At the start of each year, I take time to get clear on my professional goal. This is my guiding star for the work I do. It also helps me determine what I say yes to and, more importantly, what I say no to.
In having a clear goal, I’m able to gage opportunities on whether they’re helping me achieve my goal or will detract my energy.
For 2024, my goal was to grow my speaking business and secure 20 paid speaking engagements. It was a pretty big goal.
Although I’ve been a speaker for 20 years, it was only a small piece of the work I do as a public relations consultant. And not something I actively pursued.
Honouring that I get the greatest joy from helping others grow their communications skills, I decided to make a big shift in my business to prioritize speaking.
Invest in you
Achieving a goal is not a solo sport – you need people to help you be successful. Just as many athletes, singers, dancers and musicians work with coaches to hone their skills, I knew I also needed some help.
My journey to achieve my goal started with hiring a business coach. After much research, I found someone who specializes in helping people grow their speaking business.
The benefit of having a paid coach is they push you beyond your comfort zone. They also bring a fresh perspective to how you operate and where you’re heading.
My coach looked under the hood at my business, exploring where I spend my time, how much I charge and ways I could add more value. It was a lot of work but kept me accountable and moving forward.
New goal, new look
With my focus being on growing my speaking business, I had to look at my online presence. Was it clear to visitors to my websites that I’m a speaker and open for bookings?
While I try to update my websites monthly, they needed a refresh to reflect my new goal. The more closely I looked, the more changes were needed.
The result – the creation of a new website that highlights my speaking topics and showcased me in action. It also meant shutting down a digital products website and moving my top e-resources from paid to free on my new website.
Knowing that the majority of my speaking bookings come from word of mouth and client recommendations, it was important that people had the information they needed when searching for me online.
For those of you who are self-employed, this is an important part of the process – making sure your digital presence clearly reflects your goal. Even if you’re not self-employed, but looking to make a career change, this is still a crucial step – make sure you update your LinkedIn page (or create one) as it’s the first stop for many HR departments.
Quarterly check-ins
Achieving a goal can take time. Which means you can also lose momentum and motivation along the way.
This is why you want to schedule check-ins in your calendar, to make sure they happen. What do you hope to accomplish each season? Where do you want to be when spring flowers begin blooming? Summer vacation begins? Or when kids go back to school?
I was thrilled to meet my goal of booking 20 paid speaking engagements by the end of June.
This success spurred me to create a new goal – booking 30 by the fall. To meet this goal, I spent the summer reaching out to contacts to plan for the fall.
I also rolled up my sleeves and created a new workshop, How to Communicate for Success, based on feedback from my clients. They were struggling with personality conflicts between staff. So, I created a fun and interactive workshop that not only explores personality types, but helps you alter your communications style to meet the needs of others.
Armed with a new workshop, I was able to book more speaking opportunities with a topic that helped engage staff in a time where recruitment and engagement is challenging. It’s been a huge hit!
Stay the course
My final recommendation to achieving your goal is to not give up. Through the course of the year, new opportunities will emerge that may not be in align with your goal. While it can be tempting to follow the shining object, hit pause.
Ask yourself – does this opportunity advance my goal? Or does it take me off my path?
Throughout 2024, I had a number of opportunities that would have taken me in a new direction. While they were all interesting, they didn’t help me meet my goal.
There were a few times I had to remind myself why I had set the goal in the first place. I love helping people strengthen their communications skills and speaking brings me joy. More joy than the other projects being offered.
The end result – 40 paid speaking engagements in 2024. This included conference keynotes, corporate training and leadership development in Canada and the US.
By having a clear goal, working with a coach, redefining my online presence, and staying focused, I was able to double my goal!!
And the best part – I’m already booking speaking engagements for 2025.
I encourage you to set aside time to not only set a goal for 2025, but also plot out the actions you need to take to make it happen. Where do you need help? How will you stay accountable? What does success look like to you along the way?
As you plan for 2025, remember having a clear goal and being strategic with your time is key to your success. Stay focused, get help, and don’t be afraid to adjust along the way. With determination and the right mindset, you’ll be celebrating your own big wins this time next year!