When I took almost three months off from my biz for some quality time with my new baby, I didn’t realize that the time away from my work would actually fuel my best work ever. Returning from maternity leave, I had a notebook full of ideas, blog posts written, and programs built. It was exciting and, honestly, overwhelming. Yep, the Queen of “Get Out of Overwhelm” was, well, IN IT.

So I did what I tell all my clients to do, I mapped it out.

The “Big Fish” was Systems Finishing School. I knew I had to run a beta version of the program to work out the kinks and make sure it was everything I dreamed it would be. And it was (and so much more). In order to create a plan around a fully realized Systems Finishing School, I worked backwards. Here’s exactly what I mapped out:

Launch date for (still unnamed) systems program: 1/5/2015 (now 1/12/2015)
Pre-launch sales period: 12/1-12/22/14 + 1/3-1/11/15
Free Challenge: 12/1-12/12/14
Beta Program: 11/3-12/5/14
Beta Sales Period: 10/6-11/2
Sales Page Live: 10/6/14

One of the most exciting/how-am-I-gonna-do-this things was the Free Challenge. I knew it was a crucial piece of the puzzle for the launch of Systems Finishing School in January plus I just really wanted to host something like it! I had this thought one day that the challenge would hit right at the beginning of January and I knew I wanted to incorporate my favorite holiday so….the 12 Days of Systems Challenge was born.

Next came the how-am-I-gonna-do-this part: how the hell does one person (moi) wrap up the final week of the beta group AND work with current 1×1 clients AND pump out new systems goodies every day for 12 days?! Thinking about it made me want to throw it all away. Until I realized I just had to use a tool from my badass biz tool kit: LEVERAGE. I instantly sent out an email to 12 of the most incredible business owners I know and love (actually the list I made had like 30 people on it so I’m already planning round 2 of the challenge, but I digress) and asked THEM to share their favorite biz system with my community and they said yes!

Over the past month and some change, I’ve planned and executed what turned out to be a fun and rewarding challenge for this little community. Running challenges and blog tours is a bigger beast than scheduling the dates and letting it roll so I wanted to share some of my learnings here (‘cause that’s what I do). [Tweet “Big lessons learned running a blog tour challenge”] In no particular order, here we go:

What I loved:

• EXPANDED COMMUNITY. By asking other people to share their systems, I instantly lightened my own workload and also expanded my reach. Knowing that I was working with 12 other business owners and they would be sharing their own posts within their own communities expanded my reach and became my instant marketing plan.
• GAME PLAN. Using my blog tour checklist that I had created for a previous client, I knew I needed to start my planning 4-6 weeks out. I also had the tasks I needed to complete each week/day so I knew exactly what to do to make the magic happen.
• LEARNING! I hung out with 12 of the smartest business owners I know and I learned from their posts (instead of sharing my own stuff which I already know, obvi). Improving my own systems is always a win.
• NEW EXPERIENCES. I did something new! I’ve never run a blog tour for my own biz before so it was fun to have that experience. I highly recommend trying something new in your business on a regular basis. Challenge yourself (pun intended) and think outside your every day box.

What I’d do differently:

• THE PRESENTER’S CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE. After the challenge started, I wasn’t really in touch with the hosts/presenters during those 12 days. Next time around I’ll check in more often and also be sure they send me their link to their post at least 12 hours in advance to double check it. I included instructions for their URL so it was all consistent, but some varied from that and we had a dead link here and there. We are all busy in our own businesses and can’t possibly remember every instruction so I’ll double check that next time around.
• PRIZES. When I announced the daily prizes (which I loved doing, btw), I did so in the comments of each blog post. Next time around I’ll use the Simplified Systems Facebook Group and announce the winners in there. It will expand my group reach (if you want to hear if you won, you’ve gotta join the group!) and create excitement inside that community every day.
• SOCIAL SCHEDULING. While I got all of my emails to the list scheduled in advance and Edgar had my shout outs about the challenge in general ready to roll, I didn’t have enough pre-scheduled social media about each post for the day it went live and the days after that. I went back and have added links to each into Edgar now (after the fact) but it should have been done up front. (I mean, some of the presenters even talked about pre-scheduling and batching social media, for Pete’s sake. Sheesh, Val.)

The biggest takeaway from this whole post is this: either plan ahead or plan to do lots of work the week(s) of your challenge. But isn’t that the big takeaway from everything these days? Plan ahead or plan to work your booty off? [Tweet “Plan ahead or plan to work your booty off!”] Speaking of which, I better go wrap some Christmas presents…..

Thinking of starting a blog tour or email challenge in 2015? Let me know in the comments below and tell me the biggest thing that holds you back from getting it started. I’d love to support you as you aspire & grow!

xo