The New Year is upon us and it s time to shake up your online marketing business. What do you have in store for 2010? Have you set some goals for your business or are you planning to just “wing it” for another year? Ask any successful entrepreneur the single most important task they do for their business and you ll probably hear something about setting goals. Most people think about what they d like to accomplish in their business, but the ones who achieve their goals are the ones who take the process of setting them seriously.
Goal setting is not just one of those “woo woo” feel good ideas you can listen to a podcast about and forget. It is a process that needs to be a regular part of your business if you intend to be successful. Goal setting involves reflection, desires and direction in order to take your business to the next level in the new year.
Start with reflection. Make a list of fives the five most successful projects from last year, the five least successful projects and the five projects you d love to do if you could have your dream projects on your calendar. Once you have your lists, dig in and analyze them. What made your successes work? Was it the clients, the type of project, the marketing process or the product itself? What led to the problems with the least successful projects? Did you procrastinate, take on more than you could chew, fail to research properly, target the wrong market? What makes your dream project ideal? Is it just the money, does it involve the satisfaction of helping others succeed, or could it be working on your own product instead of a clients? Figure out what the common factors are in the projects that you enjoy doing and that make money for your business. This is the first step in making sure you have more of these types of projects in your goals for next year.
Next, think about your desires for your business. What is your financial goal for next year? Break it down into monthly, then weekly dollar amounts. Figure out how many projects you need to take on to earn that amount of money. Are your prices set high enough to allow you to make the kind of money you want? Are they set low enough that people are getting a good value for their money. Figure out the happy medium, that magic number that allows you to earn what you want in the time you have available for your business.
Finally, you need direction in your goals. What actionable steps are you going to take to reach them. What can you do each week each day to reach your goals? Make a template of action steps for your calendar. One day you might set aside for writing blog posts, one day might be designated for developing new products, one day for finding new clients for your services. The key is to develop a plan for reaching your goals – and write it down. Putting your plans, the reflections, the desires and the direction of action steps down in writing will help you be much more effective in reaching them.
Author Resource:
Debbie Dragon is a freelance writer providing articles for Trace Media - http://www.tracemedia-search-marketing.com , an seo company in New York specializing in getting websites up, and making sure they perform to their full potential.
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