E108: 8 Questions to You MUST Ask Before Planning 2021

Going through eight important questions we need to be asking before making any decisions to plan for the new year. We’re breaking down what worked, and what didn’t to make for a more successful 2021!

[00:25] Hey there, welcome back to the Women’s Empowerment Podcast! It’s been a whole year since we had our business ritual: end of year review episode and I’m not even really sure how to even describe this last year for myself - I’m sure you can relate - as we all can: 2020 was a bit of a shit show.

Nonetheless! We can still complete our End of Year Review and this year I have eight questions to help prepare you for the upcoming year.

Now last year I took you through a very thorough business ritual.
Episode #57: Business Ritual: End of Year Review
www.valerielavignelife.com/57

This is a three part ritual that takes you deep into your business analytics and really helps you create the plan for the following year. It’s a very specific ritual that I use and I highly recommend, especially if you’re looking at growing and evolving your business, as well as creating a clear business strategy. It’s so great if you started something new this year and you want to really understand how it performed with your audience. Or if you’re looking for the next step and you aren’t sure what that is, it will help you better understand where to put your energy moving forward.

It does take some time, so please give yourself the proper day to do the work and really set yourself up for success. It’s worth it.

Today’s episode is more of a basic - yet important - piece to the full ritual. It’s all about eight key questions to ask yourself before planning the new year. These questions are not in last year’s ritual, but they are essentially the summary of the deeper more specific questions.

With that being said, you can ask these eight questions about your business as a whole, and/or you can ask these questions for each part of your business.

For example, for myself, I have multiple streams of income and I produce different things for each of these income streams. I can then ask the same eight questions for each income stream and I will better understand each section of my business. This can help me strategize each of the areas.

Okay, let’s get to the questions shall we!?

[3:27] QUESTION NUMBER ONE:

What business mindset practice has been working for you so far?

I love this question because the answer usually jumps out at you really fast. And sometimes that answer is: “I don’t have a mindset practice.” Which means your starting point is going to be: choosing a mindset practice! YAY!

Now I did say “business” however you can change this to anything really. It can be:

Health and wellness mindset
Money mindset
Relationship mindset
Positive mindset
And so on

I will link to a few previous mindset episodes in the show notes page for you to give you some extra ideas and resources.

Episode #101: Modern Magic: Spell Casting
Episode #98: Five Ways to Nourish Your Relationship with Money
Episode #97: Overcoming Impostor Syndrome
Episode #91: These 3 Mistakes are Holding us Back from our Creativity
Episode #86: Three Keys to Creating Space to Attract More abundance
Episode #81: Five Tips for Positive Self Talk
Episode #71: Using Your Intuition and the Third Eye Chakra
Episode #69: What 365 Days of Gratitude Taught Me
Episode #67: Communicating with Power
Episode #66: Elevate Your Life by Living with Intention
Episode #63: How to Fail & Make Happiness Your Compass
Episode #53: How to Build Your Confidence Tool Kit
Episode #48: What to Do When Fear Shows Up
Episode #47: How to Shift from Resistance to Resilience
Episode #44: This Judgment Detox will Blow Your Mind
Episode #39: Becoming the Best Version of Yourself
Episode #34: Seven things you Must Do when Creating HEalthy boundaries
Episode #28: Know Your Worth
Episode #07: Mastering Transitions
Episode #04: Your Mindset is a Habit

I think the list is 20 different episodes. So if you’re looking for some ideas, read through the episode titles and listen to the one that speaks to you the most. You don’t want to overwhelm yourself with all the different things.

Some of my mindset practices this year have been my daily intention setting practice. I start every morning with a coffee ritual. I have a very specific way of making and drinking my coffee. Part of the ritual is stirring the coffee counter-clockwise to release any negative, stale, or unhelpful emotions or feelings, followed by stirring in my intention for the day. This really helps me set the tone for the day.

Other mindset practices I’ve used in my past for business and life are:

Meditation
Gratitude journal
Creating my own content BEFORE consuming other people’s content
Honouring boundaries around my phone/computer/social media/work hours
Affirmations

Each of these practices have served me and my business and really helped me stay on track with my goals and strategy.

If you’re starting a new strategy here are my 4 tips for beginning

TIP #1: Choose one strategy that you are most drawn to.

TIP #2: Intuitively schedule it into your calendar. You’ll know when to do this practice - and you can always adjust it later

TIP #3: Give yourself some time to really implement and make this practice a habit; keep going if you skip a day; just reset. I recommend trying it out for three months to really see if it’s working for you. If you’re still doing it three months from now, you’ll know whether or not it’s helpful or hurtful and serving your goals/strategy

TIP #4: Have a back-up practice. If by day 7 you’re dreading your mindset practice, ditch it and try practice B. Maybe the whole meditation in the morning was an alluring practice that other mentors thrived with, but it wasn’t your bag. Perhaps there is a different meditation practice or mindfulness practice you can try that suits you better.

[7:58] QUESTION NUMBER TWO:

What mindset practice hasn’t been working?

What this question is discovering is: What are your blocks/limiting beliefs? What’s holding you back right now?

Think about anything that you have had on your to do list for a long time, or your goals/dreams list. What isn’t getting done? What isn’t coming to reality? What limiting belief is coming up for you?

The answer to these questions will reveal where your mindset strategy can really evolve. Is it a mindset block? Is it impostor syndrome? Are you taking on too much and you need support?

When you have the answer, the next step is clear. Perhaps you will invest in a money mindset coach? Maybe you’ll hire a VA to help you with your long list of to-do’s. Maybe you need to reevaluate your work-life boundaries and log off social media more often. Perhaps you’ll join a network of entrepreneurs who can relate to you and hold you accountable for your practices.

There are a lot of solutions and ideas, all you have to do is pin-point the block so that you can choose and take action on the best solution for you.

Here’s where you might get stuck!

You might notice you have more than one block. See if these blocks have any similarities. For example “I’m afraid of success” is similar to “I can’t make more money” and they have to do with self-worth.

If you’re really struggling with understanding your mindset and you want to master your mindset practice, I have a Make a Habit Mentorship program that takes you from overwhelmed and frustrated to Clear and Empowered. It’s a four week mentorship with weekly calls. You can get all the details for this offering at WWW.VALERIELAVIGNELIFE.COM/MENTORSHIP, and you can also find me on instagram @vallavignelife if you have any questions about the mentorship program.

[10:28] QUESTION NUMBER THREE:

What community growth worked? What strategy produced the best results: followers + engagement + networking + clients + strategies + etc.

Of all the emails you send out, all the content you produce, all the DMs you send out, what helped you build your following, your engagement, your audience, and your paying clients?

What I like to do for this question is write out all the ways I grow my community and rank each of them from best to least. This is also another question that you can really dive deep into. You can choose exactly which analytics you’d like to review. I like to break this down for each area of my business, as well as each strategy.

For example:

Exhale Pilates Studio
Private Virtual Classes
Essential Oil Customers
Healthy Habits Workshops
Mentorship Clients

Since these areas of business are very different, I also have different strategies for them. I use my podcast to build my online business, and I use other social media strategies and partnerships with local businesses to grow the physical brick and mortar studio I have. The strategies are different because the ideal customers are different!

Speaking of ideal customers. If you’re not sure what brought people to you, ASK YOUR AUDIENCE! Do a survey or a poll in your social or with you email list: How did you hear about us? Yep, it’s really that simple lol

[12:43] QUESTION NUMBER FOUR:

Which community growth techniques DIDN’T WORK?

Reviewing your insights and ranking your strategies will clarify the answer to this question right away. You can also look at where you put in lots of work, but not a lot of results came from it.

I did this specifically with my podcast when I first started the show and it has helped me grow the Women’s Empowerment Podcast to what it is today.

I used to have a weekly live IG and FB show, which I converted into an audio podcast and also a youtube video. The insights and analytics showed me that the podcast was EXPLODING and the youtube and IG lives were not as powerful.

I eliminated the videos and kept the audio + show notes of the show and I haven’t looked back. The podcast is booming and I have more time to produce quality episodes and also invite guests onto the show instead of spending the time working on videos that weren't converting.

Where can you adjust or remove certain investments in time or money and better use your resources and energy for things that ARE working!?

[15:32] QUESTION NUMBER FIVE:

Which “nourishing techniques” really worked; anything where you’re providing value?

Nourishing techniques are your added value. Things like freebies, podcast episodes, specific instagram posts, blog posts, IGTV, Youtube.

Look at your stats and insights, they are so valuable for business owners and entrepreneurs because they really tell us what’s working and what isn’t. The biggest mistake entrepreneurs make is NOT reviewing what we’ve done in the past and this really saves us from making the same mistakes or not growing the things that have ALREADY worked! I’ve done this myself which is why I stress it to other people haha

So one of the things that I’m starting to move away from is this super aesthetic instagram feed. I know someone just rolled their eyes at me but hear me out! The motivational quotes on my instagram always convert really well to saves and shares and sometimes comments that create conversation with others. This is great and means engagement is high SUPER!

I also get A LOT of compliments from people telling me how much they love my feed and a lot of questions on how I do this. This also creates meaningful conversations and engagement in a slightly different way, because it’s usually in the DM’s which are GOLD in the world of social media marketing.

So now, I’m strategizing how I can create the valuable content and still make it look pretty - A LOT HARDER THAN IT SEEMS my friends lol

One thing I have started doing in my online business is I changed up my email structure and I’ve gotten some great immediate feedback from making it more aesthetic and also offer multiple pieces of value for people following along.

Remember your audience has A LOT of the answers that you’re looking for because they are the people who are following, consuming, and engaging with your business. They are the people you are trying to convert. Sometimes growth is about deepening connection with the people you currently serve and not how to 10x your social media following.

Ask your audience THIS or THAT questions to help you understand what they love about your content and learn how you can do better.

[22:34] QUESTION NUMBER SIX:

What didn’t work, what didn’t make much impact?

Again, really evaluate the “numbers” and poll the audience, review the insights. These are going to tell you straight up what isn’t working. I pulled up some of my instagram post insights and what I learned was that if I wasn’t in the post it didn’t do the best. This is overall interactions.

But we all know, when it comes to instagram, likes don’t have the same value/impact as saves + shares.

So when I look at the number of saves: some of my posts with the lowest number of comments and likes have the most saves. These are my quote boxes/ text posts/ carousels/ recipes.

Looking at the analytics will tell you what’s working, what isn’t and will also help you get clear on your next moves/what your intentions are.

Do you want people to be inspired by your content and let it be something that looks really good?

Do you want your audience to learn and take action on your content?

Learn about what they already do to see what kind of audience you have and how you can build on it. This is where the GOAL is also helpful. Have clarity so you can see which insights are the best for you to look at instead of getting caught up in all the numbers.

[24:26] QUESTION NUMBER SEVEN:

What sales techniques worked?

Not all of the freebies and content you’re creating is converting into sales. However there are some specific things we do to launch and sell.

Did the live videos get people on the phone with you? Is your sales page converting? Did you host any webinars or challenges; how did they convert into sales?

Most of my webinars convert into sales. Specifically my LIVE webinars. However, this month I hosted my first Healthy Habits workshop and I didn’t launch it on a webinar. Instead I shared it in the stories and in my posts.

I used instagram stories to explain and launch. I also did a giveaway celebrating over 20 000 downloads of the podcast. And gave a spot away in the workshop AND mentorship program. I slid into dm’s and replied to people's comments and got really active and engaged on social media and sold 7/10 spots I opened up for the first workshop.

I wasn’t JUST responding like I normally do, I was opening up conversations about the topic I was speaking to and asking questions and really creating this dialogue with my audience. I mixed that in with face-to-camera stories, to examples of how I incorporate the lessons into my own life, and I publicly answered questions about the workshop.

To build excitement I also welcomed each person into the workshop as people started to join and had a post it of their name on my wall as a way to say welcome and thank you!

I also created a HIGHLIGHT on my page which was new where anyone could see the content and posts related to the workshop to get more information.

I also followed up with anyone who said they were interested the day before and got a last minute sign up because of it.

PLUS… AFTER the workshop I went on face-to-camera and said thank you again and talked about how much fun and how successful it was ANDDD I shared the screenshots of the feedback I got from the people who were in the workshop b/c it was so positive and helpful for them.

This sounds like A LOT of work, and even though, yes, I did do a lot. I could have honestly done more.

My strategy wasn’t crystal clear, I actually did this more intuitively and almost every day I was sharing something to do with the topic of the workshop whether the CTA was to sign up or not.

For example I shared my morning coffee ritual and the CTA was “what’s your morning beverage ritual?” and that opened up a conversation about rituals and the workshop was called “HEALTHY HABITS: RITUALS & TRANSITIONS”

I made two posts back to back. One explaining transitions, the other explaining rituals and the CTA was to get people to sign up for the workshop.

I did a throwback of a previous podcast episode about Mastering Transitions and this also was to open up a convo around transitions and then get into the DMs with people.

You get the point. Right?

[30:28] Okay QUESTION NUMBER EIGHT:

Which techniques did not work?

Social media wasn’t the only thing I did to share my workshop, but it was definitely the most successful. I also put more energy into it. The other techniques were not as successful and that’s okay because now I know what to put more effort into.

It is totally fine to test things in your business, I encourage it! However, don’t re-do things that didn’t work in the past.

It’s also important to create boundaries to saying “no” to other people. I have a lot of entrepreneur friends in my network who were offering free 30 minute calls five days a week. It was a lot. Not all the calls converted and the time took them away from other parts of their business. So now they only offer the time slots on 1-2 days a week, and also only to certain people using a private link.

If it’s not working for you let it go, and lean into the things that did work!

That is a wrap on our eight questions you MUST ask before planning 2021! I hope you enjoyed it!! Let’s continue this conversation on instagram! Find me @vallavignelife

Val Lavigne Life Women's Empowerment Podcast

Podcast Host

Valerie LaVigne

Valerie is the creator and founder of Valerie LaVigne Life and the Women's Empowerment Show. She helps busy and empowered women create healthy habits so that they can become the best version of themselves and transform their lives. Learn more about Valerie here!