Build Your 2025 Business Plan: The Step-by-Step Action Plan You Need to Grow

Hey. Hey. We are moving right along with building your business plans for the year. In fact, you can use these strategies to map out your action plan for anything that you want to accomplish in your life or your business. And today, we're going to dive into the action plan that you need to build, because you've set the goal, we identified your priorities that are going to help you reach that goal. But now we've got to break it down even further to identify the action steps that you are going to take to ensure we start making progress towards those goals. Because it is one thing to set the goal, and I can guarantee. I can't guarantee, I cannot. I cannot guarantee that you are going to reach that goal. However, I can 100% guarantee if we don't take action toward that goal, your chances of reaching that goal are going to go way, way, way, way, way, way down. And I don't want you to arrive on next Monday or tomorrow when you get back to work and be like, well, I've got this goal. I've got this goal back here written on my goal card. What am I going to do? What am I going to do? That's not efficient, that's not productive, that's not where you want to be, and it's not where you need to be. Because if you take 15 minutes and you map out an action plan, when you sit down to work next, you know, well, what should I do? You're going to go right to that plan. You're going to do the first thing on that plan, and when that's done, you're going to go to the next thing, and then you're going to go to the next thing, and then you're going to go to the next thing. And so we're not going to map out an action plan for the full year, because things are going to change throughout the year. And you're going to spend time mapping out an action plan for the full year, and you're like, well, it's January and my plans have entirely changed. I need to pivot. And great, I just wasted all that time. Don't even do it. Don't even bother. In addition, we want to break down your plans into smaller increments throughout the year so that you start to get momentum and you get that flywheel going. Be like, yeah, we're moving. I got this. And in fact, we want to build those milestones sooner, and so you start to get results earlier as well. So I've talked a little bit about why and what we don't want to plan a four full year at a time. But we want to break this down. But not only do I want to tell you why, I want to show you exactly how to build this plan for yourself. So let's do it. Now I am going to share with you a template. And if you want to get this template for yourself to fill in the blanks, you can go to Amber mchugh.com getgoals done goals is plural. Amberly.com getgo goals done now here we go. Let me show you what I have for you. So when we think about your goals, I want to invite you to take that goal that you have for the year and break it down into either 90 day or six week increments. Why 90 day versus six weeks? Well, I use a 90 day plan when I have a big project. When I need more time for something to unfold. When, when I there are so many steps to it, I don't want to rush it in six weeks. It doesn't make sense. I need to get feedback from some people. Other people have said it's going to take this long to do that thing. So 90 days makes sense for some projects. Maybe you've got other projects going on or you've got this is your side hustle or the this 90 day plan is focused on your marketing strategy. But your operations are so big and you're spending a lot of time in them right now. Not forever, but right now. So you gotta like we gotta prioritize. Okay. So use the 90 day plan if it's something that is that necessitates that. On the flip side, you may want to use the six week plan if you want to get some fast momentum on something. If you want to use that six week plan to get your initial round of the project done before you roll into the next six weeks. So the six week plan gives you shorter bursts and give you more momentum. I've used a 90 day plan for years and years, decades at this point. In fact, I first used a 90 day plan when I was working in a consulting company and Bob Connor stepped into a new leadership role and showed me his 100 day plan. It was a hundred day plan at the time for things he wanted to get done quickly in this new role. Now I use a 90 day plan cause it breaks down the quarters throughout the year a little bit easier. January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December. So I use 90 day plans and I've learned some tips and tricks and some strategies to make sure you do not get overwhelmed when you are going from goal and plan to reality this year because overwhelm will kick in. But if we give ourselves some constraints and you use these tips I have for you, you're less likely to experience that overwhelm. So now I'm going to share with you on my screen if you are watching this video, the 90 day plan and I'm going to walk you through how to put this together for yourself. If you are listening to this on audio and you can't see this video right now, you're going to want to grab the download for this@ambermchugh.com getgoals done so that you can have this all broken down and come back to this when you are available. Up on my screen I have a sample 90 day plan. This is pretty gosh darn simple. In addition, here's a six week plan template and you could see in the 90 day plan we're going to identify what your measures of success are or the tracks or the goals, the category of work. And then you're going to identify what you're going to do in the first 30 days, the next 60 days and the next 90 day window. So 30 day increments, your 30, 60, 90 day windows of time. And likewise if you go with a six week plan you're going to break it down into two week increments. So you've got two, four and then your final six week window. Now here is one of the tricks that I've learned over the years. At the bottom here you're going to see I've got a general categories because there might be some things that you just don't want to forget about. Like your bookkeeping, right? Like oh I got to update my bookkeeping in that window. Or don't forget to call to call my hosting company. Like a little maybe there are a couple of little to do's. I don't even don't put too much here. This is just for a backup or maybe like don't forget the plan A thon is in October, right? So yeah, don't forget the plan a thon's in October this year. So that's coming mark your calendar. But I want to make sure that I'm ready for that or have that top of mind. Just random things you want to have top of mind that kind of need to be done. I'm planning a safari trip in one of my plans actually I wrote down safari, don't forget. Like I'm building towards that. So up here I only want you to have a Maximum of three tracks. For example, maybe you're launching a new product. So you've got the product track, the product is ready, you've got the marketing track, and maybe you have the delivery track, the product's ready, but you also have to be able to deliver that to people and you've got to get the marketing ready for it. So when the product's ready and the marketing's ready, you're prepped for delivery and then you can start delivering on it when the marketing goes live. Right? So here are some examples. Now, as you look at these goals, these categories and these bodies of work that require your attention over the next 90 days, here's the catch. I only want you to have three action items in each 30 day window for the goal. Three max in each box. Oh, actually in this one you can have four. Sorry, change my mind. We can do that. Four max. All right. Because what this allows you to do is there are four weeks in a month and four weeks in that 30 day window. So this is going to allow you to grab three items per week to give your focus to get it done in that 90 day window. So you're going to take your goal that you have for the year and you're gonna identify what you need to accomplish in this 90 day window to keep you on track with your goal for the year. And then you're gonna break down up to four areas of focus for that window of time. And you're gonna have four action items for each area of focus. So that when you sit down to work each week, you can grab one, two, three, three action items. And three is a hearty number of things to be focused on each week. In some weeks it may be too many. You're like, this is a big one. I can only do one of these things, but these are small. So I can pick up, I can pick up another one next week. So there's some ebb and flow to this, of course, but this is just a guide for you. Now, let's say you liked the idea of the six week plan because you want to get some fast momentum, even the same things in six, six weeks of time, right? Get the product ready. Maybe it's a smaller product, maybe it's almost ready and this is just getting you to the finish line. Maybe it's something you've marketed before, so it's not going to take you as long to prep all of that. And maybe you need to do light work on delivery. You're not setting up fulfillment and a distribution center, et cetera. But maybe it's electronic delivery or maybe it's all set up. You just need to tweak a couple things, update your onboarding materials, et cetera. So that could be done in six weeks. But in this case, if you go with the six week plan, it's a smaller set of time. So I only want you to have max three items per week because you're going to be loaded with a lot of things to do if you expand and have an endless list within your two week window. Now, of course I'm going to show you some examples. There may be multiple steps to each thing you need to get done, but this is a way to roll up those action steps and keep your eye on the prize to get yourself some momentum and start tracking progress to your goal. You could see here as well that I've got at the top the complete and started it in progress. When I have something in my plan that is complete, I mark it with a check mark. If it's in progress, I'll put an open red circle or a blue circle. So I know, okay, it's not just sitting there with no love, no attention on my plan, but I've actually started it so I can get that momentum, get that excitement, that energy of marking and identifying like, okay, we're on our way, we're on getting there, we're getting there, we're getting there. So this is your 90 day plan template. This is your six week plan template. And when you go to Amber mchugh.com forward/goals done, you'll get clean versions of all of this. I also wanted to show you a way that I modify this for 30 days because there may be some times when you want to skinny it down even more. You're like, Nope, 90 days. Nope, six weeks. No, I, I want, I need to get this done in 30 days. I can, I know I can't. I just need to focus and prioritize. So this is an example of that where you all identify week one, week two, week three, week four. This is a very real example of when we were preparing for a three day event called Plan Pivot Profit that we were hosting hosting last year in May. In fact, we'll have another Plan Pivot Profit coming up and we'll put the link to that in the comments below if you want to join us. And so you can break it down, week one, two, three and then you pop your action steps in here and your measures of success there. So mine is I want to be, we want to be enrollment ready. We want to Be opt in ready for people to sign up for this event called Plan Pivot Profit. Then we want it to be event ready. I wanted everything for the event to be prepped. And then week three, we want it to be enrollment ready. That was our delivery. That was our delivery. And then we're hosting the event. So my focus in that fourth week because we were hosting the event is just connecting with you, connecting with other business owners, connecting with entrepreneurs. So that's why I said event participants. That is my measure of success. Are you getting the most out of this event? Are you seeing results? Are you seeing progress? So that's what I wanted to see and was watching for there. So you'll see those check boxes now notice it's not overflowing with an endless list of to dos on multiple pages that goes on and on each. So week one, when I sat down, like ads, ads aren't prepped. That's where I start. Okay, now ads are done. Get that opt in copy ready. When that's done, you can go to the next thing. When that's done, you go to the next thing. When that's done, you go to the next thing. That approach, that linear approach is also what I call the game board strategy, which I'm going to share with you as well. Typically I do the game board strategy with note cards, but I made a simple template for this that's digital as well, where it is a more linear approach and a more linear process. Now, just like here, I shared item number one gets done, then I go to item number two, then I go to item number three. They're also in order of the way in which I want to complete them. So that's my game board strategy. I'm not even worried or looking at anything else. I go to this item in green. This is what I'm active on right now. Is that opt in copy ready to go? I flipped these. Then I'm going to move to item number two. I'm not worried about anything else right now. I just got to get one thing done at a time, one thing done at a time. And then I'm going to go to item number three. Okay, I just finished three. What's next? Four. All right. And so you pre plan so that when you're sitting and you're working on something, you don't have to think, well, what should I do next? It's already determined for you. So you don't have to spend your energy, your willpower, your brain power. Instead, you can go refill your coffee, you can go Hydrate with some water and come back and get it done. And you're going to see results and you're going to see momentum faster because you took the time to plan. When you take the time to plan, it's going to accelerate, accelerate the time it takes you to get to your destination. You're going to get there faster, you're going to have the opportunity to see results faster and you're going to get feedback faster. So you're going to have this feedback loop going, say, whoa, this isn't working. Oh, I don't know what I'm doing there. I need to get some help. You're going to give yourself opportunities to get ahead faster because you first took the time to create this action plan. Tracking progress, just like we're doing here. I'm tracking progress. It's a goal within a goal within a goal, but it gets me to where I want to be going ultimately. And if I'm bird's eye all the time and I don't have clarity on the moment and what needs to be done, it's hard to track progress and it's hard for me to know my next move. So this allows you to track progress and tracking progress improves performance. It gives us those dopamine hits, it allows us to get that flywheel going and harness the momentum. So I want to invite you now to take the next step in our business planning series for the year and to map out your 90 day plan or your 6 week plan if you have not already. And after this, we're to get in action. And we know when we get in action, it's not always going to go according to this plan plan that we just built. So with that in mind, in the next video in this series, in the next episode in this series, we're going to walk through how to set yourself up for success when things don't exactly go as planned. And I'm going to give you some strategies to navigate all that all year long. And you're going to be set up so that when there's a bump in the road, you know what to do to get back on track. In addition, I'm also going to break down my plans for for the year ahead because I know I learn so much when people take me behind the scenes in what they're doing. So I'm going to take you behind the scenes and what I've got shaking in case that will help you as well. Thank you so much for being here. I hope this was helpful. Let me know in the comments if this was helpful for you. In addition, you can let me know on Instagram. I'm on instagram @amber McHugh. And if you want to get the printables for this planning series, go to ambermcugh.com for forward/ goals. Done. I'll see you in the next episode where we are diving into what to do when everything does not go as planned so that we can make it inevitable for you to get where you want to be going. It is your destiny.