30-Day Biz Planning Challenge: 2008 Modules

Yesterday's post laid out a few modules for you to choose from when you start working on a business plan. But wait--there's more! Today, we're focusing on modules that help analyze your 2008 work, with more to come tommorow.

Remember: You can start anywhere. I've suggested an order, but please don't let it stop you. Pick one, do it, and go back to work.

Favorite Clients
List all your clients, then rank them from one to five, with five being "I never want to get an email from them again" and one being, "I want to marry this publication and have lots of zine babies."

You'll use this module as you get to the next section, planning for 2009. You can't know where you're going till you know where you've been.

Client Health
This is a new module I'm thinking of adding to my biz plan this year: In it, I'll look up news on my client's health and see how they're doing. That way, when I get to planning for 2009, I'll have a sense of where I need to take my marketing efforts.

Work Breakdown
Equip yourself with a pen and piece of paper and scan back through your articles for 2008. Make some lists.

• Types of assignments you did: ie, reviews, service pieces, departments, shorts, features, essays, etc.
• Coverage areas: ie, health, real estate, technology, green lifestyle.
  

Whatever it is, list the type of work or beat, and then put hash marks next to each type every time you come across it. Had a year where you felt weighed down by work, irritated? It may be because you were doing types of work that don't feed you anymore. Or it could be that you're no longer excited by a coverage area.

Source of Clients
This is one of my favorite modules, and one that was really eye-opening when I added it last year. Take that list of all your clients and then think back to how you started working for them. This will show you what kind of marketing works for you: Networking, cold calling/pitching, referrals, etc.

Spending Breakdown
To know how much you need to earn next year, you first have to have a baseline of spending from which to start. A quick spin through your online bank account or accounting software may be enough. Or, if you're anal like me, you'll want to go back through a month's worth of spending and write down every penny to see what you really spend. Divide it by "business" and "personal."

I can hear you now: We had unexpected expenses this year. I shouldn't count them. Count everything. You'll always have some unexpected or unusual spending. It's the nature of the beast. Just make a category for "Unexpected." And be sure to include how much you spent on taxes.

30-Day Biz Planning Challenge: Checking On Progress

Day 3's goal: Reflect back.

Yesterday I wrote about what I hoped having a business plan would have done for me this year. Did it work?

My general sense is yes. I've had an incredibly abundant year. You wouldn't know by looking at my business we were in a recession this year. My income is near the highest it's ever been--whether working for myself or for someone else full-time. Plus, I've had time to do a lot of the things I love and take care of myself.

But the goal of a business plan is not to plan based on my general sense. It's to be concrete and see what worked. It's an inventory.

So let's get to brass tacks. In last year's biz plan cheat sheet, I listed six goals: an income goal, a time goal, target markets, outgoing clients, major new expenditures, and marketing goals.

Here's how they played out (with some generalities to protect a teensy bit of my privacy):

Income Goal:
Set at: A third more than my 2007 income.
Why: Calculated what I needed to live on plus goals for the year.
Result: I didn't hit the mark, but I will have increased my income by more than $10,000 this year if my projections for December are accurate.

Time Goal:
Set at: Spend five hours a week on querying. Record work hours by task (income work, non-income work, querying, and networking).
Why: To keep my business growing and break into target markets; to know how I'm spending my work time.
Result: Mostly successful. I didn't do it perfectly, but I did record my time from March through the end of the year. Aside from two weeks where I spent nine and 10 hours, respectively, querying, I didn't hit the five-hour-a-week goal.

Target Markets:
Set at: Five consumer pubs and about 20 custom publications.
Why: To do more of the work I love, to earn a sustainable income and be able to use my business to support a rich, full life.
Result: Some progress. Of the five publications, I dropped one, queried another four times, and have another publication considering a story idea after building a relationship with the editor through regular querying. The other two, I've queried only sporadically. Of the custom publications, I queried only a few.

Outgoing Clients:
Set at: Three clients who were no longer fitting in my business model.
Why: Either because of pay limitations or because my professional interests changed.
Result: Imperfect. I parted on pretty good terms with one, did one final story for the second and, for the third, I'm working on a story for right now. But I did drastically cut back with all three.

Major New Expenses:
Set at: Some personal (vacations, saving for Xmas without using a credit card, and moving); some professional (health expenses, computer repairs and an ergonomic office chair).
Why: To have a rich full life that clears my mind for great work, and to work more productively and healthfully.
Result: Mostly good. I saved enough for Xmas presents without having to go into debt and I did get to take vacations. I also saved enough money to start going to the chiropractor and see a nutritionist, which are huge for me. I'll be buying the office chair this month. The only down side? I still haven't moved.

Marketing Goals:
Set at: Send three queries a week to higher-paying markets. Do no query markets paying less than $1/word.
Why: To increase my income, do more features and write the stories that I want to write.
Result: I'm happy to say that I did this fairly consistently. There were some weeks when I didn't query at all, of course. And some weeks I queried more than the requisite three.

Now, does it mean the plan wasn't successful just because I didn't achieve all my goals? Not to me. The point of planning to guide myself in the direction I want to head--not to reach the destination. It's to help me track what that path might look like and give me some concrete steps to take to get there. I don't believe I would have accomplished what I did without the plan.

Do you have goals for those five categories? How did you do compared to what you'd hoped to accomplish this year?