2024 Business Planning and Goal Setting

Nov 18

While I typically start thinking about the year ahead in October, the week of Thanksgiving is always when I really get into my goal setting and yearly planning process. But this year I'm doing things a little differently around setting goals and I'm excited to share some of this process in case it resonates with any of you too!

We typically approach goal setting as picking a big goal and then reverse engineering that goal into smaller ones to hit throughout the year. If this method works for you, then I’d say keep doing it. It’s what I’ve always done up until now but I’ve realized this year that that method is no longer working for me with where I am in life and business.

Here’s a little more context: If you're new around here or don’t follow me on Instagram/on my email list, then you probably missed this but I set an insanely lofty goal this year and due to some unforeseen circumstances outside of my control, I was falling very short so I decided to just let that goal go because it was causing too much stress. And wouldn't you know it, things fell back into place almost immediately.

Through that letting go process, I realized I was focusing on the wrong thing. I was focusing on the money part instead of what that money actually affords me (what I actually want).

So this year I'm toying with the idea of not even setting a revenue goal for 2024, but I’m also worried that not having that easily measurable goal will mean I don’t have a clear focus so at the recommendation of my coach, I’m going to do a hybrid version.

Here’s a look inside my 2024 business planning and goal setting process:

Before I get into my goal setting, I do a lot of reflection on the past year and analyze all the available data and information so I have a clearer picture on my trajectory.

Evaluating my Expenses

I do this every year to make sure I’m not wasting money on anything I don’t need or could have a comparable alternative for less. This year I’m making 2 cuts:

Cutting Calendly: Now this isn’t a lot of money but Honeybook (my CRM) has upped their game with the scheduling part of their platform so I can now use that and have everything all in one place! So there’s nothing wrong with Calendly but I just have an option that works better for my business so I can cut that expense.
Bookkeeping: I’m not completely cutting this but I have so few transactions and needs compared to a lot of other types of businesses that I don’t think I need to be spending what I’m currently spending. I’ll still be using my accountant for my taxes (because I love them!) but I’m going to move my bookkeeping over to a more affordable option.

I not only do this to make sure each and every penny I spend it a smart one, but I also do it to reallocate funds as well. The money I’ll be saving on bookkeeping will be going to updating my brand photos and hiring on additional help to increase my capacity (more on this coming!)

SWOT Analysis

I love a SWOT analysis to help me identify what I’m doing well, where I need support, opportunities I have, and potential threats.

While I love to keep a pulse on my analytics and data on a regular basis, this process forces me to take a closer look through a slightly different lens. I re-visit all my client feedback forms to see if there are areas I can improve on and/or ideas I want to implement. I’ll look at my CRM reports to identify where the majority of my leads came from, who converted from where, and the monetary value of each of those projects/leads. (Example: Maybe most of my leads came from referrals but the revenue brought in from leads that came from Instagram was significantly higher.)

Looking at all of this data in a bigger chunk at the end of the year really helps you identify a lot and can give you a really good idea on how you want to move forward in the next year.

*SWOT Analysis is something I do for every single Strategy Intensive client but I recommend doing one once a year because a lot can shift in that time.

Identify Future Investments

Knowing what investments you want to make in your business before the year starts means you can then properly budget ahead of time. That could be that you want to rebrand, bring on a VA, hire a consultant, buying a walking pad for your desk, or anything else.

I’ve already been keeping track of things that I’d like to invest in during 2024 so I’ll be going through each of those and not only identifying the exact or estimated cost of each but giving timelines and/or triggers* for them so I know when I want to make that investment.

My 2024 investments include:

Updated brand photos
Quarterly intensives with my coach (vs. monthly like we were doing!)
A virtual assistant that specializes in content creation to assist with some clients
Systems audit (this one is TBD and a little harder for me to fully get a hold of because it falls into the “you don’t know what you don’t know category because I’m not even sure my systems need help and/or if I could include more systems in my business)
SEO specialist (I’m too close to my own business to do this properly I think)

The top 3 are my main priority and then the bottom two will come along once I have a little more clarity around my needs for each.

*Trigger would be something like, when I sign my next client, I’ll bring on a VA to handle XYZ.

Be, Do, Have Goals

This is the part I’m doing differently this year and I’m very excited to see how it turns out. To go along with the initial context I shared, I’ve been contemplating not setting a revenue goal in 2024 and instead, focusing on quarterly incremental goals instead.

However, I worry that without a focus to move towards, I might feel a little unfocused so when I told my business coach this, she suggested Be, Do, Have Goals which is ironically exactly what I was trying to do with my big lofty 2023 goal but seriously missed the mark.

What are Be, Do, Have Goals?

This is a methodology used by a lot of life coaches and it essentially breaks goals down into 3 different parts:

The HAVE: What you want to achieved
The DO: What needs to be done to make it happen
The BE: Who a person needs to authentically BE (how they need to behave)

I set that lofty 2023 goal as a challenge to step into that version of me but I didn’t break it down so I didn’t even know what that version of me would look like or act like so I’m excited to give this method a try since I’ll actually have a little more structure to it!

So for me it’s probably going to be something like this:

Have: $X in Monthly Recurring Revenue throughout the entire year (especially over the summer)
Do: Maintain existing retainer contracts, Be visible through podcast interviews and strategic content, Networking and building relationships, etc.
Be: Maintain a higher energy level (daily EFT and somatic movements), Trust that everything is working out perfectly, Showing up with confidence to fully serve, etc.

I’m obviously still in the planning process so this will evolve more and I’ll probably take some of the ones in the BE section and make that the HAVE and break it down even more to get to the core of who I need to be in this next year.

And that’s my new and improved yearly planning and goal setting process. This feels really aligned with where I’m currently at in my life and business so I can’t wait to see how this strategy pans out. I personally think that’s the key for planning and goal setting — Finding what works for you. Take different pieces and methods and adapt them to fit your needs. There’s really no right or wrong way to do things when it comes to this process!

Have a process or method you love? Drop it in the comments!