How to Create a Business Plan for 2024 You'll Actually Use

Do you love to plan for your business but then.... those plans just sit, untouched, staring at you for the whole year? Or, maybe planning feels complicated or even just pointless... there are too many moving parts to consider and you're not going to accomplish it anyway, so why bother, right? If this is you, I see you AND I have a process for planning that's simple, straightforward, easy to use AND easy to stick with. It's not the same planning you've been doing year after year - this is planning you'll actually use in 2024. Want to plan differently for 2024 and be MORE successful (and likely less stressed out all the way around) because of it? Let's talk about it...





Join the free FB group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/uncomplicatingbusiness/

Book a free 1:1 conversation about coaching: https://www.torpeycoaching.com/book-online

Transcript

Welcome, welcome. I'm so happy you're here on the last podcast episode of 2023. We are getting ready to happen to a new year, I don't know what happened to 2023. Maybe you do if you do, let me know, because I it went by so fast, I feel like I just blinked and we're here again, at Christmas and crazy and holiday insanity. 

So here we are getting ready to start a new year. And one of the things I do a ton of with clients and with groups and with just people in general, since I'm a business coach, at this time of the year is planned for the new year. And one of the things I hear from clients and friends and acquaintances, and people on the Facebook and the LinkedIn and all the places is that they love to plan or they make a plan every year and they sit down, they take the time, and then they never touch it. They never look at it, they don't remember it. They don't have any sort of connection to it. And they spend all this time and effort for something they've done. They literally never look at it again. And then they feel bad about that. 

On top of everything else. There's like guilt about why they're not following the plan. And then they feel like they've failed because they've not failed the plan. And then they get to the end of another year. And it's like, oh my gosh, why would I even bother to plan if I'm not going to use the plan, and on and on and on the cycle goes. So this year, what I would like to offer you is an alternative to that particular cycle of crazy, because I don't believe that planning for the new year in a business in particular, needs to be as complicated as we make it. Edgy if you listen to this podcast at all, you know, that's kind of how I feel about everything. And I feel like it should be way more flexible than we're generally taught. 

So today, what I'm gonna do is take you through, you know, the only three things I think a plan for the new year should have. And you know, you then get to choose what to do with it. So I really do think you can keep this very simple and very focused, it will make it easier for you to stick to, it will make it easier for you to remember, it will make it easier for you to feel good about no matter what point in the year you're in. And that I think really matters. Because, you know, it's just like a New Year's resolution kind of thing. They're great until we fall off track. And then we're like, oh, gosh, it's over. And that's, you know, February. So in this form of planning we're going to talk about today, I think it really helps that it's simple, because then it allows you to stick, there's no way to fail, there's no way to do it wrong, there is simply leaving the way we're going to think about it with successes and celebration and continuing forward one step at a time. Before I go there a couple of things. 

The first is the first round, not first round, the next round of my sales course, which is called selling for weirdos is open. It is for you. If you feel like a weirdo in the sales world, you, my friend, are the best kind of weirdo, you are someone who wants to build a business that serves people that helps them that loves them that gives really big and also receives. And maybe you want to stop feeling so flipping weird about sales, you want it to not feel icky, or salesy or any of those things anymore. If that is the way you want to approach sales, and you'd like to like it better and 2024. And God knows if we like it better, it works better, then please, I would offer you to consider this course, I will make sure the link is in the notes to the page, the pages in progress. I'm all about talking about the thing before the course is totally ready, just sales pages. And as all things go, I don't tend to write the sales pages until I feel really good about something and I feel really really really good about the course.

 I actually was watching back some of the videos in it recently for myself, just to like you know, you watch back things you do. I hate watching back things I do. But it was just like so I you know made sure there were no little things I wanted to change that I wanted to sort of quality check everything I just I just wanted to touch it all right and check it all. And I found myself taking notes on some of the questions and like answering some of the questions as I was going through it and then it also note was like, oh my god, it's me. I'm taking notes on things I said. And so it was this crazy little loop, but like it was useful II came out of my brain it was still useful for me and I was like, Oh, well that's that's a good sign. 

So if, if sales and selling is the thing you'd like to do differently in the year, selling for weirdos is a really good option. It is sort of it is not sort of it is less than two, one on one coaching sessions, it is $383. It's a bananas deal. Because even if you make five sales you would have been before, like it'll pay for itself. So it's, it's a really good deal. 

And the other thing I would offer is, if you would like one on one coaching or small group coaching in 2024, we're going to talk about it, let's talk about what you need, and what you're here, what you're trying to accomplish, and how it can be of help. What I do with people in coaching is I build packages and programs and the work together is all based on what you need the individual and I'm really, really good at that, that is my strong suit, I am not building a box for you, I am building the box that you want alongside of you. And you know, everybody does a little bit of tactics and a little bit of mindset, but how much of which depends on the person. So that will depend on you. You know, what you need, uh, my job is to help you figure out how to actually get it done, and to get to the people you want to serve. 

So those are the two important things selling for weirdos and coaching is available, if you want to come for it. To do either of those things, you can go to my website and come into my Facebook group, you can send me an email, all of those things are possible, just ask questions like, I'm not gonna bite. I only was scary to middle schoolers when I taught and even then maybe I wasn't that scary? No, maybe I was dependent on the day. So from here, let's talk planning. 

So I think a business plan you'll actually use in the new year has three key parts. The first is the thing you're not going to want to do. It is the thing, everybody sort of groans when I talk about it is the first step is a reflection of the current year, it is sitting down and sort of going through and collecting all the things that you want to celebrate from this past year. Some of them might be work, some of them might be life, some of them might be the confluence of the two together. 

But it is really important to take this reflection step. I described it yesterday in my Facebook group and live as you know, trying to get directions to go somewhere from your GPS without telling them where you are. The Google map would be like, Whoa, what do I do, it doesn't know how to tell you how to get to that store, or that party place or that wedding or that climbing gym in my world or a baseball field, unless you tell it where you are to start. And without the reflection of 2023. We don't know where we are. Right? We don't know what's working, and I don't care what you haven't done. That is not the point of reflection. Reflection is not the place where you go to go, Oh my gosh, I didn't do any of the things I planned. Reflection is the place we go to be like, Okay, these are the things that I'm really happy with.

 These are the things that worked, these are the things that I want to celebrate. This is what I loved from 2023. I always challenge clients to make a list of 50 of those things. And I do the same thing for myself, I often get to somewhere around 70. And inevitably I start and then I'm like number 20 My brain absolutely has a tantrum and tells me there's nothing else. There's nothing else Sarah, we've we've captured at all, all of the things that matter on this list. And it's like, no. So I often find that I go through my calendar, I go through my journal, I go through all the places because then I find things that I didn't like March workshops, things new clients, people, I met things I did things, I tried experiments, all the things that I'm like, Oh God, I forgot all about that. 

We don't remember what we did last week. So taking the time to sort of capture all the amazing things you've done this year, is worth your time, even if it doesn't turn into planning it just in and of itself as one step one stop shop. Walking into the new year will be easier in every way will be more pleasant. You'll feel better about it, you'll feel more prepared, you'll feel more clear. If you sit down and sort of wrap this whole year that we're in right now up if you take the time to do this reflection, and it does take a little bit of time I get it. Generally for me, it's probably 90 minutes, but it is not 90 minutes all at once. It is probably 90 minutes in three or four bytes. It's probably 20 minutes the first time because then it's easy. 

And then I keep coming back to it until I feel like I've gotten everything and so probably in the end it's an hour or 90 minutes i My guess is 90 minutes. But and I and I to tell you a little secret about me categorically refused to even do any of that until the actual entire year is done. So I'm recording this podcast, it's gonna go out December 19. I will not do this until June. January because I refuse until the last day is past to capture everything. I don't want to count until it's all actually done. Right. So like, I'm not doing this yet only begun i so I can't exactly tell you how long it took me this year because I haven't done it yet. Because I don't want to do it until I turn the page on the calendar. So that's YouTube. Great, do you that is step one reflect. 

Step number two is to pick how you want 2024 To feel. I know you're like, well, but what's my goal? No, nope, nope, nope, nope. How do you human being, in your business in your life? Want to feel in 2024? Well, if you could feel something more, what would it be? Like, I know. The top word on my list for this year for 23 was joy. And I've really worked on this this year. And it has been wonderful, and also very difficult. Because we have had just personally some really difficult things happen this year. I think everybody's got difficult things that happen every year.

 But when the focus is joy, and finding joy and all the things, you know, death and things with animals and Kid things and life things, man, all of that gets really tricky. And I'm not going to cry on the podcast, boy, I you know, could. So what is the thing you want to feel most? I have a client recently who told me hers for this year is light. Right? That's a great one. And she interpreted a bunch of different ways. Like she wants everything to feel less heavy, but also she wants to be light. For other people. She wants to brighten their worlds, and shine things for them. I have another client who wants to feel connected, more connected to herself to the people around her to her business to her people to her all the things like and connection is what she's going to lead the year with. It's almost like word of the year, but it's feeling for me a couple years ago was kindness. 

Like I really had to practice learning to be nice to myself as a business owner, because we're all so freaking hard on ourselves. Learning to be nice to ourselves is a key thing. And so you're going to do a reflection, you're going to pick a feeling that you want to drive this, in order to pick this feeling, it could be that you need to list a whole bunch out and sort of test them out. You might ask yourself, why this feeling, what it would change for you. If this was the feeling that you had more often, you might think about what it means for the people around you, for your business for your family for your life, if what you have is more joy, or ease or connection or lights, or I have another client she was she the word it wasn't a client, it was personal to planning the other day. 

She didn't use the word like in integrity, but she can't think of it I will. But it was congruent. She wants it to feel like it all matches together. In her life and business like it's balanced. But it's not exactly and it was a lovely she like immediately had it. And so that is the feeling she is going to lead with in the studio. And that's amazing. Once you have a feeling, then set a goal, one for the year, it doesn't have to be the perfect goal. That's not the point. 

You're gonna have a reflection, you're gonna get a feeling, you're gonna set a goal. That's all of it. Here's the thing about the goal, you might have to list all the goals rattling around your head, big, small, medium, all the things before you can get down to this. That's okay. That's totally normal. You may have to sort of write out things that aren't exactly goals, but their actions like one on one connections, talking to new people isn't action. The goal? The reason you do that, right? And so if you want to tell the difference between actions and a goal, often I like I'm like, okay, so I want to connect to new people. If I then say like, Why do I want to do that? And I immediately I'm like, well, because when I do that I get to serve more people. Oh, then that's an action not a goal. I want to serve more people.

 Why do I want to do that? And I keep asking until I get far enough out that like it's like, oh, well, but that's because that's what I want to do. Right? So for me, my goal this year was to serve 75 businesses. Like it's not a money goal. I'm not a big believer in money goals. But for me it was to impact 75 businesses and I'm pretty close. So then from the goal, you can be like, Okay, what are the things I have to do in order to do that. And for me, what I teach people is that the things we do in our business fall into three categories, things that are grounding, that help us to remember our value, our expertise, what we're good at who we are, we connect in all the ways to people that we know and people that are new to us. And then we invite we tell them about what we do, we invite them into our world. 

So you can think of those categories of actions as you think about what you're going to do to achieve your goal. But that is it truly beginning and middle, done. Okay, reflect, have a feeling, have a goal. So, and then notice, like, the lovely thing about this is like one goal and one feeling are pretty easy to post on your wall. That's all. And it's like, oh, wait, I'm gonna put these either they're right in front of me on my whiteboard here. They're right over here to my right. And they're easy for me to keep track of because I don't have 50 of them. I have a feeling and I have a goal. And everything I do filters through the two of those. 

This is how we make it simple. How we create a plan will actually use because of what we do time and time again, it's come back to the feeling and going back to the goal. It's not as complicated as we make it. So if you have questions, ask if you want worksheets related to this, I have them come into the Facebook group, they're in there in the file section or you can just send me an email and say, Hey, can I have the planning worksheets for 2024 and I will send them to you it's easy peasy. And if you have you know things you're worried about things you aren't sure of please ask that's I'm a human being I'm available.

 So if I can be of use to you. I'm happy to be that's that's my job right? My My goal in the larger human world is to be of use constantly. And so I'm happy to do that for you if it's worthwhile. If you're ready to get in touch about coaching or selling for weirdos, please reach out. And with that, have a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful holiday season rest, enjoy eat the best things, and a happy new year and I'll see on the flip