10 Things I Do Every January To Set Up My Year For Success

Ok so the xmas headache is hopefully wearing off, only for the doom-pile of back-logged worked to hit you, right?!

In this blog, I’m going to share the top 10 things I do every single January to make sure that my year ahead is as set us as possible for success,

Firstly, success isn’t ‘luck’, it’s just many repeated years of consistent and persistent learning, implementation and re-working.

In 2023 I became the ‘Female Entrepreneur of The Year 2023’, scooped up over 6 major industry awards for my training programs, growth and tech, and snagged a formal market valuation of my businesses at $15million.

After 15 years of being in business, I have learned that the greatest trajectory often comes from the simplest repeated actions, rather than the giant projects we think we need to embark on. 

Here are 10 of the habits that I ensure get my attention at the beginning of every year.

(By the way, if you want some help figuring out what to do next in your business, then take my FREE quiz ‘What Should You Do Next In Your Business’ here: https://sarahcordiner.com/focus-quiz/ )

1. Review The Current Cash Situation

I know, I know BORRRIIIING!  

It’s essential to know which of your products are services have bben making you money, and which ones are draining your accounts, so that you can adjust your offers for the coming year.

If you made a loss or broke even last year, you may need to consider doing some of the following this coming year:

• Increase your prices 
• Add another product, service or income stream
• Change the way you deliver or fulfill existing products or services to make it more automated, streamlined, cheaper to produce etc
• Duplicate your IP in a new format, eg turn in-person consulting into a self-study online course

In the ‘Monetisation’ section of my ‘Legends Lab’, we cover how to monetise your IP, packaging up your products and services and pricing it properly.  

Check out The Legends Lab here: https://sarahcordiner.com/legends 

If you need to make some quick cash right now, I have a free YouTube video below that will give you some ideas of things you could do right now to bring in some quick cash flow:

2. Create Your ONE Big Goal For This Year

What is the ONE goal that you will focus on this year above all else?

If you were only allowed to succeed in achieving ONE thing in the next 12 months, what would that ONE thing be?

I call this the ‘OBT’ (One Big Thing), which I came up with after reading the book ‘The One Thing’ back in about 2015.

The more concentrated your attention is on something, the more powerful the energy, flow, movement and momentum will forge behind it, and the more likely you’ll be to succeed. 

I truly put my success down to this laser-focus on ONE clear OBT each and every year.

It stops me getting distracted, or trying to do everything. 

Pick ONE thing, make it measurable, write it in ONE sentence and stick to it all year.

You’ll be amazed what kind of results a hyper-focussed approach like this will harvest in your business.

There are no rules.

You can create whatever goal you like.

You are the ONLY person who gets to live your life.

Mine is simply:

“To have X number of monthly subscribers in my membership (which means $X of monthly recurring revenue)”.

And thats been my OBT and measure-stick of my business health for a decade. 

Everything I do.  

EVERYTHING.

Leads to that goal.

So what’s YOUR OBT?

Is it a certain annual revenue?

Number of students on your courses?

Number of speaking gigs?

A published book?

Launching a membership?

A certain monthly recurring revenue?

Make sure it can be measured, then divided by 12, so that you know how many/much of that you need to achieve each month to get there.

Then measure your progress weekly.

My workshop ‘Map Your Magic 2024’ will help you unpack this further, check it out here: https://sarahcordiner.com/map-your-magic-2024/ 

3. Put YOUR Profit First 

When I first started out in business over 15 years ago, it was ironically my success that caused my first downfall.

I’d never been taught about ‘bucketing’ every single bit of income you get, to ensure that you have money for your wages, your bills, your taxes, your Super/Retirement contributions, and your savings.

So like most new business owners who have never been taught commercial financial literacy, I just spent what I had and then panicked like a maniac when that first huge tax bill came through that I couldn’t afford; and spent my first year-end in business with a high 5-figure tax debt.  

That was a fast and painful lesson for me and I knew I had to ensure it never happened again.

I immediately went to my bank, opened a couple of other bank accounts and started to ‘syphon’ every bit of income into separate accounts to ensure I always had enough money to pay myself AND my taxes UPFRONT.

A few years later, a couple of books came out that use similar principles of ‘bucketing’ like this. Which I read cover-to-cover and upgraded my bucket system again.

It has NEVER failed me and I swear by this simple, but effective method of managing money. 

The books are called ‘Profit First’ and ‘Barefoot Investor’. 

Here is the basic concept of bucketing:

1. Set-up separate bank accounts where you will distribute your business income every week.
2. Determine what percentages you will distribute to each one based on your unique circumstances, what the tax rates are in your country and what tax bracket you are personally in.

Every business will have different percentages, but the goal is to reduce the expenses one and increase the others over time.

Here is an example of a bucketed bank account:

**This is NOT financial advice, it is just to provide an example for conceptual illustration. Please speak to a CPA Account.

Revenue Account: 100% (all income from every source goes in here. Then every week, it is split into the business’ various accounts, such as the fictitious example below)

• Operating Expense Account: 40% of revenue goes here weekly to pay all bills, all expenses and weekly wages, including the business owners weekly wages.
• Tax Savings Account: 40% of the income goes here weekly. Consider over-paying into this account so theres always a surplus at the end of the year which can roll over for a rainy day, or move to the ‘Owner Dividends’ account at the end of the year. Consider paying your tax in advance, or at minimum quarterly to avoid big end of year bills.
• Owners Dividends/Profits Account: 5% goes here each week, and accumulates all year. Your accountant can advise you the best way to utilise it and the end of the financial year.
• General Savings Account: 5% goes here each week, and accumulates all year. Your accountant can advise you the best way to utilise it and the end of the financial year.

If your ‘operating expenses’ account doesn’t have enough left in it to pay your bills etc, then you need to reduce your expenses – NOT take from your wages, taxes or profits.

Call your accountant and ask them to help you set up your buckets based on your situation.  The future you will thank you.

4. Update Your 90-Day Plan

Every OBT needs an execution plan, but a YEAR is waaayyy to long.

We need to break up that OBT into 90-day periods if we want to win.

After reading the book ‘The 12 Week Year’ a few years ago, I realised that breaking down my tasks into an entire year just made the deadline feel too far away and the task too big to chew.

So I break down my year into 90-day segments, and have a clear plan of exactly what I need to do to make my OBT happen.

This 90-Day Plan gets printed, sits on my desk infront of me and every single day I focus on checking off something on the 90-Day Plan to keep me focussed and always moving towards my OBT.

You can download my 90-Day Plan Template in my ‘Map Your Magic 2024’ workshop (and much more in The Legends Lab).

5. Send an Email To Your List With a ‘Year Round-Up’

Content is not a one-hit-wonder.  

It should keep on working for you forever.

Select your top 10 blog posts, social media posts, podcast episodes, webinars etc and send them out to your list in case they missed the best things that you produced in the year just gone.

Don’t forget to add a link to your most popular course, service or offer of the year too – you’ll be amazed at the re-engagement and even a bump in sales that could come from a re-send. 

6. Publish Your Major Events for This Year

Sit down and write down ONE event, course, challenge, workshop, promotion or ‘thing’ that you are going to run for each month of the next 12 months.

Announce them to the world and start getting leads NOW.

Here are some ways you can do this:

1. Create an event on your Facebook and LinkedIn business pages for each one
2. Publish the events on your ‘Events’ tab on your website
3. Add them to a public events directory such as ‘Eventbrite’.

The further in advance that you start promoting your events, the more time you have to accumulate interest and sign-ups. 

7. Update Your Bios, Link Page, Website & Sales Pages

You’ll be amazed how much changes in a year.

Do a quick review of the following to make sure you’re all up to date:

Social Media Bios:

• Update your bio information, contact info & links
• You have a clear call to action and opt-in on your bios or pinned posts
• Add a Link Page to your various offers 

How to create a Link Page:

Website / Landing Pages:

• Copy / writing / language
• Pricing
• Links
• Any statistics, numbers, references
• Terms of Use, Refund & Privacy Policies
• Your ‘about you’ section
• Contact information
• Branding

In the ‘Tech & Automation’ section of The Legends Lab, I teach you HOW to get all of your tech running and scaling your business on auto-pilot.  Check out The Legends Lab here: https://sarahcordiner.com/legends  

8. Create a 12 Month Content Plan

Content is King.

I got my first million dollars and 32,000 students without spending a single cent on paid advertising.  

I now have over 280k student enrolments and only 11,000 of them came from paid ads (before my ads account got suspended following a hacking).

I did it all with purely organic marketing – content.

Livestreams, blogs, videos, social media content, podcasting, guest writing etc.

Now that you have a plan of your events for the year, you can plan what content you will create each month based around your upcoming event topics.

In the ‘Visibility’ section of my ‘Legends Lab’ we cover how to create content, how to get noticed on social media, how to livestream and much more to stand out in your industry. 

Check out The Legends Lab here: https://sarahcordiner.com/legends  

9. Eliminate, Automate and Then Delegate

Most of us are wasting precious time either doing things that somebody else could be doing better than us, or that shouldn’t be done at all.

The first thing I do when I look at my 90-Day Plan, is ask myself ‘what can be DELETED’ from this action plan?

If there is anything on your tasks list that doesn’t directly help you achieve your OBT, then you need to delete it because it’s just taking you off-course. 

Then, I ask myself ‘what on this list is something that must be done more than once?’

If there is ANYTHING that you do more than ONCE in your business, that isn’t creating your content, you really should consider outsourcing it or employing staff.

It’s the only way to make yourself free to earn money.

Keep a diary of everything you do for a week.

Film or write the instructions for exactly how you do it.

Hire a virtual assistant or contractor to do it for you from this moment on.

It will change your life!!

In my ‘Organisation’ section of my Legends Lab, I walk you through how to systemise your business, hire VAs, organise your team tasks and give yourself time freedom whilst scaling your business.  Check out The Legends Lab here: https://sarahcordiner.com/legends   

10. Clean Your Work Space & Inbox

A clean desk is a clear mind.

A clear inbox is a productive entrepreneur.

So first, clean your desk.

Then clean your entire office space. 

Throw away EVERYTHING that isn’t critically necessary for your business to run, or, as Marie Kondo would say “doesn’t bring you absolute joy”.

Then, go to your email inbox and archive EVERYTHING.

If the email is related to a task that needs doing, create a task board called ‘To-Do List’, put the task in there and clear the email from your inbox.

If the email needs replying to, reply and archive it.

Then, unsubscribe from the junk (not me of course! haha).  

Clearing your physical and digital space has been proven to have a positive psychological effect and I also believe opens up energetic flow around you.  When I feel blocked, simply clearing my space starts to get my thoughts flowing again. 

Conclusion

So there you go, 10 simple things that you can do right NOW to start the next 12-month off with a fabulous kick-start!

I really hope that you found this helpful – and if you did, it would mean so much to me if you would share this article on your social media.

Meanwhile, if you really are committed to growing in the next 12 months, do consider becoming a member of The Legends Lab where you will learn how to become a stand-out expert in your industry. 

Best wishes for your success,

Sarah x

*Disclaimer: The contents of this post and website on sarahcordiner.com is purely for information and is not financial or legal advice.