Make Decisions Easy

I’m putting together a new offer, and I’m so excited about it! It will provide tons of value in an easy, affordable package.

First, I need to put together a plan. There are lots of moving parts, and my team must know when we will be building a sales page, creating social media content, and launching the offer.

The plan provides everyone with the information they need to plan their schedules. It includes start dates for tasks, due dates for every task, the resources needed to complete the tasks, and how long the task may take. If you have part-time team members the plan gives them what they need to set aside time on their calendar for your work.

If they don’t have the time available on their calendars. they have the information they need to negotiate different due dates with you.

I’ve included time in the plan for the spiritual practices that usually get overlooked. I set aside time on the plan to get grounded before reviewing landing pages and email strings. Most folks don’t include time in their tasks for spiritual practices but it provides a much more accurate measure of the time it takes to prepare for and complete a task.

The first draft of a plan goes through at least two revisions before it feels right for me and the team. Nothing ever goes exactly to plan. I’m prepared for some tasks to go faster than estimated and others to take longer.

Your plan is a roadmap. The best part about a well-designed plan is that it gives you the flexibility to add or remove some deliverables. When you can clearly see the roadmap, it is easy to take new ideas for deliverables, determine if they add value to the end result if you have available resources and time, and when you want to complete the new deliverables.

Perhaps more important for those of us who love adding new ideas to everything we do – the plan helps you see when adding something to it doesn’t make sense. You can see when you don’t have additional resources or if the time needed to complete the new deliverable will push the delivery of the completed project past an acceptable date.

The information isn’t just available to you; it’s available to your team. Decisions become team decisions. A high-performing team will make decisions before you even look at the plan! Efficiency, baby! Everyone can see when a task is behind schedule or when you may complete it early when everyone has access to the plan. This information allows you to redeploy resources to finish the whole project early or work on other areas needing attention.

You gain tremendous flexibility from the information that a simple plan provides on an ongoing basis. When you take the time to create a realistic plan, you save time as you move through the process.