We’ve all heard about how important goals are to everything: school, athletics, business, life. So, what are your business goals?
Now, how will you meet them?
In this post, I’ll share how having three clear goals for your business can help you see what choices are best for you and your business.
Your Goals
What are your specific goals for your business? You may want to move away from dependence on another business for your work, have control over how much you make for income, or the ability to set aside more time to vacation.
Whatever your goals, write them down. They’ll create the yardstick you’ll use to measure any opportunities that come your way. For the sake of this post, we’ll look at the following three goals:
- Independence: no longer needing to depend on another business for your stream of work
- Income: control over how much money you make without restrictions set by someone else
- Vacation: Setting aside three 10-day vacations per year
Measuring Opportunities
Let’s put this into action. Say you’re on your way to building your business, taking the baby steps you know will build the right business for you and you’re offered a bonus at your full-time (desk) job. Let’s measure this up against your goal yardstick:
- Does this help you achieve independence from your employer? No.
- Does this give you more control over the amount of income you can make? Maybe, you’d make more money if you hit the KPIs to attain that bonus.
- Does this give you more time for your vacations? Not exactly. It may give you money to set aside for that vacation but you know you’ll want to spend some of that money right after you get it and since the bonus is far less than the typical offer you sell in your business…not really.
In short: 1) no 2) maybe 3) not exactly. Which means this doesn’t look like the resounding “yes” you’ll want for a new opportunity that moves you closer to your business goals.
Now, imagine that you had an offer from a client to work with them for three months at double your previous rate. Let’s measure this one against that same goal yardstick:
- Does this help you achieve independence from your employer? Yes since it moves you closer to consistently charging rates that allow you to work primarily in your business.
- Does this give you more control over the amount of income you can make? Yes. It’s double your previous rate!
- Does this give you more time for your vacations? Not exactly. It may give you money to set aside for that vacation but you know you’ll want to spend some of that money right after you get it. Since this is double your typical offer, you’ll have more to set aside for your vacations. So, yes!
Your Turn
The examples above may seem simple, and few decisions will be as clear cut but taking the time to define what you want for your business will absolutely help you see which opportunities are right for you.
Ready to get clear on what’s important to you and your business? Great! Getting stuck in the process? Not so great. Let’s get you unstuck during a no-pitch chat.
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