With 2018 just around the corner, it's time to set some goals and create your plan of attack for reaching them. Let's talk about 6 simple steps for planning goals that will improve your overall success!
6. Decide on one major goal
The first step is pretty simple: decide what you want to achieve.What do you want for your business? What will a successful 2018 look like for you? What sort of targets get you excited?
The most important part of this initial task is choosing a big goal that will motivate and inspire you to push yourself in the coming year. Deep down, you probably already know exactly what you want to achieve next year, but take the time to really lock into it.
5. Write down your big goal & share it
There's just something enchanting about writing down a goal. It makes it real and forces you to move the goal from a fantasty into an actual objective. This ritual is inexpecliably powerful, which is why you'll see it come up almost every time someone talks about goals.
Where and how you write down your goal is up to you. Put it on a post-it in your office, frame a piece of paper and hang in on the wall, or simply send yourself an email about your goal. The details of how you write it down doesn't matter. The point is that you're admitting to yourself that you have this specific goal and committing to accomplishing it.
After you've written it down, share it. Tell your friends, colleagues, or mentor about your goal, and touch base with them throughout the year on how it's going. Telling other people makes you more accountable for your goals and improves the likelihood that you'll follow through.
4. Use SMART goals to plan how you'll reach your major goal
Once you have your big goals identified, break them down into smaller chunks using SMART goals. For example, a real estate team that wants to
In Virginia's recent blog post about business planning for 2018, she describes how to use the SMART methodology to develop goals that help hold your team accountable.
This SMART method of goal-setting was developed by George T. Doran, the former director of corporate planning at the Washington Power Company. In his original publication, "There's a S.M.A.R.T. way to write management's goals and objectives," George Doran writes: "Despite all the literature and seminars dealing with effective objective setting and writing, the fact is that most managers still don't know what objectives are and how they can be written."
George set to change that, and developed a system that would make it easier for team leaders to develop realistic business objectives and hold themselves accountable for whether they are achieved.
3. Develop a mind map to help balance your goals
As a Realtor, you have a unique job. Your personal and work life are likely to bleed together, which is why it's important to contrast your major work goals with your other life goals. To help maintain work-life balance and ensure you're focusing on all the most important aspects of your 2018, try a mind map exercise like the one described in this video:
2. Come up with your plan of attack
Once you have your big goal and you've broken it down into attainable SMART goals, you need to plan how you're going to achieve those defined goals. For each of your SMART goals, come up with a clear and decisive plan of action for accomplishing it.
For example, if your goal is to double your team's transactions, come up with several steps on how you'll get there:
- Hire 3 more people by March; have them trained by June
- Increase lead generation by upping PPC spend by 10% in January
- Improve lead conversion to 2% with a better follow up process for February
- And so forth...
1. Revisit your goals regularly
And finally, if you want to achieve a goal, you have to stick with it! We all know how easy it is to forget a New Year's resolution come February, and your goals can just as easily fall through the cracks just.
As soon as you finish writing down your initial goals, schedule time in your calendar to revisit them each month. At least once a month, you need to pull up your SMART goals, track your progress, be realistic about how things are going, and reflect on whether there's anything you can do to bring yourself closer to your goal.
If you want to make 2018 your best year yet, simply put time into setting your goals and then get to work!