Speakers & Coaches: Setting Goals in the New Year

I attended a Tennessee Coaches Alliance meeting today, where the topic of the luncheon was (fittingly) goal-setting for 2010.  I’ve been working on lining up goals for SMS for 2010 for the last several months, and something about this meeting really inspired me to make sure that I’m framing my goals for the year in terms of the results I want to create.

It’s so easy to make lists and keep ourselves busy, yet busyness doesn’t necessarily translate into growing our businesses.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen speakers and coaches arbitrarily filling their schedules up with busyness that “feels” productive; yet they aren’t seeing key results like more clients and more income (which is what most of us ultimately want!).

Tony Robbins is probably the master, in my book, on teaching you how to leveraging time to create the specific outcomes you care about most.  As you contemplate the results you want to achieve this year in your business, make sure you are framing them as specific, measurable outcomes.  You might have a goal of generating a $250,000 income in your business, for example.  Working backwards, you should be able to determine how many clients you’ll need in each profit center, and how to best execute your marketing strategy to produce those clients.

Also, consider that for speakers, authors, coaches and consultants, a solid Marketing Gameplan is built around the Marketing Triad:  three primary strategies (Networking, Visibility and Grassroots Marketing) designed to help us: attract prospects [Marketing Mavens (sign up free!) can review the Marketing Triad here; you can also learn more about the Marketing Triad in the How Should I Market Myself program], fill our pipeline, and convert prospects to customers.

Once our Triad is established and well-oiled, we can support our efforts with Stacking Strategies to supercharge our campaigns.

As you create your goals this year, consider the quantifiable results you want to achieve, and break these results down into specific, executable tasks:

• Speaking twice a month to an audience of decision-makers (the Marketing Gameplan program calls this a Visibility Strategy).
• Execute 5-step autoresponder to event attendees offering both free advice / support and promoting our coaching / new book / mastermind programs (Grassroots Marketing).
• Execute promo plan to fill our group coaching program with XXX participants (Grassroots Marketing).
• Turn live training sessions into a multimedia program that we can sell online to generate $XXXX in passive income.

My good friend Scott Jeffrey is one of the most amazing Results Planners I know.  He suggests a few key questions to get you focused on the results you want to create:

1. What does the end picture look like?
2. What are the necessary conditions to realizing the end picture?
3. What results-driven activities are needed to satisfy each condition?  Instead of asking, “What do I need to do next?”, ask “What is the result I’m after?”

According to Scott, “It takes time to develop a results-oriented mindset because we are conditioned to think in terms of activities and to-do lists.”  As you think about your goals for this year, use the New Year’s energy to frame your goals in terms of RESULTS rather than busy “should-dos.”

Learn more about creating your Marketing Gameplan and leveraging the Marketing Triad.