By Leon Johnson
Self-made successful business owners all have at least one thing in common. They understand the importance of setting a goal properly. However, there's a vast difference between setting a goal and setting a realistic goal.
Unfortunately, most folks set goals that are not realistic. And when they fall short of achieving their unrealistic goals, they give up. Their business ends before having a chance to really get going.
For example, let's say that you've just started a brand-new mail order business. Would a realistic goal be to make a $10,000 profit the first month? You're probably thinking, "Of course not." What about after six months? Or a year? Or five years? Should we simply pick a number out of the sky? As you can see, setting a realistic goal may not be as easy as it seems. It can depend on any number of variables and circumstances.
But pulling a goal out of the sky may do you more harm than good. You'd be surprised at the number of folks who have a goal to be rich in a very short time period. Some think they can do it in a few short weeks. And even others attempt to do it in less than seven days. Wow!
Of course, much of the unrealistic goal setting is due to the enormous amount of hype in the mail-order industry. The truth is that it's almost unheard of to show "black ink" (profit) in the first year of business. Typically, you'll show "red ink" (loss) for the first year or two and perhaps even break even at two or three years. If you make a profit in your second year, you're definitely doing better than average. That's why savvy business folks use a five-year time span to develop a profitable business. And all "profits" are normally put back into the business in the early years. Therefore you may be showing "red ink," yet your business could be growing like crazy.
Therefore, setting a goal should involve much more than just a desire to get rich in a certain time period. You should do some market testing before you establish a goal. That way, your goal will be much more realistic and not some "pie-in-the-sky" brainstorm.
Here's a hypothetical example: Let's say that you need one thousand repeat customers to produce the income you desire. So prior to setting your goal, you would test your mailing list to determine the amount of time, expense, and effort it takes to get one repeat customer. If it takes an average of one day to get one customer, it would take approximately 1,000 days to get 1,000 customers. One thousand divided by 365 days equals 2.74 years to get 1,000 customers. That's almost three years.
In this case, would it be realistic to set your goal at three months or even six months? Absolutely not. If you work really hard, you might accomplish your goal in two and a half years. And that's why it's so very important to do some market testing before setting your goal. It can make a difference between success and failure.
Now here's a common mistake that many folks make. And it's largely due to inexperience and lack of knowledge of mail order in general. The mistake is the belief that most everyone will respond favorably to their offer.
As a result, they purchase a mailing list of 100 names and addresses. And their plan is to do this every month for a year. A year equals 1200 prospects and since they believe that 90 percent of those will become steady customers, they expect 90 new customers per month or 1080 customers in one year. Since it takes 1,000 customers to produce the income they desire, they set their goal at one year.
And, of course, they fail.
In fact, they realize they have failed after the first month. Why? Because an excellent response rate for a 100-piece mailing isn't 90 percent. It's not 50 percent. It's not even 10 percent. It's more like one percent. And that's only if you have a super duper offer and an outstanding mailing list. So instead of getting 90 customers as planned, the person in this example got only one customer. And that, of course, is excellent for such a tiny mailing.
Furthermore, if the marketer in this example decided to keep mailing for a year, he/she would have closer to 12 customers at the end of the year, not 1080 customers. So always remember, regardless of what business you're in, market testing will bring a degree of reality into the picture. It will give you a much better perspective of what you should expect.
And that's of prime importance to you and your future.
Leon Johnson offers advertising/marketing and income opportunity reports. If you own a computer, you can advertise on and off the Internet simultaneously. And on a "Teenie-Weenie" budget. And IBM disk "Brings Cash!" Get it now! Send one dollar shipping and handling to:
Leon Johnson 1928 E. Highland Suite F104-443 Phoenix, AZ 85015-4626
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