There have been many things written about setting goals to help you in your business and I know many people do not set themselves goals as they are afraid of failure.
The point of having goals is to give yourself a guide or, if you like, a road along which to travel.
You may have to stop for petrol or repair a blown tyre at some stage but you always know where you are heading.
I think that goals are vital in making sure that your business stays on track.
To start with what you should do is write down your goal for 5 years time.
Think about it very seriously.
When you have been running your business for 5 years where do you really expect to be.
Be detailed, be ambitious, this is 5 years remember.
Where do you want to be living? What type of house? What type of car? Then look at your business in 5 years time.
Where do you want that to be? How many people on your list? What level of income? Who do you want to be working with? How will it be structured? Put down anything and everything.
Now look at 3 years time.
Look at the same things and think about where you need to be to ensure that the 5 year plan is on track, in other words if you are looking for a £1,000,000 income for year 5 you should probably be at around £400,000 for year 3 etc.
etc.
Next look at 2 years then 1 year, finally six months.
Now were getting closer to where you are now, now you start to think "I'm not sure I can do that".
Forget that, YOU CAN! You simply break the next six months down and look at what you need to achieve in each period.
That may mean by the end of month 1 you need to have build a blog, a lead capture page, set up accounts with Facebook, Twitter, YouTube etc.
By the end of month 2 you may have to have 400 new Facebook friends, 500 new twitter followers, 8 new videos, 10 blog posts, 6 Articles written etc.
By the end of month 3 well you can fill in the blanks for the rest.
The idea is to make sure that all the goals tie together and work towards the 5 year plan that you started out with.
At the end of each month you can check that you have achieved what you set out to achieve, if not then you can see where you are falling behind and do something about it the following month.
If you don't have these short term goals then it is quite easy to just drift along without really getting anywhere.
Three or four months down the track you wonder why you still have not earned any money and become one of the 97% who 'fail' at Internet Marketing.
The thing to remember is that these goals need to be flexible because 5 years is a fairly long period of time and other things may happen to put either ahead or behind schedule so it is important to review your goals at regular intervals and adjust them as you see fit.
Remember it is you business and you must build it at your pace but if you do not have a direction in which to travel how do you know where you are going?
The point of having goals is to give yourself a guide or, if you like, a road along which to travel.
You may have to stop for petrol or repair a blown tyre at some stage but you always know where you are heading.
I think that goals are vital in making sure that your business stays on track.
To start with what you should do is write down your goal for 5 years time.
Think about it very seriously.
When you have been running your business for 5 years where do you really expect to be.
Be detailed, be ambitious, this is 5 years remember.
Where do you want to be living? What type of house? What type of car? Then look at your business in 5 years time.
Where do you want that to be? How many people on your list? What level of income? Who do you want to be working with? How will it be structured? Put down anything and everything.
Now look at 3 years time.
Look at the same things and think about where you need to be to ensure that the 5 year plan is on track, in other words if you are looking for a £1,000,000 income for year 5 you should probably be at around £400,000 for year 3 etc.
etc.
Next look at 2 years then 1 year, finally six months.
Now were getting closer to where you are now, now you start to think "I'm not sure I can do that".
Forget that, YOU CAN! You simply break the next six months down and look at what you need to achieve in each period.
That may mean by the end of month 1 you need to have build a blog, a lead capture page, set up accounts with Facebook, Twitter, YouTube etc.
By the end of month 2 you may have to have 400 new Facebook friends, 500 new twitter followers, 8 new videos, 10 blog posts, 6 Articles written etc.
By the end of month 3 well you can fill in the blanks for the rest.
The idea is to make sure that all the goals tie together and work towards the 5 year plan that you started out with.
At the end of each month you can check that you have achieved what you set out to achieve, if not then you can see where you are falling behind and do something about it the following month.
If you don't have these short term goals then it is quite easy to just drift along without really getting anywhere.
Three or four months down the track you wonder why you still have not earned any money and become one of the 97% who 'fail' at Internet Marketing.
The thing to remember is that these goals need to be flexible because 5 years is a fairly long period of time and other things may happen to put either ahead or behind schedule so it is important to review your goals at regular intervals and adjust them as you see fit.
Remember it is you business and you must build it at your pace but if you do not have a direction in which to travel how do you know where you are going?