figure out what you want Archives - Page 7 of 8 - ⚡️Kristen Kalp

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figure out what you want

Celebrate your progress.

business progress

I’ve been watching too much Ace of Cakes, obviously.  Last night I decided that building a gingerbread house can’t be *that* difficult and went to work with royal icing and a slightly-deformed icing bag.  Um.  The coffee table is covered in a thin layer of icing.  The front Christmas tree is leaning to the right.

For God’s sake, the snowman has a unibrow.

This is also, I have to remind myself, a first attempt.  I’ve never piped icing from a bag or assembled a house made of gingerbread.  The fact that it’s still standing is a testament to my progress in the happenin’ world of gingerbread houses.

The same principle applies to business.  If this is your first business, and particularly your first few years in business, you’re a work in progress.  It’s easy to say you’ve effed up your application of royal icing or your snowman is leaning precariously to the side.

For a moment, let’s ignore your mistakes and consider your progress.

This year, have you:

Your gingerbread house of a business may not be perfect, but I’ll wager that it IS making progress.

Take a moment to remind yourself of your own accomplishments.

No one has it all together, and not a single human’s past is free of mistakes and failures.  You’re making progress and you’re pretty awesome, too.

P.S.  Note to self.  For every overachiever out there.  (Not that I know aaaaaanything about that.)

figure out what you want, get your biz off the ground

3 simple steps to your first business retreat — and why you need one.

A business retreat. Yah, I know, you barely have time to get everything in your days accomplished now. The idea of a retreat makes you scoff and throw up your hands in despair, and cues much gnashing of teeth for all the time you do not have. (It gets crazy up in there, with the wailing and the FMLing.) I know.

But. For the length of this article, let’s pretend that a business retreat is possible for you and your helpers, if you have any. Let’s imagine you have the time and the funds and the day or two or four necessary to enter into deep planning and strategizing on behalf of your business for the coming year, okay? Okay.

First, decide whether or not a business retreat is a valuable tool for your psyche and your income.

It’s easy to spend so much time working in our businesses that we forget where we’re going. We’re like overworked sailors, tying the rigging and keeping the decks swabbed, but we’re also the captains – so when we’re busy beyond belief, no one is steering the ship.

A business retreat allows you to steer your ship. To pull away from the everyday tasks that must get done and chart a map for where, exactly, your business is going.

Some questions you might find helpful to ponder and to answer during your business retreat:

What did you accomplish during the previous year?

Add five more things than you find strictly necessary. Give yourself a moment to acknowledge your hard work.

What did you learn during the previous year? Big lessons, small lessons?
How can you improve communication with one another (if you have a team)?

With your clients? (Forms, policies, phone calls, etc…)
With your potential clients? (Website copy, FAQ’s, etc…)

How do you want your business to make you feel?
What do you want your business to accomplish in the upcoming year?

Financially?
Personally?

Which parts of your business consistently make you feel stressed, tired, or overworked?

Can those parts be outsourced?
No, really. Can they be outsourced?

Do you need additional help in the form of a team member?

If so, write a job description for him/her.

How many hours per week do you want to work?
How do you want your business to change, if at all?
What changes will you have to make to achieve your goals?
When will you take time off during the coming year?

Second, build in fun.

While it seems counter-intuitive, fun has got to happen, or you won’t enjoy your planning retreat. I realize that a business planning retreat sounds like you’ll be stuck in a hotel room eating crusty bagels and slurping coffee for endless, tedious hours, but that’s simply not the case!

Haunani and I recently took a road trip/biz planning retreat to Pittsburgh so I could show her around my favorite city. I took her to the zoo, on a boat tour of the rivers, to the Children’s Museum, shopping, drinking, and generally sightseeing – and we still accomplished every one of our goals for the trip!

While our husbands were a bit dubious about the amount of work that was accomplished, we emerged from our creative cocoon with a clear plan for the coming year. We decided upon what’s sticking around, what’s getting the ax, and what’s breaking new ground in 2013. (Turns out there’s a lot that was waiting to be revealed when we made the space for it to emerge!)

If you’re undergoing this journey by yourself, what would make this retreat fun for you? A massage, a facial, a visit with old friends in the evening, catching a play, shopping, eating whatever you damn well please, or taking a cooking class…your choices are your own!

If you’re bringing your business partner, virtual assistant, or employees along, ask for their input. What would be fun for them? Take notes and see how much juice you can squeeze from life during these few days.

Then, choose a location. Renting a cabin in the woods, a glamorous hotel, a seaside cottage, a bustling studio in New York City – the possibilities are endless! Airbnb.com is a fantastic resource for getting your wheels turning and thinking outside the box – you can stay with strangers or have the entire place to yourself. Whichever option feels most comfortable and fun is the right one for you.

Think of this retreat as a delectable treat that rewards you with business clarity and strategy. Make it as sumptuous, fun, loving, and fantastic as possible.

The final step to planning a business retreat is to make time for it.

Yes, to make time.

If you default to trying to squeeze your retreat into your calendar, just like you squeeze in your day-to-day business, it will simply never happen. If, however, you find a spot three to six months’ away on your calendar that isn’t yet full of activities, you’ll actively MAKE time for your retreat to happen. You’ll consistently and lovingly deflect commitments from filling up those few days, and your retreat will proceed as planned.

The length of the trip is entirely up to you: a single overnight retreat if you just need a bit of clarity to whip up goals for income and to brainstorm marketing ideas.  (Refer to this article to get people buying and booking whenever you want.)  A longer retreat is fantastic if you’re feeling stuck, dissatisfied, or as if major changes need to happen.  (Read this article if you want to make any dream come to life.)  There’s no right or wrong retreat length, so long as you’re dedicated to answering tough questions during the time allotted.

Oh, and your biz retreat needn’t be exotic, though feel free to make it so if your budget allows! A simple drive to the local Holiday Inn for peace and quiet, a dip in the pool, and room service is more than enough stimulus to get you kicked out of your routine and into your planning journey.

A little note about your terrible, horrible, no-good thoughts: right about now, your brain will start to tell you that can’t be trusted to do this business planning thing on your own. You can. Sure, you might need help and you might not be perfect, but if you head into the great unknown with the questions I’ve provided and a fun agenda, you’ll be just fine. Everything will unfold as it should, and you’ll be one step closer to having the business of your wildest dreams.

P.S. How to make a marketing calendar in 15 minutes or less.

figure out what you want, read a poem

Choose love: a business manifesto.

Your business is a vehicle for imagining your best life.

It’s designed to help you get there.
And if it’s not fun or working for you or speaking to your heart, change it.

Stop doing the bits that make you crazy. Hire ’em out.
Move ’em along. Refer the job — with love — to someone else.

Start taking care of the bits that need to be nourished.
The people, the clients, the human beings behind that e-mail, that Tweet, that Facebook post, that phone.

We are all human beings, looking for connection with other human beings.
When your business reaches out and touches, on a human being to human being level, it will succeed.

Start seeing more people in person.
Through sales, if you’d like, but in general as well.
Start measuring your business value in hugs per day, not in dollars, and you’ll see where it’s truly succeeding.

Again and again, choose to make your business align with your heart.

Even when it’s painful.
Even when it hurts to breathe because people just don’t get it, or you, or your true intentions.

Again and again, make the choice to love.
In your business, in your life, and in your heart.

Choose love.
Again and again.

Choose love.

P.S.  Go deeper into business than ever before with Calling to the Deep.

figure out what you want

2 minutes to figure out what you really want.

Today, a super-simple exercise for figuring out what you REALLY want. It’s often hard to know what’s really working for us and what is falling flatter than a chocolate chip pancake when we’re in the trenches, but this exercise provides a little perspective.

First, freeze your business in your mind.

Think of your current clients, your current daily routine, and your current revenue. Get crystal clear about what, exactly, your business looks and feels like right this second.

Next, imagine one year from now. A miracle has happened! Your business has QUADRUPLED!

How does having four times more business feel?
Overwhelming, I’m sure, but what feels incredibly good or incredibly bad about the growth of your business just as it is now?
What products or services would you immediately eliminate if you knew your business was going to quadruple?
What systems would you pay more attention to? (A better e-mail setup? Better shopping cart? Better order delivery? Better booking setup?)
What would you STOP doing altogether?
What would you START doing today?

Based on that gut reaction, write down three baby steps you can take toward shaping the perfect business for YOU right this second.

This exercise tends to either a.) make people grin from ear to ear or b.) cause tears.

If you’re tipping the scales toward disliking your business, this possibility only brings you more of the same. Instead of drowning in that space, in which you get more of the same, let’s identify some key bits and pieces you can tweak to move toward the perfect business for you.

You can bet your sweet bippy that I use this when I’m weighing next moves. If business quadrupled tomorrow, I would hire a full-time virtual assistant and keep on keeping on, with a big grin on my face.

Full disclosure: the list of things to stop doing and start doing was reaaaaaaally long the first time I did this, and I’ve been working on steering the ship toward my ideal ever since.

What used to be on the list? Write more, eliminate photography business, get rid of photography studio, get solid photography referral lead for photography clients, learn more about marketing, attend a business conference, publish a book, and travel more were on the list. I was really clear about what I wanted and checked ’em all off one by one.

Consider the things you would stop doing and the things you would start doing.

Add one ‘stop doing it’ and one ‘start doing it’ to your calendar and revisit this exercise in a few weeks.

You’re steering the ship that is your business. Whether you’re thrilled at the prospect of quadrupled business or not, you’re in charge!

It’s entirely up to you to take the first steps toward making that gut reaction about your business into something deeply meaningful for you.

P.S.  If figuring out what you really want for your business — or how you’re going to get there — brings up only question marks, check out biz coaching with me!

figure out what you want, market like a mofo

Who builds a chapel at the end of their driveway?

It should come as no surprise that I watch Bravo TV shows. After all, I’m a writer, and when I don’t feel like writing or have no ideas or want to avoid pushing past page 22 and into page 23 — the Housewives are a good distraction.

So I’m watching the Real Housewives of New Jersey (not my favorite, but they’ll do in a housewife-y pinch) and I glance up to see Teresa praying in her private chapel. Located at the end of her vacation cabin’s driveway.

And I seriously doubt my own intelligence for choosing to keep watching in lieu of switching off the television for betraying my intelligence in such a fashion. Because there are people in the world who have taken the time — and tens of thousands of dollars — to build a chapel as an add-on to their vacation home.

They could have paid their mortgage on time. They could have stopped running up credit card debt. They could have saved money for their retirement, their kids’ educational needs, or a bigger cabin. Nope. A chapel — and they aren’t even religious.

Oh. Oh my. Have you been building a chapel, over there?

You’ve redesigned your blog header for the fifth time. You’re taking six hours to write a blog post. You’ve been telling your kids you’ll be with them in a minute for the last 38 minutes to catch some Facebook time.

When you let the details of your business overtake the big picture, you might as well be paying $3,000 for that imported turret on top of the teeny tiny church you’re building to impress the neighbors.

To make a quick chapel-check of your to-do list…mark each of today’s planned business activities as contributing to your long-term goals, your short term goals, or to this week’s goals. Because hey, you’re so busy that you can’t see more than 7 days from now.

Aim to double the number of longer term goals you’re working on.

Promotional designs, tasks related to next season’s projects, tweaking SEO effectiveness, hashing out your marketing calendar, and/or writing better web copy are all great activities to keep at the forefront of your daily to-dos.

E-mail checks, phone calls, order processing, packaging, shipping, and accounting are crucial business tasks — but they aren’t focused on the longer term or the bigger picture.

One misstep, and you’ll be ordering another angel statue for your driveway from Amazon instead of letting clients know about your latest promo.

P.S.  How to make space for what really matters.