S2E1 Quilting on The Side
Andi: [00:00:00] Welcome to Quilting on the Side, the podcast where we uncover the secrets to turning your passion for quilting into a profitable side hustle. I'm Tori
Tori: from The Quilt Bash
Andi: by Tori. And I'm Andy from True Blue Quilts. And together, We're your co hosts on this exciting journey of creativity, entrepreneurship, and all things quilting.
Tori: We're here to help you navigate the world of quilt pattern design, course creation, digital marketing, and running an online quilt business. We've been through the ups and downs ourselves, so we know what it takes to make money from your favorite hobby. That's
Andi: right, Tori. We're going to share our experiences on how we've grown our businesses while balancing family with other paying work responsibilities.
It's not always easy, but it's definitely possible.
Happy New Year! Yay, it's a new year! It's so good to be back [00:01:00] for season two. Woohoo! Yeah. And since we are starting a new season and a new year, we thought it would be a good time to talk about setting goals in your business. Definitely. Now you can use this, but we're going to be talking about for a new year or a new quarter or a new month, wherever you are in your journey and planning process, you can jump in and I use this podcast for some goal setting.
And I actually do like working with shorter. Timeframes for business goals and project planning, because a year feels like you can get so many things done and I always find that I've gone on a detour somewhere along the way. So, if I keep that timeframe to 3 to 6 months, then I have a lot better chance of getting through the entire list.
[00:02:00] Definitely. I feel like as entrepreneurs and multi passionate entrepreneurs and creatives, we tend to find squirrely projects. Is that a good way to call it? Squirrel, squirrel, squirrel. I want to start this. Oh, now I want to do this. Like our retreat was kind of like that. Yeah. And. It helps to know your own personality style.
Are you someone who's able to pull things together really quick and launch something new? Or are you more methodical and really want to research and plan everything out to the exact detail? Then you may not want to put something new on your plate for the moment. I'm kind of a mix too. Like, I feel like there's other out there who might be a mix where I like to have a general plan for the year, but leave wiggle room so that I know I'm going to have an idea here or there.
And like, so I have room to jump into it. Yeah, and I give myself a lot of [00:03:00] grace that it just, you know, life happens. We, we Start things and realize it's not going well, or it's not the right time, or it's not going to fit with our lifestyle after all, and it's okay to abandon things and, and start fresh.
Definitely. It's okay to let a project go, or a launch go, or a pattern go, or a quilt go, that it's not fulfilling you anymore, and your attention is pulled somewhere different. Definitely. So. When we have that fresh calendar, that fresh piece of paper, and we're ready to start a new plan what are some tips or how, how do you approach that?
Because I like to, you know, I, I. Follow the prevailing wisdom to pick three to five things and try to figure out what's gonna help [00:04:00] take me to, to the level I'm dreaming of. Well, I like to start first by dreaming, actually, I take a minute to think about whatever timeline I'm planning here. So for right now, it's the beginning of the year.
So we're thinking about the whole year. So I dream about Where do I want to be at the end of the year? So keeping the end in mind is really important. I think where do you want to go in the next year and then narrow it down? So where do you want to be in the next year? Which, like I said, I like to have a general plan like this season.
I know we talked about social media before and planning for social media. So I kind of create seasons for myself throughout the year when I'm going to be doing big stuff. And then I focus on the next three months. Over the next quarter, what can I do to get me to that year long vision that I see? And then I narrow it down from there.
What can I do in the next month? What can I do in the next couple days to get ready for this overall plan that I'm dreaming of? Yeah, I think it's really [00:05:00] important along with keeping the end in mind, which is a great way to approach things. You also want to put the big rocks in the bucket first.
So, when I'm looking at 2024 specifically, that's going to be a big year for my family because my daughter graduates high school. So I definitely have some big events that I know are coming up,
but along with those big events, I do want to have some extra income to fund some celebrations. So I, I kind of have the dual purposes there that I'm going to have to plan my timing around certain events, but I can also use my business as a way to supplement the family celebrations. Yeah, when A few years ago, when we moved to where we currently are, that's what I did when I planned her on our PCS, what could I take with me?
What do I need [00:06:00] to leave packed up? What could I live without for my business for? We, I planned on probably four months without my stuff, just in case. Things went sideways. So that's definitely something to put in first is all those big things that are happening throughout the year and then plan around those.
Because with a creative business, if you're developing products, whether those are physical quilts patterns that you want to sell or courses and workshops, you want to. Have a, a timeline, a flow of when those releases will happen and it's. I just finished a year when I was doing a block and a quilt design every month, and I don't recommend that, that's a pretty intense production schedule to have to have designs out, and [00:07:00] samples, and I, you know, I did a lot of bare bones digital mockups, but that's not ideal for production style.
The quilt industry, especially people want to see the actual fabric and, you know, even, even on a computer screen, they want to see the fabric flapping in the breeze showing the designs. So, keep in mind the production time for all these grand plans. You don't have to cram every idea into. One year or one quarter it's okay to have a parking lot of ideas to fall back on in the future.
We even have one of those for the podcast. Yes, we do. Google Spreadsheets, color coded. Yeah.
So we do want to make sure we've got the big events in for our business, for our lives and probably life before business, I would think. And then to make sure that you have your large amount of times, not only where you're going to be busy, but also [00:08:00] where you're going to rest. So when are you going to take time off for yourself, for your family to rejuvenate from all the busy times?
So also keep that in mind. So make sure you're blocking that time off. And then I like to work backwards from those big events and figure out, cause I always do launches with a membership and courses and things like that. It's ideal for my marketing strategy. So I work my way backward from the launch from.
The course itself. And then in between those launches is when I rest. Yeah. It's important to plan your your time that way. And I want to point out to our audience that as we start talking about goals, we are not real focused on dollar amounts or numbers at this point. We we've Tori and I have both been in business for a few years, so we've got some background knowledge to build on.
And so if you're just starting out in business, it's really tempting to think, you know, [00:09:00] oh, I want to replace my salary from when I worked a full time job and that is honestly hard to do. So, it's you can make some different income streams that can help you get there, but it's you have to be realistic about the dollars that are coming in and.
How they can add up and don't beat yourself up if it falls lower than what you idealize in your mind might be a business income. Yeah, we definitely want to focus on goals that are attainable for where you're at. So if you don't have data. Following you through a few years of business, it's going to be really hard to stick to a revenue or a revenue goal.
So having a general revenue goal I really like when we learned in Shannon Brinkley's class patchwork, she talked about a good, better, and best. And I think that for your [00:10:00] first year or two, having a good, better, best goal might be a good way to go that way. Like Andy said, you won't beat yourself up if you don't hit a revenue goal, but you have something in mind.
So that way, when you're, you're thinking I want to make, I had one goal one year where I wanted to make a thousand dollars a month. So I tried to figure out how could I make a thousand dollars a month? How many guilds do I need to contact to host this many workshops or programs every month? And I typically get this many signups at eight.
Well, that's using data. But if I didn't have any data, I could. Do some numbers like, okay, I have just signed an agreement with a quilt shop and this is the X amount of money I would make if the minimum amount of students showed up every time I taught. And then you could figure out how many times do you need to teach and how many students do you really need in the classes to get to that revenue goal.
So that is how you can figure that out. But for the most part, like Andy said, the first couple of years, it's going to be really hard to. Mark a revenue goal and then go [00:11:00] after that revenue goal. So what we're going to be discussing today is more about the goals that you can control. So like I said, how many students can you reach out to to come to the class, whether it's virtual or in person?
How many let's say you Guilds. Okay. That was other examples. Like, what did I just say? Guilds. So how many guilds can you reach out to? And then from there, how many are responding? And then you can kind of guess or figure out how many guilds you have to reach out to in order to get X number of responses so that you can make X number of revenue.
So it's all about what can you control? Right, and it's really, this is where that funnel idea comes in, because at the bottom of the funnel is where we tend to focus our attention. Those are the sales we make. Those are the dollars that are coming in, but we forget about how much bigger the audience needs to be to get down to those few people that are actually purchasing It's, you know, it's stuck with me for [00:12:00] the almost 10 years that I've been researching online business is that the online sales conversion rate is only 2 percent that is 2 out of 100.
So if you are just starting out and you have 20 people on your email list, even one person, you are blowing that statistic out of the water. So you have to, you really, it really is a numbers game. You have to get your message in front of many, many, many people. And so. As Tori said, thinking about the things you control, you control how many times you post on social media.
You control how many emails you send. You don't necessarily control how many people are on your list, but you make the offer and. It's, you know, it takes people a lot of time to get to know you and to understand your message and your offers. So that's where you really do have to be talking about your [00:13:00] product, your services over and over and over and over and over again.
So much. So you're going to annoy the people you're talking to, or you're annoying yourself, really not the people you're talking to, right? Because your core audience is the. Person that, you know wants to hear from you. They signed up, they said, yes, I want to hear from you, so you're not bothering them.
You're going to know yourself before you're going to annoy them. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. How much you're talking about something. So if you're not sick of hearing, if you're not sick of hearing the sales pitch yet, you haven't talked about it enough. Exactly.
All right. Let's dive into figuring out what goals you want to set. Yeah. I like the, I'm always big on recommending books and I love the book, Your Best Year Ever by Michael Hyatt. He takes you through some mental [00:14:00] exercises reflection is a big one, so looking back on what you enjoy doing, what have been successes in the past and really digging deep into those areas as well, but I really like his mix of Categories he doesn't just focus on your business life.
He looks at your spiritual life, your relationships. You know, he really takes a whole person approach and I really find that valuable. So if you're looking for a quick motivational read as you start a new year, I highly recommend your best year ever by Michael Hyatt. Yeah, I haven't read that one. It sounds interesting.
It's really good. And he has an online assessment that you can kind of rate yourself in the different categories, and then it gives you a score. And so if you do the assessment year after year, then you [00:15:00] kind of, you can see Hopefully it would be an improvement, but we all know things ebb and flow, and so there may be some fluctuations in areas that make those numbers jump around a bit.
But it's a, it's a really valuable exercise. You know, one thing that I would hesitate, though, just listening to what you've just said is too many goals. I feel like if we put too much pressure on every single area of our life, it makes us feel like a failure if we don't hit those in every aspect of our life.
So if that overwhelms you, as it does kind of me just sitting here, I haven't really full fully dived into that. I would invite you. To keep the number smaller and focus on the areas that you really need to focus on. Like for instance, this year upcoming, I really want to focus on my family and I really want to focus on my business.
So those would probably be the two that I would probably make goals around. Whereas the rest, I would try to keep doing what [00:16:00] I'm doing that makes me feel good. Makes sense. Yeah, I, I definitely hear where you're coming from that, you know, we can put a lot of external pressure or in, you know, internal pressure to reach these external extraneous goals that, you know, just because Susie down the street is doing, you know, has some kind of fitness goal.
You know, I'm, the doctor says I'm healthy, I guess I don't need to try to keep up with Susie. Yeah, that's a good example. I think, whereas last year, and that, and that makes me think like last year, my physical health was a big focus cause I was postpartum. sO this year I think I'm focusing more on family connection and my business rather than yeah, rather than a physical, like help mental health and physical health, because I feel like I'm getting to a good place with that.
Yeah, and you don't have to have [00:17:00] intense goals in all those areas. So, you know, if you have healthy habits and can maintain them, then that's a good, a good way to track it. Hey, that's a goal, right? Maintaining.
So kind of modifying that big list that Michael Hyatt came up with last year, a fellow entrepreneur developed a planner and she set out seven. Goals. So Michael Hyatt, I think, had nine areas or something. And so cutting it down to seven was a little more manageable. So I just want to list off those main areas because they were good places to focus and check in with a yearly overall goal and then quarterly goals as well.
So financial, obviously, [00:18:00] We've said, even though we don't put this maybe at the highest priority, it's nice to have a number there that you want to hit in your business, , your product releases. So whatever that looks like for you, what are your goals around releasing new products? Your sales goal, so that seems repetitive, but you can tweak that within your overall financial goal to have specific sales numbers like if I were to open a class again that I've taught before, I would hope that I could improve on my numbers.
So again, if you've got a baseline. You can use those numbers to set future goals. So that sales number, is it more like conversion? Like watching conversions? Yeah, definitely. Okay. So where your financial goal is just the, the numbers overall. Those sales goals [00:19:00] could be for specific products within your different revenue streams.
And then marketing, of course, we're in an online world, and we need to be marketing ourselves. So that's another area to set some goals. In that bucket education is a good one. So you guys can all give yourself a gold star for listening to the podcast because that is our hope that this would be educational for you.
And then the last two are innovation and community. And I didn't have anything written down last year for innovation. So I'm going to have to skip over that because I honestly don't remember what the focus was supposed to be in that area. Because to me, it almost sounds like. Education. If you're learning new things to me, that seems like it'll be a way to implement and innovate in your business.
I guess maybe that's what it means. Like [00:20:00] implementing what you learned or like innovation to me would be like bringing, like I got a new microphone. Or we learned a new process or we established a new system. Something like that. So I think it ties into education, but like I said, I was a bad student and didn't follow through on that area.
But the last goal was community. So put in some time. I know I am very refreshed by being around other creative people and I. You know, I'm, I'm on Facebook all the time, and I really look forward to the community events that we've been able to have with our Quilting on the Side audience. So those are some things that you can do if you are active in your guild, that would be a goal in the community area.
And if you don't have a community of business people, please come to our quarterly planning. They are free and they are for you. And sometimes we will sprinkle in other events. Like we did our Black Friday [00:21:00] planning. That was kind of fun. That was actually pretty fun. Really fun. Yeah. Launch party. I'm sure we'll have a party again this year.
Yeah. Yeah, we will. So you want to be on the quilting on the side newsletter to get those community updates. So any of those areas Tori that you would want to dig into a little more, they were all pretty clear, except for that innovation one that well, Oh, no, not on marketing. I think when you're talking about marketing, when I look at marketing, just a general overall, and I talk about this in great detail and DMMC, but generally with marketing, you want to keep in mind how many leads you're bringing in.
And that, especially in your first few years of business, that should be your focus is building an audience around whatever. Product that you've created. So whatever offer you have, whether it's a service like a class or you're long arming for someone that's a service, or if it's a pattern or a book, anything like that, [00:22:00] you want to try to build your audience around one, like a handful of products, rather than focusing on making more products, you want to build in leads.
So that way you can, like we talked about the funnel, the more people you're bringing in, the more sales you're going to find. It also helps create just the way you build leads is offering information. Online. So you're teaching, you're showing up, you're offering communication, you're offering community, you're offering a problem.
I'm sorry, you're offering a solution to a problem, whether it is a pattern that they're looking for to help with their scraps, or if it's a you're quilting somebody's quilt that that's been sitting on their shelf for five years that they haven't finished, or maybe you're offering binding service.
Maybe you're teaching them something they've really wanted to learn. Like, you're Paper piecing, it's all helping them solve a problem and that brings people into your circle. So the more you talk about the problems that you solve, again, the more leads coming in, the more classes you'll sell, the more quilts, you'll get the quilt, the more patterns yourself.
And then when your leads are large, [00:23:00] That's when you can grow with distributors. That's when you can grow with collaborations. That was when you can, you can just keep growing. But until with marketing, you need to really look at the leads. And when I say lead, just to be clear, I'm talking about emails on your email list.
I'm not talking about followers on your social media platforms because followers do not equal sales. They are. Passively interested at best when they follow you and at worst, they'll never see your content. sO I don't really count followers as much as I would count engagement when it comes to social media.
So looking at How many people are commenting when you post something? How many likes are you getting? And are they correlating with people visiting your page or are they sharing your stuff? Are they coming into your email list because you were talking about this awesome pattern that you're coming out with that's going to help them create this amazing baby blanket for their niece [00:24:00] and things like that.
So looking at leads. Getting those in that would be a main marketing number that I would look at and a goal that you can strive for. And that you don't necessarily have full control of, but like Andy said, how many times are you going to post on social media to these people? How many collaborations are you going to try to do this year?
Are you going to try to be a brand ambassador this year? Are you going to apply to teach at a large show or a small show? Are you going to go to a craft fair and try to generate leads that way? And then while you're at this. Shows at these fairs, at this collaboration, how are we gonna bringing in those emails?
So just planning those out, getting those leads is a great way to, I think. Sorry, I'm like gonna go down a rabbit hole here. So I'm gonna wrap this up. So just keep in mind that your m goal with marketing is how many leads, how many emails are you bringing in? Yeah. I want to come back to that idea of the [00:25:00] seasons and the launches.
That kind of aspect because I think we have a tendency to, , over commit ourselves and. As we said, having a long list of goals, and I mentioned my block of the month program, 12 quilt blocks and having to release those on the first of every month, it even, I had it planned ahead of time. So that was the one good thing was that I was able to draft the whole plan, the whole quilt, and then dribble it out.
So, Knowing that I, I had the content already was made the process a lot smoother, but for the next year, I don't, I only want to release maybe 3 or 4 patterns the entire year because I need to build on what I've already [00:26:00] created. So just like you said, we don't need to be putting out new things all the time.
I can go back and I can bundle. Things patterns that I already have, I can maybe rotate two or three classes that I want to promote. And that gives me something to talk about that's different every month. But it's not me coming up with new content, brand new content, which really can be a time suck.
You want to be able to reuse and repurpose things that you've done in the past. Yes, you're not constantly launching. And I want to point out that the summer is a great time to dive into your own personal projects. Cause the quilting industry kind of like. Goes to sleep for two months. So if you want to plan a time where when can I just not do anything for my business, the summer is going to be it.
Or if you want to really get into education and you want to dive into something that's going to take a lot of time, the [00:27:00] summer is a great time to do it because there's not going to be a lot of purchasing. There's not going to be a lot of events. There's not going to be a lot of collaboration opportunities.
It's going to be pretty sleepy between like. What would you say? Like July and August? Definitely July. Yeah, things, you start hearing a little more, I mean, and it's,
everything's relative. You know, I'm thinking of, you say, you're saying that nothing's going on in July and I'm thinking of all the Christmas in July promotions. Oh, that's true. That's true. I didn't think about Christmas in July. I think it's more like the, the big shows and the big events tend to happen.
You know, 1st quarter and 3rd quarter. So January, February is a busy time. April May is so it does have that law. And then June, July and August. I agree. People are spending time with their families. It's it's the. Vacation time in the northern hemisphere, we're all off [00:28:00] for summer break and doing our own thing.
And then we come back and refocus in the fall. So those are good things to keep in mind that you can just go with the. ebb and flow of the world. And that could be a great time to start batch creating. Like if you are inspired during that month, but you know that what you're posting, no one's really engaging with, no the marketing part isn't really showing up, you can batch create all these ideas and then release them when it's a little bit busier leading up to these launches.
That way you've done like the bulk of the work for your next launch. So when you launch, it's not as exhausting. Yeah. Yeah. I hear that a lot from the the. Business craft personas that I follow online that are more active on Etsy and with craft fairs because those tend to really hit the holidays, you know, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, they really hit those hard.[00:29:00]
So using that summer slow time to build their inventory for those fall craft fairs is a really important Way to structure your time, so that's a good, good reminder. So, how often would you want just because we're talking about marketing, how often do you tend to launch during the year?
2023 was an anomaly because, like I said, my block of the month felt like I was launching every month. But in terms of classes and bigger ticket items, probably honestly only two or three times. Me too. Because that's what I would suggest as well. Yeah. It takes two or three weeks to ramp up to a launch.
Then you've got the actual launch period. Like you said, you need some time. To, to focus on fulfilling the event that you were launching or the product or whatever. And then [00:30:00] you need to, to give yourself some downtime to recycle and refresh. Awesome. Okay. I'm glad we're on the same page. Yeah. And if you're a pattern designer, so something that I struggled with when I started my business was I wanted to create, like Andy was talking about a pattern every month for a membership.
And then I quickly realized that I could not fulfill that. I think I did it for three months and then I was like, I can't do this. I still have to know I'm dropping this cause I can't, I can't possibly fulfill this. And so if you're a brand new pattern designer launching. A brand new pattern four times a year might be the best way to go.
That way you can go deeper with it. And then you can really take the time to perfect it, to get the marketing ready, to get testers ready, to get it to technical editors without the stress. You can also take all your other ideas and maybe use them for other things. Design, you can send them to magazines for ideas.
You can do different things like that. And then leave yourself some wiggle room as well in case [00:31:00] you do want to enter into a collaboration. Like, and you're talking about block of the month, there's a lot of collaborations where they're looking for. For designers at the last minute, and they want you to include a block for a 12 block project.
And if you're constantly launching a new pattern every month or every other month, you may not have the bandwidth to do that. So keep that in mind. If you're a brand new pattern designer four times a year, I think is fine. Three times a year, I think is fine. Even twice a year. If you've got a pattern that you can go deep on that you can kit that you can do a lot of things with, they have maybe a couple of different configurations, a couple different sizes, because keep in mind.
Quilting is also something that takes a long time to do . It takes a long time to make a quilt top. Not everybody can crank them out in a few hours. So it's definitely something to keep in mind as you're planning out your year, how many times do you actually want to design, test, market and launch the whole project?
Yeah, definitely keep that in mind. Yeah.[00:32:00] onE other area of. The goals that I listed that I'd love to touch on is education because I know fellow quilt business owners struggle with this and I say struggle and I'm going to explain what I mean there because I know that I see the same faces a lot of times in all the different courses that are out there and I know I am a joiner, so if there's a new course, I just, I really want to hear from everybody.
I constantly want to learn what the best practices in the industry are. But the flip side of that is the analysis paralysis. At some point, you have to trust that you actually have the knowledge, and now it's time to get out there and do [00:33:00] the thing. Take the action. Yeah. Yeah. The funny, funny thing is that the DMMC originally I called it the action plan because I wanted to work in accountability.
It's still there, the accountability, but I called it something different. But I saw the same trend where there was a lot of the same faces and courses. And I've Backed off on a lot. Cause I was doing a lot, especially at first and really just implemented all that stuff. And then I realized that again, like you noticed there was a hesitation to actually take the action, even though Yeah, I'm fully confident that many of those familiar faces would probably be great to just jump in and start.
Yeah. So that's, I think where the, the reflection comes in that. You need to think about where your greatest need is and [00:34:00] really look for the specific course and the specific teacher that can get you to that, to that goal with the education that, you know, you don't need education just. Because it's a popular course, you know, if you want to learn video production, then look for a course that is geared towards being on video and really tailor, tailor that because that money is precious and it takes a lot of effort to earn back even, you know, they, they, A lot of online teachers will be saying, you know, just implement my one method, seven steps to seven figures.
And you're like, yeah, whatever. Yeah, I, I think that's a great point to make. I know we talked a [00:35:00] little bit about how many goals to have overall. And I think that it's definitely something to keep in mind as you start your year is what area do you want to improve? And that's definitely where you can tailor your education.
Like you're saying that time spent and. And time to enact or put into action what you did learn. You definitely need that. So if you're trying to constantly take courses, you're going to get so much information for so many different sources and you won't know where to start. You don't know what to implement and it may not even be aligned with your goals.
Yeah. Yeah. And remember, there's a lot of free stuff out there, so we're glad that you're, spending your time, which is a lot more valuable than money in a lot of ways, spending your time here with us to improve. And we're happy to share off air our personal experiences with the various courses that we've taken.
So feel free to reach out [00:36:00] to quilting on the side. If you have any specific questions about anything that we've talked about on the podcast.
So now that we have probably a whole list of ideas and. Things that we think are going to be goals for the year. It's time to curate that list and, and really be brutal because we know we can't accomplish everything. So what are some of the other filtering thoughts that we can use to, to get that list of goals down to a manageable size?
You definitely want to make them clear, concise. So down to one sentence, preferably. And measurable. So if you say, I want to get leads, okay, that is it's very general. Let's talk about how many leads do you want to get? So if you have an email list of 20 people what kind of, , things are you thinking about [00:37:00] doing this year and how can we set a goal that is very clear, but also concise and can be measurable.
So if I said, I have 20 people on my email list, I want to get that to, I want to at least double it. That's 40. Okay. Well, what am I doing this year? That can help me double it. And then,
that was a bad example. I was going down the road of something, Devin, can we cut that out? That was a bad example. Okay. So let me see. So let me see. Okay. What would be a very clear, concise and measurable? I'm getting tired. I'm sorry. Yeah. What, what do I want to do this year? I don't even know what I want to do this year.
Usually I can fall back on my own goals. Still want to generate leads. We'll, we'll do a coaching scenario, Tori. If I say that I want to launch an online class, how can I turn that into a clear, concise and measurable goal? All right. Well, first I would ask you, [00:38:00] what kind of class are we talking in person?
Are we talking digital? What kind of class? I'm going to have a digital class on my half rectangle triangles. Perfect. Okay. When do you want that out by? I'm going to, let's see, I have some free time in March, so I think I can get things ready in the first three months and launch it in March. Okay, so your goal would kind of summarizing that you want to add in that detail about what kind of class and when you want it done, at least a general timeline, even if you don't have a specific date, so you want to release a digital course or a digital workshop based on your Haskell rectangles.
By March, so it's clear, it's concise and it's measurable. Did you or did you not release your hasker rectangle? Did I say [00:39:00] rectangle triangle? . , rect. You, did you release your course in March, that specific course in March? Yep. Yeah, so it, yeah, you can, you just have to give yourself a timeframe and then what can we do?
What are our next steps? You know, it's real, it's. For a lot of us, we've done goal setting. We can write those smart goals pretty easily, but they just sit on the post it note. They do my best. My favorite thing to do with goal setting is to do three action steps. And then so what are the next actions you need to take to get to that goal?
And in some cases, you may need to just brain dump every single step and then just choose which one are you going to do next and kind of line them up. And make sure you have a clear timeline. Now, after you do these action steps, you may realize that March needs to be either moved up or moved down the calendar.
So you can also kind of adjust your goal from there. But [00:40:00] I would brain dump every action step you think you need to take to make sure you get that offer out when you want to get it out. And then. narrow that down to three next steps and put those three next steps on the calendar. Now, another way to do this is if you're not sure what the next steps are, but you generally know what you need to do, then pick those general three action steps and again, put them on the calendar.
So if you know you need to figure out how to record and edit video to get this digital workshop out. Okay. I'm going to figure that out in January. So by January 31st, you need to be able to record and edit a video. And then I know that I have to have examples for that workshop. So I need to make sure those are done before I can record the video.
So maybe I can do that in the last couple of weeks of December, or maybe I can do it simultaneously depending on how much time I have. So figuring that out as you go. So if you don't have specific action steps, at least get some three general, [00:41:00] clear, concise, measurable goals on the calendar leading up to overall goal of that.
Our specific example workshop in March perfect. Yeah, that really that really helps. Taking that extra step to brainstorm some specific actions will get that momentum going. And that's the best thing for your goal setting is to actually see movement towards what you want to accomplish. So that, that's always a great thing.
Do you do anything to reward yourself? when you check items off the list or reach those goals. So the funny thing is, for me, checking it off the list is the reward. Like having the skill, the physical thing, the check mark off the list. I had a workbook that I had to make and look, here's the [00:42:00] lookbook workbook.
That is Such a joy for me to, like, check something off noting the progress, hitting that date, maybe even early, if it's early, I'm throwing myself a party, like, I just love accomplishing that task, like, whatever it is that I set myself. So that itself is my reward. Do you have any reward systems? I You know, it's, it's one of those things I will always write down that oh, I'm gonna, you know, go have my favorite ice cream sundae or something if, if I hit this and those are kind of, you know, they seem childish these days.
I just, I'm like you, I enjoy, I enjoy celebrating. With my community. So all the groups that have the you know, what was your win this week? I'm so excited to be able to to proclaim that I did the thing. So kind of like [00:43:00] you It's that's always a good
You need to take the time whether it's at the end of the week the quarter the month to reflect and to celebrate those wins as they happen You do. And I don't think entrepreneurs do that enough. So you're sad. I'm going to go take. You know, go get my favorite ice cream because I did this. I think that's great.
I mean, I'm motivated by that sometimes. Like the other day I went and got a Starbucks because I was able to finish XYZ in the morning. And I told myself if I could finish it by lunch, I could go to Starbucks. But if I don't get it done, then I can't go to Starbucks. So that's what I did. And I try to hold myself accountable when that happens.
Sometimes I don't, sometimes I'm very graceful with myself. If, you know, technology goes crazy or something else happens or a kid gets sick. I'm just like, okay, okay, we'll try again next time. Yeah. I have to tell my mom's story because we like to say that it's always my mom's fault. And [00:44:00] I tend to, those ice cream celebrations tend to happen for things like, yay, it's Wednesday.
So let's, you know, I've been adulting for a whole Three hours now. Let's go treat ourselves to lunch. But when I was a little kid, the favorite treat was to get a Slurpee from 7 Eleven after we went to the commissary. So that's grocery shopping for the non military folks. So every week or two, whenever, you know, I had to tag along with mom to the commissary, she would buy me a Slurpee.
So those, treats are, yeah, treats are, you know, it's an innately human thing. I think I haven't looked into this. I know there's probably some psychology behind it or something crazy, but, yeah. I think there is some human aspect of that where we need the time to celebrate. We adulted for three hours, like, you know, when you go and get your [00:45:00] taxes done and you spend two hours getting everything together or more, like there, there were times when it took an entire day to get our taxes together.
And at the end of the day, I'm like, okay, what are we doing to celebrate? Because we just did this project, we got it done, we need to celebrate. And I think that just getting an email sent the other day, I celebrated with my community. Like you pointed out that I set. Two newsletters out. They were late. I consider them late if they're not sent at six o'clock in the morning, but they were sent out by noon, both of them.
I had a blog post written. I had the podcast put in there. I wrote a letter, which guys, if you get my newsletter, those. Letters in the beginning, they take me forever. I read it and reread it because I tend to just say things very bluntly. And I'm like, this doesn't sound like a conversation. Why doesn't it sound like a conversation?
Very I don't know, maybe too far on the motivational, [00:46:00] like analogy. English teacher, kind of.
Look at the fresh blooms on the tree as we as we
bloom in the new year. That's really funny. Once you got your goal set, one last little piece we want to wrap this up with is accountability. So how do you keep yourself accountable? If you are not good at keeping yourself accountable, get a buddy. Now, it doesn't have to be a business buddy.
It doesn't have to be somebody in your even physical area. Sometimes I call out my sister and I'm like, Hey, I need you to like call me tomorrow and make sure this is done. Or I just say, Hey, I'm going to call you and practice this with you on this day. And it kept, it keeps me accountable because she's waiting for me.
There's another person involved now. So if you have a hard time keeping yourself accountable. Get a buddy, get a community that can help hold you accountable. Now this can be paid even if [00:47:00] you're looking for more of a like a mastermind type situation. That sounded very Southern. If you're looking for a mastermind type situation, you can put one together.
You can find a paid group to make this happen. If, especially if you're looking for education and accountability at the same time, you can also do this with. Like I said, just another person, just find somebody to help you stay accountable. Me and Andy do that for each other with the podcast is that just because there's another person working with me, I strive to do more and to hit our goals and to do the things that are hard on the days where all I want to do is sleep.
I still get up, I make what I need to do. I'm getting tired now, but like, I'm here, I'm showing up cause Andy's here and she's relying on me. So it helps so much to have an accountability partner and accountability group and accountability community, something to help keep you accountable and to celebrate with like Andy said.
Exactly. Yeah. To cheer on those wins. And Like [00:48:00] you said, there's there's so many options. We, you know, we welcome you here in the Quilty on the Side Hustler group, so you can make some friends with the folks there. We'll try to do a better job here in Season 2 of fostering that community in our Facebook group and But there's, there's so many resources online.
Andy, Andy, we don't have a Facebook group yet. But you just said a name that could make our Facebook group. Quilting on the side. Hustlers. I always worry, though, about that hustler word. So we'll see. If the community has a better name for us. Yeah, if you have a good name for a Facebook group, let us know.
We can create a Facebook group so we can all stay in community. But just, Reaching out on our Facebook page. I like that to be a little more active before we dive into a group there, because I know there's [00:49:00] already way too many Facebook groups as I scroll down my list, but we definitely would love to hear what your goals for this year are and happy to be your accountability and celebrate your wins.
Always up for celebration.
What a great discussion! If you enjoyed this episode of Quilting on the Side, please leave us a review on whichever platform you're listening. It can be iTunes, Spotify, or even our YouTube channel. And hit the subscribe button so you don't miss our next chat. Until then, remember to have fun in your business and do a little quilting on the side.