How to Create a Roadmap for Your Business

*Transcript is unedited (for the most part)

Gianna Diggs 0:05
You are listening to the mompreneur mindset podcast, a space where we empower you to build an aligned business. So you can spend less time on the things you think you should be doing in your business, and more time with the people you love. I am your host, Gianna Diggs, let’s get into it.

Welcome to Season Two of the mompreneur mindset podcast. So I am super excited for this new season. I have some really great guests on the show. It’s gonna be honestly, it’s awesome. It’s gonna be awesome. I after every interview, I’m like, Wow, this like I’m blown away. So I’m excited for you to hear all of the different guests that I have on the show and the different topics that we’re going to be discussing this season. But in this episode, this is a solo episode, we’re going to be talking about how to create a vision for your business. And by the end of the show, you’ll know how to use your vision to create a roadmap for your business. So I wanted to kick off this season with this episode, because most people never actually achieve their business goals, because they never take the time to actually create a vision for their business. So you probably have a whole lot of ideas just floating around your head about what you want your business to be. But without a clear vision is it’s going to be really difficult for these ideas to become reality, right. So I’m going to help you get your vision out of your head. And onto paper. So this episode is going to be packed with information. So if you can go ahead and pause the audio, grab a pen, grab some paper or notebook journal, whatever you use, because I do believe you’re going to want to take note. But before we begin, and we start creating the business roadmap, I want to start with how to create your your business vision. So the first step is to define what you want in your business. And I want you to look at this from two different perspectives. So the first perspective is to look at it more on the basic questions you would kind of normally answer or see when you’re first building your business. For example, what are your business goals? both short term and long term? What are your core values? Who is your ideal client or customer? What are their unique challenges? What products or services do you want to offer? And how will you stand out from others in your niche? Also, I want you to think about what requirements does your business need to operate? So do you need a calendar or a booking service? So you can work with clients? Do you desire to have a website or a landing page? Maybe even an email provider? What basic resources and tools do you need to help your business run smoothly, even in the beginning stages? And of course, there’s no right or wrong answer to this question. Right? I just, I want you to really think about what is it that you want? Now, some of these questions. They’re kind of annoying, just being honest. Because you see them all the time. And you’re like, dang, I got to answer these questions again. But I will say that they are important because your answers allow you to have a clear understanding of what you want your business to be by defining the purpose of your business, which then will allow you to develop a roadmap for success. Now, the second perspective, is to look at what you want from your business from a more intuitive guidance, or woowoo, or whatever you want to call it, right? Look at it from that from that way. So what does the future you want in your business? So in five to 10 years, how do you envision your business? Do you see yourself changing 1000s or even millions of lives? Do you see your business hitting six figures or seven figures even? What about how the business operates? Do you have a whole team working behind you? Do you envision yourself you know, possibly if you have this type of business, maybe selling it to a bigger company, I want you to really kind of tune in to your wanting your desires for your business so that you can create a clearer vision of your future. And if you’re having any issues with the visualization process of this, of this, you know step I would recommend you go listen to season one, episode seven, entitled and visualizing the future you and I’m going to link that in the show notes. So the next thing I want you to do is really think about your Why. Why did you even go into business? And so something that I’ve seen a lot Why is that mom entrepreneurs usually start their business because they want more time with their families. And of course, your wife doesn’t actually have to involve your children, I want to make that clear. But I want you to think about what made you create your business in the first place. Because when times get hard, and you want to give up, you know, your y is going to really be what keeps you going in the end.

And I want to mention that it’s important that this vision fits into other areas of your life, you know, make sure that through this vision, you aren’t sacrificing your home life at the time with your children, your spouse, or any other people or things that you love. And like I said, you know, for a lot of listeners, including myself, right your business, this is why you started your business in the first place, right? You want to have more freedom to be around the people that you love, do the things that you love. So make sure that you’re not sacrificing those areas just to get your business off the ground. And like I said before, I’m honestly really excited for this season. The guests that I have on the show, they’re actually going to really be pivotal in helping you to create this dream business without sacrificing the sacred time that you have with the people you love. So stay tuned. So another question that you can add to to help you with this vision for other areas in life and as well as your business is something that I’ve already kind of asked you, but I want you to view it from like a different perspective. And that question is, what are your requirements? Now, this question might actually help you with deciding on pricings of your products or services, your coaching packages, whatever you have that you need to pricing, so just listen up. So I want to mention that I got this question from a fellow mom entrepreneur who I’ve worked with many times, and her name is Tiffany party. And this is really her exercise. So this is this question really is in alignment with what it is that you really want in your life and how your business can support that. Right. So here’s an examples. So you would look at first, your personal bills, right? What you know, your rent or your mortgage, your car note, if you have one, you know, insurance, like what are the personal bills that you have to pay daycare, you know, tuition, whatever you have, you know, what is it that are things that are like the non negotiable things in your life that you have to pay for? Right, and I want you to look at that. And of course, tally that up. And then I want you to look at what are some personal things that you want to do. Now, this is for me is I always categorize this really, like look at it self care. And we’re going to talk about self care a lot this season. But for example, right? Do you want to be able to go to the spa on a weekly or a monthly basis? Do you want to get your nails done? That’s my that’s my self care, right? Do you want to get your nails and your you know, a manicure pedicure? You know, every three weeks, right? Do you want to have you know polite membership? So gym membership, pilates, you know, Kickboxing whatever thing to kind of maintain your health? Do you want to have a cleaning service that comes in and cleans your house on a weekly or bi weekly basis? Right? What personal bills that are like non negotiable, but also what dreams and desires do you have that you personally have? Right? What are those bills? What are those things that you would have to pay for? And really thinking about? Like, how can your business support you? In not sacrificing the desire part of that? Not necessarily the personal bill is part of that because of course those are things that have to be paid. But more on the desire side? How can your business help you support and fulfill those dreams and those wishes? So that’s the first step, then I want you to look at it from a business perspective. So what business expenses do you have? And that again, goes back to your requirements, you know, the list that you made for your business operation? So you know you have Are you paying for your email provider? Like I have flow desk, right? You might have MailChimp if are you paying for that? Are you paying for ConvertKit? Are those some examples? are like what business expenses are you are you paying for on a monthly or even an annual basis? And then so I want you to look at all of those things. Are you paying for a coach? Right? Are you in a monthly mastermind or monthly memberships that you could be potentially in? Right What are things Are you in or do you desire to be and also that you can put your desires here to that support your business? Those things that you’re actually paying For, right, make a list of those things. And of course, add those up.

Now, once you have your personal, and your business bills, all those expensive added, like, put them together, add them up, and you see your total. Now look at what you’re offering in your business and see what types of products, you know coaching packages services you have, or you want to create that can help you, you know, get that number that you see. Right. So if you notice that you’re spending, you know, $6,000 a month, right? And you’re you’re you’re looking at, okay, how can you not only make $6,000, in your business to the different things that you offer? But also, maybe your goal is to make 10,000 instead, right, that’s $4,000 surplus? How can your business support you and even attaining that surplus. So this exercise is really going to allow you to really envision the possibilities of how your business can support your dream life. And so, I know that have extra over a whole bunch of questions. But sitting down to really envision what you want and answer the answer these questions will put you really far ahead of the game. And once you have a clear vision, you can create a vision statement. So your vision statement is a declaration of what you want your business to achieve. So this could be framed in the present tense, or the should be framed in the present tense, and it acts as if it already happened. So some examples of a vision statement are to be the leading provider of any good putting your service product, you know, coaching package in your area, or niche, or there’s another example to help a certain type of person. So for my case, a mom entrepreneur, achieve a specific goal by offering a certain product or service. So an example of this mission, right for this podcast is to be the leading podcast helping much mom entrepreneurs create a soul aligned business. And so creating this vision for your business is the first step in creating a business roadmap that’s also infused with what you feel is best for your business. And I encourage you to take some time to really sit down and answer these questions. So that you can move forward with confidence and ease knowing that knowing what you want to achieve. Now that you know where you want your business to go by creating a vision and a vision statement, now it’s time for us to actually create a roadmap. So I want to use an example. So you can kind of envision the possibilities for your own business or even your potential business. So let’s say after having a year last child, you didn’t feel confident in your postpartum body. So you decided to do something about it. Right? You knew that dieting didn’t work for you. So that wasn’t an option. You knew that working out excessively, wouldn’t work for you either, because you really don’t have the time, right. And so you also knew that you wanted to find a very fun and easeful way to just get back into the competent body that you may have possessed before. So in the act of justice making these decisions, you decided to create a workout and a nutrition plan that worked for your lifestyle, and in turn was able to be, you are able to become the most confident you’ve ever been in your body. And I want to add that, you know, an added perk is that you also just in deciding to choose your health, you also dropped weight that you gained during your pregnancy, but also, from before, you know, you got pregnant. And so it could be you lost like a total of maybe 20 to 30 pounds. And so what some of your other mom friends saw your progress, they asked you if you could help them feel confident in their bodies as well. And so this is what sparked your idea to start a coaching business. And so after walking through the vision exercise, you decided that your vision statement is to become the leader in helping moms feel confident in their postpartum bodies.

So we’re going to sketch out a basic roadmap that you know, obviously can be tweaked and add to this is just an example. So that you can kind of envision you know what a road map can look like. So using some of the questions from above, you know that your target audience is moms who are just trying to feel more confident in their postpartum bodies. So you decide that you want to offer a one on one coaching as well as a group coaching program. You know that your business requires just a simple website, a calendar system and an email system so that the clients can of course find your services, they can book you to work with them, and they have you have a way of communicating with them both while they’re working with you and when they aren’t. You also look at your requirements list to make help you decide what you want to charge based off of what you require to live your dream life, and so you decide that you want to demonstrate this by creating workouts on YouTube. And this will also feature you know, different workouts like a hit cardio, yoga, pilates, in these, in all these exercises will be under 30 minutes. And you even figure, you know, feature yourself working out with your children, so that people can really see that this can be a family affair. So this being in doing these videos on YouTube will also help you with leads, because you’ll be able to get people on your email list by offering a monthly Calendar of the different workouts that they can do throughout the month. And so you know that you eventually want to scale. So you’re not always working with clients. And in your five year plan, he wants to create an app that would allow your clients to basically have you as a personal trainer, but on your phone, like they don’t actually have to work with you one on one. So now looking at these goals that you have, the next step would be to create a plan of action. And so some action steps you can have is to one may ask your mom friends that you’ve helped already ask them for a testimonial, so that you have social proof, while also asking them to recommend you to other people that they know who may also want to feel confident in their postpartum bodies. So setting up all the businesses that you need, right, that’s another action step. So you have your website or your landing page, your booking link, your email provider, that also has your your lead magnets ready to go. So people can download them. You would also have to research how to start your YouTube channel. And you know what, what tools where you need to be able to film yourself working out, you know, you have to ask yourself can do you have the ability to invest in a course that could possibly help you be successful in the setup of your channel? Right, you know, in the four year five year goal? What do you need to develop a workout app? You know, what company can you use to actually would work with to develop the app, you know, and what content is going to actually be included inside the app that differentiates from the content you put on YouTube or any other social media platform you have. So of course, like I said, these these action items, they may not necessarily be in the order that you want. But I did it more as like a brain dump. But, you know, just so you kind of can get my drift and in how you can go about doing this for your business. And so you look at your goals, right? That’s the first step. And then you decide what you want to achieve first, and then start with that. And so this leads me to my next step, which is to create a timeline and set milestones as well as deadlines. So let’s say you decide that you want to contact your mom friends, right? Who you’ve helped. That’s your first step. And so you’re looking for testimonials, again, as well as referrals. And so you then need to decide what actions are you taking, you know, while you are kind of waiting for these testimonials to come in, or referrals to come in. And so what actions are you doing? Are you sharing on your social media platforms? Are you in the process building your website or your landing page? You know, are you setting up your lead magnet? You know, what aligned actions are you taking? And so also thinking about these actions, where do these tasks fit in the timeline for creating your business? And again, there’s no right or wrong answer to this question. It’s really about what feels most aligned. Right? And so what’s your deadline to have these testimonials in? Right? Your your website done, your email is up and running? Have your social media accounts up and running? You know, when will you start your YouTube channel? I know we say this was a five year goal, but like when do you want your workout app done? Right? Where do these action items fit into your vision timeline? And also, what milestones are you setting that helps you?

Also, what milestones are you setting that tells you that it’s time to do the next thing? All right, at what point are you going to do you know, do you feel it’s time to launch an app maybe based off of how many email providers you have or how many subscribers you have? How much traction Are you getting on your social media accounts? Right? When does the next thing happen based off of you know, your timeline? And once you reach that, that milestone, that goal, how are you going to celebrate? I wanted to mention that because I feel like it’s really important. And it’s something that a lot of people don’t do, including myself at times. And so we really don’t want to move on to the next thing without really celebrating where we’ve come from. And even just celebrating the fact that we’re on our way to the next thing. And so I want to mention that At these milestones is going to also help you to not only stay on track with your vision, but also track your progress, because you’ll be able to see all that you’ve accomplished even when it feels like things aren’t moving as fast as you want them to. And it will also allow you to make adjustments where needed. So which leads me to my final tip, which is to revisit and revise your vision as needed. So there is no hard and fast rule again for how often you do this. But a good general guideline is to try to revisit your vision at least quarterly. So this will allow you to ensure that your business is still in alignment with your personal goals and your values as well as give you an opportunity to make any necessary changes that you need. And again, I want to mention that, you know, at least look at your vision quarterly. But you can also look at it daily, if you have it in a planner somewhere, or you have it on a vision board, really kind of tune into that energy. And it also will inspire you to keep taking aligned action. So that is all I have for you today. Like I said it, it is a lot. And I will have all the steps and things listed out in the show notes if you need to just visually see it. But I hope that these tips were really helpful in helping you to feel more confident in creating a vision for your business. And as always, you know, if you need any help with your roadmap, something that I can offer to you is my day of Voxer where you don’t have to spend all day on Zoom. We can do Fox or walkie talkie app, you can talk to me throughout your day while you do whatever you need to do throughout the day. And we can sit down and look at your goals and your you know your values and your milestones and things that you want to do for your business and actually have someone else help you to create this roadmap. So if you’re interested in you know, learning more about how I can help you, I invite you to go to www dot Gianna diggs.com backslash Dale Voxer All right. All right. I will see you in the next episode.

Thank you for listening to the mompreneur mindset podcast. I hope you found today’s episode valuable. If you enjoyed listening to today’s episode, I would love it if you could subscribe rate or review the show your support, it really means the world to me. Also, if you want to join in on a discussion about today’s topic, and seek guidance, assistance and advice from fellow mompreneurs I invite you to join the mompreneur mindset community. You’ll find a warm and supportive group of women who are eager to help you achieve your business goals. So head to www dot Gianna diggs.com backslash community for more information

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