{Crochet Business Plan} How Do You Know You Are Where You Are Supposed to Be?

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Writing Prompt: My Business Objectives for 2013 are:

Yesterday I explained the difference between business goals and business objectives. You wrote your business goals down now it’s time to map out your specific progress points. How will you know you are meeting your goals?

Example:

In school, to pass a course you need to attend class and pass most of your exams. What if you want to exceed the average? You want to go above and beyond the average – you want to ace the course. You’ll need to study longer, attend every class, ask questions, and complete a bit of extra credit.

What is the progress point in the above example?

• How’s your attendance?
• Are you getting 90% or better on tests?
• Is all your homework turned in on time?
• If extra credit is offered do you do it?
• If tutoring is necessary do you utilize it?
• What is your final course grade?

These are some tangible ways you can see if your goal of acing the course is being met. Now, do this same thing for your business.

Sample: Crochet business starting out with no online/offline customer base

Goal:

Year 1 – to develop an interactive community of new and returning customers via social media and my blog as well as make a steadily increasing stream of sales.

Objectives:

• Average sales – in order to get this number you’ll need to compare your actual sales to your estimated sales. Let’s assume you receive 10 sales per month with the average sale at $12
• Traffic to Shop – since this is your first year most of your work will be in marketing and developing a relationship with your customer base. use free and low cost traffic generators alike Facebook pages, Google+ pages, Twitter, Tumblr, Blogging, Instagram etc.
• Blog Interaction – starting a blog out of no where is hard but if you jump in and interact with other bloggers especially micro business owners in the handmade-crochet market you will soon find that your fan base will increase. (average 5 comments per week)
• Social Media Interaction – once you get your Facebook page to 25 fans you can start to see statistics on the activity of your fans. (goal – 100 fans with 70% interaction)

How will you know you reached your business goals? Give one example in the comments below.