#174: Your 15-Minute Annual Planning Process

Welcome back to another episode of the Course Creation Incubator podcast. I’m your host, Gina, Onativa, here to get you stoked about your digital force or program and help you build up the course based business of your dreams. Now we just got back from Palm Springs, where our ten year old Tristan was in the in the U10 Tennis Sectionals.

So this is our second time going to tennis playoffs. It’s always a blast. We went in the spring and we get to hang out with the tennis parents, and it’s a great bunch of kids. And in the first match, Tristan is playing doubles with his good friend Luke, and they are playing these two girls who. How do I say this? We’re cheaters. They would call balls out before they even hit the court, and we’re just blatantly calling line calls. Just they weren’t truthful. And Tristan and Luke literally lost an entire game because of these line calls and more because of this match. And they were ahead. And then they got down or these girls got caught up to them because it wasn’t just the line calls, but it was a big part of what was happening with the match. And then an official, a USTR official, got called over to the match because word got out about the really bad line calling. Well, the great thing was I really saw Tristan and his partner’s grit and determination. They didn’t get down. They could have easily just lost their momentum and been disappointed or focused on the line calling or the games they had lost as a result, and they pick themselves back up.

The match ended up going to a tiebreak and the boys won. So their grit and determination and their honesty, because the thing was the boys weren’t calling doing bad calls. They were being honest. And I’d even know this. There’s a thing in tennis because I guess tennis is one of the only sports where doing your own calls, right? So there was an article that just came out about how bad it is in college tennis about calls. And this is going to be a lifetime or this is going to be a career thing for Tristan in terms of the calls. But him and Luger so honest and honestly, one and and good morals one over which I love and seeing Tristan persevere just made my weekend.

Anything else that happened after that was gravy. So it was incredible weekend to see him keep his head up and continue to be determined despite whatever was going on. And by the way, a lot of hooting and hollering, a lot of cheering. You know, you think tennis is a quiet sport, but there was a lot of noise going on and they just cleared out the distractions and went for it and won. So it’s been a busy end of the year. There’s just one story is just one thing that’s happening with us. Tristan doing the playoffs, the tennis playoffs. And I haven’t even had a chance to think about next year. And am I the only one? By the way, have you thought about next year and what do I want for my business? Like this is such a great time to look back and then look ahead to see what’s possible and to take stock in what was super great about the year and maybe didn’t go as planned and what you want to switch up knowing that you’re kind of getting a fresh slate and thinking ahead in terms of maybe not the next 12 months, but the next six months.

So regardless of when you’re listening to this podcast, if you want to reset, this is a great episode to help you do that because I sat on my business coach yesterday and said, I haven’t thought about next year at all. I haven’t thought about the next six months. What do you got for me? And we literally had 15 minutes left in our call to look ahead, and she asked me five questions that I’m going to share with you today to help you plan ahead, to help you see the road ahead.

To look back. Debrief. We have to debrief everything, right? We are debriefing that tennis weekend with Tristan’s coach and say and he said, okay, what what was great about it? What do you think? We need to improve on it? I’m a big fan of debriefing any significant event and especially in terms of our business. So I want to walk through these five questions as part of this episode. So I want you to plan ahead. I want you to see the road ahead. All right. So question number one is what went right in terms of your business, in terms of your courses or your digital programs. And for me, right off the bat, I got out of my own way and I started to put out some really great marketing packages this year and offering different services officially and putting them out there publicly. Now, for you, it could be that you’re putting out a course for the first time, or maybe you tried out a workshop or you put together some consulting packages and they started to gain momentum. Maybe you published a video series or you got on a summit that landed you a nice bunch of leads thinking about where you saw success and that you want to build on in the upcoming few months.

Okay. So the first question, what went right then? The second question, I want to ask it with a smile on your face, because we’re not going to get down, right? We’re not going to go doom and gloom. We’re going to keep it positive what went wrong? And we’re going to laugh at the end of it, right. Like, hey, this didn’t turn out exactly the way I had planned. So for us, I did a whole trip wire episode talking about a low price point strategy in terms of a trip wire. And I talked about our trip wire. We had an entire strategy mapped out and it didn’t go the way we planned. Now, don’t get me wrong, we sold trip wires. Like in that way it worked. But when I think about the outcome was to get quality leads further down the line, that didn’t go as well. That’s where it went wrong a little bit. Or by the way, if you don’t like this idea of wrong, right or wrong, another way to phrase this question is what went a way that you didn’t anticipate it was going to go. So for some of you listening, maybe you did a launch and didn’t go as well as you had hoped. I talked to some of you who said, you know, Gina, I had this launch plan, the first launch for my course ever, putting myself out there. I got five instead of the 15 or 20 that I wanted. It felt like a disappointment. Or maybe you put out something for list building. Maybe you spent time on an opt in or a new lead magnet and you didn’t get the traffic or the qualified leads that you were really looking for. So whatever it looks like, it didn’t go as anticipated. Maybe you had high hopes or high expectations for something and and it went awry right. Or maybe you realized the people that you were attracting weren’t the right people that you really wanted to serve. And now we’re asking these first two questions because we’re going to use this knowledge as we head into the next six months.

Right now, the third question is what’s a significant event that happened? One, let’s figure out one that was an achievement or a disappointment, or maybe it was both. There were highs and there were lows. Maybe you published a book. Maybe you officially got on the speaking circuit, maybe you launched a podcast or you got your subscription program that you’ve been talking about for two years, and you put it out there.

 Maybe you held your first event. Those are all significant events. So I think a significant event for us was doubling down on this podcast and giving it more love. Another significant event was relaunching my website. I talked about that two episodes ago, a link to it in the show notes that was huge for us. We hadn’t done a new website in years and years, so that was a significant event and it was an achievement. So talk about achievement and disappointment, right? You got to listen to that episode. But there were some disappointments in how long it took and in the process. But overall, I feel like it’s an incredible achievement and an amazing event that happened to us this year that I’m so grateful for that I’m going to carry that momentum into the next six months. So figure out what did that look like for you? What was that significant event? Hiring was another significant event for us, and I’ll talk about that in a minute. Okay. And then the fourth question, what are the lessons learned now? For me, I learned about the audience I really wanted to serve. And by the way, those last three questions were kind of the look back now.

We’re going to look ahead with these next two questions. So I learned about the audience I really wanted to serve because I started out with a with a specific audience in terms of my courses and then our agency side of the business. And now I’m getting a better and better idea of who is best for me to work with, for the team to work with. And speaking of the team, I also learned that I need to rely on them more and not be the boss of everything. For the first time I have someone running my operations day to day and it’s been tough. I’ll be the first to admit Rhona is my director of operations and I never thought of myself as a control freak, but I guess I kind of out and it’s been difficult for me to let go of directing clients and different aspects and projects of the business. And I know that in order for me to grow and let’s be honest, have some headspace and have some Zen, I need to let my team take over more. And I’m starting to really see that happen because I had to learn that lesson. So for you, I’m curious, what are the lessons you picked up along the way this year?

So I had one student say to me that she didn’t spend enough time on this building. Okay, it’s a good one. It’s one I hear very a lot. Sometimes we’re focused on building our courses and not as much building up our audiences more. I had a client say, I have too many low priced courses and meanwhile I’m not making enough money because it’s just like these $17 pings here and there. And meanwhile my audience wants a high ticket. And that’s where she could really make some money, because that’s what they’re asking for. So thinking through, what are those lessons? I mean, I think it’s kind of fun to think through the lessons. There’s sometimes hard lessons I named to lessons that were kind of hard for me. But they’re so useful in moving forward because based on those lessons, Question five is What’s the passion path moving forward for you?

So based on those lessons learned, what do you really passion about? What lights you up and how do you find more of what lights you up? So I talked about that audience, right? And really digging deep into that audience because that lights me up and workshopping with that audience really lights me up. That’s what I was talking about with my coach.

So for you, it could be a specific mission or a group of people or a specific workshop you want to teach. So the question is how do you get more of that in the next six months? How do you do that? What lights you up? Where’s your zone of genius and happiness? What do your people really want and how do you want to deliver it so important? So I’m telling you, it takes 15 minutes, not even to go through these questions. Maybe have someone interview you like I did this with my business coach as part of the process. Sit down and do this time in review and let’s look forward. Then beyond the 15 minutes, think about sitting down and coming up with a plan based on Question five, What’s the passion path? And I want you to think about who, not how. There’s that great book by Dan Sullivan. It’s all about who you need in to bring into your life, into your business, versus how are the steps. So I was thinking for my own step five or question five, who can I have a brainstorm session with? Who do I need to bring in to coach me?

Who who can advise me on this? Or maybe what special training do I need from this specific person? So that’s kind of phase two. After you’ve gone through these five questions, spend 15 minutes brainstorming. So think about who can help you in the next few months. Maybe it’s me. I would love to coach you. We have our done for you. Packages are VIP half days and of course our six week accelerator where you can get your course, your starter course out to market in six weeks. So think about who can help you get there. Oh, one last thing you can do these five questions for different categories. So, for example, we went through your overall digital business in this episode, but I could have went through these questions for my podcast. What was great, what went wrong, what was it, a significant event, maybe a significant event was I had an incredible guest on that. I never thought I would land, right? And then so on. What were the lessons learned? What’s the passion path forward for the podcast? You could do these five questions for building your audience. You could do these five questions for your money, right?

We had Serena Shoop on a link to that episode. And knowing your numbers and doing a look back and a look forward in terms of your numbers for your business, and then you just repeat the process. You repeat those five questions. I’m hoping this was helpful for you. Did me on Instagram or send me a message on LinkedIn If you have any questions, I would love for you.

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