Hi, there. Thanks for joining me on this first episode of my podcast, On Track with Shanna Goodman.

Today I want to give you a little background on me and what you can expect from this podcast.

I grew up on a ranch in southwestern Kansas, raised by entrepreneurs.

I went to college, majoring in psychology and human behavior mostly because people- and the choices they make- fascinate me.

I worked for a few years after college, then went to graduate school, focusing on mass communication, broadcast and film production. I worked in marketing after that, then worked for a couple agencies. It was working for those agencies- where it was my job to sell websites or video projects, that I really became passionate about helping small business owners.

They’d come to me with a budget- maybe $10 or $20k- all the marketing budget they had for the entire year- and wanted a website to help grow their sales.

It was my job to sell websites, video projects, but I always dug in, first, asking what they were hoping to accomplish, then work backwards.

A $20k website alone will not grow revenue or attract clients. You have to drive traffic there- you have to help people find you. During these conversations with small biz owners, I’d sprinkle in, ok, do this website for $5k, then *on your own* build out your Google My Business page, start researching keywords and buying Google ads, start blogging with those same keywords so that you can be found organically, etc.

It was with those thoughts that I started my own marketing agency- focusing on marketing strategy for small business owners.

Over time, I created a format for helping small business owners define their intent and how to get there… and keep going. I named this the AMP’D On Track Wheel.

Oh, and with my marketing strategy agency, a couple of years ago, I started developing resources for small business owners to learn how to do marketing on their own- because a lot of them don’t have the budget to pay an agency to continuously implement the work. I called this division of the business AMP’D- short for Ampersand, the name of my agency- Ampersand Business Solutions, but someone recently gave me an acronym that makes sense, too- AMP’D = Attraction Marketing Purpose Driven. Which is totally accurate and I told her I’d start using it.

So that’s what the On Track Wheel is about… teaching small business owners how to get on track and stay on track pursuing purpose with their small buz. Because people don’t go into biz for themselves to just work 12 hours days and for it to not mean something. I mean, maybe they do, but those kind of people don’t seek me out.

So, the On Track Wheel- I’ll include the graphic in the show notes- is a simple 5 question framework to get and stay on track.

The components are:

Intent
Insight
Infrastructure
Action
Eval & Optimize

The corresponding questions, then are:

Intent- what do I hope to accomplish?
Insight- what do I know?
Infrastructure- what do I have to work with?
Action- how can I get started (and keep going)?
Eval & Optimize- what can I learn and do better?

This is a framework I take my clients through all the time and has helped hundreds of small business owners find meaning for their small biz and consistently work towards what’s meaningful for them.

An example of this is my own situation recently. My team and I are building out a membership website specifically for professional home organizers. We want to be able to provide these busy small business owners with grab and go graphics, customizable templates, and rinse and repeat content that will help them attract ideal clients on social media continuously, so that they can spend more time focusing on their actual business and serving clients well.

I love the idea and was super excited about the concept, but in a moment of overwhelm, I’m like, how can I even pull this off? There are so many parts to this. Should I even try? What if it doesn’t work and no one wants it?

I took a step back and remembered my own On Track Format.

Intent- what do I hope to accomplish? I want to help small biz owners attract ideal clients easily so they can do their work well.
Insight- what do I know? I KNOW people that want this type of service- marketing tools and templates and that t here are similar types of resources in other industries that do well. I also have the insight of what some of the challenges and motivations are for these types of small biz owners.
Infrastructure- What do I have to work with? I literally wrote down every member of my team and what role they were playing, then I wrote down every asset in this area. So- Edward can help me build the membership site. Erica can help me with content writing. Alison and Veronica can help me with graphic design. Etc. Then I wrote down assets like the ampdnow.com website that has great, applicable and practical content- with good seo, high ranking content like back links from Business Insider and other publications I write regularly for. I have content I can reuse and repurpose, I already have an established email platform, etc, etc.
Action- how can I get started and keep going? I outlined a plan- overall concept for the project, what it would include piece by piece, then what needed to be in place by when.
Once the project is launched, I’ll regularly Evaluate and Optimize- I’ll look at the data to see what seems to be working and what’s not. Maybe there will be certain graphics that get a million downloads, but that there will be other kinds of graphics or content that won’t be as helpful for our members. We’ll create more of what works for them. Along those same lines, I’ll review what seems to resonate when promoting the membership website. Maybe certain social posts I post resonate more than others. I’ll replicate what seems to work and minimize what doesn’t. But the eval and optimize will always be ongoing.

All of this ties back to my general intent- my purpose for my biz, which is to help other small biz owners. Knowing that, I can push past overwhelm, remind myself that people need these tools, that it’s my responsibility to share my work with the world and I don’t have to be perfect! Shout out to my friend Susie Moore on her upcoming book, Let it Be Easy. She also has a program called Self Coaching Society that reminds me of all of these great things.

So, if you’re on track with pursuing purpose in your business, cool. If not, I recommend you answering the simple 5 questions of the On Track wheel.

I’ll place the graphic and questions in the show notes and you’ll be able to download and work through them yourself.

Thanks for listening and I’ll see you next time.