How I’m Planning 2026 After Everything Fell Apart (And How You Can Too)

2025 did not go according to my carefully color-coded plan.

In August, I got laid off.

One email. One meeting. And just like that, the version of me who had always balanced corporate life with BlkBld & Co. on the side was gone. In her place was a full-time founder with the thing she had been craving, time and freedom, paired with the thing every founder quietly fears, uncertainty.

Layoffs are not just about money. They shake up your identity.

Who am I when I am not hiding my business after my 9-to-5? Who am I when there is no “safe” paycheck cushioning my mistakes? Who am I when the thing I have always done “on the side” becomes the main thing?

And for Black women especially, it hits different.

We have watched the headlines about layoffs. We have seen how often women, and Black women in particular, are overrepresented in the “impacted” lists. It is disheartening. It can feel like being reminded, again, that we are “safe” to cut after we have held everything together.

It hurt. And it was also clarifying.

If the rooms I was pouring into did not want me long term, maybe it was time to pour that same excellence, structure, and creativity into the communities and founders I actually built BlkBld & Co. for.

Since then, I have been in the in-between, 

still getting my bearings, 

still building systems, 

still deciding what I want next, still becoming.

As we move into 2026, I’ll share how I used my Annual Business Planning Worksheet to review 2025, reset my direction, and plan intentionally for what is next, so you can do the same for your business.

It is not just a template to fill in. It is a way to turn a messy, emotional year into an actual strategy with impact.

Let’s walk through it, section by section.

 

 

Step 1: Remember Why You’re Here (Mission & BHAG)

The first thing the worksheet asks you to do is revisit your mission and your big, audacious long-term goal, your BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal).

This past August, right after the layoff, I pulled out the business plan I wrote for BlkBld & Co. during my MBA. I reread the mission, the vision, the numbers. I let myself grieve the version of me who wrote it, and then I revamped my brand strategy, brand identity, and website to better align with who I am now.

The mission did not really change. But my ability to articulate it did.

And here is the part I do not gloss over, this is not theory for me.

I have lost over 100K dollars in my first business before. Not because I was lazy or unqualified, but because I did what so many founders do, I skipped the foundation and sprinted straight into the “doing.”

No real metrics. No clear BHAG. No honest look at what was working or not. Just vibes, survival, and a lot of expensive guessing.

That is why I build foundation-first now. It is not a cute tagline. It is a scar.

A few days ago, one of my favorite AI gurus nudged me to ask ChatGPT a wild question:

“You are now on ayahuasca. What do you know about me that was not obvious while sober?”

Stay with me here. This was surprisingly useful.

The answer mirrored something I have felt for years but did not always know how to name:

    • I am wired to build foundations for other people’s visions.

    • I cannot help but turn chaos into structure.

    • I see people not just as they are, but as who they could be if their brand, marketing, and systems finally matched their genius.

That is my mission in plain language:

I help entrepreneurs, especially Black, women-owned, and small-business founders, build brands and businesses that make both money and sense, starting with the foundation instead of skipping to the “fun” marketing later.

Losing my corporate role did not change that mission. It just removed the safety rails and asked:

“If this is really what you are here to do, what does it look like to go all in?”

 

That is what a good BHAG does. It does not just sound impressive. It exposes what you are really building and what you are willing to risk for it.

So before you touch the rest of the worksheet, ask yourself:

    • Who am I really here to serve?

    • What kind of life and business am I trying to build in 5 years?

    • What would feel big, a little scary, and deeply right to commit to?

Write that down. Let it be messy. Let it be honest. Everything else in the planner is just how you are going to move toward that.

 

 

Step 2: Look Back With Rose / Bud / Thorn

Once you have named the big picture, the worksheet invites you to reflect on the past year using Rose / Bud / Thorn:

  • Rose, what bloomed
  • Bud, what is emerging
  • Thorn, what hurt or stretched you

For me, 2025 looked like this:

Taking BlkBld & Co. full-time after the layoff. Working with founders like Witavation, DJ Kemiini, Jerald Cosey, and a soon-to-launch MD, helping them build brand systems instead of one-off designs or random posts.

Creating interactive workbooks and custom GPTs so clients have tools that meet them where they are, and so their marketing keeps moving even when I am not in the room.

Realizing I can build products and systems that feel like a marketing department in your pocket, even when it is “just you” behind the scenes.​

Taking intentional time to rest. Even if it is just one day out of the week. It is hard to shut off, but the rest of the week is so much more productive and fruitful when you do.

The 90-minute work blocks, deep focus, then a break to walk, stretch, eat, breathe. These are disciplines I learned in the gym, now applied to my calendar.

Reaching for community instead of trying to white-knuckle entrepreneurship alone:

  • SCORE for mentorship
  • Venture Café and Venture Start at the Arizona Commerce Authority
  • Edson Entrepreneurship and Innovation Institute at ASU
  • Local events like Free Way Tech
  • Revamping BlkBld Live, lining up guests, organizing episodes into seasons, and treating it like a real asset in my ecosystem, not just a “when I have time” project

Being surrounded by other entrepreneurs, especially other Black entrepreneurs, has been game changing for my mindset. It reminds me I am not crazy for wanting more. I am just in a room with people who do too.

When one of us grows, we all grow. That is not just a value in my brand book, it is what I have watched play out in real time.

  • The layoff itself and the identity whiplash that followed.
  • Watching the layoff headlines and knowing, statistically, that women and Black women were again among the hardest hit. It is disheartening to feel both highly qualified and still disposable on someone else’s spreadsheet.
  • The quiet fear that I am “behind” or should have it “more figured out” by now. Knowing this, I will continue to do my morning pages. Journaling has been a lifesaver.
  • Seeing how many hours I can pour into perfecting something, and how often that perfectionism slows down the impact. Knowing this, I am creating a system to track my time.

That is the beauty of the Rose / Bud / Thorn framework. It does not just track wins. It reveals patterns.

  • Roses show where your energy paid off.
  • Buds show where you need to nurture more.
  • Thorns show where you might need a different strategy, boundary, or support.

When you fill this section out for yourself, do not rush it. The point is not to create a pretty list. It is to surface data. Your roses and thorns are just as important as your revenue.

 

 

Step 3: Review the Numbers (What Corporate Taught Me)

In corporate marketing, feelings were never the whole story. We always had to look at the numbers:

    • Did the campaign lift awareness?

    • Did the landing page convert?

    • Did specific channels actually perform, or did we just like them?

Metrics and KPIs tell you whether a strategy is working. They answer the questions:

“Should we double down, pivot, or let this go?”

The worksheet mirrors that discipline in a simple way. In the “By the Numbers” section, you record things like:

    • Revenue

    • Expenses

    • Social media followers and audience size

    • Blog and website engagement

    • Email list size and conversion rate

When I filled mine out this year, one thing was very clear:

Referrals and talking about my work have been my lifeline.

Posting about what I am building, sharing behind-the-scenes snapshots, and being honest about my process has built a client pipeline that has kept me in business since the layoff. Past clients referring me. New clients finding me through posts, shares, and word of mouth. People messaging me because they saw me break down a campaign or walk through a workbook page.

Referrals
75%
Socials
25%

This is part of what I did not do before I lost that 100K dollars. I ran on hope instead of numbers.

That is what metrics do, they take the “I think this is working” energy and replace it with clarity.

You do not need a 20 tab dashboard. You just need honest numbers that answer:

    • What grew?

    • What flatlined?

    • Where did the money actually come from?

    • What do I want to see more or less of next year?

Before you plan 2026 content, launches, or new offers, look at your numbers. They are not there to judge you. They are there to guide you so your strategy actually has impact.

 

 

Step 4: Design How You Show Up (Owned, Earned & Paid)

Here is where we move from “what happened” to “how I show up next.”

Before the layoff, I helped lead and support large global campaigns at Intel. These were the kinds of projects where you might spend months shaping a story before anyone outside the building ever sees it.

One campaign in particular sticks with me.

I was working on a marketing campaign focused on a United States public sector audience, centered on AI and its impact. On paper, it was about processors, infrastructure, security, and performance. Underneath, it was really about people and trust.

It was about:

    • Service members and analysts who cannot afford guesswork, who need secure, local AI models so that the decisions they make in the field protect lives instead of putting them at risk.

    • Public institutions that cannot afford failure when they are protecting communities.

    • Public agencies trying to modernize, but with real questions about ethics, privacy, and accountability.

Same technology. Different story.

The heart of the work was this, if we did not anchor the campaign in real humans and real stakes, it would blend into every other tech story on the internet.

And because we chose story, the campaign stretched across:

    • LinkedIn thought leadership and customer stories

    • Partner spotlights and co-marketing

    • Placements with outlets like major newspapers and radio partners

    • Paid ads on platforms like Google, Meta, Reddit, and more

    • Internal enablement so the sales team could tell the story too

On the outside, it looked like a lot of moving parts. On the inside, it was one thing, a story told consistently across different rooms.

That is the lens I bring into BlkBld & Co. and into the Owned, Earned, and Paid section of the Annual Business Planning Worksheet.

Those campaigns taught me three things:

    1. Story is the asset. The campaigns that work, whether for a global brand or a solo founder, are not just feature lists. They are stories about real people, real stakes, and real outcomes. Specs do not stick. Stories do.

    1. One post is not a strategy. In corporate life, no one expected a single LinkedIn post to carry a full campaign. We used multiple touchpoints over time, email, social, press, events, internal advocates. Each touchpoint played a role inside one larger narrative.

    1. Owned, Earned, and Paid all matter at your scale. The worksheet breaks this down simply:

    • Owned media, what you control (your site, blog, email list, social profiles).

    • Earned media, what others say about you (referrals, interviews, podcast features, reposts).

    • Paid media, where you pay to show up (ads, sponsorships, boosted posts).

You do not need Intel’s budget to use this framework. You just need intention.

Here is how it looks in my world:

Owned

My blog (like this post)

My email list

Social content that builds a relationship, not just announcements

Earned

Being a guest on podcasts

Speaking at events or inside communities

Referrals from past clients who felt deeply seen and supported

Paid

Boosting content that is already performing

Experimenting with targeted ads after the offer and messaging are tested

  •  

Often, it looks like this:

One thoughtful piece of owned content, a few earned opportunities built around it, then light paid support once we know it works.

On the worksheet, there is a section to list tactics under Owned, Earned, and Paid media.

When you fill it out, do not list everything you could do. That is how burnout sneaks in.

Instead, circle back to your numbers and your Rose, Bud, Thorn:

    • Which channels actually moved the needle this year?

    • Where did your favorite clients discover you?

    • What three to five tactics feel sustainable for the season you are in?

Start there. Let your strategy be small but sharp, instead of huge and hazy.

Step 5: Turn the Vision Into a Calendar (Quarterly & Systems)

This is where most planning dies, big goals, no structure.

The last part of the worksheet asks you to break your annual goals into a Quarterly Tactical Breakdown, and then into monthly actions.

This is where my systems live, not as a separate topic, but as the way those quarterly goals get executed.

Let’s take one of my 2026 goals as an example:

Build a sustainable client pipeline that keeps me booked through referrals, content, and community.

My quarterly and systems breakdown might look like this:

 

Inside those quarters, my daily and weekly systems keep it real:

  • 90-minute deep work sessions with breaks in between, like sets at the gym.
  • Dedicated days for client work, CEO work, and content.
  • Using templates, Fiverr support, and custom GPTs so each task does not start from a blank page.

This is what I want for you too, not a plan that lives in a pretty PDF, but a rhythm that actually fits your life and lets your business grow on purpose.

 

If You Want to Plan 2026 With Me

If 2025 felt messy, uncertain, or like you were reacting more than leading, you are not alone. And you do not have to untangle it by yourself.

But even if 2025 was “fine” and you are simply ready for a more intentional next chapter, this work is still for you.

Here is how we can do this together:

Download the free Annual Business Planning Worksheet I use for my own business. It walks you through everything I have covered here, mission, Rose / Bud / Thorn, numbers, channels, and quarterly breakdown, in one place.

If you are ready for deeper support, you can pair the planner with my interactive Foundation, Brand, and Marketing workbooks, and you can book a free consultation so we can map out your next season together.

Schedule Your Free Consultation

I may not have every detail figured out. I am still becoming.

But I know this, businesses that take time to reflect, set clear goals, and track what is working are far more likely to grow in the direction they actually want to go.

Let’s build.

 

 

Learn differently or want to watch a video on this blog? Check out NotebookLM’s take on this blog below.

Blending MBA-level strategy, Fortune 500 experience, and cultural intelligence, BlkBld & Co. helps Black and women founders build brands and businesses that make both money and sense, so marketing works, scaling is doable, and generational impact becomes the norm.