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Avoiding drift...

Written by: Joy Duling

Article Overview: Often in planning for our businesses, we set up performance metrics that are tied to ANNUAL goals.

Avoiding drift...

Often in planning for our businesses, we set up performance metrics that are tied to ANNUAL goals...

... I'd like to increase my income by $50,000 this year.
... I'd like to have 12 speaking engagements.
... I'd like to decrease my debt by $20,000.

I'd like to encourage you to shorten the time periods for your goals. Having your measures as annual targets makes it too easy to drift over the course of the year.

For example, you might specify a weekly revenue goal, monthly prospect target, or quarterly debt payments.

Not all of your measures should be on a rapid cycle, but at least a few should be.

Then, tracking how you progress on those shorter cycle objectives will give you data on how to adjust longer term strategies.

Every month at a fixed day and time, make an appointment with yourself to evaluate progress and adjust your plan.

Note this appointment on your Outlook or other calendar well in advance and keep it.

Never consider it something that can be canceled for a client or other last minute request for your time. This is your time to work on managing your business and it deserves priority.

Why this matters...

One of the most powerful things that you can do for your business is to create (and use) a business plan. But most people write the plan, then forget about it.

Creating some objectives that are easily measured in the short-term and the long-term brings purpose to your plan and makes it more likely that you'll stick to it.

In The Productive Entrepreneur Personal Study Program, I actually walk you through the development of your 12-month plan... laying out your business vision, key measures, the strategies that you're going to use to attack your business goals.

By using some short-term measures in your plan, you'll know whether things are really working or not... without the influence of your own personal drift.

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Article Tags: appointment, business goals, business plan, business vision, debt payments, entrepreneur, managing your business, minute request, performance metrics, personal study program, speaking engagements, target, targets, term measures, term strategies, time periods
Referred by: http://www.calahansolutions.com



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Young entrepreneurs - Hearing about that 14 year old is very encouraging. You have to figure if a 14 year old can do it...well, you get my drift. Sometimes though, I wonder if sheer luck has more to do with it and just happened into the equation. I would love to know more about that 14 year olds success story and how this took off in just 3 years to the point where it is now. Especially when you hear about a story of a kid suddenly becoming a millionnaire. Is it something she went with because she knew what she was doing, knew how to grow a business and knew her concept would te off, or is it something she happened to try, not really knowing too much about it and the concept just took off?
How can small businesses protect themselves from bad custome - [quote="Donna":3ituds2n]I had to chime in on this one - I worked on that project and "reasonable" is NOT a word I would use to describe that client. She couldn't care less about anyone else and she did nothing to cooperate with the work I did at all. Once they decided not to proceed with the tour, she threatened to sue if she did not get a full and immediate refund. Avoiding a nuisance lawsuit is really not being taken advantage of. Sometimes a business person needs to have the common sense to know when and how to cut their losses and avoid additional hassle if possible. Actually, I did reuse quite a bit of the research I did and she is out of our lives forever. Donna[/quote:3ituds2n] Hi again Donna, While I think you made the right decision with respect to handling this difficult client... what's to stop future "bad" clients from doing the same to you (or other small business owners for that matter)? For instance, what if someone read this post, then asked you to promote them only to later ask full refund and threaten to sue? How can small business owners protect themselves from these kind of unpleasant situations?


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