I didn’t always used to think about quarters the way that I do now. Business has a way of reshaping your concept of time.

Sure, in high school we had fall, winter, and spring quarters. But we didn’t harp on it that much at Auburn Adventist Academy.

I was a store manager for Starbucks Coffee Company when the idea of breaking the year into four equal(ish) parts finally sunk in. After that, it became nearly impossible for me to not have a quarterly planning session, set Rocks for the quarter (read Gino Wickman’s book Traction for context here), and anticipate client-requested revenue ‘gap closers’ around the end of March, June, September, and December.

Which brings me to the purpose of today’s post. If you are reading this in ‘real time,’ today is the last business day of Q3, which means we are about to embark upon O-N-D in earnest. Arguably the heaviest hitting quarter of the calendar year for most ecommerce businesses, a lot rides on these next 90 days. Maybe your whole financial plan rides on hitting an aggressive ecommerce target this month, or maybe you just want to make sure that you finish the calendar year with a few more wins… either way, I’m here to give you some motivation that will help you finish this year strong!

Revisit your goals

Nothing sucks harder than ending the year and feeling like you did a lot, but nothing, at the same time.

Aside: as a mother with four small children, I feel this way a lot of days.

So before you get too far into this next business quarter, take a look at the goals you set for this year and do a quick reset.

What did you accomplish? Celebrate, baby! You didn’t do nothing this year, and even if the celebration is around significant progress on a goal that isn’t quite there yet, owning how far you have come is essential!

What isn’t important anymore? A lot can change in 9 months, and if there are goals that just don’t make sense for your business this year, give yourself permission to cross those puppies off the list for this year.

Aside: In our business, we’ve had one specific goal that has been on the list now for the past two years. I realized on our team retreat in August that this goal just isn’t important in the context of our business and where we want to go now, so I gave myself permission to let it go, like Elsa in Frozen, and that deadweight can’t hold me back anymore.

What’s left to accomplish? Take a look at what you have left to do in order to achieve the remaining yearly goals you’ve set and ask ‘What do I need to prioritize in order to accomplish these goals feeling like a freaking rockstar?”

No, really, you should ask it like that. If you have an ambitious revenue target, and trying to make up the ground to achieve it means you’ll work 80 hour weeks for the rest of the year, will that make you feel like a rockstar?

Maybe, because you’ll be dry-eyed and strung out and living on supplements and wearing sunglasses inside to hide what your lifestyle is doing to you…

Let’s face it, if you REALLY go for these goals and don’t have an awesome time on the way, what’s the point? You’ll be exhausted when you achieve them, or exhausted and demoralized when you don’t. Make sure you take into consideration what’s left to achieve AND how you want to feel as you close out the next 90 days.

Calendar Your Priorities

Make sure time off, company or personal holidays, and rest go ON YOUR CALENDAR. Otherwise, the quarter’s demands will muscle out your own well being.

I realized when doing this process myself that I really only have 9 “work weeks” left in the year, because I want to take the weeks my kids are out of school completely off.

Am I quaking with fear? Nope, because I did this next part:

Break your remaining goals into milestones you can reasonably achieve in the next 12 weeks. If it’s a revenue target, identify how much you’ll need to hit weekly so you can keep track and keep score. If it’s a project-based target, map out the tasks so you can hold yourself accountable.

Then, layer those milestones and tasks into your calendar, taking into consideration the rest and time off you are committing to AND the way you want to feel while you work!

Make Email Marketing a Priority

HA. You knew I had to bring some of this back to what WE do here, right? Listen, not everybody is as deeply passionate about email marketing as I am, I get it. But if you are going to win the last 90 days of the year and hit the ground running in the year to come, you’re going to need to get better at email marketing. Here are some simple, not overly time consuming ideas for you to help make email marketing a priority in the next 90 days.

• Pick one email marketing strategy you want to try. Could be a/b testing a subject line concept, playing around with your personalization, or finally implementing the segmentation strategy I’ve been harping on you all about forever 😉

• Make an email plan for the quarter (it will only take you 15 minutes). Set a timer for 10 minutes and write as many ideas as you can on a piece of paper, then take five minutes to pick just THREE of those ideas to execute and PUT ‘EM ON THE CALENDAR.

• Invest in your beautiful mind. Learn something new from an expert, whether it’s watching a YouTube video or two or it’s tuning into a paid training opportunity or free masterclass. I always unlock new campaign ideas, testing opportunities, and automation ideas when I take the time to learn from other experts in this field. Getting out of my own little brain box is one of my favorite things to do!

And if you want to get out of your own little brain box with ME, there are only three sessions left in Season One of The Get Email Marketing Experience, and all three are available for purchase now.

October 11 – Automation 101

Learn to automate key milestones and communications in your ideal customer’s journey without tech headaches or accidentally sending to the wrong people!

November 8 – Yearly Planning Workshop for 2024!

What if I told you you could have ALL of your 2024 email campaigns planned after one 1.5 hour session? Well, you can!

December 13 – Q1 Strategy + Mini-Bonus Trainings on Deliverability & A/B Testing

This one’s gonna be juicy. I want to help you go deeper on your 2024 planning with a session on strategy for Jan – Mar PLUS give you some additional tips to help your emails land in the inbox and optimize them for conversion.

Buy one, buy them all, and invest in your beautiful mind!

The Pep Talk at the End

Listen up. I’m not joking about the whole ‘feel the way you want to feel’ bit. Being a human is hard work sometimes, and rounding the corner into an intense quarter or personal sprint can feel daunting and overwhelming. But this is the only time you’ll get to do this quarter. Do it right by doing it with how you want to feel in mind.

We aren’t going to feel amazing and rested and positive and confident 100% of the time, but if we can ground ourselves in more of those feelings more often, we can literally rewire our brains so it is easier to feel that way more consistently, even in the midst of stress and chaotic schedules and flu season and and and…

Let me know what you’re excited about in the next quarter… you know I love those comments and personal emails. Cheers to you and let’s go out and CRUSH this final quarter!