This week we are going to cover SMART Goals, Self Talk, and Education.
What’s up Fish Fans! My name is Marcus. You’re watching Marketing Madness, the Blue Fish vlog! It’s the start of 2019 and I want to talk to you about making 2019 your best year yet. Most of you will think of the things we are going to talk about in this video are tasks that we just do at the beginning of the year. But the truth is that these activities are perfect for today. And by today I mean any day. Today we’re going to talk about setting goals, self talk, and education.
Let’s start with goals. I’m a firm believer that goals are something you can set at any point in time. Most of your goals should be reviewed weekly, if not more often. This helps keep you focused on what you are trying to achieve vs something problem that pops up.
When it comes to goals they need to be SMART. SMART goals are something we have talked about on this Vlog in the past. They are important. So important that the Emerging Leaders program put on by the Small Business Administration spends a few weeks in the course making sure that business owners get them nailed down.
For those of you that are not familiar, SMART goals are:
Specific - This means that you need to state what it is you are going to do
Measurable - This should make it easy to evaluate success
Achievable - it should be within reach of the business
Relevant - They should improve the business or move it forward
Time Bound - Achieving the goal should happen within a specific, and defined time frame
**Give an example from Emerging Leaders
So don’t wait. Make sure to make time to put together your list of SMART goals so you can be intentional about the direction of your business.
Next I want to discuss Self Talk. As business owners it is really easy to overlook the internal dialogue that we deal with and the impact it has on our performance. I know I deal with this and just about every business owner I have talked to does as well. It is not whether or not you are going to have bad days where your brain is questioning every decision you’ve made in the last 6 months it is how often you will have those internal dialogues. Make sure that you are cognizant of this. Be self aware. Make sure you really listen to the way you talk to yourself. And if necessary take steps to fix how your brain talks to you. There are all sorts of podcasts, videos, seminars, books, and more that can help you with this.
And finally, let’s discuss education. Education is something that business leaders should always be seeking. Education about finances, education about marketing, education about product offerings or manufacturing processes. We should always try and stay one step ahead of the competition. It helps set us apart from the competition by showing our audience that we are the experts they should be working with. Make sure that as part of your SMART goals that you include education. You can set a number of books per month that you want to read. You can also set formal education as a goal. A program like Emerging Leaders is called a Streetwise MBA and is not easy to accomplish, but once you are accepted into the class and commit, completing it means you get a certificate, it is doable, relevant to most businesses, and has a set class schedule. See how this works?
Well, that’s a wrap for this week! I want to thank you for checking in. Make sure to hit that like button. And if you have any questions or comments leave them down below. If you want to talk about how Blue Fish can help you grow your business just send us a message and we’ll get the conversation started!