What's your number? What's your plan?

A little something for people who hate annual planning

When I led a small ad agency, I kept our revenue goal written in red in the corner of the white board in my office. Just the number, without the word “million” after it. For the clients who visited my office it was just a number in the corner. But if someone on my team asked me to invest in something or discount something for a client, I’d point to the number and ask, “how does this get us to that number?”

I’ve written before how superstitious salespeople can be. And I do have a superstition about a written sales goal. I still have my revenue goal written on the wall. Although this time it’s written on a big sticky note on the back of my office door. The only other person who goes in here is my 3-year-old granddaughter and she can’t read yet, so it’s pretty private. Although she just discovered the joys of small sticky notes – paper that sticks by itself! – and so my desk is adorned with a fringe of blue and pink post-its.

To come up with a sales figure, you have to do some annual planning. I’ve noticed among my clients that there are some people who love annual planning and others who barely tolerate it. This newsletter is for those of you in the barely tolerate camp.

Why plan?

Even if you don’t believe in a magical revenue number, planning and goal setting is a useful exercise for a person and for a team. It clarifies goals and investments towards those goals. Because if you haven’t invested time, resources or money in a goal it’s not really a goal, it’s a wish. And in the corporate roads I travel, wishes rarely come true.

Many of you already have a corporate planning, budgeting or goal setting process in place. So today I’m going to talk about an individual process you can do, or have your direct reports do.

First write down what went well this year. What are three to five accomplishments that you celebrate? They could be business oriented; “won three new accounts” or “implemented new career path documentation for every position on my team.” They could be career oriented: “started a newsletter and published 10 posts” “finished that additional certification class.”

Or personal: “learned how to blow glass” or “gave birth to a tiny human” or “carved out more time for self-care.”

Write them down. Then think about what strengths or talents helped you do those things. For “won three new accounts” the talents might be perseverance, sales acumen, strategically identifying a new market opportunity. For “learned how to blow glass” you showed an ability to try new things. If you took a beginner glass blowing class, you showed an ability to be vulnerable and learn in a group and maybe fail.

Write down the strengths that helped you achieve these things. Then take a break. I’d suggest that you build this over time. Put the work in progress doc somewhere where you will see it – in a drive or folder where you can star or highlight it, or somewhere in your physical environment where you will literally see it. On my big newsprint, the word “Substack” is written in big black marker since posting here regularly is one of my goals.

Next, write down three goals you want to achieve this year. These should be higher level goals, business, career or personal. Let’s use the example of “bring in $800k in new revenue.”

That’s Goal #1.

Underneath each goal write down 2-3 things that you can do to support that goal.

So under Goal #1, A) could be “build marketing plan for product X by end of Q1.”

B) might be “hire one additional salesperson for the East Coast market to focus on selling product X to Vertical Y”

Still with me? At the end of this you should have Goal 1 with steps A, B and C and Goal 2 with steps A B C, etc.

Are there any skills you will need to develop or hone in order to achieve these goals? How will you learn those skills? Reading, listening to a podcast, taking a class, coaching?

Next, write down the answers to these questions for each goal.  

·      What is the first thing I am going to do towards this goal that can be accomplished in the next 3 weeks?

·      How much time am I going to commit to this goal in 2023? Ideally, this should be on a per week or per month basis. It’s better to do 30 minutes a week than wait to do 3 hours at the end of the quarter. I spend about 2 hours a week writing and recording the Consigliera Papers. I keep track of those hours in the software I use to track my client billable hours.

·      What skills do I need to develop to accomplish these goals, and how will I learn and practice those?

·      Who is going to help me be accountable for moving ahead on each goal? How can they best support me? This could be a team member, an executive coach, or even a spouse or friend for some of the personal or career development goals. You need an accountability partner. Which you know, we all know that. It’s hard to do, but it is important.

At this point, even if you’ve taken lots of breaks and given yourself space to do this process, you might feel overwhelmed. Maybe your revenue goal was generated by someone else, and you don’t think it’s reasonable. Maybe you’re burnt out and you can’t imagine how you’re going to do all the things you need to do. Maybe you’re afraid of economic uncertainty and don’t know if you’ll even have this job by the end of 2023.

I get it. Remember that list of strengths? Now I want you to return to that list. Which strengths are going to serve you well? Remember, you know you have these strengths because you’ve already been putting them into action throughout the year. Make notes near the goals that feel too big about which of your currently existing superpowers you are going to let loose on that goal.

Sometimes you have to widen your perspective when looking for your strengths and talents.

A few years ago, I had a conversation with a young friend who was entering a competitive MBA program. He was concerned because so many of his classmates had job experiences and positions that he felt were much stronger than his. He was worried about how he would compare to his peers. His only frame of reference was their resume and current position, the kind of information exchanged at a welcome cocktail party. By that frame he felt he wasn’t measuring up.

I knew some of his accomplishments, so I asked him some questions. How many of those peers are working artists like you are? How many of them have put successful art into the world as you have? How many of them are happily married like you are? He admitted that none of the people with the stellar resumes were working artists and most of them weren’t in a relationship because they spent so much time at work. Years later, he has his MBA, is still happily married, has a great career as a product manager helping to create new products, and he still does his art.

Lots of us have strengths we forget to take into account because they are discounted by society. My years as a working single mother made me one of the most organized and efficient people at my jobs. Writing fiction into the wee hours as a working single mom showed me that I can persevere in the face of deep odds and stay connected to the value of what I do regardless of whether I am recognized for it in ways society says has value, like, say, getting published.

This planning exercise should make you feel hopeful by highlighting some of the strengths, skills and talents you already have and coming up with a simple plan to leverage those to achieve whatever key goals you want to work on for next year.