The #1 Thing You'll Want to Identify BEFORE Creating Your Quarterly Plan

When someone asks you if you’re ready for a new quarter, a new month, a new week, a new day, or a new year, how does that make you feel? Not so good, maybe? When you take the time to learn how to map out the steps you need to take to reach your goals, you’ll begin to feel empowered! Planning the work and working the plan is what removes uncertainty from the equation. It’s what empowers you to respond - YES, I’m ready for the new day, week, month, quarter, or year (a little passion doesn’t hurt either).

The #1 thing you’ll want to identify BEFORE creating any plan is your gap. Your gap is what you need to know, learn, do, and become before you can achieve the goal you’ve set for yourself.?

Before you start feeling all “less than” because you’re identifying your gap, let us tell you that EVERYONE has a gap! You are not alone. You are not broken. You are not defective. Your situation is not as unique as you might like to believe it is. Believing we’re the “only one” who is in a certain situation is a defense mechanism brought on by fear that leads to blowing things way out of proportion and, ultimately, procrastination. Too many dreams fall by the wayside because people are creating the wrong kind of stories in their heads and believing them.

Many people have big dreams, and they focus on that faraway version of themselves to such an extent that they become paralyzed with fear and doubt. Focusing on how far you need to go creates a feeling of hopelessness and defeat. The trick is to identify your gap and create a step-by-step plan that will take you from where you are now to your next milestone. Notice we didn’t say that it will bring you to your ultimate goal - realizing the big goal takes time - conquering your milestones allows you to fill your gap over time so that you can get closer and closer to realizing your dreams.

Your quarterly plan is a milestone within your annual plan. Quarterly planning allows you to focus on what you need to do for a short period of time and achieve wins along the way.

Let’s say you love to cook and want to be a chef, but you’re discouraged because there are so many chefs - award-winning chefs - Michelin Star chefs even. If you focus on that, it’s easy to wind up feeling like there’s no reason for you to pursue your dream. You can come up with one hundred reasons why you’re not going to make it with that kind of competition. The thing is that you aren’t in competition with those people - you don’t have to compete with anyone!?

What you need to do is focus on what lights you up and bring that out into the world. Success starts at the grass-roots level, not up in the stratosphere. It’s all the little steps we take that make success possible. Don’t believe me? Salt & Straw has a great story about this very thing. Look at Salt and Straw’s story, and you’ll see what we mean.

Identifying the gap between where you are now and where you want to be, allows you to map out the steps you need to take to achieve wins along the way. Planning is great! However, planning alone will not get you there. You’ve got to work the plan - you’ve got to execute. Executing is about more than following the steps; it’s about gathering intel on what’s working and what’s not. Getting into action allows you to go deep into your work and gain expertise. It’s through nuanced iterations and optimizing your plan based on the intel you collect that enables mastery.?

We work with our clients every quarter to help them develop plans that focus on the right things to allow them the best chance at achieving their goals. If you’ve never created a quarterly plan, here’s a basic framework:

1. Identify your overall goal for the next 90-days.

Identify your gap.Why Time Is The #1 Factor in Optimizing For Business SuccessWhy Time Is The #1 Factor in Optimizing For Business Success

1. Identify the solution.

Once you have those three things identified, list out the steps that you need to take to fill the gap and achieve your goal. Being realistic is important here. We’re looking at a 90-day period of time. You’ll want to ensure that your goal isn’t so big that you cannot complete the steps within that time-frame. We recommend breaking things down by month:

1. What will you complete in month 1?

• List your tasks for Week 1
• List your tasks for Week 2
• List your tasks for Week 3
• List your tasks for Week 4

Follow that process for each month and get those tasks onto your calendar so that day by day, you’re chipping away at the steps you need to take to close your gap.

Our?Marketing Methodology Workshop?kicks off on September 27th, and you don't want to miss it!

How would it feel to ditch the marketing overwhelm so you can spend your precious time growing your business?

Or, to build out your custom marketing framework and create a simple-to-follow system to achieve your business goals in three easy steps?:

1. Begin With The End in Mind:?Learn how to connect with your ideal client on an emotional level based on what they want most. Typically, entrepreneurs are lacking clarity in communicating what they offer. On Day #1, you’ll be taught how to determine the content that will lead your prospects to want what it is you have to offer.
2. Learn the A-B-C Method of Converting Prospects to Clients:?Outline the right events and activities for the year that will provide you with a sustainable lead generation system. Your marketing plan should bring in qualified prospects, not just more prospects. We’ll explain the difference and show you how.
3. Build a Streamlined, Effective, Flexible Marketing System:?Create the content that leads the right prospects to the events and activities you identified during the annual marketing planning session. Discover how to use content to overcome objections and educate to provide value to your prospects and establish your expertise. Learn how to use world events to your benefit.

Click Here to Register for The Marketing Methodology Workshop

We share valuable content LIVE inside the?Empire of Unstoppable Women Facebook Group?and on the?Encore Empire LinkedIn Page.

We know you're busy, so if you missed last week's value bombs, you can watch the replay here:

In the Facebook Group: A Marketing Plan is More Than Social Media Posts and Vanity Metrics

On LinkedIn:?A Marketing Plan is More Than Social Media Posts and Vanity Metrics

Why Time Is The #1 Factor in Optimizing For Business SuccessHave you ever heard that if you simply post X number of times on the “right” platform at the “right”?time, you’ll gain a following and be able to make sales?

Yeah, there’s so much more to it than that!

One of our favorite things to do is debunk the myths that litter the online entrepreneurial community, and this is one of the big ones.

Enjoy!

Episode 24: What Comes Before Hiring Help? (This Before That Series - Part 2 of 3)

In this second episode of our "This Before That" series, Carmen Reed-Gilkison and Deirdre Harter are discussing what you need to have in place before you consider hiring help.

The purpose of this series is to give you guidance on what to focus on and when in your business. Many entrepreneurs believe that they should hire help as soon as possible, and that's simply not the case. Click here or on the image below to listen in to learn why.

We Are Committed to Your Success!

Deirdre Harter, CPA, and Carmen Reed-Gilkison, Certified OBM & Whole Person Coach, are business strategists and co-founders of?Encore Empire?where we take the guesswork out of scaling your online business for results you can’t get with any other coaching program.

We work with our clients through our group program,?Encore Business Incubator, or our two-on-one laser-coaching program,?Empire Builder, to customize a success strategy that best fits their needs.