Reviewing The Past Year and Planning For An Epic 2020

Today’s episode isn’t going to have one specific theme as there are a couple of different things I want to talk to you about. I love creating episodes that give you actionable steps to take and that’s exactly what this week’s podcast will do.First of all, I talk about something planning for the year ahead. As business owners it can be hard to look at our businesses with and outside perspective and in order to look ahead, that’s what you need to do. Secondly, I look at how you can market your business a little better when it comes to encouraging people to invest in you.KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCASTPlanning for the year ahead is incredibly important as a business owner and in order to create an effective plan, you need to take yourself out of the business to ‘see’ what you’re doing and where you want to go.In order to plan your 2020, you also need to review 2019. This means looking at the aspects of what went well and what didn’t, looking at your growth, focusing on what you have achieved and looking at your finances.Once you have reviewed your year, you can start to think about what you want to achieve in 2020 and how you’re going to reach your goals. You need to think about what you need in order to succeed.Think about when you last mapped out all of your marketing channels, which ones are the most successful? What do you need to do more of in 2020?THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…If you want to plan for the year ahead, you need to think how your customers see your business. Although it’s important to be ‘in’ your business, it’s also important to take a step back and think of things from a customer point of view.HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISSPlanning for the year ahead - 07:11Marketing your business in 2020 - 17:53Transcript below Speaker 1: (00:32) Hello, hello and welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. Happy Monday! If you are listening on a Monday. Otherwise, I hope you're having a lovely day, whatever day it is. So today I want to talk about a few different things. I'm trying to like work out in my head what the theme of this podcast episode is or what the main focus is. But there were so many little different things I want to talk about that I kind of think that it probably hasn't got one main theme today. Obviously it's a solo episode, so normally I like to do some teaching or I like to talk about business or that sort of thing. And it's just a really, I like the solo ones because it's a really nice way of just kind of like giving you some real actionable stuff to do. Whereas although the interviews are amazing and honestly I love them so much, it's just sometimes you don't get those actionable steps or you don't get those things that you can do in your business.Speaker 1: (01:27) So for me, I think today is going to be a little bit about that. It's going to be a few different things that I want you to think about and it might just be a little bit all over the place. So I apologise. But one thing is I'm glad my voice has come back because I've had a lot of trouble over the last few weeks because we're nearing the end of the year. And to be honest, I've had a really busy few weeks in terms of speaking, in terms of interviews, in terms of just trying to cram in a lot of stuff before the end of the year and it took its toll. It had its effect on me and obviously I got unwell, I got a cough and a cold and not being able to take some time out has really, really affected me. And the other thing is that I'm not very good at is when I travel.Speaker 1: (02:12) I'm really not very good at looking after myself. So I do tend to burn the candle at both ends. I do tend to spend too much time on the social side as well as the business side. I don't get early nights. I don't do my morning routine and although I do very little exercise, I have been much better. I have been doing, I think, I don't think I've mentioned this on the podcast, I might mention that on an interview I can't remember. And then I interview at all different, I'm so batched up in terms of interviews. I can't remember whether you've heard that one or not. But anyway, let's go with it and pretend I haven't talked about it. I started working with a personal trainer because I knew that the one thing that I was really bad at was looking after myself and moving. So as you well know, I work from home.Speaker 1: (02:55) I love working from home. Obviously we do a lot of travelling as well, so it's actually really nice to be in home when I'm not in travelling mode and I don't move a lot. I literally walk from my bedroom. I might occasionally go downstairs, make a drink, but I sit up in my office and just literally sit at a computer all day. I don't do very many meetings in person. I do have some clients from the agency that we still have that I very occasionally meet, but to be totally honest, pretty much everything I do is on a screen. So in terms of moving and looking after myself, I don't do a lot of it. You know, the other thing that's really interesting is I have an app on my phone called Live 360 and it tracks us all. It sounds really kind of stalker-y, I promise it's not. Obviously, my husband did a lot of travelling and was away and it was useful for me to know when he landed in a country or whatever and when he was back online, we have a teenage stepson, right? Is my stepson, is my husband's son. My daughter's just turned 10 and no doubt at some point in the next few years she'll be getting a phone and it's just good to know that we know where each other are and you know when they're heading home and that sort of thing. But what's really interesting with me is it obviously shows the last time I left the house and some days I don't even, or some weeks, I don't even realise that actually I was in the house for four solid days and I didn't physically leave it. The other thing this means is that don't even get any sunshine or outside space.Speaker 1: (04:28) I'm a nightmare. So anyway, I decided that I needed to move more and I got a personal trainer so I have been doing once a week in the gym. I initially started off doing it at home because in total honesty, the resistance to having this at all or doing anything at all was a massive, like I didn't want to do it. I still don't want to do it. If I'm honest, I do feel better about it. But initially that's why I did it at home. I had the personal trainer at home because I didn't want to walk into a gym. I didn't want to be in front of these other people. I didn't want to see other people doing exercise. Honestly, so much resistance. So anyway as it is, like I said, we're doing it once a week. I am now in the gym, which is nice and obviously when I'm away I haven't done any of that.Speaker 1: (05:13) I haven't actually been for quite a few weeks now, which is probably the most since I started, which is frustrating because time and busy-ness and like I said, it took its toll so I'm feeling much better, which is great. Although I still am trying to be very gentle on myself, very considerate to myself and this week I'm really trying to make a concerted effort of going to bed early, not drinking wine in the evening, trying to eat some vegetables and at some point, hopefully this week I might actually go to the gym again, which would be lovely. I say lovely. I don't mean that at all. I mean it'd be horrible, but I mean it will be lovely for my body to go to the gym. But the other thing is I never get out. Do you? If you work from home, do you find that like you literally have days and days in the house and you don't even realise you actually haven't stepped outside the front door?Speaker 1: (06:03) Because honestly it doesn't feel like that sometimes. Maybe I'm just so focused on what I'm doing, but it genuinely doesn't feel like, gosh, I haven't been out for days and days. So anyway, glad to say I am feeling better. So this week I want to talk, one of the things I want to talk about is something I've got coming up, which I'm really excited about and I always get a bit funny when people get online and go, I'm so excited. I've got this thing to share with you because it's their thing and therefore I am excited if you want...