Syncing your Systems for Cohesive Workflow Management
Syncing your Systems for Cohesive Workflow Management
Streamline your project management and boost your efficiency.
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This guide includes:
How to plan your business
How to set up your marketing
How to build your website
And more!
All in a simple goal-oriented format.
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As an entrepreneur, you are constantly juggling a thousand tasks. This is especially true if you are starting out solo. The best strategy for staying on track and meeting your deadlines is to have a cohesive strategy for your workflow process.
You don't necessarily need fancy workflow tools to start out. I have an easy-to-use workflow template that you can print off or use digitally. The rest of the tools you will already have on hand.
By syncing your systems and creating a streamlined workflow, you will easily batch tasks and finish them faster than expected. This way, you can get ahead of your responsibilities as a content creator so you can get to the fun parts of running your business.
Workflow management is vital for:
Brick and mortar businesses,
Online businesses
Consulting firms,
and even product-based companies.
It also extends past the day-to-day. Create and sync your systems for entire quarters at a time. This way, you can get ahead, plan promotions, special events for holidays, and launches, and actually have an opportunity to promote them properly. Resulting in increased brand awareness and boosted sales.
Struggling? Let’s work through this together!
Once you have a grasp on planning your quarters, you can get ahead of the competition by planning and completing your content and products months ahead.
I am going to show you my simple method to do this. We will start by:
Planning out the lowest standard block of time
Then expand it to cover the month,
Quarter,
and year.
The further you work ahead, the easier it is to apply these systems and achieve your goals. By doing this, you can reverse engineer your revenue, allowing you to pick the amount of money you want to make. Working backwards to create a plan that will get it for you.
Learn how to reverse engineer your income
Before we jump in, I have one piece of vital advice:
Once you make a plan, stick with it.
It is so easy to stray off track or try to bite off more you can chew. Start small with a bare-bones editorial calendar. Once you have created your entire 1st quarter worth of content, consider stepping up what you take on. It is so much easier to add more posts to your content calendar 6 months in the future, struggle and rework your strategy than do this in real-time. Looming deadlines come with headaches and anxiety. Let's avoid all this stress by getting ahead of our workload and slowly introducing new projects.
If you need help getting started, I’d be happy to help. Book a free consultation, and I can show you how to implement this process one-on-one. Don’t worry; there are no hidden obligations.
What is a Systemized Workflow Process?
A systemized workflow process is a set of steps or tasks that you repeat in the creation of any product you produce. These can be physical products for sale, digital products, or even pieces of content.
These steps are generally short, simple, and repeatable. By systemizing each task in this way, you can create an efficient, streamlined process to produce content quickly. It also allows you to keep track of what you are working on and where you are in development.
While the set of tasks for each product or piece of content you create may be slightly different, you will still be able to gauge the progression of each element you make.
Furthermore, you can plan ahead by creating an editorial calendar to plan all sales, promotions, and content in advance. With this strategy, you can batch similar tasks together regardless of the type of creation you are making, allowing you to blow through like tasks quicker.
This will get you working on projects ahead of time, allowing you to craft better content promotion plans, boost your visibility, and increase sales.
Finally, you will have amplified your motivation and ability to put out better work. With this system, you can easily pick the tasks you are inspired to complete. This means that you won't necessarily be stuck doing things you don't want to do when you are uninterested in doing them.
What is an Editorial Calendar (and Why Does it Matter)?
An editorial calendar is a snapshot or map of all of the content and promotions you create over a given interval. Most editorial calendars are generated monthly, but you can also build them by quarter or yearly.
Many people link editorial calendars with blogging or social media, and they are not wrong. These are essential to a strong growth strategy when creating content, but they are not exclusive to these areas. Editorial calendars are excellent for any business.
They allow you to establish an effective plan to hit your targets consistently. They also allow you to anticipate setbacks or slow times and find ways to compensate.
Setting goals for your business is how you make it grow. Without clear objectives, companies can't move forward. Strategies must be created and implemented to fuel growth and advancement in your business. Failing to set these goals and work towards them is why so many entrepreneurs fail.
For my company, Absolutely Studying, I plan all of the YouTube videos, articles, social media posts, promotions, product launches, and more! All of these components work together to create a cohesive content schedule and promotional calendar.
At my clinic, I track the doctors' schedules, busy times, and billing cut-off dates. This way, I can make sure that I have adequate coverage and decrease wait times. I can also ensure that I have the staff and resources necessary to accommodate specialists visiting our center to perform procedures.
The calendars for both of these businesses are very different, yet they accomplish the same thing. A simple workflow process that helps boost the efficiency of the day-to-day running of each company.
Set goals for your business, break them down into manageable steps, then plot each of these steps into your editorial calendar. Track your analytics regularly to check your progress.
This will help you to clearly see what steps are working and how you can improve. As you continue on your plan, adjust it as needed. You can easily adapt sales goals or marketing strategies if you plan and create your content far enough in advance. This will ultimately result in the ability to better hit your targets and achieve the success you desire.
The Pros and Cons of Workflow Management
Pros:
You have a clear and deliberate strategy
Step-by-step- plan to get to where you are going
More likely to achieve your goals
You have a predictable workload
You can choose what tasks you feel like doing on a given day
Your site will be updated regularly
Allows you to have new things to promote
Create long-term marketing plans
Cons:
You need to stay focused on the future
You need to meet deadlines
Limited flexibility once it is made
Long delay between creation and publishing
Splits your focus
Constantly working in the future
How to Create a Workflow Process
Before you can design any workflow management system, you need to outline exactly what our workflow looks like. This is where the editorial calendar comes into play. It's essential to understand exactly what products and content need to be created before outlining a system to handle your workflow processes.
So, let's start at the beginning and design our editorial calendar. This way, we can create the structures needed for a cohesive workflow strategy.
Create the Smallest Unit of your Editorial Calendar:
For most of us, this is going to be one week. However, I have many clients who work on a 2-week rotating schedule. Whichever is best for your business, choose the smallest repeating unit to work with.
In our example, I am going to use my website, Absolutely Studying, as an example. Everything here works on a 1-week schedule that repeats over and over to build my quarters, then finally my year.
Start by planning out what you want your week to look like.
Make sure you enter all of your big projects like blog posts, YouTube videos, or podcasts. These are the items that all of your emails, social media posts, and promotions will be centred around.
If you launch products or services weekly, add them; otherwise, hold off for now. We will address launches and products again later in this guide.
Try not to choose too many pieces of content to commit to. I suggest focusing on only one or two long-form content pieces per week if you are just starting out. There is a lot of work needed to write a blog post or edit a YouTube video.
When you introduce these, it is better to focus on adding them to future content plans than current ones. When you jump into a busy posting schedule, you can:
Get swamped by constant deadlines
If you get overwhelmed, you are more likely to fall behind
Make it more likely to quit or fail because it is hard just to stay afloat.
If you want to add a new piece of content like an extra weekly blog post or podcast, create and implement it at least a quarter ahead of schedule.
Add the pieces of weekly content into your schedule. This is your starting template.
Let's use my Absolutely studying editorial calendar as an example. We publish one YouTube video a week and one article.
Choose days that work best for you, or you know your audience is active. I like to use Tuesdays and Thursdays as my posting days.
I chose Tuesdays because I hate Mondays and I don't want anything due on them. Because it's my website, I get to make that call. Isn't entrepreneurship fun?
I initially chose Thursday because I wanted to make it available to students on a day they were likely to study. I thought Thursday would be a good day because I always wanted to be super productive on Thursdays when I was in university. That way I could enjoy my weekends.
There are also ways to check when your audience is engaged. Tube Buddy is a FREE extension for YouTube that can calculate the best time to post based on when your audience is most active. It has many amazing features, including tag suggestions and the power to gauge your ability to rank on the first page for various keywords.
To determine the best time to post on your website, check your analytics to see when people are coming to read your articles. I use Squarespace for this. You can also increase your traffic by prompting your audience to come when you post, which we will get into next.
You might think this schedule looks light and, it kinda is. Yes, you could commit to more posting and YouTube, but consider the other projects you could focus that time on instead.
Do you want to also have launches for new services or products?
Do you work one-on-one with clients?
Do you have a membership program or plan on creating one?
Do you want to create courses?
It's better to do fewer things really well than to do more things half-assed. Yes, I have plans for more content, but I implement it slowly and in the future. As we work through this process, you will see why.
Build your Social Media Promotion Strategy
Next, we decide how you want to promote your work.
What social media platforms do you post to?
Do you use Pinterest?
Do you share on any aggregating sites?
Do you email your contact list to update them on your posts?
Add these plans to your schedule as well. At this time, we don't have to plan the content, just that there will be content. We are still just creating a template on how our week will look.
In the example below, I listed these posts below the article because they will directly promote it. We will work on the rest of our social media strategy in the next step.
Next, add in all of the other postings you do on social media and otherwise. This is where we get into the details of your social media strategy. Add all of the posts you plan on creating for each week into your template.
As you can see in the template below, I have a placeholder for every post I plan to put on each profile. Some are specialized or themed, while others are not. Remember, don't take on too many social media platforms either. These can be a time sink that dilutes your efforts.
Now, we focus on the month.
Once you have created the template for your average week, it's time to multiply it by 4 to make your month. When you are actually planning content, it's best to do it at least a month at a time. That way, you can batch-create your posts, saving you time.
Surprisingly, it's easier to come up with several ideas for blog posts or YouTube videos at a time than it is to come up with one weekly. In my advanced program, I show you how to create an entire quarter's worth of content all in one sitting, and we do it together. This system is easy and repeatable, so you never run out of range again.
Now we have an outline for your entire month. Go through all of these posts and write them down. This list is the beginning of your content creator workflow.
Next, write down all of the other tasks that you have to complete for your business. This list is really tough to brainstorm. If you book a free appointment to do it together, I can give you a copy of my list to compare.
They are not exclusive to the content calendar tasks. I also have to remember to keep on top of accounting, scheduling, and product creation, so this list is extensive.
Go through each item on the list and decide if it has to be done daily, weekly, monthly, or quarterly. Add a notation beside it so you can keep track as you work your way through the list. Once you have finished, group each together and make the lists.
Create one checklist for weekly and monthly tasks. This way, you can print it off weekly and follow along to make sure you prioritize and complete each. Then, create a separate checklist for monthly and quarterly tasks that you don't have to do as often.
I like to frontload my work and create my articles, blog posts, and videos a quarter at a time. This way, I don't have to worry about the consistency of my posting schedule, and I can stay well ahead of posing deadlines.
Using my workflow strategies to get ahead of content deadlines allows me the extra time to spend creatively. Since I'm always creating and planning content 6 months ahead, I can spend my spare time making it great. This way, I don't have to worry about deadlines and falling behind.
There are times that I make certain pieces of content in real time. Especially if I am discussing product reviews or current events. In those cases, I can bank the article I intended to publish and use it at a later date instead.
All of the tasks on this list are incorporated into my goal-setting strategies. I understand that many growth targets are linked to consistency, customer satisfaction, and value delivery. Each and every piece of content is vital to these pillars. Even if my goal is to increase revenue by 15% in a given month, connecting with my audience and delivering value will still be vital to achieving that goal. In that way, my content is critical to reaching them.
The Ultimate Business Planner has resources to help you plan and implement your workflow. This list will do well in that binder. It also has templates for an editorial calendar and a self-coaching workbook to help you get clear on your targets and direction. Pick one up to create an achievable strategy for your business.
It's time to design your workflow system
This task list is just the first part of your workflow system. Once you have it printed out, you know what you need to complete every day to build your dream business. However, we are still missing critical steps in your overall productivity.
The next breakdown we need to account for is each step you take in completing each piece of content you want to produce. Write out a list of all the steps you go through to create a piece of content. Again, this is already down for you in the downloadable workbook.
This now gives us a complete framework for your workflow system. Now you know what you have to do every single day. With this, you can assign tasks to each day that will allow you to create your content and plan the growth of your business.
Plan ahead for big projects and launches with ease by repeating this system and adding the steps to your calendar. You know precisely what you have to do to succeed by simply working backwards from your launch date.
Fill in your content plans.
Now that you have the workflow template brainstorm content ideas to create for each post. Add them into your editorial calendar at least a month at a time. It is much easier to develop several concepts for content than it is for a single idea every week.
Enter them into your calendar, then batch and work on them one step at a time. If you batch and complete simple tasks like outlining and SEO research together, you will save time and energy. These articles will be started and researched long before you have to worry about writing them.
Don't forget that you can easily repurpose long-form content across several different channels. It's easy to turn a podcast into a YouTube video or even a blog post. Repurposing will save you even more time and effort by allowing you to easily reuse your content ideas and provide your audience with more ways to consume them.
Extend your plans to social media.
Now that you know what you will be posting your long-form content about, it's time to finalize your social media plans. Add post topics to your social media entries.
As you fill out a topic for each platform, be specific. It is okay to play on a weekly theme that ties into your content plans. This can add uniformity across your posts and make your audience excited to consume your piece of content.
Talk about your experiences. It is so much easier to tell a story about yourself and your journey. This is also something your audience will love.
Instead of brainstorming some shallow sales pitch, just tell your audience what you are up to. In the Ultimate Business Planner, there is a 90-day social media prompt planner. It gives you an entire quarter's worth of social media content ideas that you can use to complete this step.
Download it here
Now, let's get to work.
Once you have your first month outlined and created, start actually making the content. Plug away at this first batch. Schedule it for release along with all the promotional content.
This might take a couple of weeks, depending on how much time you have to work on it. Once you are done, create month two, then repeat again for month 3. That is an entire quarter's worth of content you have now made.
I use Later to schedule all of my social media and track my Instagram analytics. I have found this platform works really well for me, and it's super easy to use. I also use Canva as a scheduler if I run out of posts for the month or if I'm in a hurry and don't want to download a file. There are many other services you can use, but I only want to speak from my experiences.
For my website, I use Squarespace. I have found it incredibly easy to use and comprehensive. You can run my entire business from Squarespace, and I do. They have integrations for nearly anything you could want or need that work seamlessly on your site.
I even run my scheduler out of Squarespace so my clients can book directly without haggling about availability. They can just log into my schedule and pick any available time they choose.
As you start planning your next quarter, perhaps add another piece of content or even plan a product or service to launch. When you have the luxury of planning this far ahead, you can hit sales goals by implementing promotional strategies far enough in advance.
By following these simple steps, you can easily batch and create content far in advance. This will help you free up the time to take control of your business and reach the goals you actually set out to.
I know this can be a daunting process. Sometimes, you just need a little support when you are trying to figure this all out. That’s why, for a limited time only, I am offering to go help you create your template free. There’s no catch and no obligations. Just book your free appointment below and let’s see what we can create together!
I want to be transparent so that there are no misunderstandings. As an affiliate, I may earn a small commission from any products linked in this post. This is not a sponsored post, and I was not asked to recommend these products. These are products that I genuinely love and wanted to share with my audience.