How can you plan one thing for tomorrow that helps your whole year?
How’s 2021 panning out for you so far?
I’ve had so many great conversations & DMs with small biz owners since 2021 began and I can say that the majority have expressed some sort of flat feeling, the continued living with uncertainty, the hangover of everything 2020, a loss of mojo and just a general “when is life going to feel secure again?” attitude. Without sounding overly dramatic, life may never feel “secure” in the way it did pre-covid; we are navigating a new normal.
Last week in this blog, I shared with you five quotes that have helped in times of uncertainty. I had such a massive response to that (thank you to everyone who took the time to reply). So today, I thought I’d discuss one practical way to work through what’s happening.
It sounds super simple but it can actually feel hard to do: focus on what you can control.
Tomorrow is the first day of the last month of the first quarter of 2021 (total mouthful, right?). Think back to what you wanted from this year in your business. Was it less stress? Building an amazing team? Hitting X email subscribers? Launching a podcast? Streamlining your eCommerce fulfilment? Getting to $X total revenue or X% in profit?
So far, what have you done to make that happen? Now, I’m not asking you to beat yourself up over a lack of action, but to spend time really considering the actions you have taken.
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If you were to divide this goal by 4 what would the result of outcome look like for 1st, 2nd, 3rd and final quarters of 2021?
1. Where would you be by 31st March?
2. What about 30th June?
3. What would happen by 30th September?
4. And how would you measure if it’s worked out the way you wanted when 31st December rolls around?
We can’t control everything in our business, particularly outside factors such as lockdowns and delays with offshore suppliers. What we can control though are the actions we take to make our goals happen.
Consider just ONE goal you had for 2021. Use the framework from X (current state) to Y (future state) by (deadline), so that (result or outcome) to list this out:
Ie if your goal is to get to $100K in total revenue you might say:
· We want to move from making $60K total revenue for our ceramics business in Dec 2020 to making $100K total revenue by Dec 2021 so we can rent a larger studio space and run intimate workshops.
Then, break that down by quarters:
1. By 31 March the business is at $20K ($5K up YoY (on average))
2. By 30 June we are at $50K ($20K up YoY)
3. By 30 September we are at $75K ($30K YoY), and
4. By 31 December we are at $100K ($40K YoY).
Then, map out five ways this increase could happen, in this instance:
1. Increase Average Transaction Value of orders (also known as your ATV) either by a price increase or add-ons such as “free shipping for orders over $X"
2. Increase Frequency of Purchase (aka FOP) by increasing contact with past customers, increase of marketing, themed collections/launched and collaborations with relevant brands
3. Creation of limited edition or higher-tier custom orders, marketing of these to appropriate segments (ie milestone events, weddings etc)
4. Increase bulk orders by securing recurrent revenue or white labelling product with hospitality partnership OR running events such as workshops on a consistent basis
5. Concentrated effort on increasing online conversion rate through tweaking of purchase page content & marketing messages.
Next, get a basic 4x3 box At-A-Glance calendar out (or draw one up with pen and paper) and for each of the five ideas above mark out an action you’ll take weekly, monthly and quarterly for those tactics.
This may, at first, seem a bit overwhelming, but trust me, after working with soooo many small business owners since I started this biz in 2015, I know that real change lies in breaking your goals down into small, consistent steps you can take regularly, then mapping these into a plan and, most of all, sticking to it!
If you would like accountability for doing this or help getting started, consider booking in a 1:1 laser coaching session with me. We are now booking in clients from May 2021 onward. You can read more about that on our business coaching page.
Look, 2020 taught us so many amazing things — good and bad — that will have an impact on us for decades to come. It also reminded us that we can’t always control what happens outside our home or office, but we can control our reaction to it.
As we start the last month of the first quarter, what small step will you take in the next 30 days to inch that bit closer to what you wanted to achieve in 2021?