Episode 110: Do you really need a 12-month plan to succeed?

00:52 Welcome to Unfrazzle, a podcast for solo business owners with a big vision who are ready for a kinder more sustainable approach to productivity. I'm Louise Miller and each week i share bite-sized insights to help you step away from the hustle stop faffing and stay focused so you can make your brilliant ideas happen and make a bigger impact in the world Before we dive into today's episode, if you enjoy what I'm sharing here on Unfrazzle and you'd like to support the podcast. You can buy me a cuppa by going to BuyMeACoffee.com slash Louise Miller and making a one-off donation. I'll pop a link to that in the show notes. Okay grab yourself a cuppa and let's get started!

01:33 As self-employed business owners we want freedom and flexibility so why on earth would we restrict ourselves by creating a plan for the year when we could just go with the flow? So not everybody thinks like that but I know there are plenty of people who do and it's a really natural thought process particularly when you're first starting out. And actually whilst you're still figuring stuff out in the early days maybe it doesn't matter too much because, once your still working out your offers and the marketing activities at work for you There'd be very little point planning out your year. It's far better to experiment and try things on for size because you just don't know what's going to work yet But I do think there comes a point when being too loosey-goosey starts to cause problems and when not having a plan leaves you floundering, not quite sure where to focus your attention spreading yourself too thin and ultimately not making the progress you know you're capable of. So if you're starting to feel the pain of winging it and you're wondering if having a 12 month plan would help maybe it's time to start introducing that into your business here are eight reasons why I think having a 12 month plan is a good idea

02:38 So number one, you want to feel purposeful. Without a plan it's really easy to feel that you're bouncing around all over the place not fully in control of what's going on and dealing with whatever is in front of you at the moment but on the flip side when you do have a plan and a plan has been carefully thought through and designed with your version of success in mind You can see yourself moving forward with purpose. You'll know what you're doing and when, and why... ...and you'll see yourself making purposeful progress towards your goals. So solo business owners rarely have just one thing they want to be working on during any 12-month period

03:18 Maybe you want to start a YouTube channel, run an in-person event create a new free workshop launch a new offer set up an affiliate program join a new networking group. When there's lots you want to do it is tempting to want to do it all now but creating a plan for the year will help you see that you have plenty of time Not everything needs to happen immediately. In fact, if you try and do everything now you probably won't finish any of it so mapping out your year can allow you to focus on and finish one or two projects at a time that you can make the bigger impact that you want to be making And the third reason I think having a 12-month plan is a good idea, is if you are offering different things at different times. So do you have more than one thing to offer your audience? Maybe you work with people one-to-one but you also run group programs and put on free workshops and things like that from time to time

04:06 So taking a moment to consider how those things fit together and when you want to promote and deliver them means you will always know where to focus your energy, what to focus on when. Which leads us nicely on the fourth reason that 12 month plan is good idea – if you want to be strategic about your content creation Because as well as mapping out what you're doing, You can use your 12-month plan to inform what you're talking about in your emails and across your socials throughout the year. So if you try talking about everything all at once not only will you get in the muddle... ...you'll also risk confusing your audience! So knowing what you're offering when by having this 12-month plan in place, that will allow you to be much more strategic about the content you're creating. And when you have up that kind of plan it will be able to guide prospective clients towards working with you in a really clear and organic way. So reason number five... You want to make sure you have money coming in across the year so another really great thing about having a twelve month plan is that you can map out exactly when you'll be bringing income into your business

05:08 So this is particularly helpful if you have a launch model or if you run one-off paid online or in person events. Having all of that mapped out in front of you for a whole year allows you to see when you can expect an injection of income into your business and if you see a big gap where you're not generating any new income for a while, you get to choose... Is that going to be okay? Or do you want to offer something to tide you over or move things around a bit so that you spread things out a little bit more evenly And reason number six is that you want to focus on what's in front of you without fretting about everything else. So when you've got loads of projects you want to be working on and they're dotted around in notebooks or they're one big old list, or they're rattling around in your head it can be difficult to focus in on what needs doing in that moment because you're always wondering if you should be working on something else? Or what if you forget about that brilliant idea you had and never get round to making it happen? By sitting down quietly and creating a plan

06:02 So reason number seven is that you want to stop over committing yourself. So when you're growing a business and a new opportunity crosses your path, saying yes feels like the right thing to do doesn't it? After all you want more people to know about you. You need the money and you want to help but hands up if you've ever suggested something and then regretted it later either because it wasn't a good fit or you already had too much on your plate

06:44 So the great thing about having a clear visual plan for the year is that you can see where the gaps are. You know when things are busy and you know when you might have a little bit more breathing room, so for example the next time someone asks you to promote their thing to your audience you'll be able to see how that fits in with your own promotion schedule and if someone invites you to a conference it's going to wipe out half of your week you can see the impact that might have on the other things that you plan to do And the eighth reason that you need a 12-month plan is that you want to take time off and actually enjoy it. When you're bouncing around from month to month without a plan, it becomes increasingly difficult to take time off because you might have a vague sense that you want to take a break

07:34 But then clients book themselves into your diary and you say yes to doing an Instagram live with a pal on the one day that you had nothing else booked in. You promise a client you'll get something over them by the end of the month, but before you know it, you're slogging your guts out all the way till Christmas! When you create a plan that includes time off school holidays and stuff you want for fun...and when you plan with me I will invite you to put those things in your diary first You can make sure you're not running a launch in the middle of half term or scheduling calls for your membership every single week of the year. You'll also have much more time to schedule emails to your list, to let your clients know that you're going away, to brief your team so they can support you and support your clients while you're not around and low and behold you are actually taking time off and enjoying it instead of stressing about all other things that didn't get done! So those are the reasons I think

08:24 A 12-month plan is really helpful if you want to succeed but I hope it goes without saying that simply having a plan is not enough. Your 12 month's plan will only work for you, if you work with it so you need to look at your plan often so that informs your actions month to month week to week and day today and remember that your plan is not fixed in stone right? You should see as a work in progress created using your best thinking on the day you made it And it can change as things change around you, which they will. So in my world not following your plan perfectly doesn't mean that you've failed it just means you get to learn tweak and adjust when you cultivate that kind of relationship with your plan rather than using it as a stick to beat yourself with that is when the magic happens

09:08 So if you're starting to realise that having a plan will help you succeed but you've tried planning before and it hasn't worked, I'm going to pop a link to a blog in the show notes. It's a blog where i explain why planning with me is different to things you might have tried before so head over and have read of that if that feels helpful but as always I hope this helps and look forward to seeing you again soon! Thank you for listening to Unfrazzle. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend who needs a dose of calm productivity in their life and I'd love it if you could leave me a rating and review as that will help more people discover this podcast. If you would like to hear more from me to help stop faffing and take back control of your time, you'll find the link to join my mailing list in the show notes and I would really love for you to join us! So thanks so much for your support and I look forward to seeing you next time