Episode Summary
Conference week brings the most shocking combination of creative energy, information overload, and infinite inspiration. The question is: how do we harness it and use the momentum to move our business forward? In this episode, I give an overview of how we made our plans in an online workshop this week. Spoiler alert: You’re invited, and it’s free!
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What to Do After the TpT Conference
This is going to be a little bit of a different episode for you all. It’s going to be very short, very quick. But I’m going to send you somewhere at the end of this episode because I am up to some really exciting things this week and they are just better shared on a screen rather than through your ears. So I wanted to first of all say that last week’s conference experience was incredible. I just returned from Denver with Katie and Ashley of Team SOS where we worked on so many fun activities and so many fun projects for School of Sellers that I can’t wait to share with you guys. But most of all, I was blown away by all of the sessions that I was able to tune into at the virtual conference.
Some Takeaways from the TpT Conference
So just some takeaways, my favorites probably. And oh gosh, I shouldn’t even say favorites. I haven’t watched all of the sessions, not even close. But some huge aha moments came from Chynell Moore‘s session about pricing your products. And I loved hearing about Bryce’s ideas from The Teaching Texan about planning out ideas for products and brainstorming products. He was just filled with amazing ideas, and I loved his use of sticky notes. And let’s see, Rachel Lynette had an amazing session about TPT: A Walk Down Memory Lane where she shared about the history of TPT. So I thought that was really, really cool. And Kerry Tracy did an incredible session about video and how to overcome your fears and market your products. And oh my goodness, I could go on.
So what I’m saying basically is that every single session I watched was incredible. So if you bought a ticket and you still haven’t looked through the sessions yet, don’t worry. You have so much time. But there’s definitely some good stuff waiting there for you. So I hope that you make time in your schedule to watch just a couple. And the reason I wanted to do a quick episode today was because this week I have put together a workshop that I actually just did on Facebook and Instagram.
Check Out the After the TpT Conference Workshop!
I went live on both platforms, and I’m sharing with you guys a system to sort through all of your notes from the TPT conference and just make sense of them. So if you want to check out that workshop, you can go to the School of Sellers Facebook group. Or you can go to my School of Sellers Facebook page. Or you can even go to School of Sellers 101 if you’re in that Facebook group and you can watch the replay. And I walk you through on screen my entire system for deciding what matters the most out of all of your conference notes and then deciding how to make a plan based off what your goals are going to be.
A Brief Overview of the Post-TpT Conference Workshop
So to give you just a brief overview, I am sharing in that workshop a link for a Trello board template and an Airtable spreadsheet template. So I have already created a Trello board that has all of my notes from the TPT conference on it. And I have categorized all of the topics and I have filled out the Airtable spreadsheet for you guys. And the workshop is me showing you how to sort through all of those things and rate certain things on a scale of how much time they’re going to take.
You’re going to rate things on how desired of a task it is. If you hate doing something or you love doing something, that’s a big factor to consider when you decide what your next big focus is going to be in your business. And then finally the impact that it’s going to have on your business. And I think that probably your impact is the most important thing to consider because you don’t want to waste your time on things that aren’t going to have a decent impact on your business.
Finding Your Unicorn Tasks
So I have created this spreadsheet, and I will show you in the workshop how to go through and rate every single thing. Then you are going to sort through those tasks and those plans to find what I like to call your unicorn things, right? Your unicorn tasks, your unicorn goals, whatever you want to call it. We are trying to find something that’s going to have a high impact on your business, something that you really enjoy doing, and also, something that’s not going to take a ton of time.
Now that might not be possible once you rate everything and you sort through your spreadsheet according to my directions. You might find yourself with nothing that fits all those boxes. And that’s okay. But that’s the first thing we’re looking for. Then you’re going to sort them by what’s important to you. So maybe you don’t have a unicorn task. It’s not obvious. Maybe you’re going to say, well, I’m kind of in a slump with my TPT business. So it’s important to me to only focus on things that I enjoy at this moment, right? I don’t want to focus on things that don’t bring me enjoyment because my desire to work is going to be severely lower that way, right?
So maybe you decide to keep your filter on all of the tasks that you decided you love doing and deciding your next best step that way. If you are able to find a unicorn task, I would focus on that first and foremost. When I sort my information which you will see in the workshop, I came up with updating previews and thumbnail photos and cover photos of my existing products. And I knew right away I was not surprised to see that as one of my unicorn tasks.
Consider Dividing Your Tasks to Complete a Little at a Time
It’s something I actually enjoy doing. It doesn’t take a lot of time because I can chip away at it little by little if I do maybe two product updates a day. And I update those thumbnails and covers and previews two at a time. Then I can chip away at it slowly. And it’s going to have a high impact on my business because if I have products that aren’t performing well right now, I can change that by updating those things. So that is my unicorn task.
And the other things that came up for me as I sorted through all of my data was that it would be really wise for me to focus on more sales funnels for my email list as well as videos for my business. I think that once you have some main focuses, you can make a plan from there. And you need to decide as far as your plan goes a couple things: who’s going to help you accomplish this goal, what tools or resources do you need in order to accomplish this goal, when is your deadline, when do you want to have this done by, and finally, how will you reach this goal?
Creating an Actual Plan for What To Do After the TpT Conference
It’s not enough to say that I’m going to do something. You need to actually sit down and commit to doing it and whether that means getting a calendar out and deciding what you’ll do and on which day you’ll do it, something that’s going to move your process forward rather than just writing a goal down and forgetting about it. This is where it really pays to have systems in your business because if you are organized on the back end, then it’s more easy to figure out how to go about reaching certain goals. And really the systems are the things that drive your goals from being incomplete to achieved.
One of my favorite quotes is from James Clear and he says, “We do not rise to the level of our goals, but rather we fall to the level of our systems.” And essentially he’s saying that we all have the same goals, we’re all going to have the same or similar priorities on our Trello lists right now after this workshop. So what are you going to do? How are your systems going to help you reach that goal, right? If you have these great goals but you have no systems and nothing really organized on the back end of things, then getting to that goal is going to be 10 times harder.
Which tasks will apply across multiple areas of your business?
So I would also recommend as you are sifting through your data to make sure that you are thinking not only about the time it will take, your enjoyment factor, and impact, but also are there things on your list that are going to let you cast a wider net over multiple parts of your business? So maybe you’re looking through things, and you realize like Instagram keeps coming up. But is something like Instagram going to be a good use of your time? Whereas something like systems and organization, making a commitment to get more streamlined in your business is going to impact all corners of your business instead of just the Instagram corner, right?
I’m not saying it’s bad to focus on something more specialized. In a lot of cases, that can be the best way to go. But if you can kill two birds with one stone and select certain priorities from this exercise that are going to benefit multiple areas of your business, that’s like a unicorn but like even more magical. I’m not sure there’s a word for that. But that’s kind of how systems is, right? Because systems and organization definitely span the entirety of your business. So focusing on something like that is never a bad idea. But of course, I’m biased because I am absolutely in love with all things systems, and our Finishing Framework course also opened today for the very last time this year. So I am feeling some type of way about systems this week, guys. I just love them so very much.
Conclusion
So I highly encourage you to check out this workshop. Again, you can go to the School of Sellers Facebook groups, and that is where you can find the replay and also the links to these templates. I will also be sending out an email to anyone who’s on the email list for School of Sellers along with those links as well so that you guys have multiple ways to access them. And as always, if you have any questions, please, please, please ask in any of the School of Sellers Facebook groups.
And also, if you do the workshop and you come up with some priorities and plans, you should totally take a screenshot of your Trello board and share it in the groups as well. So thank you so much guys for tuning in to this super fast episode. Head on over to School of Sellers Facebook groups and dive into that workshop because I promise you it’s going to save you a ton of time and get you a lot of clarity in your plans going forward. All right, friends. I’ll talk to you next week. Thanks again.
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