Catch up on some related episodes:

How to feel confident in knowing what to focus on to grow your business (Path to Predictable Income Series)
The #1 strategy to ensure you're getting paid each & every month
The one thing holding you back from creating consistent income (Path to Predictable Income Series)

Today’s talking points:

It’s time to review everything we’ve learned in the 2024 Gameplan series to create your very own 12-month plan in the new year.

Download The 12 Month Boss Game Plan

Here is the number one reason so many business owners fail to achieve their goals…

They don't have a plan that keeps them focused in implementation mode.

As an entrepreneur, that translates into forgetting to promote your offers, forgetting to stay consistent in marketing, forgetting to prioritise making sales… and then you find yourself trapped again in that feast or famine cycle.

Or maybe you let your schedule just get so completely out of control, trying to juggle all the things that you realise you haven't had any time off in months.

Or maybe you find yourself constantly trying out new things, constantly chasing the dopamine hit, going after the next shiny object, and in turn, wasting tons of time, energy, and money instead of doubling down on what actually works for you in your business.

In our final part of the Your 2024 Gameplan series, we're taking all the insights from this past 4 weeks in this series and turning it into your 12 month gameplan for 2024.

Let’s dive in.

it’s all in the planning

As a business owner, our main goal is maintaining a consistent flow of clients and sales. That's the lifeblood of our business—it's how we grow, make an impact, secure our financial future, and achieve personal wealth. And I want to help you have that practical, profitable marketing and sales strategy for your business next year.

So we're diving into the final, part five of the 2024 Game Plan series. By now, I hope you’re feeling more clear and excited for 2024, knowing exactly what you want out of the year. I know that whenever I go through this strategic planning process, I get up from my desk feeling excited, inspired, and so determined to go after achieving my goals.

One of the most important parts of this process is making sure you actually have a plan to make those goals happen because a goal without a plan is just a wish. We must have a solid plan, or daily life can take over, and we might not take the consistent action needed to make those goals a reality.

Many business owners feel like they're on a revenue roller coaster—up and down, feast or famine. We want to avoid that by having a clear game plan. Our plan is based on a five-step marketing strategy - it's all about taking consistent action on the right things in your business to make more consistent sales and steady income.

In a nutshell, the five-step marketing strategy:

Attract: Reaching out to new audiences unfamiliar with your business.
Engage: Initiating contact to begin a relationship.
Nurture: Building trust and credibility with your audience.
Invite: Encouraging potential clients to make a buying decision.
Delight: Delivering an exceptional experience and fulfilling promises.

Go through each of these stages when working through the 12-Month Boss Gameplan workbook and you’ll have a clear plan for each stage. Once you do, we can map out your big picture gameplan for the next year.

nail your strategies first

When I go through this process, I start at a high level. It's not about diving into the tiny details just yet. For example, if your "Attract" strategy is podcast interviews, now isn't the time to figure out every specific step—like what to pitch or who to reach out to. Save those details for later when you're in implementation mode. Right now, we're looking at the big picture of what you're committing to in each of these five areas of your marketing and sales strategy.

Once you've committed to strategies for each area, we want to plan month by month for the next year. We need to answer some high-level questions to ensure clarity on what you'll focus on each month. This works well if you've already set your goals. If you haven't established the Attract, Engage, Nurture, Invite, and Delight strategies in your business, I recommend starting there before adding more goals. But if those systems are in place, we still want a game plan so that you know what needs to happen even while pursuing additional goals.

life before business goals

The first thing I do is plan for my time off. Life before business, always. This family time is non-negotiable. If you're working non-stop without taking breaks, you'll hit a wall. Block out this downtime—it's so important.

Go through your calendar for next year. Ask yourself big questions: What holidays do you want to take? Weeks off? Maybe shorter breaks like three or four-day weekends quarterly? Perhaps taking time for birthdays or family trips? If you don't plan these now, you might find yourself rushing later. I like to plan well in advance so that my business can run smoothly without me when I'm away. I don't want to return to chaos. That's why having this system in place is crucial. If you're a parent, review your partner's and kids' calendars too—checking everyone's schedule ensures you're prepared for what's coming up.

plan your sales

The next step in this process involves planning what you'll be selling and when. This is crucial because having a clear plan of which product, program, or service you're offering at different times of the year is key. Then, you want to ensure you've built in the marketing strategy to sell that offer. The process may vary for each business, but I'll share the process I use to figure out my promotional calendar.

Firstly, I make sure that I've marked in my calendar when I'm selling my signature offer throughout the year. This signature offer is likely your primary revenue generator, the one you're known for, and your business's speciality. I recommend planning at least two to four promotions per year—active promotions where you're informing everyone in your business ecosystem about its availability. If you're not actively promoting these, you might be missing out on revenue and clients.

My aim is to promote my new signature offer quarterly to my entire audience. This helps avoid the feast or famine cycle. Once your signature offer is in place (2-4 times a year), consider other types of offers in your business. You might have additional offerings to complement your signature one.

An upgrade offer for existing clients is another option. This offer could be a natural next step after they've engaged with your signature offer. It could be a VIP day, a coaching program, or something else that advances their journey with you.

Alternatively, you might have smaller introductory offers, easy to sell, easy to offer, and require less of your time. These could be smaller programs or services that act as a stepping stone before they invest in your higher-level offerings.

As you go through these sales cycles, I also want you to remember to focus on building your audience throughout the year. Audience building is as important as making sales. It's common for business owners to get caught up in constant selling without paying attention to audience growth. You need to continuously attract new people, or else there will be attrition in your audience over time. Without new people coming in, your audience might stagnate, leading to audience burnout. That's why I advocate for regular Attract work every month.

your plan will grow and adapt

As you progress through this process, things will start to become clearer and more streamlined. The goal is to make your processes as rinse-and-repeat as possible. As you move through each month of 2024, you'll have your scheduled time off, a clear understanding of what you're selling that month, and the strategy for attracting, engaging, and nurturing your audience towards that offer - the workbook will really help you with this!

Once you've outlined these aspects for each month, take a moment to review the goals you set previously in this series. Make sure you think about any 2024 goals that aren't covered by your marketing and sales framework such as extra projects or ideas.

Remember, this planning won't be flawless the first time around. There will be changes and adjustments along the way, and that's perfectly okay. This adaptability is part of the process. Plans are not meant to be perfect. It's about being focused and flexible. Plans are there to give you guidelines so that you can get started, you can take action, you can know that you have this space to adapt and adjust as you get back into the work.

That wraps up our 2024 gameplan series - I hope you loved it as much as I did!

Here is last weeks episode, part 4 of the ‘Your 2024 Gameplan’ series, in case you missed it - How to create goals you'll ACTUALLY follow through on