NOW we are finally ready to set goals for 2011

---

Day 11: Create your List of Business Goals for 2011

Back in the early 1990s I first encountered Tony Robbins, the guru with the great self-help program. His goal-setting workshop taught me that goals written down have a much greater chance of coming to pass. I’ve been remiss in setting goals lately, but that’s about to change. Why? Because every time I’ve made time to actually write down my goals, I have achieved them. We’re not talking about New Year’s Resolutions here, we’re talking about business goals that we pursue in a deliberate, systematic way.

During this 11-day series, you’ve started to track your time, what you do every day, what your current products and services are, what you’d like them to be, what makes you money, and finally, the list of products and services you’ve decided to develop and keep. Now you are in an excellent position to set your goals for 2011 because your goals will be based on real data and a recent, detailed look at your business.

It’s important also to create a plan for each goal. When I was building my I Can Fix My Website Program, I started by imagining the end result; how many CDs the product would have, what bonuses I would include, how I would market them, what infrastructure would have to be in place to support the sales: everything I could think of about the end result.

Then I worked backward from that final result to identify each step in reverse order, until I got to the beginning of the process of product creation. This reverse-order process can help you to ensure that you are not missing any steps, and can help you determine where the dependencies are that might hold you up along the way. I guess it’s basic project management practice, but doing it in reverse seems to help me complete the planning process much more quickly.

Perhaps you’re taking today (Friday) off, or maybe you’re just leaving early because it’s New Year’s Eve. I encourage you to take a few minutes now, though, and jot down at least your top 5 goals for the year while you’re thinking about them. Take that list with you though, don’t leave it in your office.

I find that it’s easier to think strategically when I am away from my office. In fact, I do my best thinking when I’m at my satellite office (my nearby Red Robin restaurant), where I’m practically a fixture with my pad of notepaper, stacks of files, and planning calendar. So sometime over the weekend, sit down and fill in the details on how you’re going to accomplish your goals while your mind is relaxed and refreshed.

I hope that you’ve enjoyed and benefitted from this series. I wish for you the very best possible 2011 and I look forward to hearing your success story.

---

Task for Today

Write down your top 5 goals for 2011, and fill in the details on how you are going to accomplish them. Be specific about products and services you’re working on, the high-value marketing activities that go with them, and then estimate the financial results. Imagining the end result is essential!

Then, write out your 2-, 5-, and 10-year goals while you’re in the mood. Naturally, you will be revising them as time passes, but writing them down is the most important thing. You’ll be surprised at how quickly you achieve them.

---

Putting This into Practice

At the start of each week, review the goals you’ve set for the year. Review the detailed lists for each goal, and select the items you can do this week towards accomplishing the goal. Remember to include your 3 high-value marketing activities each day. Keep track of the activities and the results, and you’ll be even more motivated to continue this discipline.

Happy New Year!

Toolie®

You can change your business future with 3 high-value marketing activities per day…

---

Day 10: Set Up Your 3 High-Value Marketing Activities Per Day

I had the opportunity to attend a business development weekend a few years back offered by the former national president of my speakers association, Mark LeBlanc. One of the first things he taught us after identifying our income goals was that we needed to commit to performing 3 high-value marketing activities each day. If we wanted to achieve the monthly numbers we had just described, then we needed to take action every day.

At the time I took the course, I was in the process of shifting my business completely. I had no idea what I was going to create for myself at that point, so it was hard to tell what marketing activities I should be undertaking. However within a week, I began to understand that what Mark was asking us to do was nothing short of brilliant.

It seems so simple a concept, but the effect is profound. I wrote down his next statement: “It’s not about being productive, it’s about being deliberate and consistent!!” You focus on what YOU have control over — that’s how you structure your 3 activities. They are not results-based, though, which takes a bit to understand.

If I have decided to make calls for appointments with meeting planners, I would focus on making the calls, the part I can control. Whether it takes me 8 calls to get an appointment or I make 8 calls but get no appointment, at the end of the day it’s still a YES, because I made the calls, not whether I GOT the appointments. Ultimately the effect of those calls will take hold, but you’re not focused on the results, you’re focused on doing the work and being consistent.

Every morning you identify what your 3 activities are. Every evening you ask yourself if you completed the activities. You don’t do 4 activities today and 2 tomorrow; there is no plus or minus carryover. If you get to the end of the day and you haven’t finished those 3 activities, stop, stay at your desk (or wherever), and complete those activities. If you do, then you can say YES, you accomplished the goal for the day.

---

Task for Today

Create a list of high-value marketing activities for your business, especially online marketing. Hanging out in Facebook can be a high-value activity if you know you get clients through Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Otherwise, it might be wiser to spend your time writing a blog post, or creating an article for an article directory.

Try to come up with at least 12-15 different activities you can then rotate through on a daily basis for the next 30 days. In a month’s time of deliberate marketing effort, you’ll begin to discern which ones really ARE the high-value activities. Let the others go or drop them to the bottom of the list, and focus on the ones that are really working.

---

Putting This into Practice

Now that you’ve identified your high-value activities, go to your Calendar program and set aside time each day as an appointment with yourself to accomplish these 3 high-value marketing activities. You’re going to be tempted to skip some days and move the time around other days. Resist the temptation! This is about consistency. Be consistent and the results take care of themselves.

Toolie®

Do you know what you need to know to craft your new future?

---

Day 9: Decide What Education You Need to Achieve Improvements

The Internet Marketers I’ve observed over the last 6 years who are still around have one important characteristic in common: they are constantly learning and educating themselves. The Internet moves so quickly that you can’t afford to sit back and refuse to learn new things. I’m not talking about just the professional development needed to maintain your business, but also an education in how the Internet works.

If you’ve attended any of my webinars, you understand what I mean: learning the mechanics of your websites and blogs so that you’re never stuck because you don’t know how to update them. Opportunities appear one day and are gone the next. The entrepreneurs who can provide a connection point for those opportunities in the form of a new web page or a new blog post can capitalize on opportunities and profit from them.

What am I learning to craft my new future? Well I mentioned that I’m doing some web design subcontracting, and I decided that it’s time that I finally really, really learn Javascript. Doing so provides new income opportunities for me because I can add features that my contractor’s clients want. I am also learning jQuery, a Javascript library that has some really cool features. I want to be able to manipulate and customize the FlowPlayer video and audio players using jQuery.

I’m also studying Joomla, an open-source content management system. It takes a while to learn all the moving parts, but it has a very active developer community and good support. I am thinking of using Joomla for one of my future websites, and if I get good at it, I may get a chance to use Joomla with some medium-sized businesses.

What investments are you making in your own knowledge? What training have you been putting off that might open new income sources to you?

---

Task for Today

Having products and services to share is one thing, but not knowing how to market them online will leave you with excess inventory. Go back through your newly minted list of products and services, and identify the skills and knowledge you need to acquire to properly market them. Then find the people who can help you learn what you need to know.

---

Putting This into Practice

Set aside time every month to learn at least one new tactic for marketing your business. This may include more time spent reading up on social media marketing from experts, attending my free monthly webinars, and signing up for coaching time. Take a look at http://www.tooliecoaching.com/howcantooliehelpyou.html for ideas on ways we can work together to improve your websites and blogs. Then book a 30-minute free consulation at www.toolie.com/links/initialconsultation and let’s get to work!

Toolie®

Letting go can be a theraputic process, and it can also create some extra work for you. But be excited: you’re entering the new year with a much clearer vision for your business that you have in the past. Let’s continue….

Day 8: Decide What Needs Be Added, Dropped, or Delegated

Yesterday you made some tough decisions: you evaluated your business from both a profit/loss perspective and a value perspective. Just because something isn’t currently profitable, doesn’t mean that it can’t become profitable, but sometimes you just need to work on something else. My mentor Tom Antion taught us to “fail fast,” so that we could move onto the next possibility.

---

Task for Today

Adding Products or Services:
Start a list of the things you need to create to support the new effort: pages on your website, marketing materials, tag lines, logos — everything you can thing of right now.

Dropping or Phasing Out Products and Services:
Determine an end-date for each if you can. If you’re going to take down web pages or close a blog, remember that those pages need to be redirected to the new products and services, or to a page with an explanation that these items are no longer available.

Delegating Tasks:
During the course of your business evaluation, have you thought about getting more help? It could mean that it’s time to hire a virtual assistant to handle some of the administrative work you’ve been handling yourself.

---

Putting This into Practice

Go back to the website/blog To-Do list you started on Day 6, and add the web-related tasks to it. You are probably in need of some website coaching, so visit http://www.tooliecoaching.com/buytime.html and purchase some coaching time.

Or you may be ready to start a new web project to support your new efforts. If that’s the case, go to http://www.toolie.com/links/initialconsultation, and make a free 30-minute appointment to talk everything over with me. We can talk about the changes you’re making and how they’ll affect your current site. I’m available all week.

Toolie®

It’s time to make some decisions about what you will continue to do in 2011.

---

Day 7:  Write Up Your New List of Profitable Products and Services

This is it. You’ve been writing for days — keeping track of tasks,
time, products, services, etc. We have done some brainstorming; you’ve
identified your income sources, and now it’s time to make the changes
you’re contemplating.

However you’ve calculated the return on your activities (QuickBooks
report, 1ShoppingCart report, etc.) by now you’ve got a picture of
what is bringing the money into your business. The immediate dollar
value of your activities may not be the only, or even the best measure
of what to pursue in your business. You have to also consider the time
involved in each of these activities, and whether investing more time
(and money) is going to bring in an even better return.

For now, let’s concentrate on what has brought in money so far.

---

Task for Today
Divide your income sources into these categories:

– Immediate, High-Value, High-Profit Products and Services
– Immediate, Medium-Value, Medium-Profit Products and Services
– Long-Term Investment, High-Value, High-Profit Products and Services
– Long-Term Investment, Medium-Value, Medium-Profit Products and
Services

What goes to the bottom of the list — or away completely:

– Low-Value Products and Services
– Low-Profit Products and Services

You make the decision today about what’s going to change, but it may
take time to implement the changes. That’s not an excuse to put off
the implementation, it’s just a recognition that you have some
shuffling to do.

---

Putting This into Practice
Putting your income sources into the categories above is bound to
elicit some feelings about where everything has landed. If you’re
disagreeing with the process, perhaps it’s because you’re resisting
the changes you need to make.

If you’re committed to one of the items that has fallen to the bottom
of the list, revisit the amount of time and effort you’ve invested so
far. Ask yourself whether adding more time and/or effort improve the
situation. These are your decisions, but do stay open to the
possibility of shifting your emphasis to what’s really working in your
business.

Toolie®

Today we turn our thoughts to income and profitability.

---

Day 6: What are Your Current Sources of Business Income?

The knowledge and expertise you have to offer the world are usually the source of an entrepreneur’s income. When we start out, we frequently are willing to do whatever someone will pay us to do. At some point, though a set of products and services will emerge as your primary sources of income. Today is the day to write down every source of income you have.

Some entrepreneurs have only one or two sources of income; others have many sources. Even within a professional discipline such as counseling, there are many types of treatments that are possible. Keeping track of exactly which products and services bring in your income can help you capitalize on the demand and improve what you have to offer.

Go back to your list of current products and services and track down as much as possible the exact amount of income you’ve made from them this year. You’re probably in the process of doing this anyway for tax purposes, but today’s efforts will help you in the next few exercises.

We’re almost done with our “data collection;” we’re heading into the decision phase starting tomorrow.

---

Task for Today
Write down your sources of income. Divide them into Regular income, Recurring income, and Periodic income. Here are some of mine:

• Regular: Website/Blog projects, Product Sales, Elance, Other Web Subcontracts
• Recurring: I Can Fix My Website Monthly Membership
• Periodic: Paid webinars, 1-Day Internet Marketing Masterminds, Speeches

Now, of those sources, which ones occupy the greatest amount of your time? How do you know? Since you may not have been tracking your time closely until the start of our series, you may have to estimate the time involved.

Finally, highlight the products and services that are actually profitable, and the ones that you consider most important. Are they the same? Do at least some of them overlap?

---

Putting This into Practice
Look at the list of income sources you’ve documented. How many of them come to you through your website or blog? If they don’t arrive by way of your site, would adding pages to your site help solidify and/or expand that income source? If you have not already started a to-do list for your website or blog, begin now.

Toolie®

Merry Christmas! I hope your day is special. I have some business and family thoughts to share with you.

---

Day 5: Consider How Business Changes Will Impact Time with Loved Ones

By the time you read this, Christmas will mostly likely be over (unless you snuck into your computer today to read this). McAlister and I are spending a quiet day together making my Mother’s famous sour cream sugar cookies with Christmas sprinkles on top to take over to my godsons’ house. And yes, the cookies are as good as you imagine. Baking them is one way I honor her memory. 

I’m very fortunate. McAlister is an independent guy, a superb artist with a creative streak the size of the Grand Canyon. We both work long hours by choice, with only the sliding door between his studio and my office. We are partners in each others’ success. 

It’s challenging enough to be an entrepreneur; it’s even harder when the economy isn’t great. And many people become entrepreneurs out of necessity when their jobs evaporate — that happened to me back in 1991. Thankfully when I left Microsoft in 2003, it was by choice. I love being an entrepreneur because I get to invest myself in my clients, to partner with them for their future success. I love caring about my work and doing a good job. 

In yesterday’s blog post, we talked about what you would choose to do in your business: what you would add or remove from your existing activities. Did that spark your imagination? What changes are you contemplating? Are you excited about those possibilities? I hope so! 

How will those changes affect your loved ones? Will you have more time or less time to spend with them? How do you handle the balance between work and family now? Do you share your challenges with them? Are they invested in your success? 

It’s important that the needs of those whose lives are affected by your choices are taken into consideration. I truly hope that you’ve established lines of communication and set expectations about your business, so that your loved ones feel like they’re a part of your success instead of being a distraction to you. Your business doesn’t happen in a vacuum; so fill the air with love and appreciation for those who are standing by you. 

---

Task for Today 

No writing today; just think about what I’ve said, and hug or call those you love. 

Toolie®

Today we’re considering what you’d like to be doing in your business.

---

Day 4: List the Products and Services You Want to Add or Remove

If you’ve been following along, by now you’re getting a picture of how you’re spending your time, and all the ways you can serve and provide for your customers. Today let’s take a moment to capture all of the things you’d like to be doing: more products, more services, more workshops, more e-books — whatever has been sitting on the back burner.

Try not to edit or discount mentally the ideas that come to mind. Your task today is not to decide whether something is feasible or achievable. Your task is to simply capture the ideas on paper, or in your computer.

What’s been rattling around in my brain? Public Speaking. I have spent the last 3 years experimenting, testing, building up content, creating online workshops, and producing physical products. As far as speaking is concerned, the only thing I’m missing now is a book, and believe me, that’s percolating as we speak.

Thank goodness for on-demand printing; these days it makes having a book a far less time-consuming process to produce. Frankly, I’m not waiting to write a book before beginning to market my speaking services, but having a book will be high on my list of goals for this coming year.

What’s rattling around in your brain, waiting to be acknowledged? This is your “if I could do anything” session. Take your time. Enjoy it. Revel in it.

Task for Today

Write down all of the products and services you’d like to add to your business that will bring you both new opportunities and greater satisfaction. This is a brainstorming session, so just get the ideas out of your head and onto paper, or into your computer. We’ll sort through the ideas in subsequent days.

Putting This into Practice

Now that you have an idea of how you spend your day, how long things take, what you’re already offering, and what you’d like to be doing, here’s the question of the day.

What will have to change for these new ideas to come into fruition?

You’re already busy…. what are you NOT going to do to make time for new things? Ah yes, that’s the rub. And it’s a question that only you can answer.

Toolie®

For the next 2 days, we’ll turn our attention to what you’re doing now and what you’d like to be doing in your business. First of all…..

---

Day 3 — List the Products and Services You Have Now

When I was first trying to define what it meant to be a “website and blog coach” I realized that I needed to quantify what I had to offer. By writing down all the things I knew and thought could be helpful to entrepreneurs, it helped me focus on the important things I felt they needed to know and do as they learned to manage their own sites.

Creating a detailed list of services on http://www.tooliecoaching.com/ led me to the create 3 other sites: www.ToolieWebDesign.com, www.ToolieSoftwareSetups.com, and www.SalesCopyByToolie.com. It also required the expansion of www.ToolieNetBiz.com from 7 pages to 35 pages. I realized that by dividing up the services I could tailor the combinations of services I have to specific audiences.

• www.ToolieCoaching.com is targeted towards entrepreneurs and individuals.
• www.ToolieNetBiz.com is targeted at medium-sized business and some of the contract work I do on Elance.com.
• www.ToolieWebDesign.com is targeted towards both entrepreneurs and small businesses who say that they’re looking for a website, but who come to understand that they also need Internet Marketing help, which I offer.
• www.SalesCopyByToolie.com is targeted at Internet Marketers and small business owners who say they’re looking for a copywriter, but who come to understand that they also need overall marketing strategy help.
• www.ToolieSoftwareSetups.com is targeted at small business owners who are looking for additional features to engage customers online, such as Live Chat.

I’m not saying that your efforts to document what you can do for customers will require a whole new set of websites, but this process will help you decide what is and is not appropriate for your business.

Task for Today

You are tracking what you’re doing during your business day and recording the time it takes. Now sit down and list the products and services that you are already offering. If you’re wondering how detailed to be, have a look at this page:

http://www.tooliecoaching.com/howcantooliehelpyou.html

Putting This into Practice

Look at the list of products and services you’ve documented. Are there any services that are not already on your website or blog? Will you just need new pages or will you need a new site to contain those products and services? Make notes and get ready for tomorrow’s “if I could do anything” session.

Toolie®

To continue this 11-day countdown, I was tempted to have us write a mission statement or write down what we really want out of our business and our life. Frankly that’s not my role: I am here to help you implement the decisions you make about your website or blog. Let’s assume for now that you already have some kind of mission statement and a clear idea of why you’re in business.

---

Day 2 — Track Your Time

At first I resisted the idea of keeping track of my time. I am, after all, an entrepreneur — in charge of my own business destiny, and I like that. However, it became readily apparent that because I wasn’t paying attention to how I spent my time, I was not in control of it.

I am now on my third time-tracking software vendor. To start, a friend of mine suggested a simple and inexpensive piece of software called TraxTime, and after looking over the features and the cost, I purchased it and began adding projects and activities.

I love the simplicity of TraxTime. It has a punch-in, punch-out mentality, and as long as you add the project or activity to track, highlight it in the list, and click the button, it will enter the time for you and attach it to that activity. For $39.95 and no subscription, you can’t beat it!  http://www.spudcity.com/traxtime/index.html

My list of available services and items to track are so detailed, though, that I outgrew TraxTime after about 6 months. I went on to use Bill4Time (http://www.bill4time.com), a web-based time-tracking subscription originally designed for attorneys, but quite usable for service- providers like me. There I could enter my client information, billing rates, project types, and activity types. I began to get a picture of my business; what worked, what took too much time, and what I should be delegating. At $39.95/month though, I was wishing for a less expensive solution.

I now use ClickTime (http://www.ClickTime.com), also a web-based time-tracking subscription. ClickTime charges on a per-person and per-feature basis. After some initial setup charges (which I negotiated down a bit), I now pay only $14/month to keep track of my time. My list of clients, projects, and activities expanded yet again. I can determine with a few clicks exactly how I spend my time and exactly what of the 13 Administrative and 84 income-producing activities I’ve identified that make me money. Yes, listing 97 different activities is pretty granular, and at some point I may consolidate them. But I can quite easily justify and prove everything I’ve done for a client when it comes time for them to pay the bill.

Putting This into Practice

Take a look at these three time-tracking possibilities, and consider adopting at least TraxTime to start. You’ll be amazed at how quickly you come to grips with what is working for your business and what’s just taking up time.

Toolie®