What is your next step?

Saturday, December 26th, 2009 at 10:00 AM

I always liked to plan the things I do, but when it comes to planning the business, it really used to kick my butt…

I’m not sure how you go about planning your business.

I love thinking about it and coming up with ideas, but to put it into a one concise blueprint was a whole different thing that always somehow slipped and rarely ever got done as my mom would say: “The way God commands it” – in translation: properly.

This past year, I really got to realize and see how effective it can be to have a clear path of where I’m going.

I am a person who likes to go 90 miles and hour and really, really love to paddle around with my blog and all the technical stuff and it’s so easy to get taken away from what really needs to be done.

Then after I’ve spent a day or so “playing around” with important things, I would realize the things I should have done did not get done and then I’d be disappointed with myself.

As the year went by and I read more, and learned more, and hit my head against the wall more, I came across a idea for putting the plan together that really spoke to me, and the more I looked into it the more I started remembering all the things that went great and were do on time and with success because I knew exactly what’s step one, what’s step two and so on.

So here are some tips I would urge you to follow. I could not image more business success without applying these.

1. Make a list of top 10 accomplishments you’ve made this year so far (if you can come up with more – great, but if not, at least 10) The room around you might get foggy as you read this, but I promise, if you put your mind to it, I’m sure you can come up with 10 things no matter how trivial you think they might be. It does an incredible thing for your self-esteem and for you head in general.

2. Look at your business results so far. Break them down into: traffic, leads, and sales

Year	Traffic	Leads	Sales
2009
2010

3. Add then add a healthy increase to those. If you’re asking for 579% increase, that may not be very reasonable but maybe 30-45% would work. Whatever numbers you feel comfortable with put them in the second row.

4. Think about what obstacles you might run into getting from 2009 numbers for 2010 and write them down.

5. Write down what you would need to be able to overcome those obstacles

6. Break your year in 90 day segments. Through all the work I’ve done with my students and the high level coaching I have received, plus what I’ve seen in the real world when it comes to businesses 90 days (a quarter) has a certain magic and power to it. And what I’ve seen over and over again is, that people are focused on one major thing for the full 90 days at the time, phenomenal results show up that truly transform a business each time.

7. Take your 90 day sections and spread the work any which way you feel during that time. Work only days you want, hours you want and have some time off in between as well. But don’t forget four important things:

Stick to the plan
Respect your own word (deadlines)
Every day, even on your day off, do one thing to improve your business, no matter how small it might be. In 365 days you business will look a lot different that on day 1.
Have fun in the process. If you’re not enjoying what you do, you will never do what it takes to be done to get to the finish line.

Aleksandra

P.S. I have also discovered way back a cool free software that can really help you brainstorm and put those ideas you have in clear picture – in a easy way. Go here to see: http://bubbl.us. Then print out the final version and hang it in your work area where you will see it every day. It’s going to your map. It has done wonders for organizing my thoughts and accomplishing complex tasks in a fraction of time, I’m sure it will help you too.

See anything missing?