Allison Todd – SiMar

Why Should You Hire A Digital Marketing Agency & How Do You Know It’s The Right Time?

Allison Todd — Wed, 29 Sep 2021 12:30:00 +0000

So, you’re ready to invest in the right people and tools to perfect your marketing strategy? With so many benefits on offer to hiring a digital marketing agency, it’s clear that you’re ready to put your brand first.

But what exactly are the benefits of hiring a digital marketing agency? And how do you know if it’s the right time to invest?

Today’s post will explore 5 reasons why a digital marketing agency is the key to your brand’s growth, as well as pinpointing the signs you’re ready to make the leap.

What Is A Digital Marketing Agency?

A digital marketing agency is a team of well-versed, experienced marketers who specialize in various marketing paths. They work together with a clear vision on marketing campaigns to help grow and develop your brand.

How Do You Know When You Should Hire A Digital Marketing Agency?

In business, timing is crucial. So, here are 5 signs that you’re ready to outsource and hire a digital marketing agency:

1. Your marketing strategy is no longer working, and it demands a fresh, new outlook.

2. You physically don’t have the time to dedicate to your marketing efforts.

3. You’re feeling overwhelmed, which may be manifesting itself through inspiration blocks, unproductivity, or lack of confidence.

4. Your brand is desperate for new leads, but you’re finding it challenging to capture them.

5. Your brand isn’t clearly defined and washes out to your competitors.

Why Should You Hire A Digital Marketing Agency?

Now we’ve addressed 5 symptoms suggesting you need a digital marketing agency, let’s consider why a digital marketing agency is the right route for your business.

1. It Frees You To Work On The Elements You Want To Work On

When you decided to launch your business, it’s likely you didn’t realize quite how time-consuming marketing is. In fact, it can be so time-consuming that you’ve lost many opportunities for business growth due to your chain of marketing and exposure.

Outsourcing this, however, means you’re able to work on the elements you choose to. Plus, you can be sure that the team you outsource it to will be well versed in marketing strategies.

2. You’ll Be Working With Experts.

You can listen to every podcast, download every freebie, and follow every Instagram post within the industry and you’ll still be dipping only your little toe into the marketing field.

As such, when you work with a digital marketing agency, you can rest assured that you’ll be working with experts. Armed with the latest SEO and social media algorithm knowledge, alongside the know-how to launch a successful marketing campaign across multiple platforms, you can ultimately guarantee growth.

3. There Are Plans To Suit Almost Every Budget Which Grow As Your Brand Grows

One of the best things about a digital marketing agency is that they can accommodate almost any budget. So if you’re a startup, you need only a small package. Then, as the results pour in and you see a clear, positive return on investment, you’ll be able to upscale your package.

In other words, as your business grows, your digital marketing agency’s efforts and inclusion grow too.

4. You’ll Be Given Evident Results.

Many business owners market their business without evaluating their data. However, a digital marketing agency is well versed in the metrics and key performance indicators. In fact, digital marketing agencies are highly data-informed, and they use this to shape your marketing strategy.

Members of the agency will track the data and explain what the metrics mean, so you can see the efforts of the team paying off and assess how your strategy is functioning.

5. You’ll Be Able To Expand Your Brand’s Reputation Across Multiple Channels

Omnipresence is almost impossible when working as a solopreneur. Being a one-person band means you have your limits. It’s impossible to create high-quality content according to the users of various platforms.

However, with a digital marketing agency, your brand can master omnipresence, allowing you to capture more leads and never miss an opportunity to sell again.

Digital Marketing Agencies Allow Your Brand To Grow

In a nutshell, digital marketing agencies are adaptable to your brand. While the prices and packages can adjust depending on the size and position of your business, one thing remains consistent: their goal for your growth.

5 Things That Tell You If Your Website Works. If Not, Contact SiMar For a Free Website Audit!

Allison Todd — Thu, 23 Sep 2021 10:51:38 +0000

When you launched your business, you knew that having a website would make it feel real. And with 78% of internet users conducting brand research online before making a purchase, it’s clear how much weight your website is carrying.

But, simply having a website isn’t enough. Your site has to work for you and impress your visitors.

So, knowing whether your website is working or not is fundamental for business success.

With that in mind, here are 5 signs that your website is working.

5 signs that your website is working

Remember, if none of these are happening for you, you can contact us here at SiMar for a free website audit!

1. You’re Gaining A Frequent And Steady Stream of Traffic

Gaining traffic consistently means your keyword implementation is working.

If you’re not getting any traffic to your website, it’s indicating that your website isn’t optimized for search engine optimization.

2. Your Call to Actions Are Getting Clicked

Your website should be crafted to provoke action. Your homepage, in particular, will have multiple calls to action, separated with different sections.

It’s essential, too, to map out your user’s navigation journey first. This will play a significant role in the positioning of your call-to-action buttons.

3. You’re Capturing More Leads

If you’re marketing your lead magnet on your website, you’ll gain an insight into its impact through the number of email addresses you gain. So keep an eye on your email marketing platform to monitor the increase in lead capture over time.

It will also be worthwhile to split test your email opt-ins surrounding copywriting and design, whether it’s positioned on your homepage or if you have a separate landing page for it. These results will indicate what works best for your audience.

4. Your Links Are Functioning

If you have broken links, your website will be punished by search engines. User experience (UX) is crucial and is considered a high priority by many search engines.

You can conduct a simple test by clicking on all of the links on your site to ensure they’re pointing toward the right page, and it does so without any complications.

5. Your Website Is Mobile-Friendly

Again, this can be tested by yourself exceptionally easily.

Many business owners create and design their websites themselves without investing in a professional designer and copywriter. They’ll purchase a template but will sometimes forget to check for mobile optimization.

In the first quarter of 2021, mobile devices generated a whopping 54.8% of global website traffic.

Use your smartphone and tablet to ensure your website is mobile-friendly. Without this, you’ll be isolating and setting a negative tone for a wide range of potential leads.

Get Your Free Website Audit With SiMar!

Unless you know a diagnosis, you can’t treat the problem, right?

That’s where we come in.

We’ll deliver a personalized website audit so you can discover your website’s strengths and fallbacks, allowing you to solve the problem and use your website for brand success.

And did we mention it’s 100% free?

Get in touch, with us today, and we’ll start working on your free audit as soon as possible.

Top Tips to Reinvent Your Digital Marketing Strategy

Allison Todd — Sun, 31 May 2020 23:40:34 +0000

Top tips to reinvent your digital marketing strategy will help you scale your business. If you are running your business online, it’s a great time to reevaluate your digital marketing strategy. Position your mindset and begin. You will need to rethink, reassess, and reinvent your marketing approach.

Allison Todd, Operations & Digital Growth Strategist, helps businesses and their teams, scale and grow. She believes that within adversity lies the golden opportunity to change, adapt, and evolve. The world is facing a crisis right now. We are all doing what we can to manage the effects of the pandemic on our businesses and in our lives. Perhaps we use this time to plan to pivot. If you aren’t prepared to conduct business in the digital world, SiMar is here to help.

Our team will help you reinvent your digital marketing strategy. And here are some ways to get started now:

Go Digital

People are spending more time on social media now more than ever before. Brands are required to shift their overall attention to maximizing digital visibility and automating business operations. While doing so, these brands should look for lucrative ways connect, transact, and interact with the target audience.

Allison explains that she believes businesses are beginning to value the importance of the digital business world. “Business are going digital while expanding their digital presence. I am seeing more attention on business social media presence, consistent blogging, create newsletters and more. It’s only a matter of time before businesses of all sizes start leveraging their digital marketing potential. Many businesses are already doing so.

Re-evaluate Your Core Offerings

Due to the pandemic, businesses and organizations are bound to experience rapid change in many ways. Both the market dynamics and consumer behaviors will begin to look differently. As such, consumer needs may or may not shift and change. It’s essential to manage and monitor effective brand communication as this happens. Your core offerings should align with your messaging and be flexible to changing circumstances.

When you are timely and have an understanding of how current market conditions affect your brand relevance, it will prove to be effective for your business. The way your products and services shift with change communicates something to your market. It becomes a determining factor of business success.

Support A Cause

Business might be slow but it shouldn’t stop you from supporting a cause. Pick something your business believes in while supporting the community that supports you. This is a socially responsible way to reach out to your target audience. It is the beginning of some new & meaningful conversations. You should understand the things that end customers expect out of your brand and how you can deliver the same.

People are attracted to a brand with values. After all, everyone wants to feel like they are making a difference, don’t they ? It is important to realize that the power of social entrepreneurship and philanthropy appears to be huge. It can increase your customers confidence in your brand.

Conclusion

Overall, a brand that is willing to meet the consumer where there are is bound to attract their audience. In an effort to demonstrate that you are a brand that cares about its consumers, you will position your brand and its value. In these times, all should do their part to minimize stress and maximize value. You are not alone. Join a business community of entrepreneurs who want to position their brand for profit.

Attract, Convert, Engage and Close

Allison Todd — Tue, 13 Mar 2018 03:15:32 +0000

Attract, Convert, Engage and Close.

Isn’t it every business owner’s dream to convert their online audience into paying customers? Most entrepreneurs understand the value of a good sales funnel. And if you don’t, no worries, just know that it will increase lead conversions. The value of lead conversions is more than just a purchase.

It’s those long term followers who want to align with the brand and believe in it.
It’s the social media follower who thought your timeline was great and then realized they actually needed your services.
It’s the passer-by who heard your coffee chat and searched for your on the internet.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s also the prospect that you close and have been doing business for 10 years. In short, it’s everyone who supports your brand in varying ways. Because there are a ton of people who do what you, the beginning of your sales funnel is understanding just how valuable the connection is.

The sales funnel technique is known to help make the connection. Our techniques and templates walk you through how to create your sales funnel and measure the outcomes. Every brand has friends in the digital space. And it all begins with hello. Where can your prospects find you on the internet? (Feel free to share your social media and/or website in the comments below.) You never know who’s looking for you!

Attract, Convert, Engage and Close.

Need help kick starting your connections in business? Schedule a consultation with SiMar and discover more about solutions. In the meantime, we’d love your LIKE . (Thanks!)

Growth Mindset: You Can Think Yourself To Success

Allison Todd — Tue, 07 Nov 2017 12:42:07 +0000

Yes, it is true. You CAN think yourself to success with the right growth mindset. What you think, you indeed become.

if you tell yourself you can not do it, guess what you can’t do it. But if you believe that you can then you will. Now, this premise doesn’t mean that if you think you can run 20 miles in a minute that you can. It means that if you have a growth mindset that you expose yourself to the possibilities rather than limit yourself with negativity. Modern psychologist Carol Dweck researches growth mindset and is known for teaching that we can grow our brain to success. Her study titled “Mindset: The New Psychology of Success” has garnered a growing following for years.

Mindset Defined

But what is mindset? Simply put we become what we think. If we think we can’t…we can’t. According to Dweck, a mindset is an “inquiry into the power of both our conscious and subconscious beliefs and how changing even the simplest of such beliefs can create a profound impact on every aspect of our lives.” It lies in the idea that how our conviction and principles concerning our abilities and potential can stimulate the way we behave or act thereby, predicting our success.

There are, however, two mindsets—fixed and growth. A fixed mindset is deeply ingrained in our system. It goes with the assumption that a person’s character, intellect, and creative ability are given. This set of inherent features are fixed and can’t be changed. A growth mindset, on the other hand, is one that can be nurtured like a flower waiting to bloom. This mindset thrives on overcoming challenges and looks at failures as avenues for growth. It thrives on hard work, resiliency, and efforts. These two mindsets convey a great deal of how we behave, how we dance around success and failure, and ultimately on how to create sustainable growth for the business.

Managing Business Success

While a strong fixed business mindset is good, it can’t be denied a nurtured growth mindset is essential. It’s needed more so in today’s constantly changing and competitive markets. Entrepreneurs and career professionals can no longer rely on our team’s skill set and must also incorporate a growth mindset that allows you to identify your path to business success.

It’s important to understand that relying on a fixed mindset alone will make challenges, more challenging. An active growth mindset allows your internal monologue to identify new avenues and innovative direction. It creates an opportunity to see the bigger picture and plan sustainable success rather than being limited by a fixed belief system. Growth mindset allows you to constantly look for ways to grow and effectively manage challenges. In short, it allows you to think outside the box while growing and learning.

Nurturing A Growth Mindset

Science tells us that by virtue of neuroplasticity, our brain does changes no matter how old we become. So the good news is the opportunity to change is consistently available. The key is being open to a new way of thinking and train your mind to build new skills. Find your developing path and plan to stay ahead of the competitive curve.

Professional coaches will assist you as you create your new way of thinking. According to experts like SiMar’s founder, Allison Todd, one must first recognize their way of thinking in an effort to realize a new way of thinking. The growth mindset is a commitment to self and essential to the success process. It’s important to tune out the negative internal monologue of a fixed mindset. Identify ways to process the stumbling blocks of business. Create a constant path of progress toward your business prospers. And whatever you do, don’t ever give up. Remember, the way you shape-up your mind has a huge impact on the way you manage your business.

If you believe your mindset is getting in the way of your progress, SiMar coaches are here to assist you. Schedule a conversation with us today and let’s uncover the path to your new success.

Expert Tips on Developing Interpersonal Skills

Allison Todd — Mon, 06 Nov 2017 20:36:07 +0000

Whether at work or somewhere, we use interpersonal skills to interact with others. At work, we talk to our co-employees, delegate work to our subordinates, or present proposals to clients or to the management. All these aspects require interpersonal skills. It is no wonder many employers today seek out candidates with robust interpersonal skills. They no longer just rely on aptitude and expertise, these employers look for people that can work well with a team as well as effectively communicate with both internal and external stakeholders of the company. But what really are interpersonal skills?

Understanding Interpersonal Skills

Interpersonal skills are often referred to as people kills or social skills. Sometimes, they are pointed directly as communication skills. In general terms, they are also called life skills and fall under the category of “soft skills.” Unless you have developed anthropophobia or social phobia growing up, you actually possess innate interpersonal skills from the time you were born.

Yes, you had it in you all along. Interpersonal skills include verbal and non-verbal communication, listening skills, negotiation skills, problem solving and decision-making, and your level of assertiveness. What you say, how you say it, and how you interpret the message using both verbal and body language largely comprises the communication skills set of interpersonal skills. How you act upon challenges, find a win-win solution, and decide according to the opportunities presented as well as how you assert a stand also fall in the broad concept of interpersonal skills. All these, however, are crucial to your productiveness and effectiveness in the workforce.

Honing Your Interpersonal Skills

While there are a broad range of skills set for you to be successful in your chosen field, it cannot be denied that having strong interpersonal skills will serve as a foundation for your success. Experts continually prove that without such, developing other life skills may be difficult.

Luckily, interpersonal skills can be honed to cohesively work with your hard skills. Here are some ways to develop them:

When talking, choose your words wisely. Say things in a way that you can be easily understood. Communicate message in a straightforward manner by instilling clarity and to always seek feedback to ensure that your idea is understood. You may want to use appropriate questioning and posturing to develop a much clearer understanding of the matter at hand.

Listen and by that, means to listen well. Do not mistaken listening as hearing per se. Listening takes more than hearing as it involves the ability to “receive and interpret” messages delivered by both verbal and nonverbal cues or in the absence of words. You need to decipher beyond mere words. Often, what could be hidden behind nonverbal cues are the more important matters.

Learn to clarify by asking questions. Seeking clarifications will help prevent any point of misunderstanding. Through this, you can carefully express your assertions and create point of negotiations in an effective and mutually respectful manner.

Always take control of your interpersonal skills. Try to relax and maintain a positive mindset. Do not let emotions get the better of you. Practice relaxation techniques and mindfulness for positive attitude.

Learn also to empathize with other co-employees or a boss’ point of view. You need to accept that POVs can sometimes be different. Should communication fail, carefully analyze what barriers made it so and rectify the problem from there.

Reflect upon previous successes and failures in fostering interpersonal skills with others. Always think positive. See failures as room for improvements and communication gaffe as a way to forge more effective measures.

Indeed, developing strong personal skills can be a challenge. You need to recognize and accept your limitations and mistakes to fully grasp how far you can achieve. Maintain a positive attitude and, if possible, find a trusted coach who can guide you through.

Millennial Workforce: A Strong Brand Leverage in Social Media Marketing

Allison Todd — Mon, 06 Nov 2017 12:17:09 +0000

Without a doubt, your millennial workforce knows social media by the back of their hands. They who thrive on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, SnapChat, or Facebook are definitely no stranger to the relevance of forging social connections in this day and age. But knowing how to use them responsibly and effectively for business? There lies the big difference.

Strategizing Millennial Concept

Millennial workers can do a lot of good as well as harm to a product, service or brand even when not directly involved in the company’s social marketing team. They can also make a lot of difference with their personal tweets, updates, and posts related to the business. This is where you must find ways to create an internal campaign that points to this untapped leverage for your brand. By doing it right, you can guarantee creating an astounding social media presence that will create wave upon wave of success for your brand.

Social media solutions like all other marketing strategies for your brand require some deep thinking, planning, and practice. Content production, for instance, requires certain level of research to know precisely how to position a message. In the hopes of bringing utmost effectiveness to your campaign, training and guidance for your millennial workforce are essential factors to ensure that a clear-cut, unique and consistent brand voice be heard.

The Right Voice

Without a doubt, your brand identity had been through a lot of successes and failures over the years. That somehow makes it easier to establish the right voice for your brand. For startups and businesses that wish to carve a new identity in the market, however, such concept may not be the case. The need to establish the right voice is crucial for them to make their social media presence felt and reverberated.

To develop such a challenging feat, certain aspects must be considered. One is to carefully identify what the company and its products or services truly stand for. Do you have a unique sales or service philosophy that differs from the rest? Methods of communication between customers or clients and the company must also be identified. So are your goals and objectives as well as expectations. Most importantly, it is also imperative to delineate what benefits customers are to enjoy from your brand.

Creating a solid brand voice must be infused along with these tenets. While a millennial workforce may have great advantage in utilizing social media, only by knowing what and how you want the brand to be perceived by your target audience or prospects will mark the difference.

Consistency is Key

The efforts in building a solid voice does not stop in generating a solid voice for your brand though. It requires a certain level of commitment to deliver something in a consistent manner. One challenge to this is the perceived unpredictability of millennials when it comes to marketing. Finding a way to ensure that they effectively infuse their individual personalities into the brand’s voice without restraining their creativity as well as enthusiasm will be of great help in creating a consistent brand voice. Add to that the real-time feedback of customers to make things go full circle.

All in all, gearing your millennial workforce with the right knowledge and unwavering loyalty will help amplify your brand’s social media leverage. Engage them. Train them to become brand ambassadors for your business. With their creativity and zeal for achievement– and social media savvy, you can finally guarantee delivering a brand voice that will echo the nucleus of your brand.

Crisis Management: Dealing With the Inevitable

Allison Todd — Mon, 06 Nov 2017 09:33:41 +0000

Businesses are not without crisis. Being a womanpreneur, however, may place you in a more uptight position. It cannot be denied that there is still some sort of silent stigma to women in business and when crisis seems to inevitable, finding ways to cope with such circumstances must be foremost on your mind. While other womenpreneur may crumble easily when under pressure, it is imperative that you rise up to the occasion and find a way to overcome such adversity and continue to thrive.

Fortunately, there are ways for you to make any crisis situation work to your advantage. You can also practice it to perfection. To get you started, here are some points to consider:

1. Take a pause and do nothing. Do not panic either. While it is noble to immediately act and rectify the problem, some womenpreneurs tend to be taken by their emotions in a roller coaster ride leading to horrendous results. So before you jump into the situation, try to take a step back, compose yourself, and see the problem from the outside looking in. This will help give you a better perspective and respond in a more effective and productive manner.

2. Consider consulting a reliable crisis management team for tough situations. This is even more so in situations that directly impact community or environmental standards. These firms know precisely what buttons to push and when to do it.

3. Confer with your own team particularly on internal issues or crisis situations involving product, service or brand. Do acknowledge that you cannot do everything in your lonesome. At this point, you will need everyone’s cooperation and ideas. As a rule of thumb, playing the blame-game will get your efforts nowhere. So, seek out your team’s help and find solutions instead of adding more to the problem.

4. After weighing everything, it is time to pursue your planned course of action. Be proactive when managing a game-plan though. Always have contingencies in place. Make sure also to create identifiable measures to help monitor if the executed plan is effective or not.

5. Assess carefully the root cause of the problem, how it got blown out of proportion, and how it was being handled. Look at possible gaps in the measures being done. Through careful evaluation, you can prevent such crisis situation from recurring or device certain policies that could mitigate matters before they get worst.

6. Always maintain a positive mindset. Most womenpreneurs tend to consider a “worst case scenario” which is a good thing but not during a crisis situation. See mistakes and fiasco’s as avenues for improvement. Always believe that in every mistake lies the learning of how to do it right the next time around.

Indeed, there will always come a time for a crisis to crop up in a business. No matter how big or small, it is imperative to craft a robust crisis management system. In doing so, you can simply expect the unexpected and formulate solution to mitigate, if not eliminate, the issue at hand.

How Self Esteem Shape Up Life and Business Decisions

Allison Todd — Sun, 05 Nov 2017 20:57:00 +0000

You are what you think. How many times have we heard this over the course of our lifetime? Philosophers with their sage wisdom had written that we become what we continually think of ourselves. Our thoughts basically become our action guide. So, if you think so low of yourself, do you honestly believe that success awaits you? Self-esteem is a game-changer in business and in life in general. But what really is self-esteem?

Self-Esteem

There are so many definitions about self-esteem. Sense of worth, confidence, and self-respect are just some of those listed in online dictionaries. It is basically that inner monologue telling you if you are good enough to achieve something or if you can actually do it. It is how one values himself. It is your own assessment on who you are and what you’re capable of. In most cases, however, your thoughts get askew with other people’s perception and treatment.

It is important to note that self-esteem runs parallel with talent or genius or expertise. You can be good in so many things but still have low regard for yourself. On the other spectrum, there are also people who, amid their lack of ability or talent, can project strong self-esteem. With this, it is logical to see that having low regards of oneself will impact directly one’s decision-making capabilities and behavior in general.

Room for Improvement

There are many ways to boost one’s dwindling self-esteem. But before that, it is essential to recognize some of its likely causes. Do you have issues with your talent and capacity? Have you encountered a life-changing failure or a series of poorly made decision that made you question your capabilities? Do you have acquired habits that continually erode your sense of self-respect? Are there people around you who made you feel inadequate?

Recognizing that you have a self-esteem problem and identifying some of its likely causes will make it easier for you to address them. While everybody is different, there are certain ground rules which anyone can apply:

Be prepared all the time. In everything we do, preparation is a vital tool that will shield you from any anxiety or roadblocks turn your way. When you know precisely what you are talking about, you can gain full control of your emotions and create decisions with more clarity and precision.

Be kinder to yourself. It may sound humble to criticize your shortcomings to others but doing so will negatively ricochet unto yourself. People’s perception will be torn both ways and this could impact your own perception about yourself. So, at the very least, be kind to yourself.

Stop complaining, procrastinating, and overthinking! Everyone have issues of their own. What could be simple to you can be devastating to another person. Wallowing in negativity will only isolate you from the rest and prevent solutions from shaping up.

Try to uplift yourself every now and then by celebrating your victories no matter how simple or small. Boosting your own morale does not have to be a gargantuan effort. Treat yourself to a full body massage in your favorite spa. Buy something to make you feel special. For every victory won, you are actually raising your confidence level.

Learn the beauty of mindfulness through yoga or meditation. This helps to relax the overthinking mind, bring more focus to your commitments and stimulates sources of pure joy. It also helps channel nerves and tension to lucrative means.

But while self-help may be effective to others, developing a robust self-esteem can vary from situation to situation and from person to person. Some people can take themselves from a rut and improve their confidence level without seeking out outside help. Others, however, take refuge from the assistance of friends, colleagues, a mentor or a coach. Whichever way it maybe, it is imperative to address low self-esteem to prevent dilemmas from cropping up in business and in life in general.

Of Motivation, Goal-Setting and Success

Allison Todd — Sun, 05 Nov 2017 12:30:54 +0000

What motivates you? Do you have a goal in mind? What does success means to you? Indeed, living through life with a goal in mind can be moving. Not only do the ins and outs of your action plans consume you, it will also hammer into the true grit you have been holding to make it happen, to matter, or to succeed. There is no better satisfaction than this—achieving long cherished goals and becoming a success out of your own hard work.

Correlating Motivation, Goal-setting and Success

Regardless of what you have in mind, it is known fact that your life’s strongest pursuit is that of the realization of your dreams. Your focus is to ensure that you land that dream job or get a promotion, or be successful with your startup business, or simply have a happy family, raise equally successful kids, or be a model citizen in the community. Each one of you is beholden to such challenges. The part when you start to work on the achievement of such goals, however, must start somewhere.

It is important to start on building your personal goals.

While motivation, personal goals and success are directly correlated, it is imperative to draw out your personal goals before everything. These goals will become your focus to motivate yourself to succeed. Setting personal goals is like turning on a car’s ignition. Motivation, on the other hand, is your way of driving continually and to go through every bump and puddle to ultimately arrive at success, your destination. By correlating these three aspects, you can guarantee facing life’s many challenges without flinching or backtracking.

Personal Goals Unraveled

Personal goals can come in many forms. It could be academic, career, monetary, physical, creative, or ethical. These goals collectively point to your own domestic goals or how you wish to live life in the future. These personal goals come with two important perspectives—motivation and continuing direction.

To be useful however, experts suggested making your goal-setting SMART—specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and timed. You need to know exactly what you want to be able to find ways to achieve them. To make sure that you can assess your progress, you need to set certain metrics. Of course, it must be realistic, relevant, and attainable—and to be more effective, a timeline must be set for the achievement of such goals.

But just because you create SMART goals then, that should be enough is a totally erroneous mindset. The world is also moving as you trudge in the realization of those goals. With this, you need to assess and re-assess your personal goals every step of the way. You need to check if such goals are still relevant or if you are still on the right track. In some cases, what you felt was of utmost importance before could no longer be as relevant due to sudden shifts in your life, job or business. If there is a need to rehash, improve or completely change them, then do so.

Goals must be solid enough to be able to move you, stimulate you to carry on, excite you. When these three concepts – goals, motivation and success—are properly aligned, you are definitely on the way for greatness.