🔑 The Final Key in 2023 to Unlock and Record Your Highest Sales Year Ever in 2024

🔑 The Final Key in 2023 to Unlock and Record Your Highest Sales Year Ever in 2024

Hi there, Solopreneur! Another 🦃 Thanksgiving is in the archives.

How was your holiday?

😀 The day was a big success at my house.

It was heartwarming to catch up with family, share stories, and build new memories.

One important idea I took from this Thanksgiving is to embrace candid conversations.

We move 99 m.p.h. every day, and it’s vital we find moments to stop, give our full attention, and engage with empathy.

🙏 An honest conversation works wonders in personal and business relationships.

This week’s issue is a 3-minute read.

In this issue, we uncover Part III of our dynamic three-part series that underscores my primary purpose:

Making sure you…

Turn your skills into solutions people buy.

A quick recap of Parts I and II.

• Pick your sharpest skill to build the right solutions for the BIG customer challenge that your business solves

• Choose ONE sandbox (market) where you can win (rather than five where you may ‘lose’ to your competition)

Here’s Part III:

Create a strategy blueprint that shows your assumptions, logic, and test product for the transformation you deliver to your customer.

Remember, your strategy blueprint is NOT your plan.

🦄 Strategic planning is a popular term in business, yet it’s a myth.

Your strategy answers these questions:

• Which skills will you use to build your test solutions?

• Which sandbox gives you the strongest chance to win?

• Which assumptions do you make about your customers and market that drive your decisions to solve a particular customer challenge?

Planning describes the items you purchase to put your strategy in motion.

You control the planning steps.

For example…

• 🌐 You plan to build a website

• 📃 You plan to start a blog

• 💻 You plan to create a logo, social media profile(s) and content

• 👩🏻‍🏫 You plan to hire a virtual assistant

These steps add leverage and bring visibility to your business.

They are smart and essential.

And they have nothing to do with strategy since they are costs you absorb and steps you control.

Remember, strategy is not within your control, and it causes a bit of anxiety (which is normal)!

When you build your strategy blueprint, you make assumptions, you create a test solution, and you introduce it to the market.

You watch how customers react to your solution and how they interact with your product.

📊 You gather feedback on what works and what fails, and then you revisit your assumptions to see what you may have missed.

Your initial strategy blueprint is your first attempt to build a solution that combines your market research with a test solution to fix a BIG customer problem.

🙃 You might find you picked the wrong sandbox or made a few bad assumptions about the BIG problem customers want you to solve.

This is fine, and it happens all the time when you first launch your business.

🔑 Takeaway(s)

Create a 1-page strategy blueprint and keep it simple (it’s not a plan).

Draw a process flow chart and illustrate how your solutions improve the customer’s journey and solve a BIG problem.

Creating a strategy may bring anxiety. You can’t know for sure if your strategy will work.

Test, try, test, and try again.

😀 Example of a Strategy Blueprint

Here is a flow chart you can adopt as you begin your strategy.

• Is the problem worth solving?

• Did you pick the correct sandbox?

• What is the feedback from customers on your initial test solution?

• Does your next solution get you closer to fixing the problem?

• Does your solution provide the right transition?

🔥 A final thought on our 3-part strategy series:

Your friends and family will likely tell you that your strategy is amazing.

It’s nice to get approval, yet remember that strategy takes time.

💥 While your competitors are creating cool websites, logos, and social media profiles, your primary objective is to sharpen your strategy.

And if 2023 didn’t bring you the sales and customers you wanted, take time in December to review and redraft your strategy.

🔑 Takeaway(s)

• Lean into your skill

• Pick the right sandbox

• Create a simple 1-page strategy statement (it’s NOT your plan).

• Test your assumptions and revisit the ones that were false.

If you have any questions about your strategy blueprint, drop me a note at [email protected]. I’m happy to brainstorm with you.

Stay curious and keep opening doors.

-Erik