I’ve already looked back at my 2014 and today we are going to look forward at my business goals for 2015.
The first question is, why should I even set goals for 2015 anyway? Especially given the results of my 2014 goals where I only accomplished a few?
I believe it’s important to set goals so that you have something to shoot for. Not just small goals like I set last year, but big 10x range goals.
These 10x goals force you to make hard decisions in your business. One of the things I had to really look at was running WP Theme Tutorial. I had to ask myself the question, “Will doing this get me to 10x?” When I was honest, the answer was no, probably not.
The two things that are going to get me to 10x are 1) building this site and selling products (courses, books, guides…) and 2) really digging into SFNdesign.
That means I said goodbye to WP Theme Tutorial. No I’m not totally taking it down, but I no longer sell products there and I won’t be writing there. All my writing time that I spent on WP Theme Tutorial will now be spent on content for SFNdesign.
Now let’s look at my business goals for 2015.
2015 Goals
- $300,000 invoiced
- Build full marketing funnel for both businesses (this site and SFNdesign)
- Have 10 clients on retainers or conversion-based payments
- Start 10x coaching program
- Attend Coaching with Excellence
- Release 2 products
- Start 2 paid mastermind groups
- Blog weekly on SFNdesign (answering client questions)
- Blog 5 days a week here
- Don’t work any more than I did in 2014
Now the first one may make you stop and remember that in 2013 and 2014, I invoiced around $100,000. My 2014 goal was to invoice $175,000 and I missed that goal.
So how on earth do I justify the goal of $300,000 this year? Let’s look at my other goals first.
I want 10 clients on retainers or conversion-based payments. That means I get paid a set amount per month for services, or I get paid a percentage of the conversions I can bring to a site, plus a percentage for the increased conversions for 6 – 12 months after we stop working together.
Meeting my goal of $300,000 with no increase in work hours meant I needed to look at the business model I was using. Weekly pricing is awesome and it has served me well, but my desire to not work any additional hours and bill $300,000 means I need to bill $8500 a week.
I certainly believe I can provide that much value, but only to some customers. One of the small businesses I work with only does $15,000/month in sales on their site and justifying $8500/week to them would mean I’d need to show them an increase of at least $102,000/month.
I think they have potential for growth, but I’m just not sure it’s quite $102,000/month. Working with them on a conversion-based pay rate means I get paid if I get them more sales, but they owe me nothing if those sales don’t materialize.
Yes that’s a big risk on my end, because if I don’t increase their sales I get nothing for my time. Sometimes you have to gamble though, and I’ve got 2 clients I’m going to gamble on in January.
Marketing funnels
Both of my sites only really have partial marketing funnels. On this site, the funnel begins with the content you read, then there is a free gift in my email newsletter and some bonus content, then I’ve got some smaller products for sale.
But I don’t really have a step from a $29 – $79 purchase to my monthly coaching. Part of that will come from adding the paid masterminds (get in touch if you’re interested) but part of that is going to come from a few products I’ll be releasing this year.
First I’m going to release all my email templates, along with a user’s guide, in the first quarter of this year. My only current roadblock is getting out the new manifesto I’m writing.
I haven’t decided on my second product of the year, but I’ve got a few ideas (Getting to Know Your Ideal Client, Putting Some Strategy in Your Time, and others). Once I get the email templates shipped I’ll be looking at my second product of the year.
I may end up doing even more, but the goal is 2 products and anything else is bonus.
Blogging
I’ve been blogging here since 2008 with varying degrees of regularity. My most recent stint has been blogging at least twice a week for the past 2.5 years.
My official schedule in 2014 was Tuesday/Thursday and then I’d fill in content if I had it. I usually had it, though, so the few weeks I didn’t post additional content, I received emails asking what was up.
So in 2015 I’ll be blogging here 5 days a week (with the odd weekend post).
On SFNdesign I barely blogged at all outside of plugin release announcements. That has to change if I’m really going to dig in on SFNdesign to attract more clients, so I’ll be blogging there at least once a week, which doesn’t include plugin release announcements.
My Training
The final goals are all about getting better at being me. I want to go to Coaching with Excellence to learn to become a better coach. I do actually have a formal counseling degree, but I believe we can always be better — and, my degree certainly didn’t prepare me for actually running a coaching business or marketing a coaching business.
The second training opportunity I want to invest in is Strategic Coach, but I’ve got some work to do there if I want to qualify.
The cutoff is $100,000 take-home a year and I don’t yet take home $100,000/year. I’m hoping (yes, I know hope is not a strategy, which is why you’re reading about my plans) that I can change up my business model a bit and show evidence that I’m well on track to $100,000 in a year and then apply. That would also mean I’m well on my way to invoicing $300,000 this year.
Obviously Strategic Coach (I’m just going to call it 10x, because it’s about having 10x goals) is aspirational for me right now. I’m a bit scared when I talk about it. It feels like really stepping up to the ‘big leagues’ in my personal development.
That’s really what I (and we all) need though — something we’re a bit scared of.
Didn’t you say 1M business?
Yup, back in my 10x post I talked about becoming a $1M business, but my goal for 2015 is only $300,000. Despite barely passing grade 10 math, I can do basic math so I know those two numbers are different by…oh around $700,000.
Why the difference?
When I look at $1M this year it seems like something unattainable in any way from my current position. What seems like ‘work’ but attainable is $300,000, and that’s my first step towards becoming a $1M business.
Maybe next year I’ll be shooting for $750,000 and up my $1M goal to becoming a $2M business.
So that’s it for my 2015 goals. You should be seeing a recap of them every quarter, and if not, bug me please.
Have any of you written goals or recap posts? What’s your next step to accomplish your goals?