When you have time, take a trip to heathbrothers.com. It's the site of Dan and Chip Heath, who wrote "Made to Stick" and my new favourite, "Switch." Behaviour modification is what we're about here, and if you can learn to do it better, your members will benefit in enormous ways.
Yesterday, I wrote a little piece about how to help clients set goals more effectively. Today, we're going to sit you on the other side of the table.
This process will take about ten minutes, and I'll formalize the process with a worksheet (attached at the end of this post.) Use the worksheet with your members, and adapt them for business use for your Affiliate. These are mostly subjective goals, for now. I've been laying out the business goal-setting process in previous posts (starting with The Consultant) and these are effective ways to make sure you're setting the RIGHT goals and making milestones along the way.
First, choose a high-level goal. For example, let's say that you'd like to earn $100,000 in personal income from your Box in the next three years.
Step #1: What's already working? This is a critical step, because most people focus too much on the negative. This draws a protective line around your foundation.
Example: Membership is growing at XBox, my Affiliate. 50 people are paying the $135/mo CrossFit membership.
Example: We have an OnRamp program that attracts 10 new people every month.
Example: Last year, our gross revenues were $150,000 at XBox.
It's not as if you're starting from scratch. Like your clients, you're probably doing a lot of things correctly already. It's critical that you KEEP DOING those things. Draw a line around them: we won't drastically alter the things that are already delivering for you. If your goal is to make $100,000 income this year, and you made $50,000 last year, you wouldn't start by scrapping everything and starting over, I hope, just as you wouldn't hope that the numbers would improve on their own.
Identify what makes those things BRIGHT SPOTS. How do you feel, knowing that your membership is growing? What are your numbers like? Are you in the black every month? Did you add new staff? Are your members happy? Do you have more free time? Is your stress level lower? Are you making more money?
NOW, let's identify some bright spots in the upcoming year, using the criteria from the last paragraph to define your BRIGHT SPOTS.
1) How will you feel when your membership reaches 75 people? Self-satisfied? How will your numbers look? Will your members be happy? WIll you have more free time? Will your stress level be lower? Will you make more money?
2) What will change when your membership reaches 100 people? Will you stay at home on Fridays? Will you buy some new rowers? Will you take your Level II Cert? Will you build a 'rest area' for your clients? Will your paycheque be larger? Will THAT make you happier? Will you use the extra revenue to pay staff so that you can pursue other things with your time?
From these Bright Spots, it's easier to draw up strategies and smaller-target goals. In the example above, if increasing your membership to 75 people will make you feel satisfied, improve your numbers by X amount (be precise here,) give you more free time, and decrease stress, focus on those things. Write a plan toward those ends. Work backward using the methods we've been discussing over the last two months to deliver THOSE goals with the aim of reaching your High-Level Goals. Much better than just reaching for a boring numbers target, because now you've attached an emotional connection to the goal. Your elephant is motivated.
If you don't recognize the 'motivated elephant' reference, read Chapter 1 from Switch here.
A worksheet for change: Download my own Bright Spots Worksheet here:
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