You Absolutely, Positively Must Do This in Your Business

Paul Myer said, “No one accomplishes anything of consequence without a goal. . . Goal setting is the strongest human force for self-motivation. Think about it. What is one of the greatest motivators in the world? Success. When you take a large activity (such as your dreams), break it down into smaller, more manageable parts (goals), you set yourself up for success because you make what you want to accomplish obtainable. And each time you accomplish a small goal, you experience success. That’s motivating!” 3 Things Successful People Do

Sounds simple, doesn’t it? And the method to set goals is straight forward. Goals need to be SMART
• S – Specific
• M – Measurable
• A – Attainable
• R – Realistic
• Time-based
Many people have written about the SMART goals and most people in business understand what SMART means.
Just because you understand what to do, doesn’t make setting goals any easier. In reality, it takes work to set your goals. It takes thought. But what is needed most of all is courage and commitment. The courage to step beyond your fears. Once you put a goal on paper, you are committing yourself to make it happen, and that can be scary. This is why we took the approach to determine your WHY for the business before ever attempting to set goals, which is described in the following link, Creating Your WHY
But, now that you have determined your WHY and the type of business, it IS time to establish goals for your business.

First, Determine your 10-year Monetary Goal
If you want to retire in 10 years, determine how much money you need to have accumulated to retire at that time. While there is no guarantee you’ll reach that goal, it is a lot more likely to happen if you put it down on paper and take daily actions to achieve it. How does this monetary goal tie in with your purpose and your customers? As Zig Ziglar used to say, “you can get anything you want if you help enough people get what they want”. Is your 10-year dollar goal realistic, based on where you are financially today? Are you in debt? If your goal is not realistic, force yourself to be completely honest and revise your numbers. Goals! – Brian Tracy

Next, Set the 10-year Goals for your Business
You may ask yourself, “How can I determine where the business will be in 10 years, when I haven’t even started? The business may be in a completely different area in 10 years, because my business interests change, or due to competition or any number of reasons. I have no way of knowing where the business will be in 10 years, not what product and services I will be providing.” But that should not stop you from setting 10-year goals for your business. Goals will evolve and change as your business grows, but setting your 10-year goals at the start of your business will give you something for which to aim. You need a map (goals) to help you get to where you want to be.

Google Transforms Over 10 years
Google started in fall of 1998. It was created to organize information on the Internet. In 2005, they bought a software company called Android, Inc. and in 2007 Android was unveiled for phones. At that time Symbian OS was used by companies such as Nokia, Motorola, Ericsson and was the dominant player along with Blackberry. Did the founders of Google plan to get into phone operating systems in 1998? Absolutely not, but today, Android OS has 85% of the operating system market for phones and it is estimated that it is a $30 billion business. Android dominates
Once you have set your 10-year plan it is time to break those goals down into 5-year plans.

Your Five-Year Plan

Your 5-year plan is a subset of your 10-year plan. You’ve determined what you want to achieve in revenue in 10 years and with a 5-year plan you determine what actions you need to take over the next five years so that you can achieve your ten-year goals.
How much revenue do you want to make in the next five years so that you can rea? What would be the makeup of your product and services? Why do you believe this collection of products and/or services would be able to generate this income?
In a previous blog you had evaluated your skills and your uniqueness. Your skills and talents enable you to create products and services that uniquely leverage those skills that no one else can duplicate. If you haven’t already, please take a look at the blog post,
Creating the Right Business for You

You’re the Driver
It is your business and you are the driver of where that business will go. Having your own business is nothing like being in corporate where decisions, especially strategic ones, are made for you. Does it mean products and services, may change? Absolutely. But you must start with the end in mind of what your business looks like in five-years and work backwards to establish the shorter-term goals.
You may ask, “I haven’t created the service yet, how can I know the revenue and the costs.” As we discussed in a previous blog, Creating the Right Business for You, you determined a problem your ideal customer has and how you can solve it. You determined the revenue that could be generated and the associated cost. The key is to make sure the revenue is greater than the cost.

A Baby Boomer Crushes It
Dane Maxwell, the creator of the Foundation software group, says one of his students was a 55-year old chemical engineer, Paul. Paul targeted finding solutions for private investigators. Paul asked several private investigators what it takes the most time in their business. They told him it takes hours to complete the report for the client.
He created a software product that creates the investigation report in 15 minutes rather than 3 hours.
Paul was able to figure out his revenue per client and the associated costs. He had a profitable business as soon he started selling the software. Paul determined the size of the private eye market in his city, then his state, regionally and finally nationally. He forecasted what percent of private eyes that would buy his software and was able to quickly figure out the sales cycle for each client and how many new clients he could acquire in a month.

Break Your Goals Down
As Paul did, determine the size of your market and the percent of people that will buy. Determine your costs for the product or service and the profitability of each unit. I recommend creating a business that will be profitable from the very beginning. You need to provide a cost-effective solution from day one. I would not recommend starting out with no margins in order to “entice customers”, thinking you will catch up when you have the demand. It rarely happens.

Once you have the five-year revenue goals it needs to be broken down into shorter term goals. In addition, it is a good idea to determine the one thing for a given time period that can really move your business forward. Gary Heller from The One Thing describes a straightforward way to do this.
• Five-year goal – Base on my ten-year goal. What is the one thing I can do in the next five years?
• One-year goal – Based on my five-year goal. What’s the one thing I can do in the next 12 months?
• Monthly goal – Based on my one-year goal. What’s the one thing I can do this month?
• Weekly goal – Based on my monthly goal. What’s the one thing I can do this week?
• Daily goal – based on my weekly goal. What’s the one thing I can do today?
• Right now – based on my daily goal. What’s the one thing I can go right now.
The One Thing – Gary Keller

Final thought
According to Greff Harris, a management consultant, two-thirds of people surveyed (67 of 100) set goals for themselves (think New Year’s resolutions). But of those 67, only 10 have realistic plans for reaching their goals. And out of those ten, only two follows through and make it happen.

What has prevented you from writing the goals and a plan for your business?

Links
3 Things Successful People Do
Goals! – Brian Tracy
Android dominates
Creating the Right Business for You
The One Thing – Gary Keller

NOTE: In full disclosure, this article does have links to resources such as books and I receive a commission if you purchase these books from the li