The Power of Setting Goals: Why Your Business Needs a Clear Vision

Q1 is the best time to plan in retail

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Catherine Erdly: Do you have a plan for the year? If you don’t, then you’re not alone. So much of the plan-your-year information that goes out there is really aimed at service business providers. They talk a lot about planning your year in December, when most retail businesses are in the throes of their Christmas season.

So I find that January and February is a much better time to think about planning out your year. And if that’s you, then you’re in the right place. 

Hi, I’m Catherine Erdly. I’m your host today. And I’m also the founder of the Resilient Retail Club, which is my membership group and mastermind for product businesses.

If you want to plan your year and you feeling a little bit behind, not to worry. From the 10th to the 14th of February, we are running our sixth annual plan your year challenge. It’s five days, fun high energy challenge inside the Resilient Retail Club membership. And at the end of it, you will have a clear plan for the year and steps to get you there.

If you are a member, then not to worry, you will get that as part of your [00:01:00] membership. If you’re not a member, head over to resilientretailclub.com. You can see more information, or check the show notes for your link on how to sign up for just 50 percent off your first month, and you’ll also beat the price rise.

The price of the Resilient Retail Club has not gone up for new members for two years now, but it is going up at the end of February. So if you want to jump in before the price rise and take part in our planning challenge, then don’t forget to head over to the show notes and find the sign up link there.

But onto today’s show. So let’s talk about planning out your year. So I am a huge believer in planning and I love it because I think it’s a very creative process. I love the phrase that, “plans are useless, but planning is priceless.” And that is really my mantra. So if you are ever felt like you were just running in circles, or if you feel like you’re just reacting to problems instead of planning for success, then this episode is for you.

[00:02:00] We’re going to be talking about why setting goals is critical, how they can transform your approach to business and some practical tips to get started with goals that are meaningful and achievable. 

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Why we need goals in retail

Catherine Erdly: So why does it matter whether or not you set goals? I like to think about it as if you were trying to hit an actual physical target.

Imagine that you had a bow and arrow and you were going to use it to try and hit a target. If you couldn’t see that target, if you were blindfolded, it would be so much harder or impossible for most people to actually hit that target because you don’t know where you’re trying to go. And it’s exactly the same thing with your business.

Unless you set yourself a goal and a target and you aim towards it, it can feel like you’re stuck in the day to day grind and that you’re focusing on tasks rather than progress. Goals can be like a GPS. They guide your decisions and they keep you [00:03:00] focused on your destination. When you have a really clear vision of where you’re going, it’s easier to stay motivated even when challenges arise.

You’re not just working hard, you’re working with purpose. And I remember this back from the very first time that I started my business, which was nearly seven years ago now. And one of the tips that I was given was to get a photograph that represents either the people that you’re doing this for, or what you’re trying to build and have it somewhere visible.

So if you’re having a tough day, you can look at that and it can remind you. Especially at the beginning when you’re figuring so much stuff out, it can feel really hard and it can feel like you’re wading through mud. So having that goal, having that vision is absolutely critical. I’m also a big believer in setting goals because if you don’t know, if you don’t have a goal, how do you know when to pop the champagne cork?

So goals, they really help you track how far you’ve come, whether it’s increasing sales, launching new products, or growing your customer base. [00:04:00] Clear targets help you measure success, and more than that, they help you measure success in such a way that you know when you’ve achieved what you meant to set out.

Many people will say to me, “Well, I don’t really like having goals because my goal is just to sell as much as possible.” And I totally get that and I totally resonate with that.

But how do you know when you’ve sold as much as possible? I mean that is a really difficult thing to quantify. And I also believe that setting goals helps get you feeling accountable so you can hold yourself. And if you’ve got a team, it can help hold your team accountable and it creates a sense of responsibility and really helps you focus on what it is that you want to do.

Four mistakes we often make when setting goals

Catherine Erdly: So if setting goals is so important, is it something that most people find easy? Well, actually a lot of the time, no. People have some real mental blocks around setting goals. One of the things that people will say to me is things like, “I don’t want to set goals because it feels like I could be tempting fate. So I set myself this goal and if I don’t hit it, then I’ll [00:05:00] feel very demotivated or it’ll be really difficult for me.”

And again, I do understand that, but I think that’s part of the process. That’s part of learning what to set as a goal. And so one of the things that people do, one of the mistakes that people make is they set unrealistic goals.

So if you’ve got a really overly ambitious goal, it can lead to that burnout and frustration. So what I talk about with goal setting is that I want it to feel exciting. I want it to feel like a little bit of excitement that in the pit of your stomach. That it’s not so overwhelming that you think: I’m never going to do this and I just don’t know where I’m going to start. And you think oh, if I could hit this number that would be really exciting, but equally so it’s not something that just feels completely unrealistic.

So by doing that you have something that feels motivating but you also feel excited, motivated, not completely overwhelmed. The other thing [00:06:00] that’s really important that we go into in the five day challenge is that it’s all about understanding when to push and when to hang back in your business. So some months you can really go for it, but setting yourself a really ambitious target in the quietest month of the year is only going to lead to burnout.

The other thing that I see in terms of goal setting that leads to frustration or leads to a negative impact or negative thought process around setting goals is a lack of clarity. If you set yourself a vague goal, so for example, “I want to grow my business,” but you don’t have a clear path forward, then it’s much, much harder for you to really break that down and achieve it.

What you want is some really specific goals, which we cover this in the challenge. But ultimately you want to be able to say something like, “I want to grow my sales by 20 percent in the first quarter,” or even you want to have a monthly plan of sales goals so that you can look to [00:07:00] achieve those. And it really makes it much more concrete in a way that saying, “I want to grow my business,” just doesn’t allow. 

The other thing that I would say, the other mistake that I see people make with goals is that they maybe almost spend too much time making a very, very elaborate plan. So they map it all out and they create like multiple steps. Maybe they create big spreadsheets with all this detail in it, but then they don’t actually do it or they don’t check back in on it.

I’m a bigger believer in a simple plan that is really easy for you to access than something that is over complicated and will never be used. So I would much rather that you write one number, maybe it’s 20 on the year or your annual goal for the year.

And have that number on a post it note, stuck on your computer screen, that you can see every day. As opposed to sitting down and create, spending three or four days creating this very, very elaborate plan and then just never, ever referring to it. So [00:08:00] regular check-ins, they help you stay on track and make adjustments if needed, but you don’t want to overcomplicate things.

Create something that’s really incredibly difficult to update. You want to be talking and thinking about information for action, what information do you need? You can actually react to as opposed to creating something overly complex. 

And then the other mistake that I see people make with their business is they set themselves goals that are not aligned to their business values and their long term vision. And what I mean by that is we get an awful lot of external noise around our businesses.

You will have people telling you, everyone from business experts like me to other business owners to friends, family members, to courses that you might take or people that you might listen to, other podcasts, who knows? And you will hear a lot of noise and a lot of ideas about what it means to create a successful business.

So for example, you might hear [00:09:00] someone say right? Well, having a big team as a sign of success. And so you might set yourself a goal that you want to grow your team, but actually what you really want if you’re true to yourself, if you’re true to your own vision, is that you want to grow your business. But you want to do it by working with outsourced partners instead of direct employees, for example. Because that to you feels like a better way of working. So the key thing here is that you can set yourself goals, but you do have to ask yourself is do they align with really how I want to run my business? How I want to run my life, more specifically.

I think it’s really important to think about what kind of life do you want to lead? And therefore what business fits into that almost rather than the other way around. So, when you’re setting your goals, you do have to be really careful and really clear that they are aligned with what you want, that it’s not something that somebody else told you is a good idea, or you feel like you should do.

It’s something that you genuinely want to do. And that if you work towards that goal, it’s going to [00:10:00] take you closer towards your ideal life, ideal business, or ideal whatever else that might be. And what that looks like for you is going to be completely different to what that looks like for me, for anybody else.

So it’s really important that you stay true to yourself when you’re setting your goals. 

How to create goals that lead to success

Catherine Erdly: How do you set goals that are effective? Well, inside the challenge, we go into a lot of detail as to setting goals and how to actually put numbers against them. But effectively, even more generally speaking with a goal, what you want to do is you want to make it what is known as a SMART goal.

Now you may well have heard of SMART goals. If you’ve not heard of SMART goals, then this is what it stands for. So the S is for specific, M is for measurable, A achievable, R relevant, T time bound. So specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time bound. In other words, that’s what the difference between saying, “I want to grow my business” and “I want to [00:11:00] increase my sales specific by 20%,” which is measurable, Achievable means the challenging but attainable bit.

Relevant, do they tie into your overall business objectives? Well yes, growing your sales ties into your overall business objective of growing your business. And then time bound, so that’s in the first quarter. So give each goal a deadline to help maintain that urgency. So you can see that you go from a vague goal like grow my business, to a smart goal like 20 percent in the first quarter, for example.

Okay. So again, saying I want more customers, you’d say acquire 50 new customers through email marketing by the end of the second quarter, for example. So this is the difference between a vague goal and a smart goal. And it’s definitely something to focus in on when you’re thinking about your plans for 2025.

The other thing that we do, so we have the five day challenge and then the week after the five day challenge, we have another workshop which is called Your Year in Detail [00:12:00] and it’s where we actually break it down. So we break down the main goals for the year and then we break it into quarters because large goals can feel overwhelming.

And it’s much better to break them down into smaller milestones or action steps to help them feel manageable.

So for example, if you have got a goal of introducing new products then introduce new products is a very big goal but If you break it down into smaller tasks, like do some market research, talk to five different suppliers, select the final product, create a marketing plan. All of those things, they start to feel much more achievable.

Goal-setting without the overwhelm

Catherine Erdly: The other thing that I have to say as well, another mistake that people make is when they set their goals for the year, they tend to say, right, okay, I’ve got these five goals for the year. The first quarter, I need to do them all because it’s very tempting to think that as soon as we’ve identified something we want to do, if you’re an action taker [00:13:00] and most entrepreneurs are action takers, then you will want to just dive in and get on with it.

But actually what happens then is you just end up overwhelmed. You’ve got your day to day work that you’re doing, as well as your business development work. And if you suddenly decide that all of that has to happen in the first quarter, then you’re very quickly going to feel overwhelmed. So one of the things that we do in the workshop, particularly after the challenge, is we look at how do you space it out so that you’re not overwhelmed? That you don’t feel like you just want to go back to bed, pull the duvet over your head and forget all about these goals that you have set.

So you can’t tackle everything at once. And you have to remember that these are five yearly goals, not five goals that you have to do in the next couple of weeks. So once you’ve set your goals, then how do you actually stick to them? So first off, write them down. As I said, doesn’t have to be complicated, but having them written down somewhere.

The studies show that people who write their goals down are much more likely to achieve them. And if you can keep [00:14:00] them visible and remind yourself of what you’re working towards, then that’s really helpful as well. Make sure that you have regular check ins. Inside the Resilient Retail Club, we have our weekly wins where on a Friday we share what we are grateful for, what we were celebrating.

And then on a Monday, what it is that we’re focusing on for the week that helps with accountability, but it also helps with that sharing and the keeping an eye and checking in on progress. So you do have to be flexible as well, that does help. As I said, plans are useless, planning is priceless. So you will set yourself these priorities at the beginning of the year and it’s really useful to be able to work towards them.

Things will happen, life will happen, so you do need to have some kind of flexibility and some grace for yourself as well. So don’t be afraid to reprioritize. I would suggest that you don’t try and reprioritize more than about once per quarter. You could risk creating lots of things that you start but don’t finish. So definitely do take the time, maybe once a quarter to sit down, and review your goals [00:15:00] as to constantly doing them and then revising them.

Action steps for planning your 2025 goals

Catherine Erdly: And there you have it. So, you know, setting goals for your business, it helps give you direction. It helps boost your motivation, helps you measure your success. And the key really is all about setting clear, realistic, and actionable goals that are aligned with your vision and help you create the kind of business that you want.

What are your business goals? If you already know, then give it a go writing them down in a SMART format that. Remember that specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time bound. And then, you know, commit to taking your first step. If you are not sure, you don’t really know where to start, or if you want more help setting really specific goals and being able to put really specific numbers against them.

Break it down into a monthly plan, and then break it down into an action plan that you can follow to make sure that you do actually achieve them, as well as a whole heap of accountability and support to actually achieve those goals. Then do check out the Resilient Retail Club.

It’s an amazing membership and we would love to have [00:16:00] you. If you look in the link in the show notes, 

you will see the sign up page for the five day challenge, which you can join for just 19 pounds. That’s 50 percent off your first month and then it’s 38 pounds a month after that. And also if you sign up now, you’ll beat the price increase coming at the end of February.

Thanks so much and see you there. Bye.