READY, STEADY, GOAL

How to use goals to galvanise your business ideas into action

There's nothing so sad as a great idea whose moment has passed. Equally as tragic is being able to see, with hindsight, that the optimum time for doing something has come and gone. In short, looking back and realising you've missed the bus.

The 'bus' we're talking about in this instance is the opportunity to turn your own great ideas - whether hugely innovative or comparatively modest - into a business, and by so doing, to realise what may be years of thinking and dreaming about achieving your ambition.

However, as we all know, it's easier to think and dream (no barriers, no boundaries) than to actually nail your ideas down and commit to doing something about them. That's when you have to face reality, and that - as many business owners will confirm - can be a huge wakeup call. But, if you seriously want to go into business, it's the first make-or-break hurdle you have to overcome.  

Taking a leap of faith

Experience shows that although the most common challenge that existing businesses face is cash flow; the biggest problem for aspiring entrepreneurs is the danger that they may never take the leap of faith required to get their business off the ground and translate their ideas into reality. In some ways, living with 'what might have been' is even sadder than living with the knowledge that your business failed. As the old saying goes, "Better to have tried and lost than never to have tried at all."

So, what can you do to turn your ideas into action this year? If you seriously want to move forward, the most important action is to set yourself some goals, stick to them, review progress, and by this time next year, if your goals have been sufficiently big and challenging, you may well be on the way to having a hugely successful and satisfying business.

And just by answering these few simple questions, you can design yourself an action plan for how to go about it:

1. What are you aiming for?

The starting point is to write yourself a vision of where you want to be in a year. In business, as in life, it's important to be clear about exactly what you want to achieve or you won't have a sufficiently powerful goal to aim for. So, what would 'success' look and feel like for you? How would you measure it?

If you look at your life a year from now, three years from now, ten years from now, how exactly will it be (and consider all aspects of it, as your business almost certainly will have a huge impact on your family, and social and leisure activities)? How excited do you feel about that vision?

Once you've clarified it, write it down in as much detail as you need, then put it away safely to remind you of 'what' and 'why' every time you look at it. 

2. How are you going to get there?

Now you're clear about how you want your life to be in the future (the end point), you need to fill in the gap between there and your business idea (the starting point).

Here's where it pays to spend time thinking creatively and laterally and brainstorming the options (use mind mapping too, if it's a technique you're familiar with). What are all the things you could you do in order to achieve your vision?

There is always more than one way of moving forward (and the most obvious way is often not the best). Research what other successful business owners have done - and those who weren't so successful. This should be the stage at which you make the big decision about whether going into business actually is right for you. You may decide, on reflection, that it is incompatible with achieving your vision.  

3. What exactly are you going to do?

Use the 80/20 principle (which, roughly speaking, predicts that 80% of your success will come from 20% of what you do) to work out the essentials from the nice-to-haves. Set SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-bound) covering exactly what you and your business will need to achieve in the short and medium term - don't worry too much about the long term. It's vital that those goals are SMART - they represent the markers which will guide your progress, so if they aren't measurable and set within a time frame, the chances of you actually achieving them are slim.  

4. What specific steps do you need to take? 

Regardless of whether you need a business plan for raising finance, it's essential to have one in order to act as a road map for your future progress. If you want to get from A to B you need to know how to get there so that means looking at how to deal with every possible aspect of your business - business structure, finance, premises, staff, equipment. the list will be infinitely longer than you ever thought possible!

This is the stage where you need to take a careful look at every detail of your proposed business. Whereas your overall business plan will represent a global view of the way forward, you will also, for example, almost certainly need a marketing plan and strategy to detail the specifics of how to market and sell your products or services. (Marketing is hugely important as without it, you may have a business, but no sales and no future.)

And this is the stage also at which it pays to take advice. Once you think you have a comprehensive, and well thought-out plan underpinning your SMART goals (financial and operational) show it to at least one experienced business advisor (bank manager, accountant, enterprise agency advisor) and ask for their constructive feedback.

Now is the time to be aware of any potential pitfalls which may derail you in the future, so it's vital to spend as much time as necessary - re-thinking and re-planning if required - to achieve a robust and achievable way forward. 

5. How are you going to deal with challenges?

Even with the best thought-out plan possible, business, by it's very nature, will present you with challenges at numerous points along the way, so you need to be prepared for that eventuality and build coping strategies into your plan.

The most likely areas of difficulty, broadly speaking, will be money and people so try and arrange a 'cash cushion' to have in reserve for a time when money is tight, and also - particularly if you are a sole trader or working with very few staff - some fall back for what to do if people (your staff, suppliers, or clients/customers) let you down. Think through worst case scenarios (what if you yourself are unable to function?) and devise ways of managing and reducing this type of risk.

It may sometimes be attractive to go for high risk strategies which produce high profits and rapid growth but the risk is that you can crash and burn much quicker too. So, plan for measured success and build in decision points along the way at which you can actively choose to increase your risk based on your track record of success.

6. How confident are you that you will succeed?

"Whether you believe you can do something or you believe you can't, you're probably right", said Henry Ford. Unfortunately none of us can ultimately control what will happen to us, but what we can control is our self-belief, the way we react to change, and our attitude towards challenge and adversity.

If you want to be successful in business, its essential from the outset to believe you can be, not only for your own well-being but the fact that potential clients or customers are unlikely to have faith in you if you don't have faith in yourself.

Confidence is crucial and will increase naturally as your business grows and you become more and more successful. But don't struggle on alone in the meantime. At the planning stage, take the time to recruit a support group of people that you can turn to for advice and guidance along the way. They may be business advisors (those who reviewed your business plan?), ex-colleagues, friends or other business people.

Ideally, ensure that they have specialist knowledge and experience from which you can benefit and also that your relationship with them is such that they will feel able to offer constructive advice and you will feel able to take it. Their role is to act as sounding boards, coaches and critics in helping your achieve your goals. Your role is not just to turn to them for advice and feedback but also to make yourself accountable to them for doing what you say you will and achieving your goals.

Establishing and growing your own business can be the most rewarding and challenging activity you will ever undertake, and if you come at it with the right mindset, the most fun, too. All of that is waiting for you if you make this year the year you commit to action. Just remember that every goal - no matter how large or small, comfortable or ambitious - encompasses the word 'GO'.

© Dianne Bown-Wilson, The BIG Question