6 Action-Packed Tips for Crushing Your Q1 Business Goals!
It’s almost the first quarter of 2022, and ‘momentum’ is a worrying word if you want your business to stay competitive. To avoid slipping off the radar and being forgotten in a sea of competitors, it’s time to rethink your goals for this quarter. What worked last quarter won’t necessarily work again, so take a look at your business and where you think it could benefit from new motivation.
With so much change, it’s hard to know what works and what doesn’t. But if you make time for innovation each quarter, you’re sure to stay relevant. With constant change comes opportunity — and if there’s one thing we’ve learned over the last decade, it’s that an unplanned approach can sink a business faster than anything else. That’s why it’s important that you’re not just on top of your Q1 business goals but that you’re preparing yourself for the future as well.
Take a look at these tips and tricks for pivoting your Q1 business goals. It’ll help you avoid unnecessary headaches and ensure you’re ready to succeed!
Embrace a Hybrid Business Model
The pandemic has left many businesses struggling to find a balance between their pre-Covid offerings and virtual offerings. The future of the business world is in the hybrid business, which has both in-person and virtual capabilities. You should give your customers options about serving, and often that’s a mix of in-person and virtual. The middle ground between pre-Covid and lockdown is where we will see business thrive. Unless of course, like me, you’ve always been virtual!
A hybrid work model can be many things for online businesses, this can look like in-person workshops, virtual meetings, retreats paired with a long-term coaching program, etc. The sky’s the limit here, be creative and use this time to revamp your offers.
Test Run the OKR (Objectives and Key Results) Method
The key to a great goal is that it is measurable. As the saying goes, goals without measurements are just hopes and desires and not goals at all. Nothing is farther from the truth in business.
A new kind of goal-setting process replaces traditional methods, OKR. OKRs are set at the beginning of every quarter and changed when necessary. This fast cadence process engages each team’s perspective and creativity to ensure everyone aligns with what’s most important.
One of the many benefits of OKRs is to ensure alignment in your business by making sure everyone is on the same page. The goal is to keep everyone running in the same direction, with clear priorities, all the time.
The most successful venture capitalist, John Doerr, has a formula for OKRs that will help you understand the structure. He says that OKRs have two components: the Objective and the Key Results.
OKRs contain only qualitative descriptions of what we want to achieve. Objectives should be memorable and challenging, and they should motivate and provoke employees. There should be 2-5 key results for each objective: more than that, and no one will remember them.
Doerr’s Goal Formula
I will (Objective) as measured by (Key Results).
Here is a resource that you can use as a beginners guide to OKR.
Branding Refresh
Refreshing your company’s branding can be an excellent way to create a new image for your brand, which can go a long way in the competitive market. Rebranding is more than just changing your logo – it’s about creating an identity for your business to attract more customers. A rebranded company will be more relatable and understandable.
One of the most powerful things you can do to refine your brand is to have a fresh website. This can be as simple as a new layout, a reorganization of content, or as bold as a complete site overhaul. Besides a new site, it’s important to have optimized content that will help you stay ahead of trends. Why? The backbone of branding is being authentic to who you are and what you do best. Push yourself to be a trendsetter in your industry.
If you don’t have the first clue how to get started fixing up your website, I can offer you a completely free guide, The Ultimate Step-by-Step Website Audit Workbook. You will find the entire process I use to analyze and revamp websites in it. If you give it a read and decide that you can’t afford the time, then you might be able to afford me! I’d be happy to go through your entire website and tell you everything that could use a tidying website update!
Focus on Revenue Drivers; Outsource the Rest
Would you rather be doing the work that only you can do or delegate to someone else? The answer is simple: if you’re a leader, delegate. It’s what’s best for your company. Too many responsibilities will only interfere with your success. The key is to identify the tasks in which you should not be engaged and pinpoint those in which you can excel. The best leaders spend their time on money-making tasks, not the ones that don’t move the needle. If you want to crush Q1, your goals should include getting anything off your plate that isn’t a revenue driver.
You need to know where you are spending your time so you can stop wasting time doing the wrong thing. When I have a lot of time, I spend it on my favorite activity, but when I don’t have time, I try to delegate anything that isn’t a money-maker to someone else. My biggest successes always follow these two simple rules.
Increase Opportunities Using Google Trends
The key to success in business is always to adapt and see what’s possible. When it seems like you hit a dead end, take a step back and review customer data. This way, you can find opportunities in your industry that you may not have seen before. Google tools are an invaluable resource to identify low-hanging fruit and opportunities in your business. Google Trends and Shopping Insights are easy, free tools. For example, if you’re struggling to get customers, type in the lowest category on Google Trends or Google Shopping Insights to find ways to increase your sales.
Leverage the data. After all, it’s what you’ve got. But don’t forget to use your intuition and experience, and that’s what you have that the data doesn’t have.
Plan, Adjust & Pivot
It’s essential to start the new year by drafting not one but multiple one-year plans. If you want to succeed in Q1, it’s vital to make an excellent first impression. Your sales team, marketing team, and everyone else should have their roadmap that will define their success. This way, everyone is on the same page and knows what success will look like. Everyone will also understand where the company is headed in the year ahead from the get-go.
Even with the best-laid plans, there’s always the chance that you’ll veer off track. To keep your yearly goals on track, adjust your quarterly goals as you go. Weekly meetings to reassess objectives can be helpful, as they allow you to remove strategies that aren’t working and focus on those that are. Regularly consulting your key metrics can help you ensure you’re on track for Q1.
So What Did We Learn?
- Embrace a Hybrid Business Model – For online businesses, this can look like in-person workshops, virtual zoom meetings retreats paired with a long-term coaching program, etc.
- Test Run the OKR Method – OKRs are set at the beginning of every quarter and changed when necessary.
- Branding Refresh – The backbone of branding is being authentic to who you are and what you do best. Push yourself to be a trendsetter in your industry.
- Focus on Revenue Drivers; Outsource the Rest – If you’re a leader, delegate. It’s what’s best for your company. Too many responsibilities will only interfere with your success.
- Increase Opportunities Using Google Trends – Leverage the data. After all, it’s what you’ve got. But don’t forget to use your intuition and experience.
- Plan, Adjust & Pivot – Even with the best-laid plans, there’s always the chance that you’ll veer off track. To keep your yearly goals on track, adjust your quarterly goals as you go.
After a long and happy holiday break, it’s time to get back to business and hit the ground running in the New Year. Set your company up for success with these simple tips to creating actionable and measurable goals. If you’ve been in a slump or want to boost the momentum of your business, Schedule a consultation.
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