MORE ABOUT BUSINESS ACTION PLANNING

The Business Action Planner Toolkit is a self-paced resource that you can use to bring structure and focus to your business building efforts. In comparison to a traditional business plan, a business action plan is very different:

• The business elements are organized more organically based on our experience helping creative freelancers identify, address, and solve their management and marketing problems. The Business Action Planner Toolkit is a non-prescriptive resource designed to decrease the chance of inertia and increase your entrepreneurial momentum.

• The end result is not intended to be some elaborate document that you print and then shove in a drawer never to see the light of day. Rather, it’s designed to be a perpetual work in progress; it’s for your business-building pleasure and it’s a digital workspace—thanks to the wonders of Evernote®.

This is for you, something to have at the ready to help you achieve your dreams. It’s a toolkit for creating a manageable and serviceable structure for your hopes and dreams. This wasn’t always a self-help toolkit. In past years it was an expensive consulting package, but now it’s accessible to everyone.

INSIDE THE TOOLKIT

The Business Action Planner Toolkit is a trilogy of awesomeness designed to help you rock your freelance business-building efforts. It includes the following files:

1. Guidebook

This massive eBook includes our insights and instructions on the eight (8) key elements of building a Business Action Plan. It is organized as both a workbook and an entertaining read, with each numbered section built in the following format to take you through the process:

• Objective: a clarifying statement about what you could aim to achieve.
• Insights: remarks and notes to help bring context to the subject.
• Kick Start: questions and commentary to help spark preparation.
• Business Action Planning: specific tasks for you to work on.
• Interviews: candid and and insightful Q&As with industry pros.

The guidebook is available in PDF format and as an Evernote® notebook for your viewing pleasure.

2. Business Action Planner

This planning tool lives in the form of an Evernote® notebook (which is an .enex file); once it has successfully uploaded to your Evernote® account (instructions are provided in the Guidebook), you can start working on your very own plan. The eight (8) key elements correlate with the guidebook so you can stay in sync with what you’re reading about and what you’re working on.

Just like the Guidebook, each numbered section starts off with the objective and kick start questions followed by the planning elements, which are broken down into five (5) bite-sized components:

• Action Item(s): a specific task, or a set of tasks that, if accomplished, will help you achieve your objective.
• Deliverable(s): a placeholder area to write, edit, and add images or links.
• Next Step(s): a specific follow-up action, or actions, for you to consider.
• Success Indicator(s): a note about how you can evaluate your completed action item(s).

We have provided you with tangible action items, deliverables, next steps, and success indicators but these are simply suggestions—we want to help you get the ball rolling. Based on your business needs, you may feel it’s best to edit or even delete our notes. No problem . . . it’s your plan.

Evernote® is free to use and upgrading your subscription is not required (though we’re big fans of their premium service because it’s just too awesome).

3. Worksheets

These spreadsheet files (available in both Microsoft Excel and Mac Numbers file formats) are thrown in as a bonus because we just couldn’t help ourselves. The worksheets are laser-focused tools meant to help you drill down into the nitty gritties and create your own strategies. The first two worksheets are:

• Marketing Mix
• Monthly Budget