Every online entrepreneur wants to create products and services that will be popular. Unfortunately, many of us have a huge lack of confidence in our products.
Sure, you may think that a new course or workshop is a great idea, but how do you know it will sell? Will other people in your audience find it as useful as you hope it is?
Imagine spending weeks or even months of time—plus the cost of design, video editing and all the other pieces that go along with it—only to discover it’s not what your audience wants or needs.
How frustrating would that be?
You don’t have to leave it to chance, though. There are plenty of ways to test your idea before spending the time and energy on a full launch.
Below are three methods to research your audience to create in-demand products, services, and even affiliate offers from related creators.
Table of Contents
Survey Your Audience
This is the simplest way to get a feel for what your market needs and wants. Ask your audience what they’d like to see directly.
You can create a survey and send it out to your mailing list, Facebook page or group, and other social media profiles. Use form apps like Typeform, Survey Monkey, or Google Forms to create your survey.
I’ve had success with adding a survey on my website’s homepage as a way to get in touch with new visitors, too.
Don’t forget to provide a way for those who take your survey to subscribe to your email list. That way you can grow your list with any new people who are looking for help as well.
For best results, keep it short. Getting people to start a survey can be hard enough, but the more questions you have, the fewer responses you’ll get.
Keep your survey at around 10 questions or less. If you can do it in half that, that’s even better.
Don’t forget to ask essential questions such as:
What they’re struggling with
Their preferred learning method (video, text, audio, etc.)
What they feel the training is worth (what would they pay)
These three questions will tell you everything you need to know to create a program that’s practically guaranteed to sell.
Listen to Complaints
Find communities where your ideal clients or customers hang out. Pay attention to what people are asking or complaining about the most. These are the things they need help with.
For example, let’s say you’re a business coach. Your Facebook group is filled with questions about running Facebook ads. There are comments on how they’re struggling to achieve the results they know are possible.
If you pay attention to what’s being said in your group, it’s clear that there’s a need for some training about Facebook ads.
You can then create training materials, to answer all their questions like an ebook, course, or video series. On the other hand, you can seek out another creator who’s willing to sell their course to your audience with you as an affiliate.
Study Your Competition
Hopefully, you have a list of competitors and you’re reading their blogs and emails, and lurking in their Facebook groups. This is a great way to gain insight into what they’re doing—not to copy them but to discover what’s hot right now.
Consider checking out their paid products as well. Again, you should never copy them, but you can either:
Promote them as an affiliate
Create a better, more comprehensive version with your own spin
Create a lite, lower-cost version (again, with your own spin)
Coming up with ideas in a vacuum is a great way to waste a lot of time and money on programs that won’t sell. Instead, pay attention to what your market is asking for, find out what they’re willing to pay, and delve into your competition’s offers.
Recap: Create Products & Service for Your Audience
Use one or all these three methods to get a better understanding of your customer before you create a new product or service:
Survey your audience
Listen to complaints
Study your competition
The information you gain from these three activities alone will give you incredible insight into your market. It will show you what they want and need and make easy it for you to create your own hot-selling products and services.
Gather your info, and all that’s left is to create your amazing product.
One thing no one really mentions much about starting your own online business is how stressful it is. Everyone seems to think that it isn’t just because you can set your own hours, make money while you sleep, and have your favorite PJs as your dress code.
The truth is… there is actually a lot of stress involved.
But isn’t adding more stress to your life the last thing you want to do to now that you’ve decided to finally leave your day job? Isn’t that why you took the leap to build your own business in the first place?
You’re looking for freedom from your awful boss, nasty coworkers, and the limitations of a fixed salary. But if you’re trading all that in for a different kind of stress, what have you really gained
If you haven’t actually kissed your cubicle goodbye yet, be sure you first build a solid foundation to release the number of potential stressors as you build your own business—and I don’t just mean business-wise.
Nothing stresses us out quite like worrying about money. Whether you’re concerned about those college tuition bills you’ll be facing in a few years, or worse, not sure how you’re going to make the rent, it’s easy to lose your business mojo.
As a new business owner, you certainly don’t want money trouble casting a shadow over your entrepreneurial dream. In order to save time and grow your business a quickly as possible, you’ll need to be able to invest in yourself, even if it’s just a couple hundred dollars to start out with.
Before you turn in your resignation, set aside some cash in case of a rainy day. Aim for at least three months of living expenses but more is definitely better.
Hopefully, you won’t need it but having some cash on hand will definitely relieve the pressure of having a new business that’s not earning its keep—yet.
Make Sure Your Family is on Board
Money troubles are bad, but there may be one thing that’s worse: an unsupportive (or downright hostile) spouse, member of the family, or even a friend.
And as any entrepreneur will tell you, not everyone understands the drive to be a business owner. In fact, most people find it pretty scary to step away from the security of a regular paycheck to chase after a dream.
If that sounds like your spouse or someone in your circle, try not to take it personally. They’re not making a statement about your ability. More than likely, they’re just worried about what the future holds.
Do your best to understand where they’re coming from, and be sure to clearly explain your ideas, why you are confident it will work, and how you plan to cover the start-up expenses and manage the risk.
If they’re still not on board, consider starting slow, with a part-time business while still working your day job. That will give you the opportunity to prove your idea is workable, and might just help your spouse get as excited about it as you are.
I’ve seen many bloggers and business owners in this exact situation. It sucks to have to prove yourself, but your family is just trying to look out for you. There’s always a chance of pushback with anything risky.
Take Time for YOU
No matter what’s going on with your money, your spouse, or your business, you always need to take care of yourself first. Be sure to schedule some “you” time.
No one can work all the time, regardless of how driven you are. And no one can stay healthy while maintaining a nonstop schedule.
Go for a walk, hit the gym, get a pedicure or just binge on your favorite brainless television show.
The point is simply to take time away from your desk to rest and rejuvenate. Without it, you’ll soon find yourself overwhelmed and stressed, even if you truly love your new business.
Recap: Make your transition to entrepreneurship stress-free
Follow these three tips to go from 9-5er to business owner without worry:
Create a financial safety net
Get support from friends and family
Remember to take time for you
It will definitely be tough and you may still experience some sleepless nights, but the freedom you gain once your business starts taking off will be well worth the work.
Do you own a blog that you make money with (or wish you were)?
Do you sell your services to others online?
Do you want to cash in on selling digital products?
All of these things are considered home businesses (or at least if home is wherever your laptop is). But most people make the mistake of not treating these things like a business.
Which means that they never really take the time to write out an actual business plan.
Maybe it seems “too real” for a call business like yours. Or you simply have no idea that it’s a thing let alone where to begin with one.
Or maybe your business started as an accident. If you got this far without a business plan, then that means you don’t really need one, right?
Wrong. 100% wrong!
Especially if you want to grow. And let’s be honest, who doesn’t want their business to grow?
It’s a big mistake to skip this crucial step in creating a business, as a business plan can greatly increase your chances of success.
Even if you’ve already started your business, it’s never too late to create a plan. You should review and modify your business plan as your business grows, anyway (once or twice a year works fine).
Are you convinced yet? If so, you can step over to my post on how to create a simplified business plan. This will make the writing process easier for your first business plan.
If you still don’t really get why this is so important, keep reading. I’m going to drop 5 reasons why every business, especially yours, needs to put a business plan into writing.
Directions for the future
A business plan maps out your future. If you’ve decided you’re ready to start a business, your first step should be to write out your plans for that business. This includes what you want to do and where you see your business going in the future.
You’ve probably heard the saying, “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” That”s also true when it comes to your business.
While you may see some success while just winging it in the beginning, it comes faster and easier with planning. The more planning you do, the greater success you will see in the future.
Business financing
Online businesses are the cheapest to start, but depending on what your business is, you may need some extra capital as you grow. Especially if work with physical products or need to pay employees or contractors.
If you decide to take your home business to the next level, a business plan can help you secure financing. A financial institution will want to see, in writing, the reasons that they should loan you money.
Simply walking in and telling them why you know you’ll be a success isn’t good enough.
However, if you can hand a lender a document that states…
your business idea,
your business goals,
a list of steps you plan to take in order to reach your goals, and
your estimated earnings,
…you will be seen as a professional and the lender will take you more seriously.
A plan of action
Your business plan will also help you determine what actions you need to take to move forward with your business. An action plan consists of the steps you plan on taking in order to achieve your business goals.
This is another task that people usually sidestep. Instead of “just kind of knowing” or “having the ideas in your head”, you should take the time to put them on paper.
The reason this part of your business plan is so important is because it literally walks you from point A to point B.
While your business plan serves a map, your action plan is the turn-by-turn GPS directions.
A plan for learning
Your business plan will also help you figure out what you don’t know you need yet. It forces you to think about all the necessary things to create a successful business. This means you have to find a way to deal with the things you don’t know, too.
For example, let’s say you have no clue how you’re going to market your products and services. You should first plan to figure out what options are available for marketing and then learn how to use them for your business.
Will you hire someone? As a solopreneur you probably won’t, at least not right away, so you’ll have to learn how to do these things yourself.
Your business plan will show you what you need to learn and when you need to learn it. You can purchase courses that will actually make a big impact on your business at the right time.
This keeps you from spending money on something that may be good to have but isn’t quite right for where you currently are in business.
A business plan and a comfort plan
Having the support of your spouse, other family members, and your friends can really motivate you and help you find success.
There’s nothing worse than having an idea and then not having the people who you thought would support you on board. It may be easy to ignore your friends, but an unsupportive spouse can really hurt—both your feelings and your chances of success.
Having a business plan can help your spouse realize your business idea is more than just a hobby, especially if your spouse is skeptical. They can see that you’re serious and might become more helpful and more encouraging.
You’ll be able to make decisions based on your plan, which is useful when you want to make an investment. It won’t be an impulse buy; it’s something that directly fits into your business plan.
When you have a clear reason and plan for a purchase, your spouse is more likely to be on board.
Recap: 5 Reasons Why You Need a Business Plan
Here are those 5 reasons why business planning is necessary for you, even as a solopreneur:
Gives directions for the future
Creates a financial plan
Creates a plan of action
And a plan for learning
Shows others that you’re serious
It may not be the sexiest thing you do for your business, but it is the most necessary. Whether you’re a blogger, freelancer, or just plan to promote affiliate products, having a plan will increase your chances of building a successful online business.
Or if you prefer some step-by-step guidance, you can check out the Success Mindset Business Planner. This will guide you through the process of creating a goal-based success plan for a business that supports your dream life.
Are you always wishing you had more time? Welcome to the club! Or maybe you’ve been a member for quite some time already. Having good time management isn’t necessarily a skill you’re born with.
For those of us looking to either start or grow our online businesses, this feeling is compounded by the fact that we often have to do everything ourselves, at least until we can afford to hire out.
The truth is, you probably have plenty of time to work on your business, even if it’s a side hustle. You just need to stay focused, practice better time management, and work on actions that truly make a difference.
Yup, that’s means if you’re trying to drive traffic to your blog or sales page, you probably shouldn’t be focusing on growing your Instagram followers (especially since it’s probably the worst social platform for linking).
Everyone has the same 24 hours in each day, so how is it possible that some people can accomplish much more than you do? How are they still able to be on time for all of their commitments?
If you’re struggling to meet deadlines, complete projects, or actually gain traction in your business, here are a few reasons why you need to take a closer look at how you approach your time management.
Table of Contents
8 Reasons Why You Suck at Good Time Management
Chances are, you do have the time to do what you need, you just need to take a closer look at how you approach your time management. It’s likely that you waste time in small periods throughout the day—5 minutes here and 3 minutes there—but these little moments really add up.
Go through each item on this list and take note of which ones apply to you and how you can change your behavior. It’s worth paying attention to the ones that you think may not apply to you, too! You may get ideas for improving what you are good with.
You fail to prioritize
One of the most important parts of a good time management strategy is the ability to prioritize high impact tasks and things that must be done before you can start work on others.
You should always have an idea of what’s the most important activity necessary to complete an objective. If you’re not, then it’s likely that you’re not truly working on tasks that have the most impact.
Without prioritizing, it’s easy to stay busy but fail to accomplish anything.
Ask yourself, “What is the most important thing I need to accomplish?”
Then ask yourself, “What is the best way for me to accomplish that?”
Sometimes, you’ll have to do a little bit of learning to find out what you should be prioritizing, but once you know, your focus should be on constantly moving forward instead of around in circles.
Wasting time is probably the most obvious way to improve your time management. It’s also the most common way we fail at managing our time. Everything else is just so tempting!
You may waste time due to procrastination or inefficient work habits. Maybe you frequently get distracted by social media or Netflix.
Whatever your vice is, make choices to avoid wasting time. Make quick decisions or put in the time to work when you’d otherwise be aimless browsing the web or watching your favorite show for the 5th time.
You’re disorganized
Becoming more organized is a good way to boost your time management skills, as well. Disorganized people never seem to have enough time, and they’re frequently late with their work.
When you’re not organized, everything takes longer than it should. You spend time looking for a pair of clean socks, your car keys, searching for files you printed, and trying to pull off things at the last minute.
The same is true for your digital workspace. If you don’t properly organize files on your computer, misplace or forget passwords, or forget where you saved that certain bookmark, looking for these things can slow you down.
Make an effort to organize your life and yourself. There are many available resources that are dedicated to organizing your life. Use them!
You have too many distractions in your life
It could be low-quality social interactions, TV, hobbies, noisy kids, clutter, or your prize-winning rose bushes. Having too many things in your life takes up a lot of time.
Remove the things from your life that are unnecessary. Minimize the distractions you can’t remove, like your children.
Lock down apps or websites that distract you with apps like RescueTime and put your phone on silent or place it in another room so it’s not as easy to grab every 5 minutes.
You don’t start your day early enough
Most of us don’t get much done in the evening. You might spend this time relaxing, just lying around the house or staring at your phone.
This is why so many highly successful people skip the evening hours by going to bed and waking up extra early. Your brain tends to shut down by the late afternoon, whether you started your day at 9:00 AM or 5:00 AM.
Give yourself a few extra productive hours by getting up early and going to bed early.
You don’t track your time
It’s impossible to practice good time management without some form of time tracking, but for this, I want to talk about tracking how you spend your time now so you can find and eliminate time-wasters.
Do you know how you actually spend each day? Are you aware of when you feel most energized and when your energy levels are low?
Track how you spend your time each day. Keep a simple journal for at least a week and make a record each hour of how you spent the last 60 minutes.
What did you do? How did you feel?
After a week, you should be able to notice some patterns and see where you may have some extra time in each day to work on your business. Try to rearrange your free time so it’s later in the day or out of a time when you feel energized.
Your day shouldn’t be random or determined on the fly. To get the most out of your time, you need to have a plan instead of trying to just wing it.
It’s best to create a detailed plan before you go to bed each night. It could be the last thing you do before you stop working for the night or a part of a nighttime routine.
Then, when you wake up in the morning, you won’t waste any of those precious daylight hours on figuring out what to do next. You’ll already know exactly what you want to do.
All you’ll have to do is spend your day executing your plan as well as you can.
You’re not focused
You’ve probably been told to “focus” or “concentrate,” but do you really know how? If you sit down to work on something for an hour, how many minutes is your attention truly focused on that task?
You can come up with plenty of time to accomplish everything you need to do each day if you focus on a higher level than you’re used to.
Focus is built through practice. You need to get used to finding your “zone.” Getting into your own state of flow.
If you struggle to stay focused, try using a timer to practice. Start with 5 or 10 minutes and work up from there. Use the tips throughout this ebook to minimize distractions to help you focus better on what you’re doing.
Using the Pomodoro Technique is a great way to practice focusing while also working on planning ahead and prioritizing—many of the necessary components of a good time management strategy.
Recap: Why You Fail at Good Time Management
Let’s quickly go over those 8 reasons one more time:
You fail to prioritize
You waste time
You’re disorganized
You have too many distractions in your life
You don’t start your day early enough
You don’t track your time
You don’t have a plan for your day
You’re not focused
Just like everybody else, you have 24 hours in each day. Be sure that you’re using those hours as wisely as possible. Go through each item on this list to evaluate your own time management skills.
Make the most of your time by prioritizing, removing distractions, and learning how to focus. You have all the time you need to build your business—even if that’s just slow and steady—if you’re willing to make the necessary adjustments to yourself and your life.
Help me share these tips! Add this Pin to Pinterest.
Either way, like many small business owners, you probably feel overwhelmed just by the idea of creating a business plan. Fortunately, as solopreneurs or small team businesses, it doesn’t have to be as hard as our brains are telling us.
(Or as complicated as Business 101 made it seem, in my case.)
I’ve made 2020 my year to get more intentional with my business and reviewing my business plan has been the first step. Reviewing your plan each year is a must since it should grow as your business grows.
Before, I had a less formal plan, so this year I wanted something a bit more structured. I wanted to stop struggling with deadlines and have an idea of what I wanted to do for every month so I could get way ahead of those deadlines.
But before I tell you that, let me show you how you can ease into business planning by using just one page.
How to Create a One-Page Business Plan
Unless you’re looking for major financial funding from a bank or other loan institutions, a simple business plan that includes answers to the following questions will be perfect for your small business purposes.
Where am I now with my business?
Where do I want to be with my business?
If you see your deadlines in front of you as you work your business, you’ll be more likely to meet them. Break this answer down into a timeline to make it easier, using 6 months, 1 year, 5 years, 10 years, or whatever times work for your particular business.
And then bam! Your simple, one-page business plan is done. You’re that much more organized than you were before you started.
But you don’t have to stop there. Maybe you saw how easy that was and now you want to get a bit more detailed with your plan. Keep reading to discover how you can expand your business plan into something a bit more in-depth without feeling overwhelmed.
You can still make your business planning easy by devoting no more than one page to each of the following sections.
Page 1 – Overview
Include your vision (possibilities) for your business, the purpose (why you started your business) of creating the business, and the mission (what you plan to achieve) of the business.
Page 2 – Business Information
Here is where you include information about yourself including name, business name and entity, address, and phone number. As online entrepreneurs, while you may not have a physical address, you can include your website address, email, or even the PO Box for your email list.
You’ll also want to summarize your business objectives on this page. List your goals and how you plan to reach them. This includes what you’ll do to create a profit and what tools and resources you plan to use to do so.
Page 3 – Target Market & Customers
Int his section of your business plan, you want to focus on your target market. You want to clearly define who they are and why they need you.
Answer the following questions in this section of your plan:
Your target market – Who are they? Where are they? How many?
What do you need to know about them? Why do they need your service?
Is the market for what they need growing?
Give specifics about growth and spending habits. Do as much research on your market as you can and put it in this section, including any barriers or hard to overcome issues.
Page 4 – Competition
Who are your competitors? What makes you different and the same as those competitors?
How are you competing with them? With price, quality, etc? How will your market feel about you compared to your competitors?
Next, consider your USP—Unique Selling Point. What makes your business different from your competitors? How does your personal experience make your product or service unique?
Page 5 – Finances
Most businesses will apply for a business loan to cover startup costs, but as online entrepreneurs, our startup costs are low enough that we can pay for them without a loan. If you do want to go for a loan, that’s up to you, but I’ll be writing this section for the many of us who will be starting our business on our own.
Consider what will cost to run your website, your email list, your shopping cart, and any other necessities and include them in your business plan. This will help you understand how much you need to make or invest on a monthly or yearly basis.
You might also want to create budgets for certain areas of your business. So hosting costs could be one budgeting area, while advertising, outsourcing, and marketing could be some others. Budgets are great because they force you to spend the money you have set aside for each area on those specific things.
Even if you can only afford $10 or $20 on extras outside of hosting costs, that’s a lot better than nothing. You can always save that money for a larger purchase as well.
Page 6 – Marketing
This is a bit like your competition section because you’ll want to discuss how you’ll market your business products or services.
What social media will you use? Will you manage it yourself or hire someone else? How will you handle scheduling?
How will you set up your email list? What discounts or freebies will you offer to entice people to sign up for that list?
What holidays are most relevant to your business and how will you market your product in conjunction with those holidays?
Will you use affiliate partners? How much will you split with them and which products will you offer to affiliate?
All of this should in the marketing section of your business plan. This will likely be a meaty section since marketing is the most important thing you can do for your business, so it’s okay if you can’t fit it all on one page!
Recap: Simple Business Plan Outlines for Solopreneurs
Try the 1-page plan: Answer where you are now, where you want to be, and set the necessary goals to get there. This is an excellent way to start if the idea of a business plan scares you.
Create an in-depth plan: Dedicate pages to each part of your business plan. Include
Your business overview (what it is and what you hope to achieve),
Important information about your business,
Your target market (demographics as well as what they need),
Who your competition is and how you differ from them,
How you plan to finance your business expenses, and
How you’ll market your business
No matter which method you use to create your business plan, be sure you’re answering each question to make it efficient for its purpose. Whether it’s for you or someone else, the ultimate goal of a business plan is to keep you on track and focused and working toward growth.
As your business grows don’t forget to update your plan to grow with it as well! Revisit your plan once or twice a year.
At the end of every year, most businesses take time to review how well they’ve done in the past year and look towards the future. They review their business and marketing plan and make changes when necessary.
Have you taken stock of your business goals? Have you created a marketing plan that prepares to you achieve those goals?
One of the most important tasks you can do during this evaluation is to plan your marketing and promotions for the new year.
Even if you’re just starting to get serious about your business in the middle of the year, creating a marketing plan for the next 12 months is beneficial. You can always review and edit it at the end of the year so you can start fresh in January.
The important thing is that whatever time it is during the year, you work on getting started now. So here we go!
Creating a marketing plan months ahead of time is the best way to help take your business to the next level. It will serve as a road map of what you need to do and when. If you’re working with other people, such as colleagues or joint venture partners, it keeps everyone on the same page.
It also helps you manage your 4 main marketing areas:
Your website or blog (content marketing)
Email marketing
Social media marketing
Special sales and promotions, including important events like product creation and launch
These work together to drive traffic, generate leads (get subscribers) and make sales.
Promote Your Products
Before you start thinking about how you’re going to market, it’s helpful to know what products you have currently available. You should also use this time to get an idea of what you’ll create in the future.
It’s important to pencil in all the key dates related to your launches in your marketing plan. This helps you make sure nothing gets missed or left until the last minute.
Product creation and launches should be the most important points of your promotional calendar. Research what your target audience wants and needs and build a product around it.
You should also schedule in time to promote products you’ve already created. You don’t have to constantly create new products, just keep promoting the ones you already have.
Build your email list around your products as well, so you can let them know when the products are launching. This will help them sell well right out of the gate.
Create Content Around Your Marketing Plan
Your marketing plan should also include what content you’ll create. All marketing is content marketing. It’s just a question of the format of the content.
Imagine you have a fabric and notions brick-and-mortar store, but want to drive traffic to your physical store and also get customers online.
You create helpful content about quilting, making your own clothes, fun holiday crafts to give as gifts, and so on. This gets local customers to come in and online customers to buy. You could even put together reasonably-priced kits with everything they would need for each project to encourage sales.
For international customers who may not wish to pay a lot for shipping and handling, you can sell digital products, such as patterns, video lessons and so on. All of your content would be the context for making a sale.
Other content marketing methods
Email marketing also requires content and provides a context for making a sale. Send an email with information similar to what’s on your site and include a link to buy a product related to the content.
Social media marketing can drive traffic to your site and subscribers to your email list. Once they’re on your list, they can receive your content and amazing offers.
Use special promotions
Your offers will also include your special promotions—events where you offer a discount or bundle to increase the value of your initial offer. There are three main reasons you may decide to have a special promotion:
Launch a new product
Create a seasonal or holiday-related promotion
Stimulate sales during a slow period
We’ve already gone over launching, so let’s look at seasonal promotions and handling slow periods.
Seasonal and holiday-related promotions are always a good excuse for a special promotion or sale within your marketing plan. They mark an occasion and it’s easy to tie in your products and services.
Returning to our fabric store example, you might create an American flag quilt potholder pattern kit to sell for the 4th of July. Or you can use the pattern as a free download to get people to subscribe to your list. Announce the special promotion on social media and perhaps even run an ad about it on Facebook or Pinterest.
The 12 Days of Christmas is another very popular promotional opportunity, with 12 days of sales items if you wish. This can be the perfect way to stimulate sales during a time when prospective customers might be focusing on gift shopping, or ignoring you because their money is earmarked for other things.
You can promote the usefulness of the item as a gift, a bargain, or something people really need that they haven’t treated themselves to yet, but could make all the difference in their lives.
Start planning for holidays early
Some holidays are fixed, like the Fourth of July or Christmas Day on the 25th of December or Kwanzaa on the 26th. Others fall on different days each year, such as Easter, Thanksgiving, Chanukah, and so on.
Top marketers and magazines will tell you that Christmas starts in July or August—that’s how far they plan ahead with the help of their calendar.
To help you create a marketing plan for the holidays, you can create and download free PDF calendars to print out from timeanddate.com. You can toggle the various choices, such as including all US holidays.
Print out 1 copy of the calendar for each marketing initiative, such as the editorial content for your blog, email marketing mailings, and product launches. Then start penciling in your ideas.
Dealing with Slow Periods
Every business is going to hit a slow patch from time to time. If the summer is dragging on with barely any sales, it’s time for some extra marketing to maintain a decent level of sales and profits.
Using the fabric store again, you could think of 12 weeks of projects that kids can do while they are on summer vacation. You could also market these as useful gifts to give to others. You’re promoting your products by getting parents to teach their kids the power of giving.
It may take some time and creativity to come up with winning ideas, but your marketing plan will keep you on track. This will make it easier to do everything at the right time and in the right order.
Build on Your Successes
Another reason to revisit your marketing plan at the end of the year is to evaluate your best promotions. Look back at the ones that generated the most income and plan to recycle them during the next year.
You can even copy and use the same content you used before. Set the dates and queue them up in your blog or email marketing platform and you’re ready to go.
Make Use of Affiliate Products in Your Marketing Plan
If you don’t have a product of your own to sell yet, that’s perfectly okay! You can start working on creating your first product while you’re promoting affiliate products. With your own product, you can keep 100% of the profits for yourself.
One way to test your product idea is to find a similar product and promote it to your audience. If it goes well, consider developing a similar product of an even higher quality and your own ideas (but don’t steal, of course!).
Even if you do already have your own products, adding affiliate products is a great way to create a new income stream. You can easily become an affiliate for products related to your niche that your audience will find useful and you don’t even have to worry about shipping or supporting the products. Yay!
Popular choices for affiliate marketers are Amazon and affiliate networks like ShareASale or Awin. You can earn a commission anytime someone purchases through your specially-coded links.
Keep adding promotions to make sure you have a full calendar. Affiliate programs usually have a newsletter sent to keep you up-to-date with current promotions. Use this information about special offers, flash sales, and forthcoming holiday sales to get ahead of other affiliates who may not be paying attention.
Share a calendar with your own affiliates
If you have affiliates yourself or are trying to get more, an affiliate calendar will show you’re prepared and have everything well-organized. The calendar can help you make sure your supporting material for your affiliates is all ready in time for the holidays or for your next product launch.
Your calendar can also be an invaluable selling point if you want to get joint venture partnerships. This is an agreement in which two partners cross-promote and split the profits. JV partnerships usually have a higher split than regular affiliates, such as 60/40 or 50/50.
For example, you email a special offer from them to your list and they email an offer from you to their list. With both of you marketing your newly launched product, for example, you could double your chances of success.
Track Your Promotions
You should also keep track of traffic to your content and pay attention to which channel is generating the most sign-ups or sales. This can be useful for the next time you release a product. If you notice a video is generating a lot of sales, you may want to put more effort into creating video content for the next product.
You can also share this content with your affiliates and JVs so they can share them with their own audience.
For example, most affiliate software allows people to create links directly to any page on your website (this is called deeplinking). This means any of your affiliates could share an affiliate-enabled link that leads to a blog post rather than directly to a sales page.
So let’s say you have that video from before embedded in a blog post. You can ask your affiliates to help you drive traffic to this post through a deeplink because it’s converting well. They’ll love this, too, because it means more commissions for them.
Recap: Create a Marketing Plan to Promote Your Business Throughout the Year
Creating a marketing plan, either on paper or digitally, is one of the best things you can do for your online business.
After reading through this post, you should have a good idea of why! It’s an easy way to plan and promote both new and existing products and services and recycle the most successful marketing campaigns you’ve launched.
Don’t forget to:
Create a plan and set your goals ahead of time
Use both your own products and affiliate products
Take advantage of seasonal events and holidays
Build on success and recycle successful marketing campaigns
Create a promotion calendar
Share your promotions and successful content with your affiliates
Set your business goals for the new year and start planning so you can take action to accomplish those goals or even exceed them! For some extra help with creating your own marketing plan, check out my 12-month Cash Flow Marketing Planner.
Want to know what sets the ultra-successful apart from the wannabe entrepreneurs?
It’s not money, or brilliant ideas, or even powerful friends.
All of those things (and more) are nice to have, but they’re not a requirement of success.
What is a must-have, though, is a good attitude! Without the proper mindset, you’ll be constantly battling your own brain.
You’ll allow yourself to believe your ideas are no good
You’ll remain convinced that you aren’t smart enough
You’ll be certain that someone else did it (whatever “it” is) better
I don’t know about you, but all of this is pretty exhausting and quite frankly, a bit depressing. Trust me, I’ve been there plenty of times.
Before you know it, you’ll have talked yourself right out of launching your new program, asking for a JV partnership, or writing your book. In no time at all, you’ll be back at your day job, working away on someone else’s business because you don’t have the confidence to create your own.
I opened this post with the phrase “it’s all in your mind,” and this is so true when it comes to how you approach your business. If you’re not careful, you’ll end up sabotaging your own success.
Yikes!
A simple mindset shift can make all the difference. I wanna share three tips to help you confidently face each day and instead of secretly crippling your chances, sometimes before you’ve even begun.
Dress for Success
When we work at home, it’s easy to fall into a habit of wearing sweatpants and t-shirts to “the office”. After all, why dress up just for the dog?
But if you’re looking for something that results in an instant mindset shift in the right direction, ditch the sweat pants and break out the business casual attire. You’ll suddenly find you feel more professional, more confident, and probably a little sexier, too.
That last one won’t help your business, but it will improve your self-confidence. That’s also something that’s good to have in business!
Never Let Scarcity Drive Your Decisions
Too many would-be entrepreneurs operate with a scarcity mindset rather than approaching business from a place of abundance. In business, you should always think about doing more so you can achieve more.
Entrepreneurs should be prepared to take a certain amount of risk but also think of ideas to offset the cost of that risk. The way they think about money and opportunities to make money is different than the average person.
While most people may normally be in the mindset of staying within their means and using what the have, entrepreneurs look for solutions that will grow what they have so they can increase their means.
Turn Scarcity into Abundance
Whenever you catch yourself thinking negatively, work on reframing your scarcity mindset by turning “can’t” into “what do I have to do to make this possible?”
Rather than thinking, “I can’t afford to attend that event,” ask yourself, “How can I earn the money to invest in this trip?”
Rather than saying, “I have to do everything myself because I can’t afford to hire a VA,” remind yourself that your hourly rate potential is much more than you’d pay a virtual assistant. Then fill those hours you’re saving by outsourcing with money-making tasks of your own.
This is how an entrepreneur thinks. They look for opportunities for the future rather than settle for how things are in the present.
By reframing your thoughts, you’ll turn that negative talk into positive solutions that help you grow your business.
It’s easy to become overwhelmed by all the tasks of everyday life, especially if you don’t have any easy way of organizing them. Aside from a frazzled mental state, that stack of notes by the phone or stuck to the fridge could be the reason you’re late or forgot that ingredient you absolutely needed to finish dinner.
By the way, your babysitter canceled.
You forgot you volunteered for the bake sale this weekend.
Also, you promised yourself that you were going to start working out today, but the house is a mess.
So… good luck with everything life just threw at you!
Fortunately, there’s a simple solution to organize all that mental clutter keeping you from living your best life: a daily planner.
Table of Contents
How a Using Daily Planner Creates an Organized Life
When you think about a planner, you might be thinking of those things your teachers tried to make you use in grade school. And maybe it’s because they made us fill those out that planners have become so popular today.
Fortunately, planners have certainly evolved. Gone are the days of too-small spaces for your daily and weekly tasks, all in a boring little binder.
Say hello to fun prints, stickers, and to-do lists you’ll actually enjoy crossing off. You can easily customize your daily planner to keep track of whatever you want, so you can make sure you get done the things that are most important to you.
You can buy one that fits your goals, or you can find printable versions online. Some of them are even free!
When you regularly use a planner, you get to plan your months, weeks, and days in advance. There’s no wasting time trying to sort out what you should do next.
You can find that big, ugly task you’ve been avoiding and finish it first, allowing you to feel accomplished and ready to take on the rest of your day.
In the rest of this post, you’ll learn more about using a daily planner to organize your life and turn planning into a daily routine.
Why You Should Use Your Planner Everyday
Daily planners have become one of the best and most recommended ways to organize your life. There are so many benefits to using a planner every day, especially for your home and personal life.
Here are some of the top benefits of using a daily life planner:
Your life becomes more organized
While it’s not the only reason to use a daily planner, becoming more organized is definitely at the top of the list.
This is often what draws people to using a planner and what they gain the most from it. With a planner, you write just about everything down that’s happening in your life so you always know what you’re doing next and what you’ve done in the past.
In most planners, there are different calendar pages, including monthly, weekly, and daily layouts.
The monthly calendars are good for looking at your appointments and events at a glance.
Then there are the weekly calendar pages to flesh out your plans and schedule, and add tasks to be completed on certain days.
The daily planner pages offer more space for things like to-do lists and short journal entries.
By using all of these, you become more organized by not only knowing what you need to do and when, but also always having everything you need right at your fingertips.
You can set realistic goals and actually achieve them
Many people think of goals as dreams—something that would be amazing, but is farfetched and possibly unattainable.
However, a goal is something that you can definitely achieve if you put in the work. You should think of it as something you will work toward. The best types of goals are measurable and realistic, something you can keep track of in your planner.
Using daily, weekly, and monthly planners are amazing tools for setting your goals and actually reaching them. You can make lists of the goals you have, then for each one of these, make lists of what needs to be done. These are often known as task lists.
With everything right in your planner, you can check in daily, checking off any task that has been completed in order to achieve that goal. You can also easily make plans for what you want to achieve within a month and break those goals down into goals for each week with daily tasks.
You’ll see these lists whenever you are using your planner, so it further helps to motivate you. If you do your planning right, you won’t ever have to wonder about what you should be doing and when to work towards your goals.
Planners help you find clarity in your life
Are you trying to discover who you are, what motivates you, and what your biggest priorities are? Journaling is a great way to do that but you can also get these benefits from using a daily life planner.
As you start using your planner more often, you start discovering where your focus is. You might think you’re paying more attention to certain career goals, but instead, discover you have more of a passion for your creative endeavors based on your goals and aspirations.
This is a wonderful side effect of using a planner. You can gain more clarity about who you are and who you want to be.
Planners work great with daily journals
Speaking of journals, you can definitely combine them (bullet journaling is popular for having a journal and planner in one notebook) or use both as a part of your new daily routine.
Journaling—where you write down your memories, experiences, thoughts, and any ambitions you have—is also good to do every day. The planner is great for schedules and lists, while the journal can be for when you have more to say.
You’re able to improve your focus and productivity
Planners are often for personal and home life, but you can also use them for work and any area of your life where you need to be productive.
Perhaps you have a lot of stress in your life because your work has your stomach so tied in knots. You don’t have the time or energy to focus on family or your home upkeep.
This is where your planner comes in.
It not only helps you to manage your time better, but it will also help you to improve your focus and productivity, which in turn allows you to reduce some of that work stress. The benefits keep overflowing into other areas of your life as well.
Stress relief leads to a happier and more fulfilling life
Stress relief is a major health benefit of using a planner daily. Keeping your days organized leads to less stress because you’re no longer running around frantically because you forgot about a big project or that event you promised your friend you’d attend.
This can reduce triggers for anxiety and depression, help you relax more often, and is wonderful for self-care.
What to Track in Your Daily Planner
So what can you track in your planner? Pretty much anything. A simple online search can show you a treasure trove of all the pages you can add to your planner.
If you can’t find what you’re looking for in a daily, weekly, or monthly calendar template, find a blank template and customize it. A basic page set up can get you going if you’re not sure where to start.
Aside from daily tasks, you might want to track cleaning, shopping lists, to-do lists, vacation planning, child care, organizing, and exercise/health. Let’s go over how you can track a few of these.
Cleaning
Instead of looking at the clutter or dust in your home with dismay, schedule all the different things that need cleaning. You can pick a specific day to do it all, or pick one room or area that absolutely must get some TLC for each day of the week.
Your daily planner is also perfect for keeping track of more daunting tasks like spring cleaning or deep cleaning. Maybe one or two days a year can be dedicated specifically to donating the things you don’t use often.
Planners also don’t have to be all about what you still need to do. You can also make notes about some new cleaning methods or recipes you want to try.
For example, you could document how that window cleaner you’ve been using just isn’t working as well as it once did or that those homemade laundry detergent tablets made your sheets smell amazing.
Shopping Lists
If you dedicate one space to your shopping lists, ideally you won’t lose it or forget anything.
You can keep even more organized by separating your list by store or section of a store you plan to visit. That way you’ll remember to stop by the meat sale at the local grocery store, but head to the bigger store for canned goods.
You can make lists for
Back to school shopping
Movies you’re dying to see
Books you want to preorder or check out of the library
What summer clothes are going on sale soon
To-Do Lists
To-do lists are a staple of planners. There’s something calming about writing all your tasks down in one place. It’s like taking all the noise out of your head and placing it neatly down on the page.
Much like planning your day, planning your to-do list can help you sort your priorities and admit that some of those things weren’t as important as your brain insisted they were.
It’s extremely satisfying to be able to cross something off and watch your list shrink. Just be careful though—if you keep adding simple tasks just for the sake of crossing them off, you probably aren’t being your most productive.
Vacation Planning
This is one section where your imagination can run wild. You can start by making some lists of places you want to go and what you want to do. Add some pictures of beaches or museums you’re dying to visit.
Once you’ve settled on a goal, list some specifics:
What travel companies could you use or would you rather plan your trip yourself?
What are the things you absolutely must see or do and what would be a nice bonus?
What airlines are you considering?
Can you find any discounts?
What’s a realistic budget and how will you stick to it?
Every time you flip through your planner, you’ll be reminded of that dream trip and be more inspired than ever to make it happen.
Child Care
Raising children is hectic and your planner is the perfect place to organize all the things you need to do for them or get them to do. Keep up with appointments, plan chores for the kids, and keep up with due dates or field trips.
You can keep track of child care in your planner, such as for daycare, a nanny, or a babysitter.
If you drop your kids off every day, you can keep a list of important information like phone numbers, addresses, pick up times, snack regulations, or any other things you need to know.
If you have a rotating roster of babysitters, you can list their numbers and rates and keep a calendar tracking availability or when you’d like to plan a date night.
You can also use printable pages to write down important info to give to the babysitters. If you keep a base copy in your planner, you’ll never accidentally forget to mention something important.
Organizing
I’m sure you realize planners are good for organizing, but the first thing that comes to mind is probably simply taking what’s going on in your life in terms of schedules and appointments. If there’s only one thing you get from this post, I hope it’s that your planner can organize much more than that.
Think about what being organized means to you. This could mean having a place for all the miscellaneous stuff that doesn’t quite fit anywhere or it could be a place for organizing your thoughts or aspirations.
Maybe you need somewhere to keep track of projects or draft workflows and systems for your business. The possibilities for using your planner are endless.
Try journaling, meditation, or some ideas about how you want to organize the various areas of your house or life. Add in some DIY projects you can’t wait to get to or list the things you want to change in various areas of your life.
Exercise/Health
A daily planner is perfect when you’re struggling to keep track of healthy habits. Set up a meal plan, complete with a grocery list, and set up an exercise schedule. Maybe you want to keep track of your sleep schedule or make sure you take your vitamins.
You also keep track of gym days and rest days. Even if you have a gym membership, there are so many free resources online to use in your planner to create at-home workouts.
Here are a few more ways you can use your planner for better health:
How often you eat out
Track fruits and vegetable servings
Recipes you want to try
Workout videos or classes that look like fun
You don’t have to be perfect at everything all at once. You could start with drinking more water and walking for thirty minutes a few times a week and then add on more habits as these become easier.
As you gradually build up your habits, your planner is physical evidence of how far you’ve come.
Now that you understand a little more about why you should use a planner and what you can potentially include in it, let’s talk about having a daily planning routine.
Why a Daily Routine?
Building a routine will serve multiple purposes. The routine first motivates you to use your planner on a daily basis. It’s not uncommon to be excited about getting your planner set up, but then fall behind on it.
Your planner is most beneficial when you can use it on a regular basis, preferably every day.
This not only allows you to add more to your planner pages but to also check-in and look at the progress you have made so far. It really encourages you to stay productive and get more done, not to mention how much more organized your life will be.
Eventually, you won’t even have to remember to start practicing your routine. It’ll become something you instinctively perform.
Use Your Routine for Self-Care
Starting a daily routine with the planner can also become part of your self-care routine. Maybe you use the planner in the morning when having a cup of coffee or tea, or you meditate or do yoga before or after using your planner.
Through using your planner, you can create a daily routine that is better for your physical, mental, and emotional health.
Creating Your Daily Planner Routine
The first step to starting the daily routine is choosing what time of the day works best for you.
Ask yourself when you have a few spare minutes or when it would be most effective for you. If you’re writing to-do lists for each day of the week, then that’s naturally a good thing to get done first thing in the morning.
On the other hand, if you have more free time in the afternoon or in the evening, do what works for you.
Once you know when you want to do your planning, you can then decide if you’d like to include other activities in your planning routine. This might be writing in a journal, doing some creative activities, or maybe meditating and practicing mindfulness before you start your planner routine.
More tips to help you fit planning into your busy schedule and create a planning-friendly morning or evening routine can be found in my mini-course Creating a Planning Routine.
Tips for Setting Up Your First Daily Planner
If you’re working on your first planner, you might be a little intimidated and are not sure where to start. Luckily, planners are pretty easy to use and you’re free to use them however you like.
Once you have decided on the type of planner you want—whether it’s a store-bought planner or you’re using printable planner pages for a binder—you’re ready to start with the basics.
Fill Out the Calendar Pages
The first step to using any life planner is filling out the calendar pages. Start with the monthly calendar—input dates like birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays. You can then follow that up with any appointments or events you know about right now.
The monthly calendar helps you fill in the weekly calendar pages. Those are good for adding tasks of what to do each day of the week or expanding on appointments or important dates coming up.
You can then fill out some of the other more specific pages, such as daily planner pages for organizing your home or planning parties.
Write Down Some Goals
This is also a good time to write down some of your goals. Keep them simple and realistic, with just a few goals to start with.
After writing down each goal, come up with a broad list of tasks that needs to be done to achieve them. You can then narrow down these broader tasks to more specific ones and add them to different days and weeks of your planner.
Now you’re ready to get started with your planning routine! All that’s left to do is to use your planner daily.
Ready to start your first planner?
Even with all these suggestions, this is really just the beginning of all the things you could do with a daily planner. This is a truly customizable tool that you can use in any way that best suits your needs and lifestyle.
If you use a binder style planner, you have even more opportunity to customize to your needs. You can add or remove pages as your tastes change. Or maybe you want to try different page layouts until you find the ones that work best for you.
How you use your planner is up to you, but by tracking the different areas of your life, you can achieve a more organized and mentally calm state of daily living.
If you’re like me, you can plan out the perfect day in the morning, but then your plans go awry once it’s finally time to execute them. The reason for this is that we try to make decisions on the fly, and we’re too influenced by what feels good in the moment.
Nighttime is great time to make plans for the next day. Consider these ideas for effective planning at night and then following through with those plans.
What do you want to accomplish? You can’t make effective plans until you know what you’re trying to do. If you don’t know what your goals are in the short and long term, now is the time to set them.
Set aside time each night to plan the next day
Each evening, at a certain time, plan out what you’re going to do the following day. Do this with the same regularity as brushing your teeth.
Be ruthless with prioritization
Make sure to prioritize any scheduled activities. You only have so much time, so it’s important to make the most of it. Since there’s a hard limit to how much you can accomplish each day, work on the most important things first. You can determine the priority based upon your goals.
Ideally, your list will be pretty short. If you have 10 things on your list, that might be a little much. Stick to the most important 3-5 things. Can you imagine if you actually got 3 vital tasks completed each day instead of trying to float around the 50 things you need to do to achieve a big goal?
Once your biggest priorities are set, you can create another list for things that can be done after the items on the priority list are accomplished.
Make your evening decisions count
At night, it’s easy to decide that you’re going to go to the gym the following day. It’s easy to decide that you’re going to eat in a healthy manner. It’s during the day that you struggle to make wise decisions.
How many times have you planned on going to the gym at certain time, only to talk yourself out of it when the time came?
The solution is to make as few decisions as possible during the day. Make your decisions at night and then just focus your energy on executing during the day. Avoid giving yourself the opportunity to change your mind. Just believe that you made the right choice the night before.
You can defeat procrastination
You made good decisions last night, so there’s no reason to delay beginning your day. When you prioritize your activities, you can be confident that you’re spending your time well.
Your decisions when you’re decision-making powers are at their best at night. It’s obvious what you should eat tomorrow to be at your best. It’s obvious that you should go to the gym, read a chapter of a certain book, or meditate for 20 minutes. It’s much harder to follow through on them when that time comes.
Make your plan at night and then focus on executing it the next day. Avoid allowing yourself to make decisions regarding those items during the day. You already thought about them and made your decisions. There’s no reason to re-negotiate them.
Sit down and make a plan each night for the following day. Fight like mad to stick to the plan the next day. You’ll love the results!
Success is about enjoying what you have and where you are, while pursuing achievable goals. —Bo Bennett
Have you considered setting concrete goals for your health, life, or business? You’ve probably thought about it at the very least.
People who regularly set goals for themselves create a framework or a plan for their lives. If it’s just something small, having a goal to work towards puts you on a path to achieving something you want.
Everybody feels good about getting what they want, right?
Just thinking about your goals isn’t enough. It’s better to write them down so you have something physical that represents your intentions.
Some people live by this process and may even go a bit overboard sometimes, while others have never considered actually writing down their objectives.
It’s best to find a happy medium between these two ends of the spectrum. By determining short, intermediate, and long-term targets for your life, you are actually laying out your intentions.
Setting goals is a powerful step toward your intentions, rather that’s for self-improvement or to grow your business. If you’re not quite convinced yet, here are a few reasons why setting goals is better than not.
If you set goals and go after them with all the determination you can muster, your gifts will take you places that will amaze you.
Les Brown
Maximize focus
If you’ve ever had one of those days that just flies by without seeming to have accomplished much of anything (like me over the past couple days, yikes!), you have an idea of what a life without goals can be like. Drifting through life without a plan will likely lead you to wondering why you didn’t manage to accomplish more.
Fortunately, by setting aside some time to make a plan for what you want to achieve now, next week, next month, and even over the next several years, you can regain your focus and begin to account for more of your time expenditures. Having a target on which to focus will improve your likelihood of success.
Achieve better results
It’s true that goal setting isn’t 100% necessary for attaining achievements. You could have lots of successes without creating any short and long-term goals and objectives.
What’s important to realize about goal-setting is that it provides you with a solid target to measure your progress against.
The focus that comes from creating intentional life markers allows you to accomplish even bigger things because you’re able to measure your success based on your past placeholders. Your latest triumph will be like an ordinary goal on steroids.
Inspire motivation
Motivation is tricky (which is why I’m able to create an entire website around inspiring it, btw). No matter how much you may logically understand the need to accomplish something or to finish a task; your mind will often play tricks on you that keep you from taking the actions necessary.
The reasons for this are probably due to the fact that you are being motivated by factors outside yourself, such as meeting your client’s deadline or reaching a far-off desire. In order to give your motivation some much-needed oomph, you’ll want to make it more meaningful and internal to yourself.
Internal motivations are the things that matter most to you and that will have a profound effect on your life. Setting goals allows you to make the target something that is personally relevant, increasing the likelihood that you will follow through to the finish.
Stretch past your limits
Setting goals for yourself allows you to stretch your limits—limits that are often self imposed. How many excuses have you made for not doing something even though you know it would likely result in growth? More clients, a better product, or growth in yourself?
Growth does not occur if you continue to do the same things you’ve always done over and over. Without goals to reach for, timely objectives to meet and targets to surpass, you’re just standing still or, at best, coasting along.
If you truly wish to achieve more in your life, creating a goal plan will give you the push you need to make all your desires a reality.
Now that you understand why setting goals is important, hopefully you feel motivated and excited to jump into the creation of your life’s plan, or maybe just a plan for the next week. It’s okay to start out with goal-setting baby steps.
Positive thinking is a valuable tool that can help you overcome obstacles, deal with pain, and reach new goals.
Amy Morin
The benefits of goal-setting are immense and can move you forward in your journey faster than you might expect, whether your goals are for your own personal growth or for business growth. By developing a plan for your future with measurable targets along the way, you’re making the first steps in turning your thoughts into actions.
