A New Year, a new you? It doesn’t have to be quite so drastic…
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But one thing is for sure: if you’re looking for different results, then different actions are necessary.
Let’s take growth, for example – it’s typically a big one when considering goals. Personal growth, business growth, financial growth – they’re all things you want.
But how do you put together a growth-focused goal with the smaller steps necessary to actually help you get there?
It starts with setting a SMART Goal
A SMART Goal is:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Attainable
- Relevant
- Time-bound
You can check out this post for a deep dive into how to get started with your own SMART Goal, but for example’s sake we’ll cover one here in this post, too.
Creating a SMART goal is important because it’s what will allow you to put a plan in place you can execute on, along with a specific goal date to help hold you accountable.
Goal: Get more qualified leads for your business
Let’s say your growth goal is business-related: you’re looking to get more qualified leads for your business.
But getting more qualified leads for your business doesn’t meet any of the SMART criteria, so you’ll have to put it to the test.
Specific: Bring on paid beta members for my new marketing services package who are tech savvy business owners.
Measurable: Bring on 5 paid beta members for my new marketing services package who are tech savvy business owners.
Attainable: If I can reach out to and engage 250 qualified leads, then I know a 2% conversion (5 of 250) is attainable.
Relevant: Yes, beta testing my marketing services will help me turn this into a strong offer moving forward.
Time-bound: I will bring on 5 paid beta members for my new marketing services package who are tech savvy business owners by May 1, 2018.
Now that you have your SMART Goal set, it’s time to start putting a plan in place you can execute on.
Putting a plan in place
You know from reading about the importance of knowing your avatar, your niche and building a strong foundation for your business that you can’t just jump from launching a website, or a blog, or a podcast, or a YouTube channel, to suddenly getting lots of qualified leads on your list that you’ll automatically convert into paying customers.
So your first step, which you could think of like your first micro-goal, is to understand who this marketing services package is for, specifically.
Go ahead and brainstorm it out…
- What does this person’s business look like now?
- What are their biggest marketing struggles?
- How will your services help them solve those struggles?
- Where do they want to be in their business?
Once you know exactly who it is you want as a beta member, there are a couple of different options.
Option 1
Do your own lead generation to find this person.
Option 2
Automate your lead generation with a platform like LeadFuze.
Let’s look at option 1 first.
Doing your own Lead Generation
Since you’ve already defined who it is you want as a beta member, you know who you need to find.
Now, you need to figure out where you’re going to find them.
This means your next micro-goal will be to decide where you’re going to find your avatar, and which manner you’ll engage with them:
- Online communities or at in-person events
- Through referrals
- With content marketing
It might be on social media, in online communities, at in-person networking events, or through personal referrals.
You could also take the content marketing route and try to attract your avatar to you through providing free, valuable and consistent content. This is what we’ve done here at Entrepreneurs On Fire with our daily podcast.
This will take time and require hard work, so you have to patient.
Remember, this is a measurable goal, so you should always be checking in with your timeline to be sure you’re on track when you start a new micro-goal.
In this example, given that you need to find 250 leads, which route will you take?
Once you’ve decided where you’re going to find your avatar, the fun part comes into play: engaging with them!
You not only need to know your avatar is on point (meaning, the avatar your defined actually exists, you’ve found them, and they’re interested in what you have to offer), but also that they’re a good fit for you and your services.
Your next micro-goal is to have at least 10 one-on-one conversations with your avatar – offer up a free 10 minute chat, or meet up at a coffee shop to chat about what they have going on.
Your goal in connecting and communicating with them one-on-one is to confirm that:
- They are, in fact, your avatar (your perfect customer)
- What you’ve put together can and will help them solve their biggest struggle
Now all that’s left to do is rinse and repeat.
Where can you find more of your avatars?
How can you start to reach them on a one-to-many level?
This might be through building an email list and campaign that introduces your marketing services, or maybe via a live training webinar you offer.
Remember, your goal is to reach at least 250 of your avatars, so always have that part of your goal in mind.
Now that you have an overview of how you might go about doing your own lead generation, let’s look at option 2: using software like LeadFuze that can help automate it.
Automating your Lead Generation
In a nutshell, LeadFuze (that’s our affiliate link) automates the heavy lifting when it comes to finding – and starting to develop a relationship with – qualified leads for your business.
But to get way more specific, let’s look at the steps you would take on your own if you were to go out and start looking for qualified leads for your business (this is assuming you’re a B2B business):
- Research who those people are and start building a list of companies
- Finding contacts at those companies you can reach out to
- Verifying contact details
- Preparing a message to send them
- Send that message
- Following up until you get a response
These are the steps that LeadFuze automates for you, and here’s how…
How does LeadFuze do it?
Once you know who you’re trying to reach (your avatar), you would put that information in LeadFuze. Let’s carry our example over from option 1: say you’re trying to pitch marketing services to other tech savvy business owners.
First thing you’re going to do is select the industries you’re interested in – let’s say Computer Software and Internet Technology are two that are high on your list given your avatar.
Next, you would look at the role of the person you’re trying to reach within the industries you’ve selected.
You can start typing in job titles yourself, or select from LeadFuze’s pre-built filters. You can even use “negative keywords” to exclude certain roles from showing in your search results, which will help you dial in your targeting.
Then, you’ll want to identify any other traits of your avatar you want LeadFuze to know about before it performs your search for you.
This might include something like “Employee Size” (so you can exclude companies that have more than X number of employees).
You might also think of this criteria in terms of revenue. If so, LeadFuze recommends using a simple formula for calculating estimated revenue based on the employee size: ($150,000) x (number of employees).
It’s generally somewhere between $100,000 and $200,000, but as a rule of thumb the $150,000 is recommended. That said, some industries are on a whole other level, so be sure to do your due diligence before relying on this equation.
So let’s say you want to work with businesses that are doing $100 million in revenue. That equates to about 660 employees. So in LeadFuze, you’d start with 500+ employees.
Once you have all your information set, LeadFuze will perform your search, and you’ll receive a screen like this:
Based on the search criteria for those two industries, LeadFuze has found just over 16,000 leads available.
A lead is considered someone who LeadFuze has put through their double verification process, which results in single digit bounce rates. This is important since that can impact your future deliverability.
Once you assign Fuzebot, he’ll do all the work of building your list for you. No more researching companies, finding contact details, and verifying information – the prospecting is all done for you.
As we covered in option 1, the next step is to reach out to them and connect, and LeadFuze automates that, too! (Click here to get the full rundown on LeadFuze and everything it can help you do)
Conclusion
If you’re looking for different results this year than you saw last year, then different actions are necessary.
Whether you’re after personal growth, business growth, financial growth, or some other type of growth, there are simple steps you can take to get there, and oftentimes platforms available that can help.
All it takes is getting started with a SMART goal and a plan.
