Being Organized in Business is Important for an Entrepreneur: 5 Tips for 2024

Why is being organized in business important for an entrepreneur?

Here’s the quick answer: being organized is important for everyone, entrepreneur or not. Yes, I love to “wing it” and work in the flow, BUT I always have an end-goal and a focus. There is a general structure and plan to how I’m moving forward with my blog as a business.

As we head into a new year, it’s virtually impossible to avoid the overall ambience about starting fresh and getting organized. So although I believe you can get a fresh start any time, I’m updating this post in November of 2023.

Truly, it’s evergreen content! That means: if you catch this post in June or any other month, that’s ok! Get organized in your business (or re-organized) whenever you have the ideas, momentum, and inspiration.

Note: As a blogger, I use affiliate links sometimes! I may receive commission from purchases on links I share, but it does not change your price.

For keeping track of it all, coordinating your efforts, thoughts, and goals I use and recommend the Epic Blog planner. You’ll see as you continue reading that it’s not just for “blog” businesses.

Shoutout to Brandi Kepley of Unfinished Grace. We talked through my idea of sharing how we both use the Epic Blog to keep our businesses organized.

Get out your notebook and be ready to open links into new tabs! Let’s begin.

Tip 1 for being organized in business: identify your mission and be clear on your brand.

This can be daunting, but keep in mind that you and your brand will likely evolve, or at least be honed, over time.

Branding is not just about cohesive colors, fonts, look and feel. Yes, those are VERY important. As you show up online, in people’s social media feeds and on Pinterest, being recognizable makes a difference.

Start simple.

The Epic Blog planner has my brand information all in one place.

What I discovered, created, and identified for my brand is housed in my Epic Blog planner. For example, there is a section to record demographics of my ideal reader (for you that may be a customer or client) including the reasons they would follow my blog (for you that may be making the decision to hire or purchase from you).

Pinpointing details about who your business supports is one thing; you also need to know why and how. Get clear on your mission, as well as what you bring to the table.

Start with your brand, it’s why I listed it as the 1^st tip.

You can use a planner like Epic Blog to start writing your thoughts down and when you’re ready to take the leap, use the resources below!

Photo credit: free stock photos on Groove

Check out these resources directly related to branding:

• The Focused Branding Course by Brand Strategist Blaire Brown.
• This amazing e-book: How to Win Over Readers, Clients and Customers: A Guide to Personal Branding for Bloggers and Solopreneurs by Margaret Bourne.
• Tara Reid’s Introvert Visibility and Marketing Workshop
• Tara Reid’s Instagram mini-course
• Canva makes consistency for colors, fonts, and graphics easy.
• Margaret Bourne’s Pin It Better course to help you set up your Pinterest business account, use it effectively and—it includes access to 100 pin templates customizable in Canva!
• A business coach to help you with focusing on your target market and deciding which courses, platforms, and training you need to invest in. NOTE: I've started a program to help you get started with a blog but we can also use my 3-2-1 take action structure to get you organized in business! Click here to discuss on a free call)

Tip 2 for being organized in business: map out your content and operate on a calendar

No, you do not need to know what you’ll be creating and posting every month for the next year. However, you can get a general plan together and make setting up each month easier!

In the Epic Blog, the calendars are blank, so you can start using it any day, any month. (Make sure whatever planner you get has blank dates – it’s so helpful!)

Once you have a theme or priority (such as promoting an offer, holiday sale etc.), you can batch your content for all aspects of your business.

Photo by Kari Shea on Unsplash

As an example, I may create daily threads in my Ditching the 9-5 Facebook group focused on a blog post. I did this for my productivity post from A-Z. I was able to create 6 weeks of content in one sitting. I take a few hours every month to focus on scheduling Facebook posts as well as scheduling pins on Pinterest.

Side note: I jump on Facebook daily to reply to comments, comment myself, and often create posts. But I know that in the end, I do not have to worry about content being posted and that the content I planned in advance is cohesive and has an end-goal.

Remember how I mentioned my friend and peer Brandi in the intro? One thing we both do is color code writing in our Epic Blog planners.

For me that looks like a different color for content planning on each social media platform and my blog as an example. For Brandi, whose business covers prioritizing wellness through multiple aspects, that includes colors identifying her blog, her podcast and her Arbonne business.

Photo by Karl Callwood on Unsplash

Tip 3 for being organized in business: focus on income-earning activities and track all things financial

Epic Blog makes this REALLY easy. There are pages/sections that:

• Offer a list of income-earning services and products (you literally check the box).
• Set up space for you to list both income and expenses.
• Ask you to write down your most popular product (sale) each month.
• List and compare both your total income and expenses for the current and previous month.

These are things that I recommend you focus on, even if income hasn’t happened yet!

Listing your expenses and having a solid sense of month-to-month investments into your business helps you budget as you continue building your business.

Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

And this is relevant even if you haven’t decided what you’ll be doing to create income. The list of monetization methods in the Epic Blog planner includes everything from creating digital products like an e-book to developing a membership program- in addition to offering services!

By committing to checking the box on an idea (or several), you have a starting point for narrowing your options, researching the best fit, and discussing it with a business coach or mentor.

Yes, a business coach is an investment I continually recommend.

RELATED: 52 Ways to Fund Your Lifestyle – a list to motivate you and inspire new ideas.

Photo by Juan Carlos Becerra on Unsplash

Tip 4 for being organized in business: sort goals into projects and tasks

Technically this is your to-do list!

The first year of blogging, working with my business coach, I broke main goals into quarters. As I was starting out, we discussed a focus for each quarter, all related to blogging.

As I moved into my second year (where I am now) we are moving more toward specific income-earning activities while keeping blogging at the forefront.

The work we did in the beginning not only set the stage for the future, but it kept me on a customized roadmap for my blog business. Having a coach guiding me kept me from investing in the wrong resources and tools.

Instead I’ve invested in the right ones for my brand, readers, and goals.

Photo by Tech Daily on Unsplash

By having a quarterly focus, I was able to prioritize all tasks and projects inside that quarter. Clearly, having the calendars and all of Epic Blog’s sections including branding details, notes for collaborations, and tracking blog post ideas, I have everything at my fingertips.

No matter what my priority focus is during any week, month, or quarter, I can view my business as a whole and ensure all aspects of my business are covered.

For example:

• I write and publish blog posts weekly, with an occasional “skip.”
• I batch my content.
• I have blog maintenance tasks and project work recorded.

RELATED: I keep The To-Do List Formula on my Kindle. It’s a quick read and great reference for entrepreneurs.

Tip 5 for being organized in business: make sure all your lists, collaborations, and links are arranged effectively

When I ditched corporate life for entrepreneurship, I learned that I’m going to meet A LOT of people.

• And have a ton of ideas.
• And sign up for all kinds of things.
• And I’d be constantly learning and training.

It might sound overwhelming, and it can be easy to “lose” contacts and effective tools along the way. If you’re like me at all, you invite a place to store everything!

For me, the pages in the Epic Blog planner focused on possible collaborations, ideas for blog posts and even tracking my affiliate information (like passwords and commissions!) keep me organized in my business.

I also use the free version of Evernote. Personally I love it because I can open it on my phone or laptop and drop notes, actual links, screenshots and more right into it. You can categorize things and guess what: if you forget “where” you filed something it’s ok. You can search “all notes.” #Lifechanging!

Photo by Nick Morrison on Unsplash

Don’t get overwhelmed: there are so many resources you can use!

My call to action as I conclude this post: use the links I shared above and be organized in your business! If you can’t use them right this minute, keep them for your toolkit.
I’ll close with 3 resources I want you to grab right now:

1. Groove: the all-in-one platform I use for my blog, to store videos and more. Levels start at free (I know, it’s hard to believe). See what it does. Sign up for free. Upgrade as you need more for your business. Side note: Brandi uses Groove’s free level for her website!
2. Make sure you’ve done these 5 things to start your business.
3. And of course: purchase the Epic Blog planner!

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