KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST
- Think about everything that went well in the year, and how they made you feel. If you need to, scroll back through emails and social media and make a note of everything good that happened. At the same time, make a note of the things that didn’t go so well.
- It’s also important to make a note of the things I loved in the previous year. These may be completely different to the things that went well, but it will give you a chance to see what you want to do more of in the year ahead.
- When analysing your metrics, think about money. What did your business earn? Did you achieve your goal? What services made you the most money? How many customers have you sold to?
- It’s also important to think about your social media numbers. How many followers have you gained? Has your engagement rate increased? How big is your email list?
- When thinking about next year, think about what you want to be reviewing at the end of the year. How do you want your business to look? What do you want your personal life to be like? What would you like to achieve? Remember to dream big as nothing is out of reach!
- Once you have thought of your goals, who do you need to be in order to make this happen?
- It’s also worth thinking about what you need help with in order to achieve your goals.
THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…
No matter where you are in your business, the New Year is a great time to review everything you’ve done and set goals for the year to come. Think about monetary goals, social media goals and even personal goals that you want to look back on at the end of 2019.
HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISS
- Reviewing The Year You’ve Had – 03:46
- Metrics, Numbers and Stats – 08:15
- Planning for Next Year – 12:57
- Achieving Your Goals – 20:00
LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY'S EPISODE
- Link to Worksheet
Transcript below
Hello and a really warm welcome to Episode 42 of the social media marketing Made Simple podcast. And I am your host Teresa Heath-Wareing. Wow I can’t believe we’re in December already and I feel like everything is starting to slow down. No one wants to do anywhere. Everybody just wants to get on with the amazing Christmas cheer and you know what happens in my business in December is because there’s a huge part of the business that deals with clients. Often the clients start to naturally want to wind down as well. Anything new. We don’t do until the following year or we don’t have any particular meetings coming up in December. So for my business typically December has been a quiet month which is no problem to me whatsoever because as you can imagine with the family and Christmas and my daughter breaking up it’s hard work trying to do of things so I am very grateful for the fact that December’s a little bit quieter. The other reason I’m super grateful is because in December I obviously like to review where this year has taken us what we’ve achieved and then look to next year and focus on where I want to go what dreams and aspirations I’ve got. So today I wanted to do a podcast episode that focused around this.
I’m wondering have you already done this yet in your business or do you normally do this. Do you take time at the end of the year to really look at where you’ve come from what you’ve achieved and then make those amazing goals for next year. If you haven’t I highly recommend that you do. Because sometimes we forget what we’ve done and we always focus on like the last thing and if the last thing was particularly great or you know wasn’t as good as you would hope. Then maybe you’ll be feeling like you know what
this year hasn’t been what I wanted it to be. But actually you know I can’t remember what happened two weeks ago let alone back in March or June or whatever. So it’s really good to review where you’ve come from and then let’s look forward. As you know I am a big fan of making goals and plans and dreams and having a real focus of where I want to take my business because at least then if you’ve made that intentional you’ve made that focus then at least you’re looking towards it. If you don’t have a clue where you’re going in your
business or what you want for it then you’re kind of just walking a path of.
It’s like trying to get somewhere without that map but you don’t even know where you’re actually trying to get to. So today I’m going to talk you through the kind of process that I go through and to help you as well because I’m going to be covering quite a bit. I’ve actually put together a worksheet that you can work through at your own leisure and fill in all these bits that I’m going to explain to you how I use that obviously on this podcast and you can go and get that in the show notes. So if you head over to www.teresaheathwareing.com/42 as in the numbers then on there you’re going to find an option to download this kind of worksheet so you can work through and it has a few extra bits on there as well. Okay let’s get started. So either grab a pen and a piece paper to be Jotting things down or if you’re busy doing something like I normally am with a podcast like said you can head over and get the show notes later. So the first thing I do is I review the year we’ve had because it’s really hard to think about where you want to go if you don’t know where you’ve been and you don’t know what position you’re in right now. So what I first start with is a bit more of a qualitative I guess research on myself. And these are kind of questions that I just write answers to. So I think about what went well in the business and I try and highlight all the various things that happened in the year and you might have to go back and look at your calendar or emails or you know just one thing I do I go back and look at my social media feed which actually is really helpful to remind myself what happened this year because like I said come back to March or whatever. I can’t remember a single thing. So I think about what went well this year what events that I attend that I liked what things that I achieve where did I speak. What podcast interviews might have had all those kinds of things. I think that was brilliant. I loved that. Then on the flip side I think about what didn’t go so well.
What happened in the business that I thought wow that’s a shame that wasn’t what I thought was going to happen or that was something that I didn’t like or that didn’t go so well or the launch didn’t go so well or whatever it might be.
So have a think and it is important to review the things that didn’t go so well. We do want to dwell on them. We don’t just sit there and think gosh what a terrible failure I am because this thing went wrong. But you do just want to recognize the fact of that didn’t go so well because nothing is ever that awful as long as we’ve learned from it. If we’ve learned from that thing that went bad then that had its purpose and it’s definitely worth making sure that we look at those things and acknowledge them. The next thing I write down is what did I like doing the most. Now there’s a big difference between what went wow and what did I like. Because something could have gone really well. But actually to know what that isn’t that fun or I didn’t enjoy it very much. So I write down what did I love. What was brilliant about the business. What parts of the business did I enjoy the most. What sort of things really made me happy and made my heart sing. And I write those down because you know what when I’m planning next year I want more of those things.
The other thing I write down is what did I set out to achieve last year that I didn’t achieve because actually when I think about back to my assistant I had a planning meeting at the end of 2017 to talk about 2018 and there were definitely things on that list that we just didn’t do this year we just haven’t got round to all things changed and no longer was that thing that we put on the list to do appropriate or correct or whatever the reasons were. But it’s always good to sort of go What did I think I was going to achieve and what didn’t happen. And again you might write those things down and go but actually it was the right reason they didn’t happen. Or you might write those things down and go I need to make sure they happen on 2019 also put down the reasons why you didn’t think may happen. So was it you. Were you holding yourself back. Was there a logistics thing. Was it. You didn’t have the right person. What were the problems that made those things not happen. Because again if you’re going to put back on your list for next year we really need to have a think about how we can solve those problems and how we can make sure that next year you don’t have the same problem. And then the last sort of questions I asked myself in this section is how did I feel about last year. What sort of feelings came up in the year when was I feeling particularly happy or when was I feeling particularly motivated and energized. And then I think about what fears came up for me. What fears held me back. What fears stop me from doing things or affected my business or made me not achieve something. So I try and have a think about the kind of emotions both positive and negative and think about how they might have affected my business because if you’re anything like me then they will affect your business. My emotions really do affect a how much work I do what I achieve what I attend and go to what I put myself forward for. So for me this is a key area to think back. We’re still reviewing this year and now we’re going to move on to the metrics and the numbers and the kind of stats and facts and things. I know there can be a little bit boring and you do have to do a bit of work to dig them out but I promise you they are essential. So again to give you some of the ideas that I do when I’m reviewing my metrics for the year I obviously look at things like money. So what has my business made. What did it make each month. How much do I spend. Have I achieved my goal. What sort of things made me money. Was it products or services. And I look at things like how much of I sold of what. So for instance if I have different services or different products. What was the best seller. What did most people want. I also try and think about how many customers of I sold to. So this is especially good if you’ve got a product you know and you can literally go. I’ve had 20 customers buy 50 products or whatever it is it just helps you kind of understand how that’s made up because actually you could have sold more in a magnet but actually to less people. So you just need to be aware of these different things. I also look at what makes me the most money and when I’m doing that I look at things like obviously I have a team and I have to pay out for the team so well though I might bring a client in that looks very profitable because it’s a large amount of money actually. If I’m having to use some of the more expensive team members or it’s a lot of work for the team members to do. Did that make me money. Was that worth my while and was it worth doing. Sometimes I think we get really kind of blindsided by the fact of how much something is and you’re looking at thinking why this client’s bringing in this money but actually a few years ago I hate saying this but I’ve sacked a client. Sounds awful and I had never done it before and I don’t. Well I don’t intend on doing it again but one of the considerations about that client was even though at the time I think they were probably the highest paying client the amount of work we did for them that went above and beyond what we should have done for them actually made them the least profitable client. So initially you could look at them and think oh yeah they. That’s where I get a lot of money from. But actually it cost me lots of money in terms of trying to manage them both time and money on the team. So I try and have a look at that. I try and break down those things. The other key metrics that I try and record at this point and not only is it good to see where you are now but obviously you’re going to want to record them for when you’re doing this next year if you want to look at things like your marketing metrics how many Web site visits am I getting a month. How many social engagements Am I getting. What am I actually achieving in terms of page likes or likes on my Instagram or whatever. So make sure you write those follower numbers down. Think about things like how big is my email list but also go into a bit more detail of what rough percentage. Am I getting for my open rate or my click through rate. So I really want you to kind of dig down on any of those key type metrics that you complete from your business. And of course they’re all going to be different so some of the metrics I look at are podcast downloads for instance you might look at YouTube views or video views on Facebook so have a think about your own business and what key numbers can you write down. Because again it’s really going to help you review where you’ve come because actually the podcast for instance by look at where I started. Obviously the beginning year I didn’t have the podcast and now look at how many people are downloading it. It’s you know it’s fantastic it’s awesome so I’m really kind of keen to make sure that we get these numbers down but also then I can see where I am that I can measure going forward.
Okay so once you’ve got all that down hopefully you’ve kind of really thought about this year you thought about what went well what didn’t go well where you’ve made money what your marketing has looked like obviously think about you know generally the whole year if there’s anything else that we’ve missed. Make sure you write that down like that every business is different you’re possibly going to have some of your own things. I also look at things just quickly when I think about it. I also look at things like what events did I go to. How much money did I spend on them. And is it worth doing it again. I think it’s really important to think of things like that as well. We’ve done our review and spent some time seeing what we thought of this year. Now let’s think about next year. So next section of this worksheet or writing down these notes. The first thing I want you to think about is you are sat back and it’s December 2019 and you’re reviewing the year that’s just gone by. If I could wave a magic wand what would you be reviewing. What would you be writing down about what went well and what you achieved and when I ask you to think about this and think about okay the years just gone. Wouldn’t it be amazing if I could sit there and say this happened that happened. I achieved this I achieved that.
And you know what I want you to dream big huge massive because I don’t want you to limit yourself in any way.
Now I did this last year I made some wild dreams about podcast downloads are by income and you know what. I haven’t met some of those achievements I haven’t achieved those things I set out and I’m not the slightest bit disappointed. I am positive that if I had set myself a more reasonable goal that I probably wouldn’t have even got what I’ve got now because the fact that I was pushing so hard for the bigger goal made me do probably better than I would have done if I hadn’t have set that goal. So for me why not dream massive why not dream big but those big goals down there and let your imagination run riot. Think about all the things you want in your business think about whether you want a new team whether you want a certain income whether you wanted to start a YouTube channel or create some new content. For me speaking is huge for next year. That is very much on my board very much on my plan. I obviously do a lot speaking anyway but I want to do loads of speaking and I want people to know that they can ask me to come and speak anywhere. Sometimes I fear that people think ah you know maybe not. She won’t do it but for me speaking is my goal. So you know what if there is someone out there puting on an event and you think I would be a good speaker then by all means get in touch. I would love to hear from you. Side note sorry. Let’s get back to it. So you know think about all those things that you want to do and write them all down. And I want you to spend some time on this because the slightly woo woo side of me that loves the whole manifestation and the universe and you know those vision boards and those goals going forward if you know that’s what you want then subconsciously our mind looks like for things that are going to help us get those things they’re going to look for opportunities that maybe we might have been closed down to previously. And I don’t want to worry about how this is going to happen. I don’t want to sit there and think well I don’t. How on earth I could make that amount of money or I don’t know how on earth I’d get an office or how I’d get a team speak on the stage it’s such an such event. I don’t want to think about that at this point in time. All I want you to think about is in my wildest dreams this time next year how do I want my business to look. What do I wanted to have achieved. What personal goals did I want to achieve.
I want you to go wild and write them all down and as you’re writing them down I want you to think about how is this making you feel. Now I’m going to be so completely honest with you at this point. I was at James Wedmore’s events and I was talking to one of his coaches and she was asking me basically what what is my biggest dream.
What what does that look like or what is one of my dreams. And I was talking about the fact that I got I can’t believe I’m going to tell you this but let’s go anyway.
So I was talking about the fact of I’ve been social media marketing world a few times now and after someone spoke someone like Amy Porterfield or Jasmine Star some of the big guys you know they’re really kind of pinnacle people in our business when they’ve spoken. They answer questions in the room and the room’s packed by the way. Like literally packed. And then because there isn’t enough times there’s never enough time they say. And you know Jasmine and Amy both such lovely people like this they say right wait for us at the front and we’ll answer any other questions. Now obviously pretty much everyone in the room goes and waits for them. And I kind of just step back and I look at this and I see them stood there and they’re all queuing and they all want a photo taken. I am included in this by the way I am also in the queue waiting to speak to them and they go and have their photos taken and they thank them and they ask them questions and they consume their content and they love it. And basically this is one of my dreams. You know this is what I want to happen and I want to speak at social media marketing world and I want to provide so much good content and so much good advice and be seen in the same light as them. I want to stand there and I want to have a group of people waiting to ask me questions waiting to have a photo taken. And I honestly can’t tell you how amazing that feels. And as I was telling this to one of the coaches at James event and I actually got upset like the emotion was so strong and so powerful and I don’t get upset that easily.
I have to say I felt as if I’m totally honest but it was such a huge emotion that was like immediate in me that I just thought Oh my God I know what it would mean to me if I could achieve that and that just created this huge emotion in me. And that’s the thing that’s going to drive me forward. So when I say to you think about those goals then think about how it’ll make you feel. It’s the emotion that pushes you forward. It’s the emotion that kind of really drives you to make that thing happen. And I will continue to try and make that thing happen also. And I talked about on my vision board episode which I will link up into the show as well and talked about the facts of first class travel and that my daughter sits in the office with me and we look at which first class travel. You know she likes the most. And again that emotion when I think about how proud I will feel of taking my daughter and my stepson away and taking them on first class on a plane. Oh gosh honestly you know again from a parent’s point of view it kind of makes me completely emotional but like I said that’s what I want you to do. That’s what I want you to think about. I want you to really feel those feelings because that’s what’s going to make this happen and it’s going to make those dreams come true.
Anyway I’ll stop the oversharing now and carry on. So the other thing I think about in this section is who would you need to be to make this happen. And what I’m talking about is how would you need to show up in your business in order to make these things happen. What sort of person would you need to be in order to achieve these things. Okay. So once we’ve sat there and we’ve dreamed and we’ve got all emotion all like me and thought of all these things and his amazing life that we’re trying to make for ourselves and our business I now want to try and bring it down to a bit more of a practical level because the Dreaming is brilliant and I love the idea of manifesting something or the law of attraction that if you think about it it comes. Isn’t that amazing. However I am a bit of a realist and I do realize that there’s also something called the law of action. And I could sit here and think I’d love a range rover or a Tesla but if I don’t physically do something. The chance of me getting one is pretty slim. So you have to actually start making action taking action and driving forward. Okay so in this section I want you to think about what would you need any help with to achieve some of those goals and what you might want to do is pull out the top three or pull out the the main goals that you want for your business two or three of them and take each one by themselves. So think of goal number one and let’s say my goal number one is to get 50000 downloads on the podcast. I’d love that. In fact I’ve just plucked that one out of my head I think I’m gonna write that one down so 50000 thousand podcast downloads and then I need you to think about what do you need to make that happen.
Is it a case of you would need some advice. Do you need to put some money into marketing. Do you need to change what you’re doing. Is there a process change. Is there some learning you need.
Is there someone’s help you might need on this. So think about the kind of more practical side of what you’re going to actually either need to do or what help you’re going to need to bring in. Does it mean employing staff. Does it mean getting a coach. You just have to think about on a practical level what sort of things are you going to have to do in order to at least start driving towards these goals.
Now if we use my example of the podcast downloads I can’t physically make people download my podcast. I can’t find 50000 people and go download my podcast. Sometimes I wish I could but I can take steps make changes do activities that will help that. That will drive that goal forward. Now it might not achieve it but if I hadn’t have thought about that goal in the first place I wouldn’t have been doing any of these things again. When we talked about fears in the first section I’m going to open up a very sharing podcast episode but one of the things as I said to you earlier that I really want to achieve is speaking engagements and I want to put myself out there more and say I want more of this. And the reason I haven’t done is because I don’t like getting rejected. Being very honest I do fear rejection and I get really kind of I don’t want to get upset it sounds ridiculous but it does upset me. If someone says no for whatever reason and the funny thing is you know I had a no not that long ago because they’d already filled the event so therefore the event didn’t need any more speakers and therefore I couldn’t speak. But actually that wasn’t no because you’re terrible it wasn’t no because they don’t want you it was just no because of that reason. But that would stop me from going out to someone else and now I need to get over that fear and think to myself even if I put myself out to 20 big events around the world and they all say no. At least there’s a chance that one of them could have said yes because you know what’s so interesting. My fear of failing and rejection. I’m failing already because I’m not even asking them. They don’t even know I exist. So actually if I want to speak on some of these huge stages Step 1 Get in contact with them and tell them I even exist and you know what they might not want me this year or they might not want to pay me to do it this year but they now know I exist. And maybe when they’re thinking about it again maybe I’ll be picked then. So like I said my fear of failure my fear of the answer being no is hilarious considering the fact that at the moment it’s all no’s because I haven’t even asked and therefore I’m failing already. So I just want you to think about my stupid example for a second and think about is this something that you’re doing that actually you’re holding off because you’re thinking I don’t want to ask or I don’t want to do it in case they say no. Or in case I’m not very good at it or in case no one buys it. Actually at this point in time you’re already failing at that thing because you’re not doing it. So now is a really good time to review reflect and make that plan put those actions down and the other thing just to finish off on this whole second section is those things those practical elements that you’ve just written down that goal. I need to do this. I want you to write down one task for each of those three goals that you’re going to do in the first 30 days of 2019. Okay so I’m setting you a challenge and I want you to come and tell me. I want you to tell me what your challenges that you are going to do in the first 30 days. And if you do come and tell me I’m going to come back 30 days in and go have you done it. I’m going to hold you accountable because as a business owner one thing we are probably quite bad at. And if you’re like me is no one’s holding you accountable and then you think I’ll be fine. So I am going to be your accountability partner. I want you to make those big goals to focus on what you need overall and then make a plan within the first 30 days. What one thing am I going to do. That’s going to set off this thing that’s going to start this process. And I want you to make the goal or.
I want you to make the one thing you’re going to do semi achievable obviously I don’t want you to kind of go. I’m going to make 10 million in 30 days because the chance that’s going to happen is possibly fairly slim. So I want you to make sure that it’s something good and practical that you can actually do that might take a bit of getting over a fear might take a bit of effort but something you can do and then the first two days to really get your year started. Brilliant. And I’m going to make sure that I’ve got a section on the form for you to write all that down and I’m gonna put my email on there again so that you can email us and let us know. And I’m going to be your accountability partner and I am going to make sure that you do these things. So I hope you’ve enjoyed today’s podcast. I loved it. I love this sort of thing. I love reviewing. I love rearranging. Always have done since I was like a child. It’s ridiculous. But anyway and I want to really get your 2019 started with a bang and I really want you to be focusing on those amazing big goals because there is amazing stuff out there for all of us. And I want it and you want it. And we’re gonna be awesome. So have a wonderful week. And I can’t wait to hear from you and I’ll be sat here waiting for your steps that you’re going to take for the first 30 days in 2019.
Oh and just as a quick side note the podcast is carrying on all over Christmas because I’ve been very good and I’ve batched content Yay go me and therefore you won’t be missing out. It will still be coming out. So I will see you next week.
