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Volume 20
December 2009
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Greetings!
Welcome to the Clean Team Pro Newsletter. Happy (almost) New Year! In just a few days, we will be ringing in the new year. Wow...2010! Can you believe we're 10 years into the "new" century? How has the first decade of the new millennium treated your cleaning business?
It's been a rather turbulent decade, culminating in a very rough 20 months for our economy. While some economic indicators are showing hopeful signs of strengthening, services like ours are often on the slow end of this upswing. One of the best tools at your disposal for riding out the recession is GOAL SETTING. Not sure how setting a simple goal can help you avoid layoffs and foreclosures? Consider this quote from Napoleon Hill, author of the book, Think and Grow Rich:
The starting point of all achievement is desire. Keep this constantly in mind. Weak desires bring weak results, just as a small amount of fire makes a small amount of heat.
What better time to work on your goals than the start of a new year? This month's feature article outlines a "SMART" way to set goals for your small business. If you haven't set your new year goals yet, grab a pad of paper and a pen. You'll want to take some notes!
Don't forget: Your questions and suggestions help us to write a better newsletter each month. Please feel free to send me your thoughts at jeff@thecleanteam.com. Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and a safe and happy New Year! | |
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How to Set S.M.A.R.T. Business Goals
 By a show of hands, who wants to earn more money in 2010? Or work fewer hours? Or corner their share of the housecleaning market? I'm guessing most of us! Unfortunately, lofty yet vague aspirations like these are likely to get lost in the day-to-day shuffle of running a small business. Before you know it, 2010 will be wrapping up, and you will have worked longer hours than ever before, without an increase in profits or boost in market share to show for your efforts. So what gives?
The likely culprit: A lack of clear goals. Poor goal setting is actually quite common in the small business world. Owners are so busy keeping their heads above water that they have neither the time nor the energy to set strategic, longer-term goals. If you want to fast-track your route to success, try setting goals using the SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely) Formula. Here's how it works:
1. Set Specific Goals (S)
The first step in SMART goal setting is making your goals specific. "Spend less money" is not specific. "Reduce operating costs by 15%", on the other hand, is. A specific goals answers three questions:
1) What are you going to do?
2) Why are you going to do it?
3) How are you going to do it?
2. Set Measurable Goals (M)
If you want to be successful, you need measurable yardsticks that indicate your success. Everyone wants to earn more money, but how much more? And by what point in the year? And, even more importantly, what are you going to do to get there?
Goals should allow you to assess measurable progress. Build in steps along the way. If your year-long goal is to increase profits by 15%, set up stop points along the way (1st, 2nd and 3rd quarter are natural times) to evaluate your progress. That way you can change course if you need to, before it's too late.
Remember: If you can't measure it, you can't manage it.
3. Set Attainable Goals (A)
No business owner wants to stagnate. We all want to succeed -- and ideally, to succeed "big". But a dose of realism is called for when you set your goals. Is a 90% market share realistic when you just launched your company 6 months ago? Probably not, unless you're the only cleaning company in town! Excessively lofty goals set you up for long-term letdown. Instead, your goals should stretch you, without breaking you.
On the other hand, limited goals net limited achievements. There is no doubt that the stretching vs. breaking line is a fine one to walk. If you're not sure what an attainable goal is for your region, send us an email. We'd be happy to help you figure out the parameters.
4. Set Relevant Goals (R)
Relevant goals are ones that are related to the current realities of your business climate. For example, understanding how the recession has impacted service-based sectors such as ours is essential to setting relevant goals.
If you have three new competitors and a target audience facing wide-spread lay-offs and foreclosures, you may need to do some out of the box thinking to set some relevant goals for the upcoming year. Just remember that economic downturns (or upturns -- one day!) don't preclude goals, they simply inform us about how we need to set them.
5. Set Timely Goals (T)
When setting your business goals for 2010, give yourself a deadline. In fact, give yourself a few. If your goal is to increase your client base by 20 percent by year's end, for example, set some stopping points along the way so you can track actual customer growth and fine-tune your marketing strategies, if need be.
Do you set yearly goals for your business? What is your process? Send me an email with some of your goals for the new year -- and your best tips for realizing them.
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Thanks for reading us this month! Come visit us on the web at www.thecleanteampro.com.
Sincerely,
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Jeff Campbell
The Clean Team Catalog |
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