Plan with me: The 4 things I do to plan a profitable month

My condo smells like sage and I’m feeling so damn good after yoga this morning🧘‍♀️. It’s mornings like these where I just can’t help but throw myself back into work. There’s something about a calm Sunday where it seems like there’s no pressure to get anything DONE, but *all the inspiration in the world* to plan for the magical things I’m itching to create✨.

I just sat down at my desk to look at quarterly strategy for next month’s plan. I’ve been wanting to share more of the truth behind entrepreneurship, so I’m bringing you along with me this Sunday and giving you a peak into my planning routine. 🙂

On top of my big, scary 2020 goals, I’ve come up with a few more things I want to start integrating so I’m going to check in with my quarter plan to make sure it all makes sense if I add these things in this month.

One of this year’s goals is to focus on new ways of showing the behind the scenes so, first things first, I want to work on my video ideas, and brainstorm new ways to share my absolute favorite offerings.

In the online space, there’s a huge debate on hustle vs flow. When we’re too deep in one or the other, we tend to catapult ourselves toward the other extreme and make zero progress as a result. There really is a time for both in your biz and if you want to reap the benefits of each ($$$ and freedom), planning is key.

Real Talk: if you’re downloading all the freebies and furiously journaling what it looks like to make 10k months but when the end of the month rolls around, you realize you just wandered around doing a bunch of things that didn’t make you the money…..

Planning = where the dreaming meets the doing.

If you wanna plan with me here’s what I’ve got with me right now – (also I’m now moving from my desk to my bed because it’s sunny in there, and planning seems more magical when you’ve got on a comfy sweater and you’re cozy AF).

Planning My Month Packing List:

• New favourite Journal
• Trello
• Google Calendar
• Calculator, highlighter & 3 pens (bc one is never enough)
• Palo Santo
• Tommy (my cat – trust me it’s good for the vibes)

Not all of these are necessary lol, this is just what I like to have, but find what works for you.

Keep in mind, I BEGIN with a full quarter plan and 100% recommend doing this too to really make big progress in your business, and stay on track with your goals. THEN I do these things (keep reading) monthly to make sure I’m hitting all my targets; but if you’re just starting out, planning monthly like I’m doing here is a great place to begin.

⏰ 9:30am: check in on my numbers

Ok so, first thing’s first, I’m gonna get out my calculator and go over my numbers💸. Like most of us, I have a big $$ goal for the year, and I revisit this goal quarterly and monthly to see if I’m on track, behind, or ahead of schedule.

Think about your year long profit goal and choose something between totally-doable and sh*t-your-pants-scary. Divide that number by 12 to get your monthly income goals.

Things I keep in mind: taxes & biz expenses. Really consider how much you want to take home.

Still not sure what your profit goal should be?

Here’s an exercise I do once per year (it’s really fun).

Make a giant list of all the things you would LOVE to have in your life, no matter how crazy they might be… personal chef? A PR manager? Virtual assistant, x amount to spend on ads, this much travel, new couch, a vitamix etc..

Write it ALL out then put a $$ amount next to it (don’t forget the boring things like rent, groceries, etc) then you start to get a rough estimate of what your dream life looks like, and how much it will cost to live that dream life!💭

📈 10:00am: create my growth plan

Now I’m going to decide how I’m gonna grow my community🌱, this month I’m leaning into Pinterest, FB ads, and in person events.

Then, I’ll revisit my numbers to drill down on the exact number I want to grow my community by in order to HIT those goals.

Since I just did my numbers, I now know how many new leads I need on my email list in order to hit that goal (here’s a free guide to help you figure that out. I promise, it’ll be painless 🤓 ).

I’m going to add those numbers to my calendar for each week or adjust my ads to make sure that I will hit that list growth number (example: if i know the cost for each email is $1.00 and I want to grow my list by 200 a week I will make sure that I’m spending $200 / week or $29.00 / day).

And before I move on I’m about to brainstorm 🤔 a few other ways I can grow my list other than ads.

One way I’m doing it this month is in person events! (yes even introverts book speaking gigs). If you’re just starting out, this is one of THE BEST ways to grow your community with hot leads. If you wanna give it a shot too, reach out to local stores, coffee shops, networking groups etc. to see how you can collab and what value you can bring to their audience & watch yourself step into your TED TALK persona.

OR snag the my month planner to get a list of other ways/examples of growth strategies👇

☕️ OK TIME FOR A COFFEE BREAK BRB….

✈️ 11:00 am: automation plan

I choose one thing in my business to automate every quarter. This makes my life easier and becomes a business asset. You can’t automate everything but there is *always a way* to make your life easier using an automation or new workflow so that you can better nurture your community and increase your impact.

I’ve broken this down even more into a  4-Steps To Planning Your Most Profitable Month Guide. so snag that if you want to automate yo’self.

This month I decided to automate my sales funnel workshop with convertkit, so that anyone who missed our live workshop, doesn’t have a sales funnel (yet), or wants to learn more about email marketing will get an email from me inviting them to the workshop, then automatically be sent to the workshop replay. Then 1 day later they’ll receive an email from me offering them a 30 day free trial!💌 This is good for a couple of reasons:

1. This workshop was wildly popular (because we made sure it was jam packed with value) so it will nurture my community in a big way.
2. Anyone who decides to take us up on the 30 day trial will be sent my affiliate link where I earn a small referral commission from them joining convertkit (and since I wholeheartedly believe in the power of convertkit, I’m happy to promote their product for them!)

So here’s what needs to happen for this automation to become a permanent fixture in my business and be an ongoing asset:

• Create an opt in page & ty page
• Create a page on my website for the workshop replay to live
• Write an email inviting people to the workshop
• Write the delivery email sending them to the replay page
• Add a sequence of 2 emails sending the 30 day free trial to anyone who has watched and is not yet a CK member.

11:45am: plan everything:

Now I’m getting deep into planning mode. With all the info I mapped out this morning (the last 3 steps) I’m going to whip out my calendar now, and decide when I’m going to do all these things, and break them down into smaller chunks so that I’m really clear with each step and how long it will take📝.

✔ Add my profit goal for each week to my calendar

✔ Add list growth goal to my calendar

✔ Create a project plan for my automation goal, I reverse engineer how long each step will take, then add each item into my calendar

OK DONE!!! ✅✅✅

My calendar📅 for next month is looking super sexy (if i do say so myself lol)

Now I’m going to spend the rest of my Sunday cuddling with Tommy and catching up on Netflix (aka, not thinking about work) so I can start Monday off feeling like I’m doing exactly what it takes to make my dreams a reality, and kicking my month off totally prepared.