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Interview Patty

89 - How To Set Business Goals That Yield A Positive ROI

As the New Year is getting ready to ring in, it’s time to think about the goals for your business in 2015. Whether your business plans include expansion, acquisition, or exiting, setting goals is the first step to achieving success. This advice is commonplace, but most business owners are not heeding it. More than 80 percent of the 300 small business owners surveyed in the recent 4th Annual Staples National Small Business Survey said that they don’t keep track of their business goals– and 77 percent have yet to achieve their vision for the company.

How can you set business goals that stick and, better yet, yield a positive ROI for your company? By establishing a long-term plan, visualizing, reviewing your goals daily, and making course corrections when necessary, you can bring your future goals into present-day focus.

1. Write down specific one-year, five-year, and ten-year goals
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Businesses aren’t built in a day. Successful businesses are a result of years of smart decisions and hard work. So, good entrepreneurs can foresee the process and make business development goals based on the projected state of the business. As Marc Benioff stated in his keynote address at the Utah Technology Conference’s 2014 Hall of Fame Celebration, “most people overestimate their success in one year and underestimate their success in ten years. For me, five-year goals are standard practice.”

Knowing what I have planned for myself in five years has a profound influence on the decisions I make today. What level of success do I hope to achieve? How much time will I invest in pursuing that goal? What factors will determine my decision to pursue something else? I am more strategic and better able to develop effective management teams when I am able to share my long-term goals with those I hope to hire.

2. Visualize
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Early on in my career, one of my five-year goals was to write a book. The first thing I did was to visualize my completed book. I designed a cover page—no content, just a cover page—and I created a screensaver of that image. Every day, I was reminded of my goal to write a book, and I started setting aside time to complete it. Five years later, I am nearly finished with the book. That screensaver motivated me and kept me writing.

Jack Canfield, author of The Success Principles,explained the key to visualization in this way: “When you visualize your goals as already complete each and every day, it creates a conflict in your subconscious mind between what you are visualizing and what you currently have. Your subconscious mind tries to resolve that conflict by turning your current reality into the new, more exciting vision.”

Olympic gymnast and motivational corporate speaker Peter Vidmar often used the visualization exercise in his training. “To keep us focused on our Olympic goal, we began ending our workouts by visualizing our dream,” Vidmar stated. “We visualized ourselves actually competing in the Olympics and achieving our dream by practicing what we thought would be the ultimate gymnastics scenario.” Vidmar and his teammates made history by winning the 1984 Olympic team gold medal in men’s gymnastics. As a two-time Olympic Hall of Fame inductee, Vidmar is the highest-scoring American gymnast in Olympic history. And he attributes his success in part to visualization.

3. Schedule time on the calendar for a daily review
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Reviewing your goals is an essential component of being future-minded. I rely on Evernote to track my goals, lists, quotes, and references—anything that helps me realize my future plans—and I review them daily. However, with long-term goals, it’s often necessary to modify or reevaluate them. Things happen, priorities change, and new opportunities emerge. Being familiar with my long-term goals enables me to recognize new opportunities and make efficient course corrections.

4. Harness frequency
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Successful entrepreneurs know in advance how much time is needed to see an acceptable level of success. They know what they are looking for, and if they don’t see it, they will rethink goals and make immediate changes. Brett Harward, in The 5 Laws That Determine All of Life’s Outcomes, explains the concept of “frequency” as “the speed of learning and course correction.” Taking control of your timeline allows you to evaluate the progress of your business effectively.

Setting goals has its rewards. By writing down goals, visualizing, reviewing goals daily, and making course corrections, you can become part of the 20 percent who understand the importance of a long-term plan and have the tools to accomplish it. Make this New Year the time to start planning for long-term success.

Read the full article here: Forbes

All the best!

Patty Block

Building Blocks

7941 Katy Fwy. #414
Houston, TX 77024 USA

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