This is where your finance takes place

- How To Setup Yours Goals Properly -

in part 2 of my alternative source of income series I about people saying: “we should start a business together someday”. I have already wrote about with whom you should start your project and why you would need a financial partner. Unfortunately, most people have great ideas, some of them have enough resources and a trustworthy financial partner to start working but very few of them have a solid plan. Those are the one who succeeds most of the time.

You don’t want to take the time to write down a plan? Then, don’t take the time to start a small business; it’s worthless without a plan. Today, I am writing about a simple technique I learned from my MBA class. So here are the basic lines of the SMART technique.

Specific

You goal must be well determined so you don’t waste your time working like crazy without any direction. The goal of our internet project was simple: creating or buying websites that will produce stable monthly income.

Measurable

The main goal behind creating an alternative source of income is to improve your financial situation. Therefore, you need to be able to set specific measures of your success. If not, you may never become satisfied and always be looking for more. While it may not seem bad on a financial point of view, your health and family might take a big hit.

Ambitious

That goes along the motivation part of the equation. If the project is not important enough or you don’t need the money that bad, chances are that you will leave it behind some day. Working over 40 hours automatically implies tiredness at one point. The importance of your goal will bring you back on track and will give you the energy to continue.

Realistic

We all dream about having a nice car, a vacation property by the lake and enough money to buy whatever we want whenever we want. However, creating the next Google is definitely not in my plan. We have to stay realistic with what we do.

Timely

Every goals needs to be measurable. “I want to make money” is not a real goal. You need to define how much you want to make, by what time and how. If you determine everything in advance, you will be in a much better position to evaluate how your project went and establish what needs to be done in order to continue.

At first, we had a hard time writing down our specific goals. The ultimate goal was to create a monthly income of $1,000 after a year of operation. I know that we will not be satisfied with this cash flow but it is good enough for the first year!

Remember, having goals is nothing, defining them is everything.

For more information on the SMART technique, please read Managing Service Delivery Processes.

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