I love being in a number of groups on Facebook, as I learn so much from other coaches and it’s great to be part of a community when you work alone.
Most coaches do a weekly “Goals” post, and I started doing this in my own group, but I’ve noticed that lots of people, myself included at times, don’t write down goals, they list a whole bunch of tasks.
Tasks are the steps that need to be taken to achieve a goal. Setting goals is a key to the business planning process, as they help you describe what you want to achieve in a given period of time.
Why are business goals important?
Do you avoid setting goals, or have you just never thought about setting them for your business? Setting goals gives your business a clear direction and helps you measure your results. For those of us that run their own businesses it also gives us something to be accountable for. Not convinced? Here are my main reasons why you should be setting goals for your business:
1. They give you direction. You know where you are heading and help to keep you on track.
2. They stop you becoming complacent. You might be happy with the number of clients you’ve enrolled this month, but if you’ve not hitting your goal it serves as a reminder to push a little harder with your marketing.
3. They help you get organised and focus on what’s important. We all know as business owners how easy it is to get caught up in admin and doing the things we like, not the things that we need to do. When you set goals you then plan the smaller steps you need to take to achieve them, and when you need to do them by.
4. You can measure your success. You can also improve and stretch your business by setting goals that.
5. It puts you in a business owner mind-set. You’re driving your business, not reacting to what happens to you.
6. It helps you to outsource. If you’re thinking of bringing in help, such as a VA or a social media manager, you will find it easy to brief them if you have clear goals set out.
Can anything go wrong?
If you’re new to setting goals, don’t worry, very little can go wrong. First of all, your goals are unique to you, you’re no longer in a job where people are setting goals and objectives for you. There’s no right or wrong, it’s what you decide you need to achieve with your business and your life. That said, there are a few of things I’d like you to be aware of:
1. You can set unrealistic goals. For example, if you want to earn £10k a month, charge £75 an hour and have 20 hours a week available to deliver your service, you’re never going to achieve your goal. You need to review your goal, your pricing or your availability.
2. You set yourself easy goals that don’t stretch your business. It can be really useful to set good, better and best goals. “Good” is the minimum you need to feel successful, “better” would be amazing and to achieve ‘best’ could take you out of your comfort zone, stretch you, and you will learn from the experience.
3. Your goals are too vague. If you’re not specific with your gaol you may find that you struggle to plan with any clarity. Say you want to find 100 new customers in the next 12 months. On the face of it, that seems pretty specific. But you could get to month 11 and find that you’ve only brought in 70 new customers, and to hit your goal you’ll need to bring in 30 in one month. A more specific goal would be 10 new customers every month.
So are you ready to set goals for our business?
You don’t need to wait until New Year’s Day or any other other significant date to get cracking with your goal setting. If you haven’t set them, do it today, and then build your to-do-list around the steps you need to take to achieve your goals.
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