We’re right in the middle of a series of episodes of Pep Talks for Side Hustlers where I’m going to take you behind the scenes of my strategic planning process – so be sure that you’re subscribed so that you don’t miss a step!
From setting big goals to getting into the weeds with data to planning out what I’m doing next and and when it’s going to happen, I’m going to break it all down for you, and share the insights I’ve uncovered along the way.
In episode 155, I shared with you some key metrics that you’ll need to pull together so that you can figure out where to focus your time and money in the upcoming year, and a formula for figuring out what to focus on based on the numbers.
In episode 156, we talked about how to survey our current email list to find out who is buying from us, who isn’t and what to do about it.
Then in episode 157, I shared with how to figure out if what you’re spending your time and money on is actually worth your efforts.
Now that we know all of that stuff, NOW we can set some goals.
My favorite method of goal setting comes from Chalene Johnson. She’s best known for her work in the fitness industry and that’s how I came to know her in my never-ending quest to lose the extra 30 pounds I carry on my 5’3’’ frame.
My best friend is a total TurboFire addict – she tried really hard to convert me but I’m just not that coordinated – but she did get me to read Chalene’s book PUSH with her so that together we could set some health goals and keep each other accountable.
After reading that book and doing everything Chalene told me to do, instead of losing 30 pounds – I started a business.
Yep, that whole thing took a total left-turn. Here’s how it happened.
Chalene’s strategy for goal setting is to set 10 goals in a variety of areas in your life, for example:
– Purpose / Career
– Marriage / Romantic Life
– Physical Health and Fitness
– Mental Health
– Friendships
– Faith / Spirituality
– Get Smarter / Personal Development
– Hobby / Recreation / Just for Fun
And then for each of those goals that you set, you think of actions a few actions you can take to accomplish those goals.
So for Physical Health and Fitness, I had a goal to lose 30 pounds, and the actions were to eat healthy at every meal, work out daily, a drink more water.
My Marriage goal was to stick to a weekly date night, friendships were to put effort into maintaining friendships that were important to me by initiating lunch dates, I had a lot of goals for our house, like painting trim white, getting new carpet, granite countertops and actual real bedroom furniture, like I felt like a 35 year old should have. I set goals to become debt free Dave Ramsey style.
So I had all these goals in all these areas of my life, and all these tactics listed out on how to actually accomplish them.
And here’s where Chalene’s system is pretty genius. You look at that whole list, and you think, “What’s ONE GOAL that I could accomplish that will make all of these other goals much, much easier to accomplish?”
It might be a goal that’s already on that list, or it might be a goal you hadn’t even thought of yet.
I started by thinking, what do I need to make all of these things happen?
The answer? More time, and more money.
Then I asked myself, “How do I get more time, and more money.”
The answer? By owning my own business and being my own boss.
And you know how when you know you’ve landing on something, it’s like a lightbulb moment? It happened at that moment.
Side hustle. Make enough money to quit your day job and then you’ll have the time to prepare healthy meals, work out in the middle of the day. You’ll be able to make as much money as you want and then you can pay off all your debt, do all the stuff to your house you want to do, and wear yoga pants all day.
Well what am I going to do? That I didn’t figure out until later as I was sitting in my office miserable at my day job.
Web design. WordPress. Freelance.
One one hand, it was a great way to actually avoid putting the effort into losing the weight, but on the other hand, I made every other single thing on that list happen by starting my own business.
Four years after setting that goal, here I am. I own a business and I’m my own boss.
And I’m currently working on the 30 pounds now that I actually am self- employed, by the way.
So when it comes to your strategic plan for your side hustle, you can use the exact same method to help you not only set goals, but to figure out where to focus your time and effort!
Here are the areas in which I brainstormed goals for myself this year. Notice I said Brainstormed, not Set. I’ll get to that in a minute.
But here are the categories – and if you want to see what the actual goals I brainstormed are, you can head over to shannonmattern.com/158 or pause this episode, scroll down into the show notes and click the link to this episode.
And as I share these categories with you, I want you to brainstorm goals based on the data you’ve already pulled together and what your numbers are telling you. Not just pulling things out of thin air because you want to – I mean, you can totally do that, it’s your side hustle, but that’s what we call shiny object syndrome. It’s fun to do, but it gets you nowhere!
Okay so here they are:
Products
Increase sales of existing products
Launch signature programs just once a year.
Open membership to SSH quarterly.
Reduce Cancellations
Optimize Upgrade Offer
Offer WPPP More Often
Update or retire outdated products
Improve existing products with customer feedback
Services
Book 1 Done For You Project to start every 3 weeks
Increase number of Retainer Clients
4 Website Consultation Clients a month
Engagement
Increase open and click-through rates for my email list
Create relevant, valuable content
Increase webinar registrations
Increase webinar show-ups
Affiliate Marketing
Increase revenue from Bluehost
Target people that don’t already have self-hosted WordPress
Increase revenue from Elegant themes
Review all affiliate relationships and see which ones may benefit my audience.
Podcast
Get Brands to sponsor the podcast
Get on other people’s podcast to promote the podcast
Merge podcast email with WP+BFF email and don’t separate the brand.
Increase ratings & reviews
Increase subscribers
Increase downloads
Team Building
Create a team to manage Done For You Projects
Add a full-time right hand woman.
Revenue
Increase revenue to $12,500/month
$5500 – Salary
$2500 – Taxes
$3500 – Expenses/Team
$1000 – Personal/Professional Development
Expenses
Cap Expenses at $4500/month
Create an Ideal Expense Budget and Make Cuts to realign resources
Personal/Business Development
Restart Business Coaching in January 2019
Attend 2 in-person Conferences
Join a Mastermind
Listen to 1 audiobook a month on personal development
Time Management
Take weekends off.
Schedule Time for Health & Wellness & Guard it like a bulldog.
Yoga Class
Crossfit
Grocery Shopping
Meal Planning
Dog Walking
Meal Prep
Stop working at 6PM (unless a workshop is scheduled).
Schedule 4 weeks off during the year.
Go out of town on vacation at least once a year.
Take the last week of December & first week of January off every year.
Systems/Processes/Planning
Develop a checklist for every process I do in Asana.
Stick to the processes instead of winging it every time.
Get Google Drive & Dropbox organized.
Schedule and Block Planning days Monthly, Quarterly and Annually and guard that time like a bulldog.
Leadership
Delegate
Follow up & Give Feedback instead of redoing work.
Make a better effort to take care of your people (sending cards & gifts)
Clients
Wow clients with our excellent customer service.
Put a client appreciation program in place (sending cards & gifts)
Continue to refine our DFY project process.
Relationships
Cultivate Relationships with Influencers That Serve My Target Audience to Generate opportunities to collaborate and serve our audiences
Energy
Don’t work til the point of exhaustion.
Keep a positive attitude.
How Can I?
Schedule and stick to your time off.
Technology
Evaluate all of my technology and decide if changes are needed (and if they are the best use of my time – cost/benefit).
Computer
Podcasting Equipment
CRM
So I have goals that I COULD accomplish in all of those areas. But the big question I need to ask myself before I just jump in and burn myself into the ground…
WHY?
Why do I need to do any of this. Why do I want to do any of it?
Why am I doing this instead of getting a traditional job and taking a paycheck?
And the answer is to support myself and live my dream life.
So what’s my dream life look like?
My dream life is to be able to do what I want to do whenever I want to do it without worrying about whether I can afford it or not. The 3 F’s: Freedom, flexibility and financial independence.
So if that’s my why, then it makes sense that I need to look at my revenue goal first and make sure it’s in alignment with my why.
If I told you I wanted to make a million dollars next year, that’s way more money than I need in Columbus, Ohio to be able to do what I want to do whenever I want to do it without worrying about whether I can afford it or not.
And maybe someday I’ll have a bigger vision where a million dollars will make total sense, and I think it’s floating around in my head somewhere, but my mind hasn’t yet expanded to the place where I can see what that is. It’s fuzzy around the edges, I know it has to do with empowering women in technology, but it’s not fully clear.
But that’s why I’ll go through this process every year, because that WHY is going to change.
There are two things on this list that stand out as I think about my why. Revenue, and Time Management.
So if it’s revenue that’s going to support my why, then looking at my list of all the things I COULD do, I need to pare it down to things that are going to have the most immediate impact on my revenue.
So for me, the number one thing that can have the biggest impact on my revenue is increasing the number of Done For You clients that I book every year.
And then in second place would be increasing the number of students in the Web Designer Academy, then number of Serious Side Hustlers members, but far and away, it’s one on one client work.
Which is in direct opposition to my other goal of working less and giving myself more time for self care by increasing revenue from passive income so that I have more freedom and flexibility – that doesn’t come from working with clients one on one.
And that, my friends, is where the PUSH goal comes in.
What’s the ONE THING I can do that will make all these other things easier? Or as my business coach Vicki Fitch likes to say, “How Can I?”
And the answer is very clear:
Build a team & Delegate.
That’s the domino that if I push it over, it will knock down all the other dominos faster and easier. It will make it easier to accomplish the 10 other goals I’ve set for myself based on the data and the number that we’ve already reviewed throughout this process. I didn’t just pick these goals out of thin air, they are based on what I’ve learned from the data.
I can’t do it all myself unless I don’t care about working 100 hours a week – and that’s not an exaggeration.
Having a team to help with client projects and a team that can do the things I’ve been doing so that I can focus on the things that only I can do, like record my voice on this podcast, is critical to accomplishing those goals.
And so that’s one of the lenses through which I’ll be evaluating that list of goals that I just created. The other lens is the data that I’ve just gathered up about what I’m currently doing for marketing and if it’s getting the results I want.
And I just want to mention that there is another option. I could decide that I like what I’m doing, that I’m satisfied with all of it and not make any changes. That’s a 100% okay answer after walking through all of this.
I could have created a plan that said, I’m satisfied, just keep doing what I’m doing. I’m not quite there yet because I’m working more than I want to work and making less than I want to make. But you might be there. You might not need a PUSH goal, that’s okay! But if you ever find yourself in a spot where you want to change something but you’re not sure how to make progress towards it, Chalene’s PUSH goal strategy is a fantastic way to help you get traction.
So right now you’re gonna want to hit subscribe because episode 159, I’m going to walk you how to turn these goals into an actual plan.
Today’s pep talk is brought to you by Bluehost. Go to www.shannonmattern.com/bluehost and get 36 months of web hosting for just $2.95 a month. That’s less than one trip to Starbucks a month – and if you’re anything like me, you’re at Starbucks more than that!
Then you can sign up for my Free 5 Day Website Challenge at www.shannonmattern.com/5day and I’ll show you step by step how to get started building your new website for your side hustle.
