Today is the day of resolutions!  It's a day of hope and encouragement about the future.  We resolve to stop smoking, lose weight, save money, manage stress, etc.  For those of us who are entrepreneurs, it is the time of year when we look at our businesses and make resolutions.  You know them – make more money, grow my email marketing list, get more clients, finally figure out this social media thing.

What happened to last years resolutions for your business?

The unfortunate reality for most entrepreneurs is that their resolutions just become part of a plan that is not followed through on.  I think this happens because people don't know how to create resolutions that they can turn into reality.

Let's look at one resolution that I hear often – “I will make more money.” I know what you are thinking – this is too vague, right?  We could change it to “I will make $100,000 in 2012.”  Does that sound better?

Well it does but there is still something missing.  We need a direction or a plan of action to get us to that point.  What I like to do is come up with a flexible basic plan of attack and then take action.  So the resolution is only as good as the plan behind it.  Thus the reason that most resolutions never come to be.

We should start by looking at how you are going to make that $100,000.   Are you a coach and you want to add 10 new people to your $10,000 year long coaching program or maybe you need to add 20 to your $5000 program.  Do you have a program that you sell for $500 – could you find 200 people this year to pay you for your program? Or any combination of your offers.

Let's say that you have a $500 program and you are looking for 200 people to participate this year.  How do you find those people?  Do you speak to audiences of your ideal client to find them?  Do you need to have a phone conversation with them to explain the program to them?  Before you answer that question you should look at another important question.

How many people do you have to speak to for 1 person to sign up?  That number may be say 1 in 4- a good 25% conversion rate.  If you need 200 people to sign up then that would mean you need to speak to 800 people.  That is 67 people a month or 16 people a week.  What if you were able to get a speaking engagement each month where you spoke to 100 people?  That could be live on stage or it might be on a tele-conference.

So now by asking yourself a few questions you can better define a resolution with a plan of attack our new resolution could be “Offer my products or services to 100 people a month”  Then each month you just need to figure out where you are speaking to reach those people.  Stay focused on this resolution for the whole year and you will reach that $100,000 figure.  So what are your business resolutions?