How to Set Goals When Starting a New Business

How to Set Goals When Starting a Small Business in 4 Easy Steps

Have you ever thought about starting your own business?  We now live in a time of endless opportunity available at the click of a button thanks to the Internet, so it can be easy to be constantly pulled in many directions.

Being constantly distracted will not help you start your business, so it’s important to make time to focus on taking action to actually build it.

In order to know what to focus on, you will need to build a picture of what you want to achieve in 1 – 5 years.

Where do I Start?

When starting a new business, it’s important to start somewhere.  The best place (as you will hear from many goal-setting gurus) to start is with a long-term goal (1-5 years) as it relates to your business.

When you have an end goal in mind, it will help you get a clearer vision of the path you must take to arrive.

If you don’t start with a goal in mind you may spend years spinning your wheels (like I did) and you may never fully commit to building your own business.

I’ve had to learn through trial and error the process to building a successful business and now that I have done it I want to save you some time, energy, and money so you can duplicate my success faster.

This article will outline 3 simple steps you can do today to get you on the road to building a successful business that can provide you and your family income for many years to come.

Step 1: What is Your WHY?

Step 1 is to figure out your why.

Your why is what will keep you going when the going gets tough.  When you feel overwhelmed and like giving up, revisiting your why will encourage you to keep making forward progress.

Here is an example of my why as it relates to this website:

WindowCleanerSecrets.com My WHY

What is your WHY?  Your why is something that inspires you, that motivates you to move toward it.  It could be related to your family, income goals, building measurable successes in your business, etc.

It could also be that you want to make a difference in people’s lives.  It might be that you want to leave a legacy, or that you want to excel at a skill, talent, or ability.

It is always a good thing to write down your why and keep it somewhere safe where you can revisit and review it regularly to remind yourself why you have chosen to take this journey of starting a business.

Now that you have your why written down, you can proceed to step 2.  Be sure to actually do this before setting goals.  If you don’t have a good reason to pursue a goal, you will most likely quit or give up.

Step 2: Create a Long Term Goal

Step 2 is to create long-term business goal.  It is good to make it something measurable.  Your long-term goal could be a number of sales you plan to achieve.

It could also be a certain level of income you would like to reach.  This is an excellent way to increase your sales and income especially when your why inspires and motivates you to take the necessary action to achieve your business goals.

Step 3: Create Milestone Goals

Step 3 is to create a roadmap to your goal.  Have you ever gone for a drive with an unfamiliar destination in mind and you didn’t have a map?  You most likely got lost and had to stop and ask for directions.  (This is what we used to do before the Internet and GPS devices.)

When you start with your long-term goal in mind, you can begin to create smaller goals (milestones) that will help you know the progress you are making to achieving your long term goal.

I have personally seen my income consistently increase when I set measurable yearly, monthly, weekly, and daily income goals.  When you set a goal with a destination in mind, it is easier to figure out the smaller measurable steps.

Step 4: Take Action

Now that you have your why, your long term goal, and smaller interval goals written down, step 4 is to take action.  Now the question arises what action do I take?

The actions you take will depend on the type of business you are building.  However, there are fundamentals to starting any service type business you will need to do in order to actually see results you desire.

These will be discussed in future posts.  Those steps are pointless without first doing the 4 steps outlined in this article.

I’ve included a PDF with this post you can print and fill out.  Having something tangible you can look at is a powerful step in manifesting goals.

Printing out your “4 Step Action Checklist” and filling it out is the first action you can take that will train your mind to begin moving toward your goal.

Download the “4 Step Action Checklist” here.

You can use this process not only for building a business, you can repeat this process for any goal you have in mind.

What is a goal you want to achieve?  Please share your goal in a comment below.  Did you find value in this article?  Please click on any/all of the social share buttons below to support this blog.

As always, thanks for reading and for your feedback.  Best wishes in your journey.

William King

William currently lives in the Greater Vancouver area of British Columbia, Canada with his wife Natasha and cat Noah. He has been cleaning windows professionally since 2004. William has worked for multiple window cleaning companies as both an employee and a subcontractor until he committed to building his own business in 2012. His business has grown since to provide a very nice income for the family. Natasha manages the office and accounting of the business as it continues to grow. With 28+ years of experience in the cleaning industry, William's intention with this website is to share his experience and knowledge with people who would like to learn how to create their own window / gutter cleaning service business.

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2 Responses

  1. Suzanne says:

    Love this, William!

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