It’s Monday morning you sit down at your computer to begin your week starting with your email, two hours later you are still fiddling with email and you have yet to make any significant progress on growing your business. No I didn’t watch through your window on Monday, this is pretty typical for solopreneurs. To get the most done with the time you have you it is imperative you have a plan. I know you hate plans they make you feel pinned in and you can’t stay focused on them. I have a plan to make it easier.
Helping Solopreneurs Create a Focus
Let’s begin with what your big picture is for the year. If you like words start writing with full emotion what you intend to reach for within the next twelve months, not a writer get our your crayons and put it in color or cut images out of magazines that represent that big picture for you.
Now step back and look at all the areas in your business that bring in your revenues. What do you offer? Grab a stack of index cards and write each service or product you offer on a separate card. Now grab just one of those cards and break down the numbers, you know how much does it cost and how much of it do you want to sell. Now what does that mean on a monthly basis how many must you sell? How many prospects must you get in front of to convert that many sales? Now write how many prospects = how many sales on the bottom of the index card for that offering.
Next step, what marketing strategies do you use to attract the prospects to that offering? Write each strategy on a separate index card. Now how many prospects do you expect you will attract with each strategy you are conducting? Write it on the strategy index card. Are your strategies attracting the number of prospects you need? Do you need to make adjustments? Is it possible that you are doing things that are not efficient? Go through this same process for each of your offerings.
Once complete lay your index cards out on the table with each offering across the top and the strategies underneath. Do you have some of the same strategies that are working for your different offerings? Do you see any other patterns in your work?
Now it is time to evaluate the best use of your time. What activities should be at the top of your list?
Okay next get out your calendar and block off time for the next week for those activities that bring you the biggest bang. To help maintain your focus create a visual with this information on it that you can keep visible. Maybe a corkboard or poster board with the big picture at the top and all of your index cards organized beneath. Keeping the info front and center will help you become strategic about your activities measuring what works and what doesn’t. Identifying where you need to improve your skills and what you do well, and making any necessary changes along the way.
No more Monday mornings killing two hours with little results, look at the big picture and the three activities you must do during the week to move closer to the big picture. This process will allow you to become efficient and effective with time each day, with a much stronger likelihood of actually achieving your goals.