Quarterly Planning Tips for Entrepreneurs

Time ManagementMarketing TipsBusiness Tips and Tools

Apr 4

BY MICHELLE KNIGHT

Last year, I released a video all about planning six months in business. If you haven't seen it, watch it here. But I understand that sometimes planning for six months can be a little overwhelming.

So today I want to talk about quarterly planning.

How can you plan 90 days at a time in your business so you're not only more productive and focused, but you actually enjoy your life?

Look, the reality is that you've got to have a plan in place or you're flying by the seat of your pants. When you're constantly flying by the seat of your pants, you're constantly feeling overwhelmed and we don't want that. And guess what? We don't need it.

So if you've always wanted to have a master plan, but you're not exactly sure how to do it, I am going to walk you through my quarterly planning process. I've been using this for years in my business. I teach my clients how to do it inside of my program Brandmerry Academy, as well as my high level clients.

I'm obsessed with planning and the reason that I love having a solid plan is it allows me to focus. I know what I'm working on. I know how to get to my end goal. Let's stop with the wishful thinking. Let's stop with the “I hope I get paid this month” and let's create a plan.

One of the reasons I love focusing on quarterly planning, 90 day planning, is that as a business owner, I am thinking about the quarters in my business.

Quarterly Planning Step 1: Break Down Your Yearly Goal into Each Quarter

So one of the first steps that I have for you is to take your year goal and break it down into each quarter. What I love about this process is it creates mile markers for me to my end goal.

So let's say that you want to create a six figure business this year. You would break that down either equally 25, 25, 25 and 25,000 every single quarter. Or if you know that your kids are going to be home during the summer and you're going to be a little less active, maybe you put a little bit more energy into the front end and the back end.

However you want to break up your end of the year goal, that's going to be the very first step in this process because as business owners our decisions that we make in our branding, in our marketing, and what we're promoting are ultimately leading to our revenue goal.

So reverse engineering is a fantastic way to make sure that you're constantly getting closer and hitting that end of the year goal in business.

Quarterly Planning Step 2: Put Important Dates on the Calendar

Now that you've taken the first step, you know what you want to create for the year in terms of revenue, and you've broken that down into each quarter, now we're going to focus on putting important dates on the calendar for the next 90 days.

So I get it. We were talking about the big picture before. You're focusing on the whole year and I promised you that we were going to talk about 90 days. Now we're talking about 90 days.

So whatever quarter you are currently in right now, we are getting ready to enter into Q2 of 2022, we're going to follow this process. So if you're getting ready to go through April, May and June for Q2, great, but this applies to no matter where you're at in your process or how you're going to be separating the quarters in your business.

The first thing that I love to do is write down major dates for the next 90 days. Now this includes any holidays, any breaks, any prior commitments that you already have and vacations. Yes, when we are planning your quarterly plan, I want you to choose one week every single quarter where you are going to step away from work. No creating, no working with clients, none of it and you're just going to play, rest and rejuvenate yourself because you need it.

So we've scheduled holidays. We've scheduled breaks. We've put our one week vacation in there.

Now, if there are any specific launches that you know you're going to do over the next 90 days, put those in your calendar as well. This could be a new book launch that you're going to be doing, a new course or a new product that you're going to be launching. It could be your signature product that you know you're going to launch in May. Whatever it is, get it on the calendar now.

Yes, as we're going through this process, I want you to specifically put this stuff in a calendar. Don't just write it down in a notebook and then forget the notebook later on. Put it in your calendar and bonus points if you can put it in your digital calendar, like your Google Calendar as well, so that when you are looking and someone's asking you, "Oh, are you free this day?" You can be like, "No, I'm not. I'm on my quarterly week of rest."

So now you have your specific quarterly goal in terms of revenue, you have your very specific dates that are pretty much non-negotiable. The launches that you want to honor, your week of rest. Don't forget. It's important. You've got your breaks. You've got your holidays.

Quarterly Planning Step 3: Quarterly Focus

Now what we're going to do is look at that and say, “okay, what is my quarterly focus? What am I going to be focused on this quarter? Is it going to be a specific product or a service that I'm going to be launching? Am I going to be creating something? Am I focused on really growing my email list because I want to launch later in the year?” What is your focus going to be? Are you going to roll out a YouTube channel and you want to get those subscribers up?

Whatever that looks like for you, what are you going to focus on this quarter? Now I really like to do a quarterly focus because we're going to talk about in the next step how we break that down. But this is giving you a full 90 days to focus your energy on one core part of your business.

Now obviously there are ongoing things that you need to do. Take care of your clients, talk about your products and your services. You're going to be marketing, all of that but what are you focusing your other energy on in your business? Is there something you've been wanting to start, release? Something like that? What is that going to be?

So think about the full quarter focus. What are you going to be focused on for the next 90 days?

The next step is to then break that down monthly. So I'll give you an example.

Let's say that for the next quarter I am focused on my program Brandmerry Academy. So I know that I'm going to have a launch in January, which we did. Then in February, we're going to be focused on onboarding, releasing our new membership site, testing all of the things. Then in March, I'm going to be focused on elevating some of the programs. So adjusting some of the programs, adding some new content in there. But my focus is really on the Academy. Each month I've got a really clear task that I want to achieve by the end of the month.

What that allows me to do is consistently move forward to my goals. No matter what's happening with the day to day things, the admin, the finance, the clients, the fires that you have to put out, the social media marketing, all of those different things, I know that I'm on track to hit my one monthly focus, which is then going to allow me to hit my quarterly focus. Which is then going to allow me to hit my quarterly revenue goal.

Quarterly Planning Step 4: Get Specific About Monthly Dates

The next thing that you want to do is get really specific with your monthly dates. So we've done the week of rest. We focused on the holidays, breaks, and any big launches. Is there anything else that's going to be coming up for you in regards to those specific focuses?

Let's say you are planning on launching at the end of January. Are you going to do a free class? Are you going to do any sort of promotion? You're going to want to put those in your calendar now so that you can prepare and they're not just coming at you at the last minute. This is going to allow you to take those small steps to get to your goal rather than feeling overwhelmed at the last minute because it totally snuck up on you.

So now that you have your monthly focus, what I recommend doing is putting in any other micro dates that you have to actually achieve that focus that you've put out there intentionally.

Quarterly Planning Step 5: Start Writing Your To-Do List

There are a lot of monthly focuses. There are a lot of dates. There's a lot going on, but I swear, we're almost done. Now you're going to get really, really micro with it and start mapping out your to-do list.

This is not something that you have to do for the entire quarter. I personally like to do that, but you want to at least focus on the next 30 days. So we're using this example of launching. If I'm going to be launching my program Brandmerry Academy, these are the very specific dates that I'm going to honor. I'm going to be doing a masterclass. I'm going to be doing a wait list. I'm going to be releasing some YouTube videos, whatever it is, what are the steps that I need to take to get there?

I love a good brain dump. I have this theory. I tell all my friends, I tell my family, but when we keep everything in our head, we can feel really overwhelmed. We find that we never actually have breathing space outside of our business. We're constantly thinking about all the things that we need to do.

What I love to do is any time I'm in that head space, I will write down everything that's in my head. Every single thing that I can think of that is happening and clear the space. This allows me to enjoy, and play and step away, which ultimately will help me in my business.

So what I love to do when I've got a big goal is sit down. I sit down with my notebook and I write down every little thing that I can think of that's going to help me achieve that goal. It's going to create more space. It's going to reduce the overwhelm and guess what? It's going to actually allow you to get those things done because oftentimes when they're living up here and then other things from life are being thrown at you, we forget them. Then the launch is over and you're like, “oh, I totally meant to do that.” Write it down, make a massive to-do list. It doesn't have to be fancy, but get it out of here.

Quarterly Planning Step 6: Plan Out Your Content

The last thing that I do is I plan out my content. Yes, I love planning 90 days of content. I created an entire video teaching you my process, exactly how I do that. I highly recommend it for all entrepreneurs, but this is kind of the final step.

The reason for that is that we're now crystal clear on our goal. We know what we're focusing on for the quarter. We know what we're focusing on monthly. We've got our important dates in there. Not just launching, but also taking time and breaks to play and create balance.

Because content creation is such a vital part of getting your brand seen and paid, it's something that you want to map out in advance. Because if you're flying by the seat of your pants and saying, “oh my gosh, I’ve got to create a video this week. Oh my gosh, I have to show up and create a podcast.” It's going to create a lot of stress.

The more that you can plan out your topics and know what you're going to be talking about each week, coincide those content topics with launches and important dates that you now see right in front of you, it's going to streamline this process.

So make sure you watch that video Planning Out 90 Days of Content where I break down my step by step process. But this is the final part in your quarterly business plan.

At this point, you will have a 90 day calendar with your vacation days. I'm just going to keep saying it over and over again. Your vacation days, your breaks, important things that are happening in your personal life, as well as your business. Any major launches that you have. Any courses that you're going to be putting out there, any events that you're going to be doing, it’s all on your calendar. You're going to have a massive to-do list, at least for the next 30 days, of things that you're going to be doing to achieve those goals, and you're going to have your content mapped out.

Getting It Scheduled

I'm going to really quickly just show you my 90 days. As I mentioned, we're entering the end of Q1 heading into Q2 and so this has got a lot of crosses in it. But do you see, this is what I'm talking about. I've got this very big plan here. We've got post-its for every YouTube video that I'm doing. We've got launches up there. We've got vacations on there. We've got the whole shebang. So do you see what I mean? You want to visually be able to see that.

I also have all that important stuff inside of my Google Calendar, because then if I'm out and about, and I'm talking to someone and they're like, "Are you available on this day?" I can make sure that I actually have the capacity to take that on. I'm not overbooking myself. I'm not stretching myself too thin.

I also really wanted to share with you a little acronym to help you remember how to best plan your quarter and how to best improve your productivity and improve your focus. These are kind of the five pieces that I really, really try to honor, no matter what I'm planning in my life. Whether it's quarterly, six months, or an entire year.

Quarterly Planning with STARS

It's the STARS acronym, because I want you to be a freaking star at planning and executing your plans. So I'm going to share that with you as a little reminder for us to close out this video.

The S stands for schedule it. I've said this a lot inside of this video and in all of my productivity and planning videos. But if it's not on the schedule, it's a lot easier to bump it down in your priority list. I'm a big fan of really honoring my priorities. That's why we follow the process that I just shared with you and saying, “what are the things I want to work on? What are the things I want to do? What is my vacation time?” Getting that on your schedule.

Then know that it's not really negotiable. If someone comes at you and says, "Hey, could you do this? Could you fit this in?" You can look at your schedule and you can say, "You know what? I don't have the capacity to take that on at this time. I have other priorities that I'm working towards."

The T is for take time out. You need to take breaks and as I mentioned inside of this video, I recommend that you schedule those breaks. At the bare minimum, please schedule one week off every single quarter where you can step away from your work as an entrepreneur. I also recommend that if you're feeling a little bit overwhelmed, maybe there's a little bit of weight on your shoulders and you're just noticing that it's time to hit the pause button, schedule yourself a Friday off.

As you begin to go full-time in your business, if you are working part-time or as you begin to have more control over your entire schedule, you can start to work in those weekly days off. I typically don’t do calls on Friday. I don’t schedule any appointments. So if I do feel inspired to work, I can, but I'm typically taking that day for self care.

The A is for adjust. You need to be flexible. I hear this a lot when entrepreneurs are like, "Well, I don't want to have a plan because then I'm afraid that if I get an idea, I won't honor it. Or if I have a plan and it'll be so rigid that I won't feel inspired."

I've actually found the opposite to be true. In fact, when I have a plan, I have more mental clarity and more space for inspiration. That's where this adjust comes in. If something comes up for you and you're feeling really called to experiment with it, if something's not working in your business and you've given it that full 30 days and you want to make some small adjustments, please do. This is all about creating that balance, that adaptability, and you need to be open to moving things around.

This is one of the reasons that I love to plan a full 90 days in my business, because for marketing specifically, you want to give it enough time, enough consistency to work well. But then as you start to move into that 90 day, you notice this is not working, you can adjust your game plan. Especially if you are doing this quarterly plan early in the year, you can make those adjustments as you then plan out the next quarter and the next quarter, which will ultimately help you reach your end goal, your revenue stream in business, in a way that feels really good to you.

The R is for reflect. Now you absolutely need to take time to pause at the end of every quarter, bare minimum, to reflect on what happened. One of the things that I love to do is actually reflect on how I'm feeling about the previous quarter.

So this isn't so much a planning part of the process, but it's going to help you plan for the next 90 days. Last week, I released a podcast episode on the Brandmerry podcast, where I shared how I audit my business every 90 days. While I am looking at things regarding data like email list growth, website traffic, sales, revenue, all of that, I'm also taking a large portion of my time to reflect on how I'm feeling. What has brought me joy in my business? What felt like a challenge or a struggle that I didn't really enjoy? What did I want to do and I didn't make time for? How am I feeling going into the next quarter?

This is how we built sustainable businesses because we're checking in with ourselves and we're making these aligned decisions.

Finally, we end with our final S, stay focused. Stay on track. This is why I love a good solid plan because it gives me a clear direction on what I'm working towards. One of the things that I have really started to master in my business specifically is putting on my blinders and staying focused on what I ultimately want to achieve.

Sometimes this looks like unfollowing people on social media because they're giving me a lot of messages, or not opting into freebies, or master classes, or searching for outside support out of what I'm currently focused on.

A great example of this is when I am working on maybe evergreening a program, meaning I have my program Brandmerry Academy and I want to create a passive way for individuals to join my email list, to hear about the program, and ultimately join.

If I have a plan in place for how I want to execute that and I've thought about that and I've mapped it all out, there's a lot of information online of all the different ways that I could do that. But what I want to do first is honor my instincts, honor my intuition and kind of block out the noise. So I want to give myself those 90 days to focus on getting that up and running, then of course, analyze and reflect, and if I need additional support, I can seek it. But that's a great example of really staying focused. You've mapped out what you want, put your blinders on and stay really focused and try to block out all of the excess noise.

There you have it, quarterly planning. I hope that this was really helpful in breaking down the step-by-step, and giving you some bonus tips for actually sticking to it and achieving it. Again, I have an entire video on six months planning if you want to check that out as well. If you're an entrepreneur or content creator, I also have an amazing video on planning 90 days worth of content. I know we touched on that a little bit in the planning process, but I show you a full behind the scenes in this video.

P.S. Ready to get your brand seen and paid without the pressure of social media? I'm teaching my top strategies inside of my new free class, "How to Build a Brand That Gets Seen and Paid!" You're invited to tune in and learn my signature 3-part framework for a sustainable 6-figure brand. Sign up to watch for free at Brandmerry.com/class