Planning Your Business Year in 2021
If you’re a teacher that wants to make more money and work for yourself, you need a plan. Planning your business year in 2021 doesn’t have to be hard as long as you don’t get caught up in tiny details. It’s actually pretty easy if you have a vision for your teacher business. So first, let’s discuss your business model.
Business Model Development
Business model development sounds fancy, but it’s not. First off, do you offer a service such as tutoring or a product such as a digital course?
Are you the main person providing a service or creating your product?
Will you offer any freebies to build your customer base?
Do you plan to offer your service or product at a premium price or will you offer a low-cost price and sell hundreds of items?
How do you decide the price of your offer? First research how much competitors are charging. Next test the market. Last, gradually raise the price as you get more reviews or testimonials if it makes sense to charge more for your product or service.
Here are some examples of different business models:
- Provide weekly content to connect with your audience to establish a relationship with them -> Offer a freebie such as a download or video series via e-mail -> announce your offer via e-mail
- Host a webinar or masterclass -> share your service or product at the end of the webinar
- Create a low-cost product that leads to a premium product
- Offer a free 15 minute coaching call or tutoring session that leads to sharing your main offer at the end of the call or session
But how do you find customers? There are two ways: paid traffic and free, organic traffic. Before we dig into traffic, let’s talk about financial goals so you can get motivated to serve your customers.
Long Term Financial Goal
Think about how much money you want to make in a year. Divide that by 12 to get your monthly earnings and then divide that number by 4 to get your weekly earnings.
How much do you need to charge in order to reach your long-term financial goal?
Let’s practice.
My course is currently $397 for the beta price. When I launch again I will be raising the price, so let’s do a calculation with my beta price and a calculation with my future price of $597. I will have another offer at $1500 for a year’s worth of coaching.
I want to make $100,000 in course sales. At $397 I would need to sell roughly 252 courses. That would mean selling 21 courses a month, and 5 courses a week.
When you break it down it doesn’t sound so hard, does it?
When I raise my price to $597 I would need to sell 168 courses to hit my $100,000 goal. That brings me to 14 courses a month and 3.5 (let’s just say 4) courses a week. Quite a bit more achievable.
Now, if some of those people want a year’s worth of coaching and opt-in to the $1500 premium price I will hit that six-figure goal even faster. I would only need 67 people to purchase the $1500 coaching program. That’s 6 people a month and 1 to 2 people a week.
Mind blown? Great! Let’s dig into how you find your community of customers.
Annual Planning
When starting your annual planning you need to think about finances (check!), content creation, and consistency to reach your goals.
Digital Content Creation
Digital content creation is important, especially if you want to get clients organically instead of going out to search for them by sending dozens if not hundreds of direct messages or e-mails. Likewise, if you don’t want to invest in paid traffic, this is how you get eyes on your business for FREE.
My two preferred ways of getting organic traffic are YouTube and blogging on WordPress. And yes, it has to be WordPress because sites like Wix and Squarespace own your content. Plus, WordPress is great with SEO which is how you get organic traffic.
The best way to plan your content creation is through knowing your customer. What do they want and need? Then share information that helps them solve their problems. By doing this they are getting to know you and trust you as a resource, which makes them much more likely to purchase from you.
Brainstorm 52 ideas because there are 52 weeks in a year. That means you’ll have one post per week. When you’re just starting out choose one platform to post on. Don’t try to do both YouTube and a blog because it will lead to burn out. Plus, you will need time to do other things like product creation or providing your service.
If you feel overwhelmed by the thought of brainstorming 52 ideas, just work on your ideas quarterly. That’s what I do!
Consistency Is Key
Consistency is something so many content creators struggle with, but you can be successful when you batch create content. I went from 20 blog posts in 2019 to 33 in 2020 because of batching my content. I was working on launching my course and coaching my course members from July-November so I give myself the benefit of the doubt for working on other content instead of my blog during the last half of the year which is where I missed posting for several weeks.
Progress, not perfection! As long as you are putting in effort and taking consistent steps towards your long-term goal, that is all that matters.
Reach Your Goals
Here’s a recap of what you need to do to plan for 2021 and reach your goals.
- Choose a niche
- Create a list of 52 ideas for content
- Post one idea weekly on a blog or YouTube channel
- Choose your business model (I don’t want to see you on a hamster wheel forever so I suggest making a premium priced product)
- Create an offer for your product or service and calculate how many sales you need to reach your weekly, monthly and yearly income goals
I would love to hear about what you’re working on in 2021! What’s your business and what’s one big goal you have?
Do you have my guidebook about how to increase your income teaching online? That is what got me from independent contractor to business owner.
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