If you are a regular reader of our blog, then you’ve probably already thought about what you want your business to accomplish in 2012 (maybe you even wrote it down!). This is great! Now, we really need to get specific about it, and definitely write it down!
Your goals need to be attainable, yet challenging, and we need to outline them in detail.
Say you want to increase sales by 10%. That’s a great goal, but it’s way too general. Lets get specific about it.
What sales do you want to increase – up-sells? repeat customers? new customers? cross sells? What will the breakdown be between each category of sales – 3% up-sells, 5% repeat customers, 2% new customers, 0% cross sells?
How do you plan to generate those new sales – email marketing? cold calls? print advertisements? social media? video marketing? relationship marketing?
It’s important to not only be specific about your goals, but to outline how you plan on reaching them. Maybe you were hoping that you could increase sales simply by implementing an email marketing campaign. Three months into it you may not be on track with meeting your goals, and because you don’t have a back-up plan, you just give up and hope for the best when you sit down with your accountant at the end of the year. Hey, you tried, right?
You need to write out specific objectives, time frames and back-up options you can implement if things don’t go as planned.
This brings up the topic of accountability. If there is no one holding you accountable when it comes to reaching these goals, do you think you will be more, or less likely to succeed? Find a friend, or business partner you can trust to hold you accountable to your goals. That doesn’t mean you can’t have a month where you are off the mark a little, it just means there is someone there to talk to you about how you are going to fix it for the next month.
A lot of these tasks can be time consuming and frustrating if you’re not sure which direction to go. Consider working with a marketing consultant like TC who can sit down with you, outline your goals, help you track your progress and hold not only you, but themselves accountable when goals aren’t met. Consultants exist because they can increase your businesses bottom line by more than enough to justify their cost.
In the next week or so, get out a pen and paper and write down some simple goals. Hang it somewhere you will see it everyday. Once a week, check your progress.
The idea of checking your progress brings up the importance of lead tracking. Where are the leads coming from? What marketing efforts are working better than others? We will discuss the importance of tracking in our next post and will be providing you with FREE FORMS to help you accomplish the task.
Until then, happy goal setting!
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