The first quarter of the new year is already gone! Where are you with your goals to market your business and grow your profits? Are you on track? Chances are that some smart goal setting will accelerate your progress, whether or not you’re on track.
So how should you go about setting your goals for maximum success? It’s really just a three-step process: You assess where you are and compare it with where you want to be, and then set up a roadmap for getting to your goal.
Step 1: Assess where you are
The first step to any smart goal setting is to find out where you are at the moment. Only by taking a hard honest look at your starting point are you going to be able to measure your results. It’s also the only way you’ll be able to appreciate the progress you’ll make.
If you’re not currently achieving the success you desire this can be the toughest step (and one most avoided) – but from my experience coaching thousands of business owners, this bit of honest review is critical to getting greater results.
As you decide what exactly to assess, you should look at both your marketing activities and the results you’re getting from them.
Your marketing activities:
Your marketing activities include any number of the following: Networking, lead generation, making contact with people outside of networking contexts, following up on new networking contacts and other leads, developing referral relationships, speaking, social media, blogging, advertising, publishing articles and press releases, and many more.
Take some time to check the marketing activities you have resolved to do this year – are you doing them and are they yielding the results you want? If you’re on track, continue and maybe even increase what you’ve been doing. If you’re not on track, come up with a new plan.
Your results:
The second part of the exercise involves in recording the results you have achieved so far. Are you on track? If yes, congratulations! Of course, that’s no reason to rest on your laurels, so go ahead and see how much you can improve.
If you have yet to achieve your goals, figure out what the hold-up is and how you can overcome it. Is it that you’re not clear on what exactly you need to do, or are you stuck because you don’t know how to properly market your business? Is it that you lack clarity, commitment or focus? Or do you just need more activity and action? If you want to achieve your goals this year, you need to quickly figure this out and get to work.
Your return on investment:
Third, figure out what your results were for the various marketing activities. Which activities brought the best results? Consider your time and money expense and seek out activities with the highest yield and lowest expense or effort.
If you haven’t been tracking which of your past marketing activities were the most productive, start now. Ultimately make a list of the ones that bring you the best return on investment.
Step 2: Smart Goal Setting: Creating a Roadmap
Now that you have assessed where you are, compare the results with where you would like to be three months from now, and by the end of the year.
Take your list of the activities that have brought you the best return on your investment in terms of time, effort, and money, and use it as a basis for creating a goal setting roadmap.
Set goals for your most productive marketing activities
Pick the most productive activity and decide how often and when you will engage in it.
If it involves networking at specific events, put them into your calendar. If it involves following up with lapsed clients, schedule weekly phone sessions. If you find that you get a lot of leads from publishing articles, schedule some writing time. And so on.
Continue to work your way down your list. Next, pick the next most productive activities, and schedule time (and, if needed, money) for those. And so on, down the line.
The result should be that your marketing activities are mapped out for you. You’ll have marketing goals, and you also have a clear activity plan for getting there.
Step 3: Follow Through
Finally, all that remains is that you actually follow your own plan. And that’s the secret to smart goal setting success. Without the follow-through, the best goals are worthless.
So how can you keep yourself on track?
Set up an accountability system. You could you opt for accountability partners, a mastermind group, a coach, or even just a weekly tracking session where you keep tabs on yourself as to whether you’ve kept up with your goals.
They will all work to some extent, some better for certain people than others. If you’re very good at motivating yourself, a tracker and a weekly check-in with yourself might do the trick or a quick call with an accountability partner.
Keep track of your progress and make sure to schedule time to review the results of your marketing efforts at least quarterly. As you start seeing the results of your smart goal setting efforts, you’ll be glad you did. And as the shampoo bottle says – rinse & REPEAT! At least every three months.
For help with setting smart goals for marketing your business, check out my FREE business marketing strategies teleseminar,
And if you could use someone who’ll hold your feet to the fire, I’d like to extend an invitation to schedule a zero cost Strategy Session with me. We’ll get on the phone and talk about your business, identify some obstacles that have been slowing you down and map out some next steps for you. Simply sign up for the teleseminar and reply to your welcome email, and I’ll send you the link to my online ‘getting to know you’ questionnaire: http://sueclement.com/teleseminar
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
