In Part One of Setting Your Goals For the New Year and Throughout the Year we talked about how and why you need to set your goals at increments throughout the year and how to set high quality goals you can achieve.
Now let’s get into the nuts and bolts of doing this in a simple way that anyone can achieve.
How you will make your overall goal is through step goals. Think of step goals as progressions, mini-steps that you take that will lead you towards being able to achieve your overall goal. These step goals are goals that you feel you can achieve in a short or medium amount of time and will enable you to get closer to your overall goal by teaching you something, by making you good at something, or by allowing you to pass through a certain benchmark.
An example of this would be to learn how to create trust and comfort with your customer the first time you meet them in a way they like so you can progress into sale. You can do by creating deep and wide rapport, by finding out their wants and needs, by qualifying how much pain their ‘problem’ creates for them, or by simply asking for the sale (“would you like to give it a try?”).
Another example would be to learn how to network with other entrepreneurs in Vancouver; initiate conversation, create a connection and rapport, then get to know each other within three minutes with the possibility of doing business or helping each other. Step goals are goals that you set for yourself that you make it a point to achieve and can be as broken down and process oriented as needed.
Now, when you set goals, it is very important to set a schedule (time) for yourself, particularly for step goals. This will motivate you to do them and not give up, and it will feel really good each time you cross an item off your list. You need to set a specific time frame for all your goals, and you need to keep track of how you are doing with your goals (I make a weekly list of things I need to do to help me monitor).
Don’t make the goal too long, for example, for ten years, so you can be lazy about it, and conversely, don’t make them so short, like two weeks, making it next to impossible to achieve. Be realistic when setting your specific time constraints and stick to them.
Beware of the dangers that prevent you from reaching your goals. It’s ok to not achieve them in the time you want, as long as you don’t give up. The danger is in giving up and being lazy about it. Procrastination is your enemy. We all do it, but really shouldn’t.
Another danger is in your attitude towards yourself and to your desire and conviction to get parts of your life handled. A negative attitude and non-belief is the death of your success – they make achieving your goals so much harder. So if you want to have a strong and prosperous business, but you are too concerned about what the competition is doing because you have been ‘hurt’ in the past from losing out to them…perhaps you should think about setting a goal to help yourself first.
It’s tough sometimes to step outside of yourself and see how you are doing. That is why there is value to getting outside help and coaching to help you meet your goals. Alternatively, if you have another like-minded entrepreneur you really trust, then ask for his honest feedback about you and be prepared for the answer.
Regards,
Ronald Lee
Elevated Marketing
info@elevatedmarketing.ca
…follow me on Twitter
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