Setting Goals and Living in a 90-Day World™

Most EOS clients have recently finished their annual planning sessions (most in December and January).

Besides reviewing how they did in the year just finished, they of course set goals for the year ahead. Everyone, companies running on EOS or not, sets some typical dollar goals. Certainly revenue, usually profit, and a few other measurables that they feel are important to them. How many widgets they will produce and/or sell. How many new customers they will acquire. And so on.

Additionally, EOS clients set 3-7 annual goals. Three to seven most important objectives for the company, which if accomplished, it feels will get it to whatever it considers is the next level. Annual Goals need to be overarching. These are items which can serve as logical containers for quarterly objectives (Rocks).

The annual goals might include items like:

• Create a community of raving fans for our Core Focus,
• Connect our sales and marketing efforts with a CRM system,
• Expand our sales force by X, and
• Revamp our incentive compensation structure for all employees.

The secret to accomplishing these annual goals is to live in a 90-Day World^TM. We are just human beings. We can salute the annual flag at the beginning of the year, but then life gets in the way. If we focus on just 3 to 7 90-day Rocks which are specific, measurable and achievable and get the company 25% of the way towards achieving the annual goals, we increase our odds of success dramatically.

Each year, EOS clients fill out the Traction side of the Vision/Traction Organizer^TM (V/TO^TM) which contains three segments,- the three to seven annual goals, the 3-7 quarterly Rocks (updated each quarter) and the list of issues to be solved which are standing in the way of accomplishing these goals and Rocks.

How do you do your annual and quarterly planning? You can download a free copy of the V/TO here, if you’d like to try this out.