It’s the new year soon; you would be getting ready to set your goals and resolutions. Well, we all do. Are you someone who sets goals like:
- Make my company more profitable
- Get more customers
- Get more exposure
- Meet more partners
If you are, then you should read this post. I am going to give you a step by step formula to achieve these goals at the end of this post. Let’s rock 2016 together!
Subjectivity vs. Objectivity
Can you hope to lose weight next year and lose 10 pounds? Can you hope to get more customers and make sales? Does it even make sense to hope for the best next year? Hoping is high-level thinking feeling.
“I hope I can have a million dollars in my bank account” will not magically bring in a million dollars to your bank account. You need to work for that.!
Ok, maybe if you win a lottery then there is a chance of getting the million dollars in your bank account. A sidebar fact about Lotteries, there is a higher probability for a human in this world to get killed in a terrorist attack than for her to win a lottery!
Sidebar aside, and back to “Hope”. As you can already make out what I am going to say, “Hope is not a strategy!”. Setting subjective goals like the ones I mentioned above is like hoping for the best.
Subjective goals are broad goals that you will not be able to measure by the numbers. You can’t measure progress for a subjective goal as well.
To have clarity, to achieve, to drive your team, to reach the goal, you need to see progress. To have the motivation to achieve your objectives, you need to measure progress!
If you can’t measure it, you can’t see the progress. Not seeing progress will affect your motivation as well as the team’s motivation towards the goal.
Cut subjectivity and bring objectivity to your business. When you bring objectivity, you bring organization, you bring seriousness, you bring progress, you will produce results.
So, “how can I set objectivity?”, Is that what’s running through your mind? Let’s see that in detail:
Bringing objectivity means bringing three things to the table:
- Measurable Goals
- Measurable Progress
- Measurable Results
Measurable Goals:
When you decide your goals. Make sure your goals are measurable. There’s a saying by someone, that “If you fail to plan, then you plan to fail.”, Same way if you overwhelm with plans (Goals) then you are setting yourself for failure. Goal setting can fail you let me show you some examples of subjective vs. objective goals.
I’d advise you to pick one big goal for your business for the next year. And three other Key Three goals for making the Big goal possible. Let me show you some examples of subjective vs. objective goals.
#1 The Big Goal
Subjective: Make my company more profitable
Objective: Increase my company’s profits by 50% (From $63,000 to $137,000)
#2 Key Three #1
Subjective: Get more customers for my business
Objective: Add 1200 new customers by 2016
#3 Key Three #2
Subjective: Get more exposure
Objective: Add 12,000 subscribers to my email list
#4 Key Three #3
Subjective: Meet more partners
Objective: Sign 12 strategic partnerships
Measurable Progress
If you thought through your goals and set it as a measurable goal already, it’s easier to track progress.
When you track progress, it’s best to adopt the model of sprints. Usually, large companies go for a three month (12 weeks) sprint. It’s a short and sweet time period to make some progress. And to review your goals.
It goes like this, divide your goal measure into twelve and set targets for each month, where you should be. Note that, during a few months your sales may surge due to external factors like climate, or political conditions. That’s the reason the 12-week sprint is going to make more sense to you.
The point is that, even if you fail to make the goal for a month, you can catch up the next month, however, your hard goal is to achieve the Quarter’s goals.
There is a book on how to make this 12-week plan work out. Disclaimer: I haven’t read the book yet. But a respectable person recommended me the book. So, it should be good.
Here’s the link to the Amazon page, if you’d like to buy that and read more about this topic: The 12 Week Year: Get More Done in 12 Weeks than Others Do in 12 Months
Book aside, I’ve prepared a spreadsheet dashboard with the Big Goal and Key Threes and charts for the same to track progress. Read on now.
Measurable Results
In order to measure your results, you need to have the proper systems and processes in place to report the numbers in real-time.
The best way to do something related to sales and marketing is using a reporting tool such as Google Analytics, Kissmetrics, Hubspot CRM, Salesforce CRM, or others.
For finance, your existing financial reporting software can already do a good job. The free and easy way to get your finances together would be to sign-up for an online Finance software. The one I recommend is WaveApps, it’s free and also reporting is really good and user-friendly.
For other custom workflows and solutions, you can implement using manual process documents as I outlined it here. But the problem about manual process documents is that measuring requires manual effort and it will be error-prone.
Another option to have custom workflows could be by using google docs and forms. I’ll explain this in one of the upcoming posts on how you can use google docs to set up a workflow.
Even there, the measurement will be error-prone. Google docs are not the best way for you to build a custom workflow.
The best way is to use a Business Process Management software to build the workflows and also generate the relevant metrics for you automatically. You can go for custom software, but for building your business processes they are not the best way to go about.
Here’s the giveaway I promised: Google Sheet to define the Big Goal, Key Threes, and Track Progress For 2016
For a limited time, I’m available for a 30-minute strategy session. We can talk about how systemization can help your business to INCREASE YOUR PROFITS. You can schedule a 30-minute call for free at my profile here: https://calendly.com/mzee/30min