Three for Three Goals: Focusing on Activities that Grow Your Business

Susan Clements

Executive Director, E-Myth Iowa

"Rowing harder doesn’t help if the boat is headed in the wrong direction."

 - Kenichi Ohmae

It’s easy to create activity––it’s harder to create the right activity, the activity that ensures your business is growing and taking you in the right direction. To ensure you’re focusing on the activity that will grow your business, provide outstanding results for your clients, and keep you headed in the right direction, consider the following vital activities:

Create Clarity

Clearly identify the result you want for your business three years in the future.  You need to craft a story that passionately communicates where your business will be in three years. If you can’t passionately describe where you want to be, then you won’t be able to enlist others to take the journey with you. Your clients, accountant, banker, employees and community need to know what you’re about and where you’re going…if you want them to come along!

Set Short Term Goals (Three for Three)

Take each of your clearly defined three-year goals and describe what needs to happen in three time frames:

• this year,
• this quarter, and
• this month! 

If your goal is to have 75 new clients at the end of three years, then you need to identify the activities that will get you at least 25 new clients this year, 6 new clients each quarter, and 2 new clients each month. This means you need to have an activity plan! Your activity needs to be CONSISTENT and you need to be PERSISTENT in following your activity plan.

The right activity will bring in the right clients––the wrong activity may keep you busy and yield no clients or (even worse) lead you to clients that will keep you busy, but not help you grow your business. For example, a bimonthly presentation or workshop for members of a local club for entrepreneurs may keep you busy. However, you might discover that the club demographics are mainly start-up businesses directing their finances into their business, without the resources to invest.

Your activity plan should be directed to a market that fits your most probable customer, the customer most likely to use your services and have both the ability and desire to engage with you. Do your research and make sure the prospects you are spending your precious lead generation time with would be the clients that will help you grow your business.

Quantify Your Progress Weekly

Set aside one hour each week to track your progress towards your Three for Three goals and redefine your activity plan. In order for your business to accomplish the three-year result you have identified, you must be engaged in the right activities to continue to take your business in the right direction. A weekly check-in will allow you to quantify your past week results, make adjustments, and ensure you are taking the right actions!

Susan Clements is Executive Director and co-owner of E-Myth Benchmark, a business coaching company serving businesses in the United States, the Caribbean, Canada, and the UK.  As a business coach Susan has steered client businesses through growth initiatives, sales and marketing strategies, management restructuring, personnel issues, customer service challenges, and action plans for growth and change. Leveraging a personal and professional experience platform of business ownership and management of businesses in both the private and public sector, Susan has designed a revolutionary coach training and delivery system that tools E-Myth Benchmark coaches to actively engage in results based coaching with business owners, leaders and managers leading to greater freedom and flexibility.  E-Myth Benchmark provides E-Myth Mastery Impact™ business coaching, business management and leadership workshops, trainings and seminars.  Contact Susan at www.e-mythcoaching.com or sclements@e-mythcoaching.com.