4 Simple Tricks For Setting Goals And Creating Outstanding Business Clarity
Have you ever come across a successful entrepreneur or a thriving business that didn’t have clear direction?
I’m guessing you haven’t. Businesses that are profitable and attractive always have clarity at the center. Clarity in what they offer, who they serve, and where they want to end up.
If you feel like you’re drifting or taking a stab in the dark when it comes to defining your business, read on for four tricks that will help you zero in on what makes your business tick.
One: Decide who you DON’T want to work with
If you believe that you need to be serving every breathing person on the planet (or even in your zip code), clarity is far, far away.
If you’re trying to please everyone, you’ll end up pleasing almost no one.
A great way to figure out who your business is a good fit for? Decide who you absolutely do not want to work with. This is can be fun. Make a list of all the traits that would make someone hard, unpleasant, or unsuccessful to work with. Now, target your business to attract the opposite of what’s on your list.
Two: Write down your goals
How can you create clarity if you don’t know what direction you want to go in? Goal setting can get annoying (trust me, I’m not always a fan), but it can also be incredibly helpful when done right.
Try setting some big-picture goals for your business. For example, let’s say I’m a professional photographer. Here are my goals:
1. Travel multiple times a year for work and get to visit new countries
2. Have my work published in a national magazine
3. Teach photography to armatures and hobbyists
Once you have some goals for where you want your business to end up, you can measure all your current activities against them. To see if an opportunity/project/whatever lines up with your business, ask this question:
“Will this directly allow me to accomplish one or more of my big-picture goals, or will it set me up to be able to accomplish my goal(s) down the road?”
Of course, running a business means we need to make a profit, and making a profit sometimes means taking on less than ideal situations. But just taking the time to consider whether or not something is in line with where you want your business to go can bring incredible clarity – even if you have to make sacrifices now and then for the sake of staying afloat.
Three: Single out your “why”
Businesses that have insane clarity are often driven by one important element: their “why”.
Knowing what you do (“I sell iPhone apps!”) isn’t enough. You need to know why you do it (“I want to help make people’s lives simpler and more productive”).
If you can nail down why you’re in business, you have a powerful head start for finding clarity in every other division.
Four: Sum it up in your copy
The copy you have on your website, your blog, your social media profiles, and all your marketing materials is absolutely central to conveying your business story to your prospects.
It shouldn’t be an afterthought – it should be the foundation for your business-building. Displaying copy that tells your business story in a compelling way means you can let people in on what your business is all about, and attract the type of client or customer that lines up with your business.
Your turn: can you sum up what your business does and WHY you do it in one or two sentences? Put it in the comments below and set your business up for outstanding clarity.
| Written on 10/30/2013 by Sonja Jobson. Sonja Jobson is copywriter and blogger who helps small businesses become incredible on the internet. She shares her best marketing advice in her free, weekly emails. |
Photo Credit: plantoo47
