NOVEMBER 10, 2023

Welcome to The Tilt, a twice-weekly newsletter for content entrepreneurs.

Get Goals Now for 2024

Get a jump on 2024 now. Take time this month to set your goals (or update existing ones) so you can hit the ground running when you turn the last page on the calendar.

We’re big fans of the goal-setting theory introduced by Edward A. Locke in 1968 – setting goals is a conscious process and an effective and efficient means to increase productivity and motivation. The research finds people perform most effectively when those goals are specific and challenging.

So, do these five things to set your goals for 2024:

1. Look back: Review the past six months to a year. What did you do? Was it successful? Could it have been more successful? How did your audience react? What did you discover about your strengths and weaknesses as a creator and an entrepreneur?

This process shouldn’t be limited to your reflections. Incorporate relevant, available metrics into this process. These numbers can help you analyze if your content is attracting the audience you expected and convincing them to take the actions you wanted.

If you documented your goals, review them to see what worked, what didn’t, and what no longer matters.

2. Brainstorm goal possibilities: With all that information about where the business has been, you can look to the future. List anything and everything you would like for your business. Don’t limit yourself to the upcoming year.

Don’t forget your personal goals as a content entrepreneur. As The Tilt research shows, expert creators got into business for freedom and flexibility – things that don’t usually show up in business goals.

Maybe you earn enough revenue so you can quit your day job. Maybe you want to bring in enough money to contract with a virtual assistant to help out with administrative tasks you don’t like to do. Perhaps you want 50K subscribers, and maybe it’s to convert 10% of your followers into paying customers. Maybe it’s selling your content business for $1M.

Review the list of possibilities and pick five to seven.

3. Break into tasks: Go goal by goal and detail what needs to happen to achieve it. If the goal is big, think about setting mini-goals.

For example, if the goal is to earn $100K in recurring income, mini-goals could be:

• Build a centerpiece online course and student community cohort.
• Grow subscriber audience to 20K in the first quarter through free content offerings.
• Create and implement a marketing plan for the online course based on available resources (time and money). Elements could include such as free introduction webinars, calls to action in existing content, and paid opportunities.
• Develop a system that brings in recurring revenue.

For your goals, the perfect roadmap may not appear through this task. That’s OK. The point is to see the small pictures that are required to create the bigger picture.

Add the estimated time to complete each task or mini-goal. It might be two days, or it could be six months or longer. Be realistic.

Now, you know better what needs to be done to achieve your top goals. Select two to three for 2024. I recommend picking a mix of goals – some that are easier to achieve and some that will be a stretch to achieve. That way, you don’t have to wait months, a year, or even years to know you’ve achieved something.

4. Set the calendar: Robert Herjavec, best known for the TV show Shark Tank, often says, “A goal without a timeline is just a dream.”

So now it’s time to turn your dreams into goals. With each goal, add the target completion date. At this point, you also need to detail how you will identify if you achieved it – establishing the metrics is essential.

Next, pull out your calendar. Add those completion dates, then work backward, adding dates to achieve your mini-goals as well as the necessary tasks to complete them. By setting deadlines and posting them to your calendar, your goals will remain at the forefront every day.

5. Check in, review, and revise:

Of course, you probably won’t be able to hit every deadline or complete every task. You also may find yourself revising your goals based on new opportunities or pivoting when you find something isn’t achieving what you had hoped.

Add a weekly check-in to your calendar to assess progress on the mini-goals and every month or quarter to analyze your big goals. Are you on track? Are these goals still relevant? What adjustments should be made?

One more thing: Celebrate when you achieve a goal. Share the win with your community. (The Tilt folks love to hear big and small victories.) Reward yourself with a treat (you get to pick based on your favorites and budget).

– Ann Gynn

Want to add accountability into the goal-setting mix? Share them with The Tilt community. Tag #TheTiltNews on social media. We’ll even follow up to see how it’s going in 2024 if you reply to this email or send it to editor Ann Gynn.

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What gifts do you recommend for content entrepreneurs? We’re compiling a list for an article later this month and would love to know what you’d like to receive (or maybe you already have it and think others should, too). Reply to this newsletter or email Ann: [email protected].

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• Sometimes, the name you chose for your content brand just doesn’t work. Here’s Joe’s story about making two big name changes. (Content Inc.)
• Joe and Robert rate and review their 2023 content and marketing predictions. (This Old Marketing)
• Join us at 12 p.m. EST Tuesday for another edition of Tilt Your Business: A Weekly Mastermind for the Creator Economy with host Michelle Peterson Clark and co-host Ann Gynn.​
• Learn revenue opportunities and much more with experts at Content Entrepreneur Expo (May 5-7, 2024). Registration is now open!
• ICYMI: How to Scale Your Content Business for Faster Growth​

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