How to Create an Effective Quarterly Plan for your Business
I’m in my Taylor Swift Era.
Now, I will admit I was not a fan until Red TV came out. (And if you are asking, my favorite albums are Midnights, Red TV and Folklore.)
She absolutely blows my mind as an entrepreneur. Yes, a business owner. She is a brand, an icon and a legit Mastermind.
I watched her Folklore Documentary (made in 2020) last night and as I was listening to her chat with her bestie Jack Atanoff in Adirondack chairs in her folklore earthy toned plaid dress I heard her mention being inspired by poets.
Now, fast forward 3 years. We were just graced with the newest (double) album from Taylor called the Tortured Poets Department.
That leaves me thinking that she has had this idea for years and took time and planning to get to where she is about to launch album number 11.
This doesn’t even mention her planning tours at least two years in advance and if you are a real Swiftie, you know she plants easter eggs throughout her socials, music videos and music.
This takes some serious STRATEGY. And I know the creative queen is the true mastermind behind the ideas and I also know she has a team working with her to brainstorm, ideate and execute.
I think we all need a little Taylor Swift level planning in our businesses.
I was recently talking to some business owners who said:
“I feel like I need to get a handle on what I even need.”
“My head is spinning.”
“You just tell me what to do.”
“Honestly, I haven’t thought about that. I’ve been putting out fires.”
And as an entrepreneur myself I say this with all the empathy, I’VE BEEN THERE!
And from time to time I still feel that. Then I remember, I know strategies to get out of this cycle of “I don’t know what to do.”
And it starts and ends with PLANNING - both big and little!
Big planning is your annual or quarterly planning
Little planning is your weekly and daily plans.
In this blog post, we are going to talk about BIG PLANNING (stay tuned for a blog specifically for little planning).
Before we begin, let me start with a caveat! This is a strategy that I used in my corporate career, years in the classroom, in my business and have been certified to provide for clients. And I also know that my brain LOVES big picture strategic thinking – my strengthsfinder is FULL of strengths like ideation, futuristic, and strategy that help me absorb and analyze information to make sound decisions.
I also know many entrepreneurs who don’t like this work.
And you might be in that category!
If so, I have good news for you: if you want to outsource your big planning like quarterly plans, launch plans or communications plans G&G Consulting can do that for you! It’s literally my favorite thing to ponder, daydream and decide for clients!
Now, if you want to tackle BIG planning on your own you can follow the steps below to get started!
4 Steps To Annual and Quarterly Planning In Your Business
ONE: Brain dump
Gosh, I feel like this word has gotten a bad rep lately. Probably because influencers say “just brain dump and then do it.”
Well thanks Brittany 🙄you just gave me a great case of anxiety because now I see all the crap I have to get done and no way to know what to do.
Don’t worry, we will get there in steps 2-4. Hang with me here.
The point of the brain dump is two fold: 1)to get things out of your head and 2) to remind yourself of it.
This is actually a learning strategy. When you write things down (instead of letting it live in your brain) you have a higher likelihood of remembering that task. Now, I am no stickler on how you brain dump – do it in your task management system, with pen/paper, or heck even on a nice big 3M poster paper..
However you decide to do it can be unique to you, but whichever way you choose, remember to let it allllll flow. That means if you want to get a new website but you know you won’t be able to do it until August, still write it down. If you need to write an email for next week’s launch, write it down. If you need to do taxes (yikes, it’s that time again), write it down.
Just get it ALL out and then move to step 2.
TWO: Categorize
Here is what Brittany forgot to tell you. Before you start adding things to your agenda, you need to categorize your tasks. Here are some categories that might work for you:
Marketing
Sales
Urgent
Pie in the Sky
When you categorize “like” tasks you will start to see trends. Let’s look at a Marketing example.
Launch New Lead Magnet
Create a new Nurture Sequence
Get new 100 leads
Start using Facebook Ads
These tasks are all “like” meaning they achieve the goal of getting more leads into your pipeline. Now that you have categorized these tasks to marketing when you move to step 3 you can start to see how these “separate” tasks can work together for your goals.
What do you mean by that, Sarah?
If this was my brain dump I would say “Great! We are going to create a new lead magnet that leads into my new nurture sequence. Once that is complete we will start running Facebook Ads to the lead magnet to achieve the goal of 100 new leads!”
Those are alllllll four separate tasks that can be completed in one project. Wahoo, easy peasy!
THREE: Prioritize
Say it with me now: “If everything is important, then nothing is important”. This is where you reallllllly need to think critically.
To do that, first ask yourself: what is your goal for this year or quarter?
Let’s say your goal is to have a 10k month. Great, your priorities for this year/quarter should be SALES PRODUCING priorities.
That means that I mightttt suggest putting the Marketing Task we talked about in step 2 on the back burner and focus on Sales Tasks like booking discovery calls, attending a conference where your ideal clients are, or hosting a masterclass into a paid program.
I also would advise (depending on your capacity) no more than 3 big priorities a quarter!
Now, everyone is different.
Maybe you work full time in your business and you can get a quarter's worth of work done in one month. Or maybe you only have a few hours on the weekends to work your business and need a longer timeline to get work done.
You do you boo boo. No one here is going to tell you to wake up at 4 a.m or stay up or burn the midnight oil if that isn’t what you want to do.
Remember your business is PERSONAL.
Without having a discussion with you I can’t say what will be the priority for you right now. So pretend I am there! I would ask you “what is your ultimate goal this quarter?” Once you have that answer, push those tasks to the top of your priority list while keeping the others nearby in case you finish early!
FOUR: Schedule
Time to get these priorities on your schedule. We are talking about quarterly planning here so you have 90 days or 3 months to get those priorities complete. With that in mind, it’s time to evaluate the time you can put into these priorities.
Maybe it is 4 hours a day, 5 days a week or a total of 3 hours a week.
Whatever your time allocation for working in your business is, create a timeline for these priorities.
Let’s do one together. Let’s say I was doing a new nurture sequence with 5 emails. I know it takes me about an hour to write a really bang up email. I’m already at 5 hours of just writing time for this project and I probably need someone to copy edit, so let’s add another 2 hours for editing. Then we gotta create and schedule these emails with automations. That is another 2 hours for me.
This project would take me/my team about 10 hours to complete. Which could take someone 3 days or 4 weeks depending on the amount of time to get the work done.
Regardless of how long it takes, make sure you are adding these priorities to your work tasks for the week.
And try your best not to reschedule. We know daily things come up. Schedule these tasks around those daily tasks and commit to getting it done this quarter.
When doing this BIG planning it might not seem like things are coming together, but believe me it’s like landing a plane.
From HIGH ABOVE you can’t see much. A farm there, a forest there, a river there. As the pilot starts to descend to your destination you are able to see more and more details until you are finally able to identify vehicle makes and models as you cruise over the highway or species of trees (if you are into that).
Your business planning will be the same, each step you take will bring you closer to the clarity you are seeking.
We are hopeful that after you finish this planning you will be shouting from the rooftops like our clients have after their planning sessions with G&G Consulting:
“strategy, yes please!”
“There is no better feeling than being like oh I don’t have to do that alone”
“Like wow! I knew y’all were phenomenal but I am blown away!!!”
Want to be one of them? We can help! CLICK HERE to learn more.
Happy planning!
