Few people would deny that setting goals is important, and that it true in all areas of life.
In business – in finances – it is important to know where you want to go.
I remember a business professor giving us some good advice… to make your goals backwards. Over the years, I have found it true.
For example, what if you wanted to buy a car? If a loan cost you $400 per month and additional expenses were $200 per month, you would need at least $600 per month. So, of course, you need to make sure you have that money available.
Now you must decide how to get the money. If you sold a book for $10, you would need to sell an additional 60 each month. If you know that 1 out of every 10 people on your email list purchase the book, you can determine that you need to add 600 new email subscribers each month to bring in the extra money (the process works for in-person traffic, too). If you know that it takes 4,000 visitors to your website to gain 600 email subscribers, you can determine that you need to increase your traffic by 4,000 each month.
Other options could include creating new items to sell to your email list. They could be lower or higher priced, and you would just need to determine what it takes to sell each one.
Since the car expense would be an ongoing expense, you could consider ways to gain ongoing income. You could begin a membership group or become an affiliate for another business. Either way, you would need to determine how many sales you would need and work backwards to know what needs to be done to reach your goal.
This is working backwards. Determine your goal. Determine what you need to reach it. Determine what you must do to gain what you need. And get to work.
Try this. Take some possible things you want to do and work backwards. You will no longer be wishing; you will be planning.
Michael Hyatt wrote a great book on achieving your goals. You may want to check it out…
