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We can’t wait to share a behind-the-scenes look at our annual business planning meeting for Duo. We did this a few weeks ago to plan for 2025. It’s the first time we set aside time to discuss how we want to plan the next year for Duo. It was so nice to have dedicated time to talk about our goals, plans, and ideas for the next year. We have learned a lot of lessons over the years!
We decided that this business planning meeting had to be somewhere other than our houses. We needed to get out of our routines and into a creative space. We decided to keep it close to home, especially this first year, to see how it would go, and that was a good decision for us.
So we want to give you a peek behind the scenes of why we did this, how to plan a successful meeting, and some things we talked about!
Why Have a Business Planning Meeting?
A business planning meeting is like a CEO Day on steroids! As a solopreneur, it might be hard to envision doing this meeting. But regardless of whether you’re a one-person team, a business partnership, or a ten-person team, this is 100% something you can and should do.
The main reason we decided to have a business planning meeting is to get clarity on what we’re doing. Clarity on our brand strategy, the goals we have for next year (personally and professionally), our finances, our services, our boundaries… When you actually write these things down, you’re so much more likely to stick to them. Use a pen and paper for this activity!
This meeting is your chance to make sure you have a strong foundation for your business and where you want to go. We spent a lot of time refining our brand strategy and this is what gave us the most clarity.
During this meeting, you can set real goals and give yourself a chance to compare progress next year. We love the idea of being able to look back on this meeting in 2025 and see how far we’ve come and the goals we met. It’s a tangible way to review your progress and growth.
Tips for Planning a Successful Meeting
We talked in episode #133 about how we were totally anti-meetings when we first started Duo, but over time, we realized meetings were crucial to our success. So we have slowly been adding regular meetings back into our calendars and this one for sure made the list. So how do you have a successful meeting?
Make an agenda
Court created the agenda for this meeting and she crushed it! We collaborated on the things we needed to talk about but she put a schedule together in a way that flowed.
And don’t forget the little things! Account for travel time, lunch breaks, a grocery run, trash TV breaks, etc. While this meeting should be productive, it should also be fun!
Sprinkle in creative moments
Creative moments are so important in a business planning meeting. We did this thing called speed brainstorming where we set a timer for 5 minutes and brain-dumped about anything and everything for Duo. It’s actually amazing what we came up with!
Come prepared
As much as possible, avoid doing a Target run for supplies. Come prepared with things you need to stay creative and productive. For us, that looked like big sticky notes to get us off our computers. Speaking of, we set an out-of-office email so we wouldn’t be interrupted or distracted by emails coming in. There wasn’t any pressure to respond quickly because we set an expectation.
We also pre-planned meals, dinner plans, and snacks so we don’t have to use brain cells on this. Same thing with outfits – we obviously had to pack a weekend bag so we didn’t have to overthink what to wear every day.
An open mind
You have to come to this meeting with an open mind. Give yourself permission to explore all avenues of business, even if they feel out of reach. Even if it feels like something you don’t want to do or is outside your comfort zone. What would happen if you gave yourself permission to see it all the way through?
Take time to reflect and celebrate wins
This meeting heavily focuses on goal planning, but it’s also important to reflect on the things you’ve accomplished. Take time to celebrate the wins, big and small. We each made a list of all the wins we could think of. We talked through them and gave ourselves a cheers 🍻
Don’t be afraid to go off-script
An agenda is a key piece to a successful business planning meeting, but don’t be afraid to go off script. If you’re in that creative mindset and can execute something right then and there, go for it!
Give yourself time to execute
Give yourself time to execute the plan. That’s why we loved doing this in early October. We have two months now to set up whatever systems, processes, or even mindsets we need before 2025. We can start the year strong right off the bat.
Things We Loved
These are things we would totally do again next year!
Airbnb
We loved that our place had a hot tub – we took a lot of hot tub breaks 🥳 It was a nice way to relax and unwind.
Our Airbnb was pretty small, but since it was an apartment complex, it had a community room on the rooftop, right next to the hot tub. Sometimes we went outside to work. We liked that we could get out of our place for a change of scenery.
We stayed in the city and ventured out a few times to explore. We worked downtown at the agency so we know the city and hot spots. It was fun to get out and walk around in a familiar space.
Self-care
We took time for self-care, and that was amazing. We are both crazy busy as moms, wives, and business owners. So we wanted to prioritize time to care for ourselves. Court got us a lot of cute goodies like matching PJs, bath bombs, and face masks.
Time of the year
Two nights felt good. The first day, we started our meeting in the afternoon so it felt pretty easy that day. Day two was a little heavy, so we would break that up in the future. Then day three we were packing up to leave. We did a little wrap-up meeting in the morning.
On that note, we loved having this meeting in October. Not just because it gives us time to prepare for 2025, but the fall vibes were *chefs kiss*
What would we do differently?
We’d say this was a successful meeting for us, but there are some things we would do differently. We stayed at an Airbnb and we loved that approach versus a hotel, but we would choose a different one to stay in.
We would also give ourselves more time to execute and plan on how to get everything we talked about done. Maybe we would talk about something and either make time to do it right or have an idea of how we will get it done later on.
As we said before, day two was pretty heavy so next time, we would shift maybe one heavy thing to the first day to break it up a little more. Day two was the longest day and we got a lot done, but we were exhausted after!
We are so happy with how our first annual business planning meeting went. We can’t wait to do it every year as we continue to grow Duo. We hope it inspires you to have a planning meeting for your business, too!
Oh, and don’t forget to grab our free business planning meeting agenda template!
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Abbey Oslin and Courtney Petersen are Minnesota-based marketing experts, educators, and co-founders of boutique marketing agency Duo Collective, which specializes in SEO, social media strategy, and branding for small business owners and creative entrepreneurs. To learn more about Duo Collective, or to inquire about working with our team, head over to www.duocollective.com.
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