setting goals – Getentrepreneurial.com: Resources for Small Business Entrepreneurs in 2024

The good news about being a biz owner is you get to set your own schedule.

And the bad news? You get to set your own schedule. (And we haven’t even talked about how that looks when you work out of your home and all the distractions THAT brings.)

If you’re like most entrepreneurs, no one taught you what successful habits you should be incorporating into the day-to-day running of your biz. Instead, you brought whatever working habits you learned at either your last place of employment or maybe even from school. And while those habits may have served you at that time, you may be finding they’re now holding you back from growing your biz.

So I want to share 3 powerful habits you can start doing right now to grow a successful, profitable biz, without making yourself crazy.

Habit 1 — Start your day with a positive, grounding ritual. I don’t know any super-successful entrepreneur who jumps out of bed and immediately checks email. Everyone I know has some sort of ritual — it could be meditation or journaling or visualizing or some inspirational reading. But whatever it is, the point is to start your day powerfully and at peace.

Then you can check email.

Look, I get it if you’re squirming right now. I was a massive check-my-email-first-thing-in-the-morning too. But for a year now, I’ve instead started my day with meditation and maybe some journaling, and I have to tell you, it’s really helped me stay centered and grounded no matter what goes on around me. I tend to get more done, be less frazzled, and be a lot more focused. And you MUST do this before you check email and start your day — the moment you jump into your day thinking you’ll get “back” to meditating — it never happens.

Habit 2 — Take the time to plan your day (and maybe your week) in advance. Now there are lots and lots of resources and systems out there to help you structure your day, and it really doesn’t matter what system you use, just as long as you do SOMETHING. For myself, I take time usually on Friday (but sometimes on Sunday) to plan my week out and at least get the big rocks scheduled. And then each morning I revisit that schedule, and based on what I’ve gotten done (or not gotten done), I then plan out what I need to do that day.

I’m certainly no expert at this and I also most-definitely could have a better system, but the point is it does work for me. The days I don’t revisit my schedule and plan my day are typically my least-productive days, so it’s definitely worth it to take 5 minutes and put together my day’s to-do list.

Habit 3 — Take the time to check in with your biz and your goals at least once a quarter. It’s not enough to put together your marketing plan and figure out your goals in January and then never look at them again. You need to go back and revisit your goals and your plan (and also check back in that you’re still connected to your vision and mission). Are you on track? Have you gotten off track? Are you on a different path than you intended, but you’re finding you like that path better? Whatever it is, this is important step to make sure you stay clear, connected and focused on your biz (which makes it a lot easier to reach your goals).

2014-marketing-goals

It’s that time of year to make sure your marketing plan is all ready to go – just in time to kick off the sparkling New Year that’s right around the corner.

But how do you get a marketing plan together that will actually get you the results you’re looking for? Here are 3 tips to get you started:

1. Start with the end in mind. Make sure you figure out specific and REALISTIC goals. While I’m all for having a hit-it-out-of-the-park goal (like building your list to 10K when you have 500 on it right now), you should also have a goal that’s doable AND will make you happy if you reach it.

Knowing your goals will help guide where you need to put your focus. And I would pick no more than 3-5 top ones to get done in 2014 (plus some secondary strategies to round out your calendar). So, for instance, maybe you want to build your list, launch a high-end group mastermind program and get your book done as your main goals. And maybe as part of your high-end group program launch, you also have a smaller launch as a lead in.

So now you have 3 big rocks you can get into your calendar — a product launch, a high-end group launch and a book launch. Plus you have list-building activities that need to happen regularly. Once you’ve plugged those in, now you need to make sure you have both long-term and short-term marketing covered (which is #2).

2. Do you have a balance between long-term and short-term marketing activities? Long-term are tactics like building your list and nurturing your list (for instance sending a regular ezine). Short-term are tactics like having a sale or a launch that bring money in the door right now.

Successful businesses have a balance of both throughout the year — the long-term that will lead to a healthy business with a regular stream of leads and clients and short-term for cash flow.

So now that you have your big rocks, do you see holes in either your short-term or long-term? Do you have your cash-flow covered from month-to-month? Do you have your list-building and list-nurturing activities in there? Now is the time to adjust accordingly.

3. Are the marketing activities you’ve committed to things you enjoy? My personal feeling is the reason why entrepreneurs fail when it comes to marketing is they focus their efforts on what they feel like they SHOULD be doing, rather than what they LOVE doing. There are so many ways to market yourself — videos, podcasts, writing blogs, connecting on social networking, etc. — that I guarantee there is SOMETHING you enjoy doing. So figure out what that is and do that activity. Don’t worry about the rest. Get one thing done and get it done right, and the rest will fall into place.

(If you want some help with this, my “Internet Marketing Success Story” includes an assessment to help you figure out which marketing activity is perfect for you. You can learn more here: http://www.InternetSuccessStory.com)

Now, once you’ve figured out what you love doing, don’t forget to actually build those activities into your plan. Because it doesn’t matter how great of a plan you’ve put together, if you don’t actually implement anything in the New Year, you’re not going to get the results you’re looking for.