life. Personally, I love the fact that I have a good amount of free time during my day because it gives me the opportunity to be creative in a way I could never be if I was always busy!
Lesson Learned: Busy is bullshit! Strive for productivity & efficiency
Mistake #5: You need to discover the secret to success in order to achieve it.
I’m the kind of person who likes to research things ad nauseam! When I first started my business, I was sure that the secret to success was hidden out there somewhere and that it was my job to read and research and learn as much as I could about business until I discovered the secret for myself. Problem is, there is no secret. Literally, there is no secret to success in business. There is no reason why you can’t start a successful business from scratch right now with little to no business knowledge. I didn’t go to school for business, and for some time, I thought this put me at a disadvantage, but the truth is the unique knowledge and skills that I do have, the ones I was busy building while I wasn’t attending business school, are just a marketable and important to the success of my business as any business degree. Don’t let the fear that you are lacking some nonexistent business secret sauce keep you from starting your business and kicking butt at it! You can seriously make your own rules, create your own secrets, and build yourself an empire!
Lesson Learned: You can do this!
Yes, you can do this! The truth is that when you start a business, you will make mistakes, you will learn and you will grow, but the most important part of the process is to continue to move forward and learn from your mistakes until you find the success you are looking for. I wasn’t the first person to make the mistakes that I made, and I certainly won’t be the last, but you don’t have to be one of them! That’s the wonderful part of having the online business community and all the resources available to small business owners today. So many people, including myself, are more than willing to share their mistakes, lessons and resources they have learned in so many facets of their businesses. One such resource I would love to share with you today if you are also a business owner is my CEO Strategy Planner.
The CEO Strategy Planner is an undated, print on demand business planner with 60+ elegant and functionally designed inserts to help you organize, plan and execute on your business vision! Get your ideas out of your head and onto paper, and get down to business with the CEO Strategy Planner!
The CEO Strategy Planner is the ultimate bundle of business planning inserts designed for the modern creative entrepreneur or business owner. The planner is divided into multiple sections that follow the essential parts of any good business plan. This strategic planner seamlessly integrates with the calendar or agenda system of your choice. Whether you use a physical planner, a digital calendar and planning tools, or, if like me, you use a mixture of both- the CEO Strategy Planner can be used in conjunction with any calendar and planning system to create your custom business, marketing and financial plans.
I designed this planner first and foremost, for myself, out of a need for structure to keep myself focused on my business goals and objectives. As a lover of paper planners, who works via the power of digital media, I needed dedicated inserts with enough structure to allow me to outline all my essential business objectives, marketing activities, and financial tracking into one streamlined business plan on paper before I then executed on the work on my computer. As a paper planner lover and a creative, I know the power that taking pen to paper can be for your ideas, inspiration and clarity. There is nothing like getting ideas out of your head and onto paper and then getting down to business organizing and creating your vision.
The CEO Strategy Planner contains all of the essential planning tools you need to organize your business, tackle your to do list efficiently, manage your marketing efforts and keep track of all your key financial targets. With the help of this strategic business planner, you will create a vision for your business and have all the tools and strategies at hand to execute!
I know the CEO Strategy Planner is the perfect tool to help you set and achieve all your business goals whether you are just getting started or have been in business for years. So, click the button below to purchase your copy now because this is a business tool and resource you do not want to miss!
Today I want to share with you a recent video I made explaining how I built my business website. This is a question I get asked about a lot. What platforms I used, how I built it myself, what plugins for business I use, my hosting company and the package I use. Everything you want to know about my business websites is compiled into this video.
I hope this video helps answer your questions about building your own custom business websites. If you have any questions, I’d be glad to answer them in the comments below!
In about a week my business will be celebrating its sixth year in existence! First of all, I would just like to say how proud I am that it surpassed the dreaded five year mark of failure, wherein a vast majority of businesses close up shop within the first five years. So, I guess we could say I have a good grip on what it takes to run a business online, successfully. Has the road been perfect? Certainly not. I know I have made mistakes along the way and although I don’t like to have regrets, I certainly am aware of business decisions I made that didn’t turn out the way I wanted. All of this experience over the past six years has made me stronger though. From trial and error I know more of what I want from my business and what I am trying to create with it. I’ve also learned a lot about what it takes on a personal and energetic level to establish and remain balanced as a business owner. Managing my time, energy and expectations so that I can achieve my business goals right alongside my personal life goals, and still be moving my life forward in all the areas that matter to me. So, if you would like to know more about some of the insights I’ve gleaned on this topic, this is what I would like to share with you today.
If you are trying to find balance as a small business owner, there are three main objectives you have to learn and make routine priorities in your life:
✔︎ You have to learn to Manage Your Time
✔︎ You have to learn to Focus Your Energy
✔︎ And you have to learn to Balance Your Expectations
Manage Your Time
The first aspect you must learn into order to find balance as a small business owner is to manage your time. This is one of the most practical lessons you must learn because running a business is a different kind of demanding job than other careers. Yes, time management is key for everyone to learn, but when you are running a business and you are both the boss and the employee, the visionary leader and the practical worker, priorities are everywhere and their is always more work to do then you can actually get done.
In order to get really good at time management, I think the best place to start is by getting crystal clear on your priorities and create a system for prioritizing tasks. As you will be doing the difficult task of defining the direction for your business, breaking it down into objectives and project plans, and then executing on the work, knowing what work is the priority is always important.
As a solo business owner, I wear a heck of a lot of hats and I move between a lot of different types of work. So to keep this organized, I like to manage my work time on a themed workday schedule. Every day of the week is earmarked for different types of work so that I can be as efficient as possible when switching between different types of tasks.
I also tend to operate my personal daily schedule based on the concept of the top three list. Meaning, everyday I define my work, but I create priorities from my to do list by highlighting three tasks that are the most important to achieve that day. The prioritization aspect of how I choose my top three is defined based on my personal system of prioritization, but generally speaking, I have predefined what my creative output will be for a week and those items become the most important work to finish, followed by scheduled projects and then general business housekeeping tasks.
Now, to ensure that I establish balance with my time each day, I do also stick to a daily schedule that makes time for me to complete my personal routines and tasks throughout the day along side my work tasks. I like having a defined daily routine for my workday because seeing my tasks laid out on an hourly schedule keeps me motivated to stick to it, as I can clearly see that following such a schedule gives me ample time to achieve my personal and business objectives for a single day.
Focus Your Energy
There is a quote I love that states “where attention goes, energy flows” and that has come to be something of a motto that I live by. For me, I have seen how that statement is completely accurate. When I give my time and attention to to topic, I am sending my energy to it, whether I intend to or not, which is why I find it very important that I use my morning routine to set my mind and focus for the day so that I minimize mental distractions.
I achieve this with my morning meditation and journaling practice. After I awaken in the morning, I am in the habit of turning on a meditation and laying in bed, clearing my mind and elevating my personal energy to a state of relaxed bliss. Once I get up out of my meditation and deal with my personal hygiene tasks, I then head to my office where I spend no more than 10 minutes journaling in my High Vibe Bible inserts. On these inserts I have a place to list out my daily gratitude, which again adds to that blissful emotional state. Then, I also have a space to journal my thoughts and plans for the day. Once I am in a positive headspace I find that its much easier for me to create my daily to do list and get excited about the tasks I have to accomplish that day. Going through this daily energetic process even makes me more motivated to undertake tasks that I might normally want to avoid, because instead of approaching them from a place of anxiety or worry, I am approaching them with a mindset of possibility and determination. When I start my day like this, happy and content, I am infinitely more productive, and distractions have a harder time breaking through the energetic boundary I have set for myself.
But, of course, a happy disposition alone isn’t always enough to keep distractions at bay. This is why I do my best to set my work area up to minimize distractions. I am very lucky that right now I don’t have many distractions at home, but I do take steps to ensure I remain focused with my work. I don’t watch tv during the day, I keep my phone on silent and I usually even mute my computer sounds so that email notifications don’t disturb my work. I don’t like to read the news while I’m working because that can often shift my emotional and mental state in a direction I don’t want it to go. But, I do sometimes enjoy listening to music, specifically classical music that keeps me uplifted and productive while I perform certain tasks. Sometimes, depending on the work I am doing, I will even listen to a book on tape. All these actions help me to minimize distractions that might leech my attention and energy away from my work.
Balance Your Expectations
The third and final element of finding balance as a creative business owner is balancing your expectations. On one hand this concept compliments the idea of priorities discussed under managing your time, but it really goes beyond that. Balancing your expectations is more about understanding your limitations and knowing how much you can accomplish realistically. I think a lot of times creative entrepreneurs have such big visions that they try to do too much too soon. They take on a lot of work and then work becomes their entire life, or work drains them to the point of failure and burnout. I know it is a challenge living in the digital age and seeing all the possibilities of how you can build a business and market online, but you need to draw the line at what works for you and what is realistic for you to achieve.
Taking myself for instance. I know that something that works for me is writing, so I write three blog posts a week. I don’t think I could do more than three outside of an occasional extra update and remain as productive as I am, however. Same thing goes with my video creation. I used to make two videos a week, but I burned out of enthusiasm for that after a few years, so now I stick to one. I might see other businesses posting more, or in different ways. I am often asked to start a podcast, but with what time and energy because I am booked up at the moment.
You need to get clear with yourself on the expectations you are setting for yourself and your business to manage your workload on a daily, weekly, monthly basis, as well as to understand the signs of when you need to refill your energy and in what ways to do that. I do a lot of self-care on a daily basis. I have self-care routines starting from the moment I wake up and start meditating, to weekly meal preparations, and even regular quiet time alone. I know the amount of self-care I need to take on in order to properly fill my cup so that each day and week I have the energy to take on my realistic workload. It’s a balance, energy in and energy out. Burnout comes from too much energy out and not enough energy back in.
Well, that is how I balance my energy as a creative business person, focusing on how I manage my time, focus my energy and balance my expectations. This productivity triangle of sorts is the key to how I manage to get so much done, even as a solopreneur. Now, if you would like some additional help on this topic of finding balance as a business owner or entrepreneur, I would also recommend that you check out my CEO Strategy Day Concept and FREE Template. You can read all about it here, but briefly, my CEO Strategy Day Concept is a routine I use to keep myself operating efficiently and ensure my life is balanced without any important items slipping through the cracks. I hope the CEO Strategy Day Template helps you to plan and execute a day for you to get into alignment with your highest self and goals for your best life!
I’d love to hear what you thought of this information, so please do share your feedback and opinions in the comments. I’d also love for you to share any additional tips you use to keep yourself balanced as a creative entrepreneur or business person!
The 6 Business Assets that are More Important than Your Business Plan
One of the most popular questions I get asked whenever I talk about online business building is always about business plans. For one reason or another, the concept of a business plan, what it is, why it’s necessary and how to create your own, always seems to be a primary concern to beginner business owners and/or those who are curious about online business and thinking about starting their own. When you are first getting started creating a business, you have dozens if not hundreds of tasks on your plate all at the same time. If you are lucky, you may have help with your workload, but that still means you have many priorities to balance in order to get your business off the ground. Your business plan is just a document that explains what you are trying to do with our business, which, often times when we are getting started, is a hard concept to define! Until you truly have your business up and running, it doesn’t help you with anything, nor does it legitimize your hard work and effort. For that reason, I think there are way more important items and business assets to tackle before you ever even worry about your business plan. Today, I want to talk about six such items that I think you should have in order as a small business owner before you even worry about writing a business plan!
Website
If you are operating a business of any kind, online or off, having a website is a must. When people hear about your business, products or services, the first thing they are going to do is Google you to find out more about you and unless you have thrown a stake in the ground with your own website and claimed your distinct area of the internet, you are loosing a very powerful opportunity to engage with potential customers and clients. People will search for you online and make many instant decisions over whether or not they want to purchase from or work with your business based on information they find or do not find online. For this reason, putting the necessary time and effort into your website to ensure it provides an accurate and intriguing face to your business is a must!
Another term that I often find thrown around along with business plan is business model. Your business model is the way in which you plan to make money with your business. Remember, until you earn money from your effort, you don’t actually have a business, just a hobby! Your business model is a defined strategy for how money will flow into your business. Until you have your business model worked out and begin earning a steady income from it, there is no reason to even think about a business plan! Until you truly begin earning income from your business, so many factors are up in the air. Spend your time thinking about ways you can earn income and execute on those actions before you worry about your business plan.
Your products and/or services are definitely the most important part of your business! Like I mentioned earlier, if your business isn’t earning revenue, it’s not a business, so ensuring you are creating and offering the right products and services is crucial. Your products and services go hand in hand with your business model. Working to develop not only great products that people are eager for, but also defining the right methods for distribution and production (which are essential elements of your business model) will help you to maximize your revenue and grow your business.
Your business runs on systems. They are the actions or sets of actions you take on a regular basis to perform your business tasks. As a business owner you could have systems for processing payments, systems for paying bills, systems for managing tasks and creating products. Or systems for working with clients! There are a variety of systems that business owners use to manage their day to day workload and keep their business running, and the more deliberate and thought out you can make these systems, the easier your work will be. The most important system that you will want to spend a good deal of time and thought on is your customer service system- those actions you will take to manage customer service inquiries and interact with or troubleshoot issues for your customers and potential customers! Because the success of these systems has a direct impact on your business revenue and growth, this is the first system you should define once you begin making money from your products and services. It will go a long way to helping you develop a customer-centric culture within your organization, and will be your best form of PR!
Perhaps you don’t think of your daily work schedule as an asset for your business, but the truth of the matter is that your time is your ultimate business asset! As a business owner who works solo or even has a team of people working with them, the way you choose to spend your time working on your business is critical to its success. You should first strive to define all the necessary work for your business and then understand which actives and tasks are the highest use of your time and executive function. You will want to do all you can to maximize the time you spend performing duties that actually earn your business revenue and streamline or delegate administrative items that keep the business afloat but don’t earn. If you were to place an hourly rate on your time and an hourly rate on the different activities that need to be accomplished for your business, you want to do higher value work more often!
The online marketplace is saturated with content, there is no doubt about that, but there is a clear trend illustrating that visual content and visual platforms are where businesses get the most bang for their buck! If you have minimal time to produce content, even promotional or marketing content, spend your time wisely and focus on visual mediums and platforms. Places like Instagram, Pinterest and YouTube command the most traffic and attention online, so learning how to optimize your business for these types of platforms will give you a competitive edge. To optimize your business visually, you need to get very clear on your visual branding and start using graphics and styled stock photography to tell your brand story. Sharing visuals of your products or styled images that define your services, help your potential customers connect and engage with your business.
Don’t let the idea of needing a business plan hold you back from moving your business forward, especially in infancy stages. You have more important work to do for getting your business off the ground and writing a business plan before you have clear proof of income and concept for your business is a waste of time. With time your most precious commodity, everything you choose to spend it on should be moving your business forward or growing your revenue! So, know I want to hear from you! When starting your business, what did you consider to be the most important activities you spent your time on? If you are thinking about starting a business, what’s currently holding you back or causing you pause? Let me know in the comments below!
How to Plan a Marketing Campaign for Your Business
Today I want to talk to you about how to plan a marketing campaign. Some of you may already know that within my CEO Strategy Planner, there is an insert dedicated to creating a marketing campaign for your business and that is the process I am going to share with you today. If you already own the CEO Strategy Planner, perfect! You will be able to use your insert to map our your own marketing campaign quickly and easily with the help of this little tutorial. If you don’t already own your own copy of the CEO Strategy Planner and you are someone thinking about or currently trying to manage campaigns, you’re going to want this insert because it really is a tremendous tool to use to streamline and execute your marketing campaigns.
Before we get into the process itself, I just want to introduce you to how I use marketing campaigns and ease your mind a bit if you are someone who is overwhelmed at the idea of planning and executing one for your business. So, a marketing campaign can be any time sensitive promotion for your business, products or services. Think of it like a dedicated period of time where you are going to share marketing materials to attract your audience and create buzz around your products. I think a lot of times business owners just getting started can get overwhelmed with marketing campaigns because they think they need to do all the things in order to execute on a success campaign, but I’d like to reassure you that you can plan a simple, elegant campaign for your business that hits your goal without having to go overboard on content and messaging. In fact, I think simple is best when it comes to creating a successful campaign. I like to err on the side of simple instead of complicated because I’d rather have a simple campaign that I complete than a complicated campaign that overwhelms me and doesn’t get finished.
Now, in order to execute on a marketing campaign, you are going to need at least one online platform that you use to attract and talk to you customers. For me personally, I have a few different platforms that I use. I have my blog, my youtube channel, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and of course my email list. When I am planning a campaign for myself, I might use all of these platforms, but if I’m trying to keep it simple, I like to stick to just a few. At the very least you need one. And there needs to be an active audience on the platform you choose. That’s important. You see, there are two ways to market online. You can pay for ads to send your message to new folks that might not already know you, or you can market for free to the audience you have. The later is what I do and thats the process I am going to show you how to plan right now.
Planning a Marketing Campaign
Step 1: Name Your Campaign
The first step to creating your marketing campaign is to name it. I know it seems like a little thing but when you are planning out your marketing for the month or quarter you need to have a name or designation to use that clearly refers back to the different campaigns you are running. So make sure you have a clear name to use that is descriptive but simple. A recent campaign I finished was called CEO Strategy Planner Launch– it’s clear what product was being promoted and what type of campaign it was, a launch.
Step 2: Define your objective
For every marketing campaign you need to have a clear objective that you are trying to reach. It could be the number of sales you are trying to make of a product, the amount of money you want to earn, or even the amount of followers you are trying to gain. If I didn’t mention that before, campaigns don’t necessarily have to be able making money, they can be about gaining followers as well. Again, they are just a dedicated period of time where you are focused against marketing your business in some form or another. As an example, for my CEO Strategy Planner Launch campaign, I set a target for the number of units I wanted to sell during the launch period. It’s always good to have objectives defined, but if you feel unsure about where to start with setting them, I recommend trying the good, better, best method where you define what objective would mean you had a good result for your campaign, which would be better, and which objective would be the best case scenario. That way you can start learning how to set expectations for objectives like this.
Step 3: Outline your key messaging
With every campaign and objective there is going to be some key messages that you are trying to share with your audience. This could be information you are trying to share, or it could be a call to action you are trying to get your audience to fulfill. For example, if you were creating a campaign to sell a product, one of your messages might be about the limited time sale price or bonus’ the customer would receive. Another might be the key outcome your audience can expect to receive from purchasing your product, and a final message might be the end time for the promotion. We want to outline these key messages for a reason- so that all the messages we send out, all the posts, videos or emails associated with your campaign hit those few key points that you want to drive home. Knowing these message points going into a campaign makes it much easier to create all the different posts and updates you will end up sharing during the campaign itself.
Step 4: Define the start and end date for the campaign
Again, a simple detail but a very important one. After all, marketing campaigns don’t last forever, so you need to define the time period where the campaign and it’s objective are going to be your top priority. The time period you define for your campaign is going to be up to you and your schedule and the objective you are trying to reach. You could be holding a one day sale in your shop, planning a week long launch event or focusing on increasing your IG following for a month or more! Whatever the time period you think makes sense, define it so you aren’t working on this campaign forever!
Step 5: List out the marketing assets you will need for the campaign
A marketing asset is any digital promotion material that you can use or reuse as needed during your campaign. I break my assets into four categories. First, are Copy meaning text that I might use for blog posts, emails, or social updates. Next, are Photo meaning pictures or graphics I will use. I also use Video assets, pretty self explanatory but any video content I need to produce to go along with the campaign. Finally, I have an Other category where miscellaneous assets might be listed, like sales pages on my website, email landing pages, or opt-ins. Creating this list is important because its like the pre-campaign to do list of all the things you need to create to successfully market your business and meet your objective.
Step 6: Define the metrics you will track during the campaign
So, I’ll be honest, this step is one that I think a lot of business owners miss when they are planning a campaign but it is a crucial element that you can use to not only track the effectiveness of your campaign, but to also learn from to make future campaigns more successful. So, a metric is some factor that you are going to track to understand the success and impact of your campaign. Going back to my example of my CEO Strategy Planner Launch, I used the metrics of Sales, Email Opens and Email Clicks to measure the effectiveness of my campaign. Sales is an obvious metric. I had set a sales goal as my objective so tracking the target sales vs actual sales would be a good indicator of how successful the campaign was. I chose email opens and email clicks as well to gage the engagement of my audience. But I could have chosen from any number of other metrics as well. Video views, clicks on a specific tracked link, etc. If you are just getting started with marketing your business, some of this might be new to you, so take it slow and just strive to understand key factors that you can track to use a metrics for the success of your campaign.
Step 7: Compile a list of all broadcasts
The second full page my campaign builder from the CEO Strategy Planner is dedicated to a Broadcast Tracker. This is essentially a master list of all the messages I will need to send out during a campaign. Again, we are preplanning these messages out so this master list is important. On this list of broadcasts I make sure to track the date the broadcast will go out, you could also list out the time if that is important for your promotion as well. I list out the platform for each message so I know if its a blog post, video, IG Story or post or email, etc. I track the message itself, by providing a brief summary of what the message is about, and finally I track it’s completion with a checkbox. Looking at my CEO Strategy Planner Launch campaign page, I had 14 broadcasts that I made over a period of six days that spanned four different platforms, so that was a lot of communication to not only create, but ensure I was posting on time for my launch. Having a list like this helps me manage my workload going into a campaign and manage my daily expectations because I can see what the most important thing to do for my campaign is each day.
Well, that is exactly how I plan a marketing campaign for my business. I hope this information helps you to create your own marketing campaigns in the future, and of course, if you need a simple, strategic tool to help you make these plans, I highly recommend checking out the CEO Strategy Planner inserts. Not only do you get access to the Campaign Builder and Broadcast Trackers mentioned earlier, but you get a total of 60+ different business planning inserts to help you make a strategic plan for your business. The CEO Strategy Planner covers everything from Brand Vision, Yearly, Quarterly, and Monthly Business Plans, to Marketing, Objectives, and Finances as well. So, get your copy of the CEO Strategy Planner today because this is the ultimate business planning tool with everything your business needs in one bundle!
10 Things Creative Entrepreneurs Should Keep in their Planner
As a creative entrepreneur myself, I am absolutely in love with using a physical paper planner and it’s a tool I do recommend to all other creative business owners as well. For me, my planner is like my second brain, my personal assistant and my life coach all wrapped up in a beautiful black Chanel agenda cover! I know, I know, I can hear some of you already saying that it’s 2020 and business owners should be using digital planning tools to stay organized and optimized, I do agree with you to some extent, but for me, using a paper planner has been the ultimate creative tool to help me get my ideas out of my head and onto paper so I can get down to business. Of course, I do also use some essential digital tools for my business organization and planning, but there are some essential elements that I think all creative business owners and entrepreneurs should have in their planners to take their creativity to the next level.
#1. Braindump Inserts: Most people have a lot on their minds at one time, and for business owners this phenomenon is likely tripled. For that reason I think every entrepreneur should keep sheet in their paper planner where they can perform a brain dump. Getting your thoughts, ideas and tasks out of your head and onto paper is the first, most necessary step to organizing your ideas into actionable plans and this is where the benefit of using a paper planner truly shines. Nothing is more cathartic then taking pen to paper and just letting your ideas flow out of you. This is a process I like to make time for on a monthly basis with the help of my Braindump sheets (part of the Master Planner or available as part of the Brilliant Ideas Bundle).
#2. CEO Strategy Day Templates: The concept of a CEO Strategy Day is a little idea I came up with to help me balance and optimize my business and life. On a CEO Strategy Day I will devote time to self-care, mental mastery and organization. All the things a creative entrepreneur needs to stay creative and focused, but are often easily overlooked. I consider my CEO Strategy Day a reset day for my life and business where I get into alignment with myself and my purpose so that I’m staying on track. If you want to plan your own CEO Strategy Day you can get my FREE Template to use here.
#3. Business Goals: Setting business goals is an important part of the annual business planning process. It theoretically should be the element that all of your business plans and targets stem from, but often business owners set these goals and might do a bit of pre-planning but then forget about them when the going gets tough or they get extremely busy. I think it’s important for all business owners and creative entrepreneurs to keep their goals in their planner, somewhere they can see them and get inspired by them regularly. I keep all my business goals laid out on the creative business plan inserts from the CEO Strategy Planner of course!
#4. Personal Goals: Okay, so you run a business and you have those goals to manage, but you are still a person with desires and dreams that should not be pushed aside for your business goals alone. Knowing who you want to become and what you want to achieve for yourself and your life in general is such an important part of being an entrepreneur. So keep those personal goals in your planner right alongside your business goals. I use the goal sheets that come with my New Years Goal Setting workshop for this, but you could always list them out on your own note paper as well- anything to have those goals visible to you for regular reflection.
#5. Business Objectives: If you run a business, it’s very likely that your work is organized into specific objectives you are trying to hit. Sale goals, systems to develop, new products or services you are creating. Since your planner is the hub of creative inspiration for your business, it’s important to keep these objectives organized on dedicated inserts in your planner. I use my project planning inserts as part of my Master Planner bundle, as well as the strategic business planning inserts that come with the CEO Strategy Planner to keep all my objectives and project plans organized for the year.
#6. Editorial Calendar: If you are not familiar with the term editorial calendar, it is essentially a calendar where your content is laid out. Creative business owners and entrepreneurs have to create or oversee a lot of regular content to keep their audience engaged and informed, and I believe having this essential business tool in your planner is a great way for you to get creative and map out different ideas for your audience across your many platforms. To achieve this, I personally use the multiple awesome marketing inserts from the CEO Strategy Planner to not only map out my editorial calendar for the month but also to brainstorm content ideas and outline them to streamline my content creation process.
#7. Marketing Campaigns: If you are a creative entrepreneur or business person like myself, you likely have many marketing campaigns to manage during a quarter and I think its a great idea to keep that information in your planner so you can not only keep yourself on track, but also inject any new ideas or insights into those plans as you go along. I know a lot of people might think its better to plan campaigns out in digital form, and if you have a team your are managing who does work on those campaigns, I agree with you, but for me and other solopreneurs, I love seeing those plans in physical form in my planner. It is just so helpful to be able to quickly jot down notes and so cathartic to check off tasks for your campaign as you complete them in the physical. I’m telling you, my planner is such a constant motivation for me to execute on my work in a way digital planning software never is. Of course, I use the campaign builder inserts from the CEO Strategy Planner to map these essential marketing plans out in my planner.
#8. Inspiration or Mood Board: Like many successful entrepreneurs, I keep an inspiration or mood board in my home office to help me stay focused on the vision I am creating for my business, however, I also like to keep a portable version of it in my planner. I think this is another one of the many reasons why physical planners can be such a boost to your creativity as a business owner because you can fill it with things that inspire you. Now, I personally have my vision board printed out on a sheet of vellum in my planner that I can turn to whenever I need a pick me up or want to feel inspired and aligned with my vision. But you can create a planner sized vision board in whatever form works for you!
#9. Follow Up List: As an entrepreneur or business owner, I bet you are also someone who is hooked on personal development. It’s natural, anyone striving for big things in their life is usually also drawn to personal development in many different forms and when you start to walk that path, you find that there are an endless number of recommendations you receive from friends, business besties and through your own research. I’m talking about book recommendations, different classes and courses you hear about. Different communities you might want to join, skills you might want to work on, videos to watch and technology you might want to check out. I keep a list of all these things in my planner to future reference. We might not have the time to take in everything that is brought to us, but having a running list means we have the ideas right there waiting for us when we need more inspiration, ideas or solutions!
#10. Daily Journaling Inserts: It’s no secret that one of my rituals for success is my daily journaling practice. When you hear entrepreneurs and business owners talking about how essentially the practice of journaling is for helping them set the tone for their day, it is not an exaggeration. My daily journaling practice is like therapy for me and a chance each morning for me to get into alignment with my goals and best life. I use the High Vibe Bible Journaling inserts as my daily journaling practice and it had made such a positive impact in my life and business, especially in getting clear on what I want to manifest and helping me bring those desires to fruition.
WANT ALL MY PERSONAL & BUSINESS PLANNING TOOLS?
If you want to set your planner up to keep your life and business organized inside one planning system, here are all of the inserts you’ll need to get from The Charmed Shop!
In today’s video I am sharing a tour of my business planner setup. Now, spoiler alert, this isn’t just my business planner. This is the planner I use to plan everything for my life and business.
That’s right! I’m a one planner, one person kind of a gal.
BUT, I know that doesn’t work for everyone! Some people have very legitimate reasons to keep their work or business planner separate from personal and if that is you, or if you are struggling to make one planner work for you- YOU DO YOU!
However, I do have some helpful tips in this video for how you can more easily achieve a one planner lifestyle.
You’ll see by watching this video that I keep a lot of inserts in my planner to organize different areas of my life. I am absolutely a minimalist when it comes to my planning style- meaning that I don’t overplan. I keep my planner focused on items or tasks that I need to remember. For that reason, you won’t see a ton of chores or personal care items in my planner. I am pretty good at keeping up my chores at home without the reminder of my planner. But I do use lots of different inserts to keep the essentials of my life organized.
If you are interested in anything you see in my planner, I will link as much as possible from the video below!
I sincerely hope you and yours are doing well, staying safe, healthy and productive at home. All is well with me and in my neck of the woods, and I’ve been focused a lot lately on keeping motivated with my new consistent work schedule.
As you know, earlier this year I got back on my three weekly blog post, one weekly video schedule, and since quarantine hit, I have been making those videos live classes. All of this new work has been a welcome distraction during this time for me, but, it’s still a habit I’m working to develop consistency around. So, I thought today I should share some of my insight with you on how I’ve been keeping consistent and disciplined over the past few weeks and months because I’d bet that with the drama on the world stage right now, many of you might feel like you have every reason not to do the tasks on your to do list. Am I right? So, if you have been feeling overwhelmed managing your time and expectations, hopefully I can share some tips for finding consistent motivation.
The first thing I wanted to talk to you about on this topic is actually a podcast episode I listened to recently that really resonated with something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately. The Podcast is You’re Welcome by Hilary Rushford if you want to check it out, and the episode I am going to be talking about today Ep. 58 Productivity Guilt During Quarantine + the Idealization of Time. It’s that last part that I want to talk to you all about, the idealization of time, because this is something I’ve been thinking a lot about.
So, I’ve mentioned before that I think right now, we’ve been given a tremendous opportunity with this pandemic to really go inward and work on ourselves and our goals. I’m not saying that the pandemic is a good thing, clearly it’s not, but I am saying that in every challenge comes an opportunity and suddenly, many of us who were once on the hamster wheel of time management have been given an influx of time. That’s not everyone, many people right now are more busy at home. especially parents who are now remote workers, plus teachers to their children, in addition to their myriad of other responsibilities. But, many of us do have more time in one way or another right now, and I see this as an opportunity for people to buckle down and execute on the goals they have firmly placed into the Someday category. You know what I am talking about- those goals you said you wanted to go after someday when you had more time. Well, we have more time right now, so are you doing all the things you said you were going to do once more time arrived?
My assumption is, and what Hilary discussed in her podcast episode was, that no, lots of us are not using the extra time we now have to go after our goals. There is a good reason for this- time was never the reason why you were not going after those goals to begin with. I say this all the time, but it’s truly evident right now in our current situation that time is a construct. You have, and always have had, the same 24 hours in a day that each and every other successful, goal oriented person has, but you aren’t executing on those objectives, not for a lack of time, but for a lack of motivation. Actually, it’s like a mix of motivation, discipline, clarity keeping you from executing, but all of it is a mental block and you are blaming it on time.
I want to be very clear, I am not saying this to judge or attack you if you happen to be getting triggered by this conversation. I am saying this as a friend and hopefully a trusted source of productivity advice who truly wants to see you succeed. But you can’t succeed if you don’t acknowledge the true issue here. Time was never the issue. What the exact issue is for each of you in this situation will be different, but it stems from a limiting belief you have held in your mind that is confining you to a pattern of behaviors in which you consistently prioritize other things (or nothing at all) over the completion of your goals.
You have the same amount of hours in a day as Beyonce (I love to use that quote) and, yes, right now Beyonce might have much better resources at her disposal than you, but she didn’t always. It was consistent planning and action that made Beyonce the woman she is today. And if you don’t resonate with Beyonce, substitute her for any number of successful individuals. The point is, all of us get the same amount of time and the same amount of opportunities in a day to go after our objectives, and so we have to stop using time as an excuse and start addresses the real issue holding us back from action.
I am not immune from this conversation myself, either! In fact, I want to use the example of myself to explain how I have been overcoming my own obstacles and taking more strategic action. Let’s go back to those three factors that I think really do impact our ability to take action and those are clarity, motivation and discipline. Without those three elements in alignment, it’s difficult to take strategic action that yields results.
# 1. Clarity: I define clarity as understanding where I am trying to go, what I am trying to achieve and having a set of parameters for how I want to achieve my goal. In her podcast episode Hilary talks about the fact that each of us has a list of things we believe we should do if we had the time, and yet many of us never do the things on that list. To me, this issue comes down to a lack of clarity and the importance of switching up the language we use to describe this very common issue. So, yes, we have all been faced with ideas of things we should do, but I think we need to start thinking of this list of shoulds as a list of coulds. If you are into Law of Attract you have probably heard Ester Hicks and Abraham talk about life being a series of experiences intended to highlight the contrasts of desires. Meaning, there are lots of different experiences we have in life and can have, and it’s up to us to filter through all of them and determine which we desire and which we do not. In the podcast, Hilary uses the example of her father, who is an author and speaker to illustrate the point that as humans we have more ideas than time to execute. She explains that her father knows he should turn his book into an audiobook but he hasn’t had the time to do it yet. But, time isn’t the issue, right, it’s desire. Whether or not he should turn the book into an audiobook isn’t the question, really the task is simply a could until he gets clear on whether or not that is a true priority for him. Plenty of people never turn their books into audiobooks and for good reason, maybe it’s not worth the time or effort, maybe there is a specific strategy they are following or perhaps they just don’t like audiobooks and prefer their book to be in physical form. This is what I mean when I say it’s important to have a set of parameters for how you want to achieve a goal because truthfully the options are endless for things we could do, but clarity around our values will help us define the path of execution for anything we do desire to accomplish. Let’s use an example from my own life and business. I am told all the time that I should sell my inserts as a physical product, not just a digital. Or I am told I should write a book, or I should start a podcast. But when I ask myself shouldI and I evaluate these ideas based on my values, I keep coming to the conclusion that those options are not in alignment with my objectives. So, it is very important that we treat these shoulds as coulds until they pass the litmus test of clarity and are formally identified as objectives we wish to pursue. If we don’t we run the risk of shoulding ourselves to death, meaning, we allow all the options that we have to overwhelm us and paralyze us into inaction.
#2. Motivation: To me, the next part of this equation is motivation, meaning that initial spark that triggers action to begin. Some people believe that motivation is required consistently in order to start and complete an objective, but that isn’t how I see it. I believe motivation just needs to inspire the start of an action. So, we need to feel like, yes, we can achieve the goal, it is possible and feasible. If you are someone who has an idea that you would like to take action on, perhaps you have had that moment of clarity and know what you want to achieve and have made a plan to get it done but haven’t been able to take action yet, what you need in this situation is that spark of motivation. For me, motivation comes from knowing that I am not the first person who has done anything in this world. So, if someone else can do it, so can I. A lot of inaction or the inability to start on a project for myself often comes because I am afraid of failure, but reminding myself that others have done something takes the edge off. Even if I can’t find an example of someone who has done the precise thing I am doing, I can usually find an example of someone who is doing something close to what I am doing. For example, recently, I have been hosting live classes on Saturday afternoon on my Youtube channel in a way I never have before. These classes are like nothing I have really seen on YouTube before within the planning and productivity community, and because of that fact and all the equipment and technology required on the back end, I get a little nervous doing the classes. But I know I am not reinventing the wheel here. I know there have been other creators in other genres who have gone live like this. Gaming streamers are the best equivalent I can think of who also have a complex tech setup and are managing an event on their own with a large live audience. So, I know I can do it. Just because other planner people don’t host these events doesn’t mean I can’t or shouldn’t. Most of the time, it is this sort of motivation that helps me put myself out there in new ways when I am afraid of trying something new for my audience.
#3. Discipline: As I mentioned earlier, I believe motivation is the initial spark required to overcome mental obstacles and take action, but it isn’t necessary after an objective has begun. What you need after you get started on a goal is discipline! Self- discipline is the mental muscle that keeps us coming back and working on an objective after the motivation has ended. For many people, including myself, this is where the struggle begins. It’s not in finding clarity and it’s not the motivation to get started, it’s the discipline required to show up over and over again until the work is complete. I know many of you reading this believe I am naturally very self-disciplined, but I would not agree. I have struggle often with discipline and have to find creative ways to get myself to execute and complete work all the time. The first element that helps me with this is having a plan and making sure I have clear visibility to everything I need to do. So writing out my top three tasks in a day and making sure I have that complete list of work with my next-action on it is crucial for me. But the list itself isn’t enough for me. I can stare at a to do list all day and never take action on a task, so I have developed a formula for myself to get to work. First, I need to slow down to understand what is holding me back that day. It can vary of course. Perhaps I see that the tasks aren’t what I desire to do, or I have another priority that has taken precedence. Often though, I am just feeling tired or overwhelmed with my work. So, I give myself permission to take a short break to get my head straight. Usually, if I spend this break relaxing in meditation I can calm the mental blocks enough that they dissolve and then I am no longer afraid to tackle the to do list. Or, sometimes I take a bath to relax my muscles physically. Or, other times, I will watch some funny videos on YouTube or TikTok to lift my energy and vibration. Once my energy is lifted, when I come back to my to do list, I can sense my increased capacity for the day and I’m ready to get down to work.
That is my formula and process for consistently motivation myself to start and complete my work. I’ve been using this process a lot lately because in these challenging times, it’s so easy to get down about what is happening in the world and it can drain your energy and capacity to get things done. It’s so important that we have grace with ourselves and acknowledge where we are struggling because when we dig deeper at that struggle we will find the obstacles that are holding us back from executing on those objectives we desire to achieve. It doesn’t matter why you want something, your desire is valid and you are worthy of it. Sometimes, it just takes some good self-awareness and analysis to understand what blocks are truly standing in our way.
So, this is the process I am going to continue to work on through the month of May as I develop that consistency and self-disciple to execute on my new content calendar and the other projects I have on my business plan to execute. I know I have big dreams for my life and where I am heading and its so important to me that I complete the work I plan for myself so that all the dominos fall properly throughout my year.
Okay, well with that here’s to another great month ahead! I hope this post has been insightful for you and I’d love to hear more about what you are working on this month in the comments below!
