In business as in life, how much you accomplish is directly proportional to how well defined your goals are. Coming up with goals is pretty easy, yet many people don't take time to articulate them. Even those who do, often fail to achieve their goals because they are poorly defined. Well defined goals are extremely powerful because they consciously and subconsciously make you take action.
The key to achieving your goals is to identify the ones that are worth pursuing and defining them properly. I'll show you how to do just that in a second but first, I want to cover the very basics to make sure we are on the same page.
What exactly are goals?
Goals are results you want to achieve medium to long term. Goals shouldn't be confused with objectives which are more specific, measurable results to be achieved by a certain date.
Identifying goals worth pursuing
There's nothing more frustrating than realizing that you just spent a great deal of time and energy accomplishing a goal that wasn't worth pursuing. To identify goals that ARE worth pursuing, start by asking yourself; "what change am I trying to see?". The "right" goals will be the ones that support and contribute to your vision.
How to properly define your goals
To be effective, your goals should be worded in such a way that they trigger an unconditional and subconscious response in your brain. To illustrate this, consider the subtle difference between the following two statements:
"My goal is to have 30% more revenues"
vs
"My goal is to increase revenues by 30%"
The first goal is merely a passive state whereas the second goal is a commitment to take action. You can further solidify that commitment by defining your goals as intentions such as:
"I intend to increase revenues by 30%"
Intentions are extremely powerful. Define your goals as intentions, they will permeate into every aspect of your adventure business without you even noticing it.
Your goals should:
1. Be realistic
2. Always start with an action verb such as increase, create, develop, build, generate, etc. (as opposed to passive verbs)
3. Cover growth, profitability, technology, offerings, and markets (not necessarily all of them - whatever applies to you)
Goal examples:
1. Growth
- Build 3 additional guest cabins
- Increase our capacity to 200 clients/day
- Out-beat [competitor] in number of departures
- Increase return on social media engagement
2. Profitability:
- Increase revenues by 30%
- Generate $1 million in sales
- Generate $75,000 in net profits/year
- Sell 60 trips/month
3. Technology:
- Transition our booking process to a live, web-based, reservation system
- Provide live chat functionality on our website
- Integrate social media to our website and marketing strategy
- Upgrade our safety equipment to meet the new industry standards
4. Offerings:
- Create 5 new products
- Develop multi-generational educational tours
- Start offering trips on the Tatshenshini river
- Taylor our trips to the bus tour market
5. Markets:
- Start targeting the Brazilian market
- Market women only programs in the greater Vancouver area
- Become export ready
- Focus on the regional market
Setting realistic goals is probably the single easiest thing you could ever do to grow your adventure business. It is now up to you to make it happen. Take the next 15 minutes to figure this out, I guarantee it'll be the most productive time you'll have spent on growing your adventure business this month. When you're done, share your goals with in the comments section, it will inspire those that come behind you.
You've got a handful of goals that you intend to accomplish.... that's great! Now what?
It's time to figure out "how" to accomplish those goals by developing strategies.
Adventure Business Development 101 Series
1. Mission & Vision: You're doing it all wrong!
2. How to create a mission statement that inspires
3. How to create a vision statement that drives success
5. The difference between goals and objectives
6. How to set goals and achieve them
7. How to develop the very best strategies to succeed
8. How to get shit done like a serial achiever
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