Goal Setting for Superstars

Hey, out there, all you contractors and entrepreneurs, it is Jim Johnson here, the head coach at Contractor Coach Pro, with another edition of the videos that we do for Contractors Training Room, our Facebook group, and then also our podcast, Contractor Radio. The whole goal of these things is to help you to get better at what you do, help you build strategies for your business, to help you add bottom line revenue, more profit and lead with your businesses. And today we're going to be talking about something near and dear to me because I feel that it's as super important. It's something I do each year is I sit down and put together what my goals are going to be for that year. And we call this Goal Setting for Superstars. That's the this episode and what we're doing. And we want to teach you a little bit about what areas you might want to set your goals in and then how to go about putting those into a format that they can actually be done. A lot of times we sit down in front of a notepad and we write down a bunch of tasks, we put down a bunch of goals, and it's the last time that we look at it. And we sit at the end of the year going, I wonder if I achieve this and can't even find the thing. And so what we want to do is help you keep that in front of your face a little bit more, turn it into habits, which is super important way to achieve the goals that you are after. And so, without further ado, I'm going to go ahead and get started with this week's edition of Goal Setting for Superstars. So first things first, Once again, I am Jim Johnson, the head coach here at Contractor Coach Pro. We sponsor Contractor Radio. We create content for that in addition to interviews that we do with a lot of the industry influencers and leaders that are out there. And, and we like to do these too, where they're a little bit shorter. Something that you can learn from that day and apply to your life immediately. And so goal setting for me is super important this year because I had a pretty major event happen to me in the last couple weeks. I tore my Achilles and it was a complete tear. Had surgery yesterday. And I'm here today because this is the day that I do work on my goals and get those set up. And so I wanted to help you see kind of how I do that and maybe it could be helpful for you. And so once again, goal setting for Superstars. And the big thing is understanding our GPAs. And no, that's not your grade point average. It is goals, priorities and actions. Those are the three main components of building your goals and actually seeing them get done. And so I have a big one this year. I've got this torn Achilles tendon, and that's a part of my health goal, and I've got to do something about that. So what do I usually start with? You know, where do I usually start? Where may you start. And so what areas of your life should you set goals for? I've got a list, but it's not necessarily the end all and be all. You can go look up a bunch of stuff on Google and you'll see the five areas, the seven areas, the 10, the 20. I actually happen to have seven. That's actually a reason for that number seven. That's a spiritual reason for me. And as you'll see, spiritual is the very first one for me. It's important to have a spiritual life, to love others, serve others, spend time with God. For me and contemplating on how not only can I live a Christlike life, but how can I, through my actions, positively impact those around us. And so spiritually, I'm going to set some goals annually for myself. And then mentally, how am I going to create some genius and be creative? Those two things can be a challenge for me sometimes. But I'm looking at ways that I can set a goal, use my brain through some brainstorming activities to create better knowledge for myself, a new tool for our contractors, whoever it might be. I want to put some brain power into what I do. I'm going to learn. I'm going to take time to learn. And so a couple of my little goals there just to share, I'm going to read 40 books this year and I'm going to listen to over 100 leadership and business podcasts. And so that's a good example of me setting a couple of mental goals. Work goals are easy. That's the one where we usually mess up, and that's usually what our goal setting looks like. We sit down, we put down a bunch of goals about this type of revenue or this amount of sales and this kind of money I want to make. And those are all fine, well and dandy, but it's only a piece. It is a very important piece. But if we totally focus there, we lose sight of these other areas of our lives and we feel out of balance. We feel like something's just not quite right. And so we strongly advise having work goals, but not for that to be your only goal. Finance. This is the reason a lot of us even get into this business in the first place as contractors and entrepreneurs. Financial independence, financial freedom and gaining of time and time creation. That's usually what I call this is financial freedom and time creation. How can I go about taking the skill set I have, improving my capacity in leadership to grow other leaders so they can start to do the things that I've been doing so I can grow even further and get that financial freedom and that time creation that I've been looking for. And so I'm going to set goals in that area of my life as well. Family, obviously important, whether it be your spouse, significant other, your brothers and sisters, your parents, your family in general. What do those relationships look like? Are they good? Are they rough? Are they average? Could you make them better? And these don't have to be a lot of goals, but it could be a simple thing. Like for example, with me, one of the goals I say is to call my mom once a week. My mom's got Ms. And she likes to hear from her kids and I haven't been calling quite that often. So I'm going to put it as a reminder in my phone to sit down and call my mom once a week. So they can be super simple like that, but have a massive impact on the people. And that relationship that you have with those people, the next one is social relationships. So this is everybody else except for your family. So it could be your friends. And so do you need to make more of them or, or get rid of some of them? In most cases it's get rid of anybody. Bringing negativity or anything like that into your life, that would be one of my goals. And I set that goal several years ago. And I enjoy my life a lot more, surrounding myself with positive people that have a positive impact on me and hopefully I have a positive impact on them. And I look at how can I build those relationships even further. Those of you that are contractors and entrepreneurs, there is all kinds of social relationships out there that will help you with your business and make your business better if you spend a little time and set that as a goal for your business to work on those relationships. And the last one is health. That kind of comes down to. For me, my Achilles is a one year recovery, which happens to work out pretty good for goal setting. But it's not just one year to get back to where I can walk again. It's a year to get back to what I was doing whenever I did it, which was playing basketball, playing. But I've got milestones along the way that we're going to share with you on how that actually looks, that I can start to check my progress. A lot of us write goals down in these things and our business stuff. And we take a day like today, the last day of the year, and do that. We take out a notepad or maybe we type it up digitally on Microsoft Word or your Google Docs or whatever it is, and you feel good about it. And there's all these cool things and these goals that you're going to accomplish, but it's the last time you ever see it. You don't ever look at it again. You sit down at the end of the year and oh man, there's that thing I wrote a year. Did I even come close? No, not really. It was because you didn't keep it in front of you. And so we want to work on some of those habits. We'll talk about those as we go through today as well. Now, on the tip over there, there is no such thing as an equal balance in your life. It just doesn't work that way. Anybody that says you got to have perfect life balance, work life balance, I would argue with them that I want to check that. Let's see the hours that you work and the hours that you do, the life part, and let's see what those look like. If you're trying to get anywhere in this world, it's going to take a lot of hard work to get there. A lot of effort, a lot of time, a lot of energy. But hopefully through that you start to get back some of that financial freedom and some of that time creation. And so don't worry about it not being equally balanced, Just worry about it being balanced, that you have some of it in your life so that fulfillment is there for you. Dedicate yourself to the goals that have the most meaning for you right now, the ones that are super. I can remember first starting out in business, man, work was the number one goal. It took precedent over everything else. And whenever I got kind of to where I was wanting to be, I still didn't feel fulfilled. That was because I wasn't focused in these other areas. So I'd advise you strongly to focus in these areas and you'll probably enjoy what you do a lot better. So how many goals do you have to set to achieve success? And I get asked this question, how many goals do you have? How many goals do you have? How many goals should I have? And in reality, set the appropriate amount of goals that you think you can actually accomplish. And in reality, just one. As long as you achieve it and so that's the thing. We sit down, we write all these goals and we put all these things together. And if we fail on them, we struggle with doing it again. We struggle like, man, that wasn't a lot of fun. I didn't reach my goals, blah, blah, blah. But if you set just one, you really focus on that one and you really, like, get magnified on that one in each of those seven areas of your life, that focus will set it on fire. It'll be something that is amazing for you and those around you as you set those goals. Achieving that goal is more important than setting them. It's fun and great and everything. Sit down and write them all up. But I want to achieve it. So remember, when it comes to goal setting, we need to experience success. Less big goals still give us the opportunity to succeed and a higher likelihood to surpass them. So we're going to set some big goals, but we're not going to set a whole bunch of them. So that's where we start with big goals. What are these big goals that we're after? I would have these goals be something that push you. They push you to achieve more than what is expected. Like, for example, we'll just use a contracting world. It's a big deal to sell a million dollars in business a year for a roofing salesperson, for example. But is it really? That was a big deal 10 years ago. Prices of roofs have gone up and this opportunity to sell the same amount of people hasn't changed. So why, if the cost of roofing has gone up anywhere from 25 to 50% regionally over the last 10 years, why isn't my revenue number in relation to that so like 1.25 million or 1.5 million? And so set big goals that push you to achieve more than what is expected of you or anybody else. So start with the biggest goal, say a year. Hey, put them out for a year. I really like to set mine annually and then work my way backwards from that to the smallest action that I need to take to make that thing actually achievable. So you're looking at quarter month, week, day. And it's funny when you say, hey, I want to sell 1.5 million in sales. When you break it down into, I have to sell this much in a quarter, this much each month, this much each week, this much each day, you find out that it's about half a job. Half a job is all you got to sell each day. So that's one job every other day. That's not all that hard when you start to look at it that way. But whenever you look at 1.5 million, that seems, wow, man, that's really big. I don't know if I can get to that. So that's why we break them down into bite sized chunks that seem more achievable because we can actually accomplish that one little thing right now. So those are goals, Those are the biggest things. Now we want to know what our top priorities are. So I've got this goal and in order to achieve it, I got maybe three, four, five priorities to make that thing happen. These are the major milestones that need to be accomplished to make that goal happen. So we take our annual goal, we're going to break it down into our quarterly goal, and then we're going to say these two or three things are the priorities that need to get done during this time period to achieve that goal. And when we start to look at it that way, we're breaking it down far enough, that comes bite sized chunks that can actually be accomplished. And then last but not least, we break it down into what we call smart actions. A lot of people call these smart goals. I don't like to call them goals. I think that's a bad thing. I think we've already set those goals. It's going to take action and big action, massive action to achieve those goals. So I need a way to get it done that I can remind myself of. And so we use this smart action tool that we create with our clients that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time oriented. And you can go and create one of these on your own. It's super simple. You're going to name the smart, whatever that is. The smart is generate 300 leads. So describe what that looks like. I'm going to get 100 from here and 150 from there and 50 from here. What's the deliverable? The deliverable would be the plan or process that would take to get those 300 leads. Who are you going to assign it to? Is it your job or are you going to give it to somebody else and put it on their plate? And what's the due date? That's the key to goals. There's a due date on everything. There's an annual goal that's got a due date, December 31 of the next year. There's a quarterly goal, that's the last day of each quarter. There's a month goal, the last day of each month. There's a week goal, the last day of the week. And then finally a daily goal. I got to get this done before midnight. And so when we put due dates on things, it puts accountability and pressure on us. And with that accountability and pressure on us, we tend to get things done. It's been studied that whenever we put those things on us, we are much more likely, about 70% more likely to get it done with a due date than without one. So make sure that you include that. So let's bring it all together. Okay, first off, focus on the seven life goals. There's those seven areas of my life, and I want to create some goals in each one of those. So first thing I would do is make a list of all the possibilities in each one so I have all seven written across. And I'd have all the different possibilities for goals in there. And then I would pull out the two or three that are the biggest and the baddest that would help me achieve what I'm after with my goals. And so make a list of all of them. That way you got some brainstorming going, you got some creative juices going. And once you have that list, you're going to do what we call 3D goal management. So you've got a list of all these goals. Then you're going to reorganize it into a prioritized list. Then you're going to take that prioritized list and say, okay, of those things, what's the most significant thing I could do? And this one is the key part. This third dimension is the key part over time. It started out with just making a list, how we time manage things. And then we prioritize that list to say, hey, I got to do this thing first. But then the people that think in a three dimensional way look at what's most significant. And so there might be this thing that's top priority, like, I got to get that done. But there may be one a little bit further down that if I did that one first, it would buy me the time I need to get that big one done. And that's what being significant is. Being significant is finding the tasks that we need to do, the goals that we need to achieve, and saying, hey, if I do this one, does it gain me more financial freedom and time creation? Because if I can do that, if I can create more time, if I can accomplish that one little thing, I do this, and it gets me all of this time on the back end because I finally got that thing done. I give you a great one. One of the ones that was really good for me. It was the most significant was creating a training manual and handbook. I was buried with questions every day. I was the only one that knew everything. So I was the roofing encyclopedia as a contractor and every question came to me and I had to handle all those questions and it was killing my time. So I sat down, created a pretty in depth training manual, trained people to it and told them, hey, if you are needing an answer, you should come here first. If you can't find it there, come see me. That reduced my questions by 80 to 90% and gave me an enormous amount of time to grow my business. So think about that whenever you're building this list is what's the most significant thing that you could do right now to create more time to continue to work on your business instead of in it? And that also applies to task management. So we set these goals that we're going to achieve annually, quarterly, monthly, weekly, daily. And then we've got the tasks that go along with those actions. Action management might be the way to think of it. So it's a list of all those things that could be done. We're going to prioritize it and then we're going to pick out the most significant ones that create the most time for us in the end. And so first things first, I'm going to write down some annual goals. And we strongly suggest for most people, keep it to two or three, just super simple, like I want to do $10 million, I want to create this number of leads and I want to, oh, hire a business development person. Maybe that's my annual goals. Like I want to make those three things happen. Great, now we've got those three goals and we've decided that those are the three most significant goals that we could go after. They may or may not be. With the way I just stated, I'm like, if I want to do $10 million, is there something more significant I could do to make that happen? So you really want to think of it that way, really challenge yourself. Is there like, I want to get to that 10 million, but if I did this, would the 10 million just happen anyway? So really think about it that way. Especially when you're coming down with annual goals that are revenue based or profit based, then we're going to take those annual goals. You can see here it says annual goal 1, 2, 3, 4. And so on each one of those goals, I would write at the very top up here and say, okay, for quarter one, I got to do this. For quarter two, I got to do that. For quarter three, this quarter, four, that. So I break that big, huge goal into four pieces, saying, these are those goals that I got to hit each quarter to make that annual goal happen. So if you're going to do that in revenue, $10 million. Well, maybe I do, you know, a million. Maybe a million and a half the first quarter, then three, then three and a half, and then one and a half. I don't know if that equals 10 or not. But you see, what I'm trying to say is that we got to get those numbers to reflect what we deal with on a seasonal basis. If seasons have an effect on you, annual goal number two is creating 3,000 leads. Then I would break that down into the four different quarters and what those might look like, maybe it starts off slow and really ramps itself up because we start adding more to how we get leads. So taking my annual goal and then breaking it down into my four quarterly goals, now that I've got those goals. So this is quarterly goal 1, 2, 3, and 4. These are all from the first quarter. Okay, so this is quarter one. If you look back on the previous page here, we'll move back one. So this would be one, this would be two, this would be three, this would be four. So just the number one goal in each one of those quarters would be right here. This is where I would write them, and then I would determine what my quarterly priorities are to make those things happen. So quarterly goal number one up there was to generate 500 leads. My number one priority may be creating a digital marketing presence. That might be priority one. Like, okay, I got to create a digital marketing presence. People have got to know us. We got to be out there more than what we are out there right now. And so we say, hey, that's our priority is I want to focus on digital, and I want to create a presence. I've got to then take that thing and turn it into a smart action. But before I do, make sure that you always give a responsible party who's in charge, okay? And department. So this could be sales, it could be administrative, it could be production, hr, any of a number of things. And these quarterly goals with their priorities, giving a responsible department so they know that this thing is a thing they need to get done this quarter. So now we've got the actions. This is what we call a smart card, is where we're going to take action. And so goal number smart action. Goal number one. Priority number one. The smart for that, that was creating those 3,000 leads, if you remember. And we're going to get A thousand of them in the first quarter. And the priority is to create a digital marketing presence. That's the number one priority. What am I going to do to do that? And so I may create a Facebook page. I might start running Facebook ads. I might spend more time on YouTube, whatever that thing is, it could be create a digital marketing program. And so, okay, I'm going to create a program. What does that look like? Well, we're going to do two to three posts on Facebook. We're going to put out a video per Week on YouTube. Our strategy behind it is creating ourselves as the valuable contractor that each thing that we put out provides value to that homeowner so that they begin to know us, love us, and trust us so that when it comes time to do our work, we're the right people. And so what's the deliverable? That deliverable could be a written program. This is our written program for what we're going to do, digital marketing wise. And so that's going to be supplied to our direct manager or owner, what department's doing it. So that's probably sales. The owner is. Whoever it is, it might not be a sales manager. Might not even be an owner. Could be somebody that just really knows digital marketing and they want to take ownership of it. Great, There you go. He may incorporate a. Or she may incorporate a couple of teammates. And then there's a due date. When can you get it done by? And we asked them that, when can you get it done by? We put it on them. I didn't have that done by February 15th, so, you know, halfway through the quarter. Great. Because there's going to be other smart actions that need to be taken to get this thing done. It's not just one. It usually is three to five or so smart actions to get that priority done. And when that priority's done, it gets your quarterly goal done. When your quarterly goal gets done, that makes your annual goal able to be completed. We put down some notes on it, like where we may have struggled, where we saw some things that we could could use in other areas. And whatever notes we may have, Task complete, yes or no on time. Yes or no. So I would be checking in with this person maybe on a weekly basis. Hey, don't forget about that smart card. Don't forget about that digital marketing presence. And so I'm reminding them as we go. But when it comes that date, I'm going to say, hey, in our weekly meeting, did we get that thing done? It was due today. Yes, it was. Great. Let's Take a look at it. We look at it and we grade it A, B, C, D or F. We take action on it. And that's what it's all about. Taking aggressive, highly impactful action to grow your business. And this is the way that it can get done. I'm Jim Johnson. I'm the head coach here at Contractor Coach Pro. If you want to engage with us, you can go to our Facebook page, Contractor Coach Pro. You can go to our group Contractor Coach Pro training Room. That's actually Contractors training room. Now I need to edit that slide. So go to Contractors training room powered by Contractor Coach Pro and you'll find us. You can follow us on Twitter cpwins. You can find us on Instagram @contractorcoachpro. We are here to help you grow and scale your business, help you develop the strategies to be successful. And it all starts here with goal setting, putting your goals together and keeping them in front of you. And so that's the last thing I'm going to talk about, making this habit, all these goals. You have these smart cards. Put those dates and times into your phone, make reminders, have them written out, have them on paper, print them out, do whatever you got to do and carry that thing with you all the time. Think of it as like your goal bible. You don't go anywhere without it. It should be dog eared and dirty and nasty by the end of the year and you should see the progress that you've made. Make a visual board for it. So take a big piece of poster board put on there, you know the different things and when they're supposed to be accomplished. Add some graphics to it, some photos to it and make it something more visually. You see it each and every day and it reminds you that you're on your way to this goal. I see a lot of people put like climbing a mountain, you know that summit and putting the flag on top. Thermometers, speedometers, whatever it is for you that keeps it in front of you, that motivates you, make sure you do that. Do not forget that last piece because this is something we have to have a habit of looking at our goal, focusing on our goal, removing distractions and kicking butt in 2020. So hopefully you enjoyed our little Contractor Coach Pro training here today and thank you for either watching us on the training room group, YouTube or listening to us on Contractor Radio. You can go and find that on any podcast tool out there. Just look up Contractor Radio, find us, download us, subscribe to us so you don't miss an issue we love you guys. I hope you had a great year. I hope you have an even better next year. And we're going to bring it strong in 2020, helping you contractors grow your businesses.