SEO SHORTS: KRISTIN LAWTON: 6-WEEK MARKETING PLANNING RETREAT

Kristin Lawton joined us earlier this year for an episode of The Simple & Smart SEO Show and we couldn’t miss the chance to ask her to go deeper on one specific task she shared.

How to have a 6-week business planning retreat with yourself!

This is a 2-hour task (maybe 4 hr total if you’ve never done this before).

Here’s how Kristin breaks it down:

1. Make it feel like a treat: get out to a coffee shop or take yourself to dinner
2. Plan for a quarter and treat the 6-week planning session like a check in—a little more work the first time you do this, but each future retreat will feel like a lighter lift!
3. 2 categories: personal & professional
4. Write things on or add things to your calendar
5. Review your quarterly goals & check in on key metrics

Be sure to take Kristin’s quiz to discover your signature brand marketing style!

(Brittany is Shaken!)

Take the quiz & share your result with all of us on Instagram!

Connect w/ B: YouTube, Website, LinkedIn, Instagram

Transcript

Brittany Herzberg: 0:00

Well hello and welcome to SEO shirts a private podcast by the very same co host of the simple and smart SEO show, Brittany and

Crystal Waddell: 0:08

Krystal. Here you can experience way more actionable episodes, give them as many SEO masterminds. Each week we'll be walking you through a different tasks that support your SEO strategy.

Brittany Herzberg: 0:21

You will learn exactly how to take simple and smart action with step by step walkthroughs. And quick explanations of how your effort will impact your business's search ability.

Crystal Waddell: 0:31

And now it's time for this week's SEO short. Hello, hello.

Brittany Herzberg: 0:37

Welcome back to SEO shorts. The action packed version of our podcast crystal is here and we have Chris Lawton back with us. We wanted to dive in to something she mentioned over on the simple and smart SEO show. podcast episodes. Hi, people.

Crystal Waddell: 0:51

Hello, I'm so excited to hear this. Kristin, let's jump into this planning. Yes, explain what we're doing crystal. Okay, Christine is gonna walk us through what she does. She does like a six week planning retreat with herself, so that she can get ready for you know, the next quarter or whatever. And so we were like, Oh, would you be so kind to share that with us. And she's so graciously said yes, he would share that with us. So the key to a great SEO strategy is to have a strong strategy in place. Therefore, you can align your SEO keyword research with your strategy overall. So Kristin, I'll pass it over to you.

Kristin Lawton: 1:32

Yeah, so this is 63 sheets I've been doing long before I became an entreprenuer. And it's something that I try and hold sacred to my schedule and don't allow anything to book I get out of my right now bedroom office. And I go to a you know, cafe, if I'm doing in the morning and treat myself to a fun breakfast or something or, you know, I'm in DC. So we have lots of fun hotel bars or so in the afternoon, I'll go to like a hotel bar and get a glass of wine and do it. And so it feels like a treat, but I'm getting serious planning done. So that is just the first little tidbit that I highly recommend. Because when it feels like a treat, you're going to stick it to the calendar, and you're gonna hold true to it. But so I think that planning your year out can feel overwhelming to a lot of people, I like to break it into quarterly focuses so that you're being strategic and working towards your urine brand goals. But the work is happening on a quarterly basis. But quarters are almost too long to do the actual like, When am I going to do this task type planning, you have your like strategy, but you need to make sure that you are getting the work done. And so this is why a lot of my six week planning is so I start by like if it's the start of the quarter and breaking out what my focuses are. And if you listen to the podcast episode, you'll learn all about sort of the know like trust path and breaking your quarterly focus is that like that, but so I no doubt everything that needs to happen. For that focus, I break like the big rocks into very small chunks. And so I have a sense of okay, what needs to happen in six weeks, and then the next six weeks, and then I look at my schedules, I do this with a pen and paper, everything else I'm computer focus or app or whatever, but I draw sort of two lines. So I have like personal professional and milestones, key dates, things. And then I break six weeks out. So I had like bullet journaling on those. And I write down all the things. So whatever happening in your personal life like that is going to come first in terms of its like your schedule and what you actually have. So like write that stuff down. This is also when I plan like I haven't seen these friends in a while I need to book dates, or I want to, I need to remember that like our anniversary is coming up. So I need to like figure out our president, like I plan that stuff professionally. What are the milestones that are happening? Do you have client work that's like, you know, is going to take up that week. And so you're not going to be able to get that kind of stuff done. So like just getting a sense of your schedule. And then the milestones, you know, just again, like birthdays, podcasts, interviews, like whatever big stuffs coming up that you know, might take up your energy focus for the week, then you have a sense of okay, here's the time that I have to work on this thing. This is again, I'm all about marketing your brands with ease, making things not feel overwhelming. And when you break it out your work in these small chunks where you know that those small chunks are also being intentional and like you're strategically working towards your end goals. Then I go in and I'd say and I actually like a sign out on my calendar here is when I'm going to work and I write the task into my calendar. So I know okay, this is like the thing that I'm doing that hour this week. And that's essentially the gist of it. I also take that time to pull metrics to review my quarterly goals. What did I do what I ended carryover, I have a whole quarterly planning mythology tool that is is somewhat live, but not yet for sale. It's fair like the public. But if you're interested, let me know. But there's a lot of things that I do on a quarterly basis. And I'll use those, you know, every quarter when the six week falls, then it makes it a little longer to sort of dive into the upkeep and maintenance of my brand as well. That's the overall gist. So now we can talk about it.

Brittany Herzberg: 5:21

I just want to go do that.

Crystal Waddell: 5:24

Yeah, I think what you said about making it feel like a treat is a great takeaway, because it's like, yeah, you're right. If it's fun, you're definitely gonna say I have to do this. But if it's a drag, it's like, oh, you know, I want to put this off. And so I love like thinking about I've heard people like saying they're going to check themselves into a hotel. And yeah, that's like, oh, that sounds like fun, too. But it also sounds a little bit expensive. Yeah, maybe I can't be away from my family, you know, or whatever. So I like the idea of like, oh, a big beautiful breakfast for myself. And I know that I'm like, and then a glass of wine in the afternoon. I'm like, This sounds like the most perfect thing. And if you you know, if

Kristin Lawton: 6:02

you're really focused, if you can get yourself in that sort of planning mindset where you're, you know, actually put your laptop away or the work away, right? This is a two hour task. You know, this isn't a big thing. But it will eliminate so much stress for those next six weeks, because you know, what you need to do you know that you're working on your business, and not just living in that day to day like hamster wheel also.

Brittany Herzberg: 6:27

Yeah, I'm glad that you said it was two hours, because that was gonna be one of my questions is like, how long do you pay

Kristin Lawton: 6:33

two to three hours? It depends, you know, if it's, if I'm doing the quarterly stuff on top of it, maybe four hours, when you first start it, you're going to figure out your own system to do this. So you know, give a little more time, but you know, and then you have to take the time to travel somewhere fun to do it.

Crystal Waddell: 6:49

Yeah, yeah. Speaking and traveling somewhere fun. Go ahead. I know you want to talk about it. So now we're,

Brittany Herzberg: 6:54

I saw a message crystal when you were talking about like, where we could go and things you could do. And Crystal was like, oh, so people talking about going to hotel, Crystal had the bright idea. Last time I was in Raleigh, to go to a WeWork space. So even that would be another thing you could do. They had like, all these kinds of different places that you could go and feels like a work space, but it's not in your home where you're gonna get distracted by like, oh, I need to vacuum oh, I need to cook this or I need to like do laundry, and all the other 1000s of things.

Kristin Lawton: 7:21

Yeah, and I love just anywhere that you feel a little more creative or for people who are a little more social like getting into a place where you're surrounded by people and we're just chatting like planning is like a creative outlet for me because I'm like, Yeah, like that. And so for me, like I get really energized when I'm just even if I don't talk to another soul, but there are people around me.

Brittany Herzberg: 7:42

Yeah, me too.

Crystal Waddell: 7:43

I love it when a plan comes together. At rework they also have free coffee and shirt if you're in the afternoon it got some I forgot about

Brittany Herzberg: 7:51

the beer. Yeah, we

Kristin Lawton: 7:52

did. Another thing I just heard and I don't have a printer near me and I

Brittany Herzberg: 7:57

walk into crystal knows about this one.

Kristin Lawton: 7:59

Oh, but like they have like sips or whatever like as subscription like 11 bucks. And so someone in my another group I belong with is just like, yeah, it's my favorite cheap co working space now free Wi Fi like comfy chairs and unlimited coffee. And I think we even recorded

Brittany Herzberg: 8:14

a podcast episode there. Are we added to maybe we don't I don't know.

Crystal Waddell: 8:17

Well, we met halfway it was a few clay. I can't remember a gardener or something. I don't know. But we met at a Panera and hung out and had a great little meeting there. Once so yeah, Panera is an awesome place to work. They've got outlets, okay, they've got everything you need and it was quiet enough at your table that you can get stuff done.

Brittany Herzberg: 8:35

Of all this stuff. Okay, we will all go and do this thing. Tell people about your fun quiz that you have.

Kristin Lawton: 8:41

Yes. So if you are looking to market your brands with ease a lot of that comes with marketing based on your personality so it's authentic and natural and feels easy breezy and you can learn sort of your signature brands marketing style at marketing style quiz.com And you get your the results are all cocktail styles. So you'll learn if you're on the rock shaken, stirred or needs and it's really fun and you get immediate tips of how to market your brand based on your personality. Info Sam

Crystal Waddell: 9:11

Krista, you're amazing. It was so much but talking. Thank you. Thank you do this again in the future. Oh, yeah. I

Kristin Lawton: 9:18

have lots of these. Yeah, go on forever.

Crystal Waddell: 9:21

I see a marketing collab in the future like a workshop or some kind of planning. So yeah, good stuff.

Brittany Herzberg: 9:28

Hold on to your party house people. Alright. Thanks for tuning in. We'll catch you on the next SEO shorts episode but you're well on your way to being the answer to even more Googled questions. Thanks so much for joining us this week.

Crystal Waddell: 9:42

Have you noticed some SEO wins since listening to SEO shorts? We want to know email us at Hello at simple and smart seo.com Or share an episode conversation thread