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Quarterly Planning Your Business For Online Entrepreneurs

Quarterly Planning Your Business For Online Entrepreneurs

Quarterly Planning for Entrepreneurs

Can you believe it is almost the end of June already? Crazy. Wow. Time flies when you're having fun. What does the end of June mean for you? For me, it means looking ahead at the next quarter and seeing all the things I want to accomplish in my life and business. Quarterly planning for Entrepreneurs is essential to the success of your business. As an Operations Manager, I understand that quarterly planning isn’t always an entrepreneur's cup of tea. Here are the things that go into the quarterly planning process. Do you resist planning? Here is a link to download a quarterly plan template! 

Michele Duwe from Miss Task | Quarterly Planning Your Business For Online Entrepreneurs

Process for Planning Your Business Quarterly

You may be wondering about different steps in the quarterly planning process. Is creating a quarterly plan necessary? Yes, it is. 

With quarterly planning entrepreneur, you figure out what you want to accomplish in the next quarter verse flying by the seat of your pants. 

Do you know everything you want to achieve and the steps to accomplish it? 

Creating a quarterly plan will keep you from feeling completely overwhelmed and busy daily. Calm and ease are why planning is a good thing.

Well, first off, we always get to pick our hard. You have two choices, would you rather spend a little bit of time working on the hard now by quarterly planning, or do you want your hard to be spending a lot of effort and time spinning your wheels every day? 

It's your choice; you get to choose and make sure you do what feels best for you. Is creating a quarterly plan for your business the best use of your time and energy? 

Psst… Yes, it is. 

Figure out your time

You must be wondering what I feel is necessary when quarterly planning. 

Pull out your calendar. 

If you haven't already, put the dates that you're planning to be out of the office for time off, such as vacation, appointments, rest, leisure, whatever it is, figure those days out, and put them on your calendar as Out Of Office. Do it right now for the third quarter. Heck, while you’re at it, block off your out-of-office days for the remainder of the year. 

Once you have all your time blocked off on your calendar, that's the number of the working days you have to move forward with all your different goals and projects that you have scheduled or are hoping to accomplish in the third quarter. 

Define Your Goals.

An excellent quarterly plan should help define your goals. You need to set realistic goals so you can measure your progress. If you set too high a goal, you might not achieve it. If you set too low a goal, you won't feel satisfied.

Now grab your notebook, open up your computer, whatever it is, time to create an exhausted list of all the projects and goals you would love to accomplish in the next three months.

Start by defining what success looks like for your business. What do you want to accomplish? How will you know when you've achieved those results? Once you've defined your goals, think about where you want to go next. Are there any new products or services you'd like to offer? Do you want to expand into a different market? Or maybe you just want to make more money. Whatever your goals are, write them down.

What if everything were to go as planned? As you write out your list, think of all the “What ifs” that will help you create a big dream list of all the things you want to get done.

What are all your ideas?

Get it out. Even those crazy ideas don't matter. Whatever it is, no project is too small or too simple for this list. Write it down. Everything that pops into your mind without any judgment add it to your list.

Creating the list should not be a tremendous amount of time, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, whatever feels right for you—just enough time to get everything out of your mind. Heck, you might even be able to do it in five. Whatever works for you time-wise, set a timer, and get everything out of your head.

Now you have it. How are those projects aligned with how you want to think, feel, and your vision for your life and your business?

Michele Duwe from Miss Task | Quarterly Planning Your Business For Online Entrepreneurs

Cross things off the list

When you have your whole and exhausted list, look at the things that feel the most aligned with how you want your life to feel. How do you want your business to feel when tackling that list. Go ahead and cross off anything on that list that is out of alignment or does not bring you joy.

Cross off the things you dread unless it's an essential project; then, you probably need to leave it there.

However, when you break things down, they all become easier. Now I want you to go ahead and circle all the ideas you feel are in alignment with your life and your business. So what are those things?

What are those goals that are important to you? What are the things that you feel called to do and accomplish?

 

Mindmap the Actions For Your Quarterly Plan

After that, we have what we want to accomplish for our life and business in the next three months. Let's go ahead and mindmap out that project. 

My favorite way to create a project plan is, to begin with, a mindmap. Have you created a mindmap before? If not, I recommend this to all my creative entrepreneurs. 

You can do it however you want. I like paper. You might prefer to do it on an app that allows you to mind map. However, it is entirely up to you. 

Mindmap Actions

First, write one goal or project in the middle of the paper and draw a circle around it. 

Second, all around the big circle, write all the ideas that pop into your mind on how to accomplish this project. Go ahead and circle those too. Connect the big circle to the idea circles with lines. 

It will look like spokes coming off the big circling connecting your ideas. 

Third, add the actions you need for all the ideas. These actions will also be circled and connected to the idea with a line. 

Example how to use mindmap for planning

For example, if one project in the next quarter is to create a new opt-in. You’ll need a landing page for one of the items. What are the small accomplishable daily tasks to create a landing page? Here are a few ideas. 

Find images 
Write Copy
Create Wireframe
What else do you need to do? 

Using a mindmap would be how I suggest for the brain sweep or thought download of all the actions that need to take place for that project to happen. 

Now, granted, sometimes, when I'm laying everything out in my project management system, I'll have other things that pop into my mind. I didn't take that into consideration. So, that is how you do a general mindmap. 

Since you have all your action items, let's get it scheduled.

Michele Duwe from Miss Task | Quarterly Planning Your Business For Online Entrepreneurs

Get it scheduled

Now that you have a clear idea of what you want to achieve, it's time to implement your plan. This means creating a detailed strategy for reaching your goals. 

If you have a project management system, you can set this up inside so you know what to do when. If not, a paper calendar or Bullet Journal will work just fine. 

Once you know all the actions that will need to be done, give each an estimated time it will take to complete. A quick word of advice, if you’re not sure about the time, estimate double the amount of time you think it would take if you did know. 

You should also consider who will help you reach these goals. Who will you need to hire? Who will you need to partner with? And who will you need to outsource some work too?

Let's get it on your calendar and figure out the who and the when.

Generally speaking, work from the end forward because if you know the date you want it done by, it will allow you to have the correct timeline. 

Do not build too many bridges

Build one bridge at a time, focusing on one project until it is completed instead of jumping back and forth between multiple projects. 

So now you have your list of everything that needs to be done. You have an idea of the due date; the next question is, who will get it done? Is it you or somebody on your team who needs to get it done? 

Perhaps, you’re focused on a life goal over the summer while you’re spending more time with the kids. Are you the only one who can do the work, or can you involve your kids? 

Do you need any special resources to be able to accomplish your project and get it done? 

For example, if you're landscaping your front yard, what are all the things you'll need to get ordered before you can even start working on that project? 

As yourself again, are you the best person to do this task? It's essential that you stay in your own lane and delegate out any task that somebody can do more efficiently because they have better knowledge of the project, and it will take them far less time to get accomplished than if you kept it on your plate.

Review Your Results.

Once you've completed your plan, review your results. Did you meet your goals? If not, why not? What did you learn from your efforts? How do you think you can improve next quarter?

 

What is your goal? 

If you have any questions, write them down below in the comments. I'd love to hear what is the next big project your planning for the quarter? 

I hope you have a wonderful day. I appreciate you.

If you need some help figuring these out, I invite you to apply for my private coaching. Here is the link: https://misstask.com/mini-session; working on all those project plans together would be fun. 

Download the Quarterly Plan Template

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Why I Don’t Recommend One Project Management Software

Why I Don’t Recommend One Project Management Software

Michele Duwe from Miss Task | Why I Don’t Recommend One Project Management Software

Managing your time and energy effectively is essential for online entrepreneurs. We're juggling so many things that it's easy to let things drop unless you have a good system in place. So, are you using project management software in your business to help manage all these things you have going on? Personally, I use Asana in my business. Do I love it? Dang, right, I do. But do I recommend it to everyone? Nope. You might be wondering why I don't recommend one project management software to all of my clients.

Why I Don’t Recommend One Project Management Software

Well, we're going to talk about why I don’t recommend one project management system to all my clients. There's a reason we have so many choices when it comes to project management software. Heck, that's just software in general. There are always so many options to choose from. As entrepreneurs, we have different needs and different goals for our lives and our businesses, and not everybody is going to want all the bells and whistles that some project management software offers. Those bells and whistles may be downright overwhelming.​

How do you get stuff done?

Now, this is important: the question you need to ask yourself is, how do you work best? Somewhere in your life, you get things done. Right. I know you do because things are happening.

How do you do that? How do you stay consistent with it? What process do you actually use? Is it pen and paper? Do you schedule time on your calendar? Or do you set aside dedicated days or blocks of time to get those items done that are necessary for you? We all have systems for getting things done. I promise you do, even if you don't realize it. You're likely doing things in the same order from point A to point D.

Our brains like that repetition. They also like to know what to expect and what is coming up next. If you did know how you get things done, what would that be? Let your mind chew on that for a little while to come up with an answer.

 A switch from Clickup to Asana

Last year, I switched from ClickUp to Asana. ClickUp worked for me. Didn't have a problem with it. However, it was hard for members of my team to use. They found it confusing. The flow of it did not make sense to them. As a whole, we were not effectively using our time with this software.

Was I sad to let it go? Yes, I was. But I had to make a decision on what was right for my team, not necessarily what was right just for me. I was spending a lot of time and energy trying to create systems in ClickUp that worked well for them. In the end, switching was the best use of my time. If I was going to rework the system, why not get input from my team? You see, I'm adaptable. I asked them what would work better, and they came back with Asana.

It was a software they used in the past, and they understood it. It was perfect. We moved everything over, and the time it took for them to complete tasks dramatically decreased because they were using software that did not overwhelm them, and it felt easy.

Michele Duwe from Miss Task | Why I Don’t Recommend One Project Management Software

Is it a good fit?

When selecting your software, don't be afraid to kick the tires a little bit. Pick a couple and try them out for a small bit of time. Does it work for you? How do you feel when you're using it? Start small. Don't go crazy by adding all the things until they feel like, oh, yeah.

This is a good fit for me. I can handle it, and it doesn't feel overwhelming at all.

 

Consider Your Goals

What are your goals as a business owner? This is an important piece of the puzzle. Do you want to get to the point where you have an Online Business Manager (OBM) who directs you and your team with all the tasks that need to get done?

Are you more interested in just having a small and mighty team? These things also play an important part in your decision-making. When you're an entrepreneur balancing a family and a work-from-home business, it is critical to focus on the features that aid in your efficiency, flexibility, and clarity.

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Three Things to Consider When Picking Your Project Management Software

Here are three things that I want you to consider when you're picking your project management tool. Yes, there's a wide range of different things that come into factor, but just think about these three things right now.

First Thing to Consider: Do you think it is user-friendly?

Is it intuitive and user-friendly for you? Remember, the key question always is for you. When you're juggling multiple roles, you need software that's easy for you to use, and does it make you feel overwhelmed at the thought of using it? If that is the case, it's the wrong software for you.

Is it easy to check those items off your task list? There is a reason why so many options exist.

You want project management software that has the ability to be flexible with task management and scheduling. Unless you need things to be rigid, then you don't want flexibility, but 9 out of 10 times, you're going to want a system that's flexible for you. A big benefit of using project management software is the actual task management capabilities. Am I right with that? The software must be easy for you to create tasks, set your deadlines, and assign responsibilities if you have a team member who's in there doing tasks as well.

Michele Duwe from Miss Task | Why I Don’t Recommend One Project Management Software

Second Thing to Consider: How do you need to look at your task?

Do you need to limit what you see from your tasks, or do you want to know everything that's coming down the pike for you? You want to have flexibility that works for you and your team members. Does the software have the ability to view tasks on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis? This helps in planning and prioritizing effectively.

How do you need to look at your task? This is something you need to answer for yourself that is not overwhelming for you. Do you need to have that Kanban board style, like in Trello, where it has the columns with the boards and the cards that you can move around? Do you need a Gantt chart where it has like the little lines with all the tasks that are on a calendar view? Or, do you need a simple to-do list that you can check things off as you go?

Third Thing to Consider: Collaboration and Communication Features

Finally, the third one is, does it have collaboration and communication features? This one, again, is going to be important for those entrepreneurs who work with teams or want to work with teams in the future. Software should have a way to easily communicate and collaborate with your team. Do not overlook this.

I was an OBM for an entrepreneur that assigned all tasks through either email or Slack. It was overwhelming for me. It was overwhelming for the team, and too many things were missed in this manner. Plus, I spent a lot of my time and resources looking through emails and Slack, to figure out if there was a task we were missing. Don't do that to your team.

The project management tool should include the ability to communicate in that project or task when you're working together as a team. Think comments, attaching files, adding your links. This keeps everybody on the same page and working in the same direction, which adds up to efficiency for everyone.

Okay, friends. It's time to wrap this up.

A single project management system does not work for everyone. It's essential to find the system that's easy for you. If you're still unsure about which tool is right for you, consider booking a content creation simplified session. Together, we can figure out your right tool and a content plan and system that works for you. I'll put a link to book a session in the show notes down below.

And if you're curious what this actually is, be sure to tune in next week when I take you behind the scenes in a content creation simplified session so that you can hear firsthand the things that we talk about. Thank you so much for your time. I appreciate you, and I hope you have a wonderful week.

Michele Duwe from Miss Task | Why I Don’t Recommend One Project Management Software

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20 Software Tools I Use As An Online Entrepreneur

20 Software Tools I Use As An Online Entrepreneur

Have you ever wanted to peep inside the toolkit of another podcasting entrepreneur? To see the different software tools they use and why? Let me guess, as a busy entrepreneurs, investing your time to research and implement new software is not at the top of your to-do list. That’s why I’m sharing 20 software tools I use weekly, either in my business or my client's business.

Appsumo: A Software Enthusiat’s Dream AKA Me

I'm curious: have you ever heard of AppSumo? Well, it's a software enthusiast's dream. Trust me. AppSumo offers fantastic deals on new and upcoming software for entrepreneurs at incredible prices. The best part? No monthly fees! Instead, you gain lifetime access to these software tools. I'll admit, that I've accumulated quite a collection of lifetime software. Some I use actively, while others rest in the “someday, maybe” pile.

After evaluating my spending a few years ago, I've learned to control my visits to AppSumo.

Enough of my rambling; let’s get into the software tools I use either as an online entrepreneur or for my content marketing and repurposing clients.

 

20 Software Tools I Use

Friend, I know you want to be intentional with your time and energy. Let’s imagine we’re sitting down for coffee, chatting about our online businesses. You ask the question, “I’d love to pick your brain about the software that you use in your business.”

Oh friend you just opened a can of worms with that question! Here are the 20 software tools, I would name off the top of my head. They would come spilling out of me.

1. Canva – All Day, Every Day

I don’t know about you, but I tried out Photoshop and quickly made the decision, I did not have time to learn it. Early in my business, I used PicMonkey and Canva. PicMonkey is a great tool as well for image creation, however, these days I keep it simple with Canva. Canva is used for the image creation for my business and for my client's business. 

2. Descript – Podcast Editing Made Effortless

Descript crosses off more on podcast editing on the to-do list. It creates your transcript, along with the ability to easily create audiograms for your social media as you're editing your podcast.

In addition, if you have guests on your show, it includes Squadcast. Squadcast is made for podcasting. Once your interview is down send it over to Descript seamlessly for easy editing.

3. WordPress – For My Online Store Front

Of course! You need a website.This is one of the first investments I made as an entrepreneur was in a WordPress website. However, WordPress is not for everyone. There are so many different options out there, be sure to check them out before making your decision. Especially, if tech is not your thing.

4. Notion – My Business Hub

If you’ve been around here for any amount of time you’ll know I’m starry-eyed over Notion. It is my business hub. Yes, I use Google. However, Notion is the hub.

What I love is each page is a blank slate to create and make your very own. It has my business hub, my goals, my meal planning along with recipes. There are so many things that I put into Notion. and I love the flexibility that it has. If you're one who doesn't like flexibility, this may not be the tool for you. Your data can be transformed into kanbana boards, galleries, tables, and calendar views. It lets you look at it in many different ways.

5. Asana – Project Management Simplified

Asana is the project management software my team and I rely on. It offers ease and flexibility for our projects.

6. Trello – Streamlining Client Projects

This project management software is used by one of my clients. I like that you can have boards and move cards around. It also allows you to duplicate templates easily.

7. Ubersuggest – My Go-To Keyword Research Tool

When it comes to keyword research for SEO, Ubersuggest is my go-to SEO research tool.  I’ve used it for the past few years, however, Faith Hanan, from Simple SEO & Marketing Podcast, helped me utilize it better. Here is a link to her podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/simple-seo-and-marketing-business-growth-organic/id1625600727

One more thing,  this has the option to buy it once-for-lifetime access software.

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8. Organize Your Digital Files

Google Workspace is my solution for email and Google Drive file storage. If your file storage is in chaos, grab my free resource: Google Drive Organization: Here is the link to sign up for this free resource and email series. https://misstask.com/organize-your-google-drive-sign-up

9. MetriCool – Simple Social Media Scheduling

Metricool makes scheduling Pinterest Pins and social media posts simple. It even allows for easy setup of recurring posts and automatic posting from your website. One more thing, I didn’t mention on the podcast, they have an integration with Canva. This means you can share your image directly from Canva into MetriCool for easy scheduling.

10. Grammarly – All Those Little Mistakes

I wish I was an amazing writer, I’ve come a long way. However, I still depend on Grammarly daily to fix all my grammar and spelling mistake. This was the second software I invested in as an online entrepreneur.

11. AI Tools: ChatGPT and WordTune

AI tools. We can't dismiss the AI tools because you know there are so many different options and I have a feeling they are here to stay.

ChatGPT has so many different ways in which it can be used. I love to use it to generate ideas and kickstart my brainstorming. It is called Chat for a reason, am I right? For this reason, is why I use it like I’m text messaging with my business bestie for inspiration.

WordTune is for when I'm not getting the right wording of a sentence. Because I think I've said before, I'm very wordy, and I do the same thing with my writing.

12. Style Stock Society – Stock Images For Female Entrepreneurs

Probably my favorite things is how they create image collections containing up to 25 images with the same theme. You know, because you've seen this throughout all the content that I create.

13. HoneyBook – CRM Software

Let me just say, wow, they have added many new features and rolling out new features every single week. This past week they announced SMS reminders for meetings. I love that.

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14. Flodesk – Email Marketing and Checkout

Flodesk is my email marketing software.In addition to email they have checkout pages, too. They are simple to set up and remind me of LeadPages.

The checkout pages, can be set up as the sign up and landing page for your freebies or free resources that you have for your email list. It gives you the option to include an upsell with your free resource.

15. Podbean – Your Podcast Hosting Solution

This is where my podcast, Content Systems for Growth is hosted. All my new podcasts will be distributed to all other podcasts via Podbean.

16. Let's connect

Back in the day, I bought this software from AppSumo. It is a chatbot on my website that you can use to ask questions, whether I am online or offline. You can send it there and I will receive it, and I can reply back to you.

17. SEMrush

Like Ubersuggest, SEMrush is an SEO tool. I use this for one of my content clients and it is recommend by their SEO Manager. Comparing Ubersuggest and SEMrush, two things stand out to me. The biggest is the price tag. While Ubersuggest is a one-time lifetime access for around $300. SEMrush plans start at $129.95 per month and doubles in pricing for the next tier. The second thing is Ubersuggest is easier to use. SEMrush has a lot going on and I personally feel it is very confusing.

With that said I would like to call out the feature that I absolutely love in SEMrush is their SEO writing assistant because it lets you write your whole post out there and then it gives you your score based on your readability, SEO, originality and tone of voice.

18. Social Curator

More than just images are included in this monthly subscription. It is pack full of marketing education with monthly marketing action plans. When Jasmine Star first launch this I did not hesitate to sign up. I’ve been a member since the very beginning.

19. Yoast SEO

For my website, I am using this SEO plugin. It is helpful by giving a SEO and Readability score for the post and pages on a WordPress website. Once the copy is added to the post or page it will give you your score. You may also utilize Yoast SEO online with their  Real-time Content Analysis. Here is the link: https://yoast.com/research/real-time-content-analysis/

20. TinyPNG or ImageOptIn for Mac

The final software that I use weekly in my online business, is an image size reducer. I personally use, ImageOptIn for Mac. For my client, they utilize TinyPNG.

Both of these softwares are for reducing the size of images on your website. The size of your images on your website should be smaller for speed. You want to have images size at 1200 by 800 with a file size under a hundred kilobytes when you upload it to your website.

That's something to keep in mind as well. Both of these tools help you reduce your image sizes and still keep that quality of the image.

My friend, I could probably go on and on about software tools and name more. However, those were the software tools that came off the top of my head.

It’s time to wrap this up!

Well, I think that's a pretty good list of 20 software tools that I use in my online business. Are any of these familiar to you?

Friend, I hope that you found this valuable. I appreciate you and I hope you have a wonderful week.

Simplify Your Digital Life: Take Control of Google Drive, Eliminate Chaos!

  • Are you tired of the digital clutter in your Google Drive causing chaos, wasting your time, and risking important files?
  • Imagine the frustration of missing files during crucial moments, the stress of duplicated documents, and the overwhelming clutter that hinders productivity.

Grab our free guide and take the first step towards a well-organized and efficient Google Drive.

Say goodbye to the chaos and hello to digital content organization!