Your Best Year Yet Day 4: Digging Into the How
Today is DAY 4 of Your Best Year Yet: the free 5 day business alchemy experience for more fulfillment, impact, and cold hard cash in 2021.
All week I’ll be putting out a new podcast episode each morning & if you sign up here you’ll also get the FREE Guided Meditation to Meet the Soul of Your Business
Day 1 we TAPPED INTO THE VISION - Click here to listen!
This is a guided visioning experience to tap into the Next Level You that has already achieved your results & get guidance from her on your 2021.
Click here to get the FREE Guided Meditation to Meet the Soul of Your Business
DAY 2 we dug into HOW TO SET YOUR 2021 GOALS - Click here to listen!
You’ll learn how to set goals that are juicy & that incorporate your whole being.
DAY 3 we're learning about the ASTROLOGY OF 2021 - Click here to listen!
Learn the astrology of 2021 so that your plans align with the cosmic curriculum with Master Astrologer & Teacher Donna Woodwell.
DAY 4 (today!) we're DIGGING INTO THE HOW of making your goals a reality
Here we’ll go quarter by quarter, month by month to get your plans on paper so they’ll actually happen.
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Hello, everyone! Welcome to day 4 of Your Best Year Yet: the 5-day business alchemy experience for more fulfillment, impact, and cold hard cash.
I’m so excited that you’re tuning in today because it’s a really juicy episode: we’re talking about how to actually put your goals into action and how to make your dreams & desires a reality.
Part of making your big goals a reality needs to include breaking them down into more manageable, bite-sized goals. That means breaking down your big goal by what you can accomplish in a month or a quarter.
For example - if your big goal is to be able to lift 200 pounds at the gym but you've never been to the gym before, you might have your goal for the first month to be to sign up for a gym membership & learn proper lifting form so you don’t hurt yourself… and to lift 20 pounds. And your goal for the next months to be to live to lift 40 pounds. And so on.
The same goes for your business goals, which is largely what we’re going to be focusing on in today’s episode (although you can apply these same principles to other areas of your life).
If your goal is to create your first online program, your goal for the first month might be to get super clear on what the program is, who your ideal client is, and what transformation you’re guiding them through. Your goal for the second month might be to outline your program, and your goal for the third month might be to begin teasing your audience and marketing your program to prepare for launching it.
That obviously requires a project plan.
But there are other goals that require consistent daily or weekly action - the same things over and over again… like making offers online, reaching out to people you want to work with, following up with prospects.
If that’s the case you need to define your daily or weekly Business Tasks that mark little successes you have each week in getting your business where you want it to be. So you can celebrate with a “hell yeah!” at the end of every week for getting things done. Even if all you got done was having one new discovery call, or finally taking care of that thing you’ve been putting off that only ended up taking 20 minutes (I know I’m not the only one who does this!).
When you do this, you’ll have manageable mini-accomplishments along the way that will help you reach your big goal. The trick is to make a concrete timeframe for you to accomplish each smaller goal — and then stick to it.
And these mini-goals are actually a way that you can create a huge impact without even realizing it. (Because part of this business alchemy event is to help you get more impact in 2021!)
The second part of this is answering -
How will I reward myself for doing my weekly & daily tasks that push me towards my goals?
You want to be Rewarding for doing the things you think move you toward your goal (like reaching out to prospects daily) versus only rewarding yourself for hitting goals, like signing a new client or hitting your launch goal.
Then you can assess monthly if the consistent tasks are working or if you need to change them up next month. (or get better at copywriting or sales conversations or whatever.)
Every time you lift that additional 10 pounds, or every time you post on Instagram to nurture your audience, it might not feel like a lot to you because you know that your goal at the end of the day is much larger than just this one thing.
But this is still having a huge impact on your body, or is having a huge impact on your audience & your business.
It's actually kind of amazing that these little steps that we take every day can be so impactful in our lives and can get us to where we want to be sometimes without us even realizing it.
Like, you'll just go on auto pilot taking care of these tiny goals and not thinking much of it, and then at the end of three months or six months you realize that you've made so much progress along the way.
An important piece of this is - You have to make your goals automatic. This means they're not something that you can easily forget about. You do not want to have to rely on motivation to hit your goals. Because you better bet that your motivation will run out by February.
Making hitting your goals automatic means having a clear monthly or weekly plan. It means scheduling time to work on carrying out your plan. Or hiring people to do it for you with a very clear desired end result outlined.
Put every step of your goals, even the small ones, into your calendar so that it's always on the top of your list.
Or use a project management tool like Asana to keep things organized.
For your daily or weekly consistent tasks - put them on your calendar. Maybe it’s 9-10am everyday, writing a new pitch email to someone you’d love to work with, or writing a certain # of words for your book.
If your goal is to be more healthy, and you find a local gym and then schedule in your calendar 3 times a week that you’ll go there (knowing you can change the dates and times around when they arise)… you’re already halfway there because you’ll be reminded and you’ll be able to keep track of if you’re actually doing it. Then you just need to actually do the damn thing.
So. Let’s look at some business goals and how they might play out for you.
We get questions all the time from people wondering about the best way to build their online presence or program. And I know a lot of people listening right now are probably thinking about their own online program that they would like to create. So I wanted to talk a little bit about what it would look like to make creating an online program a reality.
Here at Dirty Alchemy, we help magical online business owners scale their profit, reach, and impact. We’ve assisted with dozens of launches and made our clients multiple 7 figures in 2021 alone. We know the ins and outs of what makes a good launch. Usually someone just has to tell me a little bit about what they’re planning and I can tell if it’s going to be a success or not.
Why is it sometimes guaranteed not to be successful? Because some entrepreneurs don’t really have a plan in place. They charge in headfirst toward what they want without setting those smaller goals we talked about. And then things are just… chaos. Because a launch isn’t casual. It takes planning and intention to be successful.
So, anyway. While our past offers have been with multiple 6 figure and 7 figure entrepreneurs to launch their programs, and build their audience... we’re creating something new for 2021 so we’re going through this process too.
I’ve seen time and again the CEOs or online business owners I work with in this hamster wheel. They are visionaries, creators, leaders, and they’re stuck in the day to day, micromanaging and stressed the fuck out, not even able to do the spiritual practices they teach!
The Harvard business review actually did a study on CEOs and they found that CEOs fall into 2 categories- ceo managers & ceo visionaries. CEO managers spend their time - you guessed it - managing their employees or micromanaging their managers and hung up on the day to day. The visionaries spend their time focusing on the big picture, the long term, and building up the brand. With a trusted team in place to handle the rest. And guess what? The visionaries run more efficient businesses.
So I’m so excited to roll out this 12 week program to help solopreneurs or online business owners who work with a piece-mealed team of contractors to elevate themselves into being the ceo & visionary of their business. So that their business is run by people that love supporting them & impact hundreds or thousands of people, while making a profit. They work for the most part in their zone of genius - creating programs, working with clients, speaking, writing, designing new methods, whatever it is for them - they have spaciousness in their life to download the vision for their business & to practice what they preach on a cellular level. It’s designed as a small group program for only 10-15 women so you get super hands on support & it’s going to be so good.
So. You can see here that the transformation is the backbone of the program. It’s also the key to good marketing. It’s not about how long your program is or how many sessions, it’s about knowing your people, knowing where they’re at, what they struggle with & where they want to go.
And a “transformation” is just a fancy way of saying that people have a goal they want to hit. If someone is going into your program with the specific intention of transforming into someone who is more magical, or someone who understands astrology better, or someone who can overcome relationship blockages - whatever the desired transformation is - that's their goal.
And it's worth noting that as you are guiding people through your program, you may want to employ these exact same guidelines to help your clients reach that goal. Small, focused goals. Focus on what matters. And make your goals concrete and automatic right in your calendar.
As a business owner, your goals should center around who your people are, what problems they have, and what transformation you’re going to take them through. The Before & After. Don’t lose sight of that fact as you’re pursuing your own goals.
When you get clear on the people you serve and what their end result of working with you is. You’re golden. This is step 1 in your offer creation and your pricing & your copywriting.
So. How can you hit all those business goals?
Let's start by working backwards a little bit.
Go back to Day 2 of Your Best Year Yet --
What's your annual revenue goal?
What do you need to hit quarterly (meaning dividing your annual revenue goal by 4) and monthly (meaning dividing your annual revenue goal by 12) to hit that goal?
This is going to give you an idea of what your year needs to look like.
Note here for those listening that are just starting out or still working to hit their first 6 figures - You've heard me say this before & I’ll say it again and again…
I recommend starting with working one on one with people if you’re a service based business. Selling your service to one person or one business - hone your skills, build your intellectual property, build an audience.
Don’t start by building an online program.
And don’t start your business expecting people to reach out to work with you by posting on Instagram.
Reach out to people directly, or through giving value in Facebook groups, or being a speaker in a summit or podcast, or meeting people in person when & if the world opens back up post-COVID.
So… I very very very much recommend your goals & your daily tasks to be creating a super clear offer & reaching out to people daily or at least creating conversations with other humans daily (and then following up with the people you want to work with consistently). Until you’re fully booked up with one-on-one clients, or hit your monthly revenue goal.
If you’re fully booked or already at your desired monthly revenue goal… then switch over to designing & launching an online program to the audience you’ve been building over time.
Okay! Now that I’ve made my standard disclaimer…
Let’s look at an example:
Let’s say you decide to launch an online program in December 2021.
That probably means your main focus for Q4 is that program.
Keeping your annual revenue goal in mind, let's start with your price point. Obviously, you need to be clear on what you're offering and the value it’s providing before you can set your prices. And you need to know how many people you want in the program itself.
So. Start setting goals.
Goal for month 1 of 2021: Get clear on your offering.
Goal for month 2: Figure out your price point and how many people you want in the program.
Goal for month 3: get clear on your ideal customer avatar.
And so on.
And you can further divide those into smaller goals, too. Maybe part of month one is market research. But the point is that you have something to focus on each step of the journey, instead of trying to eat the entire elephant at once.
I also want to note here that sometimes goal setting can be about constraint. Reeling ourselves in when it’s good for our business.
As entrepreneurs, sometimes we want to commit to doing something for the long-haul. But, especially if it's our first launch or we’re still new in our business, it can be incredible and transformative to commit to something for just 90 days. To focus really hard on that one thing and sell it and put your whole self into it. The length of your program doesn’t mean it’s success - the transformations it provides for your clients do.
Instead of promoting 2 different programs, plus a full day intensive, plus one-on-one sessions with you that are sectioned into 5 different packages. Pick one per quarter, or at least 1 per month. I know. You hate me telling you that.
Pick one and focus your intention & your brain & your magic on putting it out into the world & getting people riled up on it & paying you for it.
So many of us hit a roadblock or some discomfort in our business and we just decide we want to change everything. Maybe we hear some negative feedback that shakes us and we wonder if we should change our offerings and change our purpose. Really what we need to do is stop creating mental drama and keep being brave enough to show up exactly as we are, delivering the rare gift that we are on this earth to deliver to people.
And remember that you'll serve your people in different ways. Some people only want one on one support while other people just wanna read a book. Some people will attend all of your webinars and some people will absolutely never want to show up for a webinar.
And all that is totally OK. But it does mean that, as you are reaching for your big goals, keep in mind that it might be beneficial for you to take multiple roads to get there. If your goal is to double your impact - which is part of what this business alchemy event is all about - (and remember you defined what IMPACT means for you in Day 2 of Your Best Year Yet) you might decide that l maybe part of your path to reaching more people involves writing a book. Maybe it involves spending more time with one on one clients. Maybe it involves spending more time on social media. Maybe all of it - or something else entirely.
As you’re thinking through this… You might find it useful to sit down and write out all the different things that could get you on the path toward your goal.
Write down everything you can think of. Even if it's something that you tell yourself you “would never do,” write it down. And then reflect back on it. I've definitely found that there are times when I think “oh, I would never do that,” and then when I think harder about it I realize that, actually, that's exactly the thing that I should do, and that I want to do.
But don’t let yourself get distracted. So many of us waste time on things that don’t matter because they feel like they need to fill time to work 8 hours a day, or to avoid uncomfortable things they don’t want to do. Like if you’re focused on creating another program instead of directly reaching out to people you think would be perfect clients, because you’re still nervous about selling.
Or engaging on social media instead of creating Standard Operating Procedures for your business so that you can delegate more & make more time for you to be in your zone of genius or just taking time off...
Remember that yesterday, Donna Woodwell said in our interview about the astrology of 2021 that, because of the mercury retrogrades and the eclipses, and because of Jupiter moving into Pisces from May 13 - July 29, the summer is going to be a best time all year for you to examine the systems and structures that you have in place in your business.
So you can figure out what's working for you and what isn’t working for you moving forward.
This is perfect because it's right in the middle of the year, so you can use this time to reflect on the structures that you put in place to hit your goals.
Did you fall out of touch with goals that you set earlier in the year?
Have you made the progress that you intended to make by May?
This is the perfect time to get your house in order and do some reflecting to get back on track if you’ve fallen off.
And don't worry, we will be sending out a worksheet to everyone signed up for Your Best Year Yet over the summer about this exact thing. You’ll get a reminder to help you track your goals throughout the year, and review how each quarter is going so you have some external accountability to follow through on all the work you’re doing this week.
Don't forget to incorporate goals for both your short-term and your long-term business needs.
In the beginning of your business, your goals might just look like reaching out to people. Talking to people you know. Calling businesses. Asking friends for referrals. Showing up fully in an aligned FB group. This is the quickest way to bring in money in your business, if you’re service based.
At the same time, be building your perfect audience. And there’s a case for building an email list over just trying to rack up followers on social media. This is like building a home on owned versus rented land. ....
We need to let go of the attachment to vanity metrics & focus on what actually increases revenue and profit in your business.
Building an audience on social media is an awesome tool… but it should not trump building an email list. Sure social media can give you a boost for a year or 2, but at any moment an algorithm can change, or Facebook’s policy issues could blow up & you lose all the work you put in.
When someone reads your emails and falls in love with what you’re saying, they’ll feel connected to you individually. Keep it up and after a few emails you’ll totally enchant them. They’ll love you and your brand.
But when someone connects to your Instagram post or story, it’s much more of a brief connection, with less soul there.
And the numbers reflect this. Emails have a higher conversion rate than social media, because they’re building an intimate relationship. When you send an email, it’s more personal than a status update or a tweet.
I’ve seen this with clients I’ve worked who had affiliates with a strong email list versus a strong social media following…
The email list converts exponentially every time. And there are facts to prove this.
In 2019, global email users amounted to 3.9 billion users & is set to grow to 4.3 billion users in 2023. That’s half of the world’s population.
73% of millennials prefer communications from businesses to come via email.
For every $1 you spend on emails marketing, you can expect an average return of $42
49% of consumers said that they would like to receive promotional emails from their favorite brands on a weekly basis
In addition to your email list… choose one social media platform & commit to it. Give it your love, energy, juice.
It can be Instagram, Facebook, building a Facebook group, Twitter, YouTube, podcast… or something else.
If I would put my money on any platform right now it’d be YouTube. The conversion rate of video is way way higher than other platforms. Video creates a much deeper relationship than written or audio form. And Facebook and Instagram will be going through some massive changes in the algorithm & privacy stuff in 2021, so if you’re starting fresh I’d go over there. Or even if you’re a well-established, super profitable biz. Things are changing & YouTube is a solid platform to invest energy into ASAP. Those are my 2 cents.
If you can constrain yourself to giving fully to one platform (and I don’t mean spending all your time on it - I mean creating juicy content on it & being enchanting on it, which can take as little as 10 mins a day) then next quarter you can assess & double down, or start building out systems on another platform.
This is also going to make your impact bigger. Because the audience you have on that platform will know you. They’ll know you provide value and they’ll trust you. And it’s 100x better to have a few thousand audience members who deeply know you and your brand, instead of 100,000 audience members who can’t remember your name or what it is you do, exactly.
It’s also going to help you feel more fulfilled, because you’ll get to really know and love your audience, too. You’ll get to interact with them directly all the time. And you won’t be stretching yourself thin. You won’t be trying to put too many irons in the fire — and if you remember the podcast yesterday, Donna warned us about that, about getting too easily distracted with all this air energy. It’s more important than ever to focus on how you can make that impact. Be a laser, not a sprinkler.
So if you have a team, you can build systems that deliver the content you make for that channel to other channels. As in you make a Youtube video & then your team repurposes it as a podcast & transcribes it for multiple social media posts & posts the video as an IGTV, etc.
These are systems that can be easily created & carried out by a VA, an OBM, or a different team member.
But please don’t think you need this if you’re under 6 figures in annual revenue. Being omnipresent is for scaling… it’s a distraction when you’re at that phase in your business.
So, now it’s your turn.
You’ve already written down your big goals for 2021.
Now, divide each one up into smaller goals. Any number of smaller goals that seem doable. Put all of these goals on a weekly, monthly, or quarterly timeline.
Then get clear on how you can systematize hitting your goals.
Put them all in your calendar. Schedule them. Set reminders. Whatever.
Maybe if you need 20 clients, maybe you schedule 1 hour per day to reach out to prospects, or ask for referrals, or follow up with potential clients.
Maybe if you want to launch an online program, create a project plan that breaks down the week by week of what needs to get done to have everything you need by the time of open enrollment.
It helps to also create Business Tasks - those small weekly tasks I talked about earlier that you can celebrate each week.
And one final note before signing off for the day -
I want you to understand that self-care is a profit-generating action.
You as a business owner need to take care of yourself - schedule time off, schedule time to do the things you love to do.
Really identify activities that bring you pleasure & joy and make those a priority. It will impact your business & it will
You can actually hold yourself back by not doing this bc you’ll create a business you hate or burn yourself out, and then you won’t want to double or triple your revenue bc you can’t even imagine taking on more work than you have now.
That’s where the line of “Work smarter not harder.”
Building your schedule so that you have the spaciousness to enjoy your life and to come up with brilliant ideas will allow you to grow faster.
So repeat after me: self-care is a profit-generating activity.
Join the conversation!
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