Tag: metrics

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Implementing Your Goals

Annual goals

In honor of this past week’s AQR Academy session, we’re covering how to implement your goals.

Step 1: Create Yearly Goals

Start by defining five big goals. Some examples include increasing sales by a certain percentage, gaining new online qualified leads, upgrading technology, etc.

Although defining these goals might not be easy, they should be simple. By that we mean if you can’t write down your goals on a napkin, you have too many to feasibly accomplish.

Step 2: Define Quarterly Benchmarks

The next step is to create an action plan. Start by breaking down these goals into metrics. At the end of each quarter, what sort of growth would you like to see as progress to accomplishing your end result?

Step 3: Weekly and Daily Tasks

Now comes the mundane part. After setting quarterly metrics, break down what needs to happen each week, then each day, to get to these metrics. A good goal to have is 15 tasks a week, or 3 tasks a day.

How does this help? By setting aside the time to define what forward movement looks like, you can get right into the difficult work knowing that it’s moving you towards your yearly goal.

Be Flexible and Stay Motivated

This structure is a great place to start, but don’t be too hard on yourself. Flexibility is a good thing and some weeks certain tasks are going to slide—and that’s ok!

Keep in mind what sorts of activities help to keep you on track. Whether that be daily exercise or silent time to yourself, those goals are just as important to schedule into your days and weeks.

Inspiration for this week’s blog comes from “Implement Your Goals” by Beth Montpas published in the April 2022 issue of American Quilt Retailer.

If you’re looking for more information to guide you in owning a retail business, subscribe to American Quilt Retailer today. Already a subscriber? No worries—join our Facebook group for insights and dialogue from industry specialists like you. And don’t forget, you can always purchase single issues if you prefer that instead.

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Check in on those goals

Goals

Before we jump into today’s blog, we wanted to let you know about an event were throwing next Thursday, February 4th at noon CST.

The first AQR Academy will be a Zoom workshop dedicated to making social media work for you, including Creating Content to Sell and How to Get Your Social Media Moving.

Still not convinced to join? We forgot to mention the workshop will feature internationally sought out content strategist Kristy Honsvick and social media strategist, consultant, and trainer Hollie Clere.

Feel like you’re missing out? You can still purchase the recordings and digital recap from 2020 Academy events.

Now, on to those goals.

Goals, goals, goals

We’re already one month into 2021, which means it’s the perfect time to check in on how your goals are doing.

What was your focus for this year? Reducing expenses? Increasing efficiencies? Improving customer experiences? Whatever it is, know that if you don’t have a metric to measure progress, you’re going to want to find a way how.

As we know, data can be extremely helpful, but don’t get bogged down in having too much of it. Similarly, some employees can be extremely motivated by data. Find a way to publicly post metrics. Of course, you don’t want to make anyone feel bad about their performance, so encourage each employee to hit the same goal each week. If you have a weekly training, schedule time for questions so they can talk to each other about what works (or doesn’t).

Then, check in on the status. If you’re not on track to reach your goal, consider changing your performance (or even altering the goal itself).

Good luck from us friends at AQR! We know you can do it.

If you’re looking for more information to guide you in owning a retail business, subscribe to American Quilt Retailer today. Already a subscriber? No worries—join our Facebook group for insights and dialogue from industry specialists like you.