Alright, well, most voice actors think that January is the month to catch up, but the pros know that's where you jump ahead or else you destroy the whole year. Amateurs play defense when the new year hits, but the pros go directly to offense. If you want 2026 to truly be different, then you can't rely on just hustle and hope. You need a strategy built for creative work, built for client cycles, and built for the real business side of voiceover. Most people... drift through January out of habit. But the pros that I coach use January to build a lead that most other freelancers are never ever ever going to close. And this isn't some big secret, it's not some mystery. It is simply the boring, unsexy daily habits that most people don't want to do. This is what real strategic planning looks like when the stakes matter. And if you want to join the small tiny fraction of creatives who actually achieve consistency. It all starts with how you approach January and therefore the entire next year. Now before you start planning anything, wouldn't it be helpful to know what sabotages creative entrepreneurs like voice actors every single year? And to that end, I offer you the free Seven Deadly Sins of Annual Planning. Again, it's a free download and it digs into the common failure points that sabotage us all every year. The link is in the description and show notes. Now, if you're going through the guide, you're working through it and you start to see yourself in there, good. That means you're ready to build habits that really last. Do not skip this. So to start out, let's picture two voice actors in, let's say, the first week of the early part of January. One's already knee deep and in half-hearted self-promises and New Year's resolutions. we love those. The other's already blocking out time on their calendar and setting priorities that actually move the needle. The amateur relies on momentum, luck, and motivation. They said to themselves, well, let's just see what happens. And then they sprint after every opportunity that comes their way. And by March, they're exhausted and no closer to reaching the goals that they set out in January. The pros treat strategic planning like a job requirement because guess what? It is. Their January is the most important month of the entire year because it is the tone-setter and because in that month they're setting up the plan for how the whole year will go. And here's where that split between those two voice actors happens. Amateurs treat it like every other month. Pros treat it like the planning strategic event that it is. Amateurs are reacting to calls and auditions and whatever the hell everybody else is doing. Pros are setting their own agenda, their own priorities, their own schedule, and they stick to it. Amateurs focus on being busy, pros focus on results. You know where this leads. By spring, the gap is obvious. One is drifting, the other is right on time. Alright, let's get specific. These are the habits, the behaviors, the convictions that I've seen and helped build in top performing voice actors. Now, if you're looking for a checklist, stop, because... This ain't it. This is a set of actions that demands attention, reflection, and quite frankly, a little bit of professional maturity. Number one, they review the previous year with brutal clarity. The amateur runs away from last year's mess. The pro wants to learn from it. They go over the books. They pull up last year's calendar. They find where the gaps are, what patterns are costing money, wasting time. or killing momentum. They're not hunting for elusive motivation, they're analyzing the actual data. Which clients paid you pro rates and respected your time and were good partners? Which cost you time, cost you money, cost you mental bandwidth and were shitty partners? Which gigs led to more gigs? Where did you actually make money? And I'm not talking about just revenue, but I'm talking about profit. The pros edit ruthlessly. They cut anything that wastes time and money. If something didn't work, it's not precious, it's not sacred, it goes. The result at the end of that process is clear data guys, not guesswork. Second, they pick one direction, not the band, the concept, not ten different directions. If your goal list is just a scattershot of wants, book a video game, an audiobook, maybe three commercials, get a new demo, hit $100,000, and start a podcast. Well, then you're already losing. Pros know the cost of divided attention, and January is where they draw the line. What's the primary growth area this year? Which priority singular gets top billing? Everything else is in support of and service to that. Now this isn't about dreaming small, this is about protecting the one resource that you have that does not scale and that is your focus and attention. they build a series of 90-day plans, not just a year full of vague wishes. Annual dreams are cheap and professionals know that you break the year into four quarters. Short enough to keep you in action, in momentum, but long enough to still mean something. Each quarterly plan includes revenue targets for that quarter. specific lead gen goals. Contact 100 new cold leads a week, not do more outreach and at least one system upgrade. For example, automate invoicing or batch your weekly social media content. And by the end of January, your roadmap for the next quarter and the next year isn't just theoretical, it's a plan. While everybody else is tinkering with their shiny new planners, you are working your plan. Number four, We talked about editing ruthlessly. decide what they're going to stop doing. Freelancers, especially voice actors, act like it's their job to fill up the day with activity. High performers know better. In January, pros ask things like, which auditions am I going to skip entirely this year so that I get some valuable time back? Which social platforms get absolutely zero time and energy moving forward this year? What passion projects? What? hobbies, what distractions are on hold so that I can devote my time and attention with laser focus to what really matters in my business. Cutting can be painful. Yeah, that's the point. If everything on your plate gets attention, nothing makes progress. Number five, pros map out the revenue drivers for the year rather than just hoping. Pros get granular about the finances and amateurs hope things will get better. Here are the concrete January revenue moves that I see pros making. They list out the specific client avatars that they're going to pursue. What kinds pay well, what kinds are fun to work with, which have the kind of work that I actually want to do with budgets that I want to work with. Secondly, they look at their seasonality. They say, okay, well, it's going to be really busy in these two times a year and a little less busy over here so that they can plan ahead for when those slow times they know are coming. And they select two to three lead generation tactics, the actions that they're actually going to take, and they schedule them. For example, every weekday from 930 to 1030, I'm going to do my lead outreach. They don't wait for a chance or a hole or a window in the day to open up to get that done. They schedule it ahead of time, just like a meeting with themselves. Six, they create business systems that help reduce decision fatigue. If you start out guys in January just promising yourself to do more, you're dead in the water by February. Pros spend the early weeks of the year setting up the systems that will do the deciding for them. Things like templates for emails and invoicing and follow-up. Workflows for batch recording and editing so that they can deliver to their clients faster and make that client experience so much better. They get organized digitally and if you Do any paperwork physically. Organize your project folders, your hard drive. Use consistent naming conventions for your files so that everything is easy to find. You're not trying to be a robot. You're simply trying to never ask the question, what should I be doing next? That drains your energy, it drains your focus, and it drains your attention. Are systems sexy and creative? No, not always. But consistent revenue, your effectiveness as a business lives and dies. on your ability to create systems and automate the boring repetitive stuff. January matters way more than you think. A lot of people think, well, it's just another month. That's a lie. Here's why it matters. Number one, focus the blank slate. It's the only time of year you really have one. No artificial deadlines, no baggage hung over from the year before. Number two, January is where you create big mo. Momentum. Pros use January to get a jump start to create that momentum to stack little tiny wins that they can carry throughout the year when the year gets messy. Number three, confidence. If you nail to start your Q1 plan, then that confidence carries you through June, July, October, December. Number four, decision making. When every other voice actor, freelancer, part-timer wobbles in mid-spring, you've already got your what and your why locked in for the year, you have your plan to rely on, and you've still got big mo to carry you through. And five, what I'll call the long arc of the year. Getting your plan right in January almost always, well at least very highly, correlates with a profitable year. Voice actor business planning, is not about putting together a really good week. It's about building the systems and the habits that will carry you not only throughout this year, but once you establish them for years to come. Most annual planning workshops are generic. They're built for people who want motivation, people that just need to try harder, not to actually move the revenue needle or to really level up in their business. For example, going from part-time to full-time. Strategy to Stratosphere is our upcoming strategic planning annual planning for the whole year for voice actors and other creative pros. We use an approach, a proprietary one by the way, Fortune 500 Companies Trust, but I've stripped out all the jargon and adapted it specifically for voice actors, creative entrepreneurs, and solo CEOs. Everything is custom fit for the realities of voiceover, freelance work, and the chaos of creative cycles. Best of all, you walk out with a real plan for 2026, not just a pretty little set of notes or some hollow inspiration or motivation is going to fade three weeks in. You will master strategic planning giving you a skill set that most certainly voice actors other freelancers never even attempt. If your January, your 2026 is full of questions but not as many answers then this is for you and registration is open right now. The link is in the show notes and description. Guys January is your secret weapon if you choose to use it that way. If you're a part-timer, if you're a side hustler, you're already working in an untapped market that is full of potential and yet most of the people around you, your peers, your colleagues will just coast through January and likely through the rest of the year, relying on dreams and generic goals. Don't be those people. Treat January like what it is. It's your opportunity to get out of your comfort zone and to start getting intentional. and strategic about the growth of your business. As we head into 2026, I want you to embrace brutal clarity, choose one direction, plan for outcomes, not busy work, cut out distractions and things that drag you down and build the systems that let you spend the maximum time doing the creative work that is in your zone of genius. You weaponize January and the rest of the year will be completely different. Grab the seven deadly sins of annual planning to expose the habits that are killing your business and sign up now for Strategy to Stratosphere, January 24th and 25th, 2026. Now if this video helped you, if you think it'll help another voice actor, another creative pro moving into the new year, then please, by all means, share it with them so that we can help them too. The more we offer strategies, tactics, tips. The more exchange ideas, better, stronger industry we're going to have for everybody. Thanks so much. Have a happy and warm holiday season, and we will see you in 2026.