How to get a Fast Start for 2010

By richscot, on December 28th, 2009

Do you normally take January to get your head into gear and start to plan in February so that by March you are ready to rock and roll ? The problem is you realise that you’ve now lost two months and if you are chasing objectives, targets and deadlines you could be stressed out and in trouble with the boss.

I am certainly guilty of this scenario and have paid the price over and over again which can take you the remainder of the year to recover.

So if you want to stop creating stress in your life and stop chasing your tail then you have the choice to fast start your year. How do I do that I hear you say?

Define your objectives for the year

•   Personal business commitments
•   Targets & deadlines
•   Other measurements
•   Development goals

Don’t know what they are or haven’t been told ? Not a good excuse – they will likely be like last year so use them as a base and add 10% to any targets.

Do research on your field via internet

Use search engines like yahoo!, google and bing to research what are the expected trends for your market or business area for the prevailing year. Think about what the claims versus what you know – if it sounds logical then include it in your plans.

Note: your marketing department may have done this for you already!

Create a Fast Start Plan

Create a 30/60/90 Day plan which incorporates all the things within your objectives and allows you to get started straight away and build up to a solid first 3 months.

e.g. First 30 Days:
1.   Break up Full Year Target into Monthly Goals
2.   Analyse Top 20 Clients for potential business
3.   Define Gap between Top 20 and Full Year Target
4.   Call all Top 20 Clients for ‘ New Year Call ‘

In all likelihood this will put you way beyond your peers whom are still drinking coffee and talking about ‘how they can’t believe it’s the new year‘ or ‘I can’t believe my holiday is over!’.

If you choose to show your manager your plan – don’t be surprised if they ask you to present this to your team or peers. This is a good opportunity for ‘self promotion’ if it presents itself. Doing this in a humble way will make people aspire to copy you and not think you’re sucking up to the boss.