Why Goals FAIL

In a large number of cases, where goals fail, it is because they do not have a actual target they are working towards. A good example of a goal that will generally fail is “To earn more money”, and this translates into many other potential goals like “To sell more products” “To convert more sales” “To Lose Weight”. While all of these are goals and they describe what you want to do, they do not quantify what you expect to achieve for a success.

Really how can you expect to not FAIL when you do not set a level to reach for. Looking at the goal “To earn more money”, you will probably find when you do the numbers a lot more people succeed at this then will accept that they do. Maybe you are earning $50,000 per year, and you want to earn more money. Without setting what you want to reach for in this goal success would become earning $50,001 next year. So you get to the end of the year and have earned that extra $1, and while you achieved your goal, you just start along the path that goal setting did not work, because when you think about it what you really wanted was to earn an extra $10,000.

How to Improve Your Goals

Having short and vague goals whether it is in your business or personal life, just do not work. You need to put detail into the goals and build a goal that has a definite point where you know you have either achieved it or failed. To do this there are two key elements that need to be part of your goals creation process. Not having the following two elements as part of the actual goal, will make it all that much more difficult for you to actually get to a point where you either succeed or fail.

• Have a Target - Having something that you are working towards is an essential part of the goal, this being a specific target is greatly more powerful then a simple phrase. In setting a target for your goal, “To Earn more money” becomes “To Earn an additional $10,000″. It creates a specific figure that you know you are aiming for.
• Have a Timeframe - Just like having something specific you are working towards, having a date that you expect to achieve this by is another important factor. If you do not know when you want to achieve the goal by, then it will just keep dragging on. It is often found that a task will expand to fill the available time, a goal is quite similar it will often take about the time allocated to it, to be achieved. In this case “To Earn more money” becomes “To Earn an additional $10,000 in the next year.” Specifying a particular date can also be helpful, as often a year from now you may not even remember the specific date.

Things to Consider

While adding these two elements to your goal will make it a much clearer and more definite, these alone will only increase your chances so much. There are still a range of things that can impact on your individual likelihood of achieving the goals you set.

• Make it achievable - Almost more important than any other factor a goal needs to be achievable for you. This requires a little bit of insight on your part as to what you are capable of. For example if your business has been running for 3 years and making $5000/ month profit, setting a goal to make $50,000/ month profit within 6 months, is probably not very practical, for a number of reasons. Something more practical might be a goal to increase monthly profit by $1000 / month over the next 6 months. Keeping things practical and achievable can help you to achieve and exceed your goals.
• Goals should be a challenge - But not to challenging. While you do need to push yourself a little beyond what you believe you are capable of, going to far beyond may push you a little to hard to achieve. This goes hand in hand with making things achievable. However it can also depend upon where you are in your business. While 100% month on month growth might be achievable in the first few months of business, 5 years in without precedent in your business it will likely be very difficult to achieve.
• Step it up - If you still feel that you would like to push yourself a little harder, but maybe not all in one go, it may be worth considering setting smaller goals that take things a step at a time. For example rather then setting a goal of increasing profit by $10,000/month within 6 months. Try setting three smaller goals of increase profit/month by $3,500 in 2 months, and work on this goal 3 times over 6 months.

Where are you at?

At the end of the day though the most important part of setting goals for your business is to actually get in and set them. Thinking about setting goals is not really going to get you anywhere, it will just leave you thinking what could I have done if only I had set a goal.

So it is time to go and set some goals for your business, all the factors of what you want to achieve, in what time frame and at what speed, is entirely up to you. Just remember to include all the parts of a goal to give yourself the best chance to achieve your goal.

There is however another often very effective way to get your business seen by a lot of people, and one of the interesting parts of this is being seen in a more appreciative way. In comparison to the interruption many people perceive other forms of advertising being to their day, or their time listening to or watching a show.

Getting involved in community projects or sponsoring community groups/teams or projects, can gain your business a lot more exposure then you may have expected. Front page advertising may cost a small fortune, but as a sponsor of a local sports team your logo could end up on the front page on the teams sport Jersey when they make the news. This is one thing that many big companies have been doing for years, the sponsors, of just about any major sports team, often gain a huge amount of extra press in comparison to the cost of the investment.

In the same vein being a part of a community project could get you more then a few mentions in local press, and potentially good exposure within the community group, and extended members. The value of being mentioned in a newsworthy article, as opposed to being part of an advertisement is often a lot more valuable, and can even sometimes cost you nothing more then the time of you and some of your staff, depending on the project.

There is one consideration that you do need to make in your community involvement though. That is to get involved because you want to not because of what you will get out of it. In other words try to expect nothing in return and look at it as giving something back. Then when you do gain that bit of extra exposure see it as a good bonus, to your giving back.

So unfortunately this is not going to be the answer to the question. However what i want to do is give you a little bit of help in finding your way to the information that you can use to answer the question. But what it is going to be is a series of area’s of information that you need to be considering when you are planning your coffee shop business.

While I hate overloading information on people, I hope that this post is going to more just scratch the surface. There will be a lot of topics with a little about each and why it is something that you need to consider. So lets get started, in no particular order, as such.

Location - Initially the location is one of the more important factors, if your location is good more people are going to see you. While if you have a bad location, you will need to put much more work into marketing and promotion, which just makes it harder at the beginning.

Fit Out - The fit out of your coffee shop need not be expensive, but it needs to look professional. Even if you want a bit of a hip/funky coffee shop get things done right and give that professional/quality look to the place. A good way to see what quality looks like is to find almost any newly opened franchise coffee shop and look at how it has been finished off.

Seating - This is one of the first things you should be thinking about before your location or fit out even, while they are both important, if you cannot get enough seats in, you are going to be limiting your business. However also consider the top end as well, if you think you are likely to have maybe no more then 50 customers maximum at any time, then don’t set up a space and seating to have 200.

Menu - What type of menu do you want to offer to your customers. Just coffee and Cake, Maybe a snack menu as well, or would you be looking to offer a full restaurant menu. To some extent this choice can impact how many seats you may need. As more people will be likely to be seated for a store offering a full restaurant menu, then just coffee and cake.

Coffee Machine - In a coffee shop this is an essential item, especially having one that will be able to handle the business you may expect. While you may be tempted to save money here, it is possibly the last place you want to be backing off on having something that is good quality. A machine that will cope with the quantity, but will also be reliable is essential. The last thing you want is the coffee machine broken down, or unable to cope with the quantity of orders.

Point of Sale - It is almost becoming an essential part of a hospitality business to have some form of electronic system to take orders and track what is ordered for each table. While for a long time a paper docket system has been relied on by many businesses, this is really only practical for smaller coffee shops now, if you are expecting to have more then a few tables at a time, consider the electronic systems. This can also be good to improve accuracy in orders, and ensuring that things are not missed when customers are paying.

Cake Selection - Having a good range of cakes will be important to give variety, to your customers. The less range that you have the more chance people will not see something they like and be less likely to purchase.

Whats your drink - Just like with cakes be sure to offer a good range of drinks as well. This really covers everything, you need to offer coffee of course, made in a variety of different ways. Tea, again having at least a few flavors will be an advantage, and their is scope to offer quite wide ranges. Finally having other hot milk drinks will be a good alternative, things like hot chocolate, hot caramel, ect. Having the variety will make it easier for people to change from where they have been buying before to your new coffee shop.

Marketing - This is important to any business, but to a new business even more so. The location will help to some extent, but no matter how good your location is you still need to tell some people that you are there. This can be done in many different ways. A-Frame Signs out the front, signage on and in your premises that catches the eye, Radio Ads, Newspaper ads, handing flyers out, and many more. Also consider things like email marketing where you get customers to provide their email address so you can send them updates, the marketing after they are a customer is just as important as before.

Staff - Another one of those very important parts of your business. In most cases Staff are the face of your business, so ensuring you have staff that are going to provide a good image for your business essential. Ensuring that they are trained with good customer service skills, is essential to ensure that they are going to keep your customers happy, also ensure that they know what they are doing in regards to what they are making for the customers.

Training – In connection with your staff, you need to ensure that they are continuously being trained to maintain their level of competency.  Also to ensure that they are not letting little shortcuts take over, and that these are not being passed onto new staff.

Health regulations - One of the things that is going to change from state to state or sometimes even city to city, is the health regulations. Knowing what these are and keeping within the guidelines is something that you will really be wanting to do. This can be the deciding factor between staying open and being closed down if guidelines are not followed. While sometimes the guidelines may seem strict, they are their for a reason. The last thing you want is to become know as the dirty coffee shop, or the one where everyone gets sick.

Clearing Tables - For staff working on the floor in your coffee shop, clearing tables should be one of the top few priorities, after taking food and drinks to tables. While some people will sit at a table with the remnants of the last customer, there are many that will not. Clear tables and keep as many clear as you can, it will encourage people to see a better image of the store.

Uniform - Set and maintain a uniform for staff. This helps to show a consistent image to customers and keep a professional look about the coffee shop. Providing the uniform will be the most likely way to ensure that the staff will wear it. Ensure you do make it clear to staff what is requested of them in wearing the uniform as well, in terms of general items, such as shoes, hair, jewelery, and other accessories.

While I am sure that this is far from a complete list of considerations when you are setting up a coffee ship, it is really something that I hope will get you thinking about some of the important things. Please feel free to add additional considerations you believe may be important to the comments.

Looking at what you may want to include in your technology plan, can be an interesting mix of information. Some of it may seem obvious while other parts maybe not so obvious.

• How you use technology – Before your even consider the purchase of any technology products you need to look at how your business is going to make use of these products. For example it is no good buying the latest and greatest point of sale technology if it is going to be hardly used. Whereas trying to work with second hand cash registers in a high volume retail store.
• What is the best Technology – Once you have established how you will use technology, do a little research and find out what is the best technology you could have. What is the best technology and what you can afford are not always going to be the same thing, so also research at the same time what other similar technology that may be suitable is available.
• Your Budget – Setting a budget for technology, should not be seen as creating a long list of expenses, your technology purchases should be seen as investing in your business. To carry on from the example above, while it may cost a lot more money to have the latest point of sale technology, if you were in a high volume retail business this additional investment in technology would help to greatly improve your customer experience. While all technology is not perfect, using second hand cash registers would more than likely create more down time, and give you less ability to track your business.
• Define your needs – Finally once you know how you use technology, and what is available, it comes time to define what you are actually going to use. This really takes a little working with what is available and what you have available for this investment in terms of budget. In almost every case while you may want what is best the budget often cannot stretch to meet this. So it can mean making some hard decisions.
• Look to the future – As we know technology doesn’t last forever, and as such there is always going to be a point in the future where it needs to be updated. As such it is worth looking at what period you are comfortable in writing off the cost of your equipment and where it is going to benefit most for you to upgrade. There will of course be a number of factors that come into play here. The first is if you originally purchased or leased the equipment. Second is overall value, some equipment costs more and is designed to last longer then other equipment, taking this into consideration is important.

While a technology plan is not essential it can help you to see a little better just where your business is going in term’s of staying current, and making the most use of technology. It can also assist you in your longer term financial planning to see when and where you are going to need funds available to upgrade your infrastructure. Have you created a technology plan, has it help you in business, let us know in the comments below.

Often it does not take long to realize that the plan is not working entirely as planned, or that you are growing faster or slower then your plan outlines. The best way to work with this continual ongoing change in your business is to always be thinking and planning and modifying your plan as you see fit.

While you may not find that it is entirely essential to change your plan every time something happens there are many times that it can be quite important to change your plan. Let’s have a look at some examples.

• New Major Client – There is often a good chance that you have not planned for taking on a major client. Unless you have been very optimistic in your planning, the chances are that gaining a major client will move your business in quite a different way to what you expected. Changing your plan to account for this, especially considerations of staff, facilities, and financial estimates, can be beneficial.
• New Equipment Available – Technology and equipment is something that is always advancing. While you may not have seen a need for an expensive piece of equipment when you started the business, as you work with your business you may see how this equipment could benefit you. Before buying the equipment consider looking at it within the scope of your plan and how it would affect your plan.
• Loss of Finance – While many businesses are built on savings and or little finance, there are just as many businesses that are built on finance. This being the case whether you have used finance or some other way to fund the business if the circumstances of this funding/finance change it can have quite an impact, especially if it cannot be replaced. Allowing for this in your planning initially often is not thought of, so making changes as this may occur is an important step to the long term survival of your business.

Taking some time each week or even each month to reassess your position and adjust your business plan accordingly can be an important part of your business. For the most part just to be sure you are if not on track, at least realigning things to get on track.

With the currant financial climate that is affecting businesses in many different area’s in different ways it is almost more important to keep an up to date resume handy. Not so much because you want to use it, but more in case you don’t have a choice but to use it. You could be laid off, or the company could close down, so being prepared can be a very important thing.

The other possible reason for needing an up to date resume, is where there is potential for internal advancement. Many companies do prefer to employee to certain positions people from internal to the company. While application requirements can vary it is often worth submitting a resume with even internal applications. Even though the company does know what you do for them, it can add that little bit extra professionalism.

Finally when you are working for yourself, you may be thinking you do not need a resume. Working in your own business though can be a place you need your own resume, or at least a form of a resume. The reason being that depending upon your goals providing a resume for yourself can be an advantage. For seeking finance or even partners in a business you will find that being able to show your own career path, and achievements you have made can be an important part of this process especailly in a new business.

Keeping your resume up to date should not be a long arduous process. If anything it should be something that takes 15-30 minutes every 5 or 6 months. In reality that things that you need to look at, when you are updating is really just adding and updating the current position that you are working in. Adding achievements, new parts of the job you fulfill, and any new details about this job. While also removing details that are not so relevant any more.

So there are many reasons to keep your resume up to date, besides looking for another position while still working for a different employer. So just keep this in mind and set aside that 15-30 minutes every 5 or 6 months. Let me know in the comments, below when you last needed your resume unexpectedly.

It’s just that somebody who’s starting a home-based business or a professional services firm doesn’t need to pay a consulting firm thousands of dollars to prepare a full-fledged business plan just to raise the small amount of money they’ll need for legal fees, accounting software, a website and maybe a new laptop. More….

I thought this article quite relevant, as I want to start sharing a bit more information about getting your business plan together here. Especially information about what you really need to do and what you may not really have to do. As i think that some people spend way to much time planning, and not enough time taking action to get their business moving.

While I believe their is a place for business plan’s, this post lays it out about as simple as possible a plan is really only absolutely needed when it is actually going to be used to guide the business.

Some have been a good experience and provided much more positive interaction.While other forums i have been a member of have been a total waste of time. As you can imagine spending time on a lot of forums, can leave little time for other important things. As such over time I have distilled the number of forums which I frequent a little.The way that i choose the forums i frequent is very deliberate, in that I seek to visit forums which i can contribute to, and also benefit from.

With this in mind i wanted to share with you today my favorite three forums. In order which I have longest been a member,

http://www.small-business-forum.net – The name says it, the theme here is Small Business, there is a little deviation into some other area’s such as Internet, however mostly in the context of business. This has been one of the more frequent forums which I have visited, and find the discussion to be quite interesting, and often changing on many different business topics.

http://www.stevepavlina.com/forums/ – This is a forum which i honestly do not get to as much as i would like. The primary topic here is Personal Development, and covers quite a good range of topics within this area. The topic is really quite a large area, in that there are so many different ways in which you can develop yourself. Besides the forum, i also enjoy reading Steve’s Blog, which almost covers an even wider variety of topics.

http://www.problogger.com – This forum is a little different, as in you need to pay for membership. At time of writing they are offering an introductory price, however this is only for a limited time (not to sure how long exactly). The primary topic of discussion is blogging. So far from my experience the topic is quite focused and there is a lot of quality information that is shared. The benefit in this being a paid community is that it immediately pretty much any chance of spam, and in my opinion means that you will generally get a better level of people participating.

So feel free to take a look and join, i believe that these sites are all worth the time to be a member, however this is of course a personal preference.

“This may be slow, but it makes me dough”

What makes this sticker more ideal was the other sticker that read “Speed Limited 49km/h”. Which means in some places it is really quite slow, and would be very much noticed.

However i think that this bumper sticker also makes a very good point in business. Taking the slower course in business often means that you eventually get to a point of making money. Which even though it is slower is does happen eventually.

While the same can still be said for taking the fast path to making money. Often the quicker you try to build the income the more chance it has of failing quicker. But just as when you are driving which this post initiated from the faster you go, the more chance you have of running into problems.

Taking a slow more even approach to building a business, and an income stream, can often create a much more solid and long term business. Where taking the fast approach can often see you speeding towards one potential income, only to hit a road block forget about it and have to start speeding after another.

Really the most suffering from speeding after income source after income source and continually having to keep changing course, is you. You end up wearing yourself out, every time, trying to get to a certain point and not able to maintain the energy, which is often where the quick approach loses.

photo credit: Martino!

Today i was having a look around Flickr at some images and i started searching for motivational images.

The image that i found was as you can about Problem Solving. Which to be honest i think is a very big part of being i in business. It is purely nature that in all businesses we will all face problems, big problems and small problems. Which the tag line to this picture sums up perfectly i think.

In many situations while you may not often realize it you have what you need to solve the problem. You just have to do what you can, where you are with what you have got. Even if you don’t have everything that you need to solve the problem still get started where you are with what you have, and just do what you can do.

While this seems like a fairly simple theory and it could be seen to just be brushing over things. I believe that it actually hits right where it needs to. Problems are not solved by waiting around for the right time, or to have the exact right combination or being in the exact right place. While there can be some benefit in waiting for information or waiting for more help or more money, or anything that you believe may make the solution to the problem easier. You still need to do something right now, to get what it is you are waiting for because it really is not just going to come to you.