Have you noticed that Halloween tends to get scarier as the years go by? When I was little Halloween meant dressing up as my favorite cartoon character, going door to door and getting all sorts of candy. When I was a teenager it was more about dressing up as something “cool” like a zombie with tons of blood and going around door to door for candy, but also mixing in the occasional prank ( I apologize to all of my old neighbors). Now as an adult with kids of my own I look for a good fright with a scary movie or some haunted house or theme park.
So what the heck does that have to do with anything? Just remember, no matter what your age may be, fear should never be allowed to work its way into your business. Fear will absolutely cripple your ability to take action, make necessary improvements and be successful. So if your business is the scariest thing in your life this Halloween, here is a plan for success to help you conquer your fears. Ready?
1. Set Goals
Setting challenging but achievable and realistic goals is a great way to get your business in the right direction. Decide what benchmarks you want to meet for the first quarter – the second quarter– and so on and determine how you’re going to measure whether or not you’ve met those goals. While you sit down to write your goals, write down your method of measurement. You cannot set a goal if you cannot measure it.
2. Take Action
Look at the goals you’ve set for yourself or your business. What needs to happen in order for you to meet those goals? Do you need to increase sales, increase marketing? Do you need to create a new marketing plan? Do you need to build new business systems? Create an action plan to meet whatever goals you’ve set. With your action plan, assign the people responsible, it can be multiple people within your organization.
3. Monitor Results
Every few weeks you need to sit down and look at how your action plan is helping you meet your goals. What’s working? What’s not working? If you are able to meet your goal early, celebrate the success and set a new goal. If you’re not able to meet your goal this time, evaluate what you could be doing differently and make changes.
4. Make Adjustments
If you find that the action plan you’ve created to meet your goals just isn’t getting you any closer to those benchmarks, it’s time to make adjustments! For starters, look at your schedule and see where you’re spending your time. If you are able to free up more time by delegating lower level tasks, you can dedicate more time to meeting your goals. Nothing is 100% set in stone. Your mindset will make you feel that things shouldn’t change you must allow yourself to be flexible.
5. Take Additional Action
Whether it’s reorganizing your schedule and priorities to focus more on your goals or finding ways to set-up additional meetings with potential clients, sometimes meeting your goals successfully requires taking additional action – or different actions – along the way. Look at what adjustments you decided needed to be made and then take additional action.
Repeat
Maybe you’ve been successful at meeting your goals and conquering your fears or maybe you still have some work to do. Either way, setting new goals, taking action, monitoring results, making adjustments and then taking additional action will always help you make improvements.
If you still have fear and you just can’t see yourself overcoming these obstacles reach out to one of our business coaches and we will walk you through process and be your protector. We are not scared, we know how to lead the way. Your business is the most important thing, let us help you. Contact us today!