Don't Slow Down Now!

It's now December and it's very easy to taper off and start to slow down in preparation for the holiday season. I've already seen it with many of my business acquaintances... they are pushing back meeting until the new year and are putting off completing projects since Christmas is just around the corner.

But here's the thing.

Now is your opportunity to set yourself up for success in 2019. If you increase your activity now, you're going to have something to come back to in January. You're going to build momentum faster and get quicker results.

Now, if you're in the content production game (which nearly every one of us on WA is) then now is also an opportunity to get eyeballs on your stuff for longer. Think about it, everyone is slowing down at work, they are taking holidays, or are just generally less busy and they are looking for something to fill the time. If you place your content in front of them at this time of year, then it is likely that they will spend more time consuming your content since there are less distractions.

Here is the two things I think are extremely important at this time of the year.

Plan

Now is the perfect time to take a moment and plan for 2019. If you haven't done any strategic growth planning before, here is a simple model:

1. Assess 2018

Take some time to think about how your 2018 went. Be completely honest with yourself here. If it wasn't a good year, then ask yourself why. If it was a great year, analyze what made it so. For me, it was a bad year in business (compared with my goals) so I've spent some time analyzing why that was.

2. Set Goals

Now it's time to record some goals for 2019. These can be:

• Top line revenue goals
• Number of clients/subscribers goals
• Profitability goals
• Percentage growth goals
  
• Pretty much anything that is relevant to your business

3. Make A Plan

A goal without a plan is a wish so you're going to need to map out a plan which you think is going to help you achieve your goals. Put this plan in writing and distill quarterly, monthly, and weekly actions you need to take as part of this goal.

4. Schedule Your Actions

Now that you have action items from your plan in step 3, you are going to head over to your calendar and schedule in time each day & week to actually complete the tasks.

This is important.

If you don't schedule time, trust me, it won't be long before you will get busy and will not achieve your planned actions.

5. Keep Your Finger On The Pulse

At the end of the week take 10 minutes to see how you went with your plan. At the end of the month take an hour to review the previous month and track your KPIs (both leading and lagging) so you can document your progress.

Finally, at the end of the quarter, schedule in a few hours to really evaluate how you have progressed and identify anything that needs to be adjusted.

Now, the second important thing for your business at this time of the year...

Produce

Push a little harder at the end of the year and ramp up your content production. This is going to put more of your content out there for your audience to consume over the holidays. If your regular content production schedule is 1 blog per week, then you may elect to produce 2/week for the next 3 weeks. If you really want to stretch yourself, you may even go for 3/week.

I'm confident that if you put in the work now, you'll reap the benefits in the new year.

BONUS ACTION: Connect

In my offline businesses, I use this time to connect with more people, knowing full well that many are going postpone until the new year. This allows me to build my pipeline and momentum of meetings for the new year. Use the extra time that you have at this time of the year to reach out and connect with both existing connections as well as new ones.

Will You Be Pulling Up Or Pushing On?

I'd be keen to know... what are you doing at this time of the year?

Are you going to be pulling up and easing into the holidays? Or are you going to sprint towards the end and pick up some bonus momentum in the final few weeks of 2018?

Let me know in the comments!

Until next time...

... Stay classy!

Shane