How to Create your Roadmap and Income Stacking Strategy

I am so excited to share this special surprise with you. Over the next 3 blog posts, we are rolling out a special series called “Strategy Made Simple”. 

Here’s why. 

I often get asked what makes me different as a coach. My brain automatically goes into corporate speak. I could tell you that I have a 20 year corporate background, an actual master's degree in strategy (I joke that going to business school while working full time was harder than having twins), I am all kinds of certified, PMP, ADKAR, SCRUM, SIX SIGMA…and have even traveled the world implementing strategy for Fortune 500 companies. But for some reason after the second certification, people tend to zone out. Ha. 

You have heard my story and from my clients, so what I thought would be even better than that is to take you instead into how I teach strategy. I don’t have a course on this because honestly I don’t love courses and prefer the community model (our entire product suite is built around the club and mastermind). I like to teach and teach it live!

SO, in celebrating the doors opening to the Collective mastermind, the next three blog posts will be strategy lessons that my mastermind members have learned over the years that you can apply, too. This is not taught anywhere else. Just for you. 

How to Create your Roadmap and Income Stacking Strategy. 

Lesson one is all about figuring out your path forward and then coming up with an income plan, both in the short term and long term.  

If you have chatted with me about the mastermind in the past, this is the very first question I ask you when we have our 1:1. Do you know where you want to go? You don’t need to know how to get there, but can you do what you are doing now and what needs to change? 

A lot of times clients come to me with a solid business plan and are ready to scale, but once we dig deeper they really don’t enjoy what they are doing. Or, maybe their business is thriving but they are burnt out and loathe every day. That isn’t something that you want to continue on for the next 3-5 years. 

Step One: Create your Roadmap

Coming up with your roadmap for step one is actually the fun part. Give yourself some white space. A quiet few hours and daydream. Brainstorm. Yes, this is the strategy. Think about, what do you LOVE doing? Who do you like teaching?  The #1 rule here is to NOT figure out all the next steps, but rather just to let it flow. 

I love the quote, “Rowing harder doesn’t help if the boat is headed in the wrong direction”. When I started my business, I felt like all I did was spend time on social media and no one was listening. I “worked harder” and nothing happened.

*Insert me rowing upstream.*

When I slowed down and thought about what I really liked and then changed my business to support that and you (my clients), the rowing actually got easier and we turned the boat around to go in the right direction. 

So if you feel like you are rowing upstream, slow down and ask yourself, where do you want to go? And what do you really want to do? Your life is worth slowing down to figure out. I assure you that every day should not feel difficult.

You have your vision, now what?

After you have a clearer vision, we layer on some tactics. In the mastermind, this is usually when I break out the flow chart and ask, what is your customer journey? You've visualized your perfect client and the results you want to get them, but what is their interaction with you? I actually created an entire module in our mastermind around developing this, but essentially think of your customer journey and ultimately how you are going to make money in your dream job as an upside-down triangle.

The top of the triangle is free content. And since it is upside down, it is the largest piece of the triangle. It's the base. In general, free value-added content should be your base. Always. It is how you are establishing yourself as an expert.

 Create your Freebie

After you create your vision, creating a free resource is a great next step because it allows you to test out what you think your clients want vs what they actually want. If you are feeling stuck in your business, take a look at your value-added resources. 

Back to the triangle, the middle is your mid to low-ticket offers and the bottom is your high-ticket offer. 

Here’s where people complicate this: they think they have to develop this all at once. 

You do not. 

Do you love these tips? Take the Productivity Personality Quiz to get a Netflix-style binge-worthy resource list to help you find your focus and is customized to you! Take the quiz here. 

One Step at a Time

Instead, the trick to keeping this roadmap and income stacking simple is to map it out but implement it step by step. 

As an example, let’s say we map out your customer journey and various income-generating activities in the triangle. Then we go back and look at the vision and say, what is your goal both short and long term? 

If it is income, my recommendation may be to start with the bottom of the upside-down triangle which is higher ticket items. If it is building an audience, I may recommend a freebie launch which is the top of the upside triangle. Or, we may do something in between. The trick is that the strategy is simple and by being a part of a community, mastermind, etc. we can customize it to you. 

And since you asked yourself the question at the beginning about what your vision was, mapping out your customer roadmap (aka income stacking strategy or customer journey) is going to allow you to develop programs and products that flow together so much easier. 

One of my favorite strategy quotes is by Jeff Bezos. He says, "Be stubborn about the vision but flexible on the details." So take the time to really think about what you are working towards and then create your roadmap (triangle in this case) to support the details. The details can change but that triangle is always pointing towards the vision. 

I hope you try this exercise and realize that it is helpful in whatever phase of business you are in! Tag me in DMS and share what your vision and customer journey look like!

Next week we are digging into our second lesson which is the power of copy and making your customer journey come to life through powerful communication tools! Get excited!

P.s Do you love this new series? Share it with a friend as we don't want them to miss the next few posts!

Looking for more on this topic and your High-Level Action items? Check out the Strategy Lab in the Crush the Rush Club!