Submitted by Melissa Wildstein on | 0 Comments
If you haven't already done your business planning for next year, it's never too late to think about it. I have had clients who didn't finish their annual plan until March and others that started their planning in June! It's not when you draw up a set of business goals that's important, it's the fact that you do it, that you write it down and that the goals that you set are S.M.A.R.T!
S.M.A.R.T stands for:
- Specific: You want goals that are very specific - the more specific the better actually. Goals are only lofty aspirations unless you know how to really make them happen, so be specific.
- Measurable: You need to be able to quantify your goal. Set up milestones over the course of the year to help you measure how close - or how far - you are from attaining the goal
- Actionable: Frame your goals in an actionable way so that you can take very real steps towards making them happen
- Relevant: Your goals have to be relevant to your business. Don't get distracted by the 'bright and shiny', think about what's important to your business, what's really going to drive your revenue growth and stick to that
- Timely: If you don't set a time limit for reaching your goals, somehow they don't ever seem to manifest themselves.
As you're constructing your goals, make sure that you're creating ones that fit the above criteria.
Here's an example:
Say I want to make $1M in revenue in 2012. That's a great goal, but it's just a pipe dream until I actually think about how I'm going to make that happen, what action steps I'm going to take etc...
A better goal would be I will make $1M in revenue in 2012 by selling 10 $25,000 projects ($250,000) each to 4 clients ($1M).
Even better would be articulating the specific projects, the specific clients and when exactly those projects would be booked and executed on in order to make the $1M mark. Once you do that, you've got your marching orders.
Or another:
Say I want to write a book (I've been saying this for years). It's one thing for me to say it's a goal of mine to write a book. It's an entirely different thing for me to say that by the end of 2012, I will have finished the manuscript for 'Secrets of a Billion Dollar Brand' and I will have accomplished that by completing my outline by January 31, my first chapter by February 28, my third chapter by April 15, my fifth chapter by June 1, my seventh chapter by July 15 and my nineth chapter by September 30th. I will set aside 1 hour per day to write 750 words and sign up for a writer's intensive workshop the first week in January to get the project kicked off.
Now, that lofty goal of writing my first book doesn't seem so bad, it's actually kind of manageable and something that I could actually accomplish this year (who knew?!?)
So don't delay setting goals for your business - or yourself(!) and when you're writing them, think about making them S.M.A.R.T.
