Episode 77: 7 Best Goal-Setting Strategies for Creative Entrepreneurs

Introduction: Welcome to the Path to Profit Podcast with your hosts Dr. Minette Riordan and Brad Dobson.

Brad Dobson: Hi, and welcome to episode 77 of the Path to Profit Podcast. I’m Brad Dobson with my lovely wife, Dr. Minette Riordan. She’s excited.

Minette Riordan: I am. I love this topic.

Brad Dobson: And we are wrapping up goal-setting month of December and flowing into business-planning month of January. Today’s title is?

Minette Riordan: Dah, dah, dah, dah, drum roll. Our seven best goal-setting strategies just for creatives.

Brad Dobson: Perfect, because that’s what we need, and that’s what we think you need.

Minette Riordan: And it’s what we are, right? I think more importantly that. It’s like who we are being on a daily basis is creative in the way we approach our business. What we’ve discovered is that the way people traditionally do goal setting, and we’ll talk even more about this in January with business planning, doesn’t necessarily work for those of us who are struggling with bright, shiny ideas.

Brad Dobson: Yeah.

Minette Riordan: And a million plans and dreams.

Brad Dobson: I could set a goal a minute, I think.

Minette Riordan: Which is actually probably a really good thing to do, because if you had to set a goal a minute, you really would realize you couldn’t accomplish that.

Brad Dobson: Yeah.

Minette Riordan: Which is a great lead into our quote this week, which is from Tony Robbins. Tony Robbins wrote, “Setting goals is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible.” I love that quote.

Brad Dobson: That’s neat. I guess we could dive into that or parts that a little bit. The invisible. What’s invisible about something as you set it as a goal?

Minette Riordan: It’s just a dream. It doesn’t have any tangible footing in the real world, right? The example that totally popped into my head was Brad and I lived in Plano, Texas for 13 years, and we talked a lot about moving.

Brad Dobson: This is true.

Minette Riordan: Away. Over and over and over again, but it was just a dream. It was just an idea, and it didn’t become visible and it didn’t become real until we actually set a moving date. One of our friends, the awesome Eric Yeager, was like oh, my god, you guys have been talking about it for so long, I never thought you’d do it. You’re really not moving are you?

Brad Dobson: Yeah. A lot of talk, and not a lot of action.

Minette Riordan: A lot of talk and not a lot of action. The thing about setting goals, and I think, and you and I were talking about this before the show, what the distinction is between goals and resolutions is to me, a resolution is something that you do a lot of talking about you’re gonna do, and then you’ve already maybe by mid January forgotten you were even talking about it.

Brad Dobson: Right.

Minette Riordan: But a goal, as we’re gonna share with you, is pretty specific. It usually has a date associated with it, and there’s a different level of commitment for me personally when I say I not only have this goal, but I’m committed to accomplishing it by a certain date.

Brad Dobson: Right. I’m actually gonna put things in action.

Minette Riordan: And into my calendar.

Brad Dobson: Related to achieving that goal.

Minette Riordan: Yeah.

Brad Dobson: As opposed to just this amorphous or nebulous resolution that you put out there, but then don’t take any steps towards it.

Minette Riordan: So all of our notes for our outlines, you can see this if you’re watching us on YouTube, but we’ll just share with you listening, I have this awesome notepad that has vocabulary words. Because one of the things you probably don’t know about Brad and I is we’re total word junkies.

Brad Dobson: Yep.

Minette Riordan: Other people collect matchbooks, I love words. I’ve actually always been a word collector, and one of the words as we were planning the outlines for a couple of Podcast episodes for today was nebulous. Definitely.

Brad Dobson: This is true. I got pernicious from my notes.

Minette Riordan: The one on this one is raillery, which probably is totally appropriate to the conversation, and raillery r-a-i-l-l-e-r-y is good-natured ridicule or banter.

Brad Dobson: Banter.

Minette Riordan: Banter. Sorry. I’d like to hope that this Podcast is about good-natured banter and not ridicule.

Brad Dobson: Exactly. Let’s get on to number one in our seven best goal setting strategies for creatives.

Minette Riordan: Go for it.

Brad Dobson: That is to make time for planning.

Minette Riordan: Not too much time.

Brad Dobson: Not too much time. Yeah, Minette and I are definitely guilty of over planning [crosstalk 00:04:41], talk things to death, but It’s fun. It’s kind of mental gymnastics that we enjoy. Sort of a visioning kind of a thing. The thing about this step, this goal-setting strategy is that you really need space for it. Mental space for it, physical space for it, literally table space for it, and some time space. If that makes sense? You can’t just plan for 15 minutes here or there. You need something expansive so that you’re able to dig into these things.

Minette Riordan: Yeah, and we actually recommend doing this once a quarter. Right now at the end of the year is an obvious time to be looking at goal setting, and we have an episode coming in a couple a weeks about quarter-project planning, and we’ll talk more about that. We really think it’s important to consistently and regularly sit down and review your goals, and set new goals, right? Because some of our goals are gonna be short term, some are gonna be longer term. I am a big fan of having offsite meetings, like go to a hotel, go to a library, not a coffee shop where it’s noisy. I think you want some quiet and some privacy, and you could do this alone, you could take a private, personal retreat. Obviously, we would go together.

Brad Dobson: Exactly.

Minette Riordan: And do that planning. You could also take your whole team, right? We now have a team. I think there’s five of us at the moment.

Brad Dobson: Something like that.

Minette Riordan: Six if you count Conner.

Brad Dobson: Yeah, right.

Minette Riordan: Conner’s our son. We could invite them all to participate in quarterly planning or in annual planning. We could od that using Zoom, which is one of our favorite tech tools that we didn’t put on our tech list for our.

Brad Dobson: Exactly.

Minette Riordan: For our next episode.

Brad Dobson: Gotta remember that.

Minette Riordan: That’s coming. But making time is super playful, and Brad made a reference to having table space to do that, because one of the things that we highly recommend for creatives is do not try to plan in a linear, bullet pointed, date specific fashion yet. We highly encourage getting giant sheets of paper, big, cheap, kids’ drawing pads or pads of newsprint works really well. You can get it at the Dollar Store.

Brad Dobson: Butcher paper.

Minette Riordan: Butcher paper works great, and a bunch of markers, crayons, and sticky notes, and have the first of your planning process be super intuitive, and more of a brain dump about all of the things that you’re dreaming, intending, resolving, hoping for in 2018.

Brad Dobson: Yeah, and give yourself also as Minette alluded to earlier, give yourself a chance to look at 2018 as a whole, but we really want to look at, like we said in a previous Podcast about setting mini goals, look at a quarter. Look at what you can get done in a quarter, and try slicing that up. 2018, might be an awfully big chunk to get your arms around.

Minette Riordan: But you need the big goals. I’m a big fan of having annual goals, quarterly goals. This is like chunking it down from the big vision all the way down to what’s the one step I need to do today.

Brad Dobson: Yep.

Minette Riordan: So annual goals, quarterly goals, monthly goals, weekly goals, daily goals, maybe even by-the-minute goals, but maybe not.

Brad Dobson: That’s a little bit too much.

Minette Riordan: That would be way too much. What we’ve noticed is the more that you can make the creative space to do the brain dump, and to do it on these big sheets of paper, you can see what’s possible. Everybody can have an opportunity to look at all the ideas, and collaboratively, really make some educated guesses about how to sequence your ideas. Because the thing about us creatives, we don’t lack ideas, we have tons of bright, shiny ideas all the time, and all of our ideas have value, but it’s really understanding how to sequence those ideas like which one needs to come first, which one is gonna be easiest and the fastest, and effortless to monetize first is often something that we look out with our clients, which leads me right into goal-setting strategy number two.

Brad Dobson: Know your numbers. Know your.

Minette Riordan: Know your numbers.

Brad Dobson: Financial numbers. Yeah, all numbers. Financial numbers, your attendance numbers, your.

Minette Riordan: Email list numbers.

Brad Dobson: List numbers. Maybe your [crosstalk 00:09:01].

Minette Riordan: Facebook following.

Brad Dobson: Yeah. Social media following numbers. In terms of where they stand, where they’ve been, and where you want them to go as part of your goals.

Minette Riordan: Yeah, and we’ll be digging a lot more into the whole concept of knowing your numbers and how to set the right financial goals when we talk more about quarterly project planning in January, but for now, we just cannot say enough. It’s actually part of our one-page business planning process. It’s to start with your financial goals first, and then figure out how you’re gonna get there. If you just start with the things that you wanna launch like maybe you wanna write a book in 2018, and writing a book is a great idea. It can create a lot of visibility, but not necessarily a lot of cash unless you’re really intentional about the role that it’s gonna play in your marketing and promotions.
So just noticing that each of the goals that you set for your business need to be tied to your bottom line.

Brad Dobson: Definitely. Definitely. Moving on to number three, be specific as a goal-setting strategy. Be specific. You’ve heard of smart goals and the very first word in the smart acronym is specific. You need to actually tie a date to when the goal will be complete, tie a number to whether that’s an attendance number at an event, a dollar number for the income from a promotion, a percentage increase in your social media following, whatever that may be.

Minette Riordan: Yeah, for us one of our key numbers that we’re constantly tracking and working very hard to increase is our email list, right? Because the more that we can build that community, then the more that we have a fun [inaudible 00:10:44] to play with, and the more that actually increases our bottom line. For us, the number of subscribers to our email list is really an important number.

Brad Dobson: When we’re being specific, this is something that I’ve seen Minette train people up on before, and I can’t remember exactly where you were introduced to it, but you’re allowed some leeway in terms of.

Minette Riordan: It was Marisa Murgatroyd.

Brad Dobson: Yeah, maybe.

Minette Riordan: That’s where the concept came from first.

Brad Dobson: But you’re allowed some leeway, and in fact, you can be intentional and specific about the leeway you have in the number that you want to achieve, and so what you’re gonna do is you’re gonna set a minimum goal, a target goal, and a stretch goal. The stretch one should feel like it’s barely achievable and maybe give you butterflies in your stomach. The min one would be, I just gotta do this to have it.

Minette Riordan: To make it worth it.

Brad Dobson: Make it worthwhile, and the target is in the middle of those. I would suggest that the target shouldn’t be totally easy, but it’s a lot [crosstalk 00:11:55] more achievable than the stretch goals.

Minette Riordan: We can share a really fun example from one of our clients who was hosting a live event earlier this year, and the minimum goal of attendees that she wanted on the event would just cover her cost for the event.

Brad Dobson: Right. So break even. [crosstalk 00:12:10].

Minette Riordan: A break-even number. Then the target goal was like her dream of how many she would love to have in the room, it would not only cover all of her costs, she would actually make some money on the event, and have a larger pool of people to make her up sale offer to, and then her stretch goal was really scary for her, because she thought what am I gonna do if I have that many people in the room, can I actually teach that many people, can I create the space for that. She total blew her stretch goal outta the water.

Brad Dobson: Very nice.

Minette Riordan: It was awesome, but it was that clarity around how many people she wanted in the room. She knew her numbers to cover her cost to be able to make a profit on the event, and to have the right number of women in the room to then fill a group program that she was offering. So super specific about not only the number of people, but what having that number of people in the room would net her at the end of the day.

Brad Dobson: Yeah, and you bring up another good point, or it came up in my mind is that specificity when you’re setting the goals early on is something that gets set in your mind. Later on in another episode, we’ll talk a little bit about, or maybe in a Blog post, we’ll talk a little bit about visualization, but that’s the number that you unconsciously are focused on. For the next whole quarter, it’s in your mind. That number is in your mind. So when you’re making decisions, you’re making in the context of knowing that number. It means that you don’t get a hotel room that’s too small, because you know it needs to fit that target number or similar types of things. You don’t under buy a Facebook ad, because you know you’ll never achieve the number that you want with a small ad buy. That type of thing.
So specificity. We didn’t talk about accountability as it relates to that.

Minette Riordan: No, I’m getting there, but I was making a note. I’m scrambling over here, ’cause I don’t think we have one scheduled to talk about the power a guide of visualization and imagery to help you actually obtain your goals, and that would be a really good one. Maybe we’ll do a fun, bonus one before the end of the year.

Brad Dobson: Absolutely.

Minette Riordan: On that one, ’cause that’s a really great topic.

Brad Dobson: I’ll set that in my mind. I have that intention now. I’m visualizing it.

Minette Riordan: Then after this [inaudible 00:14:26], schedule a date to make it happen. That’s how the process works. Brad had an idea. I’m like that’s a great idea, so we’re like okay, right it down, now let’s put a date to it, and get it recorded and make it happen. Right? These processes of really I think the thing for goal-setting strategies for creatives is how do we go from idea to action? That’s the most important piece.
So we talked about the goals being super specific, having numbers associated with them, having dates associated with them, but the third part of that being specific is who is gonna hold you accountable? Are you great, super driven about holding yourself accountable, and you don’t need an external accountability partner. That’s not me. Personally, I always need an accountability partner. Whether it’s weight loss or Ironman training or business planning. So do you have a girlfriend, a spouse, a business partner.

Brad Dobson: I do not have a girlfriend. Sorry.

Minette Riordan: I’m so glad to hear that. I was starting to worry a little bit about where all your time was going.

Brad Dobson: That’s right.

Minette Riordan: That distraction piece you’ve been talking a lot about. Is that what’s happening?

Brad Dobson: Yeah. Exactly.

Minette Riordan: Yeah. You’re hilarious.

Brad Dobson: So, a coach.

Minette Riordan: A coach. Yes, not a girlfriend. Anyway, a friend. Do you have any friends?

Brad Dobson: Yes.

Minette Riordan: You do?

Brad Dobson: Yes.

Minette Riordan: You have friends? So, a friend. It should have numbers, it should have a date, and an accountability partner. As business coaches, we find that one of the most important aspects of the programs that we do with our clients is that accountability piece. Making sure that you’re doing what you’re saying you’re gonna do, and if it doesn’t happen, why not? Some times it could be life happens, kids got sick, you got sick, so you slip a deadline, but sometimes it brings up mindset issues. Fear, right? I say I’m gonna look for speaking engagements, but I haven’t actually scheduled time in my calendar to go do the research and submit those applications. Why not? Right?
So really looking at the mindset piece of that, and after you have made time for planning, looked at your numbers, gotten really specific, the next most important piece is do not [crosstalk 00:16:40].

Brad Dobson: Write the dang things down.

Minette Riordan: Yeah. Write your goals down.

Brad Dobson: Journal them, have then posted in giant pieces of paper.

Minette Riordan: Tell them about your piece of paper on the top of the staircase for your Ironman thing.

Brad Dobson: That’s right, I have a big sheet of whatever size paper that is, the kids drawing paper, with phrases related to how I’m going to that day work towards being an Ironman athlete, and inspirational things for me, and my race stickers from previous races, and I reach up and hit that thing every time I walk down the stairs. It’s a reminder. So writing these things down, and having them posted somewhere is critical. It’s not helpful in any way to set a goal and walk away from it. That’s kinds like the resolutions we were talking about earlier where you drunkenly chime in for your New Year’s Resolutions at the end of January 1st, and then never look at them again. You gotta write this stuff down, and have it visible to you so that it’s in your mind daily and unavoidable.
It’s okay if you bust on a goal and it’s just not gonna work. We’re all adults, but if you have something out there in front of you, it needs to be front of mind.

Minette Riordan: It does. Another way to do that, and Jack Canfield has some great stories about this in his book, The Success Principles. It’s one of my favorite, all-time business books. Write it on an index card, and for guys, you can stick in your wallet. Ladies you can stick it in your wallet or in your purse, but making sure that there’s somewhere where you can literally access them on a daily basis and read them.
So, in the second aspect of once you write your goals down, is to either say and preferable say them out loud, and/or read them, right? But literally, the more that you speak your goals out loud, the more likely they are to stay top of mind. You’re less likely to get distracted and actually carry them out.
The next aspect of this that I love doing, maybe I’ll even get you to do one this year. How fun would that be? Is to create a vision board.

Brad Dobson: This is a different version of writing it down.

Minette Riordan: It’s a visual version of writing it down, and one of the things that I know about creatives is that if it’s not visual, playful, colorful, creative, and fun, and hanging in front of us, we’re gonna forget about it. If it gets put in a drawer, or if you write your goals in a Google doc, or a Word document, you’re never gonna go look at them again. They have to be integrated with your daily life.
Brad has a combination of writing and imagery on his big sheet of paper he was sharing with you. I love vision boards. I actually challenge you to create a vision board without words. What I see happen so often with vision boards is that people just cut a bunch of headlines and things out of magazines, and that’s great, but to be really intentional about how do you want to feel when these goals are complete, right?
A vision board for me is this tangible, mood setting kinesthetic way to connect to the feeling, the colors, and the other aspects of your goal, in addition to words.

Brad Dobson: Yeah. Once again, it’s setting it in your mind.

Minette Riordan: Yeah, and it’s fun. They’re super fun to create.

Brad Dobson: That’s right.

Minette Riordan: I’ve got a couple a brat Blog posts. I’ll put a link to a couple of the Blog posts and the show notes on how to create a vision board in case you’ve never created one.

Brad Dobson: Cool. So vision boards was number five. Number six is to get feedback. I added this one to the list, because I’m someone who over analyzes things, and I really struggle sometimes with.

Minette Riordan: No comment.

Brad Dobson: Setting big goals, and so what I do once I’m pissed off at myself having taken all this time for internal analysis is to work with friends, allies, family. Ask them about whether the goal makes sense. People are gonna have different unique perspectives. Hopefully, if you have team or a business partner or someone in your mastermind, those are the people to ask about your goals.
They will very quickly ask you specific questions about specific outcomes. So you’ll know really quick if your goal is too nebulous, if it simply doesn’t have the specificity that it needs. If you come to me and ask about some whatever type of statement that you’re making that hey, I wanna do this in 2018, the first thing I’m gonna ask is well, when do you wanna have it done by, how much are you gonna spend for it, how much money is it gonna make you, does it relate to your big why. All of those types of things.
I how for you, that there are people whether it’s your spouse or partner, or whatever it is, there are people that you can bounce things off of.

Minette Riordan: Absolutely. Or business coach. I’m a huge fan of coaching. We talked about that on the show before. Matt Miller talked about that a lot on his episode about his Master-Mind Group. But having a safe place, family is not always the best place to share your goals, right? You need to share your goals with people who are gonna support you and poke holes in it, right? They’re gonna be willing to ask you some of those hard questions like Brad mentioned.

Brad Dobson: Yeah. That could even be a great Facebook group that you’re in. There’s always somebody out there on the inter webs that’s sitting around their desk and wants to give their opinion. You can get opinions fast.

Minette Riordan: Yeah. Awesome. Then number seven on our list of seven best goal setting strategies for creatives is to share your goal publicly. Don’t keep it a secret.

Brad Dobson: Gotta put it out there.

Minette Riordan: You gotta put it out there, and we’re not saying that you need to go post publicly on your Facebook page that you wanna make half a million dollars next year, or you wanna make your first $10,000 next year, all right. Any number that you wanna make is great, but what we’re saying is that you’re putting out there hey, I’ve got some amazing goals for my business this year, and I will know those goals are accomplished when, and I’m asking for your support. You could do that in terms of number of new clients, or the reach and the impact that you wanna have, or that you’re challenging yourself to get to 50,000 in Instagram. Whatever it is find a place to share it publicly, and again, this could be in a Facebook group, some place that’s safe and supportive. It doesn’t have to be blasting it all over social media.
If you’re not a fan of social media, tell 10 friends, right? Ask 10 friends to just hold the vision and intention with you. I have done that pretty successfully with some of my friends, helped my brother and sister-in-law a couple of times where we collectively got together and shared goals and intentions, and held the vision for each other. It’s pretty amazing the results of that.
We heard a really fun one. We were at an amazing transformational leaders retreat for successful coaches in the coaching industry last week, and one of our friends had a baby this year, and she shared that two years previously, she had stood around the Christmas tree, with some of the other colleagues, and set the intention by when she wanted to have a baby. It totally happened, right? By this time last year, she was pregnant, and now she has a adorable six-month old.

Brad Dobson: Yep.

Minette Riordan: Who we got to meet this weekend, or last week as well.

Brad Dobson: And that sharing publicly, once again, it’s like the writing it down, putting it in a vision board. It’s setting those intentions in your head, external to you, out in the world, it’s what you’re putting out there, and that comes back around to you. It’s a bit of a feedback loop in terms of spiraling up towards this goal. It’s not gonna happen if it’s not something that you’re shouting out and putting your intention and the full weight of your conscious and unconscious efforts behind it.

Minette Riordan: Yep. Awesome. I’m gonna do just a quick recap, and we’ll also have one of our sketch notes in the show notes with a recap as well, but the seven best goal setting strategies for creatives, make time for planning. The whole thing starts there. Without time, you’ll just be starting the new year behind the gun already. So make time for planning.
Know your numbers, right? Your financial numbers, as well as your other important business numbers, be as specific as possible, write your goals down in multiple places so that you can see them on a regular basis, make a vision board that is focused on imagery, not words, in order to capture the feeling of the goals. Get feedback from friends, colleagues, or coaches, and share publicly in a safe place what it is that you want to accomplish that adds to the intentionality, to the law of attraction, and just to the moral support from colleagues saying hey, how’s it going, how can I support you in making that goal happen.

Brad Dobson: Very nice. I think we have a resource that we can send people too to get them on the path towards setting appropriate and effective goals for their creative business.

Minette Riordan: Yep. Absolutely, which is our creative business archetype quiz. We had talked about it on this show before, but it’s been quite a while, and in this quiz, we help you determine whether or not you’re actually building the right business model. It’s really impossible to set goals if you don’t know what your business model is. Like what are the right numbers, what are the right strategies, what are the right offers you should be making, what are the right marketing strategies you should be using?
It’s a super, fun tool. I absolutely love it, and am super, super proud of it.

Brad Dobson: People definitely like it.

Minette Riordan: It’s totally free. Right? We will ask for your email so maybe it’s not free.

Brad Dobson: That’s right.

Minette Riordan: Right, but it’s one of the ways that we build our community. We’re totally transparent about that, but it will also give you great insight into are you building the right business? Is that absolutely a match for your creative personality? You can find that at pathtoprofitacademy.com/quiz. Super easy. Pathtoprofitacademy.com/quiz.

Brad Dobson: And we’ll have that in the show notes.

Minette Riordan: We’ll have it in the show notes, and then once you take the quiz, or even before you take the quiz, we have an awesome Facebook group where we would love for you to come and share your goals and share them publicly in a safe place, and let us help hold you accountable for them. It’s being mentors, makers, and mavericks Facebook community.

Brad Dobson: Good stuff.

Minette Riordan: Yeah. Awesome, super, fun show.

Brad Dobson: Thanks guys.

Minette Riordan: Oh, well, we forgot to tell ’em.

Brad Dobson: What did we forget to tell them?

Minette Riordan: About what we’re gonna be talking about on the next episode.

Brad Dobson: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. [crosstalk 00:27:50]. Next month.

Minette Riordan: Yeah, we’re really having our own game and learning to get prepared and not work like total creatives who are constantly scrambling and be more intentional in our planning, and so, again, transparency, right? We are creatives, and we have many of the same struggles and challenges that you do. So what we hope is that from these episodes, like we said last time, you’re gonna hear a lot more from just Brad and I, and what’s working, and what are we using in terms of technology and strategies to make sure that we are staying on track and staying on that path to profit.
So you wanna share what episode number 78 is, or do you want me to? ‘Cause this is like your baby. You’re so excited about this episode.

Brad Dobson: Well, I think we were gonna just say that the next month’s theme flows from our goal-setting theme this month.

Minette Riordan: Yep.

Brad Dobson: Which is business planning. All next month business planning. Yeah, we’re gonna talk about technology next week.

Minette Riordan: Specifically about our favorite online business-planning tools. These are the things that we use.

Brad Dobson: We’ll geek out a little bit.

Minette Riordan: Yeah, especially him. He is the geek. When it comes to technology anyway. So these are the specific automation tools, online tools that we use to stay in touch with our team, to communicate with each other, and to stay on track and on task with everything we need to do to make the Path to Profit Academy continue to grow and flourish. Now I think we’re done.

Brad Dobson: Okay.

Minette Riordan: Bye, everybody. We’ll see you next time on episode number 78.

Brad Dobson: Bye, guys. Thanks for listening.