Tag Archives: goals

It’s goal time again.

But before setting goals for 2022, let’s take a look back.

How did I do in 2021?

Long-time readers will recall that as of January 8, 2021, I had five (actually six) goals for Bredemarket. So how did I do?

Goal 1: Help my clients to communicate and reach (and understand) their goals. Accomplished, and I got better at this over the year after I developed an intake form to look at my clients’ overall goals, benefits, and target audiences.

Goal 2: Pursue multiple income streams. Mostly accomplished, including income streams from new sources, although I’m still working on the local income stream.

Goal 3: Pursue multiple communication streams. Mostly accomplished, including a new LinkedIn showcase page, a new Instagram account, and a budding commitment to video. The podcast isn’t as active as it could be, though.

Goal 4: Eat my own iguana (actually wildebeest) food. Accomplished in a variety of ways, including submitting my own Request for Information (RFI) responses on behalf of Bredemarket.

Goal 5: Have fun. Accomplished (perhaps too much). I’m not sure how many people enjoy the YouTube music videos that are appended to more and more of my posts these days.

Goal 6: Be prepared to change. Accomplished so far, as I’ve rolled with the changes that took place in 2021.

But am I prepared for perhaps even greater changes in 2022?

What will I do in 2022?

The first tweak that I made to my goals for next year is that I’m defining fewer of them. I recently heard a suggestion that it’s best to only set two or three goals, rather than a slew of goals. Therefore some of my older goals, such as “have fun” and “be prepared to change,” are going to fall by the wayside.

The second tweak that I made is to make the goals SMARTer. While my 2021 goals were time-bound, they lacked specificity or measurability.

The third tweak…well, you’ll see it in a minute.

So what will I do in 2022?

Goal 1: Realize Bredemarket revenue from biometrics/identity, technology, and local business clients, as well as one other category to be determined. This goal encourages me to continue to realize biometrics/identity and technology revenue, start to realize local revenue, and to pursue revenue from a source that I haven’t even thought of yet.

Now the person who suggested that a business should only set two or three goals also stated that the business should define steps to realize each of these goals. I’m not going to share these steps here, in part because I haven’t figured then out yet. But I’m going to need to pursue some specific actions to continue established business and start new business.

And I obviously can make this goal smarter by targeting specific revenue amounts, which I’ve done in Goal 3.

Goal 2: Establish Bredemarket as a recognized authority in its market segments. Now I’m not talking about self-proclamation here (I’ve already done that for biometric content marketing and biometric proposal writing; I’m talking about having others recognize me in some substantive way. References from others are more powerful anyway.

Again, I need to figure out how to do this, and may even need to revise the goal to make it SMARTer once I figure this out.

Goal 3: This one’s a secret. I’ve set another goal that I’m not sharing publicly, but that clearly fits the SMART criteria. Now I have to see if I can do it.

OK, my goals are set. (Unless I change them.) Let’s see if I can meet them.

But if YOU need more robust goals…

If you think that my goal-setting process is too simple for you, and you would like to commit to a more robust process with annual and quarterly goals, as well as definition of the tasks that will help you accomplish the goals, you might want to sign up for Jay Clouse’s Annual Planning Workshop on Friday, December 17.

I will not be joining you, however. Not because I don’t think Jay Clouse’s workshops are of value; they certainly are (I created action items after attending his Invisible Selling workshop).

I won’t be joining you because I have a scheduling conflict.

(I may say more about my scheduling conflict in a future post.)

Cue the wildebeests. It’s goal revisiting time.

I haven’t taken the opportunity to look at how I’m doing on Bredemarket’s 2021 goals for a while. I last looked at all of the goals back on February 22. Needless to say, a lot has happened in the intervening months, some of which I can’t talk about yet.

But let’s proceed on a goal-by-goal basis.

Goal 1: Help my clients to communicate and reach (and understand) their goals. 

Most notably, I’ve improved my internal processes to ensure that I collaborate with my clients at the very beginning of an engagement. My latest tweaks to my engagement kickoff process were made just recently, but I’ve already been able to incorporate the process in two projects. So far it’s improved things dramatically.

Goal 2: Pursue multiple income streams. 

I’ve done a lot here.

• For indirect engagements, I’m now signed up with four different “intermediary services.” They haven’t really paid off yet in terms of income, but I’m constantly reminded (by words and actions) that it sometimes takes a LONG time to build up business.
• For direct engagements, I’m not only working on building up my customer base in my biometric sweet spot, but I’m also working on reinforcing my services for general technology clients AND expanding to local non-technology businesses.

And there are other things in the works.

Goal 3: Pursue multiple communication streams.

A lot has happened here also. Bredemarket is communicating through a number of avenues:

• This site and blog.
• Bredemarket’s Facebook page and the groups for identity, technology, and general business.
• Bredemarket’s LinkedIn page and the showcase pages for identity, technology, and local business.
• My professional Twitter account.
• The new Bredemarket Instagram account.
• The Bredemarket Anchor account.

Frankly, a lot of the items on these accounts are simple re-shares, but it helps to get the message to the people who need to see my message, in their preferred location to see my message. As I mentioned previously, I was initially reluctant to create an Instagram account…until I realized that many of my clients, potential clients, and evangelists are active on the platform.

Goal 4: Eat my own iguana food.

My offerings have evolved into two major categories: content creation and proposal services. And I’ve been generating my own content (see Goal 3) and my own proposals: not only to solicit client services, but also to express Bredemarket views on Requests for Comment here and there. (Here is an example.)

Oh, and regarding content, I’m slowly learning how to effectively use Canva, which I’ve used to create my business card and my most recent brochures.

Goal 5: Have fun.

Hey, I’m trying. The local marketing lets you see some interesting things.

Goal 6: Be prepared to change.

I’ve performed SOME efforts to create internal goals that are SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time bound), which has helped in the tracking.

As for change, I’m expanding my offerings to local businesses as previously mentioned, and may implement some other changes in the future which I can’t talk about yet. (Can I use the “p” word yet? Better not.)

You know, 2022 is coming.

But I’m not the only one who needs to set goals. You probably have some goals for your business also. Perhaps you set goals for 2021, achieving some, not achieving others. Perhaps you’re already starting to think about your goals for 2022.

Can Bredemarket help you with those goals? Do you have content creation goals? Do you need to improve your proposal process or your proposal standard text (boilerplate)? Do you need an easy-to-use template that conveys your message?

If Bredemarket can help you with any of these things, contact me.

• Send me an email at john.bredehoft@bredemarket.com.
• Or go to calendly.com/bredemarket to book a meeting with me.
• Or go to bredemarket.com/contact/ to use my contact form.

You will recall that I set goals for my consultancy Bredemarket in 2021. These goals were last revised on January 8, and I don’t see a pressing need to revise the actual goals at this time.

Well, except for the fact that I’m thinking about wildebeests rather than iguanas these days.

But this is a good time to see how I’m doing regarding my 2021 goals.

Goal 1: Help my clients to communicate and reach (and understand) their goals. 

You will recall that this is the “obvious” goal that some businesses don’t even explicitly mention because it should be second nature. Whether a business chooses to mention it or not, it’s essential that the business measure its ability to help its clients.

I cannot go into detail about what Bredemarket is doing with specific clients, but I do believe that I am assisting my clients in reaching their own goals. I’ve shared a testimonial that one of my clients gave me, and I have also received confidential feedback from clients about certain things that I have done for them.

Goal 2: Pursue multiple income streams. 

I’ve devoted a recent post to this, and things have only improved since then.

First, I have an update on my “I cried, I read, I (halfway) conquered” post in which I was trying to get two service listings approved on an (unnamed) intermediary service. When I last left the story, one of the service listings was approved, and the other wasn’t. After I slept on it some more, I revised the text for the second service listing to explicitly mention case studies. After this textual change, the second listing was approved. So I got another cookie.

Second, I have signed up with yet another intermediary service (IS) that allows me to work with a particular identity company. I was put in touch with this IS by a particular person. I would publicly identify that particular person, but if I did so, then everyone would know the identity company, and I make a practice of not identifying my clients. (Since I usually function as a ghostwriter, it’s not beneficial to me to say that I ghostwrote for Company X.) But I am thankful for that person’s efforts (and must privately thank the person personally once I finish this post). After signing up with the intermediary service, I immediately received a consulting request from the identity company, and was able to work on that request.

So now I’m signed up with multiple services, some of which are already providing consulting opportunities for me, and others which may provide opportunities in the future. We’ll see what happens.

Goal 3: Pursue multiple communication streams.

I need to work on this one.

Yes, I have this blog, my Facebook and LinkedIn outlets, and my intermittent podcast.

But other avenues might be beneficial. (Not the plane with a banner.)

I’ve been trying to think of video ideas. So far I’ve shied away from video, because a video of me sitting at a laptop computer typing stuff would not only potentially reveal confidential information, but would also be extremely boring.

But I have been toying around with a video idea that might be mildly entertaining. If I pursue it I’ll let you know.

Goal 4: Eat my own iguana food.

(Or wildebeest food. Same thing, unless you’re an iguana or a wildebeest.)

This ties in with my other goals, such as my idea about creating a video. Not that I’m going to become a 1938 Media and start creating videos for my clients, but it’s good to at least be familiar with the practice.

Goal 5: Have fun.

I am continuing to do this, especially since I have been reading other content that points out that people don’t do business with faceless companies, but do business with people within those companies.

As long as the fun is appropriate and serves an ultimate purpose, fun can be beneficial.

But I’d better read up on the life and characteristics of wildebeests, just in case I get asked specific questions about them.

Goal 6: Be prepared to change.

As I already mentioned, I don’t see any need to add any more goals at this time. These goals are more than enough for me to tackle at the moment.

However, there is one change that I probably should make to the existing goals: perhaps not to the public-facing goals, but to my internal tracking of these goals. The best change that I could make is to make the goals measurable. For example, I could set a particular number of income stream sources, or better still a particular number of income stream sources that actually produce measurable income in 2021. I’ll consider this…internally.

But what about your goals?

Did you set goals for 2021? Have you taken the time to see how you have performed against your goals?

And can Bredemarket help with any of your communication goals?

Take a look at what I do, and if my services can help you, contact me.