Grow Your Biz – Week #1: Focus on One Thing

We all have the same 24 hours in a day. Before we talk about this sentence in detail and what it means for the choices we make every single day I want to give you a quick overview, what this new series is about.

When I found my first income report in the Spring of 2015 I became obsessed with them. They taught me a lot about blogging before I even started my own website a year later. So much so that I instantly started publishing my own income report at the end of my first month of blogging called ‘June Income Report – How I went from 0 to 20K page views in my first month of blogging’.

Unfortunately, I was so overwhelmed with all the things I needed to take care of simultaneously that I never published a second. A fact that haunts me till today, since I could have shared a lot of learnings with fellow entrepreneurs. In the last two years of running my online business I have thought many times about picking Income Reports up again but always felt so bad about missing so many months that I never started again and missed even more.

But enough is enough.

From now on forth I will publish weekly blog posts which share my current ‘blogging’ journey. Blogging in ‘ ‘ because it’s about so much more than that. Blogging in itself can’t pay your bills. Running a successful online business can. So I want to document my progress, share my learning and grow my business moving forward.

Sounds good? Then let’s get started!

QUICK RECAP

Since publishing my first income report a lot has changed. I have

• Launched a Planner Stickers & Printables – Etsy Shop
• Published two books together with a German publisher
• Published my first set of Planner Stencils with the same publisher
• Launched my first printable planner, which sold 481 copies with the 2018 edition and already sold 184 copies with the 2019 edition in seven days
• Grown my Instagram Account to over 10k followers
• Grown my e-mail list to over 11k followers I (had 18k for a while,, but pruned my list this Summer back to 6k and grew it again from there)
• Fully redesigned my website in July 2018 and switched website hosts

You need to have a clear focus

In the last few weeks, I have made many scary decisions regarding the future of Wundertastisch. While I enjoy every aspect of it I’m a one-woman-business and each day has only 24 hours. So I decided to

• Stop the production of physical planner stickers (after the remaining stock is sold they are gone for good)
• Focus on the product that sells the most in regard of improving it and marketing it
• Start implementing automated Sales Funnels to make my income more steady
• Plan out and create my Signature Program

Now ask yourself this:

What aspects of your business could you delegate, automate or even remove to make more time for the tasks that truly would make a positive impact on your business?

MY GOALS FOR THE REMAINDER OF 2018

Instead of focusing on the day-to-day task I want to focus on these four main areas for the rest of the year:

1. Publish the digital English Edition of the Bullet Diary (will get a new name soon, since my publisher wants both products to be treated separately). To do this I need to
   • Come up with a fitting name
   • Translate all pages included
   • Create the final PDF
   • Create a sales page, flip-through-video, and initial launch campaign
   • Launch planned for October, 12th 2018
2. Publish the official version of the Journaltastisch Planner 2019 (this is the product that sold the most the past year and which I want to focus on moving forward). To do this I need to
   • Create a series of surveys to get detailed customer feedback
   • Review and implement feedback that fits the vision for the product
   • Review existing marketing content and make necessary adjustments
   • Ask for new reviews
   • Film video for the sales page
   • Create initial launch campaign including a one-week pre-sale
   • Launch planned for November, 6th 2018
3. Create Evergreen-Funnel (this includes research, planning and creating of the said funnel) for
   • Journaltastisch Planner 2019
   • Bullet Diary English
   • Meal Planner
   • Hello Month Bundle
   • Mandala Bundle // Need to create & list printable version first
   • Habit Tracker Mandala Bundle
   • Published Blog Posts
   • Published Etsy Products
4. Plan out my Signature Program
   • Brainstorm
   • Write a detailed outline
   • Start scripting the content included
   • Will there be a BETA?

At the end of this blog post, you will find my goals for next week, which are based on the goals above. Since this is the very first post in this series, I obviously can’t review last weeks goals. So instead I want to talk with you about my main struggles and how I’m currently trying to shift my mindset to overcome them. Since we all go through similar obstacles at some point or another I hope this will help you out as well.

MINDSET SHIFT

The thing I struggle with the most is time. I know what I need to do to be successful, but somehow there never seem to be enough hours in a day. While I might be able to keep up with a schedule like

• 2 blog posts a week,
• 1 new Etsy product a week,
• 2 newsletters a week,
• While working on a new product in the background,
• Taking care of customer support and
• Publishing to social media daily (IG x1, FB x3, Pinterest x20)

for a few weeks. At some point, I always burn out and am away from the internet for weeks at a time. It is just not sustainable. Which is why I want to focus on a few products – that my customers are excited about – in the future as well as automate as much as possible.

We all have the same 24 hours in a day

Additionally, I want to make sure I work on the tasks that make the biggest difference to my bottom line every day. So instead of reacting to tasks (like laundry piling up, emails to answer, etc.) I want to focus on what is most important.

Always focus on what is most important! Click To Tweet

Since decision making shouldn’t be underestimated I have planned out my main-task for each day for the next three weeks in advance. That way I can do this task first thing in the morning and if I procrastinate or do ‘less important’ tasks for the rest of the day it’s fine. Because I already did what was most important.

If you decide to give this a try make sure to keep this daily task small. It shouldn’t take more than 3h max (if you run a full-time online biz). And if you only have your free-time to do it, keep it to 30min max and try to do it first thing in the morning before you leave the house for work. That way you have all the energy needed to do this task well and to make sure you do it at all.

This ‘daily task’ is also the reason why I planned out my launches and main goals for the rest of the year. Because now that I know each deadline, I can make sure I have all the necessary tasks done in advance. So that I don’t need to work overtime or even on weekends.

GOALS FOR NEXT WEEK

My goals for the next week (September, 24th till 28th 2018):

• Design and publish four of the five surveys planned
• Decide on the product name for English Bullet Diary
• Translate Bullet Diary layouts to English
• Create the Sales page for English Bullet Diary
• Create Flip-Through-Video for English Bullet Diary
• Announce Launch of English Bullet Diary for Oct, 12th 2018
• Write and publish the blog post you are currently reading 😛

Starting next week, these weekly goals will be reviewed and I talk you through my progress and learnings.

If you have any questions or wishes regarding this new series, feel free to leave a comment below. I can’t wait to learn more about you and your business!