You're great at helping your clients set lifestyle goals. But have you set your business goals yet?

So you’ve done it: you’ve gotten your certification as a health coach, you’ve organized your office, and you’re ready to take on customers. You’ve even reviewed how you can get more clients, and created a website and blog to keep yourself top of mind with prospective clients. And, you have a shiny new business plan to guide your way. But you’re still having a hard time getting your business off the ground. Could it be that you’ve forgotten to set good business goals?

Health coaches are great at helping people to set and achieve healthy lifestyle goals; yet, ironically, they don’t always set goals for their own businesses. That’s because while most coaches are amazing at helping others, they’re not always the best business people.

But if you’re going to be an entrepreneurial health coach (or any wellness entrepreneur, for that matter), you’ve got to get your business organized. The first step to get that done is to have a clear picture of what you’d like your business to look like, how much money it’ll bring in, and what expenses will be required to get there.

If you’ve created your business plan, you’re halfway there. But writing a business plan is just the beginning. You need another, smaller scale plan to ensure that your business plan comes to fruition. And to do that, you need to set SMART goals for your business.

If you have some training as a coach, you’re probably already familiar with the SMART goals acronym. And while SMART goals are now applied to many different projects in various niches, it’s helpful to remember that this concept was originally formulated for management and business practices—which makes them perfect for your health coaching business.

Here’s a quick review of what SMART Goals stand for:

Specific: Make sure you know the exact why, when, and how much of your goals

Measurable: Make sure you have a way to check whether you’ve achieved your goal

Attainable: Make sure your goal is realistic

Relevant: Make sure your goal makes sense for your business

Time-bound: Make sure you give yourself a timeline to achieve your goal.

Here’s an example of a SMART business goal:

On May 1st, 2018, just as you’re starting out in business, you write: “I will earn $1,000 in sales by June 30th, 2018.”

This goal is specific: you’re saying exactly how much you want to earn. It’s measurable: you can check your bank account to see if you’ve earned that $1,000. It’s attainable: $1,000 in the first 2 months of business is a realistic goal for a new coach, as long as you get down to business (pun fully intended) to accomplish income-earning tasks. This goal is relevant: you’re in business, so you need to make sales. And it’s time bound: You’re giving yourself a date by which to accomplish your goal.

So you’ve written a SMART goal to guide your activities. Now what? Too many people write down a SMART goal and then never achieve it, and that’s because most SMART goals focus on the outcome only (e.g. making $1,000 by the end of June 2018).

Outcome goals are necessary, but they can’t be the only thing guiding you. You need steps to accomplish that outcome goal, and that’s where process goals come in. Originally formulated for sports gains, process goals can also help you in your business journey.

Process business goals are the small “to dos” that help you to reach that outcome business goal. For example, if you want to make $1,000 in two months, perhaps diversifying your income from the get-go would be a good idea. So you could set a process goal like

“I will write a freebie to start building my mailing list by May 10th, 2018”

Or

“I will hold a workshop and have an upsell ready for presentation at the end of that workshop by [whatever date you can hold the workshop on]

Process business goals by nature require more planning and thought, and in putting those in, you’ll have more influence on the outcome business goal as well. One way to ensure you accomplish these process goals (and reach the outcome goals) for your business is to create an activities plan for it.

Grab a piece of paper and start writing down the activities you need to do to organize your business and earn an income. Your activities plan should include, at the bare minimum, quarterly activities in the categories of administration and money-earning (you need at least these two to maintain a business). Once those quarterly activities are filled in, you’ll need a plan of action each week in order to accomplish them.

In the category of administration, make sure you set up a system that’s going to work for and not against you. Electronic record keeping can save a tonne of time and open up your schedule for activities that will actually earn you money.

And when it comes to money-earning services, don’t forget to diversify your income. Have you thought about selling digital programs? That’s a great way health coaches can supplement their one-one-one coaching income.

Once you’ve set up your activities plan, it’s time to take action. Use a calendar (whether paper-based or electronic) to input all your activities, and stick with your schedule. Remember to include dates for business plan revisions (at least monthly), and update the business and activities plans as needed. Both of these should be living documents that are reviewed and updated on a frequent basis. By doing that, you'll be able to adapt your business to changing times.

What is the first SMART goal you’ll set for your business? And what is the first activity to help you reach that goal? Let us know in the comments.

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