Who else has BIG goals for the New Year?
Perhaps you’ve chosen business goals that will increase your visibility, impact, and income?
Yep, me too!
So what’s next?
How do we turn those big dreams and realistic goals into clear action steps?
Keep reading because I’m about to show you exactly how to break it down into bite-sized steps that feel totally doable.
Consistent action in the right direction leads to BIG results
Big goals are only achievable when we have smaller steps that we can literally tick off as we do them and see our progress towards victory.
I think the #1 place new business owners miss the mark is when we can’t see the results.
We can’t tell what’s working and what isn’t when there isn’t enough data. So it’s really important to have at least some goals with measurable results.
We can’t predict future sales. We can’t predict how many people will buy. But we can take actions that will inspire people to buy! And those actions are measurable.
So carve out some time today to map out your strategy using these steps:
What is the time frame for my big goal?
Give it a date and mark that date on your calendar.
Is it something you want to achieve by the end of the year? By summer? By the end of the first quarter?
Now break that time into 3 or 4 smaller chunks.
If your goal is a year-long goal, than 4 chunks of 3 months each probably makes the most sense.
If your goal is a “before summer” goal, then maybe break it down into 3 chunks of 2 months each.
Thinking about your big goal, what are the milestones that you’ll reach that will act as proof that you’re achieving success in this area?
Let’s say you’ve got a year-long goal to triple your visibility by the end of the year and this will result in triple your income as well.
And you’ve broken it down into 4 chunks of 3 months each.
The 4 milestones might look like this:
50% increase in followers on social media that leads to increased engagement on posts
100% increase in followers that leads to an increase of traffic to website
200% increase in followers that leads to website traffic and in turn leads to an increase of new subscribers to email list
300% increase in followers that leads to increased traffic and subscribers which leads to increased sales
Not only do you have clear milestones that you’ll recognize when they happen, but you also have a smaller goal for each quarter that makes sense.
Which makes it easier to decide what action steps you can take each month to reach each milestone.
Last, but not least, break each milestone down into weekly action steps.
The important thing here is to choose actions that you control. That no one else has influence over.
We can’t control how many people see our posts on social media. But we can control spending money on ads to reach new people. Or sharing the post in groups. Or publishing a guest blog on someone else’s site or being a guest on someone else’s podcast. We can create the opportunities that make the outcomes more likely to happen.
Let’s look at this last one more closely in the next section…
Want a printable worksheet that makes this process even easier?
Download our 90-Day Goals Worksheet here —> www.realtoideal.com/90-days/ <— No opt-in needed!
Break the milestones down into action steps
Here’s the plan in a nutshell:
To increase your social media followers by 50% and increase engagement on your posts, it’s pretty likely that you’ll want to reach new people who aren’t following you yet with posts that they’ll want to engage with.
If you don’t know how to do that yet, then you’ll want to learn this skill as soon as possible. (Knowing what skills you need to learn will help you be ready for future goals/milestones.)
Once that milestone is reached, you’ll start working on the next milestone.
So let’s go deeper and actually turn our first milestone into action steps:
To increase social media followers and engagement on posts, we need 2 things:
~ Posts that inspire and motivate people to engage with the post
~ A way to reach people who aren’t yet following us
According to our plan, we’ve got 3 months to make this happen and increase our following by 50%.
Monthly goals:
So maybe month 1 will be spent learning how to create posts that get engagement and actually writing the posts.
Month 2 will be spent publishing the posts we created and using ads or groups or networking or some other tactic to get those posts in front of new people.
Month 3 will be also be spent publishing engaging posts and getting them in front of new people.
Now let’s break it down further into weekly goals:
Month 1 ~ sign up for a social media course that’s quick and easy, or grab a social media content calendar or something that will help you create engaging content (or hire help if you have the budget for it)
Week 1 ~ learn how to create engaging content
Week 2 ~ do the research to find out what kind of content our ideal customers engage with
Week 3 ~ create a content calendar of engaging content for Month 2 and start writing the posts
Week 4 ~ schedule the posts to start publishing in Month 2, including graphics, video, or whatever is needed
Month 2 ~ the posts will start publishing on autopilot while you put them in front of the right people
Week 1 ~ use ads to get your new posts in front of a targeted audience or share the posts in groups or publish a guest blog post that links back to your social media page or any other tactics to reach new people
Week 2 ~ continue running ads or engaging in groups or sharing your posts wherever your ideal customers hang out. And of course, don’t forget to respond to every comment people leave on your posts!
Week 3 & 4 ~ continue putting your posts in front of ideal customers. When they engage with your posts, invite them to like your page.
Month 3 ~ keep up the awesome work and keep stretching yourself out of your comfort zone to get those posts in front of your ideal audience!
Week 1 ~ Keep up the great work and also start planning for your next milestone. What skills will you need to learn to achieve the next milestone? What content will you need to achieve the next milestone?
Week 2 ~ Keep applying yourself to your current milestone while getting ready for the next milestone. In our example, the next milestone is to drive traffic to your website. Which page will you drive that traffic to? A blog post? Sales Page? Landing Page? Something else? Use some of your Month 3 time to make sure that’s up and ready. Start creating the Month 4 social media posts you’ll need to inspire your audience to click through to your site.
Week 3 & 4 ~ Keep reaching new people, keep inspiring engagement, and create the content you’ll need for next month’s goals.
With that plan, you will increase your followers by 50% and increase engagement on your posts as well. Keep it up and your efforts will eventually snowball as more and more people share your content and page with their friends. Pretty soon your fans will be sharing your posts enough that you won’t have to spend so much time, energy, and ad spend anymore.
Want a printable worksheet that makes this process even easier?
Download our 90-Day Goals Worksheet here —> www.realtoideal.com/90-days/ <— No opt-in needed!
What is your big, audacious, beautiful goal for this year?
Pop it into the comments to make it real and we’ll cheer you on!