Here's your assignment and as I promised it won't be difficult. I want you to write the first things that pop into your head when you read the following questions. There's no need to over-analyze this; just write what you know in a few short words or sentences. Heck I'll even make it easy for you. Just print out this e-zine and write in the answers. I'll even leave a bit of space for you to write. Here we go:

1) What does the word "success" mean to you?

2) If you had to start your business all over again, what would you do differently?

3) If you have one regret in your business life it's:?

4) If you had a chance to overhaul your business, what would you do that you're not doing right now?

5) Think back to when you started your business. Now write out a few words that described your thoughts and attitude the first day/week/month/year as a cleaner or restorer

6) Following along with #5, write out a few words that describe your thoughts and attitude today about your business

7) Where did you see yourself going with your business when you first started?

And where are you compared to what you envisioned in #7?

Time for a break - only 2 left. These are important so don't blow through them!

9) Where do you see yourself next year, 5 yrs, and 10 yrs from now?

Last one

10) How are you going to get there?

See, that wasn't too hard, was it? It was a piece of cake, wasn't it? Now I admit #10 was a trick question because it opens up probably dozens of new questions.

But if you finished this little exercise, I want to congratulate you. You have just analyzed where you've been and set some basic business goals. Hats off to you, my friend! You're way ahead of the competition, for the most part.

Unfortunately most people don't write their goals out. Is it any wonder most of their dreams and aspirations don't materialize without a "roadmap" to success?

What you've also done and probably didn't even realize it is set a benchmark. A benchmark is simply a point in history that you can refer back to to see where you planned on going and if you're there yet. If you're not "there" yet, you can take incremental steps to correct your path.

By answering several of the initial questions you can see if you're a realistic goal-setter. If you're not, chances are you didn't have written goals to get there, which is something that needs to be done if you ever want to get "there", whatever "there" means to you.

Alright, so about those dozens of other questions that opened up from number 10. I'm sorry, but there's no room left in this little e-zine to write them all out. I'm sure you can develop many, if not most, on your own. I'll give an example, before I wrap this up just so you won't be left hanging.

To make a goal attainable, it's always easier to break it down to its lowest step or number and work from the lowest step up or backwards. For example let's set a financial goal of adding $100,000 gross in sales this year. I arbitrarily picked this number because it's simple for demonstration purposes and easily attainable for any cleaning and restoration business. (for some of you hotshots, and I know who you are, just add a zero to get to another cool million!)

Assumptions:
Job avg = $175/job (hopefully this is higher!)
2 Hours/Job (hopefully this is lower!)
1 truck, 1 operatorGoal: Gross $100,000 in sales in the year
= $8333/mo
= $1923/wk
= $385/day x 5 day work week (assuming you or the tech has no life and don't take vacations)
= 2.2 jobs/day ($385/day ÷ $175/job avg)
= $87.50/hr ($175/job ÷ 2hrs/job)Therefore, the goal is:
~$87.50/hr production x 2 hours per job x 2.2 jobs/day x 5 days a week x 52 weeks

See how easy that was? Now all you have to do is add the work and the world is yours! When you break it down into baby steps it doesn't seem so bad, does it? But when we look at the big goal on top - the end - it can be a bit intimidating.

The next beauty of goal setting comes when you duplicate the process with systems, which makes it easier to get the next $100,000, $200,000, $300,000, or even $1,000,000.

Scott Rendall
http://www.brcsystems.com/