Are Your Goals Helping or Hurting You?

By PChip | Category: Business Management | 4 comments

Setting goals is an essential part of any entrepreneurs duties. Our goals are an important tool in our business. When the going gets tough on us, it’s these written goals that keep us moving forward. But these tools must be developed, added to our business toolbox, and then we have to utilize them often. Do you know how to do that? How to use them to help your business? Simply writing them down and looking at them from time to time, doesn’t do the trick.

The Digi-Scrap Business Tip for Today is:

Creating a step-by-step plan using a “small-bites” methodology when striving for your business goals will serve you well. Using small milestones that lead to short term goals that will help you eventually see your way to achieve a long-term goal, is a healthier way of life for an entrepreneur.

Review Your Business Goals Today

Take a look at your business goals for a minute. I mean, go pull out the list and give them a once over. Have you neglected to set goals for your scrapbooking business or write them down? If they aren’t set and written down, you’re hurting yourself and your business. Shame on you for neglecting this most important aspect of your business!

Have you set goals but they are too far into the future or so big that they feel unachievable at this time? If your goals are set far away without any short-term goals determined between now and then, they are probably hurting you as well. Because if you only set and strive for those long term goals or the ones that are huge… it’s so easy to get discouraged, side-tracked, and burned out. Sometimes you may find yourself totally lost along the way too. However, by establishing some smaller actions and milestones to help you reach your goals you can keep focused, feel rejuvenated, and gain momentum to reach those goals

Business Milestones are “Stop and Celebrate” Moments

It’s very important to set those big and sometimes long-term business goals. However, realize that they most often serve as helpful tools when they are connected to a written plan of action that includes smaller activities or milestones. Milestones are the achievements that take place along the path to reaching your major business goals. They serve as measuring points. Get to a milestone and you can tic another box, cross another item off your business to-do list, and definitely celebrate these business accomplishments!

There are all sorts of strategic models published for developing a project management plan to help you achieve your goals. Most all of them outline a process that includes long term goals, short term goals and milestones along the way. You’ve probably heard the phrase, “to eat an elephant one bite at a time.” This simply means to accomplish a big undertaking you need to break it down into small tasks, then keep working on it until it’s achieved. That’s what project management and business plans do for us.

Eating an Elephant Doesn’t Appeal to Me

While the phrase has an important concept lesson behind it, there’s nothing about eating an elephant that sounds even remotely good to me. That’s a goal I simply would never strive for nor can I relate to what this dinner might be like. To reach my goals I need something that sounds a little more fun and light hearted. That’s why I took this concept and attached it to a game I used to play when I was a youngster. Personally I much prefer games over eating. Although I’m not sure my bathroom scale would agree with that this morning.

Anyway – if you are looking for a lighthearted way to adopt a project management or goal setting plan for your digi-art business, take a look at the Skipping Your Way to the Bank blog entry and/or the Striving for Business Goals the Hop-Scotch Method slide show I put together. Maybe it will help motivate you to take a minute and make sure your goals are business tools that are serving you well and helping rather than hurting your business.

Today’s Mini-Tasker for my Digi-Scrap Business Peers:

Review your current business goals or set some if you haven’t already. Then string together a set of small action steps or milestones to accomplish between now and the day you acquire your long-term goal. Do this in writing. Then take one step this very day that will help you accomplish the next milestone of your business journey.

An Added Tasker: If you forgot to take a minute to celebrate your last business achievement… go get yourself an ice cream and delight in the moment. Ice cream sounds so much easier and tastier than an elephant!

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Tags: 30-Day Business Challenge, Business Management, digi-scrapbooking-industry, marketing, traffic

4 comments
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Rachel September 5th, 2007 1:08 pm :
Wonderful! I like the idea of eating ice cream much better than eating an elephant too! lol.
Well I’m off to work on my goals.
loonyhiker September 5th, 2007 6:59 pm :
This is really hard to do and should be carefully thought. It is important that your goals are realistic and attainable. Another important thing to do is to develop a vision statement.
David September 5th, 2007 7:46 pm :
Day 5 Tip: Know your customer. When marketing your business it is important to wear the shoes of your customer. Before I get in trouble with My Lovely Wife(MLW), I state obviously that I mean this figuratively. Try to think from another viewpoint – someone coming fresh to your webite. Of course YOU would buy everything you have in stock, maybe twice, because it is just SO wonderful.

Most of you probably come from a scrapping background – did a few years of paper scrapping, then moved to digital – couldn’t find any decent digital files – and thought you would sell them yourself.

I come from a different route – MLW scraps almost incessantly – but I come from a marketing background. It is great to have a focus group living right in the house, ready to give an opinion of the files I put together. If she doesn’t like it, it doesn’t get posted!

If you don’t have a third party to hand – you’ll just have imagine one – maybe many. Make and sell what THEY want, not what YOU want. After all, if you are your only customer, profits are rather thin.
PChip September 6th, 2007 8:51 am :
Loonyhiker – you make some good points. It is indeed important to make sure the goals are realistic. Thanks for the added tip about developing a vision statement too.

David – I see you’ve come through with another great business tip as well. Appreciate your thoughts on pleasing the customer and creating products for them as rather than for ones self.

Amongst the digi-art designers I know, I’ve never met one that moved into the designing phase as a result of “not finding decent digital files.” Designers tend to dig into that side of the house for two other reasons. One is because they get hooked on the delightful feelings of the creative process. The other reason is because they quickly learn there are money making opportunities attached to their designing skills and reach out to become an entrepreneur.

Making money offers feelings of fullfillment, almost as much as creating art. — Almost, but not quite as much, IMHO.