Why I Love Setting (and Achieving) Goals

When I was planning to go to college, I had a difficult decision to make. What do I want to do with my life? After four years of playing high school golf, captaining my team and dedicating myself to golf, my fork in the road only went in two directions: playing golf professionally or getting involved in the business side of the sport.

Ultimately, I decided to go to Las Vegas, where I would spend the next four years studying professional golf management and recreation management at UNLV while participating in internships at some of the nation’s best courses.

Following graduation, I held a variety of golf-related positions, continued to play golf and became a member of the PGA. After working in golf marketing, I realized that I loved being on the business side of my favorite sport; so much, in fact, that I decided to open a golf facility in Canada that offers, among other things, simulated play, lessons, and a pro shop.

None of this would be possible if I hadn’t learned about the importance of goal-setting. Today, I realize how extremely important it is in business. I love goal-setting because it helps me move forward in my career.

I believe that everyone who owns or runs a business should set goals and stick to them. They give you something concrete and specific to strive for. Here’s how I approach them.

First, ask yourself what you want to accomplish. It should be both ambitious and attainable, and stated in specific terms. Maybe you want to grow revenue by X percent over the next year. It might be that you want to introduce a new product, service or brand by a certain date. Perhaps you ‘d like to open a new branch or location. By doing this you’re giving yourself a to-do item and a deadline. Both components are very important. It’s really easy, without a timeframe, to say you’ll do it someday. Having a deadline keeps you on track to succeed.

Second, your goal should be integrated with your business strategy. In other words, once you’ve established your goal, you’ll want to develop a list of all the action items it will take to achieve it. Action is a key word here. Goals are only ideas until you apply action to them to make them happen. And each action item on your to-do list relevant to achieving that goal should have its own deadline. I would suggest using your deadline for reaching the goal as a target date and work backward from there to create the strategy (again, with deadlines) that you’ll employ to achieve that goal.

Third, once you’ve established your goal, you must monitor progress on an ongoing basis. This will help you ensure that you’re staying on track. It’s very easy to be distracted by day-to-day- things that take attention away from your progress toward your goals. If you want to reach your goal by the date you’ve established, you have to check in regularly to ensure that everything is happening when it’s supposed to. Hopefully you’ll see that you’re making good progress, but maybe you’ll find you’ve fallen behind. In that case, you’ll need to modify what you’re doing, or modify the goal. For example, you might want to achieve your goal by April 1 but now you realize that it’s not realistic to for that to happen until May 1 or June 1. Had you not set a specific goal upfront, you might not have even addressed it until the following year.

Many business leaders start each calendar year, or each fiscal year, with a list of annual goals. Those goals are often broken into monthly objectives that help them and their team work toward achievement one step at a time. In today’s hectic business environment, that makes perfect sense. As you move across your timeline and experience incremental progress, you’ll be motivated to keep working hard, working smart and working toward reaching your goals.

Then, once you reach your goals, you can take satisfaction in it. There are few things in business more satisfying than being able to occasionally stop, take a break and say, “We did it.”

A Secret to Business Success: Always Be Learning

There was a time when entrepreneurs and business leaders had a somewhat limited 
knowledge base that would help guide them through 40 or more years of their career. 
Things didn’t change much. They did business with a certain set of customers while 
continuing to pitch and sell new ones on essentially the same products and services 
they’d been selling since they started. Sure, there were small changes and the 
occasional new advances. But for the most part, as you can see in Barry Levinson’s 
excellent movie Tin Men, aluminum siding back then was aluminum siding.

How things have changed. My generation grew up with access to the entire world via 
our computers and smartphones. We know who’s doing what at any hour of the day. 
Real-time is the rule, not the exception. And thanks to technology, we can be not only 
aware of new business developments in mere seconds, but we can also make deals 
and communicate with colleagues and customers anywhere in the world whenever 
we want to. What this means to entrepreneurs and business leaders is that it’s crucial 
to continue increasing your knowledge to stay competitive. Learn as much as you can 
as often as you can. 

Today, there is no dearth of opportunities for business leaders to continue enriching 
themselves about their industries, the business world and the newest developments in 
virtually any field. What used to be called continuing education is now everyday education. 
The information is out there and much of it is free.

I urge you: take advantage of it.

As a student in Las Vegas, and later, as a professional in the golfing and hospitality 
environment, I always tried to learn new things that would help me navigate my career 
and move myself toward success.

I was also regularly attending events that enabled me to not only market the products I 
was hired to represent, but to learn what others were selling. Seeing and trying new 
things and comparing and contrasting them gave me a real edge in my chosen industry. 
My mind was active. Learning new things in the golfing business was always, and 
continues to be, time well spent.

If you own a company, want to own one or just want to be really valuable in the company 
for which you work, I strongly recommend becoming a lifelong learner. Know your 
landscape better than anyone else in it. Look for online or in-person classes or courses 
that can help you develop new skills or enhance the ones you already have. Attend trade 
shows and conventions where you can network with others. Check out websites on a 
regular basis, especially news sites and those that cover your business interests. 

It’s a global marketplace these days, my friend. Knowing as much as you can about the 
world economy and other cultures, as well as what’s happening in other countries’ 
industries, will also enhance your already stellar leadership skills. If information is power, 
education is the advantage.