The Fierce Business Babe Podcast Ep 169: Planning Your 2022 Sales Plan

Today, I am diving into everything you need to make 2022 your best business year yet. We are going to chat about setting your income goals for 2022, reverse engineering to reach those goals, tips for scheduling your sales calendar, and so much more!

Planning Your 2022 Sales Plan

By: Melissa Lin

Welcome back to another episode of The Fierce Businesses Babe Podcast. I hope that you're having such an amazing time with friends, family, loved ones, whoever you are spending holidays with this month. I know a lot of people are getting together a little earlier in the month so they can get together with a few different families, travels, and all of the things. I hope you're having an amazing time with loved ones, friends, family, all of them this holiday season. We are getting into a topic that I love chatting about with my clients, with my audience, and now I am so ready to chat with you today about it! This is something that I have been working with my clients on the past few weeks in their businesses, which is prepping for next year. Yes, you heard that right, already prepping for 2022. I need to say that again, 2022, like that is just so wild how fast this year has just gone by. It feels like 2021 just flew by and 2022 is just right around the corner. I probably say this every year, and I probably feel the same every year that just goes by so fast. I really do feel though as I get older that it just goes even quicker every year.

So the new year is right around the corner which means, drum roll please, it is time to start planning for the next year. Here we come 2022. I love teaching my clients that we get to prep ahead. So if you’re still in the hustle of working only a few hours ahead of time or a few days ahead in your business that's okay, I've been there before too. Let's get you to the point of working months ahead. I always recommend anybody to put a few hours aside each week or each month that's dedicated to true CEO time where you are focusing on projects and bigger things that are actually going to move the entire business forward. The bigger projects, not necessarily the day to day, but some of those bigger projects, right? Like your quarterly or annual audits, your 2022 sales plan, or if you do planning quarterly– I love doing both, I love doing a bigger high-level yearly annual plan and then also segmenting into quarterly plans as well. So again, it's okay, I've been there. If you're still kind of hour by hour, day by day we will get you to the point where you're working months ahead just like my clients and myself. And if you are sitting there asking yourself, “how in the world or why would I even want to think about next year? I only want to be thinking about next month or next week,” well my answer to you is things simply feel much better with a plan in place. I know I feel much better with a plan in place. Can you pivot from your plan and adjust? Yes, always 100%. Now let's get to the juicy stuff.

So today we're going to be focusing first on how to determine your 2022 income goal. I know we're going to be talking a lot about income today and some of those metrics, but I do want you to also think about the impact that you want to make. It's not necessarily just about the income, right? It’s so much more than that. Dig into your why, dig into your vision, and dig into the impact you want to create next year. So, you most definitely can do this side by side with your impact goal. So we're going to be putting together some income goals for you today. Do the very same with your impact, right? If you want to hit six figures, how many people do you want to impact? 1000 people you want to impact next year in your programs, amazing, let's do both. Okay, so we're going to chat about your income goals for next year. We're also going to get into reverse engineering your goal, how to decide on what to offer, when to offer things, more sales planning tips that I have, and so much more.

Your 2022 Income Goal

Let's dive into 2022 sales planning. So the first thing you want to do is determine your income goal, and again, also think about your impact goal, what does that look like? So when you're working your day to day in your business sometimes you may be asking yourself, “Why plan things in my business if things aren't really working out?” Or maybe you're just starting, if you’re in the very beginning stages of your business, this is what a lot of entrepreneurs in the early phases feel and think.

Something that I want to share with you, and I share this a lot because it's such a great example, there was an institute over in Germany that did a research experiment on this. So what they did, this was a really cool experiment, they dropped off, I don't know the number off the top of my head, maybe ten, a dozen, a few dozen people in the middle of forest and they were asked to get home. What ended up happening was after, I believe about 30 to 45 minutes, people started walking in circles in the forest, they thought they were walking in a straight line, but they were walking in full circles. It would be like putting a blindfold on you and trying to walk across a football field. So what did the institute learn? They learned that in the absence of having clear markers of distance or any kind of identifiers out in the forest, what we do as humans is we make micro adjustments and we're constantly changing our sense of direction and so we can overcome this with distinct landmarks, right? If you go on a hike somewhere you and usually leave foot traffic, you usually leave little flag markers, or whatever it is that you may leave so that you can find your way back home. And so, with some kind of landmark or distinction, or maybe a goal to work towards, you can get there so much faster. With a compass, that is a tool, or GPS, you can use the tool to get to where you want to go faster.

So, why does this matter? Well, the business that doesn't devote time to where it wants to go, a.k.a. your plan, your goals, those that don't identify some of these landmarks or goals or plans will spin in circles forever. We want to create a plan so that we have an idea of where we're heading. Can we pivot? Can we make tweaks? Can we adjust? Yes, always, but let's make a plan so you have somewhere to move forward to. As I mentioned a few minutes ago, part of being a CEO is spending time each week, each month, each quarter on bigger projects to help you move your business forward, which is what we're doing today. This counts as CEO time for you, so you can definitely utilize this as CEO time for your business. Now looking into 2022 and wondering what to sell, when to sell, how to sell… it might feel overwhelming. So today want to break it down for you so that it isn't so scary and just feels more doable.

The way that I recommend to do this is first let's think about your income goal and impact goal for the next year, for 2022, and the number that you want to hit in your business. That number gets to be bigger than last year. So, how much do you want to bring into your business next year? Is it $100K, $200K, $250K? As I’m saying some of these numbers if you start to tell yourself the story of, “well, that's too much,” or, “I just want to make what I made last year,” “there is no way I can do that,” or, “that just feels impossible,” I want to share with you that you can achieve anything in life that you want and anything in your business that you want. I created the evidence in my business. My clients have created it. It is possible for you too, and I want you to think bigger. So if you're just wanting to do what you did last year and make the same income, amazing, but I want to challenge you to go even bigger. Think bigger, play bigger. That means you get to help even more people. I want you to stretch your goals even more than you originally wrote down. So 2022 gets to be your biggest year, babe. So if you're wanting to reach six figures next year, $100K, stretch even more. Let's go for $125K or $150K. If you’re wanting to hit a quarter-million, $250K, amazing. Let's stretch to $300K or $400K, play big. It is go time. So you've got your goal, if you don't pause the podcast, just for a quick minute, not for too long, brainstorm, put your goal down, and then come back and let's get into the next item.

Reverse Engineering Your Goals

So now we want to start to reverse engineer your goal. So basically, you’ve got your goal and we want to start to work backwards to determine how we're going to create that and what it’s going to consist of. So, for example, if your goal is $120,000 for the year, that's roughly $10,000 per month. So does every month need to be the same? Definitely not, we’re just using this is an example. Most businesses you'll see kind of ramp-up and month by month is bigger, bigger, bigger, so something to definitely keep in mind. Take a look at your trend last year, not that it needs to look anything like that, but we're going to really challenge you to go bigger, bigger, bigger. So I want you to think about what you’re going to sell. If you have a product suite right now, pull it out. If not, let's map it out, plus any additional offers you might create and sell. So what are your offers that you have? What is the time length of each of these offers? What are they priced at? Do any of them have upsells? Do any of them have VIP options? How much will they be each quarter? Are they going to be increasing in price each cohort that you run if you're doing more open, close programs versus evergreen? Will your prices be going up mid-year? These are some of the questions I want you to ask yourself, and even jot down in your notebook or Google Doc, so that we can really map out how your year is going to be planned out in terms of what you're going to sell and when you're going to sell it. So let's say, for example, that you have one-on-one coaching, maybe a group program, and then maybe a passive course. So those are the three main offers in your product suites and then we can start to map it out in your calendar of when you're going to sell different things.

We first went to determine what we're going to sell. So all of the Items that you want to sell in the year, and can we add to those next year? Most definitely,. You may come up and dream about this amazing program you want to launch mid-year and you most definitely can add that in, You can always pivot, you can always make tweeks, you can always adjust your sales plan whenever you want to, but let's at least have something so we know what we're adjusting. So we know what we're going to sell, we know what they're priced at, and if they're going to be going up next year. A lot of folks do you increase year after year, so if you're one-on-one pricing is going up in 2022 definitely make note of that. If it's going to be going up mid-year, make note of that because that can make a big difference on how many spots you’re going to fill each half of the year. If you aren't wanting to take on too many one-on-one clients, you may want to increase your pricing, that way you can really support those at that capacity. How many of each product do you want to sell? I want you to actually set targets on how many you want to sell. What is the capacity in your programs? If you have a group coaching program, for example, and every time you launch it, you can only support 10 people at a time, if it's a three-month program and you launch it four times a year, that means your capacity is 10 x 4, so 40 clients for that group coaching program for the entire year. So how many of each product do you want to sell?

If you are starting to put these numbers together and you're thinking to yourself, “Melissa, how do I go big or how do I support more people? How can I support more than 10 in this group program every single round? How do I turn this program evergreen so I can support dozens or hundreds in this group program?” Well, that is definitely something we can support you with by sending a DM over on Instagram. I can definitely give you some quick tips on that because we have scaled so many of our programs, and this is exactly what we support our clients with inside of our higher-level masterminds as well. That's what I want you to start thinking about. That's how you start playing bigger.

As you start to think about things like, how can I create a bigger impact? How can I support more people in my group container I have at the moment? The bigger you get to go. So start to jot down how many of each product or program you are going to sell. How many do you have space to sell? How can you turn it into more of a scalable program? Start to think about that in the back of your head. That's how you're going to get to a quarter million, half a million, a million dollar mark, really scaling. So we're starting to reverse-engineer. We have an idea of what you're going to sell. We have an idea of how many of each you can sell, and I want you to actually scribble in some of the math. So if you have private coaching and you can support six clients per year and it's $10,000 for a private coaching client, jot that down. Six spots at $10,000 is $60,000. So if your goal is $120,000, there's half your income goal right there. So you want to jot some of this down so that we know what else we can add, or if we want to stretch your goal even more.

Your Sales Calendar

So you decided on your offer and what you want to sell, now let’s start to brainstorm together when we want to sell them. And what I usually recommend is if you do a lot of live launching, or if you have a core offer, or maybe 1-3 core signature offers and you know you're going to sell that at certain points in the year because it's what you like to do, put those in your calendar first. Put that in your sales plan first. If you know every single year in January you love launching your private coaching spots, put that in January. Then we can start to fill the rest of your calendar in for what makes the most sense. In terms of, okay, well right after private coaching in January it makes sense to then downsell to those who may be weren't quite ready for one-on-one coaching, and maybe they're looking for group coaching or a course. We really want to put everything out that you already know you're going to be selling and when to sell them.

So determine first how frequently you want to launch or enroll people into an offer and schedule that time in on your sales calendar. So the way that I like to do this is in a Google Doc. I just love mapping these things out and planning things out, it's what I do with my clients as well. Write all of the months of 2022, January, February, March, April, May, all 12 months, and then under each month map out what it is that you feel like you want to sell that month, what the capacity is, what the potential sales generated could be. This way you have an idea of where you're going to be making that money and where you can add more spots or maybe make tweaks mid-year to a program so it is more scalable for that sort of thing.

So, another example, if your private coaching package is six months long and can hold 10 people at a time, that means that you have an annual capacity of 20 people per year. So you can support 20 people every year, 10 people at a time. So you might consider doing two big launches for it. Maybe once in January, once in July. Another example, let's say you have a three-month group coaching program and you want to open it four times a year. You can then start to add that in the other months. So, start to put a game plan together of when you're going to sell things and then how you're going to sell them. So start to actually put a game plan together for how you're going to promote, how you're going to sell your offers. Are you going to be hosting challenges? Workshops? Events? What does that look like? You may also have a mix of evergreen offers, live offers that launch throughout the year, similar to what we have in our business, and that's amazing. Let's also place that into your sales calendar. Maybe you have some coaching programs that are live launches a few times throughout the year and a course that you spell passively. Set a goal for how many of those you plan to sell each month. As you continue to grow your business, it's natural that you'll continue to add more systems and automation to increase the sales overtime with continued marketing strategies. You most definitely could have multiple offers every single month as well. We do that in our business and it works very well. You're allowed to sell as many offers at one time as you want as long as it's very clear what the differences are. That’s something we do extremely, extremely, extremely well and we support our clients with this as well. If you want to sell one offer, amazing. If you want to sell two or three at once, amazing. This is your business, you get to make up the rules.

Bonus Sales Planning Tips

Let's get into a few more sales planning tips for you as you are creating your sales plan. So once you have your plan, you're going to have such a great understanding of what your potential income is for next year. Something I do want to just note is, just because your sales plan isn't a half-million-dollar plan, or if it isn't a million-dollar plan, that's okay, right? It doesn't make it a bad plan. This is your plan. This is your 2022 year. If you want more, amazing, play bigger, shoot for more, but also be careful of not falling into that trap of thinking that you should be doing more. Make choices for you and your business, do what feels good to you.

Another thing is sales plans really are clarifiers for you and your business, right? What is most profitable for you and your business? What was most profitable last year? Bring that back in. Are your coaching programs more profitable than your courses? Then you may want to put some more focus there. And again, you are allowed to change up your sales plan, but you want to have something in place to guide your actions. Everything just feels so much more doable with a plan in place, so go ahead, create your sales plan. I love mapping it out first in a Google Doc and then transferring it into my Google Calendar, but keeping it fairly high level in the Google Calendar just so that I can see what's happening. My team can see it as well, and then my team tasks things out inside of Asana, of what needs to get done every month throughout the year to reach these goals as well. And yes, we have all of these templates for our clients in our Masterminds and all of those things, and our team supports with all of this as well. Start your planning, have fun with it, and let's bring in some amazing, amazing income goals and impact goals, it's going to be such an amazing year. I’m so excited for you! Today we have touched on how to determine your 2022 income, how to reverse engineer goals, decide on what to offer, when to offer, how to sell some of these items, more sales planning tips, and so much more. We are already getting excited and ready for next week's episode and I cannot wait to share it with you. We will see you next week in the other brand new episode of the Fierce Business Babe Podcast bright and early next Monday morning

Topics we cover include:

Determining your 2022 income
What to offer in your business
Growing your business through sales
When to offer your products

And so much more!

Times to check out:

(10:47) Your 2022 income goal

(16:43) Reverse engineering your sales goals

(21:44) Your 2022 sales calendar

(25:34) Bonus sales planning tips

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