Business Planning For Next Year
What To Consider When Business Planning For Next Year
2022 is just around the corner so now you must start your business planning for next year. What goals do you have? What do you need to do to achieve those goals?
Hi Trish Davies here and the focus for today is your business planning for next year. Now I know we have only just entered October, but it is the last quarter for this year. Therefore, before you know it time will slip away and 2022 will be upon us so you must be prepared.
That preparation starts now, and it was a topic that came up last night in my monthly members mastermind. The last 18 months have be traumatic for life in general. Lives have been ruined, businesses have folded, and panic has taken over.
Hopefully next year will be the year that things start to come back together. I am not saying that life will get back to normal next year but by the end of it normality will start to reappear. Just in time for 2023 which when you think of it is only 15 months away.
Are You In A Transitional Stage In Business?
Through talking to my members last night, I soon realised that I am not alone in respect to business. It soon became apparent that we were all in some what of a transitional period for our businesses.
In respect for myself I am coming to the end of a year long project in renovating myself. I can’t believe it is coming up to the anniversary of my relocation from the Australian mainland down here to Tasmania.
That project is coming to an end and when I look back I am proud of what I have achieved. More recently I have had a lot to deal with respect to family which has been very traumatic. Hopefully that all is starting to stabilise which means I can get my head down to business once more.
In respect to my members, they all had their own obstacles and hurdles to overcome. Time constraints, product creation, clarity on what they wanted to achieve and just taking time out.
These were all reasons, not excuses, why they felt their businesses were in limbo. Things like this happen in life and it is easy to get down on yourself, putting pressure on yourself.
Frustration creeps in along with a drop in the levels of motivation that you have. My advice to you is to not beat yourself up as your own circumstances, whatever they are, will dictate things. Sometimes there are things that are simply out of your control.
The good news is that there is something that you can do about it, and it all starts now. Now is the time to start your business planning for next year. This last quarter could be the most important quarter for your business.
Business Planning For Next Year
This last quarter can be the springboard for success in 2022 and beyond if you start your planning now. I know that you may have a business that relies on Christmas, but that planning should have be done months ago. It should be just a matter of executing the plan you have in place.
Now it is time to repeat that exercise and map out what you want to achieve in 2022. Therefore, I am going to share four things you should consider for your business planning for next year.
There is a saying that I have shared hundreds of time over the years. That is if “you fail to plan then you plan to fail”. Your business will never gain any traction and momentum, it will struggle. Planning gives you the following benefits.
Saves Time – If you have a plan in front of you then you know what you are doing. You are not constantly trying to wing it and produce ideas on the fly.
It Gives You Focus – This is closely related to the previous point. Your focus will be on the task you need to complete week in and week out.
Avoiding Huge Mistakes – You will make some mistakes, even if you have a plan, which is normal. However, your plan will help you avoid huge and catastrophic mistakes which could ruin you and your business.
Keeps Your Organised – Your plan is your blueprint that you can refer back to whenever you see fit. Really you should keep at least a weekly eye on where you are.
Business Planning For Next Year – What You Should Consider
When I host my members mastermind there is one thing I always emphasise. That is creating content with the right message that connects with your audience. Your audience are the people who pay you but only if they know, like and trust you.
Content marketing has never been as important as it is now, but it is something that many businesses overlook. What you publish online reflects you and your business and your potential audience will notice just that.
You will have your revenue goals and the direction you want your business to follow in place. Content marketing is part of your overall marketing strategy and I feel one of the most important strategies to execute.
Here is how content marketing fits into your business planning for next year so that you can achieve your financial and business goals.
Analyse Your Content
Right now, you have nine months of content that you can analyse to see what has worked and what hasn’t. You will have multiple communication platforms such as your authority website, your social media profiles and other business related pages or groups.
It is time to define if your messaging is on point or needs some attention. To do this look at the following key points.
- The content that grabbed your audiences attention.
- What content was liked and shared?
- Your audiences habits. When were they online?
- Were there specific days when you had more engagement?
- What was your audiences favourite content format? Blogs, videos, info graphics, images etc?
Analyse all the above and start right now to make the changes you need or to scale up what is working. By the 1st of January 2022 you must know what content to create for the year ahead.
Define Your Content Marketing Goals
Content marketing encompasses many different objectives that you want to achieve. It could be that you want to develop your social media profiles more. Alternatively, it could be you want to increase your following and the engagement with that following.
Look at how often you are posting your social updates, your blog posts and your videos on YouTube. Do you need to increase the amount of content you publish? Here are the three areas your content marketing should focus on.
- Awareness/Engagement
- Lead Generation
- Sales Conversion
WWWWW
No this is not some elongated prefix to a website address. I stands for 5 critical components that you must define. They are who, what, when where and why and should be used to define the following information.
- Who is my target audience?
- Where do they hang what platforms do you need to have a presence on?
- What frequency should I post my content?
- What content do you need to create?
- Who will create that content? You or an outsourcer?
Create Your Content Marketing Plan & Execute It
Now you have gone through the first three sections this last section is creating your content marketing plan. You will have a clarity on what you must do and why you must do it.
Create a weekly schedule and then constantly analyse if it is working. It should do if you have done the groundwork. Then keep executing that plan down the finest detail.
Content marketing is just one cog of the business planning for next year. I am preparing myself for a big year in my business and content is certainly going to play a huge part. My mastermind members will follow suit because they know that audience is critical to the success of any business.
Helping you build your authenticity, authority and audience.
Trish Davies
Build Your AU
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