Goal Setting & Accountability for Your Business
Today I have an extra-special blog post brought to you by my podcast, Cradle to Corporate. Due to some technical difficulties with my audio, my usual podcast episode will instead be coming to you this week as a blog post. I had the pleasure of speaking with Stephanie Marquardt of Continuous Synergy, and she had some amazing insight into the goal-setting process. I learned so much from our conversation, and I know you'll learn a lot too!
If you want to find out more about Stephanie, you can find her on Facebook, LinkedIn, and her website. To gain access to her Goal Calendar, an asset she made just for you, sign up for her newsletter here.
Without further ado, here's my interview with Stephanie!
The Interview
Grace: Hello, it’s Grace, your host, and today I have with me Stephanie Marquardt of Continuous Synergy.
Stephanie: Hi Grace, thank you so much for having me today.
Grace: Hi, it’s so great to have you on! So Stephanie is here to talk with me about motivation and what it takes to start your own business. So why don’t you start with your own entrepreneurial journey? Just how you started your own business.
Stephanie: Sure, so I’m a recent business owner, like many of you that are reading today. I was previously a chief operating officer for a company of about 150 employees that was a defense contractor, so winning contracts with the federal government. And having been with the company for over 10 years, I had wanted to explore other opportunities and learn from others about the operational profession. So I left the company in the middle of COVID and started looking for new job opportunities, but as I started looking, I realized that, given the job landscape this last year - I started thinking that I wanted to do project work for companies rather than looking for a full-time job. So as I talked to people in my network, they encouraged me to go for it and said I should just consider incorporating. So the seed was planted and I decided, yep, that sounds like a great way to go, and I got really excited about it, and I was excited because I could work with multiple businesses and not just help one. So that’s how Continuous Synergy was established! I provide part-time operations/COO services to small businesses, and also work with businesses that are interested in winning federal government contracts.
Grace: Wow, that’s amazing! Thank you so much for sharing that. So as someone who’s been through this process of starting your own business, what’s some advice you can give to someone who’s just starting out?
Stephanie: Yeah, definitely! I would say one of the biggest pieces of advice I say is “don’t feel overwhelmed”. It’s okay to feel that but remember that you can just take one step at a time moving forward to get where you want to be. So just take one step at a time, which is why I think it's so important to set up goals.
Grace: Yeah, so when it comes to goal setting - because I know when I was starting my business, I had all of these huge, lofty goals, but I didn’t really put a framework in place to reach those goals. I kinda just had vague goals, so of course most of them didn’t get reached until I was able to put that framework into place. So when you’re setting up goals, do you have any concrete tips for making those goals a little bit easier to attain?
Stephanie: Sure! So one of the big things that maybe people have heard about is the acronym SMART. So when you think of a goal, you want to write it out and make it specific, not making it too broad, like “I’m Starting a Business”, you know? So make it like “this is the type of business I would like to start”, make it a little more specific, make sure you have a measurable metric that you’re going to track. So if that’s number of customers or how much income you want to bring in, something so you can say, “I’ve met half of my goal”, make sure it’s attainable. That sort of means that sometimes its great to have a stretch goal, and maybe you want one of those stretch goals that’s a little more out of reach to just push yourself, but the other goals should be more realistic. That means they need to be relevant to what you’re trying to do as a business owner, you want to make sure its aligned with your strategy and what you overall want to do. And the last one is time-based, so this is a big one. There’s a lot of systems out there and a lot of companies that have 10-year plans, and look-aheads. Well I found, and I would think as a new business, it's a little bit hard to say 10 years, it seems way far out there, so I suggest that you just think about the one year. What do I want to accomplish one year from today, when I’m starting my business. That seems more attainable, and you can work back from there.
Grace: Yeah, that’s really smart! I know that when I was first starting, definitely there’s a lot of pressure to play things out by 5 or 10 years, but when you’re starting out, those seem so far in the future and so impossible. But one year, that’s an amazing idea! It's enough time to get things done, but it's not so much time that it's overwhelming.
Stephanie: Yeah, so that’d definitely be the thing I recommend, look at the one year. Then in your second year of business, maybe look at three years, you can always change it.
Grace: That’s so true, I think a lot of entrepreneurs and small business owners, we feel pressured to follow the paths of the people that have gone before us, and that’s not always going to be relevant or helpful to us, so making things flexible and being able to adapt other people’s strategies to our own business is super crucial.
Stephanie: Yes, I totally agree. And the second thing I would mention is not to put too many goals out there for yourself. It can make you feel very scattered and overwhelmed, so probably no more than 5 goals, and that might be even a bit much depending on what you want to accomplish and the effort required to meet those goals.
Grace: So in talking about goals, like how many and what kind of goals to set, you work specifically with the operational side of business, so what are some goals that you recommend setting operationally, or that you personally have businesses set operationally?
Stephanie: That’s great, because that was one of my next points I was going to say, too. Usually in a business you can set up your goals as marketing goals, finance goals, operational goals and such. So as a business owner, one of the goals I set early for myself was a CRM system so that I could track people I was talking to. I realized very early on that I was just writing things on paper and that was not keeping me organized, so I invested in a Customer Relations Management System where I could track all of that. That’s a big thing with operations, just decide on a system you can use to help you track tasks and invoices and even the conversations you have with potential clients.
Grace: Yeah, and there are so many tools out there for new business owners that are looking to put together a CRM system or some way of tracking those conversations. So when I started, I was using HubSpot, because that’s free, and then of course MailChimp has a CRM aspect to it, but right now I’m using something called HoneyBook, which I love. So what kind of CRM’s have you used and liked?
Stephanie: So I’ve used, well what I’m using for myself is InfusionSoft (now Keap), and there is a fee but its not too much, and I like it because it is all-inclusive, with invoicing, it can do email campaigns, and tracking those conversations. And I can also put tasks in there, so I can make myself a task and get a reminder on it which I love! But I will say, for one of the business clients I’m working for, they’re a lot bigger company and they have about 100 employees and I’m helping them implement Wrike, which is a CRM or operations system for their project management team. So they’ll be able to track their deliverables, they’ll be able to coordinate across the different functional teams within their organization within that system, so that’s one thing that I’m helping businesses with, is implementing or putting into place systems like that when they’re bigger.
Grace: Yeah, cause there are so many amazing CRM programs and websites, but what I’m really hearing from you is that none of them are really one-size-fits-all, there’s some that work better for small businesses and solopreneurs that wouldn’t necessarily work for huge corporations, so there’s definitely a need to kind of learn and research and find the programs and systems that work for you as a business owner.
Stephanie: Yes, exactly. And I will say that its great to integrate as much as you can so you’re not using too many systems, cause then it’s a little hard to make sure you're as efficient as you can be. So that’s one of the goals from the operational side, but I also will say that for myself, as a new business owner, having left the W-2 employee job, one of my goals was to essentially replace my salary that I was making, right? So that’s a monetary goal I have for myself and so I’m looking to make that my one year goal, but I’m breaking that down into, “what does that mean I have to do each quarter to meet that goal?”, and then even further to monthly. So again, that could mean a lot of different things, for example, it could be how many new clients I want to work with in the next quarter. So you want to break it down into quarterly, monthly, and even weekly to that small amount, so that you can focus on making sure you’re meeting those goals. And I’d say that every week you want to look at what you did accomplish and ask if you’re on the right track, cause you don’t want to wait till the first quarter is done and see that you haven’t met any of your goals, and try to cram it into the next three quarters. So you really want to, even if its just yourself at the beginning, sit down and review what it is you said you would do, and see how you’re doing.
Grace: Yeah, well another thing about breaking goals down like that, not only does it keep you focused, but it makes them so much more attainable. So if you have that goal of wanting to reach your former salary that first year, depending on your salary, that could be really intimidating. But if you’re breaking it down into quarters and months and weeks, suddenly its not all that scary, and huge goals that you set for yourself doesn't seem as intimidating, they seem a lot more manageable, so breaking them down into smaller, bite-sized pieces is so helpful when you’re starting out your business.
Stephanie: Yes, exactly. And like I said before, especially if you’re the only person in your business, you just have to focus on what your priority is, and that can change every quarter too. So if you want to focus more marketing in the first quarter, second quarter you’re looking more into the operations side or something, you can change your focus so you don’t feel that every goal is a priority at the same time. You could also not only look at revenue, but I was also thinking of examples like building an email list. So put out a number, like you want to have so many followers or people on your email list by the end of the year, and you just break that down by every quarter, and it helps you.
Grace: Yeah and especially with follower counts, whether that’s social media or email, I know that when I was setting goals with a client at the beginning of our quarter last year, the client didn’t really have a great understanding of social media marketing, so the goals they wanted to set were absolutely huge. We had like 130 followers on their instagram and they wanted to get to 1000 in a few months, which terrified me! So part of it is setting realistic goals, like we talked about. But then also I was able to reach for the stars a bit just by breaking it down into months. So obviously we're not at 1000 yet, but we’ve gotten so much further than I expected at the time because I just broke it down into monthly amounts and shot for those high numbers.
Stephanie: And the other great thing about that too is it keeps the motivation and energy towards that goal, right? If you put something out there that’s unattainable , you might feel down on yourself for not meeting that goal, and you want to feel energized and motivated. And if it is far-reaching because you’re sort of new, you can give yourself a pass and say “well I will get it next time”, and realize that it’s a bit of a stretch goal, but you can recognize your progress and keep aiming for it. So you don’t have to feel down on yourself for not hitting white what you’d put out there. So it's good to put it into smaller chunks so that every step makes a difference.
Grace: Well and another aspect of mindset and motivation, you can set goals and break them down even, but sometimes just having the motivation to follow through can be really difficult. So taking stock of what you’ve done in the past as a reminder of what you can do in the future, that’s really helpful. Do you have any other tips who maybe are really good at setting goals but not so good at finding the motivation to achieve them?
Stephanie: Yeah sure, so one of the things that I sort of quote and mention a lot with clients is that the American Society for Training and Development has done research saying that if you tell someone of a goal, there’s a 65% chance that you will complete that goal, and there’s a 95% chance of meeting that goal if you set up a meeting to specifically discuss and have accountability on that goal. So one of the great things to do for yourself is to write them down, and maybe find an accountability partner that you need, maybe another new business owner, and you guys are your accountability partners, and you set up a weekly or bi-weekly meeting. There’s even associations out there, which I think is great, where you can get input and feedback, and everybody’s on the same mindset. Just having accountability with an association or one-on-one partner can be really helpful.
Grace: Yes, oh my gosh that’s so helpful! I think that it could make your goals more fun, which especially with the more “boring” goals, like the ones you have to set. Like for me, financial stuff isn’t super exciting, like I don’t want to think about how much money I’m bringing in, I just want to do my work and make an impact, which doesn’t pay the bills. So having those goals are super important, but meeting them can be hard if you’re not excited about them, but having someone to come alongside you and encourage you to reach those goals, that would make it so much easier. It helps you not only be aware of the goal but achieve it too, so accountability in goal-setting can be such a massively helpful thing.
Stephanie: Yeah, exactly. So I have an accountability partner and we meet bi-weekly, but I’ll say this, when I was working on my website, I felt ad that I hadn’t put it live yet and I’d talk to her and she told me to just put out a date for myself. So I picked a date and said “this is when it’s going to be done”, and I felt like I needed to tell her that I did it, and it pushed me a little bit to do that last little tweaks I wanted to make before I made it live. Because I had told her and I knew I’d meet with her, I wanted to be able to tell her I’d completed it, and it gave me a little bit more of a push.
Grace: I love that, and I’m definitely going to be finding someone to be an accountability partner with, because I am always struggling with that follow through, and I think having someone to talk about my goals and plans with could be so incredibly beneficial to me. But anyway Stephanie, thank you so much for sitting down with me and sharing all your expertise and insight, I have learned so much and I’m so excited set some new and better goals for my business.
Stephanie: Thanks so much for having me, I love helping business owners move forward in their business, and I really do think having some sort of structure for yourself to make sure you’re moving in the right direction is always so important, even if like you said, you’re a solopreneur and you're not quite ready for a big team yet, it will still help you grow.
