How to Set Goals and Crush Them

Hey practice owners!

Can you believe it? We’re coming up to the end of the year and that means we need to start thinking about next year’s Wildly Important Goal.

In this video and solo podcast I’m going to show you how to set a BIG goal and how to crush it. This is the same goal-setting framework that I use to help my clients grow their private practices. So let’s jump in!

The saying goes, “You can’t grow what you don’t measure.” But the problem is, most practice owners don’t have a system of setting goals and actually meeting them.

The way we grow practices at Brand Your Practice is to establish a Wildly Important Goal or a W.I.G. This framework is from the 5 Disciplines of Execution framework (if you want to take a deeper dive into it.)

But I’ve adapted it here for practice owners.

Okay, first you need to establish a W.I.G. and it’s made up in 4 parts:

1. You ask, “What do you want to significantly improve?” And, you’ll probably want to narrow it down to 3 areas around Marketing, Operations, or Revenue.
2. You define a Starting Line.
3. You define a Finish Line.
4. You define a Deadline.

So, for example a revenue W.I.G. could be: To grow revenue from $150,000 to $300,000 by December 31 of the calendar year” (or whatever year we’re in).

So, you have a starting line: $150k, a finish line:  $300k, and a deadline: end of the calendar year.

If you’re making less than $300k a year, then your W.I.G. will probably be revenue focused. For more established practices, who are probably making over $300,000 or more, you may want to focus on operations.

Maybe you want to significantly improve Operations as it relates to:

• Clinician retention, because too many therapists are leaving your practice and you need to create an incentivized benefits and compensation plan. Or maybe focus on creating a workplace culture.
• Or maybe you need to move your clinicians over to employees from contractors because of labor laws.
• Or another operations W.I.G. could be to develop a streamlined intake system where you are able to respond to new client requests and book them with an appointment within 24 hours.
• Or maybe creating a goal around having your team write clinical notes, charge clients or submit claims to insurance within 7 days.

Maybe you want to significantly improve Marketing as it relates to:

• Creating a sales funnel for your practice that involves a new website, videos, a lead generating PDF to capture email addresses. If this is the case, be sure to check out our blog post Marketing for Therapists Ultimate Guide. It’s a free massive guide for how I grow practice practices.
• Increasing word of mouth referral network from 5 referral sources to 20 solid referral sources by December 31st.

So, to review:

To define a W.I.G.,

ASK: What do you want to significantly improve? Is it Marketing, Operations, or Revenue?

Second, Define a Starting Line

Third, Define an stretching but attainable Finish Line

Fourth, Define Deadline

After you define the W.I.G., now you need to support it by creating 3 economic objectives. These are smaller time-based objectives that will support your wildly important goal.

For example, let’s take our W.I.G. at the beginning: “To grow revenue from $150,000 to $300,000 by December 31 of the calendar year”

Some strategic economic objectives could be:

1. Start running Google Ads by the end of Q1.
2. Identify & Develop 5 new referral sources by Q2 who are referring to me 2 clients per month.
3. Get 15 Google reviews for my Google business profile by end of Q1.
4. Hire a clinician by End of Q3.
5. Eliminate low reimbursement insurance contracts Q2.
6. Transition to private pay by Q4.

So, take a minute and write down 3 strategic economic objectives to focus on. You can have more than 3, but let’s just start with three. Write them out with a defined starting line, finish line, and a deadline.

The final step is to write all this down in a Google doc or a piece of paper you can pin on the wall.

You need a reminder and scorecard to remind you of your progress and keep you accountable. If you’re in a mastermind, then write it down and share it with your people so they can hold you accountable.

Having a scorecard and accountability will greatly increase the chances of your reaching your Wildly Important Goal.

If you’re looking for resources to either start a private practice or how to market your private practice, check out my Marketing Resources for step-by-step guides, checklists, and other resources for you to download.

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