Creating a plan to reach your goals is the first step along the road to success in business and in your personal life. Well, actually the first step it to have goals, though, even if you haven’t actually written down specific goals you probably have some idea of what you want to achieve. However writing down the goals and creating a plan to achieve them, reviewing them regularly to see the progress you are making towards meeting those goals will make the chances of success much greater. If you are creating goals for your employees as well as yourself, include everyone in the group in the planning. Give those who will bear some of the responsibility the opportunity to voice their concerns about the project as well as their ideas on how to achieve the goals. Listen to everyone’s views and incorporate the viable ideas into the planning.
Take a piece of paper and write down the goals you have. Then add the things you are going to have to do to reach those goals. For example, do you want to increase business by a certain amount over the next twelve months? Write down the specifics of how much the business is making now, what you would like it to me making 12 months from now and in detail what you are going to have to do to get there. Or you might want to improve your performance at work. Be specific about exactly how you will improve and what you need to do to reach the goals of selling more or being more efficient.
Assign the tasks you need to perform to make your goal a reality. In addition to assigning the tasks create a timeline with smaller goals that can be achieved as you go along to make it easier to reach your goals.
Also set up rewards as you and everyone involved reaches the milestones along the way. Keeping yourself and others engaged and rewarded as you all make progress will maintain the enthusiasm for the project.
I doubt that there is anything in this blog that you don’t already know…but have you done it? Will you make the time to do this? Many times it doesn’t happen, but if you do, your chances of success are much more likely.
A tip of the glass from me to you
E column
by Elizabeth “E” Slater, In Short Direct Marketing
A recognized expert in the fields of direct marketing and sales in the wine marketplace. Slater has taught more wineries and winery associations how to create and improve the effectiveness of their direct marketing programs and to make the most of each customer’s potential than anyone in the wine industry today.
