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Make the Rest of 2016 All About YOU! | September 28, 2016 (0 comments)
Omaha, NE—There is no better time of the year than right now to demand more for yourself and from others: from your inventory, from your suppliers, from your staff, from your advertising and from your investment.
Resolutions, Goals & Objectives. No doubt, last New Year’s Eve you made some resolutions for the year ahead. Sadly, for most people, they are the same ones resolved last year.
The reason? A lack of real motivation and desire, because New Year’s resolutions are often things we don’t want, rather than things we desire. For example: I’m going to give up smoking; lose weight; stop procrastinating and exercise more. Not very positive stuff when you think about it: giving up, losing, stopping, doing more.
Most of us aren’t driven to give things away that give us some form of pleasure or satisfaction. We are, however, driven to achieve the things that we desire the most and that we feel passionate about. Here’s a quote by Paul J. Myer:
“Whatever you vividly imagine, ardently desire, sincerely believe and enthusiastically act upon must inevitably come to pass!”
So the purpose of this note is to encourage you to start now—for the remainder of 2016—with a sense of purpose, belief, enthusiasm, and determination based on your own worthwhile, predetermined, personal goals.
It’s normally your personal goals that provide the desire and motivation (the why) while the business goals provide the means (the how) to achieve them. It’s the old saying, “are you working to live or living to work?” For this reason, we suggest you start with your personal goals.
Personal Goals. When you start the process of writing down your personal goals, be careful not to limit your thinking based on your current situation. The list you create is basically a giant “grab bag” of all the things you would like to have, the person you would like to be, the things you would like to do, the people you would like to meet, the places you would like to go, et cetera. Your goals need to excite you and fill you with anticipation. Don’t worry about “how” you’re going to achieve them at this stage, and don’t say “I can’t afford it so I won’t write that down.”
Action Step: Start a giant list of all the things you want to have, to do and to become.
Warning! It will feel strange to start with, because, like 97% of people, you may not have written down your goals like this before. But make a start! Grab your paper and start writing. No one needs to see your lists, so make them as personal and relevant to you as you can. Remember, don't worry about how you'll achieve these things for now, just write them down.
Have fun and start writing as soon as you’ve thought of your first goal. To start with, write as many goals as you can in a ten-minute burst: any order, any size, any thing!
Business Goals. Remember, it’s your personal goals that provide the motivation and direction for your business goals. Business goals tend to be more task oriented, but when you see your business or career as a tool to help you achieve the lifestyle you really want, it takes on a different perspective.
Time to reflect. No doubt some of you have pondered the passing of another year and vowed that the year ahead will be different. What has been successful and what hasn’t? What are you going to repeat and what will you do differently? Involve your staff. Get them to write their own report about what they would do differently this year.
Action Step: Having written a huge list of exciting personal goals, you now need to make another list of your important business goals--the things that will help you achieve the personal ones. Remember that it’s important to set yourself some short, medium (12 months), and long term (two years plus) business goals, and to then break them down into quarterly, monthly, weekly, and even daily action steps.
Do you ever feel like you’re busy but unproductive, wasting time, and treading water? We have a rather simplistic approach to time management and productivity: “If you don’t know what you’re trying to achieve, how do you know if you’re wasting time?”
Once you have a crystal clear understanding of what your business goals are, we suggest you ask your staff to write down their own goals; e.g. what courses are they going to attend, what will their average sale be in one month, what new product knowledge skills will they learn, and so forth.
Cheers to a productive rest of 2016!
Native New Zealander David Brown has over 15 years experience in consulting, training, and public speaking. In 1996 David began offering his own unique brand of specialized training and management services to retailers throughout Australia and New Zealand where, following an early introduction to the jewelry sector, he bought a half share in a jewelry store in Australia, and increased its sales and net profit threefold in just three years. HIs retail clients now include two of the major Australian jewelry buying groups, a major chain jeweler in Australia, and a New Zealand jewelry group who between them have a combined membership of 430 retail outlets. Brown conducts regular retail seminars, supplying vital industry benchmarking and trend analysis in addition to consulting with a number of the members on an individual basis. He is an expert in the areas of inventory management, sales growth strategies, retail systems and staff management and, with the development of powerful industry- specific software, Brown can business owners with information and strategies to significantly improve sales, profit margins, control, and ultimately peace of mind.