Yesterday I came across the goals I’d written for 2009.  (I know, I should have known where they were and been doing all the great strategic measuring I talk about.  But, marketing our company is akin to a cobbler’s shoes – our marketing is always the last to be done.)

It is a great practice though to look back over the year and see what you achieved and what you weren’t quite able to reach.  It will help you celebrate the good things – which we don’t take enough time out to do – and set a plan to achieve the other goals if they remain important.

A review of your goals will also enable you to better understand what you can realistically achieve within a twelve month period.  Maybe some of them needed a little longer.  Maybe some are no longer important.  Or maybe you need to clear more time in your diary for strategy and marketing to ensure you do achieve your goals for 2010.

Whilst the snow’s affecting many businesses and keeping things quiet, it’s a great use of any spare time to really think about what you want to achieve this year.  It’s in your power – you don’t have to rumble along and see what happens, you can actually work a plan.  Why not give it a go?

January’s a great time to take a look at your strategy for the year ahead.  Unless you work in hospitality (or other industries which have a very busy Christmas season), you’ve probably had some time to clear your head and view your business from a distance.  Spending time away from work also gives you chance to sort priorities in your head and determine how you’d like things to change for the better in 2010.

Hopefully, you’ve been able to take some time to review your goals with your partner.  It’s critical to do that first – you can’t make a business plan in isolation of your personal plan.  So revisit those goals and have a good look at what you might need to do in terms of your work life, in order to meet your personal goals.

This will allow you to create some business goals that (hopefully) add to your personal goals.  And that’s where we’ll start this week…

Create just six goals in the following categories:

• 90 Days
• 1 Year
• 5 Years

Tomorrow, we’ll have a look at how you can keep yourself on track.

The vast majority of companies we meet haven’t created a marketing plan or budget for the year.  Often, this results in reacting to offers of advertising and promotion, rather than knowing what works and where money (and time) is best spent.

In most cases, a one-off advert will not cover it’s costs.  And this is unfortunately what leads to most business owners being unhappy with marketing as a whole.  But, what they sometimes don’t realise is that there are many other marketing methods they can use; most of which are less expensive.  But they do require a bit more thought.

I’m afraid there is no magic marketing bullet that will bring you an inordinate amount of business overnight.  It’s a question of trying different methods and measuring your results.  But, we always recommend looking at the cheaper methods first – what difference could you make to your bottom line, for example, if you improved your customer retention by 10%?  Chances are that’s cheaper than looking for new customers.

By creating a plan, you can put some science to your marketing.  Henry Ford once famously said ‘I know 50% of my marketing spend is wasted – I just don’t know which 50%.’  My argument is that he should have known what was and wasn’t working – just by asking ‘How did you hear about us?’ you can reduce your spend in the areas that aren’t covering their costs and boost it in others.

One of our favourite customers did just this and re-allocated £5000 in advertising that wasn’t working, into a campaign that was generating results.  This year, his audience figures are up 18% on last year.  In the middle of a recession.

By understanding your current priorities (your 90-day plan) and your ‘end game’ (your 5-year plan) you can now create a set of priorities / goals for the next twelve months.  Again, we recommend you stick to just six business goals and six personal goals, to ensure you can realistically achieve what you have set.

Have a look at your 5-year goal list and work back from there to decide what actions you need to complete in the next year in order to take a big step towards those goals.  The following tables may help you:

1-Year Goals – Business

1-Year Goals – Personal

These goals can now be linked into your 90-day goals – 4 of these 90-day planning sheets and you’ll be at the end of your year.  The three goals exercises together will keep you focused on your priorities and will give you something against which you can measure your progress.

Good Luck!

If you know where you’re trying to get to, it will keep you focused and help you prioritise projects and opportunities that may either keep you on, or knock you off, track.  I can’t over-emphasise the importance of having goals, but suffice it to say that all the leading business owners and successful millionaires stretching back decades recommend having written goals – and, if it’s good enough for them…

The majority of business owners we meet have never asked themselves what it is they really want, or why they’re in business in the first place.  But, once you have a purpose and a focus, you can have anything you want.

A great exercise  to help with your long-term planning is to brainstorm ideas – and just write down the first things that come to mind.  Jim Rohn has a framework to help you, which is just there to get you started (I’ve added one of my own, which I’m hopeful Jim would agree with, as it matches his own business philosophy.)  Just keep writing – you don’t only have to have one idea in each box – the more you have the better.  Perhaps just set yourself a time limit of 10 minutes and see what you come up with…

Once you’ve created a list of goals, you then need to make a plan to achieve them.  But first, we’ll take a look at how badly you want the things you’ve written down tomorrow – it’s a great way to prioritise them.

Most of us spend more time planning our two-week vacation (or escape) than we do planning the other 50-weeks of the year.  But, if we can have everything we want, doesn’t it make sense to create a plan to get it?

If you don’t know where you want to be, how will you know when you get there?

To start the process, we’re just going to recommend focusing on the next 90-days.  Try to complete the following tables, as they should help…

90-Day Goals – Business

90-Day Goals – Personal

We just suggest six goals, as too many is likely to be unachievable in the time.  You also risk losing focus if you have too many things happening, so just stick to six in each area and see how you get on.

If you can, find someone to hold you accountable – a business coach, or trusted partner.  They could call you each week or each fortnight to ask how you’re doing.  You’ll be amazed at the results if you know someone’s going to keep a check on you.

Tomorrow, we’ll give you some tips for setting 5 year goals – when it starts to get a bit more serious.