One Easy Way to Plan for Next Year
I think we can all agree that 2020 has been a special year … Sure we may be playing “Groundhog Day” for a while, but it’s time to move on and do some good ol’ fashioned business planning to look ahead for 2021. And I’m going to show you one easy way to plan for next year.
This is the most basic way you can decide what to focus on for 2021. It will help you start thinking about where you may or may not need some additional capacity.
I can’t take credit for this method. I don’t even know who invented it, but I first heard about it through the ICON Method Mastermind I took last year. You can learn more about it here. (p.s. this is my affiliate link).
But when I learned about this method from Shannan Monson, I thought, “That is sooooo easy! Why have I not done that before?!”
It’s called the Starfish Retrospective Method and it looks like this:
You draw out a starfish with categories for:
Keep doing
More Of
Less Of
Start Doing
Stop Doing
These five categories help you to think retrospectively about what you do for your business and what you want to do moving forward!
Image shot for @Fernanda Melo
So let’s break each one down:
Keep Doing
These are the things that are working in your biz that are bringing in a return on investment (ROI) or have a lot of value.
Less Of
These are the things that you currently do, have some value, but you want to do less of.
More Of
These are also things that are working well for your business and if you could do more of these tasks they would bring in even more ROI or value.
Stop Doing
These are the things that aren’t bringing in value or they are taking away from other things that are bringing in value or ROI.
Start Doing
These are things you want to start offering or doing. Think of it as your ideas that you will implement next year!
Now that you understand the idea, here is what I have sketched out so far for Jessie Wyman Photography for 2021:
Keep doing
My weekly newsletters
My blog posts - which are also outsourced
More Of
Promote my photography memberships
Share more case studies of clients, like this one on How Brand Images Helped this Online Entrepreneur, or this Before and After Website Transformation, and this one on Why You Should Book a Branding Photographer during your Website Refresh
Networking - virtually or in-person, if safe
Automating my process
Less Of
Agreeing to things that I know aren’t a right fit
Doing things that I don’t enjoy
Launching too much at once
Start Doing
Using Associate Photographers
Stop Doing
Saying yes to things I don’t love
half-assing things
Ultimately, things are going well in my business. But I want to streamline and automate as much as possible while thinking of new ways I can offer my services so that I can provide the best product and experience for my clients.
I’d love to see what you are doing for your business! Feel free to share your starfish in your IG stories and tag @jessiewymanphotos while you’re at it so I can check it out!
And why not start the year off with a branding session to get your business on track for 2021?