Mala McAlpin A new way to organise and nourish the driving forces behind your growing business.
Any successful business owner knows one can’t simply rent a space, fill it with staff and furniture, and expect it to grow and thrive on its own. There are so many driving components behind a growing brand’s success, it can sometimes be overwhelming trying to wrap your head around it all, and inject as much passion and energy into every aspect as you might like.
Though everyone is different in the way they structure their thoughts and motivators, one of the most helpful ways to organise and nourish all the driving forces behind your business is journaling. Much more than just a spreadsheet of figures, this method really allows you to compartmentalise and keep track of different sectors of business, help you determine goals, strengthen branding, and solidify all those half-baked thoughts and ideas that are always floating around our brains!
Here are 5 components of your business that we would recommend journaling:
Your Why
There’s a lot of talk around the industry on ‘finding your why’ – recognising your purpose, your passion, your drive, honing into exactly why you started your business and infusing this into every aspect of your work. You can figure this out by writing down exactly what your business values are, why they’re important to you, and how you are (or could be) incorporating them into your spa or clinic. Are they implemented through your staff? Your spa or clinic’s aesthetic design? Your social channels? The copy on your website? Your services or strategic partnerships?
Goals
An oldie but a goodie – writing down goals make them much more tangible than just thinking about them. Plus, you can keep track of how your goals change year on year, thereby helping you predict growth and opportunities for the future. Determine some goals for business, marketing, services offered, income etc. and then start nutting out how important they are, your steps to achieving them, and any obstacles you may need to overcome along the way. If possible, add some timelines in too.
Marketing Strategies
With so many different tactics and platforms, websites and social media to divide your efforts across, this is one of the ways in which a journal can prove most helpful. Here, you can keep strategies nice and organised, and break them down into specific streams. Feel free to go as targeted journaling specific social posts, the numbers they reached and what you think made them such a success. Keep a record of each marketing stream separately, including emails, newsletters, video content, text marketing and brand partnerships, and be sure to delve right into their core purpose, numbers, sales achieved, and how they could be improved.
Finances
While a spreadsheet may be arguably more helpful than a journal when it comes to figures, don’t forget about the ever-important dreams and goals aspect of your finances. Of course you should have a handle on your basic numbers including fixed and variable expenses, mark-ups, profit margins etc. (although plenty of businesses don’t!) also take the opportunity to map out how far you’ve come (spend, income etc.) and where you’d like to be in months or years to come. How much do you want to be making on retail vs services? What do you need to do to get there? Determining your goals will help simplify the strategies required to get you there.
Education
Write down all of the educational sessions, summits and networking events you attend. It might be helpful to start the entry before you arrive, beginning with ‘what do I want to get out of today?’ Complete your entry post-event with whether you achieved that outcome, valuable lessons you learned, goals you now want to add to your lists, and key people/new contacts you made on the day.
While journaling isn’t for everyone, it really can be a wonderful opportunity for growth and self-reflection, to solidify your goals, and strengthen your branding. Have you had successful experiences when it comes to journaling? We would love to hear from you!
