You cannot take action on a goal unless you can break it into steps. For example, “I want to book fifty clients.” What the hell are you supposed to do with that? You can't take action on that. So we have to break it down into “these are the specific things I’m going to do in a ninety day period that will result in booking fifty clients.” So for example, maybe you want to improve your SEO, so you can book more clients directly from Google. So your first thirty days probably looks like learning more about search engine optimization, and then doing some keyword research.

You have to set aside some time on your calendar and to start doing the keyword research, because you can take action on that. And something that is very closely related is to not focus on what's called the “lagging indicator.” A lagging indicator is a result of something, so it's something that has already happened. Bookings are a lagging indicator. You can't control them. But what you can control are leading indicators. These are the things that happen in the run-up, the dominoes that knock over the other dominoes that allow you to make a booking. So for instance, a leading indicator in my business is to do exactly what I'm doing right now. To write articles or to be on other podcasts than my own. I know that's a way that a lot of my clients discover me and that a lot of people come to get to know me. So something that's in my control is sending out an email to ten podcasts each month and pitching myself to get on them. 

I want you to think about this in terms of your own goals. What is that set of dominoes? What are the things toward the beginning that start tipping it over? Is it that people find you on Google? Is it that people are getting referrals? What steps can we take to knock down those dominoes and influence these things so that you get the end result that you want? I think a lot of frustration and overwhelm comes from focusing on that last domino instead of focusing on the first one. And if you look at your chain, see where everything is all lined up, and you can see when things aren't knocking over. You can analyze when you see that one domino fell over but the next one didn't, then you know that's where you need to focus. For example, if people are filling out an inquiry form, scheduling a consultation, and then not booking, then let's focus there. As opposed to throwing the whole thing away and totally starting from scratch, because usually it's a small tweak that we need to really be focusing on. Because yes we all want bookings. Yes, we all want to make more money, but that is a result. It's an end product of something else that you're doing, and you can look to see what's already working for you to make that happen.

Episode 26: Goal Setting with Evolve Your Wedding Business 

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We have to look at what are the repetitive things that we're doing. There's a quote that I love by James Clear, and it's something to the effect of “we don't rise to the level of our goals; we fail to the level of our systems.” So, if you don't have the habit, the system, of doing the thing that you need to do to get the result, then it's not going to happen. You have to get your systems in order and get those working and efficient before you can start really working on your marketing. Because it's great to get people to contact you on phone calls and sending inquiries, but if the rest of your back end is failing, then you're still not going to get the bookings. A lot of times people focus so much on the marketing, but then their systems fail them. And until that contract is signed, until that money is in the bank account, then we’ve not gotten a booking. So, a bunch of inquiries in our inbox doesn't really mean shit to us in the long run if we can't continue that with our systems that lead up to the actual booking. 

Those systems can be the automated systems in the background. It can be the way that you control your time, whether you batch things together, the fact that you probably want to set aside some time at the beginning and the end of each week to look at what you need to accomplish this week in order to be on target. And then checking in at the end to see what you need to carry into next week or what you need to change. So, how do we balance our lives with our business when it comes to goal setting? We should have personal goals as well as business goals, right? So when it comes to managing our time and balancing there are some tips and strategies here for people to help with that balance. You have to protect your time because other people will come in and try to take it. They will try to impose their own priorities on you, but you have to know what's important to you and what you are trying to accomplish. Setting those boundaries and ruthlessly protecting them is such a valuable skill to develop. It's hard at first, particularly in this industry, and especially with beauty professionals. Beauty professionals who work in weddings are some of the hardest core people pleasers. It's just in our nature, because we want to make people feel beautiful.

I feel like so many people bend over backwards, and I'm always teaching my clients how to say “no.” Because when you learn to say “no,” you're actually providing a better experience for your client. You can provide value and you're still providing an amazing experience if you're following that “no” up with, “here's my alternative solution for you.” It could be something as simple as, “no, that's not included, but let me send you the invoice…” Or something like, “I can't provide that service, but here's somebody that does.” And when you set those boundaries, you already have those solutions ready to go in your back pocket. When you set these things up in advance, it just becomes so much less emotional because it's just a process that you have. Another example is having an auto-responder set up for when someone emails you freaking out, that states the timeframe for when you will get back to them. So much is just down to setting expectations, like they don't care that you don't get back to them right now, they just want to know when you're going to get back to them.

You don't have to surrender your entire life over to people and you don't have to be accessible 24 hours a day just because somebody might be emailing at eleven o'clock at night when they're on the computer. It’s funny, even as adults we just want someone to tell us the rules. Like, okay, when can I expect to hear back from you? What's the best way to communicate with you? Okay, now I feel good. I feel safe.I think it's very empowering to realize that all of this is within our control too. A lot of us think we will set a goal and we'll hope that we get there and then we just kind of get pulled in every direction the wind blows us. Of course you know some things you can't control, but I would say that we do have more control over our lives than we think. Things don't just happen to us, they happen for us, and it depends on how you view that. Are you going to view that as something that holds you back or as an opportunity to make a change somewhere? And so much of that is putting the systems in place, putting the rules and the boundaries in place about how you use your time and how other people can communicate with you. Because if you are sitting in your inbox all day, think about all the things that aren't getting done. The opportunity cost of you not doing the things that will actually get you to your goal.

It's the little steps that get you to it and sometimes you can lose sight of the big picture of what it is that you're trying to accomplish and I think finding a way whether it's you know image-based whether it's like you just wrote your goals down. And the couple areas you're going to focus on for the next twelve months and you just keep that visible. That can be a really valuable reminder. Before I do anything, I sit down and say, what are the three most important things that I need to get done today. Next, I build my to-do list from that. I keep the longer-term things digital, like what I need to do next month. That's in my project management tool. But then I'm writing it, usually on a post-it note, these are like the three things I need to get done today. I learned the value of prioritizing my to do list a long time ago, because I'm the kind of person who will do a mind map and like write a million things, and then I sit there and stare at it like how the fuck am I going to get all this done. So, I learned what works really well for me is to write them all out on sticky notes and have a poster board to organize them on. This helps to be able to prioritize things that are the most pressing. When I’ve accomplished the task, I throw the sticky note away and everything else moves up or moves down in priority. I can literally take the sticky note and just move it along the board or I can take it off and throw it away.

So, it's like every single time you do something you're picking up better habits or you're doing something over and over and over again, you're repeating these processes and it becomes easier and it not only becomes easier but it becomes faster so that next thing you know you are tripling your income goal. Because you've built up this habit, you’re doing the planning, and taking the actionable steps, and it becomes second nature. You don't have to plan so much for that that next income level because you've already been slowly working towards it without even realizing it. I think we also need to celebrate our wins at every level a little bit better. I think we need to in general just be a little bit kinder to ourselves as business owners. Every little accomplishment that gets us closer to achieving our goals and building our dreams is something that definitely needs to be celebrated.

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