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Today I want to share an effective idea in regards to setting smart business goals.

A fun little secret?

Work backwards.

Let me explain.

Start with a money goal

It helps if that goal has a meaning beyond the dollar amount.

Example: a new car.

The payment is around $400. To account for things like taxes + insurance + whatever ridiculous fees they come up with, let’s bump it to $600.

Basically, I need to add an extra $600 (at the very least) to my monthly bottom line. Once that’s done and I am seeing that level of income on a regular basis, I’m ready to order my new car.

*I have added a link to my Finances Planner in the Resources section at the bottom of this post to help this whole process.

time to get creative

Once you know how much money you’ll need, it’s time to get creative and brainstorm different ways to do just that.

You could find more customers for one or several of your existing products.

Example: if you have a $10 eBook, you would have to make an extra 60 sales per month.

From there, work backwards.

a little math..

Let’s say about 10% (on average) of your subscriber list buy your book within the first month of signing up.

In order to get to those 60 sales, you’ll need 600 new subscribers.

After studying your analytics, you realize that is going to take about 4,000 new visitors to your site to get those subscribers.

So that’s your plan: 4k new eyeballs on your offer.

So what now?

Tailor your daily to-do list.

Include plenty of traffic-inducing tasks to ramp up the number of daily visitors for your site.

Of course that’s not the only option.

two other options

1. Create another info product or ebook each month.
2. Create a high-ticket item so you would need fewer sales to reach your goal.

Sell the info product or ebook to both new and existing customers.

High-ticket item example: (still keeping that $600 in mind) creating a value-packed $100 product would mean you only need 6 sales to reach that goal.

recurring revenue

Since the car payment will be an ongoing thing, it also makes sense to look into recurring payments.

This could be:

• Starting your own membership
• Affiliate offers with recurring commissions

Depending on your market, there’s plenty out there that you can promote.

One option: create some content around content marketing and promote a PLR Membership like this one form Piggy Makes Bank: (see links below in the Resources section).

It’s a $67 per month subscription with a 50% commission, so I can expect $30+ in commissions monthly. In order to make that car payment, I would only need 20 sales through my link.

Of course, you have to figure in a cancellation here and there, so getting 1-3 more members each month should cover that.

Now I have a concrete goal to work towards: convincing 20 people to sign up for the membership.

setting your daily tasks

My daily tasks will include things like:

• Creating content that incudes the offer
• Creating a short report about using PLR (which will build a targeted list of people generally interested in PLR)

From there, I can:

• Start driving traffic to the content/opt-in offer
• Include blurbs/links in the newsletter
• Craft an autoresponder sequence to create an evergreen funnel

let’s keep it going

Of course that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

It’s time to expand.

You could approach another blogger (like the super cool chicks from Piggy Makes Bank) to see if they would be interested in:

• Writing guest blog posts
• Answering some questions for an interview style post
• Doing a webinar

–> All of which would of course promote the membership.

By thinking outside the box and putting in some time and effort initially, it won’t take long to get those 20 signups that pay for the new car payment.

Making your goal something you really, really want is going to make you even more motivated to grow your business to make it happen.

In fact, chances are great that you’ll end up overshooting the goal and it’s still something you can continue to grow month after month.

Stock Photos:

Ivory Mix

resources

Piggy Makes Bank Memberships

Join them yourself or join to be an affiliate:

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• Self-Help Membership: 30 Days of “Done for You” Content EVERY MONTH to help you grow your list and inspire activity in your community
• Health & Wellness Membership: Monthly Content in the Health & Wellness Niche

Finances Planner

Everything you need to keep track of your finances!

• Yearly Finance At A Glance
• 2-page Monthly & Weekly Planners
• Trackers for: Debt Payoff, Yearly Bills, Emergency & Vacation Funds, Car Payoff
• Monthly Budget, Expenses & Savings
• Budget Plan
• & MORE!

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