Vision and Goals
The Importance of This Building Block: Before you think about moving ahead with your marketing in Africa, it is important to determine whether your vision and goals for your business are in order. Some people ask, “Is this vision realistic? Can I do it? Am I worthy of something like this?”
Others are even more perceptive and think, “Is this vision worthy of me?”
Think about it!
Every business needs to develop a clear vision of where they are trying to get to so that they can reverse-engineer strategies and tactics to get them there. This becomes the plan (See Building Block 2).
In the famous fairy tale of Alice in Wonderland, Alice said to the Cheshire Cat, “Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”
“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.
“I don’t much care where,” said Alice.
“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.
Goals must be definable, concrete, specific and observable.
In life, I have observed older and younger people and they each experience a level of pain. The younger people experience the pain of discipline. “You must study. You must run longer. You must learn this material.” It is painful, but the results can produce great rewards if the training is appropriate.
Older people, on the other hand, experience the pain of regret. “If I only could have done that. I wish I could have gone there. I wish I had a little more money to do this.” Setting goals while you are young, then working out a realistic plan to achieve those goals will energize you through the pain of discipline and help you to avoid some of the regrets that you might face later in life. In my opinion, the pain of preparation is preferable to the pain of irreparable regret.
Start to ask yourself some serious questions and write down the answers on small cards that you can carry in your pocket or bag. “What is my purpose in living? What is most important to me in life? What do I really want to do with my life? What am I prepared to sacrifice to achieve my dreams?
Finally, what are the rewards of this course of action that I plan to take?” Writing these goals out clearly will energize you from day to day and lift your spirits when discouragement starts to raise its ugly head.
Another lesson I learned was from the brilliant train scheduling in Japan: goals must be specific and measurable. In Japan, a train leaves exactly on time and arrives exactly on time. Goals must be the same. Don’t just write, “I want to be successful in business”, but write, “I want to become the number 1 distributor in my industry by December of this year.” Or, “I want to grow my staff from 3 to 15 employees by March of next year.” Notice that these goals are specific and measurable. You will either achieve these goals or you won’t. You won’t be left wondering if you achieved them or not.
Author and motivational speaker, Mark Victor Hansen, discovered in his research that less than 4% of people write down their life goals. A further 10 - 12% have goals and dreams but don’t write them down. That leaves 84 - 86% of people who have no specific, measurable goals to guide their progress by. They are without direction, like a ship without a rudder. It is another established fact that the people who write down their goals will accomplish at least ten times as much in life as those who have goals and dreams but don’t write them down. In which category will you find yourself?
Nelson Mandela taught us that our playing small and being overly humble doesn’t serve the world. Mandela taught us that as you step out with your dream and let your light shine before all people, you show them something that they admire and you, in effect, give them permission to do the same.
One of my greatest breakthroughs in business came when I was taught by Chet Holmes that I had to focus on the drivers in my business. There are only eight things that drive any business. Set goals for each of these areas and watch how you systematically improve your business. Here they are:
- Marketing
- Strategy
- Capital – financial, human resources, and intellectual
- Business model
- Relationships
- Distribution Channels
- Products and services
- Procedures, Processes and Policies – this is what makes a business run without you.
Key Action: You and your staff need to have goal-writing workshops so that your marketing in Africa can excel. In each of these sessions you need to break down the steps to achieving your 3-year goal into 3-month action plans.
The biggest secret in doing a company turn-around
One of the biggest things to do if your business or company is in trouble is to get everyone focused on positive goals and solving problems: most companies in trouble focus all their energies on problems, rather than solutions. An entrepreneur in trouble will spend so much time worrying that their subconscious mind directs them more to problems than to solutions.
If goals are important to you, take time to write your goals in each of the areas listed in the Action Steps included below. Remember that your goals should be as specific and as measurable as possible. Don’t settle for average goals that any person can achieve. A person who only thinks in terms of catching mice will never catch lions. You want to be able to step beyond the range of the possible into the range of what most will consider impossible.
Let these dreams drive you to accomplish what ordinary people can’t even think about. The world will step aside to let any young man or woman pass if they show that they know where they are going. I promise you, the dreams alone will create such a fire in your heart and mind that you’ll barely be able to sleep at night. However, beware of what you set your mind on, for you will surely achieve it.
(Don’t worry too much about whether you put down the correct answer – your strategy will probably change as time progresses.)
When your goals are completed to your satisfaction, write them all on a small card and carry them with you wherever you go. You can put them in your pocket or bag. At least 5 times a day, pull them out and review them. I would recommend you do this when you first wake up so that your mind is focused for the day, at each meal, and then before you go to bed at night.
You can also use the night time review to evaluate whether your day was spent productively pursuing your goals or if you wasted any unnecessary time. Let the world know that you are an important contributor to it, not a consequence of it. Set high goals. A common joke in golf is that at least 99%
of short putts never go in the hole. Live life with a purpose.
You must become action-oriented and optimistic of your abilities. A pessimist might portray by his actions, “If I don’t bother to try, I certainly won’t fail and I won’t look foolish.” However, an optimist will portray by his actions, “If I don’t bother to try, I can’t win.” The pessimist sees all the difficulties in every opportunity that is presented to him. The optimist will look at every difficulty that comes his way and sees an opportunity, regardless of their personal abilities.
According to a study from the University of California in Los Angeles, people with an exaggerated perception of their own abilities are most likely to succeed in life and at school. This shows that it is more effective to have positive illusions about your talents and competence than to be modest. If you convince yourself you are capable, then you will behave as if that were true. People who are more realistic tend to get discouraged more easily and are, therefore, less productive. It’s a classic case of self-fulfilling prophecy: unrealistic illusions actually allow a person to persevere and accomplish a task that would cause others to give up.
In conclusion, one fact of life is true for all - every person has a future. However, only some people plan their future. People don’t fall into success accidentally. It is a result of purposefully setting and writing down goals, then following them with a passion that lies dormant within each and every one of us. Get your direction first. Plot your course. When sailing a boat, if you don’t know which harbor to head for, no wind is the right wind. Where are you going? Do you know?
If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.
Important Points to Remember
- Don’t wait for the perfect time to begin.
- Goals must be definable, concrete and specific.
- The pain of preparation is preferable to the pain of irreparable regret.
- Goals must be written down.
- Be optimistic and set your goals high.
To your success,
Patrick Bell, MBA, MA
www.Marketing-in-Africa.com