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Tips on Mapping Your Business Goals

But now we're ready to kind of make a map, and what I'm talking about here is we are going to get crazy specific about exactly what you're going to dio my goal for you is on monday morning, you're gonna wake up and you're gonna know how to get to your goal. That three month goal, you said at the very beginning of today, we're going to know how to get you. They're going to use all of the marketing knowledge that she we've learned since the beginning of this class about two right people, your message, your own sparkle and building that customer path and building the path right to a really great home with all that knowledge, you have to figure out what exactly to do and that's what we're going to do next. So the question that we're going to answer is, how do you get where you want to go? So you guys have probably in the past that goals or had aspirations or thought that you wanted to get a certain place in your business, and you maybe did not get there in the way that you wanted to do it.

The question I get asked all the time is how to actually get there, okay, so I want to have a thousand dollars in sales I want to sell these thirty eight headbands, but like so what what do I do um and so we're going to talk about specifically what to do and I'm going to help you make sure that your map that you're making is really going to get you to your goal I have seen a lot a lot of maps I do this every quarter with both the solo mission, which is if you get one hundred dollars off for in the starship every single quarter and I've been doing it now for four years so I can see what kind of mile markers and map leads to what kind of goals and I could give you feedback you're gonna be making it during this cross and then asking me does this work? Does this make sense and talking about it and your fellow students probably have awesome ideas for how to help you we're going to get you where you want to go. The other question I hear a lot is why don't I do what I really want to dio I really want to sell these thirty eight headband so why do I keep getting distracted with instagram? Why am I not focusing on the things I know that I should be doing? We talked earlier in segment two about choosing the tool and the actions that would be in a line with your goal but that doesn't mean you'll do it just because you decide what you should do there still something missing for the action part actually doing it and there's two things here one is that you don't know what specifically to do. You know, we talked the very beginning of session one about how easy it is to say I need to do marketing, but what does that mean? If you wake up today and you say today I'm gonna market my work, you don't know what specifically to do, so you don't do it, you want to you want so badly to share your work with the world, but you're just not, but the probably you don't know what to specifically you need to dio the other thing is that you don't know when you'll do it. It's days vague, right? It's, just like, well, all market my work as soon as I get done making these products okay, I'll start blogging as soon as I have something to block about that's the worst that'll never happen if you don't know when you're going to do it. So in order to answer these two questions about what specifically to dio and when exactly you'll do it going to make you a map and I want you to think about a map as if you're going on a road trip. If I went from tennessee to san francisco, I needed to decide a my destination where I was going, and then I needed to say, when I was going there, I could have san francisco is the destination for my whole life, and never actually start down the path of getting me here unless I set a time limit on it. And then I had to figure out what harmony, what airport I'm going to fly out of. When is that going to leave? How I'm going to get to the airport, who's gonna pick me up from the airport? All of those little details are the details that especially if you're a creative person, it can be hard to nail them down to map them out. So matt making, which is what we'll do for the rest, the segment just a process of defining the specific path that you were going to take towards a specific destination, your destination is that goal that we set earlier in the day, that's, why I made you pick one that you would do in about three months, because I find that most people can't, uh, but by the end of three months, things are different, you're different, you're business is different, you want different things, whether you reached that goal or not, the the act of making this math and then walking this map for three months will lead you to a new place, and you'll be ready for a new goal. So that's, why I picked the time line of three months, so to make a map, I'm gonna walk us through the steps, and then we're going to go through it in your workbook, which is on page fifty eight you're going to set a destination, you're going to spot milestones so, like, if I'm on my way from tennessee to san francisco, my path is going to be totally different if I go through texas, then if I go through illinois or dayton, ohio, which is where I'm from, uh, the next step is that you are going to make doable two duis, you're actually going to figure out each step to get you to that milestone. So if I'm going to san francisco via dayton, I'm going also drive through kentucky and cincinnati. Before you get today, I'm going to turn left and go towards san francisco, those air an example of doable two duis on this path, then you're going to dedicate yourself you're actually gonna get started on your map so that our monday morning you wake up, you are going to start doing your two duis. Now, before we can set a destination, we actually have to figure out where we're standing right now. So I want to go to san francisco, but I don't know where I'm at, for whatever reason, I don't know, maybe I haven't asia may I have to know where I am and where I'm starting from? So if you look at page fifty eight in your work book, you'll see that I'm asking you where you are and where you want to go. So the first half of this page is your destination. What is your goal for the next three months? This is a thing that we said earlier in the day and segment one about we took your five year plan your to your plan, your one year plan broke it down to something you would do in three months. That's an alignment with what you want from your business and five years and is also in alignment with your north star. So write that down, and then you need to pick a time line for it. So when do you want to do this? I knew I wanted to get to san francisco by july sixteenth, but when do you want to get to your destination now I said three months. So for some of you that what's actually going to be maybe like three and a half months or like to get in that holiday gift guide you're going to be working on it solidly for three months but maybe you'll find out about it october november you know, so to know the time line of win you're going to be working and when you're going to find out about something although I've said three months yours might actually be a month and a half two months and then I want you to write your goal in the form of a sentence and I ask you to this on page fifty eight today in x months I will do this and this is like another test to see if your goal is actually uh workable because if you can't say I will and make it like a statement it's it's usually too vague and then I ask you about measuring your goal what metrics are you going to use is that money earned items create hymns adam sold task complete and when you'll know you've reached her goal remember earlier I said make sure your goal is enviable let's talk about how you'll know that you're ending it I'm going through this part quickly because we did this today we broke down a bigger goal into the smaller goal but you guys were writing furiously so we are when you have that first half done the next step is to figure out where you are now I can't get san francisco unless I knew I was starting in tennessee now that I'm in san francisco to get back home after know where matt what airport I met lee from so at the bottom of the page I ask you where you are right now and I want you to use the above metrics which you guys sitting in this room might not be you have to do yet the metrics you're using to define your destination get clear on where that is right now so for example if you want to net a thousand dollars a month what air you netting right now now even if your goal isn't about increasing or improving knowing where you are right now really grounds you and how you're going to go about getting it because I would have different advice for someone who wanted to get to a thousand dollars goal if they were at five hundred dollars than if they were at one hundred dollars you know that'll have different milestones I'll take a different path of focus on different things um so I also want you to notice any feelings or thought that comes up as you research these numbers and you write down the goal and the reason for this is because I want to get emotionally specific about how you feel about that destination and about how you feel right now if you're in a place of super disappointment that you're not already there that's going to get in your way if you're feeling really enthusiastic that's good to know you want to ride that enthusiasm I just want to pay attention what is making me feel this way? Maybe every time I check myself numbers I feel horrible so knowing that you might want to focus on something else, you might want to prepare yourself mentally before you go in and check your sales numbers you want to set this up so that you don't avoid it when we talked about why you don't do what you want to dio sometimes we're avoiding it for emotional reasons. So although this is a marketing class, you have to acknowledge that like a lot of this is scary some of this could be disappointing some of that can be a major downer and prepare yourself accordingly so that you don't just keep avoiding it so you should be at the end of page fifty eight and have a destination clearly in mind. So the next step tio making your map is to identify mile markers and what I mean by that is figure out what's in between here and there now and you have got to listen for just a minute before you're able to actually do it, so the thing about mile markers is that these are points you're definitely going to pass on the way to your destination so again, if I'm going to san francisco from tennessee through dayton, I normally pass cincinnati if I don't something's wrong, right? I like taken a left turn and butler, so I need to go all of them the way I need to pass through cincinnati to know I'm on my path to san francisco. If I haven't that I know something's wrong, I can readjust, we're going to identify those things in your goal, your goal? It was to make to net a thousand dollars in three months, and at one month you haven't even got one hundred, then you know, you need there, maybe need to adjust your goal or adjust what you're doing, but also look with the money goal, you know you're going to pass to make a thousand dollars a month, you're going to pass two hundred dollars a month, they're going past five hundred dollars a month, and that will let you know you're getting closer and closer, and this will also help you break down all of the many things you could do to get it to a thousand dollars net. It will help you break it down into much of doable chunks it's much easier to think about going from zero to two hundred thing to think about going from zero to a thousand is it I mean it's much easier to think about selling five headbands then nothing about selling thirty eight and if you sold ten a month in three months you would have sold thirty so those air mile markers the cell ten so the first time so the second ten there's a reach mile markers and I want you guys to come up with ten that air in between where you are right now and where you want to go now these air different than two duis to do their action items you can take right now a mile marker is a is a point in time you will have passed it's an accomplishment you will accomplish and I found that if you write the's asm actual things like I have sold ten headbands versus ah ten headbands if you actually write out the sentence like you've already done it it shows you what it'll be like when you're to that point you know what I mean like I have sold ten hand headbands is different than just head head ten headbands saying that uh let's use another goal of somebody yours was tio being a holiday gift guide and one of the things was to write a press release pitch right so that would be one of your very first mile markers I have completed the pitch letter because we both know there are a lot of things actually in between you and completing the pitch letter it's not just a matter of like bam it's done you're going to make you do some research do some writing put some things together so all of those actions are going to be two duis but your mile marker is I have written a pitch letter okay? Another mile mark would be I've sent the pitch letter and because there's things do in between all that I've identified places okay, yeah you what if you're trying to work backwards? I feel because, like how I said I was raising my prices to hopefully take some time away from the craft room or at least take some time away from doing menial tasks and putting it into doing like new designs. How do you identify the mile markers? If you're trying to maybe make less quantity sales and so what's still make more, so tell me you're defined tell me you're defined goal what's your destination of your burger line yeah, I'm working on a new bridal line right now and I need more time to work on that okay? So maybe and less time working on maybe some other pieces and ok so that's really vague we have to specify the heck out of nothing so so what is it you want it? So we talked earlier about that you're making to may cells and you feel overwhelmed and you want to be making fewer sales but having raised your prices so what is the thing you want to in three months you can look at and say yes, I did that is it that you will have finished a bridal line? Is it that you will have decreased sales by a certain percent, maybe having, like, two days off work rather than like one day? Bingo! I love it like start there. Ok, so you have two days off of work and you're still maintaining something because I mean you could take two days off work right now. You could just start doing that that doesn't take any steps in between now and then, but then something is going to have to change. You know what I mean, what you're thinking, but less but then I would have if I were to take two days off work than I would have to work more on thie other days and that's not what you want to do, so maybe I need to just identify this go a little clear. Yes, and I mean I met like us. Digging into it is like a perfectly good use of our time here because this is helping everybody else who has the exact same issue because this is something a lot of people want to do once you get to a certain levels of like I don't want to be making any more I want to be making it better I want to be making my day my life my time yeah more in alignment because under spanned in the craft room like maybe work towards like only that well in the craft room yeah but that would mean I would have to make noah's you raise your prices yeah so he says he says so less pieces is definitely part of the school but they made you the same amount of money and I like a total write okay and having two days off so I think something around having two days off and capping my work hours that x hours today now then you're mile markers will be all the different things you can put into place to make that happen so like raising your prices will be one thing that she'll do within the bigger destination of getting tio I mean keeping making this money and uh working less hours doesn't make sense and you ponder on that and what we'll come back to you though, okay? Yeah this is actually really good to do these activities with our students here because like he said, the people in the chat room have very similar questions and seeing the students go through it really helps their personal experiences so by doing this a few questions did come up in the chat now carla cano wants to know are these mile markers that you're setting for each specific goal or should you have mile markers for your business overall? Okay so what we're talking about not making I'm sorry this wasn't clear is we are picking one goal for three months and we're making a map for this one goal earlier we talked about choosing action items you want to do in your business like just to improve your marketing but thiss were specifically making a map around just one goal we're going now there's lots of other things you're going to work on in your business you're going to keep killing customer orders you're going to keep answering customer emails you're going to maybe start new lines but this is one thing perhaps that you've been putting off that you really want to accomplish in the next three months so you can absolutely have mile markers for like your bigger vision of your business but we were talking about earlier it's really easy to picture the five year and it's really hard to make it smaller and more doable so we are scaling it way down not even to just one year but two three months one thing you want to accomplish in three months that that helps that yeah that definitely helps and this this brought up another question from art spirit and they want to know if this is a good example of this they say if my milestone is making fifty fifty making fifty items is my destination would making five items written ten times be good miles milestone could be five no way or no because it would actually be making five and then making ten and then make twenty right you're going to count all of them so she's talking about making fifty items total it sounds like and so you can do that making five and then ten and twenty but ask yourself what else is going to come in between you and making fifty items? You need to buy some supplies? Do you need to test different patterns? Do you need tio maybe make five of one item and five of another item? So get super more specific and let me tell you some more about my own markets before we go on and they were going to come back to your goal as you're pondering. Um part of the reason why I have you list ten is because it's easy to get overwhelmed by this big goal even though we've broken it down into just three months is really still like give you're going from zero to a thousand that just seems to enormous, but by breaking it down into ten smaller, many goals, many accomplishments all you have to focus on is getting to the next mile marker and you'll see this more is our matt making goes on we're really just going to focus you on each each time you're working, you're just focused on the next mile marker. You can leave the bigger goal kind of off to the side so that you just have to focus on one tenth of the big goal and that's going to help you decide what to work on that's going to help you filter out what, how you should be spending your days, and if you're having a hard time listing the mile markers, you want to think about what is gonna happen. By the time I reached my goal, what am I going to drive past on my way to this destination? What is goingto like? What else in my business like with the making fifty items? Will I be buying supplies? Will I be talking to certain people? Will I have to source some new supplies of never source? Beef works have never made fifty items before, and the reason my mom markers help is because the number one thing is they determine the direction you're going talked about how that it's a different if I'm going to san francisco from tennessee. If I drive through ohio or a drive through texas, right, you can do the same thing you can get to the goal of selling a thousand dollars worth of products by going through selling to five hundred dollars products or by selling one hundred ten dollars products I'm not so good with math I hope that math worked out so it determines the direction you're going to go with the mile markers that you choose show you how you're going to get to that destination we might each get to that destination in a totally different way so you're mile markers or are your things you want to go through as also going to focus you in on what matters so you can ignore all the distractions if your mind is just on the next mile marker you can ignore everything else this is another form of a filter it's just gonna help you get rid of everything that doesn't matter you just can focus on the mile markers and it's also going to build confidence we're talking about celebration when you reach a mile marker we'll hear that you're there you're going in the right direction mile markers will also help you see that you I have accomplished something at the end of the three months you might not be sure goal but you can see that you've done five out of ten mile markers which is more than you had ever done in the past. That's actually what most of my map makers discover is it getting to the goal doesn't even become as important as having made progress towards it so maybe they need another three months maybe they need another year because that goal was just crazy out of line for them, but they can see the progress they've made, and so the last thing is it it gives you reminders that you are learning you are changing, you are made in progress, but so let's, go back to your goal about thea. You want to do less, have you? Have you come up with a more defined goal? I think it's easier to create mile markers for something like get featured and like a blogger like a wedding blawg or something like that. That's a little clear, her clearer, but like maybe, like, I want to finish my new bridles line by the end of august. So in order to do that, I was going to take like a shop vacation may be to focus and maybe that's the way to do it and I guess, just keep my prices this well, here's what I hear here's, what I hear when I hear you is head of the prices, they're still raised everything. I don't know. No, no, no, don't be shy, right? So so what? What I would say is I hear hesitation when you talk about well, maybe it should be just be this where he seemed to really sure that you actually do want to spend the last time working. Yes, and so I think that that is a goal that you want to spend less time working. Maybe you were leaving it open ended to the point of you don't know how that's going to work out, or maybe, you know, you want to take two days off, and the thing is, you don't know how that's going to work out. We're going to we're going to help you come up with mile markers and then two duis to get closer to that, but you're going to learn stuff as you go, maybe you'll find so so you did raise your prices right? Or you're about to when you're back, it did so that's on my marker one step to take more time off by hopefully raising your prices to where you have limited itself. Yeah, waker! So if your goal is to spend last time, the metrics would be first, you'd have to know where you are right now. How much time are you spending on your business and you don't have to answer us, but knowing how much time you spend right now. Versus how much time you want to be spending an actual hours, you know, we're talking on other days about the whole overlap of family and business, and so it might be that you're that you need stronger boundaries that might be one of your mile markers is I don't know what your situation is, but if you're finding that all of your work day is like, split up and the little bits and pieces, yeah, you're not a early morning time naptime and then bedtime. Yeah, like that, could you could you, like, put a finger on how much time you're spending each day? And I have to tell like that if you could six to eight hours, I think spread out through the day that's like the average sometimes it's more, but yes, oh, you took two days off, but if you get one extra day off, that would be six less hours on your business. Okay, so I think that's a great goal, so for you to add up what you're spending now and then for you to set the goal of actually wanna spend x hours on my business, raise your prices like your friends that it's probably the very first mile marker and getting fewer orders, and then also the idea of taking a shot vacation that might be a way of scaling back the amount of time you need to spend another thing that might be that you know, the thing is when you're making too many sales often it means you need to spend last time marketing so it might be that some of those hours get cut from your marketing time that's a good thing we market to share our work so that we get more sales so if you're overwhelmed the sales stuff, telling more people to buy your stuff and I know sometimes you're khun beef, some fear around that like, well, if I stop talking about it, what if all my still dry up forever? Yeah, but you're gonna have happy customers and you're going to be producing awesome, high quality stuff you already have a fan base so it's not going to go away and I'm not saying disappear from the internet for three months, but maybe scale back some of those things that you felt like you had to dio you don't have to do them now, so the whole consistent see thing is a little different in this I was still remain consistent and in fewer places and your consistency can be scaled back realize you'd be consistent if you instructive one today instead of three times a day and I mean I don't know what your numbers are in particular one today, right? So so you could but you know, instagramming doesn't take up is much time, some other marketing it activity you might be doing, you know, that's why I scaled back, like on the blogger, I rarely do that facebook god like seventeen people see it and like it was two thousand, right? And so that so I that's when you're listening, you're mile markers I want you to think of the things that you could give up. Stop doing move onto someone else's plate in orderto have the six to eight hours for yourself a week. Okay, okay, so those that will be the things that you pass on your way. So the raising the price was definitely won the that scaling back on facebook. I mean, you've already done that so that's awesome. But think about what else what else is taking up the sixty eight hours? What do I not need to be doing? I think maybe saying no. Yes, because I can I can say yes to everything. Yes, easily. Well, when it comes to can you make this for me or I want this custom piece like this and then I'm like scouring the internet and shops for particular things. So okay, so do you feel like he spent a lot of your time sourcing things because people have been really specific yeah and I get really picky with things if they want something a specific color than I'm like ok then I need it like this and I need it to look like this kind of thing so maybe not being as picky and spending too much time researching well maybe it's that you limit your amount of hours of research you check out how much time we're spending now and you cut that down you say I'm going to spend one less hour I'm gonna put a timer on it I'd normally spend forty five minutes every morning scouring the internet I'm putting a timer fifteen minutes I'm done I'll find the stuff and the thing is a lot of times when I work with the timer I get ten times more done because I'm not also who liked my photo on instagram in box you know you might find that stronger boundaries actually get a lot more productivity in less time so those are some your mile markers but I want to ask other people to how your mile markers air coming I see lots of writing on work we've to tell me your destination and then tell me some of your mile markers to get my studio space open on my website and I actually ended up with fourteen mile markers because no, I know myself that if I just said you know so I've got like marketing plan written and marketing plans scheduled um as two separate markers so that I can get through one without having to do the other at the same time yeah so I could do you want me to go through what I've got what you can if you have a question are we can oh yes no I mean my question is going to come and how you prioritize this because to me everything is always high prayers yeah so how about you your do you want to share a goal in a couple of your mile markers the thousand yeah okay um I mean is that your goal that you're making mile markers for yeah eso besides the numbers and that I one thing if I'm going to net that that I had one of my goals is to know actually how much I'm putting into how much of my spending on materials so maybe putting it you know budgeting yeah budging my materials and doing the math may be on his mind right now yeah mile marker I would write that down have done the math and know what my cost of goods sold er yeah that's often I'm so happy I just wrote down create a budget so you michelle you you don't look like you have ten yet um no I don't know if there's ten for I mean I have craft the pitch letter researched the magazines that I would send it to research the contacts that I would send it to send it on and then get my shop in order so it's perfect people dio how measurable is that? I don't know how much so yeah so what for you is a perfect chop um how many items bullet but I've been making notes about what I need to improve it in here and so just tonic okay as your mile markers so like I have updated about paige I have listed ten more items okay I have whatever it is for you okay and improve my listings yeah yeah and so maybe I have edited ten listings or I hope you come up with a template for my listings and applied them depending on what you mean by improve but those air some options okay yeah thanks. So how about the internet examples here that may help everybody here in the studio as well so I'll read some of these and you can let us know if they're on the right track or if they need to make some edits this first one comes from julie and they say I'm currently getting twenty sales when I released a new pattern but in three months I want to release a new pattern and get x number of sales in the first week but I don't know how to pick with that x number should be so they're trying to set this goal to increase their sales they're having trouble figuring out with that metric should be yeah that's um it's hard, you know everything, right? Right? So if so did they? S o my question first b, do you get twenty sales overall, or do you get twenty cells on the first week because I would focus at on increasing? Um maybe you have to know what you get in the first week and then think about increasing from there. As for what the goal should be, the goal should be whatever you're really excited about. So if you've been getting twenty sales in the first week, but what should really love to get is like one hundred fifty, then pick some number in between there that seems doable in the next three months. Also, ask yourself, how long did it take me to get to twenty cells in the first week? Did I spend three years getting to the point of getting twenty sales? If so, in the next three months, you might be able to get up to thirty, you know, because you know the speed in which you've gotten here, you've only ever done one pattern and you had twenty that it might be on your second pattern, you can get it up to forty but that's definitely that's a good that's a good destination because then her mile markers will be finished this pattern published this pattern um, you know, get the first a figure out launch plan weak and then implement each of those pieces of how she's going she has to do something different to change your sales so she should be really specific about what she needs to dio that's different and also just what she's done in the past that worked and she needs combine them both great now in the clarify yes, she said those twenty sales were in the first week, so that is good to know this kind of becomes like a math equation you have to look at all these different variables and make sure that they add up absolutely absolutely on that's part of the reason why I talk about breaking it down even more in two mile markers is because ah you can we're going to get so specific that you can't miss the math that you have to d'oh to make it really obvious. Ok, so we have another example here that that might be good to look at this one's from flavor flavor aid are and they say my goal is to make five hundred dollars, in sales in three months here's some mile markers that they suggest they have buy supplies, tweet products right of log post contact galleries are these good ideas for mile markers? Okay, so the thing you're on the right path on and that's that so tweeting is something that happens as a routine right you do it more regularly than just once in three months so does blawg writing so in order to get and of course I don't know where she's starting from with the sales to three months so she might look at um scaling maybe she already tweets once a week she might look at scaling that up to increase it she might look at like what you're going to do with instagram making more clear offers on twitter so she would need to get specific about maybe try twice a week tio make it clear offer on twitter to increase my sales but what I immediately thought of is one of your marco's markers it's kind of make one hundred dollars in sales and actually going to make two hundred the next one would be make three hundred which you know will come at the very end of your three months if everything works out. So what comes underneath make one hundred sales? It depends on what you're doing now but in uh you're going to both you're going to buy the supplies you're going to make the products honestly before you get to one hundred dollars in sales, you need far more than one hundred dollars in product in your shop because as you all know like you you're not going to sell out a soon as you start so you need to have if your goal is to have three hundred dollars sales she needs to have nine hundred or a thousand dollars in product in the shop so that might be the first mile marker make fifty more things I don't know what I think's costs I'm using numbers here make fifty more items list them in the shop with clear descriptions take amazing photos this would be a couple more um mile markers and then have sold my first hundred and then and then that's where some marketing will come in she'll spend some time developing block content be blogging regularly for tweeting regularly making clear offers she might as one of the mile markers developing blog's siri's as a way to drive traffic like we're talking about with a series that you were going to do an e mails to drive traffic to a pattern that helped well see, we have one more that came in from art spirit and now I know we heard from some of our students about having more than ten mile stones a few people had that art spirit wants to know is it ok to have more than ten milestones? I think the key point here is that they're saying having more than ten, they're not trying to put off the goal, but you're adding more detailed steps now to people should they be concerned about having too many miles is as if they're putting off that main goal saying it so really honestly, I made up the number ten because it's challenging, yeah, right. So if you've if you've been thinking on lee in five year terms, to think of ten things that will happen just before you get to three months, it's hard for most people. Well, if you have a couple more and their true milestones, they're not two duis, but they're actually I will have accomplished this. Then you can have more. You're not putting it off because you're going to do all of them. You're going to get there, you're going to take action.