“People with clear, written goals, accomplish far more in a shorter period of time than people without them could ever imagine.”
-Brian Tracy
Three years ago, I enrolled in my first coaching program called The Strategic Coach, a program dedicated to helping entrepreneurs achieve exponential growth.
I seldom use the expression “game changer,” but this program is just that.
I plan on writing future blog posts sharing what I’ve learned from the program and how I’ve benefited from it.
My hope is that you’ll also gain some key takeaways that you can apply to your own life.
Each quarter, I spend a full day with other like-minded entrepreneurs in a classroom-like setting, going over the material for that day.
Before we get started, we celebrate our “wins” for the previous quarter, helping us recognize everything we’ve accomplished in the past 90 days.
Believe me, as busy as I am, I sometimes lose sight of all the wins – big or small.
The next part that we talk about is what I want to focus on today.
G-O-A-L-S
Another part of our day is focused on writing our goals for the upcoming quarter, as well as revisiting/updating our 1-year, 3-year, and lifetime goals.
Prior to joining Strategic Coach, I had a decent habit of writing down my goals at the beginning of each year. In fact, I even made blog posts of them here and here.
I thought that by publishing my goals as blog posts, I would stay committed and achieve more.
Guess what happened?
I published another blog post shortly after I published those. And another. And another. And another. You get the point:
I forgot about those goals and I barely revisited them.
Now, because of my coaching program, I review my goals consistently and can visibly see what I’ve done, and what I need to do.
That discipline has yielded exponential results in my business and in my personal life.
Business-wise, my revenue has increased almost 100% since I started creating and consistently revisiting my goals. Even more impressive is that I’ve been able to structure my business to where I focus more on the things I love to do, rather than the things I have to do.
As I said previously: #gamechanger.
Below, you will find my most recent set of goals that I wrote down a few weeks ago. I’ve tried my best to be as transparent as I can, in hopes you’ll find some benefit from it.
Regarding some of the revenue goals, please keep the following in mind: I’ve been a financial advisor for 10 years, and am now the CEO of my own company. You can read about some of my journey here and here. Also, my online business has been going for 5 years strong. You can keep up with that journey on my and my wife’s joint blog, Dollars and Roses.
Okay, let’s take a look at my goals….
Quarterly Goals (This quarter ends January 25th)
1. Launch Good Financial Cents Podcast – This includes ordering intro off of Fiverr.com and recording at least 11 episodes (4 before submitting to iTunes).
2. Launch redesign of Good Financial Cents. I’ve had a designer working on this since mid-July. The design is complete and now I’m trying to find somebody to convert the design into new WordPress theme Genesis. You can get a sense of the color scheme of my podcast cover art above and here’s another look at my new logo:
3. [Done] Give killer talk at FinCon. I went; I spoke; I conquered. You can read my wife’s recap of the event here.
4. Schedule Disney Cruise with family. This summer, we went to several conferences and took a spontaneous trip to visit one of Mandy’s blogging buddies in Pittsburgh, but we never took an actual family vacation. Part of the issue is that Mandy thought we might get a free cruise through a deal on her blog. That, unfortunately, never came through, and summer came to screaming end.
I’ve never been on a cruise. I was supposed to go on two before, but my deployment to Iraq interfered with the first one, and Mandy’s new hiring at her old job interfered with the second. Since I absolutely hate the winter, I thought it would be fun to take the fam somewhere warm. I am already ready to go!
5. Complete Course for Wisebread.com. Starting last year, I started working with the peeps over at Wisebread.com as their “CFP” contributor. They had, and have, a great community over there, but they were in need of having an expert with credentials who’s also obsessed with blogging. Enter me. 🙂
We’ve decided to focus on a creating a course that talks about the key principles of my book, which will be available if you sign up for their e-mail list. Getting my book and my brand even more exposed to their audience is huge.
What’s even more huge is that the material I create for the course will also be offered for my readers, too. Nothing like doing work on a project that can be used in multiple places.
This was a goal that wasn’t originally on my radar until after attending FinCon, so this is definitely a prime example of having to adjust on the fly and go with what’s hot.
1- Year Goals
1. Gross Revenues from all business will exceed $750,000. This will include Alliance Wealth Management, LLC and all of my online businesses. The ultimate goal is to see if my online revenue can surpass my financial planning practice.
2. Streamline duties of Alliance Wealth Management, LLC. Initiate systems and processes that allow my team to handle the brunt of the work. To make this happen, the following need to occur:
- Bring on a strategic partner to become the Chief Investment Officer who will handle most of my clients’ needs (realizing that some “A Clients” will want to continue to work with me). Going forward, that partner would take the lead on any new client relationships.
- [Done] Hire a “Director of First Impressions” to handle all incoming and outgoing calls with clients. This person will be able to be trained by Brenta (our current shared support staff).
- [Done] Move junior advisor from salaried position to 1099 Independent contractor status, to handle life insurance division.
3. [Done] Launch a podcast specifically for Dollars and Roses. Our goal will be to do 2 podcasts per month. I’m still leaving a door open to launch a Soldier of Finance podcast to help with book marketing. (Note: I’ve decided against the Soldier of Finance podcast and will instead do a Good Financial Cents podcast. See quarterly goal.)
Click here to subscribe to the “Dollars and Roses” Podcast in iTunes.
4. Release administrative duties of Good Financial Cents. This includes: scheduling of posts, inserting images, adding meta-tags, formatting posts, dealing with advertisers.
5. Schedule a 2-week RV trip with the family. As a kid, my mom and step-dad would take a childhood friend and I in a motor home and just drive. We toured northern California, Oregon, and Nevada, making some of the best memories of my life. I want my kids to have that experience. The only “must see” destination will be the Grand Canyon; everything else will be an adventure.
3- Year Goals
1. Total revenues from all business to exceed $1 million per year. Ultimate goal is to net (after expenses) $1 million per year. My goal is that over 60% of this revenue will come from my online businesses.
2. Make my role with Alliance Wealth Management, LLC to be more of the face of the operation. I will conduct review meetings and joint initial meetings with bigger clients, but most of the work will be done by my team. For this to succeed, I need to implement the plans stated in my 1-year goals.
3. Content producer (and only content producer) for Good Financial Cents and Dollars and Roses. Content would include writing blog posts that are meaningful to me, conducting interviews, and producing videos. To allow me to focus on this, I need the following:
- Secure a full-time blog editor/affiliate manager who will proofread, schedule posts, and manage all affiliate opportunities.
- Continue to leverage freelance writers and VA’s to automate business.
4. Live abroad with entire family for a minimum of 3 weeks (4 preferred). My ideal country is Australia. This was actually a 1-year goal, but my wife thinks taking 3 young boys (current ages are 6, 3, and 2) and living abroad would be more pain than it’s worth. At first I dismissed it, but then I remembered how our 2 year-old can be a bit of terror (see pic below).
I figure/hope/pray that in 3 years, the Rose fam will be ready for our first European (or Australian!) vacation. 🙂
Lifetime Goals
1. Spiritual leader of my household. I want my kids to see me first as a God-loving father who puts his faith first before success. I want to continually love and support my wife, and do so in an Godly manner.
2. Live a long and filling life with my wife and family. Raise my kids with the philosophies of: working hard, but not sacrificing “work” for what you love; love first; and treat people with respect (Golden Rule)
3. Have several multiple-system driven businesses that produce >$100,000 a month of passive income.
4. Live in multiple countries (5+) for an extended period of time (minimum 3 weeks) with entire family
5. Inspire over 1,000,000 people to invest in themselves. This can be through traditional investing (Roth IRA, 401k), obtaining a higher degree or certification, or investing in a small business. More on this goal in the coming months.
6. Be a successful entrepreneur and best-selling author of numerous works. I want to be recognized as as a hard worker who put his family and faith first.
What if I don’t achieve my goals?
Great question! If I don’t achieve my goals for that quarter, I don’t beat myself up over it. The most common reason I don’t achieve a certain goal is because something came up that wasn’t expected that took priority over the previous goal.
Sometimes, though, the goals I don’t achieve are just really bad ideas, and I don’t realize that until I start working on them. I’m trying to get better at that, but the occasional bad idea still sneaks in.
Your Goals
As a reminder, I revisit these goals every quarter and make changes accordingly. Revisiting these goals is what has been huge for me.
When’s the last time you wrote down your goals? More importantly, when’s the last time you’ve revisited them?
Free Download: Want the same worksheet I used to write down my goals each quarter? Grab my Goal Achiever Worksheet and put your goals into hyper drive. Download the free worksheet HERE.
Carrie says
Wow! Great article Jeff! I really enjoyed your strategic approach to setting goals and how you make a point to revisit these goals every quarter. Like you said some goals you might not achieve, but those goals ended up not being a part of the plan, and didn’t hold you up to conquer your financial goals.
On the “Speaking of Wealth Show” (http://www.speakingofwealth.com) we focus on strategies for speakers, publishers, and consultants to maximize their income by promoting their knowledge. Several of our successful guests have shared goal-setting tips and advice to help listeners find clients who value their skills, building a lifetime of profits from their knowledge and commitment to their talents!
Again, great article!
A Frugal Family's Journey says
I too believe that setting goals results in greater success! Personally, I create annual goals at the beginning of each year as well as long term goals. I would add that it is equally important to not just write down your goals but to also go back and review them periodically. I have done this consistently since college and can definitely see the impact that goal setting has had on my current success.
Joe Pilkington says
Great information, thank you.
One of my CEO’s Jeff Levitan showed me similar goal setting strategy, stretch it out 1 year, then bring it back month by month, week by week and day by day.
Kirk Bowman says
Jeff, thank you for sharing a great example of short, mid, and long term goals. I have a friend who runs an insurance brokerage and he attributes much of his success to the Strategic Coach program.