Consider this episode the sequel to my previous solo episode: Episode 24 – My 2019 Year in Review. I’m a planning nerd. I LOVE planning. Holidays, parties, and of course businesses. 

So come with me as I take you through my plan for my 2020 and how I create it. I share what I do before I start planning, how I come up with my revenue goal – and how you can too, how I recommend creating your goals and what I’m focused on growing this year, advice for your marketing channels, and the activity I do to beat the overwhelm and keep momentum.

Vision

Let’s start at the start. What are you actually wanting to create? Hold back diving into your plan and any details. And instead, get a bigger picture. What does the year ahead look like for you? 

• Some questions for you:

• How do you want to feel?

• Who do you want to be?

• How do you commit to stepping outside your comfort zone?

• What habits will you let go of?

• What will you spend your time doing?

• What will you create?

Being a visual person, I love to create a Pinterest board that is a visual representation of my year. You can even take these images and create a collage to print out and stick up or keep somewhere to look at daily or every few days over the year ahead to check in with yourself and if you’re on track. I actually have a Pinterest board for the current year, plus the two ahead, allowing myself to not have to try to do everything immediately. You might like to do this too.

The Pinterest boards get me really excited because I can see what my year will look like. You can also write or record an audio for yourself to read or listen to over the year ahead to keep coming back to your vision.

Your Number

At the start of the year, I get clear on my priorities. This starts with the financial number I want to reach. What has become clear to me is that you can’t pluck a number that sounds good. It needs to be a number that has a reason behind it. It has to have a “why”. 

So let’s play along together. Don’t just write down $100k. Or $250k or whatever that number is that you’d like to reach. 

We need to be more intentional than that. And practical! Take 30% off operating expenses (give or take depending on your business) and 30% or so off that remaining number (give or take depending on your taxable income bracket) And soon enough those numbers you set yourself are a whole lot less when it comes to your actual profit. 

So start again, how much PROFIT do you want to make? And then, add your estimated expenses and estimated tax to that to create the total revenue goal.

Trust me, I made the mistake of focussing on revenue not profit myself for too long! And $100k can become $35k very quickly! Not so fun.

So what’s your number?

When it comes to my business this year, I’m aiming for a multiple figure revenue. Why? I want my business to support both Koden and myself. We have exciting projects and goals ahead for us, in the short term this year, that’s building a house and going overseas for a year. In the future that includes kiddies which I hear aren’t cheap. For me to be able to give Koden the option to work if he wants, not because we need him to, that’s what is driving me. 

Your One Income Stream

The newer you are in business, the more I recommend focus. Focus on just one key income stream. Test this, refine it, and build it to the point, it’s meeting your first revenue goal. This one thing is what you are known for. And sure, test different things. Taste from the buffet of options, but once you find a good fit, focus and become obsessed with this offering.

In 2018, for me, this was my online group coaching program The Modern Marketing Collective where I teach female entrepreneurs how to attract and convert more clients from Instagram. I took it from $0 to a six-figure income stream in my business in a year. You can do the same with discipline and focus. Don’t get distracted by shiny objects. 

What I’ve seen people do:

• Avoiding the “hard stuff”. Spending time on seemingly random, “fun” projects like creating a Christmas gift hamper to sell, that isn’t related to their core business, nor offers a scalable income stream. 

• Thinking of events to run because ‘they’ want to run them, and creating these, without having any demand from their audience for these, not having sales, more focus on trying to market the event, their main income stream is sabotaged during this time and their messaging becomes watered down.

• Offering too many different services to clients. One offering, one message, one target audience. Start there. Make your business simple.

So, let’s look at your revenue streams – for the purpose of this podcast I want you to focus on one. The big one! This might be the first major income stream you need to establish in your business, or if you are an established and profitable business who have hit your first income goal from your first offering, then you can use this exercise to create your second income stream. 

Work along with me to answer these questions – don’t think about them too much. What comes to mind first?

• What do people often ask you for advice about?

• What do you find you can write or talk about easily?

• If you’re sharing content, what topic often receives the most engagement from your audience?

• What seems way too simple for you that other people seem to find more confusing?

• What activity makes time fly for you? [Excluding family time etc].

• If you got on stage to speak about one thing, what would you choose?

• What do you actually care about other people getting right or having access to?

• If you spent the next year offering just this one thing, what would it be?

Ok, so now you should have an idea of your “thing” – the topic, the expertise, the product area that you’re uniquely equipped to offer. This is your focus for 2020.

In 2018, when I launched The Modern Marketing Collective, people were always asking me for Instagram advice, the content I shared about that received the most engagement was Instagram tips, I found it easy, while others didn’t, I was asked to speak about Instagram and I knew it was something I could dive deep into for months and years to come. 

Going into 2020, I’m adding a second online program. This year, with the focus on my online coaching program, I’ve had many people asking me for help with theirs. They are struggling to get started, overwhelmed by the technology, and want a clear process to follow from someone who has been through it themselves. 

What’s something that makes time fly, that I am increasingly speaking about, and that there’s a demand from my audience for? Membership programs. 

So in January 2020, I’m opening applications to Scalable, where I’ll teach you how to plan, launch and enrol your first students in your online program, sharing everything I’ve learnt and implemented myself that actually works. This is for you if know you can turn your expertise into a SCALABLE business that will enable you to help MORE people, create a more CONSISTENT revenue and build a more PROFITABLE business. Go to emilyosmond.com/scalable for the details.

Your SMART Goals

So we know your number, and we understand your core offering. It’s time to make sure these align. 

Break your annual figure into a monthly figure (i.e. divide by 12). This is your target monthly revenue for 2020. 

Next, how much is your offer? Let’s say your revenue goal is $120k, your monthly revenue target is $10,000, and your core offer is $1000. This means you need to sell 10 of your core offer each month to meet your monthly and annual revenue goal.

I use the SMART framework for goals – with a little twist of course!

1. Specific

2. Measurable

3. Achievable

4. Really Exciting (not realistic – we cover that in A – achievable). 

5. Time-based.

So for this instance, our SMART goal would look something like:

In 2020, I will average 10 sales of my core service per month, to generate a revenue of $120,000.

Is this achievable? Does this excite you? Can you actually execute this? If the answer is no to answer of these questions, you need to adjust this until it’s SMART. 

Can you see how different this is to most goals of “I want to make more money” or “I want to grow my business”?

A fail-proof way to test if you have a smart goal is if you can clearly tick it off it it’s achieved. “Growing my business” – when would you know you achieved that?

Strategies

Once you are clear on your goals, do NOT stop there. This is why many people set goals but many people don’t achieve them. They never put the work in to figure out what they will do to achieve those goals. 

You must have strategies in place. This is where your marketing comes in. If you’re not doing much marketing yet, choose ONE platform. Can you pick my theme here? Start with one, nail it, then add to it (if you want to!).

For me, my first platform I focused on was Instagram. This year I added my podcast and next year I am expanding my speaking focus. First things first. Don’t jump into training to do everything at once. 

My Instagram is a major source of new clients for me. Now my podcast is too. Figure out what is already bringing you clients and double down, or if you aren’t marketing with a strategy, pick one platform that feels good to you and go all in until you get traction.

This is how my students inside the Collective are having their biggest months in business and booking more clients JUST from implementing an Instagram Strategy. If you’re trying to do all the things and not getting results, and think just posting content is going to grow your business, stop! 

If you don’t yet have a marketing strategy, go to emilyosmond.com/free to take my free class.

Monthly Focus

What I have these goals clear and your strategies in place, I move to my monthly focus. What do I need to do each month in 2020 to help me meet my goals? I love breaking the year down this way. It gives purpose, variety and focus and stops me trying to do everything in January!

Often my monthly break-downs will involve a couple of promotional focussed months – also known as launches. You want to avoid launching or being in full promotion mode every month for the sake of your energy and your audience’s.

To give you an idea of my monthly focusses for 2020 – it involves 2x launches for both my programs, so that’s four months in total where I’ll be focussed on launch marketing, it involves a couple of months dedicated to holidays and chilling out, in October I’ll be running my Elevate // The Retreat, so naturally my focus will be on that, then I have a couple of months focussing on running a live round of my new program. 

It’s simple as a piece of paper or opening a new doc on your computer, writing down the months and then starting to map out the key focus for each month. 

Once you have done that, it becomes pretty clear what your core content and marketing activities should look like each month, each relating to that month’s focus.

To give you a working example, in February I am starting my very first students in Scalable. So in January, my content will be focussed on topics relating to creating an online program, how to know if an online program is right for your business, the concept of repeat customers versus new customers. It all comes back to my program launch.

The people I see who are overwhelmed don’t have a focus or have way too many. Simplify. 

So, let’s recap!

1. Create a vision that excites you

2. Get clear on your number

3. Set your SMART goals, which will get you to that number

4. Identify your marketing channels and strategies to meet those goals

5. Map out your monthly focusses.

If you enjoyed the episode, do you know the best thing you can do? It’s to leave a written review. This helps the show get noticed by the podcast giants and allows more people to find it. Scroll all the way down through the episodes available until you see “Ravings & Reviews”. There you’ll see some purple text that says “Write a Review”. Include your business name in your review and I’ll give you a shout out on a future episode!

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