Hey there my gorgeous listener, welcome to episode 276 of the Small Business Made Simple Podcast, the first one for 2024 – Happy New Year to you and yours – and I am now into my sixth season of podcasting – wowsers! For 5 years, I’ve produced a podcast each week. Honestly, I wish I was as committed to the gym!
Thank you for lending me your ears today – I know you have lots of choices, so I sincerely appreciate me being one of them, especially at this time of the year.
If you’re a first-time listener, super super welcome, I am so pleased to have you here. Excited to have you on the journey too.
Don’t forget you can get the show notes for this podcast at www.socialmediaandmarketing.com.au/276
Did you have a listen into last week’s episode? It was the last one for 2023 and it was about being the change you want to see it the world. If you haven’t already listened in, to and do so after this podcast! www.socialmediaandmarketing.com.au/275
Before I get into today’s episode, I just wanted to share with you a webinar that I’ve got coming up soon. It’s about what marketing in 2024 is going to look like. What’s new? What’s old? What you should be doing and looking at and what you should be leaving in 2023. Keen? It’s on Thursday 18th January at 1 pm NSW time. Yes, it will be recorded so if you can’t attend live, I am happy to send you a recording. If you’re keen to come along, register here: https://bit.ly/marketing2024Jenn
There’s no sell, no course it’s leading into, etc I’ve got nothing to sell, it’s just a sharing of knowledge webinar so you get the best of 2024 from the get-go! I’d love to see you in there.
Now, to be honest, when I sat down to do the first episode of the year, it was a little blank – what would I say, what would people want to hear at this time of the year, what can I say that would be beneficial?
So, this episode is a little higgledy-piggledy but hopefully just as valuable as the rest.
The most important thing you can do at this time of the year is rest (unless you are in retail or e-commerce and then my advice is book in rest time as soon as possible), where you need to. Don’t push yourself. I am back at work, sort of. No clients for a few more weeks, but I am working in the mornings and taking most of the afternoons off.
For me, it’s a great time to be working ON my business not IN it. I work in the darn thing so often but now it’s all about working on it.
I’ve been writing down my goals and reflecting back on the ones I had for 2023 – what I hit, what I didn’t and why and I’ve been doing some tidying up – both electronically (emails, canva, photos etc) and in my physical office. Finding to-do lists from 9 months ago, 6 months ago etc and again looking at what I did and didn’t do and why!
I’ve been working on my 2024 speaker topics – although I am finding that harder than it should be. Producing a compelling headline that will be attention grabbing, stands out from others and says what the talk/keynote is all about is messing with my head. I keep telling myself to use the KISS method – KEEP IT SIMPLE SUPERSTAR!
I have updated my Speaker Kit, my Media Kit, my Speaker Contracts for 2024. I have started adjusting content on my website and looking at the SEO on key pages I want to see improvement on.
I’ve started to create themes for this podcast and I have been through all the Facebook groups I belong to (there was 270 odd) and removed myself from loads, checked out others to see if they are still current, looked at their rules and updated my spreadsheet so that I know what days I can do promotion in them, what days I can put in a tip or trick and so forth. My spreadsheet lives above my desk on my corkboard along with my goals, my elevator pitch and my brand colour codes (you’d think I’d know them by now!).
Still lots of working ON my business to go, but I am happy I am getting somewhere. Next week I will start on my social media and look at my insights, plan big chunks of content and schedule them. Big chunks I can plan are, for example, tips, testimonials, speaker posts, join my community posts, promo of the book and nine week transformation program etc. Some of these I will plan and schedule the whole year in.
As mentioned before, I have finally got around to taking my goals from my goals workbook to sticky notes that live above my computer desk so that I look at them every day. I’ve been a little more metric orientated this year. Rather than 25 speaking gigs, it’s 2 a month. Rather than more PR articles, it’s one a month and so forth. I feel that my goals just needed some improvement in their measuring.
Of course, I am looking to mix up this podcast a little too – so I am working on those goals and what that might look like. My biggest goal is taking people from listening to this to coming deeper into my world – eg/ joining my Like Minded Business Owners Facebook group or reaching out on LinkedIn or joining my Instagram Channel. I need a strategy for that – some of it happens organically, of course, but some needs more strategy to make it happen.
I also start my goals with the end in mind. It’s a philosophy I live by in business. It has served me well for many years now.
So, what that looks like is:
How much money do I want to earn this year?
How much do I want to grow my email list/community/fb group/Channel etc by?
And a few other questions like that and working backwards from there.
Take how much I want to earn for the year for instance.
Let’s just say it’s $100K. How am I going to do that? I look at my income streams and work out how much each one of those has to earn to get me to 100K.
My income streams for example are:
My Nine Week Marketing Transformation Program
My Book Sales
Speaking
Private Clients
Government Work
So, if they earned:
My Nine Week Marketing Transformation Program $25K
My Book Sales $5K
Speaking $40K
Private Clients $20K
Government Work $10K
That gives me $100k. So how many people do I need to put through my course to get to $25K? How am I going to market to my community and get new people in the community to buy that course?
$20K from private clients – how many is that? Again, how am I going to attract them?
$5K from book sales – doesn’t seem like much but that’s almost 240 books! Where am I going to sell those? What’s the marketing strategy look like?
So, you get the gist of what I am doing here – starting at the top and working backwards. So before when I said I will sit down and plan out my socials and marketing – this is what I am looking at. How much marketing needs to be done to get to the goal of income stream.
Do you think that process would work for you? Your brain needs to work this way for sure – but hopefully these examples might ignite something in you and your goal planning will get simpler.
Maybe start a list of all the things you need to do to work ON your business – no matter how small – eg/ look at my Instagram bio and update it, or see if I have any SEO on my website at all or maybe it’s even simpler than that and you need to take an hour or so to clean up your work space and start shredding – tidy desk, tidy mind!
I hope this episode has helped – being the first of the year.
I love this time of the year – it feels so clean and fresh and I feel like I could literally make a plan to do anything.
Of course, plans and goals do stray and change. Heck writing a book wasn’t even a goal for 2023 and yet it become one and got done – so don’t believe you are constrained by goals
I’d love to hear from you in the Like Minded Business Owners Facebook group. You can join the group here and then come tell me what your thoughts and feelings are about the new year are — https://www.facebook.com/groups/LikeMindedBusinessOwners
But, that’s it for episode 276. If you loved this episode and found it valuable, please take 30 seconds out of your day to leave me a rating and review if you want where you are listening. One more goal of mine is to reach more people with this podcast, and you can help me achieve that, by leaving me a review! Thanks in advance.
See you next week on the podcast for episode 277.
But in the meantime, let’s hang out on social and get social on social – you’ll find me on Instagram, Facebook and my fav LinkedIn.
But whatever you do,
…….. remember small business peep, as my opening song says, there’s no point in dreaming small!
Thanks, Jenn, this all makes a lot of sense. I am eagerly waiting for the arrival of your book