My Small Business Quarterly Planning Routine

Feb 13

I know it’s sexy and all to be spontaneous, but I’m a planner at heart and I won’t ever stop being one. Does that make me sound like a dork? Absolutely! Does it make me more money in my business though? HECK YES.

I seriously don’t know how I could even function if I didn’t stick to my quarterly planning routine…I really think my business would fall apart.

And I know a lot of people say they’re good at doing stuff on the fly (most people aren’t FYI!) but really, even if that’s true, having a plan that helps you get to where you want to go in your business can do more for you than thinking on your feet ever will.

That’s why today, I’m taking you inside my quarterly planning routine — a NON-negotiable for me every 90 days.

Quarterly planning with a calendar

The first thing I always do is pull out my gigantic sticky notes to write my big ideas and be able to stick them to this huge paper calendar I have in my office. That way, I’m basically dragging and dropping my plans, can have a really large over of them (literally), and can adjust without much effort (crossing out everything with a pen or staring at eraser marks gets on my NERVES!).

Then, I grab my Full-Focus planner and open up Google calendar to get it all written down and scheduled. I’m a visual person, so this really helps me see everything at once (if it’s jumbled up into a bunch of words, it might as well not even exist).

Time blocking

A few years ago, I decided I wouldn’t let my business run my life. I love my business, and I love the work that I do, but I also have a family and life outside of it.

A good friend of mine, Steph Crowder, taught me something valuable about marking sure that happens — block out days for family and life before you plan anything in your business.

Things like when the kids are out of school, classroom parties, hair appointments, or when the new Marvel movie comes out and you want to see it alone on a weekday because it’s the only peace and quiet you’ll get that week (yes, I like to go to the movies alone. Sue me).

Whatever it is for you, add that to your calendar first.

Sell, support, scale

Next, when I’m planning out each quarter, I remember the 3 S’ — sell, support, and scale.

Sell: It’s what makes out businesses run, so to an extent money does need to be a focus. Keep your eyes on what you’re selling and when. Bonus points if you already have set times for when you’re launching products, courses, or memberships!
Support: This is everything going on in the backend of your business — coaching, client work, admin work, discovery calls, etc.
Scale: Whatever you can do to get your biz to the next level will fall into this category — new sales funnels, self-liquidating offers, pop-up projects, hiring support, etc.

If you’re reading that thinking it’s a lot of work, don’t sweat it. I only get about two hours of this stuff done each day, and that’s 100% okay. Making realistic expectations about what you can accomplish in a given time frame is always going to be more productive than trying to do it all.

How to decide what to focus on

So now that we’ve got time management out of the way, how do you know what to focus on during that time? There’s a few ways you can do this, and I’m going to walk you through three of them here!

Create a low ticket offer you can sell ASAP

If you don’t have any sort audience built out yet, the first thing you should be focusing your attention on is creating a sales funnel that can make you money ASAP. I’m not talking about pulling out the used car salesman tricks, but to make money, you must build an audience of qualified buyers.

And that funnel can be something as simple as creating a very low-ticket offer (in the ballpark range of $10-$25) that will be a no-brainer to the audience you want to niche down on.

Create automations

Being a business owner means you have a lot of things to do. If you’re wanting to expand on or create a new offer, understand that’s going to take time. And probably a lot of it. Time you may not have.

If you find that you don’t…start looking at things you can automate. Things like blog and social media scheduling, emails, etc. and track your time after you implement that. Doing this will help you see how much time you saved and you can get a more accurate look at what you have time to do (aka… whether or not you have to time to focus on that thing).

Add digital products to your offer stack

Digital products are becoming popular for a reason — they’re a great way to make money passively. All you have to do is create them once, and then you’re done!

Don’t have any idea of what you can sell? Take a deep dive into your marketing analytics. See what your audience is doing. And if you already have offers, take note of what’s performing best. You can take small pieces from larger offers and turn them into digital products!

Need help figuring out a better way to plan?

Of course, this advice is broad, and your business is unique…and so are the planning and scheduling problems in it.

That’s why every quarter in my coaching group, 10K On Replay, we walk through this process, only with MUCH MORE DETAIL and clients have the opportunity to ask questions. I even review schedules and plans for them if they feel overwhelmed. Our goal is to help them identify where they may be over-committed!

If you want someone to help you focus on the things that are going to REALLY matter in your business, hold you accountable, and help get a solid plan in place to make it happen, go apply for 10K On Replay!