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by Andre Plessis
To accomplish anything in life, you will need a road map to achieve and realize your dreams. It's called goal setting. Once you have your goals in mind you will need a plan of action to help you reach those goals, whichever they are. The whole purpose of setting goals is to plan your life rather than take life as it comes.
Ninety-seven percent of the population does not set goals for two three reasons: (1) Fear is preventing them from doing so and (2) There is a risk that the goal may not be reached (3) They don't know how to set their own goals.
The most important part of goal setting is knowing what you want the most in life. The most critical part will be to achieve them and layout a plan to accomplish your dreams.
Today you have 2 choices in front of you; either you decide to set your own goals and the journey will start, or you decide not to and you will soon realize that you have not achieved what you wanted.
I know it may sound somewhat ridiculous to set your own goals and a plan of action to achieve them but as time flies by you will soon realize that I WAS RIGHT.
Here is why: How can you possibly achieve something in life if you do not have a clear plan, a road map, a detail plan of action that tells you everything about achieving your goals? How can you possibly envision your future without a clear definition of how to achieve your dreams?
Goal setting is a standard technique used by top level athletes, and successful business people all around the world. Remember, you will not pay a price for setting goals. You will pay a price for not setting them. You can choose to get caught up in the everyday activity of your life without feeling a real sense of purpose in life or you can choose to accomplish something meaningful with your life.
First you have to write down your goals and second you have to lay out your plan of actions that will determine how to you reach them. Once you have set your long-term goals, set up your short-term goals that you should complete if you are to reach your lifetime plan. You can set a 5 year plan, 1 year plan, 6 month plan, and 1 month plan of progressively smaller goals that you should reach to achieve your lifetime goals. Each of these should be based on the previous plan. Finally set a daily to do list of things that you should do today to work towards your lifetime goals.
Once you have decided your first set of plans, keep the process going by reviewing and updating your to-do list on a daily and weekly basis. Periodically review your plans, results and modify them to reflect your changing priorities, experience and accomplishments.
Be precise in setting your goals: Set precise goals, put dates, and amounts so that they are real. If you do this, you will know exactly how and when to achieve your personal goals. Have a vision that you know is unquestionably right and you will be internally driven to achieve that vision. A goal is "reasonable" when you can see the entire process needed to get to its attainment.
Write goals down: This is extremely important to if you wish to accomplish them. Goals are personals and should be shared with people that are close to you. This will give you more sense to what you do. Start mapping out your goals and review them regularly.
Set realistic goals: It is important to set goals that you can achieve if not you will give up on the idea that setting goals is the most important technique to help you achieve your dreams.
List the obstacles to overcome in accomplishing your goals.
Identify the individuals and groups you need to work with to reach your goals.
List the skills and knowledge required to reach your goal. What do you need to know?
Develop a plan of action to reach your goals.
Write down the benefits of achieving your goals. What will you get in compensation? (Monetary, freedom, more vacations, retire early, etc.)
Example of goal setting:
If you wish to make $1 million over the next 12 months, you will need to make sure first it's a realistic goal and second you need to know how to get there.
Let's assume that you product is worth $250 then it means that you need to make 4,000 sales in one year. That translate to about 333 sales per month, or 77 sales per week or 11 sales per day.
Now you will need to carefully study how many prospects you need to talk to in order for you to close 11 sales per day. You will also need to know how much advertising budget you need to spend to get so many calls per day.
If you need to talk to 100 prospects to close 10, 11 deals then your closing ratio is 10%. It also means that you need to talk to 100 people per day. Will it be cold calling or will it be generated through various advertising medium.
At the end of each day or each week you should review where you at with your goals and adjust appropriately if you do not achieve the result expected. Above I just outlined a goal but yours will have to be a lot more detailed in the execution. Just don't think that it should be as simple as I wrote down above. You need to clearly define your goals as well as the road to get there. It should be very detailed and not written down in 5 to 10 sentences. the more detailed the more serious you are and the more chances you have to accomplish your dreams.
Developing Your Marketing Plan & Sales Goals:
. Who are your customers?
. What do they buy?
. How much do they spend?
. How often do they buy?
. Where are they located? (Geography)
. Do you have a referral program in place?
. Do you have an incentive program in place?
. What do you sell?
. What are the benefits of your products or services?
. What will be the method of providing follow-up service to customers?
. What are your distribution channels?
.How many individuals or organizations will sell your products or services?
. How will they be remunerated?
. How much will your product or service cost?
. What will be your profit on each sale?
. How many sales per year/per month/per day are necessary to reach your goals?
. How will you advertise?
. What will be your advertising budget?
. Where will you advertise? (Yellow pages, TV, Internet, Newspapers etc.)
. How many calls do you need to receive to close those sales?
. What will be your ROI (Return on Investment)?
. Who is your competition?
. How do they operate?
. What do they sell?
. What are their advantages?
. What are their prices?
. Why are you better than your competition?
Finally:
Failure to meet goals does not matter as long as you learn from it. Feed lessons learned back into your goal-setting program. When something is wrong fix it and get back on track with your goals. Don't let anyone disturb you or put you down. The road is long with plenty of obstacles. Once you remove those obstacles the road becomes clear and you are closer to achieving your goals.
Goal setting should be viewed as:
. Deciding what is important for you to achieve in your own life
. Have more purpose and direction in life
. Motivating yourself to great achievement
. Building your self-confidence
. Be more organized and effective
. Rewarding yourself and others around you
. Satisfaction of achievements
. Making a difference in the lives of others
. Be an example for others as well as a leader
. Accomplish amazing things in life
You should allow yourself to enjoy the achievement of goals and reward yourself appropriately.
When you have achieved a goal, take the time to enjoy the satisfaction of having done so.
Life is a journey. Life is a journey from where you are to where you want to be. You can choose your own destination. Not only that, you can choose how you are going to get there. Goal setting will help you end up where you want to be -
I GUARANTEE IT!
Andre Plessis
Author & Marketing Expert
smartbizconnection.comWe Can Teach You How To Triple or Quadruple Your business. The Rest is Up To You!
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