When you start a business or are looking at earning more money in your business a lot of advice out there is to create a really clear comprehensive business plan.

Well, over the last decade in my business and revenue topping $30m, I’ve never had a business plan. 

The planning I do is really simple. I look at planning for my business very differently. 

Every quarter my Marketing Manager and I meet with a business coach and we plan our year by breaking the business down  into daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly tasks.

We’re preparing for another planning meeting in a few weeks so here’s a look at how we plan our business priorities: 

Daily Tasks

In the business, we share something on social media every single day without fail. 

It might be an inspirational post, it might be a question, it might be a quote, it might be a new resource, or a fun lifestyle picture. As part of our business, we show up every single day. 

Now, here's where the distinction lies. I'm not doing that every single day. I batch those things, so the business is consistent. An old business coach and mentor Hiro Boga, taught me that my business and myself are separate because I used to see them as one and thought that I was my business. So even though my business needs consistency, it’s ok if I’m less consistent. 

Then I plan my business activities around my personal and family commitments. There's no typical day or week for me, but this gives you an idea of a “standard” week:

Mondays: I usually catch up on errands. I go to a movie with a friend or go to the chiropractor.

Tuesdays and Wednesdays: I have ballet class and often get my hair blow dried, so I tend to do my video content on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. This is also when I can batch podcast and social media content for the quarter if I need to. It doesn’t happen every week.

Thursday: I like to go to see a movie or catch up with a friend for lunch. I’ve also been adding in more self-care, like IR saunas or massages. 

Friday: I might have a call for Money Bootcamp or I catch up on writing or batching social media content.

It is important for me to have personal tasks separate from business tasks to ensure that I am looking after myself and having the space to create content which is my role in the company.

Weekly Tasks

Each week we send a newsletter including a piece of content. It could be a blog post, a longer form article or extract from one of my books. We also publish and promote a new podcast episode each week. 

That's every single week, without fail, and again, it gets batched. I'm not doing all of the things for it. For example, with the podcast, I show up and batch 10-15 episodes in the recording studio, then my team makes sure that it is put together and goes out on email and shared.

Monthly Tasks

Every month, Mark and I look at what we are marketing in the month ahead. We might have something we are promoting or have a free opt-in that is adding value. 

At the end of every month, we have a mini promo inviting people to come and join Money Bootcamp because that's when the monthly live calls are. 

A few times a year we promote an affiliate partnership and theme our monthly content on a specific topic, such as launches or PR, to warm up our audience to engage with the partner content we’re promoting. 

Sometimes we promote one of my books because we know that when people read my book, they are more likely to come and join Bootcamp. Or it might be sharing a freebie, such as a training video, workshop or PDF, which gives great content and help while reminding people what I have to offer and how I can help them.

Quarterly Tasks

Then, once a quarter, or 2-3 times per year, we run one of our own larger launches or sales events. 

This might be for Money Bootcamp, our Sacred Money Archetypes® business course or a package offer of my best courses. Depending my book schedule, we might have a new book to launch or an event or speaking appearance to promote. 

Finally, we’re running evergreen automated processes that are selling all the time like ads and email sequences, but we don’t have to focus on them because they are already set up.

We keep the business plan simple and continually examine what we can eliminate, automate, delegate, and outsource.

Eliminate: We're always eliminating by looking at what we and our team are doing in the business and assessing what they don’t need to be doing right now. For us, whenever we're tempted to add new things or complicate anything with more events or more retreats, we hold close to our boundaries and say no because we do not have the bandwidth for it.

Automate: The next thing we look at is tasks we can automate. We try to make as many repetitive tasks as possible run on automatic. A great example of this is online calendar scheduling. I see so many people, still doing this manually. It's such a pain for me because being in a different time zones can be tricky and my brain finds it difficult to work out the time difference. Things like that can just free up so much time in your business.

Delegate: Then I look at what I can delegate to someone on the team or what can I outsource to a contractor. Especially if they can batch a lot of tasks at once. 

My role in the business is to make sure that we have that regular stream of content and that I'm on camera and recording podcasts regularly and then so we can automate posting and sharing. That's really it. My main role is being the creator - I'm the talent. And you are the talent in your business too!

Outsource: When I started my business, I did everything. I was making my own website, my own handouts, graphics, and doing the recording, editing, tech and so on. I felt like I had to do everything myself to save money and because I was a jack of all trades and could work out most things. 

Then, as I earned more money, I pulled back from the things that I wasn’t doing well and eventually, I outsourced anything outside my zone of genius or that I didn’t want to do!

Some people think that having a business plan means that you're in business, and that is not true. 

You’re in business when you focus on getting clients and making money. You're in business when you sell something. So don't feel like you're a hot mess if you don't have a fancy business plan that's printed out and perfect, because I still haven't got a good one. 

Focus on money-making tasks, not procrasta-planning.

Try only planning what you do on a daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly basis and look at what you can eliminate, automate, delegate and outsource in your business. 

Making money trumps planning all day long!