When I talk to clients about their goals, one of the missing pieces tends to be an action plan. 

They have their vision, but what’s unclear is how they’re going to (realistically) get there with their current resources. 

An action plan breaks down each goal you have into parts, taking you step-by-step closer to meeting the goal. 

Let’s explore this with a basic example of some short-term goals that are connected, with moving parts.  

Jane Smith owns a service-based business that provides technology implementation services and training to her clients. In Q1 of 2025, she wants to roll out a new workshop to her audience and bring in $3,000 in revenue. 

Some essential facts about Jane’s business:

• She’s fairly new to running workshops, but she’s introducing a new service to capture some of the frustrated DIYers for her done-for-you business. It’s a smart idea that helps her provide training that even existing clients may benefit from.

• At 500 subscribers, her email list isn’t huge. Her social media following is also fairly small, but they’re engaged, and she’s got a large in-person network she can share with.

• Her first workshop, which was held a year ago, had 12 attendees, but she’s hoping to get 20 signed up this time.

• Instead of doing an in-person workshop, she’s opted to do it virtually so she can record and provide the video to attendees to rewatch.

If you break it down, here’s what achieving her goal of making $3,000 looks like. 

Define the problem being solved and why people care

The most important question in marketing is “why.” Jane already answered that one – she’s hosting this workshop with a clear financial goal in mind for herself, and a new service offering that should appeal to her ideal audience. 

Now she needs to answer the next two important questions that her audience is going to ask:

1. So what? 

2. What’s in it for me?

Jane can plan her workshop, have a beautiful presentation deck, and prepare a clear outline of how the event will flow, but if no one buys or shows up, this is wasted effort. 

She needs to confirm that her workshop (and offerings beyond the workshop) are solving a point of friction that her audience needs support with badly enough that they’re willing to spend money AND time on it. Beyond that, Jane has to be able to communicate these selling points simply and succinctly.

Jane’s not a newbie, so she’s talked to clients and her business network, who all agree she’s onto something good. It’s a small test, but it’s enough data collection that she's confident to keep moving forward. 

Those conversations even helped her with some of the answers as to why people should care and what they want out of the workshop.

If she wanted to gauge her audience interest even more, she could send out an email survey, or put a poll on her Instagram stories with relevant questions and feedback requests. 

Send the right message with your price

A key component of the sales process is pricing decisions. 

At first glance, the math looks simple. Divide $3,000 by 20 and you get $150/person. Easy peasy, right? 

But Jane also needs to consider:

• Will she offer an early bird pricing rate? How will it differ from her regular pricing?

• What if she doesn't quite get 20 people signed up? 

• What if the value of the workshop is more than $150? 

Here’s where Jane needs to consider whether it’s more important to bring in 20 people or $3,000. 

These are two worthy goals, but they may conflict if:

A. The workshop is underpriced for its value and perceived as not substantive to her ideal clients.

B. The workshop is priced so high that the pool of people willing to pay for it within her current audience is too low to hit her goal.

C. The workshop garners so many sign-ups that once on the call attendees don’t feel seen or heard (which may impact Jane’s goal of finding people to work with her beyond the workshop).

Pricing sends a message, but you want it to be the right message. 

I tell my clients often that free is too expensive. I learned that lesson the hard way (as so many of us do). Even a low price can end up costing you depending on the value of the offer, and the audience it’s going to attract. 

There is a delicate balancing act when setting the price for the client you want. 

Jane needs to know her ideal client (the done-for-you (DFY) client she’s hoping to work with after the workshop) has the means to afford it, while not setting it too high for the DIYers who can still learn something valuable while filling out gaps in the room.

Since this is only Jane’s second workshop, she might not have found the sweet spot on the sliding scale of value and price just yet. But thinking it through in this context will help (as well as knowing she can always adjust appropriately for future sessions). 

Other considerations when it comes to Jane’s pricing include:

• Her hourly rate (an hourly rate isn’t necessarily a good pricing model but can be a helpful starting point for determining flat product or service rates). Consider,

• How long she’s spent crafting her skills (courses, education, years of experience, etc.)

• How long it took to put together the workshop

• Time spent creating and delivering promotional materials to encourage sign-ups 

• How much time will go into delivering the workshop (think prep-time before, Q&A after, email back-and-forth with attendees, etc.)

• Her values 

• Any tools or software she is paying for to create or deliver the offer

• Vacation, health, insurance, benefits, and sick pay (these should play a role in all financial business goals and strategies because you have to pay out of pocket for them as an entrepreneur!)

• Her business growth goals and motivations

• Her profit margins and profit goals (making enough so you she is able to sustain her business and lifestyle long-term, while avoiding burnout)

When it comes to the number of attendees, Jane might want to consider: 

• The level of interaction and engagement she’s hoping for from attendees

• The format and duration of the workshop

• Platform capabilities or restrictions

• Facilitation resources (will she be monitoring the chat and/or questions alone?)

Balancing each of these insights, goals, and desires with her client’s needs can be a challenge, but there is always a common ground to be found. 

Spread the word intentionally

Raise your hand if you’ve ever decided to do something, announce that it’s happening, and then forget to promote it regularly because you didn’t create a plan in advance.

Me. I’ve done this. And I absolutely know better!

So, when I say Jane shouldn’t do this, I say it from first-hand experience. Slapdash promotion will never lead to a successful sales outcome. At most it will lead to a couple of sign-ups here and there – numbers which may or may not justify hosting the workshop or putting the offer out into the world.

Instead, Jane needs to create an integrated promotional plan in advance that:

• Includes all of the relevant channels to target and show up on consistently to promote the workshop. These channels should be all of the places her ideal clients are regularly interacting with so they are likely to see the information.

• Reminds people more than once, twice, or three times that this workshop is coming, in a variety of ways, spread out over time.  

• Tells them to sign up—not just that the workshop is happening. (Humans, am I right?) There needs to be a clear CTA for people to follow-though on! Implementing early bird pricing or adding bonuses for the first few sign-ups can help evoke a sense of urgency with audiences. 

• Has a clear sign-up or purchase process to create a seamless customer experience (consider automation here). There’s nothing worse than purchasing something and then feeling uncertain about what happens next. Jane needs to outline her customer funnel clearly to include a purchase confirmation or acknowledgement email, clear next steps regarding timeline or workshop access, and regular updates with relevant links or calendar invites.

• Reaches audiences beyond her own. Jane could use event listings, or promote her workshop through friends, clients, and attendees to boost numbers.

• Demonstrates clear and tangible benefits of attending so people feel compelled to purchase. 

Remember that Jane also wants to try to leverage the workshop into some done-for-you clients. So, she’s also going to need to have a post-workshop follow-up plan taking into account:

• The people who signed up seem like a good fit for the DFY services.

• The kinds of reactions and challenges that come up for these attendees during the workshop. 

• Any unexpected opportunities she saw from other folks who attended the workshop. 

Based on these insights, Jane can put together a standard follow-up for everyone to get feedback and provide resources from the workshop. In addition, she can create a custom outreach plan for the folks who seem like a good fit for her new services. 

Like any service provider, she’s also going to be listening and learning about the people in the room to help inspire future relevant offers.  

Bonus: Set boundaries around preparation and promotion

This is just one workshop, which offers a springboard to other ways Jane can engage with customers and potential customers. 

With her top outcomes for attendees as a guide, Jane needs to set aside a reasonable amount of time to prepare and promote the workshop. 

Every minute a business owner spends working on something that has smaller returns (even if it’s valuable) is time they can’t spend on higher-return activities. 

The beauty of any workshop is the ability to iterate on it over time. Perfect is the enemy of done and Jane has the kind of expertise that’s going to make this workshop a win for attendees no matter how long she spends prepping for it. 

Full disclosure: I’m including this admonition as a recovering perfectionist who can’t help but over prepare for everything. 

Implementing clear boundaries around your work can help you protect your time, energy and resources, ensuring you’re building a truly sustainable business.

The small steps you take lead you to achieve your goals

Focus on the steps you CAN control. Jane can’t control how many people attend her workshop. 

But there are quite a few things she can do in the planning and preparation process to attract leads and maximize sign-ups to reach her goal. 

And, beyond the numbers, intentional planning and preparation can help ensure she’s able to deliver an impactful workshop regardless of the audience size. 

This looks like everything we’ve talked about:  

☐ Setting clear, realistic goals

☐ Creating an impactful offer that solves an issue or pain point her ideal audience is struggling with

☐ Outlining the marketing efforts that will help her attract as many relevant leads as she can – and committing to seeing these efforts through

☐ Reviewing the history of her lead sourcing and where the most valuable leads came from to lean into those sources

☐ Preserving time in her schedule for workshop promotion, preparation and delivery, as well as post-workshop follow-up

☐ Pricing the workshop appropriately 

☐ Consistently show up to promote the workshop within her network and digital marketing channels 

☐ Encouraging sign-ups and sharing through perks like early bird discounts or additional bonuses

☐ Creating a clear and streamlined customer journey for her audience to flow through

I used to find it hard to set goals because I’m a big-picture thinker and my brain doesn’t naturally break things down into the parts right away. So, big goals created big overwhelm. 

What I’ve learned is that it’s so much easier to think about the big picture when you can zoom in on the path you’re taking to get to your destination. 

Jane’s workshop is a small example of what you can do for your business, whether the revenue amount is $100K or $1M. The bigger the goal, the more steps and moving parts there will be, but the principle is the same at scale.

Each action is one dot on the line from here to your goal. That clarity makes all the difference when you’ve got so much going on in your business and life.