Introducing Peter Johnson on 'Goals to Success'

[Barbara Gabogrecan]

Peter is a business coach, who after owning his first business at 18 years of age, built a management and business ownership career spanning 32 years at state and national levels. He managed field service teams, installation teams, inbound/outbound call centers, sales teams, dealer networks, online training programs and sales websites. A key part of each role has been the training and development of people. Peter believes "being involved in the growth and development of yourself and your team is the most exciting part of unning a business” Through his business, Time Retrievers, Peter provides business coaching services and specialty workshops for startup, home based and small businesses.

We were fortunate enough to have a tele-interview with Peter last week and I received a comment from an attendee who said "Peter Johnson is a wealth of information & inspiration 'in keeping things simple'. I found him very relatable." I am sure that you will find many of the approaches he discusses in the Forum this week could change the way you do business. After the tele-interview , Peter, Ven and I sat down and discussed how to put some of his ideas into action in our own business....that is the sort of effect he has on you with his sensible yet focussed attention to detail. Peter brings home some of the essential activities you need to undertake to have success in your business; some that you may not want to hear!

Join in the discussion this week and let us know what you do to bring success to your business.
Barb

[Peter Johnson]

Thank you Barbara.

Lets start at the beginning. To set a plan in place, you need to start with the end in mind. To do this, we need to get the vision of what we want to achieve out of our mind and onto paper.

A vision is simply the picture you have in your mind of how you see your business when it is running successfully. Things like, what the revenue is, what profit you are making, what products and/or services you are providing, where the business is located, how many locations you are in, how many team members you have and other items you may see. List these items from your mind on paper, and then write a paragraph on your vision containing each of these items. Continue to refine your Vision statement. When developing your vision, set a time frame on when this vision will be achieved, 2, 3, 5 years. It’s up to you.

If you are developing a Vision on your life, just picture what your life will be like at the time frame you have determined. Then carry out the same steps to write it down and refine your Vision.

Putting your Vision into a written format allows you to clearly understand what you want to achieve and then focus on what to do to achieve it. You will be amazed on how you will be clearer on what you need to do when your vision is on paper.

Do the task and let me know what you learn from it.

[Barbara Gabogrecan]

Hi Peter - I must admit, my plan tends to run quite differently, and after reading your post above, I now realise why it is different. I have a plan written down, but not a vision.

I do my plans via mindmaps so that I can see the links (how one step links to another) and the whole picture at a glance. But these tend to be practical steps to take, and my problem is that I do not link these steps to a vision.

So, I am assuming that for me to have a vision is what I find difficult. I don't have the end in mind. I find it too difficult to visualise what I want at the end - which is weird, as I have a vision of the steps I want to take to achieve....what?

You have given me something to think about here. I will definitely have a go at compiling the vision and see how I go.
Thanks Peter.
Barb

[Peter Johnson]

Hi Barbara - Mind mapping is a great way to plan what you want to do. The main thing is to do things that fit you as an idividual, so use a short term vision until you can start forming a vision over a longer time frame. Most people are not use to looking out 2,3,5,10 years or more, so just set some goals for the next 12 months and then create a focus plan of activity for the next 3 months. The basic concept of planning that I will give over this week has a series of templates used to develop a plan, however, each person can create a visual format that suits themselves and compels them to use it daily.

[Peter Johnson]

Step 2
From your vision, create a list of goals that you will need to do to achieve your vision. (i.e create a marketing plan, develop a website, find a bookkeeper, employ another person). Set a timeframe for the achievement of each goal. Setting a timeframe creates a sense of urgency and focus.

If you find it hard to determine your goals from your vision, look at what you want to achieve over the next 12 months. the key is to ensure that these goals lead you towards acheiving your vision.

Be prepared to spend some time setting these goals, they will lead you to a successful future it you action them.

[Peter Johnson]

Step 3
Welcome back, hopefuly, you now have a list of goals you would like to achieve. From your list, separate the goals that are due to be acheived over the next 12 months, now select the 5 main goals, that if you acheive them, you will consider yourself to have had a successful year. One of these goals must be a revenue/income target. (for most people, if you acheive your revenue target, most of your stresses etc will be considerably reduced).

The remaining goals are still targeted to be acheived, however our main focus is to ensure these 5 important goals are acheived as a minimum by year end. You will find that if you do complete the 5 main goals, most of the remaining goals will also be acheived along the way. These 5 goals are the important goals, like most important things, they are generally harder to do or may take a longer time to do and therfore we generally do the easy things first, leaving the important things not done. This system works on getting the important goals achieved.

Once the 5 have been selected, you will need to list what needs to be done to achieve each of these 5 main goals. Remember to set a time frame for each of these activities.

Have a great day.

[Peter Johnson]

Good morning from Cloudy Geraldton

Step 4
Focus on what you are doing now.

You now have your 5 Key goals to achieve over the next 12 months and what you need to do to achieve them.

Although you have goals for the next 12 months and beyond, achieving them is all about what you do today, so the next step is to put together your quarterly plan. These are the activities that you will be doing over the next 13 weeks aimed at achieving your goals.

From your 5 Key goal list, you take the items that need to be completed over the next quarter and place them into the month you need to complete them. Then plan the activities you will carry out each week to achieve them.

Example;
Obtain 3 new clients is a goal for May
There are four weeks in May to plan activities in, so in each week I may plan to send out 10 marketing pieces to my target market. That will mean 40 marketing items are sent during the month. From week 2 (5 days after each marketing item is sent), I will start to follow up on the marketing, with the focus on either gaining an appointment with the prospect or making the sale. From this I plan to obtain my 3 new clients.

Remember don’t create a grand plan that never gets done. These are the goals and activities that are focused on growing your business, not the everyday activities in your business. If you only plan to do one thing each week to grow your business and succeed, you are far better off than having a plan with a lot of activities each week and not completing any of them.

Don't forget, What you do today is most important - Take ACTION now.

Have a great day.

[Peter O'Connor]

Hi Peter

I have followed you with interest over the past week. With such an emphasis on "planning", what happens when, due to circumstances beyond your control, you have to drop everything and attend to other urgent matters? I gather you are familiar with the four quadrants. I seem to continually live in the first quadrant, with very little time to invest in the second quadrant. How does one extricate oneself from this? It's not as if you can manufacture more time.

I would really like to be able to work to a plan - it just doesn't seem to ever eventuate.

I would appreciate your thoughts.

Regards

Peter

[Steven Thomas]

Hi Peter,

Having had a really tough 2009, I decided as the end of that year approached reinventing my business plans and goals were a must.

Basically it was time to step back and reassess where you were at from a wider vision than what is just in front of your nose. I decided to try something totally unorthodox and packed boxes for an agency for 3 months. In that time I noticed how real business people interacted at work and not sitting merely behind a desk in isolation.

I started by making the assumption that I was wrong in pretty much everything I did last year; not because I am lacking in confidence, but because I lost my first house two weeks prior to defaulting. People who have experienced such loss realise what a powerful motivator this is.

So I reformulated my goals on the basis of making myself "accessible" because too many people dont do this at all in business. Now the danger is you will be overwhelmed by work, and I will refer to this topic more later.

Accessilbility means different things to so many people. The beauty of having such an opened ended word as your slogan means that goals formulated can be made more "user friendly" because you are "approachable". There is no value in having three letters after your name if you have no prospective of using them in real life, or your theories are nothng but that.

So the formulated goals I had needed to become more flexible and adaptable to market demand and supply factors.

One simple goal I had was joining forces with JJY Taxation Financial Group in December 2009 as a mutual employee, in order to offer a wider variety of clients services that when coupled with my MCEI membership opened up a wider opportunity for all. The consequent results showed staggering growth rates in fee income and client base over the course of the last six months.

One must also manage such growth in order minimise risks of having too much of a good thing all at once. This is where staff become involved. I have met some really terrific people through so many sources.

Whilst the long term goal is to be bigger, you need to start at the beginning. So goals must always be staggered and noted in an evolving business plan. Planning is vital, not just in terms of numbers, but organising your thoughts and ideas into a logical form.

Some of the best business ideas come from people who dont have any formal qualifications at a Tertiary insitution because they are not a closed book in life. It requires application of the right business tools to assess whether a business idea is practical to the point where it can be taken to the market place.

The GFC taught me one thing....CUT CASH COSTS . Especially unnecessary costs you dont need to bear. You need to be brutally honest in business and realise you , as the owner should be working on the business and not in the business. Once your goals are thoughfully set out in a logical order in writing, you can then begin to test them ....ableit....slowly.

Thanks for the chance to write about my experiences in the last few months.

Steven Thomas CPA
Director , Thomas Service Holdings Pty Ltd.

[Barbara Gabogrecan]

Steven, I have been following your progress through your extreme lows and highs. You are indeed an inspiration. Being prepared to set new goals, re-invent your business and remain motivated is something I really admire. Our Connect Event on 6th may in Doncaster has a speaker talking on exactly this point 'How to Stay Motivated When the Going Gets Tough' - I think you and Bradley might have a lot in common!

What Peter is sharing with us here is just how to set our goals and to make sure that your revenue is one of those goals. A lot of us struggle with the revenue part (me especially) as I have so many 'generous' goals - but like you, we have come to crunch time. Suddenly the four adults in my home are without a job abd we have a house mortgage to pay. We are actually having a half day session today to get some of the goals in order - and you can be assured 'revenue' will be a major part of our goal making!

I am going to use Peter's SMARTER Plan (which he discussed in his tele-interview) and i am sure that will help. I look forward to Peter explaining the SMARTER Plan for everyone to read.

Cheers
Barb