Add Quarterly Goals to Your Goal Setting Worksheet

Over the last couple of weeks, we’ve talked about how to create and use a simple goal setting worksheet for your online business. At the outset of this series, I shared the Brainstorm, Refine and Define goal-setting method I use for my own Content Marketing efforts.

One reason it is so important to have clear goals in place for these endeavors is that content creation and promotion are very time-intensive tasks and without a clear game plan in place, it is easy for weeks and months to slip by without making any forward progress.

So far, we’ve covered how to develop your 5 Year Plan (what you are aiming for and why), the value of setting “fun goals,” and an easy way to establish objective criteria for the year ahead. Today, let’s break that down even further and look at what you can achieve on a quarterly basis to move your business forward.

When setting quarterly objectives, it is important to keep a few things in mind:

• Where you are heading (i.e., your 5 Year Plan and 1 year objectives).  Obviously, you will want to set quarterly goals that are in line your “big picture.”
• Quarterly goals are perfect for larger scale projects that will take some time to complete.
• Choose ‘evergreen’ activities that once they are in place will continue to yield benefits for your business long into the future.

For example, one of my quarterly goals for  2010 is to develop an effective autoresponder series for this site. This is something that will definitely advance my 1 year and 5 year goals, is larger scale (will take more than a day or week to accomplish) and will add value to my business efforts for years to come.

Truly a set-and-forget activity worthy of the amount of time invested in it.

How about you? What are 4 worthwhile quarterly tasks you can incorporate into your 2010 game plan?

Stumped?? Here are a few ideas to get you started:

• Launch a new site – ready to explore a new niche? (Assuming you’ve reached profitability in your current one) Or, are you starting from scratch? 90 days is plenty of time to get a new site up and running – and start building valuable traffic through consistent content creation.

• Social Media – are you getting full advantage from sites such as Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn? How about StumbleUpon, Digg or Yahoo Buzz? You may not become a full-fledged expert, but you can learn a lot about any topic by actively focusing on it for 90 days.

• Autoresponders - do you see the value of creating one to build your list and strengthen relationships with your readers? Do you have an effective series in place – or are you overwhelmed with where to begin? (If this topic interests you, we’ll cover it in depth starting in January).

Again, be sure to set quarterly goals that align with your long-range vision – and give you something to actively work towards in order to get there.  Tomorrow, we’ll take a closer look at how to further divide these goals into a monthly and weekly action plan that works with your overall schedule.

Til Next Time,

PS Brian Tracy has written a great ebook on Goal Setting. The best part is you can download it for FREE right now by signing up for his enewsletter. (Sign up is in the upper right hand corner of the page).

Here is the link: Goals! How to Get Everything You Want – Faster Than You Ever Thought Possible.

I personally found a lot of valuable information in this book – and would love to hear your thoughts on it, as well – so please leave a comment below to let me know what you think!