Learn to love the “P” word – PLANNING

Keeping all aspects of a coaching business organized and running smoothly is difficult at the best of times. And, if you don’t have a system or plan for what to do and when, organizing it all can be overwhelming. Even if you have an overview of where you want to be in five years, you still need a quarterly, monthly, and daily plan to coordinate administrative tasks, marketing activities, and content creation.

Let me tell you from experience that “winging” just doesn’t work. Sitting down to write a blog post, in front of a blank screen with no idea what to write, is a terrible and daunting feeling. You have a LOT to say and your audience wants to hear from you, so don’t be afraid of the P-word: PLANNING!

WHAT TO PLAN

There are 3 types of business planning:

1. Plan your goals

2. Plan your marketing strategy

3. Planning daily tasks

1-Goals

Setting business goals is always the first step in starting a business or starting a new phase/year in your business. Your business objectives will be the foundation for the rest of your business planning. Once you decide on, for example, an annual income goal, you’ll want to plan the steps you’ll take throughout the year to achieve that goal. When business actions are goal-based, they provide structure and meaning to daily activities, strengthen social connections, and help people get through difficult times.

2-Marketing Strategy

Planning your content marketing strategy starts with what you want to promote. Most companies know a year in advance what they want to promote. You may only have one training program to start with, and that’s okay. Start by planning when, where, and how often you will promote it. You’ll also want to think about different types of promotions for the same program—for example, a lead magnet, challenge, webinar, or email series.

Later, you can add additional training programs for your advanced clients and/or digital products that you sell for additional income. Then you’ll need to plan when and how you’ll promote each of those items.

3 daily tasks

Now that you have a plan for what you’ll promote and when, you need to break down the administrative tasks required to get your promotions implemented. For example, a webinar will need a registration and thank you page, a series of follow-up emails, time to write the webinar script (and record it, if it’s evergreen), and time to make slides, if you’re using them. .

You will need certain amounts of content for each of your promotions. Therefore, content planning should become part of your daily schedule. You won’t have to create content every day, but you should at least schedule when you will create it. Think about how often you want to share new content, and that will tell you how often you need to spend time creating it.

When I started blogging, I designated every Monday morning to write a weekly article. Sometimes it would only take a few minutes and sometimes it would take several hours. But it was done!

Creating an action plan or daily to-do list will help you stay organized and focused from the moment you sit down to work. You will know exactly what to do, without a doubt. You’ll know when you need to write blog posts, when to send emails, when to write new content, when to do your billing, and when to schedule your customer calls.

Some business owners like to use a 90-day planner to schedule their quarterly events, promotions, and general tasks. This gives you the big picture. Then they divide the tasks into monthly, weekly and daily.

HOW TO PLAN

become a customer

Imagine that you are working with a client who needs help planning their business tasks. What process will you give them for this? Now apply that process to yourself as if you were your own client.

As much as you want a full training calendar, leave some space to complete your administrative tasks. Running your business is just as important to sustainability as taking care of your customers, so give your business tasks, including content creation, the same priority. Blocking time is a popular way to schedule longer tasks, such as writing blog posts, recording videos or podcasts, or email marketing.

Set aside an hour or two, write those posts or emails, make the recordings, schedule, and then move on to the next item on the list. If you set aside enough time often enough, you’ll eventually start to have two or three (or more!) pieces of content ready to post as needed, which can alleviate some stress.

Eliminate writer’s block

Create a calendar that takes note of important issues or themes that occur throughout the year.

• What holidays inspire you to write content?
• Is there a big event coming up in your city or in your niche? Write about it. Interview panelists and event speakers.
• Are you planning the launch of your flagship product? Create and schedule special content around the release date.

USING PLANNERS

With all the organizing that needs to be done in your business, it helps to have what I call “mini planners.” These are planners that help you focus on tasks that are specific to a particular project in your business. There are planners for creating a webinar, producing a lead magnet, creating a product or course, as well as planning your content and social media posts.

The International Association of Professional Life Coaches® provides planners as part of their product line, because it makes perfect sense to use a planner designed to include only the tasks you need to focus on for a given project.

For example…

Tea 90 day planner– Plan for the next 90 days of blog posts, videos, social media posts, and email content. Includes pages for monthly and weekly action steps.

Tea Cash Content Planner– Guides you to create profitable content by covering 5 different sources of income for a coaching business and how to plan content to generate income from them.

Tea Product Creation Planner– It will guide you through the process of creating a product that you can use as a digital product that you can sell and earn some passive income, or give away as a gift.

Tea Private Coaching Program Planner: walks you through the essential steps to turn your proven system into a salable product that will deliver the results it promises to your clients.

In conclusion: Planning your business tasks, projects and sources of income will significantly increase the chances of success for your business. Using professionally designed planners by experts will save you time, organize your action steps to reach your goals, and ensure that key elements of your business activities don’t slip by because you didn’t know all the necessary steps involved.