Shownotes
In this episode of the Deeply Rooted Business Podcast, we're diving into the art of turning big ideas into actionable plans. If you're a visionary who struggles with breaking down your dreams into manageable steps, or someone who feels overwhelmed by project planning, this episode is your roadmap to clarity.
Whether you're planning a launch, creating a new offer, or implementing systems in your business, you'll discover practical strategies that work, especially if traditional planning methods haven't served you well.
In this episode, we cover:
01:33 Breaking down big ideas (without losing the vision)
03:31 Planning struggles nobody talks about
08:22 Your step-by-step project planning framework
16:02 Tools and resources for success
19:09 Your next steps for implementation
Links and resources mentioned:
Listen to Season 5 Episode 12: Are YOU the Bottleneck in Your Business? The CEO’s Guide to Delegation: Scale Your Business Faster: https://player.captivate.fm/episode/25be516c-ac45-458c-a632-cee9b731ac2a/
Listen to Season 5 Episode 2: Marketing Strategy for Dietitians & Wellness Coaches: Building A Marketing Ecosystem to Boost Client Leads & Streamline Content Creation: https://player.captivate.fm/episode/bcf4e13b-51e9-4ad7-9715-90f51cb7e389/
How to Launch an Online Course or Group Program Without Burnout: 4 Key Strategies fo Success: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ftu2bEzUFto
Your Next Big Launch Planner: https://www.thelaunchcollaborative.com/offers/Pnqk3M8n/checkout
Meet Your Hosts
Jessica Walther is the founder and CEO of The Launch Collaborative and Sustainable Success Systems. As a launch strategist and systems consultant, Jess is dedicated to helping solo business owners and small-but-mighty teams build businesses that deliver both peace and profit. She specializes in creating sustainable growth strategies that align with her clients' values and lifestyles.
Rachel Lopez is the founder and CEO of Gal Marketing Agency, a boutique email marketing and strategy firm. With over a decade of experience, Rachel helps heart-driven entrepreneurs craft intentional marketing strategies that attract, nurture, and convert leads sustainably. Her human-first approach ensures that marketing efforts feel authentic and effective .
Together, Jess and Rachel blend systems, storytelling, and soulful strategy to help you grow a business that's deeply aligned with your life—not just your revenue goals.
Connect With Us:
Learn with Us
Get Jess's Sustainable Success Systems Starter Kit, a Notion Business Management Systems that takes your business from overwhelmed to organized with 4 foundational workflows. <<Learn More Here>>
Diagnose Common Launch Problems and Fix Them Fast! Get the Launch Cure Guide : https://www.thelaunchcollaborative.com/launch-cure
Get Rachel's Guide to a High-Converting Email list to learn 4 shifts to elevate your emails & embrace sustainability in your marketing. <<Get it Here>>
_________________
Hang Out & Say Hi!
Transcripts
Welcome back to another episode of the Deeply Rooted Business Podcast.
Speaker A:I'm Rachel, your marketing ecosystem cultivator, and I'm here with Jess, the systems guru, architect, all the things that I currently do not have in my brain space.
Speaker A:We are going to be tapping into another one of Jess's zones of genius, which is project planning for business owners, which I think this is such a fundamental topic for people.
Speaker A:I think it's fun for me to listen to, but it is one of those things that really does like make or break one.
Speaker A:A business owner's path to burnout, Effective, productive, profitable launches and marketing campaigns.
Speaker A:But also just like running your business with clarity in your mind is where this kind of leads to.
Speaker A:So just what are some of the things we're talking about today?
Speaker B:Yeah, well, I think this has been, this is actually a rerecord because it was one of our most popular episodes and we were kind of discussing why all the systems and planning episodes are our most popular ones.
Speaker B:And I don't think it's because of me.
Speaker B:I think it's because it's entrepreneurs.
Speaker B:We tend to be visionaries, not as much integrators.
Speaker B:So we have a ton of ideas.
Speaker B:But.
Speaker B:But oftentimes what we see is that our ideas kind of get lost in the chaos or just kind of lost in the weeds of our everyday week.
Speaker B:So today we're gonna be breaking this down so you can bring your ideas into reality.
Speaker B:So what the ideas I look as like light, airy, vada energy.
Speaker B:We're going back to like that Ayurveda foundation that we used to talk about a lot.
Speaker B:And what planning is, is like a very grounded energy.
Speaker B:And it's really about how you take this idea that's in your head and break it down into manageable pieces that you're able to execute and bring it to life over time.
Speaker B:This is really vital for one when you're working solo by yourself so that you can create kind of like a week by week plan.
Speaker B:Because maybe you hop off a client call and you've got two hour time block, you're not having to kind of like stop and like what am I doing?
Speaker B:Once you have a project plan, you can go to that project plan, know what your next step is.
Speaker B:And it's even more vital when it's on a team and different people are depending on different aspects and assets to be able to move their pieces forward.
Speaker A:This is perfect for those visionary type business owners, but this is also perfect for people who live a little bit in that neurodivergent Space like myself where I can big picture, dream and all of that, but, like, paralyzed when it comes to like, breaking them out into actionable steps and like, the structure of all of that.
Speaker A:So really, like, Jess and I both kind of live in that neurodivergence space.
Speaker A:So I want this to be super valuable for those people who are maybe like, well, I am organized or maybe I'm not like, thinking super, super big picture.
Speaker A:I just struggle with like, breaking things down into consumable pieces to do.
Speaker A:Want to make sure that, like, we're not tuning out just because we're like, I don't really have any big projects I'm planning.
Speaker B:Like, you know, everything in your life is a project, whether you think about it or not.
Speaker B:Raising your child is a project.
Speaker B:Taking care of your dogs as a project, like in my notion board, that's kind of helped me really see, like, everything in your life is a project, whether you want it to be or not.
Speaker B:And you can choose whether to like, wing it, which is going to cause chaos and overwhelm, or you can choose to get really intentional with your executions.
Speaker B:You're not burning out.
Speaker B:So I think that brings us kind of into one of the things that people struggle with a lot with project planning is that when you sit down to create a project plan, it's going to take you a minute.
Speaker B:It's going to.
Speaker B:Maybe it feels like you're not doing anything because you're just writing out what you need to do.
Speaker B:And maybe you feel more of like a dopamine hit from actually like getting something done.
Speaker B:But that is a trap when you take action immediately instead of getting plans, you like taking the time to plan.
Speaker B:You might get ahead faster at the beginning, but eventually, once you get deeper into the project, you're going to either a, realize like you get lost because you don't have a roadmap showing where your needs to go.
Speaker B:Or even worst case, you might have to go back and fix things.
Speaker B:Because when you set the time to plan something out on paper, you can like, proactively see where things might go awry and proactively get in trouble, get in front of problems.
Speaker B:And if you're not taking the time to do that before, you're really costing yourself more time in the long run.
Speaker B:So as tempting as it can be is like, I'm super busy, I don't have time to plan.
Speaker B:Like I've said it before, just like when people say, like, they don't have time to meditate, like those people need to be doing it the most if you don't have time to plan, you need to be doing it the most.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:I think, like, for me personally, because I am one of those people where I'm like, I don't have the time to sit there and add every single task into whatever.
Speaker A:But I will tell you the best way that like Jess, is like transition this or change my perspective of this is that if something were like my trip to Fiji, like what did we say?
Speaker A:The, like this last episode, like the Fiji test.
Speaker A:Like if something were to happen and I needed to hire quickly get somebody up and running kind of thing, everything lives in my brain.
Speaker A:And so having something that is like what Jess calls your external brain is super powerful.
Speaker A:I guess in this case, especially when it comes to project planning because, oh boy, it gets lost in here.
Speaker A:They.
Speaker A:I can't retain too much with my mom brain these days.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So another pro.
Speaker B:Very common problem that people make with project planning is not breaking their plan down enough or confusing a task that with actually a project or a mini project.
Speaker B:So maybe you have on your list create a new lead magnet.
Speaker B:And that sounds like it's just one thing.
Speaker B:But when, if you put that on your to do list, that's actually going to take you a very, very long time or like create a quiz.
Speaker B:Rachel was the sharing, like sharing like a lead magnet.
Speaker B:She's creating for a client which is a quiz.
Speaker B:And there were a lot of steps behind that one task.
Speaker B:And like you can't break it down enough.
Speaker B:I think a good rule of thumb is like breaking your task down into like 20 minutes.
Speaker B:It's gonna take you more than 20 minutes.
Speaker B:You need to break it up even more into a project which would have multiple different tasks inside of it.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:I also wanna add like, this is additionally how people put themselves like pigeonhole themselves for failure with like goal setting too, where they think they kind of have this like reverse brain set of like or mindset brain cell man, where a project and task are just like cohesive in their brain.
Speaker A:And the same thing with like a goal and how you break it down.
Speaker A:Like when somebody says, oh, I want to hit, I want to post 25 times on like from a marketing perspective, I want to send two emails a week kind of thing.
Speaker A:Those are not a check and we're done kind of thing.
Speaker A:The way to break it down is a lot more tedious and saying, I'm going to write this day, I'm schedule this day, I'm going to do this.
Speaker A:And so sometimes when you're self sabotaging in that way where you're saying this is a task, but it's actually a project that's going to take you a couple of hours.
Speaker A:When you get to do that task or you come to, like, to the time to do it, you're like, immediately.
Speaker A:No, like, not like failure.
Speaker A:Self sabotage.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And I think it can be really hard because sometimes, as business owners are hear this a lot online is like, take messy action.
Speaker B:And that's okay to an extent.
Speaker B:I think you can't let per.
Speaker B:I think it's more important to not let perfectionism slow you down than being really focused on taking messy action.
Speaker B:Because I think messy action is just going to end up you being a mess.
Speaker B:Like, you're going to be burned out, you're going to waste energy, you're going to miss steps, and it's a waste time having to go back and redo your work.
Speaker B:You know, you're going to lose momentum.
Speaker B:So I think really you need to shift your mindset into a proactive space versus reactive.
Speaker B:And that way you can move from a much grounded earth feeling.
Speaker B:Like, just think about the words reactive and like, what do you picture yourself doing?
Speaker B:And then picture yourself being proactive.
Speaker B:The energies are so much different.
Speaker B:And that's what really setting aside the time to plan and then project plan your individual goals out is going to do for you.
Speaker B:All right, so let's break down how to do this because we know that this is not our zone of genius.
Speaker B:So let's get into just kind of my step by step project planning framework that I follow.
Speaker B:So number one, you're going to start with a goal, right?
Speaker B:What does success look like if you're launching?
Speaker B:What does, you know, your revenue look like?
Speaker B:But beyond that, like, how many people would that mean you need to sign up?
Speaker B:And then Rachel talks a lot about reverse engineering, so figuring out how many people we would need to visit the page or be on our email list, like breaking it down that way.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And I think you can reverse engineer a lot of the goals and a lot of your projects, like, backwards.
Speaker A:So, like, obviously you're not just going to, like, come with a project up for, like, no reason.
Speaker A:Like, there has to be a thought as to, like, why you want to do that, whether it's awareness, exposure, conversion, whatever that looks like.
Speaker A:And so when you have that goal in mind from the forefront, you're easily able to kind of take that and like, make sure you're staying aligned with your business goals.
Speaker A:Because I feel like a lot of people from a project perspective, like, they just like, do things just to do things.
Speaker A:And like, sometimes they're like, oh, well, I see somebody, you know, did this.
Speaker A:And like, if you haven't listened to our like, ecosystem episode where we're saying, like, you know, some people just post on every single platform and they have absolutely zero bandwidth to do anything.
Speaker A:So if you're coming into your project and you said this is the end goal, this is the criteria for success, and then everything else that does not vibe with your end goal, like trash, get it out of there, put it in.
Speaker A:When you've efficiently scaled up your project.
Speaker B:Okay, so then step two is finding your deeper why.
Speaker B:Undoubtedly, during your execution piece of your project, you are going to come up against challenges, roadblocks, fear, overwhelm.
Speaker B:So really getting in touch with why you are interested in completing this project in the first place is going to help you push through those challenges.
Speaker B:Anything to add?
Speaker B:You're just like, yep, yep, yes.
Speaker A:I mean, I tell everybody this with their email list because there's so many people that are like, email market, email marketing doesn't work.
Speaker A:I'm like, well, why do you have an email list?
Speaker A:What is the point of it?
Speaker A:I think this is the perfect question to ask in every single layer of your business.
Speaker A:Why?
Speaker A:Like, if you can't answer that, then there's absolutely no reason why you should be doing it.
Speaker B:So then the next part is when it kind of starts to get a little complicated because you're going to need to brain dump everything.
Speaker B:And what I like to do, and I'm sure Rachel does this with her marketing campaigns as well, is kind of like map it out first.
Speaker B:Like, maybe not.
Speaker A:Well, for me, I think this is where my brain goes blank.
Speaker A:We're, we're done with the project planning kind of thing.
Speaker A:For me personally, when I go to like do anything for myself, it's like immediately like paralysis.
Speaker A:We don't know how to break this down or it'll be like, send email, like write email.
Speaker A:So I do this.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker A:For my clients and it's so much more effective for them because I have like systems and structures and frameworks and all that.
Speaker A:But for myself, if it's a brand new project, like, I freeze here.
Speaker A:So just any insight?
Speaker B:Yeah, I mean, I think it's just mapping it out.
Speaker B:A lot of the projects that I'm planning are big old launches.
Speaker B:So what I'm doing there is kind of mapping out what customer journey would be visually and then determining the different assets that need to get created from that piece.
Speaker B:So once I know, okay, we need to Have Instagram posts that go to a sales page, that go to a checkout page.
Speaker B:Then I've got three, like, big assets, and I can take those assets.
Speaker B:Okay, what steps do I need to take to get the Instagram post live?
Speaker B:Okay, I need to write the caption.
Speaker B:I need.
Speaker B:I need to first figure out what the strategy is.
Speaker B:Write the caption, create the graphics, film the video, schedule it out, post it.
Speaker B:Like, so that's where you can kind of like break it all down, where you're not just having to be like, oh, I need to schedule post.
Speaker B:I need to write a sales page copy.
Speaker B:Like, you can kind of help get yourself a little bit more organized by mapping out by assets.
Speaker B:And then what you're going to have to do is break it down in steps and then turn it into a timeline.
Speaker B:And that's kind of where, you know, you're going to have to figure out which pieces and parts need to get put together or what makes most logical sense to go from the top down.
Speaker B:So for my launches, I always follow the same structure where I start with page copy.
Speaker B:Well, product, okay, you need your product first, your offer, what that is.
Speaker B:And then you start with page copy.
Speaker B:And then from page copy, I can break that down to email copy, and then I break the email copy down into social copy, because that's kind of just how it works so that it can all, like, flow together.
Speaker B:If you start with your social media captions writing first and then work towards your sales page, it's probably not going to be as cohesive because your sales page is going to have all of your, like, strategy in it, if that makes sense.
Speaker A:Yeah, I like that.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And actually, what I've been doing for this, because it's not my strong suit, is that once I have my list of, like, deliverables, I will load that list into Tober, our chat GPT and say, here are my list of deliverables.
Speaker A:Help me break this down into a, you know, process that I like.
Speaker A:Tell me what I don't know, essentially.
Speaker A:And it says, okay, we need to write this copy and we're going to write this, do this, and we're going to schedule this.
Speaker A:And it, like, breaks it down for me in a way that my brain just does not initially think to do.
Speaker A:So, yeah, I think this is one of those things where AI can benefit you as a business owner.
Speaker A:If you just don't have that skill set in your brain, which I don't.
Speaker B:It can also help you, like, if you want to launch in, you know, six weeks, break this down into a six week project plan.
Speaker B:For me, I have this person and this person on my team to help me that do this part, because that's kind of your next step is that you're going to want to kind of estimate your timeline.
Speaker B:Always give yourself more time than you think because babies are going to get sick, things are going to happen, you're inevitably going to get that laid.
Speaker B:Everything will always kind of take double the time that you think it will take.
Speaker B:So make sure that you're giving yourself, you know, a very expansive timeline.
Speaker B:And then from there you're going to want to assign ownership and due dates.
Speaker B:So who owns each piece, what, when does it do?
Speaker B:You know what needs to get done before, you know, the copy obviously needs to get written before the page can be designed.
Speaker B:Breaking those down into logical steps and then after that it's all about taking action.
Speaker B:So making sure that you're sticking to your project plan.
Speaker B:I think as business owners sometimes we can cancel on ourselves, so blocking the time off.
Speaker B:So if you say, okay, I need to do this, this, this and this, and it's going to take me four hours, you actually need to go find the four hours on your calendar, make it happen.
Speaker B:Like if you can't do it, write it and it's going to come.
Speaker B:So making sure that you're being realistic, assigning realistic due dates based on your actual calendar and how much time you have in your week and then implementing it and then inevitably you're going to have to check in and adjust each week because things come up, things take longer than we expected them to.
Speaker B:So that's kind of the framework.
Speaker B:It sounds simple.
Speaker B:I think the hardest part is just holding yourself accountable to make it happen.
Speaker B:Because when, you know, it does take a while.
Speaker B:I mean, I think a good thought out launch project plan usually takes me between two to four hours and that's like two to four hours that people think that I'm going to be writing the emails and doing all this and this.
Speaker B:But this is going to really help you be so much more strategic in either your launches or even if you're like hiring someone that's a project, turn it into a step by steps of what you need to do.
Speaker B:And this is definitely the skill that will get easier and easier every time you do it.
Speaker A:Yeah, let me recap this so that everybody can get like a quick, high level view of what you just ran through because I think it's super, super valuable.
Speaker A:So from the project planning framework, what we're going to do is one, define the End goal, we're going to then find our why, second or third.
Speaker A:After that, we're going to brain dump literally everything that is associated with the end goal, the project, the why, the motivations, all of that.
Speaker A:Then we're going to map it visually using Canva Notion, any form of whiteboarding tool where you can get it all out and like, see it holistically.
Speaker A:Break it down into steps.
Speaker A:Kind of like what we were talking about.
Speaker A:What people tend to confuse projects versus tasks.
Speaker A:Make sure that you have a whole visual of all of the different components that you are going to be doing throughout this entire project.
Speaker A:Estimate.
Speaker A:Then after you have it broken down into step, you're going to estimate realistic timeline.
Speaker A:This is where I tend to screw myself over.
Speaker A:And I'm like, so in this, Jess always says double the time that you think it'll take.
Speaker A:So this is something that I think is really important.
Speaker A:So when you have those estimated timelines, then go in.
Speaker A:And this is again a part where I skip assign due dates and ownership.
Speaker A:I am notorious for just leaving it off the assignee and the due date.
Speaker A:So assign the due dates for yourself.
Speaker A:And then once you have that kind of like loaded into your project platform, you get like 10 accountability mode.
Speaker A:So whether that means, like, put a time block on your calendar where you're reviewing your project plan, you're updating your dates.
Speaker A:If you missed a deadline, how do you get it back on track, how do you get it reassigned into your to do list of that week, and then hold yourself accountable to make sure that you are one.
Speaker A:If you are solopreneur, you're checking in with yourself and making sure that these times are being actually done.
Speaker A:I always like to use Google Tasks because I see it on my actual full calendar and I, like, drag it.
Speaker A:And if I'm not mistaken, I believe Notion has a Google Calendar integration.
Speaker A:But it's really visually helpful to see it all where it's going to fit in so that you're not like saying, oh, I have an hour to do, or I have.
Speaker A:I've given myself an hour to do this.
Speaker A:And then you, like, don't actually have an hour to do it on your calendar.
Speaker A:So those are kind of the eight steps of like project planning to make sure that you're efficient, you're productive, that your project is being executed in a way that is strategic but also practical too.
Speaker A:So did I miss anything, Jess?
Speaker B:No, I think you did a great job recapping in a succinct manner.
Speaker B:All right, you need more support with this.
Speaker B:I always like to include additional resources.
Speaker B:So I do have a video up on my YouTube channel about how I break down big projects like launches.
Speaker B:You get to like kind of just see behind the scenes work with me as I plan on a launch, which I think I love doing.
Speaker B:I love watching those videos which is why I do like the Work with me videos on my channel.
Speaker B:I also if you do have a launch coming up, I have the your Next Big Launch planner for sale on website.
Speaker B:Takes you through step by step by step of planning your next big launch.
Speaker B:All right, so if you found this episode helpful, make sure that you share it with your business bestie.
Speaker B:Leave us a Review Say hi to us on Instagram.
Speaker B:Words of affirmation are love language.
Speaker B:We'd love to hear from you.
Speaker B:We planning out our next couple of episodes next Monday, so if you have any ideas on what you'd like to hear, definitely shoot us a message.
Speaker B:But until next week, we're waiting for.
