The Social Media Takeaway - Louise McDonnell

Plan 2026: The One-Page Strategy with Laura Posey

• Louise McDonnell • Season 1 • Episode 75

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In this episode of The Social Media Takeaway, I’m joined by Laura Posey, internationally recognised speaker, author, and consultant. She's known as the simple planning specialist and she has a unique ability to make the complex. Simple and easy to get done. We chat about why so many business owners feel flat out busy but still unclear, and how a one-page plan can change that.

If you're a coach, consultant or running a service-based business and you’re done with spinning wheels, this one's for you.

You’ll learn:
✅ What really happens when you do not plan
✅ Why lifestyle design should guide business decisions
✅ How one page planning creates clarity and direction
✅ How to turn goals into projects and actual daily tasks
✅ Why saying no is just as important as saying yes

📩 Connect with Laura on Linkedin!
🎁 Grab Laura’s Free Gift: Daily Success Checklist on her website

If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to my podcast because more like this is on the way!

If you'd like to book a call to see how I can support you head over to my website here. www.sellonsocialmedia.academy/hello

My 2025 Social Media Content Planner & Guide is now available! Packed with 400 content prompts, expert tips, and $377 worth of free resources to help you save time and get results in 2025.

Grab your copy now on Amazon!
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Welcome to the Social Media Takeaway. I'm your host, Louise McDonald, and this is the show for business people who want to know how to use social media more effectively to drive sales and leads for their business. If you enjoy the show, please make sure you subscribe, and if you enjoy this episode, please make sure that you give us a five star review. If you have any friends or colleagues who would benefit from the advice in this episode, please make sure that you share it with them today. I am delighted to be joined by Laura Posey. Laura is an internationally recognized speaker, author, and consultant. She's known as the simple planning specialist and she has a unique ability to make the complex. Simple and easy to get done. She's the author of How to Plan Your Entire Year on one sheet of Paper, and she's here to tell us how we can plan our entire year easily and get things done. Laura, you're very welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. It's great to be here. So as we approach the end of the year, Laura. I think this is like , the timing of this episode is just absolutely fantastic. So let's start off with what happens when people don't plan. So for people that are listening in, it's coming towards the end of the year. Or even if you're listening throughout the year, , it doesn't matter., You can plan at any time. What happens when people don't plan? Y I think the biggest thing that happens when people don't plan is that., They don't have a pathway to run on for the next year. So they get buffeted by the winds of opportunity, , and as entrepreneurs , we're shiny object chasers anyway. Most of us we're like, oh, that smells like opportunity. That smells like opportunity. And we end up kind of ping ponging all over the place and never really making forward progress even though we're really busy. And when you have a plan, , you already know where you want to go and how you're gonna get there. And so you're able to make that forward progress every single day., And it, you get to the end of your day and you don't look back and go, where'd the time go? What happened? You actually look at the end of the day and go oh, I'm on track. I made progress., I'm going in the direction I want to go. Yeah, I completely agree with you. Sometimes it's nearly a badge of honor for people if they say they're really busy. Yeah. I got to this stage where in my business where I was like, I do not want to say I am very busy, because I think when you're really busy, you sometimes are caught in the weeds. You're sometimes doing stuff that's not serving you or not helping you achieve your goals. So 100% completely. Agree with you there. So if you've been really busy all year. It, , coming to the end of the year and you're going, yeah, but am I any closer to achieving what I want to achieve , in my life and in my business?, And you're not, or you don't know. So let talk us through, 'cause I know one of the first steps that , you like to talk about is, , getting that whole focus in your life, isn't it? Yeah., We always start with lifestyle design., My clients are generally coaches and consultants who wanna build a kick ass lifestyle business, right? So , they're making the money that they wanna make, but they also have the time and flexibility to do all the other things that aren't work. And. In order to do that, you have to get really clear about what kind of lifestyle do you really want and what do you want to be doing in your business and in your world? What sort of flexibility do you need? And so we work through a process where we look at, , where do you wanna be health wise, where do you wanna be wealth?, What sort of hobbies do you wanna be investing, in your free time? How much time , and what do you wanna be doing with your friends and with your family? And then finally, what's your give back strategy? Where do you wanna spend your time and money in giving back into your community, , or into the larger world?, And so , we mapped that out first because that informs. What your business has to look like in order to have that lifestyle. And I think sometimes we do it backwards. we start with, , let me just go build a business and that'll give me the lifestyle I want. But oftentimes it doesn't,, it just creates a lot of stress and a lot of work., And you're busy, but you're not able to do all those things that you really wanted to do that, that you had in mind when you started the business. Yes, you're busy chasing the shiny things, but not necessarily what it is, , the shiny thing that you want., How often, in your opinion,'cause you're obviously dealing with people who are planning all the time, so how common is it that people don't have a really. One distinctive long-term goal that they're aiming for. And I want to retire at this age, or I want to buy an apartment in this location, or I want to work, I wanna take three months off a year. How, like, how frequent is not having that vision, that type of goal, , it's really common., A lot of people have vague ideas of, , oh yeah, I wanna retire at this age. Don't really have a sense of what that looks like and what does retirement look like, right?, What do you wanna do with that time? And how much money is it gonna take for you to do all of the things that you want? And same thing. If you wanna work three days a week, what are you gonna do with the other four? And how much money do you need to support that lifestyle? Outside of work. And , I, a lot of people talk about work-life balance. I really like to think of it as work-life harmony , you're still the same person., You've still got the same amount of time as everybody else. It's just what are you doing with it , and how do you weave that work and the non-work stuff, the life stuff together in a way that really works for you. And not for somebody else., , I gotta work five days a week and 40 hours a week and , , whatever., But , what actually works for you in your life? And when people sit down and they get rid of that vagueness what kind of an impact does it have then on the rest of their planning?, It's this spotlight. Gets shined on the path, right? When you know very clearly where you want to go and how you want to get there, it becomes really easy to decide , what am I gonna do? Where? Where do I need to go? What are the things that are gonna move me closer to that? And what are the things that are distractions? What are the things that are just busy work? What are the things that are keeping me from going where I wanna go?, Yeah, I think there's a good example I know, , I've often spoke about in the pa in the past, , so if you decide you're gonna run a marathon you say you first of all, you go, okay, I'm,, I'm not gonna run that tomorrow, so maybe I'm going to push it out and pick sometime in the future, six or nine months out. And then you sit down and you go, what do I have to do every single week to get me closer to running that marathon? Yeah., And \, it's, you need to do the same for your business. You do, , and , when you're looking at that, with your marathon example, it's the, what do I have to do , and when in my day am I gonna do that? Okay. If I need to go for a long run, where does that fit into my week? If you need to go do a 10 or 15 mile run, that takes a lot of time., it gotta come home. You're gonna shower, you're gonna stretch you, , there's a lot that goes into it. You've gotta plan your route., You're not just gonna , go out and run and go oh, my watch says it was 15 miles. I guess I can stop now., And you're on the other side of town. There's a lot that goes into it., , and you're gonna likely give up some things in order to make time to, run the marathon , and to train for the marathon. and , one of the things that I think is super important about this whole process is this act of deciding. And I love the word decide because the root of it means to cut out or cut away. And so deciding is. Saying, this is what I want, and then here's all this stuff that doesn't fit that I'm gonna say no to, because I wanna say yes to this other thing., Like , this weekend , I'm gonna go play golf on Saturday,, with a big group and it's an all day adventure. So me seeing yes. To playing golf. Deciding to do that means that there's a whole list of other things I'm not gonna do on Saturday, right? Lots of other hobbies. I'm not gonna go kayaking, I'm not gonna go work in my workshop. I'm not gonna go out in the garden. I'm not gonna go for a bike ride. and it's the same thing with all of our goals. And when we get really clear on what we deeply want. We don't get distracted by the, oh, I could do these other things. This is, we stay focused on the stuff that really fulfills us. Okay. So I know you've designed a system that people can do all their planning on one sheet of paper. Yeah., Can you tell us a little bit more about that?'cause I think the timing is absolutely right, right now for looking towards the next year. Yeah. So any, and I said even if you're tuning in a few months time. This is a daily success checklist you talk about, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah., We, , I always look at where do I wanna be in three years?, And I start with what age am I gonna be in three years? Because I think we attach more meaning to age than we do to just oh, three years from now, , you are like, oh, in the year 3028, it's that doesn't mean anything. But if I look at my age, it's oh, , me as a human at this age, okay where do I really wanna be? and looking at, , from a business standpoint, how much revenue does the business need to bring in, and how much of that revenue is gonna go in my pocket? And , I'm a big fan of, , Mike Michalowicz's, profit First. Let's take the revenue. Minus what I want to have as my income and what's left is what I have to run the business on., And oftentimes, , we do that the other way , and we just try to live on what's left. so we start out, , three years from now, where do I wanna be , and how much time do I really want to be working in the business? Do I wanna be working three days a week or four days a week? How much vacation time do I wanna have? Really. True vacation time., I just got back from , a two week vacation and I, one of the things that I do on vacation now is I delete my work email from my phone, so I can't check it. I could log in to Gmail and,, but I'd have to work at it. It's not just click, there it is. So really looking at that vacation time. So we look out three years, then we come back and we go, okay, in the next 12 months, where do I want to be? And, we get hung up on this planning at the end of the year thing, , you can start in May and just look at the next 12 months from May. I a rolling 12 months. Versus just this, , definitive point in time and I either made it or I didn't, , and it's all based on the calendar year and blah, blah., So anyway, , getting down to, our one year, and then one of the things , that I think is really critical as we look at, how am I gonna achieve these goals, is to ask ourselves what has to change in my business? If I'm going to now have this new income, right? If I'm gonna generate this new revenue, what has to be different and where do I really need to lean in and double my efforts? And what is all the stuff I need to stop doing, right? What is all the stuff that's like now that's not yielding results, that's gotta go away? And those changes then become projects. So it's okay, if I need to generate more leads, right? If that's a, , that's always a big thing for folks. Then I need to look at that lead gen and say, okay, one of the projects is I need to figure out what my lead generation strategy is gonna be. How much am I going to invest in social media? How much am I gonna invest in my email marketing? How much am I gonna invest in all, , in networking or joint venture partnerships or whatever,, and that becomes a project. And then those projects. Can get broken down into individual tasks. And those tasks are what go on that daily, , success checklist because it's what am I gonna do today? As part of that whole process, one of the things that we also look at is,, okay, , if these are the goals that I wanna achieve, and these are all the projects that I need to get done, the changes I need to make, what's gonna get in the way? What are the obstacles? And let me. Anticipate what those obstacles could be so that I can have a plan for them if they should arise., If I'm gonna go on , a long road trip in my car, I'm gonna make sure that, , my spare tire is inflated., If I'm gonna be driving,, in the winter or out in the mountains, I'm gonna make sure that, , I've got a,, a warm blanket in case the car breaks down, these are things that we plan for., And we wanna do the same thing in the business. And we wanna look at not just , the things that can happen externally, , all of , the geopolitical change and economic change and all of this good stuff, but also what are my own internal obstacles? What are the things that have held me back in the past? What are the mental blocks? What are , the challenges? What are the things that I don't know that I'm gonna have to invest in learning? If I'm part of my lead generation strategy is I really want to dig deep into LinkedIn. If I don't know how to do that, one of the obstacles is. I don't know how to do that. I need to figure out where am I gonna go get some education about how to do this strategy and how to implement it and how to spend my time and how long things are gonna take and what my, , my return,, my expected return is., So those are some of the things that, that we put on that one sheet of paper. We also add in, , , our core values., I also like to put bucket list items. On , that sheet, and look at what bucket list items am I gonna check off this year? So not waiting until, , I'm retired, but what am I gonna do this year?, I said I just came back , from a couple weeks of travel., One of my bucket list items was I asked my dad, I said,, where's some place that you've wanted to go that you just never got around to going? And he said. He always wanted to go to Europe and do like a World War II tour and go to Normandy and go to Boston , and go to Munich and follow in his father's footsteps. And so I was like, great, that's my bucket list item for this year. And that went on the plan and we checked it off. We spent two weeks in Europe together. And because it was on the plan. I was able to budget for the tour and budget for the airfare.'cause my dad's 77, my dad's not flying coach. Like just no, dad's sitting in the front of the plane. This is how we, so budgeting and all of that, but putting it in the plan made it real. Yeah. Yeah. It wasn't a someday thing and I'm, I am best the sense of achievement of when you tick that off and you go, whoa. It's so gratifying to, to do the big things every year, and every year there's new bucket list stuff. There are new things that are just those big adventures that are so easy to put off. And, none of us know how long we have to do all this fun stuff, so let's do it now. So that's why I think that it's a business plan, but bucket list stuff goes on it. Of course. Yeah. And I like how you tie it all together. And have you got like any examples of businesses who have actually transformed their lives by using this approach? Yeah. I, one of my favorite examples is actually a one of my very first clients and he runs an IT company. So he does networks and wifi and stuff for other businesses, and when I met him he was working really hard. He'd been in business about 10 years, but he was struggling. He was spending a lot more than he was making. He was, pouring money into advertising and all sorts of stuff, and it just wasn't working. And he was really behind the eight ball. He was pretty deep in debt and pretty tired. And so he, we laid out everything on the one sheet of paper. And then he just went to work and he said, my day's really simple. If it's on my plan, I do it. If it's not, I don't. And he said, all this noise that comes in. He just kinda looks at it and goes like this on my plan, Nope, answers no. Maybe next year. And he executed his plan and at the end of that year, he had paid off absolutely all of his debt. Back taxes, the whole nine yards. For the first time in 10 years, he took his wife on a two week vacation. They went on a cruise, which is the thing they love to do. And he, we. Redid the plan and within three years he was no longer working in the business. He had hired people to run the business for him. He was doing the stuff that he loved to do, which is teaching other people how to run that kind of a business. He became chief of his volunteer fire department and , he likes to race. Junky cars I call them junky cars. He doesn't call them junky cars. He, the business is still running without him his revenue went up 400%. And he's just happy as glam. He is just doing all the things that are fun for him. He recently just started another business doing I don't even know what to call it. He's like a barbecue guy. Like he's got these big smokers and they like goes to all of these things and cooks barbecue for people. Okay. But it, these are his dreams. These are his things that he's loving to do. And the business is what funds them. And it all goes back to every year he is got a plan, and if it's on the plan, he does it. If it's not on the plan, he doesn't Yeah. And it keeps him focused. It makes such sense. And so tell me when people fill out, like I downloaded and I know we have this gift for everybody here. Tuning in of the daily success checklist. Yeah. That's the gift. And I've downloaded it. I'm looking at it here and I watched your video on how to actually, how to fill it out, which I thought was really excellent and I really enjoyed it. Thank you. But it did occur to me like and I know people will see this., People like, obviously when they fill this in every single day,, does anybody like go back then and even put, upload all of the sheets to AI and ask for, tell me what you're l what, what you're learning from this? Or can you gimme any suggestions? Has anyone ever done that?'cause that was the first thing they haven't, but that's a fabulous idea. I love that idea.'cause people ask me all the time what do you do with them when. When you've completed them. And I'm like, I don't know. I've always just thrown them away. I keep them for about a month just because I keep 'em in a binder and I just flip the page over every day. And at the end of the month I chuck 'em. But I love the idea of uploading them and say give me some insights into, where I've been investing my time. There's a section at the end in the reflections column about gratitude. Are there any trends there? I think that'd be really cool to get some insights from that. I love that idea. Thank you. Yeah, it'd be, and actually it would be so good if you had a lot of your, , people who have your customers who use this to come back and do it.'cause you could then, I'm sure you could pull so much. Interesting. I love that. In interesting information out of it. Yeah and are you using AI in any other ways then? Laura? I love AI for analysis, and I tell you one of the things that I use it for a lot and it's a silly little thing. We gather lots of customer data. To understand where people are, what they're trying to do. I love AI for repackaging and pulling out themes, et cetera. One of the things we use AI for we have our clients do is we have them interview people in their target audience. And then we pull all of that together analyze that data, come up with the key themes and then actually we'll often use AI to take that data and write an article with it, because now they've got, some source material, they've got original research, and it can really help position them as an expert. One of the things I used AI for yesterday was I was putting together a training. And I needed some examples and it was a fairly, I just doing a training on the buyer's journey. And so we were talking about awareness and consideration decision and all the questions that need to be answered. And so I just threw all of that into AI and said, Hey, give me an example walk through all of this for me with these different types of businesses. It took five minutes to do that, it would've taken me a ridiculously long time to answer all that stuff myself. I know. It just save you a huge amount of time. And so have you. So we're coming to the end of the year. I know. We have this gift for everybody. So can you tell us how we find the Daily success checklist? We will be putting the link in the show notes. Yep. You can go to our website, simple success plans.com. If you do forward slash checklist. It'll take you right to the page. It'll also be on the homepage. We also have a, our free resources section. You'll see it in there. So there's lots of different places to get to it. And our website it's our main gift that we like to give people because it's so immediately actionable. And I get so many emails from people going, oh my God, I use it every single day. I am getting so much stuff done. Yeah, I would say. Yeah, progress. I'd say that's the difference between having it and not having it, is that you make so much more progress because it's like running the marathon, yeah. Exactly. You're shining the spotlight and where you want to go and how you're going to do it, and what you've got to do and what you've got to not do, and what you've got to make time for. So I love that, , how it all ties in. Laura, thank you so much for coming on the show and for sharing this wonderful tool with us. Check out the daily success checklist. I'm sure it's gonna transform how you work in 2026. And Laura if people want to reach out and connect with you, where's the best place to find you? Hit me up on email, truly. Just drop in my inbox, Laura, at simple success plans.com. I still run my own inbox and I look through. Everything. Because I like engaging with folks. I like having conversations and so yeah, just reach out, ask questions, what are we can do to help? Fantastic. Now she will be checking your email apart from when she's on vacation. I'm very impressed by that. Thanks so much again, Laura, for being on the show. I really enjoyed our conversation. Thanks for having me, Louise. Appreciate it.