Why You Need To Be Focusing On A 10-Year Target™ Now

How can you even think about looking 10 years into the future when the world has changed so much? Yet now, more than ever, you need a 10-Year Target.

A 10-Year Target is the “North Star” for your company and all your employees. Your team needs to see that you have a plan. They need to believe in a real target to get through this.

In Gino Wickman’s bestselling book, Traction, he discusses why having a long-term goal or a 10-Year Target is a vital part of the Entrepreneurial Operating System^® (EOS^®) and the success of your company.

Now Is The Perfect Time To Be Thinking About Your Target

I was recently facilitating a Vision Building Day™ and we were discussing what is “that larger than life goal that you want to accomplish within the next 10 years?”

It’s funny, whenever I ask that question, I always get that same look: “10 years? We can’t think that far out! Especially now with the way the world has changed.”

I get it. It is a hard question that requires some real thought. After owning my own company for 30 years, I never thought all that much about where I wanted to be in 10 years. Business just happened.

I know it is really tough out there right now. But we do know for sure that it will change. We just don’t know how, and that’s why you need a 10-Year Target to help you focus. It may actually change the way you are conducting business now and make you either add or delete products and services in the future. It is a whole new way to look at your business in these uncertain times.

A 10-Year Target Is Your First Step

When I take my clients on the EOS journey, one of the first things we work on together is a 10-Year Target.

Unless the leadership team is focused on a North Star, it will forever be stuck in solving the problem of the day. Instead, organizations need to create a vision of where they want to be in 10 years and it must become the number one goal of the organization.

When everyone in the organization is focused on the target, the stars align and magic happens. You and your team can actually “see” it becoming a reality.

In their seminal book, Built To Last, authors Jim Collins and Jerry I. Porras found that organizations that have endured for decades have done so because they all set massive long-term goals. And this way of thinking can help your business as well, in good times and bad.

Creating Your 10-Year Target

When I teach my clients how to develop a 10-Year Target, there are three key “nuggets” to keep in mind:

1. Create a vision that EVERYONE can feel, see, and taste. Something the entire company can visualize, not just management. I can’t stress that enough. Keep it simple. One or two sentences.
2. Dream big. This is a 10-year vision — so be bold. A bold vision will inspire your team to climb mountains and push through difficult times, just like our current situation.
3. Have a way to measure it so you know when you hit it!

In order to help you with this exercise, here are seven unique 10-Year Targets to get you thinking:

1. Distribution Target. Coca -Cola^® had a goal of having a Coke^® within reach of every human on the planet. And guess what, they did it! Remember, you want it to be a big and bold target.
2. Beat Out Your Competition. Right now, you may be number two or four in your market. Make your 10-Year Target to be number one. Crush your competition and be the best.
3. Dollar Target. This is a common one for many. Think about the revenue number you want to hit in 10 years. The one problem with this target is, will it get your employees excited and motivated to achieve it?
4. Reputation Target. In this scenario, you get all your customers from other clients. Autumn Associates, an EOS client, has its 10-Year Target to have “A referral from every client and every client from a referral.” How simple and awesome is that?
5. Quantity Target. If you make products, then this may work for you. If you now make 1,000 widgets a year then your 10-Year Target might be 20,000 widgets a year.
6. Target Market. Schechter Wealth Services, another EOS client, had a simple 10-Year Target: to own fifteen percent of the market. This is a great target if you can measure it because then you will know when you hit it.
7. Service Target. Having a quantifiable amount of clients or users for your service. For example, EOS has a 10-Year Target of 100,000 companies running on EOS by 2030.

So now that you have selected your target, you need to map your actions to move the company in the right direction. In other words, start eating the elephant bite by bite.

EOS provides the thinking and the proven process that can take you from where you are at today… to where you want to be in 10 years. Trust in the process, it works.

Next Steps:

• Download a free chapter of Traction by Gino Wickman
• Learn to make decisions faster and better by downloading a copy of our free EOS eBook, Decide!
• Request a free 90-Minute Meeting with an EOS Implementer^® to get a clear picture of what it looks like to run your company on EOS.