The Fierce Business Babe Podcast Ep 172: Daily Tasks for Business 2022

Today, I am diving into everything you need to know to make 2022 your best year yet. I touch on what you should be focusing on in your business, things you shouldn’t be worrying about, things I recommend doing daily in your business, and so much more!

Daily Tasks for Business 2022

By: Melissa Lin

Welcome back to another episode of The Fierce Business Babe Podcast! I am so excited for today's episode, we are jumping right into 2022, yes we're into January, and so many incredible things are already happening and I cannot wait to share more and more with you in terms of some projects we have going on and you'll definitely see some of them this year. What we have in store in terms of the podcast, yes, more episodes, more juicy amazing topics that you've been asking for. I cannot wait to share. My team and I have been working so hard in the backend to make sure that we can continue to support you of course, and there are some fun things happening in life as well. I am getting ready to head over to Big Sky and am so excited to finally get into the snow outside of Washington.

If you're new to my podcast, hello, welcome, I’m so excited to have you here. I currently live in Seattle in the Washington area and absolutely love it. I've always been a Pacific Northwest gal, I was born and raised in Portland, Oregon and then came up here to the Seattle area back in 2014-ish, it has been quite some time and I absolutely adore it up here. I've been getting back into skiing, I kind of started a few years ago and then I took some time off, COVID, that sort of thing, and I’m getting back into it this year, I’m so excited. I’ve got that trip coming up and just some other exciting trips and things that we've got going on.

So brand new year, exciting new projects. We've been diving deep into the new 2022 projects as well and today we're going to be talking all about 2022 and some of the things that I highly, highly recommend focusing on in your business this year. We’re going to talk about some of the things that I recommend doing daily, some of my non-negotiables, for example, things that I’ll be continuing to do in my business even while on vacation this coming week, and so much more, I’m so excited. I love, love, love giving that guidance because I know this is such a big question for so many because when you get started, or maybe you're wanting to take your business to the next level, sometimes it can feel overwhelming. Sometimes it can feel like information overload when you try to get out there and Google what to do next, or maybe you’re surfing Pinterest on what to do, or listening to all of the podcasts. I really want to dive into the things that I truly feel you should be focusing on every single day, regardless of where you're at in your business and also some of the things that maybe you don't necessarily need to be focusing on. If you’ve listened to any of my past podcast episodes you know that I really love to give you a step-by-step of what needs to be happening and some of things that may not necessarily be as important as you think they might be in the certain stage that you're at. For example, you don't need a website to start your business. I didn't have a website until we were at consistent 10-15K months in my business. It is definitely not necessary. You don't need ads to grow your business. We didn't touch that until we were about 20-30K months in our business. There are so many things that we like to keep ourselves busy with, but they're not actually moving the needle forward and that's what I want to really dive into today. What are the actual things to do when your business in 2022 to really make this the best year yet for you? We're going to be getting into some of the items I recommend focusing on in 2022 for your business, some examples from my focus points, some tips to making this the best year yet for you, and so, so much more!

My Business Non-Negotiables

We’re walking into 2022 and we are ready to crush it. I absolutely love the beginning of a new year because it usually means a few things… bigger goals, bigger plans, bigger dreams, bigger everything, and I loved it. So before I dive into some of the daily items, I do want to chat about some of the things I recommend focusing on in your business, and I call some of these things non-negotiables in your business. So no matter what is going on each day, no matter what, these things happen each day whether it's directly from you or it's from a team member, or maybe an automation that you have going on in the backend of your business, no matter what I have non-negotiables in my business. I like to keep it simple, I've got three big non-negotiables in my business, regardless of what's going on, even while I'm on vacation, even as I'm traveling, these things still happen, right? As I was traveling in the fall and in the summer these things were happening even though I wasn't at home, even though I wasn't working in the business and was taking the entire week off, these things still happened.

Something I do want to start off with is your non-negotiables do not necessarily need to look like my non-negotiables. These are the non-negotiables that are going to feel good for you and really align in your business, but I do want to share examples for my business so I can just help give you some ideas. So my main non-negotiable is, number one, check in with, take care of, and support my clients. My clients are number one, they mean the world to me and I always will make sure that they are fully supported, so supporting clients is number one, it’s a huge non-negotiable. So checking in with them and then also checking in with my team because my team also supports my clients. This is something that happens every single day, it’s non-negotiable. I personally check in with all my clients in my programs and support them throughout the week. What I like to do is use different tools to really help with that, and so if you need some kind of tool to remind you to do some of these non-negotiables, I would definitely recommend using some kind of project management tool like Asana or Trello or Monday, anything like that. Okay, so that's the first not negotiable, supporting my clients and making sure they're good to go.

The next on-negotiable in my business is adding value. So, showing up and adding some type of value, whether it's releasing a podcast episode, sending an email out with value, showing up and doing a mini story training, even if it's pre-recorded, getting it out there and adding more value, that is so important to me. We're definitely going to touch on value in today's episode. My third non-negotiable is sales. Yes, we sell every single day in our business and I highly recommend you definitely get on board with that too. If you feel uneasy about selling and if this makes you cringe even thinking about it, don't you worry. I've got many, many, many podcast episodes about sales, how to improve the skill around selling, and also just feeling better about it because it starts with your mindset around selling before we can even employment and improve your skills. We've got to feel good about it first. So those are my three non-negotiables in my business.

What to Focus On in Your Business

Now I want to get going and get into some of the daily things that I recommend for you in your business. One of the first things I really want to get into is something that I actually wrote an article on last year for a press company, and it's all about being efficient versus being busy. So many of us think and believe that to be super busy at work and filling your day with tasks and things to do means that you're being effective and that you're having a productive day, but that’s actually a huge misconception. To be busy does not necessarily mean that you're effective and to be effective doesn't necessarily mean to work all day long in non-stop mode, right? I'm running a 7-figure business. I work 20 hours a week. This doesn't necessarily mean a need to add more hours to my work plate in order to continue to grow the business. I've been working 20-hour weeks for a few years now and the business grows every single year. There is a huge difference between being efficient and being busy.

If you were in a 9 to 5 in the past, or maybe you're in a 9 to 5 now, how often or how long are you actually working? Your experience may be very different from mine, but I know that I spent some time during my 9 to 5, at least 1 to 2 hours per day, going around and catching up with people and networking, just getting to know other people and walking around that manufacturing plant I was at. I wasn't actually sitting down working my full 8 hours straight or 12 hours straight since I definitely worked way more than eight hours every single day. So when we do those things we are busy, but are we necessarily being efficient with the things that are going to move the needle forward? That's what I want you to be thinking about. Are you doing things that are moving the needle forward today?

So, business owners on social media focusing on content creation, posting everyday, making their website, adding graphics, yet they may not be spending any time actually creating sales activities. So, if you listened to the first few minutes of this podcast episode I had mentioned that I didn't have a website until I was hitting a minimum of 10-15 K months. I didn't need it, it's not necessary. I didn't touch any Facebook ads or paid advertisements until 20-30K months in my business, right? Are we doing the things that make sense for you to move the needle forward today? A website may not necessarily be your number one priority today, but a sales activity may be. So we're going to get into more of some of these things to be working on. At the end of the day, sales activities are what most of your time gets to be spent on when you're in the beginning stages of your business. I would say roughly sixty to seventy percent of your business day gets to be sales activities if you're just starting, that way you can bring in some income and grow the business so that you can then start to hire some team members to support you as you continue to grow.

Choose a few things in the beginning to add to your priority list things that are going to actually move you closer to your goal. So for example, If your goal is to increase your income in 2022, you get to focus on selling and getting in front of more people. If your goal is creating more time in your business this year, then that means you get to start hiring some team members, start to delegate, and also see what things in your business, what processes you can really streamline and even automate to take off your plate.

Adding Value into Your Business

The next thing I really want to chat about is the next thing I recommend adding into your day. So the first thing I mentioned was, of course, non-negotiables, whatever that looks like for you and your business. The second is making sure that we're being effective, not just filling our day to be busy. You want to be focusing on the things that are going to move the needle forward to help you get more of what you want.

The next thing is adding some type of value to our audience. Regardless of what type of coaching business you run or what type of service-based business you are, you get to create some type of value-add content throughout the week. So, for example, if you go over to my Instagram, you see us talk about the podcast episodes that are out there for the week. We release IGTVs, every single week, all value-add. We put out captions every single week, mini story trainings on Instagram stories, so we're adding so much value. Value is so, so important because at the end of the day value is your pitch. If you've listened to any of my sales episodes, then you've definitely heard that before. I highly recommend adding in some type of value to your audience. That doesn't necessarily mean that you need to post 7 days a week. You could repurpose a post and send it out to your email list because not everyone in your email list may have even seen your Instagram post or your Instagram story or whatever it is.

The one thing that I tell all of my clients and share with them is that selling isn't about getting, it's about giving. I'm going to say that again. Selling is not about getting, it's about giving. You're a business owner, so that means that at the moment you're also a salesperson. Until you decide, or if you ever decide, down the road to hire a sales team or some people to support you and your sales in your business, which you most definitely can do, until then you are a salesperson and a business owner. If you don't have a sales team, you are the sales person. As the salesperson one of your main jobs is to create value. I create value every single day for my community as I had mentioned in some of my examples, and it's creating value that people can use and value that could help them move in that direction. It's also bumping up the like, know, trust factor. It takes anywhere from 7 to 10 touch points for somebody in your audience or a potential lead to get even close to converting, so you want to show up and add value. At the end of the day, I want to add value regardless of whether somebody ends up working with me or not because my bigger mission is to help female entrepreneurs find their own freedom through entrepreneurship, again, regardless of whether it's with me or not. This isn't about me, this is about the bigger bigger picture. So, add value, add value, add value.

What does this look like? What does value look like? So it can be anything from an educational post, a motivational post, some type of challenge or workshop, your top five tips to XYZ, anything that gives value. And again, if your goal is to make a sale you are being dependent on the buying decisions of others, but if you start to think about things as really showing and adding value, if your goal is to create value, you're no longer dependent on others, you're only dependent on yourself. As you continue to add value, and I can tell you this from my experience, everything that has helped my clients and created all of their success stories is adding value. The goal is not to be successful, it's to be valuable because once you're valuable instead of just chasing success, it will find you. It will come to you. It is so important to be adding that value because it helps show your ideal clients the value that you can bring. I've had so many people listen to this podcast, and maybe even some Facebook lives that I've done, and my IGTVs, or my mini story trainings over on Instagram, and they've been able to sign clients from it or double the number of clients they have from my free material. Your ideal clients want to see that you can actually help them. Give them that quick win because it also gives them a glimpse into what it could be like working with you. They want a little taste of that before they commit and take that next step to work with you. You would never go buy a car without giving it a test drive, right? Your value does the same exact thing, so add value, add value, add value. It is such an important thing to be doing this year in your business.

Selling In Your Business

The third thing is another big non-negotiable of mine. The reason so many of these items that I have been adding in this episode are some of my non-negotiables is because they're so, so important. These are things that I've been doing in my business from the very beginning, and there is a huge reason why I've been as successful as I am. I am very consistent at doing these things in my business. So the next thing is selling, selling, selling, please repeat that word twenty times!

Again, if you feel gross or uneasy or just feel off about me saying the word selling or the thought of selling more than once per month, I definitely recommend spending some time working on your sales mindset. I have a few past podcast episodes where we work on this, and in order to grow, in order to help people, in order to make money, you get to sell. This is one of the hardest things for most people to do because they are so fearful of it. What I've experienced with a lot of my past clients is that it's not necessarily the fear of getting out there and selling, it's more so the fear of rejection. So many are afraid of that. Selling doesn't technically mean that you need to hop on Instagram stories every single day and say, hey, I'm a business owner, come buy from me, come work with me, right? You can sell in many other ways on social media that feel good to you and really align in your business. I do have quite a few podcast episodes that go into examples and ways that you can be selling very often, even daily, in your business, so definitely check that out. You should be able to go to my actual podcast iTunes link and search The Fierce Business Babe Podcast, you'll see me and the graphic pop-up. You can even use Spotify and do the same thing. Search “sales” or “selling” through my podcast and all of those episodes should pop up for you as well. If not, send me a quick message on Instagram and I can definitely help get you to the right episode because I know all of my episodes and can definitely help support you in finding them.

So you can sell in so many different ways, right? If you're in launch mode you’re definitely going to be talking about your offer every single day. You can also sell in other ways, such as a call to action in your post, talking about your past clients, sharing client wins, you providing value and content, letting people know how to apply, people need different permission slips, giving a description of your program and asking if it's something they're looking for, do some polls on Instagram stories. If we aren't out there selling every single day, we aren't going to be making nearly as much money as we could be and, to be honest, people just aren't going to know that you have anything to offer that can actually help them with their problem. If you mention your program once a week or once every other week, I can guarantee that most people have no idea that you're selling something because not everybody sees every post or every story. You get to be talking about it more.

Something that I believe so much is that we truly are being selfish by not getting out there and selling. We are doing a disservice to the world by not getting out there and selling, selling, selling. I can definitely feel my passion coming through, my throat is starting to get a little croaky, but it truly, truly, truly is something that is serving the world when you do get out there and sell. Again, check on those other podcast episodes if you want some more ideas. Let's start to make your list of your sales activities. Again, there's dozens and dozens and we support our clients with them and they've got the list and there are just so many different things that you can do throughout the week to be selling every single day.

Building Relationships in Your Business

So the next thing that I feel is so important that gets to be added to your list to be doing in your business daily is working on your relationships. This can be building relationships with new leads, continuing to grow relationships with old leads, working on relationships with your current audience, this is a big part of your sales process. Not everyone's going to be ready to buy from you the very first day that they find you on social media, and that's okay. It can take anywhere from 7 to 10 touch points with you before they take any action, so nurture the ones already adore you by reaching out to them. Ask them how you can better support them, see how their day is going. After the last few years a connection is just something that is so desired, so get out there and connect. Create some free trainings and send them to your audience, teach them content that can help them.

Today I want you to step out of your comfort zone and go and send out messages to five people who are consistently the first few to watch your Instagram story, and I know you know who they are because I know that you're probably looking at who is checking out your stories because those are most likely some of your warmest leads. Go send out a message to them, say. “hey, thank you so much for viewing my story and being in my audience, being part of my community. I appreciate you so much. Is there anything I can support you with today?” Get to know them, see how they're doing, and see if there's anything else they’re looking for support with in terms of more content that you can be adding into your social media platforms as well. They are really going to appreciate it and continue to be a loving community member of yours and a loving audience member as well. They're going to be the ones, this is that example I love sharing, they're going to be the ones that are out at happy hour or girls night with their girlfriends and they're like, “hey, have you guys seen this person Melissa Lynn, she is just pouring so much value into how to start and grow your business, you should go check her out. She's always so helpful and gives out great content. You need to go and check her out. Go follow her.” As you continue to add value, that's what's going to be the domino effect as you continue to do all of these things every single day in your business. This is what's going to create a domino effect for you and your community will continue to grow and you also get to continue to nurture your community for it to grow. They're going to continue to share about you all of the time.

So let's also not forget about your current leads and your lead tracker, they're still there. Lead generation is one of the biggest money-making activities that you can do in your business. Fortune is always in the follow-up. Continue to check in with your leads. They may not buy day one, day two, day three, so check in with them the next week or the week after. Have some type of follow-up process on your lead tracker. Know when you want to follow back up with them so you don't forget. Something that we provide our clients is a lead tracker where you can have it change colors when it's time to check back in, change the days to do so, you can also create notifications based on that date so that it doesn't fall behind. Let's not leave money on the table. Let's follow up and continue to build those relationships.

Creating Growth in Your Business

Let's get into the next item which is just growing, growth actions. At the end of day, most of our goals are to impact as many people as we can, and in order to do so we must grow. Whether it’s organically, whether it’s paid, whether it’s both, we must grow so you can reach more people. More people will see your daily value and create a quick win from it. Every single day, or at least throughout the week, let's put together some growth actions so that you can continue to grow and help more people. It doesn't need to be huge, but we do get a focus on it because the things that we do focus on are the things that expand and grow and that move the needle forward.

So, for example, growing their email list is a huge focus point for so many of my clients this year and it’s usually on their KPI tracker. A minimum of once per week my clients are focused on email growth and looking at their trend of email subscribers and taking action to add to it. Whether it's talking about their freebie a few times per week or sending out their newsletter to XYZ, whatever that looks like, creating more freebies, doing live trainings, inviting people into your Facebook group, and then continuing to add value. You definitely can dip into paid advertisement for this, and again I typically don't really recommend paid advertisement until you’re at about the 10K month mark minimum just because it's not necessary. I truly believe that paid advertisement amplifies what works organically, so really make sure you're focusing on organic growth as well. Other growth actions could be collaborations, hopping on podcasts with other people, press, there are so many different things you can do to get in front of more people because as you get in front of more people, you get to help more people and serve more people as well.

I also want to add a few more things, some quick bonus items that I recommend adding in… rest, play and boundaries. I know I've talked about a lot of different things today, but these are definitely so, so, so important, and over the last two or three years they have definitely become more important in my life. I've recorded a few different podcast episodes about creating boundaries in business and it's something I talk about fairly often over on my Instagram as well. It’s so important to have boundaries and actually stick to them, adding more rest, more play into your life, and I definitely recommend trying to make a habit of this in 2022. So the number one priority for you gets to be you. As you give yourself, rest, play, and take care of yourself you'll be able to support others. It starts with you. I like to remind clients, especially during big launches, that their number one priority is self care and taking care of themselves, right? There is a such a big difference between asking yourself the questions, “what do I feel like doing today in my business,” versus, “what does my business need from me,” versus, “what do I need for me today?” Maybe that's something that gets to be non-negotiable for you. Ask yourself those three questions throughout the day or at the very beginning of the day so you know exactly what your business needs and what you need from yourself as well. It makes a huge, huge, huge difference. If you ask yourself, “what do I feel like doing tonight,” the answer may be watching Netflix, or watching the newest season of Emily in Paris, or whatever that looks like for you, when in reality your business may actually need you a little bit today. So I want you to just kind of think about that and I can definitely expand upon this in another podcast episode if that is something you would love to come to learn more about. I can answer some of the big questions I ask myself and how I set myself up for success every single week as well.

So we have touched on so many different things today including items that I recommend focusing on in 2022 for your business, examples from my focus points, tips to make this the best year yet, and so much more! We are already getting ready and so excited for next week's episode and I cannot wait to share with you. We will see you next week in another brand new episode of The Fierce Business Babe Podcast bright and early next Monday morning.

Topics we cover include:

Finding your non-negotiables
Being efficient in your business
Building your business relationships
Things to do daily in your business

And so much more!

Times to check out:

(10:15) Daily non-negotiables in my business

(14:20) What you should be focusing on

(18:26) Adding value into your business

(24:18) Selling every single day

(29:03) Building relationships in your business

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