I just returned from Scottsdale, Arizona where I spent the day with two of my favorite business coaches, Ali Brown and Joy Chudacoff. The day reminded me of how important it is to get out from behind your computer and spend time with other amazing women doing awesome things in this world.

Since returning from this training event, I am more re-inspired than ever to make my business dreams happen. I also got a lot of new ideas of where we can take Classy Career Girl in the future just from stepping away from the day to day work and working ON my business, not in my business.
One of the main reasons I attended this event was because this past December, I made a training plan for myself and my business. I wrote down my goals and thought a lot about where I wanted to be by the end of 2015. And then I answered the below questions about what training needed to happen this year to make my goals happen.

Now that we are in March, I am realizing how important these questions and answers were to the direction and success of my business now. Having these focused questions and answers prepared has allowed me to make decisions better this year. When new trainings and opportunities come up (which they do almost every day), I can just look back at my training plan and I know whether I should do this new training or not.  I don’t need to subscribe to certain people’s emails since I know that they aren’t on my training plan this year.

It really has helped me focus this year which as an entrepreneur with Bright Shiny Object Syndrome, this is so crucial!

Here are the 7 questions I ask myself in my annual training plan:

1) Where do you want to be at this time next year? Write it down!

2) What development and education gaps do you have to get you to your goal?

3) What books are on your reading list this year that will support your growth and development?

4) What events do you want to attend to get you closer to your goals?

5) Who would you love to learn from or work with this year?

6) Who do you want to meet this year?

7) What will you do this year to take care of yourself and pamper yourself so you can be ready for your training plan?

I also recommend creating a training plan for your employees. Training is something that is very important on our team. I recommend that you have your entire team answer the above questions. Why are they doing what they are doing? What do they want to learn? Your company will grow as your team grows so getting your staff trained should be a top priority. Plus, you don’t want anyone to be bored!

I put my entire operations manual and video training on Trello.com. I encourage everyone on our team to create an operations manual in Trello about what they do every day so that if they were ever gone, someone else could take over their tasks. I also encourage cross training and ideally would love to have a team that can take on different tasks as needed. For instance, I want my Instagram intern to also know Pinterest inside and out. So I encourage interaction and collaboration within the team so no one just knows one platform.

I love Trello for housing our training documents and videos. It’s working out great!

So share in the comments, what does your training plan look like this year?