How to Plan Out Q3 in Your Small Business

Jun 28

In the almost eight years I’ve been in business, there’s one thing I’ve learned about staying on task — create 90-day plans! Why? Because planning too far ahead can create confusion and cause friction. There’s so much likely to change between now and then, and you’re bound to have to throw something out and start all over.

But not planning enough? You know how it goes…frantically finishing projects at the last minute, causing more stress for you and your team. All the things.

Which is exactly why my business runs on 90-day, or quarterly, plans. It’s that perfect sweet spot, well-thought-out in-between that keeps the wheels from falling off this bus! And in this post, I will walk through my planning process and show you how to plan out your Q3 as a small business owner. Grab your pens and paper planners folks and meet me back here!

Plan your quarterly goals

Every time I sit down to plan out each quarter, I always brainstorm three things I want to accomplish. And that’s the magic number because speaking from experience, trying to do more than that is almost impossible!

Now, will you have other, smaller goals along the way to hitting those three? Yes! But these are three BIG goals that take time.

It could be bringing in a certain number of new clients and customers. Or something you want to implement internally, like “professional development” or growing a skill. Whatever it is, just make sure you don’t bite off more than you can chew.

Decide what you want to promote

I’m a big fan of choosing one thing to promote each quarter, for the same reasons as above. Any more than that is just too much!

What you promote should help you bring sales in, like flash sales, bundle sales, or promoting an affiliate program. Once I know that, I like to break it down into smaller goals or points to tackle:

What’s the goal for the launch?
What does my audience need from this launch?
Do I have a sales goal and if so, how much of my course/product/membership/etc. do I need to sell to hit it?

That last one requires some math, but don’t worry. It’s not as bad as it sounds, and trust me — if I can skate by doing this kind of numbers, you can too! (P.S. to find those numbers, check out this post that shows you how to do the math.)

Create content last

After I plan my goals and my promotion focus, then I can start creating content. I always do this last because if I don’t know what I’m going to push, then there’s really no point in creating anything.

It will either push to something else and confuse the heck out of my audience, or I’ll have to scrap it all and start over. Neither are good options!

Planning your weeks (and then days)

When you know what you need to focus on, and what’s on the agenda for the next 90 days, you can better divide it out on a weekly and daily basis. In addition to creating content, what else is required of you?

Think about the things you need to do every day or week. For me, this looks like:

Weekly team meetings
Coaching my 10k on Replay clients
Creating 10k on Replay client content
Hot seat calls with 10k on Replay clients
Create content for marketing
Writing a weekly personal email
Administrative tasks like number tracking, finances, looking over analytics, etc.

Whatever you find yourself doing consistently, write it all out. Then, you can start understanding how to batch days together (meeting days, team days, client work days, business owner days, etc.).

Finding your groove may take a while (especially when you’re considering recurring time off — like Friday afternoons or weekdays after 3 pm) but knowing what can help you get there so much faster.

Organize it in Asana

Finally, I like to get everything into Asana so I don’t forget what to focus on. Having a project management tool like this helps me avoid shiny object syndrome and helps my team and I stay on task and ensure timelines keep moving along. It’s a must if you’re running a business!

Want to see how I use Asana in my biz? Never used a project management tool before, but need to see it in action before you get started? Check out the video below! I’m showing you six of my best tips for using Asana like a pro!