Happy 2024! This is the first Fast Tip Friday I'm doing for the year, so I hope I can live up to the standard!
It's the beginning of the year and this time of the year is still spent kind of reflecting on things from the end of the year, and hopefully by now, everybody's set their goals and they've got an idea of what success will be defined by at the end of 2024.
I wanted to just take a moment and add on to the idea of not just goal setting, but goal accomplishment. Everybody can set goals. That's not the hard part. The hard part is actually turning those goals into reality, accomplishing them, getting them to a point where you can stand up and say, “I did it”, “I achieved my goal”, “I realized my dream”. I want to just kind of break that down a little bit for you today pretty quickly. If you're in business, you should always have a goal.
What's the finish line? Where do you want to end up at the end of the next 12 months, so you can say, yes, we won, in fact, we won big? To set a goal, I want to reemphasize something I probably talked about a couple of times in previous Fast Tip Fridays. A goal is the measurable part of your dream, your emotional connection to an outcome or a realization of some state in your life. And so if you don't have a dream, you're probably going to struggle with setting a goal or being passionate about a goal… Get your dream figured out. Then sit down and measure it up.
What's it take? How much money will it require you to spend? Once you've got a goal, then you've got to get down into the day to day work of what your plan is to accomplish that goal. So you've got a dream, you've got a goal, and then you've got to build a plan.
What's your activity model? What are you going to go after? How do you think you're going to get from stating it to realizing it? So take your goal, break it down into plans and make your plans no more than with segments of no more than 90 days. Give your brain a chance to look short term and manage your behavior a little bit better. And then once you get your plan figured out, get more strategic. So if your plan is to hit your goal, you need to add five new clients of at least $50,000 or whatever your goal requires you to do. That's your plan. Then you've got to strategize it. My strategy almost always includes getting referrals and using my existing network to get in front of the people that will get me to the right reasons, the right conversations and the right decisions so that my plan justifies my goal. Once you've got your dream, your goal, your plan, your strategy, then you've got to really tell yourself the truth.
Do you have the tactical horsepower, the tactical training to go out and have the most efficient and effective business conversations with enough of the right people so that your strategy approach is validated? Your strategy supports the four quarters of your plan. Those four quarters accumulate success so that you see your goal and then you're living your dream life.
A little bit mechanical here on the first one of these for 2024, but have a dream year, measure it up and make it a goal. Slow yourself down and don't go from start to finish. Break it down into four quarters of manageable behaviors. Get strategic on who you approach, how you're going to approach them, what you're going to talk to them about, what your real value propositions are, and then get your best stuff together. Sharpen all the tools in your business development, suitcase or toolbox, and go on out there and have the most efficient and effective conversations you can have so that it becomes an absolute no-brainer that your dream becomes a reality.
That's my message for this week. Have a great 2024. Have a powerful first quarter to get you started on your way and live the best life you can. Thanks for checking out this week’s Fast Tip Friday!
