Now that 2023 is officially underway and the holiday fatigue has (hopefully) worn off, it’s time to make and begin working toward some business goals for the year ahead.
Goal-setting is critical for any business because like the quote above says, “If you don’t know where you are going, you will probably end up somewhere else.”
We wish you the utmost success in the year to come. Let’s talk about how you can achieve it.
Step 1 - Establish Your Business Goals
There are many goal-setting methods you can use when it comes to setting your business goals for 2023. Here are a few:
The method you choose is entirely up to you. But choose a method and start making a list.
Here are some questions to ask yourself and get you started:
What’s your target revenue for 2023?
How much profit do you want the business to make this year?
How much money do you personally want to earn?
How many customers or clients do you want to serve?
Are there services or products you should be phasing out?
Similarly, are there new products or services you want to introduce?
Do you need to hire new employees or want to work with contractors?
Does your business equipment need updating or repair?
How much traffic do you want to see on your website each month?
How much social media traffic do you want to aim for?
Are there marketing methods you want to try?
Tip: Don’t be afraid to think BIG!
Once you have a solid idea of your main goals, you’re ready to move on to Step 2.
Step 2 - Create Smaller Goals
Whatever you do, don’t stop with the bigger goals you listed in Step 1. Those may look pretty daunting to you, which can discourage you from even trying to reach them.
Take a look at each of the larger goals and break them down into smaller goals. Since Colwell Creative Content, Inc. does digital marketing, let’s look at an example for our business.
Let’s say we want to increase our website visitors to 10,000 per month in 2023. Here’s how we’ll break that down:
We’ll aim for about 834 website visitors each month.
We can break it down even further and aim for about 209 visitors per week.
To accomplish this goal, we’ll look at our current marketing plan and decide how to tweak it. Those activities might include:
Starting a weekly podcast.
Adding 1 or 2 more social media platforms.
Posting articles on LinkedIn written by our team.
Investing in billboards in our area.
Hosting informational Zooms to help businesses grow.
Each of these activities is assigned a date, and each one is broken down even more so the people involved in these goals understand their roles. That leads us to Step 3...
Step 3 - Formulate Your Plan of Attack
Once you have your goals down on paper, it’s time to make a plan. After all, it’s impossible to reach any goal without taking action.
Let’s use our example of starting a weekly podcast. This is what our action plan might look like:
By January 31:
Set a launch date (March 15, for example)
Brainstorm topic ideas for the first 3 months of podcasts
Make a list of equipment we’ll need to buy
By February 28:
Purchase podcast equipment and test it out
Outline the first month’s podcast episodes on paper
Make a list of special guests to invite for interviews
By March 31:
Contact special guests for March to confirm participation and answer questions
Schedule a pre-launch episode to test equipment live
Launch the podcast with the first real episode
Outline February episodes on paper
Depending on how you procrastinate, you may need to break these action steps down even more. But you get the general idea.
Step 4 - Gather Support, Resources, and Tools
If your goals are BIG (and I hope they are), you’ll need to take some time to figure out everything needed to achieve them.
You may need any number of things, including:
Improved and updated equipment
Direct mail services
More personnel
Education in the form of an online or in-person course
It also helps to have someone who will hold you accountable. Do you know any other business owners? Encourage them to create their own goals, and you can work together to keep each other’s progress in check.
Step 5 - Review Your Progress - But Don’t Beat Yourself Up!
I recommend reviewing your business goal progress at least once a month. But you may want to review it more often than that.
There’s nothing wrong with setting up weekly review reminders until you get some action steps under your belt.
And if you mess up, get busy with other things, or an emergency pops up, don’t sweat it! You won’t do yourself any favors by beating yourself up.
Simply take a minute, refocus, set some new deadlines, and keep moving forward.
Let’s Execute Your Business Goals Together!
A new year presents a brand-new opportunity to demolish your business goals. We’d love to partner with you for anything digital marketing or sales copy related.
At Colwell Creative Content, Inc., we handle everything from print mail sales copy to website design, social media, and beyond. Contact us and let’s chat about what’s in store for your business in 2023!
Let’s Grow Your Business Together!