Setting Goals Won’t Get You ANYWHERE.

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Unless you commit to a SYSTEM to get you there…

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At the end of each quarter, and particularly at this time of the year (June), we’re always hammering on at Podiatry Hive about the importance of Planning And how we should always start with Big Picture Goals (i.e. starting with the END in mind)

However, your goals are next to useless unless you take the next step Commitment to a system to get you there.

Here’s a process you can follow to increase the likelihood of achieving a goal

1) Set The Goal

2) Chunk It Down

3) Re-Orient Your Compass

The Big Picture Outcome Goal

A few years ago, I set a goal to run the Gold Coast half marathon in under 90 minutes. If you like, this was my big picture or OUTCOME type goal. I didn’t actually know whether or not I could do this I had little experience at running further than 5kms, and 14kms was the furthest I had ever run in one go.

As a Podiatrist, you might set a goal of say, 90 new patients per month. If you’ve been in practice for a while, you may have an idea of whether this is realistic based on past performance, but when you’re starting out in a new practice, the big picture is an unknown.

If It’s New For You Ask For Help

I could have hired a running coach, but there was actually some pretty helpful information on this particular website I found, about 10 or 16 week training plans. My motivation was high, and I enjoyed running, but to make it easier to follow, I told everyone I knew about my goal and printed out and stuck the 10-week training plan on the fridge.

I remember one quite cold morning after I had slept in, my wife came in and said, “I thought you were meant to be doing hill sprints this morning ?” to which I of course replied, “yes, yeah I’m just going now”

In your practice, the first people to enrol in the big picture goal are your team members. They’re going to be the ones that help you stay accountable…

Know Your Numbers & Chunk It Down

There were a couple of things I knew about the half marathon, It was 21.1 kms so I would need to average about 4 minutes and 15 seconds per kilometer to be able to run the distance in 90 minutes. I could almost do this over 5km, … but 21kms

Initially I thought the best training would just be to start from our house run 10.6 kms in one direction and then come back.

On the other hand, the training plan (which wasn’t developed for me specifically, but was a pretty good prescription for someone like me) outlined a date-based countdown that could be ticked off day by day in a 10-week cycle that peaked at 8 weeks and tapered down to the race at 10 weeks

  • Only one day each week with a long easy run which was based on time, not distance
  • A couple of days with hard interval training
  • A couple of shorter easy run days
  • Two days off each week.

This running training plan is the rough equivalent in your practice of the marketing 10×10.

You know that you’re going to need between 20-25 patients per week to reach the goal of 90 for the month that’s 4-5 per day but where will they come from

 

Goal diagramJH

 

So break it down

1) 40 from GP referrals

2) 15 from google PPC advertising

3) 15 from speaking at an event

4) 10 from existing patient referrals

5) 5 from a local paper article

6) 5 walk ins

Then break it down again into what you could call PROCESS goals

1) 3 x GP visits plus follow up letters back to the GPs

2) PPC Budget based on $2 per click and 2% conversion = $1500

3) Book it in and deliver a clear offer at the event and call to action

4) Refine the refer a friend process

5) Create an interesting press release about Foot Health month

6) Weekly change of the a-frame headline grabber outside

The big goal is important, but it’s the PROCESS goals that you need to commit to.

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Are You On Track? …Re-Orient Your Compass

The 10-week training plan for the half marathon included a 10km race or time trial. This was a kind of feedback loop to make sure I was on track. I knew that I really needed to be running 10km in under 42 minutes by this stage. If not, then what needed to change?

There are key metrics in your practice that you should be testing on a weekly basis to let you know whether you’re getting results.

  • How many new patients?
  • Where are they coming from? GP / Google / Event / Existing Patient / Newspaper / Signage
  • How many report letters sent compared to the number of new patients?

Your practice management software will be capable of producing most of the reports you need so schedule running the reports as part of your weekly system.

There are multiple benefits to setting a balance of OUTCOME and PROCESS type goals.

You need to set a vision so you know where you’re going, but if your focus is completely on the outcome, then you run the risk of falling into the “I’ll be happy when ?” or “I’ll be successful when I achieve ? “ mentality.

When you commit to a process type goal, you start to create a HABIT. The great thing about habits is that they last for the long-term, so the chances are that even when you reach your initial goal, you’ll continue to move forward because you’ll be following a SYSTEM.

Lets us know in the comments section below how you go with your goal setting AND gaol systems… we’d love to hear from you…

 

til next time,

Jon Heath

CEO. The Hive