One thing I love is reading the goals and income reports of other bloggers and creative business owners.

I have published them myself on my previous endeavors, but I’ve held off on doing so for The Creative Boss.

I was ashamed of how tiny they were. That’s right – even I let the comparison syndrome kick in and hold me back from providing something motivational for others.

Want to know what made me change my mind? Brand visibility.

My #1 goal for The Creative Boss in 2018 will be to increase my visibility, and everything I do will be a reflection of that. I plan for The Creative Boss to become everything that I’ve envisioned since launching in 2015.

And to clarify, in case you’re wondering – The Creative Boss isn’t my only source of income – it’s more of a passion that I hope will allow me to retire a large chunk of my house’s other income sources one day.

In the past, I’ve avoided setting goals for things like social growth and site traffic. Setting business goals to increase social “likes” and “friend requests” felt vain, and I couldn’t see how it could reflect the quality and loyalty of my fans.

However, after reading DotCom Secrets, I’ve realized that yes – it is somewhat vain to set goals to increase these numbers. But in order to grow, I need more eyeballs checking out my content and taking advantage of social networks is a great way to increase brand identity. Whether they are quality fans or not, my brand awareness will grow, and the ones that aren’t loyal will gradually weed themselves out.

So, let’s dive into the September goals for The Creative Boss…

Traffic Goals

Pageviews: 1500

This may seem like a tiny number to most, but The Creative Boss has only seen this number once since launching in 2015. Setting my traffic goal at a number that I know is possible will be the perfect (and realistic) way to propel The Creative Boss into 2018.

How do I plan to achieve this goal?

My copyeditor, Abbi, and I have been hard at work preparing loads of content to steadily drip out every week over the next several months. By having my blog posts ready to publish, I can focus my efforts on promoting them. I’ll have more time to bring awareness to my brand by spending less time haphazardly scrambling to get everything ready to publish at the last minute.

Some of the primary means I have of promoting blog posts are a couple of Facebook groups, Pinterest, and scheduled social shares that I’m able to recycle with SmarterQueue.

I would love to expand by networking with other creative biz owners and cross-promoting, but being an introvert means my biggest setback will be making that panic-inducing initial contact.

I wanted to keep my traffic goal relatively small to avoid getting overwhelmed by setting unrealistic goals. I can slowly work on implementing these new methods but still remain in my comfort zone by putting more effort into expanding my current means of promotion.

Social Growth

Social growth is a tough one for me – I have a love/hate relationship with social media.

Sometimes I’m steadily active on social platforms, and sometimes I could care less – not exactly an ideal way to build networks.

I grabbed some tracking sheets from Megan Minns a couple of months ago, and they’ve been a game changer for tracking my stats. I have it on my Trello board and update my current standings every Monday – it gives me a great weekly visual of where I am and how much I’ve grown. I also keep notes, so if I have a large traffic change, I can determine if it’s a direct result of something I did differently that week.

Since I know I won’t spend tons of time on social networks (and I’m okay with that), I mainly stay focused on my favorites – Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest.

Facebook

Goal: 500 fans, 250 Mastermind Group members.

I currently have both a Facebook business page and a group, The Creative Boss Mastermind. I love them both, but they’re definitely still in the baby stages. I want to work on growing both of them in the month of September.

Facebook ads have also crossed my mind, but I think it’s a better idea to revisit early next year. I will hopefully grow my audience with my plan to promote throughout groups, so the ads will reach more people.

My plan of attack for Facebook is to take advantage of the groups I’m in that allow self-promotion. I’ve already seen that my target audience is active in several of the same groups. And I’m working on a new challenge that will throw Facebook live into the mix. (Look for more information in your inbox soon!)

Instagram

Goal: 1000 followers.

Honestly, Instagram is one that I find myself questioning if it’s beneficial or a total waste of time. I like the idea of creating tidbits of info with visual appeal, and I can push any content I share there on to Facebook, Twitter, and even Pinterest where I created a board just for it.

I’ve implemented something called Linktree in order to maintain a central hub. It gets a few clicks a week, but I’m still not really sure that it’s worth the micro blog posts that I create for it every day.

So, my game plan for Instagram is to try adding some different types of content into the mix, and then evaluate the results at the end of Q4.

Pinterest

Goal: 1500 followers.

I get the most site traffic from Pinterest referrals – and thanks to Board Booster – I have been able to create a system that nearly runs itself.

I add new content to the mix periodically, but even when I’m slacking, there’s always activity which helps keep my profile relevant. I’ve also joined a handful of group boards which has led to increased visibility, and I’ve seen steady growth – nothing drastic, but steady nonetheless.

Since I’ve seen positive results with this already, my plan to up my Pinterest game will be to find more group boards to join, increase my activity, and see if I can get those numbers to increase a bit quicker.

Email List.

Goal: 1000 subscribers.

I’m laying everything out on the table including my email list. Although my goals may seem relatively small compared to others, I’ve treated The Creative Boss as more of a hobby for over a year now. However, I’ve invested in things for this business that I should have waited on because deep down, I want this to be the thing I’m known for.

But at the same time, I often find myself not putting in the time that is necessary for my business to grow. I tend to get paralysis from overwhelm, and then everything sits stagnant. This is one reason I’ve set these goals and devised a monthly plan for growing my brand identity in every area.

I’m excited to be launching some new freebies and a challenge later this month to hit my Email List goal.

Income and Expenses

I’ve been most hesitant to share this because I’m terrible at keeping track of things, and I know The Creative Boss isn’t actually making a significant income. However, I started the month by doing an audit and deciding which tools and expenses I would keep and which ones I could find alternatives for, and it helped to give me some idea where to set my goal.

Goal: $500

I did have many websites across a few different hosting providers, but Siteground had an amazing offer recently, so I decided to jump on it and move all of my sites to a single host.

There was nothing wrong with my other providers, but I couldn’t resist the deal I got with Siteground. I’ve read stellar reviews, had nothing to lose, and couldn’t resist the awesome deal I got to condense all of my sites to one provider.

The Creative Boss has a handful of products available for sale including The Creative Biz Toolkit, Create the Ultimate Opt-In Offer, and the eBook version of Get Your Blog On! But none of them are making me much cash, and that’s my fault for not putting forth much effort into promoting them.

For September, I am creating more content with the intention of selling.

Over the next couple of weeks, you will see freebies that will lead to funnels for these products. You’ll notice tripwires following some of the products along with a few other tricks I have up my sleeve for implementing income growth for my site.

Income is valuable.

That’s the reason you’ll see a few ads sprinkled on the site and the occasional affiliate link. These are there to help balance the costs – mostly what I pay my copyeditor (she’s totally worth it!).

Accountability

The biggest reason for sharing my business goals is accountability, but I don’t want to go at it alone.

In fact, I encourage you to share your goals over on The Creative Boss Mastermind group, so we can hold each other accountable. It acts as a platform to network and connect – as well as build each other up! #communityovercompetition