Build an Annual Strategy for Your Business

In today’s tutorial, I’m going to walk you through how to build an annual strategy for your business. You’ll find step-by-step instructions on planning a stellar and profitable year. This exercise is an excerpt from the best-selling Your Best Year 2018: Productivity Workbook and Online Business Planner.

Just look at how online entrepreneurs are growing faster and profiting more every day because of Your Best Year 2018 …

Trust that I’m not sharing testimonials to sell this book to you, but rather show you why it’s a MUST-HAVE for your business. In fact, the testimonials I’ve received are only the tip of the iceberg. People aren’t leaving feedback because they’re too busy thinking about themselves and seeing their businesses in a whole new light. That’s as it should be.

Below is just ONE of the exercises I’ve created to help you reach the next level this year.

Build an Annual Strategy

Your Best Year plan is designed around the upcoming calendar year and your business’ strongest season. This strategy enables you to keep your priorities in order of importance: Your life then your business. It will not only help you eliminate the scramble, it also guarantees you’ll improve your results and enhance your career.

First, look at the coming year and identify where you’ll need time off, such as summer vacation, winter holidays, important dates, back to school, etc. List these special events on your calendar before listing business-related projects or promotions.

I’m not out of the game/not working when you see personal notations, but it’s important to bring awareness to the events to ensure I leave plenty of space for them.

For example, I tend to go stir-crazy in February, and it messes with my emotions and my outlook. I made note to plan a long weekend away that month. I like to spend a lot of time with my children during summer break, so I made note of when school’s out and back in session. I love to take December at a slower pace so that I can shop at leisure and bake for days without worrying about my schedule.

Notice that these personal occasions are on the calendar long before any product or promotional launches, and you can see my year already starting to take shape. I’m obviously not going to launch a new course or host a busy promotion in December (or worse, as a last-minute scramble for business) because I’ve already claimed white space in my calendar that month. I can set up the rest of the year to ensure I get time off.

I’m always looking for ways to improve my work – life flow. When I notice something I love or dislike about my schedule, I take note. Some examples are:

• I dislike projects that drag on for longer than three months
• I’m desperately craving a retreat/getaway at this time
• I’d like to purely focus on the family during this holiday or occasion
• Take a personal day once a month

Strive to constantly gain more intel on your routine and schedule. The creative energy you spend in this business is an expensive fuel to burn. If you don’t bring awareness to and continually replenish that energy, you’ll quickly gas out and fail to meet your goals.

The next thing you’re going to add to your calendar is your busier seasons. If you have an existing business, you can check your annual statistics for the months where you get most traffic. If not, you can use my examples as a guide.

It is the nature of business to have hot and cold seasons, most do. This technique is in place to help you utilize those seasons to their fullest. For example, it seems like everyone is on the internet in January, whereas in February, nobody’s online. There will be plenty of average months in between, but it’s important to take note of the high and low tides in particular.

Money Makers

With full awareness of your personal schedule, as well as busy and slow seasons, it’s time to plug in the money makers. There are many different ways your business can earn money, but I’m going to advise you to specifically name three to six money makers. These will be the larger promotions or projects that anchor your entire year.

When scheduling your money makers, you’re going to naturally avoid the slow seasons and steer clear of your personal occasions. 

So much is revealed when big projects are added to the annual calendar. Now you know when you need to be working on what. Rather than be stifled by the slow seasons, you can use them to your advantage. You can start prepping, promoting, and creating excitement around the next big event. You can make your best seasons even better. With this big picture in mind, you will know when your efforts will be rewarded.

This calendar will also help you to determine when to stock up on inventory, when to work ahead, when to take a break, and so on and so forth. Your Best Year is designed to help you pinpoint what to work on, this calendar helps you define when.

Your business rises and falls according to the effort you invest. When you know your seasons, you can create your own peaks and crest rather than become victim to them.

Use the image below to plug in your personal time, seasonal tides, and money makers.

Your Best Year is HERE!

My friends, there’s never been a book about online business like this before. Your Best Year is the *only* workbook on the market that encourages a fluid long-term plan designed specifically for online entrepreneurs. I did four specific things to exceed my own wildest dreams last year. I made …

• My goals resolute,
• My strategies specific,
• My system efficient, and
• My action plan productive

You’ll get a refresher on the fundamentals: you’ll review what’s not working, identify what needs to change, challenge your limitations, and figure out what to focus on. You’re going to ask the question that shaped this book: how much better can it get? From there, I took my six-figure earning, online business strategies and packaged them into a revolutionary planning system anybody can use.

Get ready to have your best year in business!