It’s Q&A month and I’m answering your biggest questions about life, business, and simple scrapbooking.
How do you plan the Simple Scrapper membership content? How far ahead do you work?
I think I made it to March of this year before I started thinking about 2015. The future is always in my peripheral vision as I assess how things are going and where I might like to take them in the future. That’s just part of my personality.
That said, I don’t start truly working on the following year until early fall. In the September/October time frame I will finalize the structure of the membership for the following year since I like to do at least one new thing each year. Then I will begin to identify the 12 storytelling themes so those are set and out of the way.
In the fall I will also outline a general marketing calendar for the year that includes when I’ll host special events, offer sale prices, teach classes etc. Perhaps most importantly, that calendar also includes the time I will take off. Setting personal boundaries in advance has been huge for helping me feel more balanced with my work.
I work several-to-many months out for launches of new products and services. I started outlining my approach for this September’s Stash Bash event last month and a lot of the work for it will take place in July. The more collaborators involved, the more lead-time is needed. Books like the Everyday Storyteller series take six months to complete.
On the small scale, each month follows a set pattern. I get the new set of Story Starters storytelling prompts to the team around the 1st and the new sketches and templates by the 10th. These are both for the following month, so the team has a few weeks to create samples for our members-only magazine, Spark.
The video development and writing I do for the membership tends to be on a shorter time-frame, but still generally done in advance. I like to feel like things are under control, especially if something comes up (and it always does) that requires my immediate attention. I also found that I can be more present and responsive to my members if I’ve taken my post-creation pause before they receive the new materials.
All of these details are recording in writing. I use a notebook for brainstorming and mind mapping, but action plans and checklists are input into Asana so I always know what to do next.
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I’d love to be able to plan ahead like you