Hey GOAL DIGGERS – it’s 2019 – time to nab those dreams! It’s time to avoid business wrecks and cash some checks! The Bosses are talking resolutions and giving you their personal spin on how to set your goals up for success throughout the year. And we talk about how to avoid an early-spring fizzle of your fastidious mind-set. Let’s get it!
Takeaways
Quick Concepts from Today’s Episode:
Goal Setting in January is an important part of your business
Resolutions are often vague or lofty and set you up for failure
Goals should not just be a “new year” effort, but rather year long
View money goals in whatever way reduces stress & anxiety
Do your goals include the steps needed to achieve them?
Goals should be realistic and based on the reality of your business’ current health.
You can’t skip ‘the middle’ – so having goals that leap from the bottom to the top doesn’t give you the adequate environment in which to achieve them.
Emotions, feeling and a state-of-mind can be goals too. It doesn’t always have to be numbers and stats.
Your goals should make you happy. Not create excess tension or things you will avoid doing.
Goals can make you miserable if you set the bar too high.
Work backwards – know the goal and break down all the things you’ll need to do to achieve it.
Referenced in this Episode
Direct links to things we brought up ++
Recorded on ipDTL
Top Ten Reasons Resolutions Fail – From LifeHacker
Transcript
>> Today’s voiceover talent is more than just a pretty voice.
>> Pretty voice.
>> Pretty voice.
>> Pretty voice.
>> Today’s voiceover talent has to be a BOSS.
>> BOSS.
>> A BOSS.
>> A BOSS.
>> Join us each week for business owner strategies and success with your hosts Anne Ganguzza and Gabrielle Nistico, along with some of the strongest voices in our industry.
>> Rock your business.
>> Rock your business.
>> Rock your business.
>> Like a BOSS.
>> Like a BOSS.
>> Rock your business like a BOSS.
>> Rock your business like a BOSS.
>> A VO BOSS.
>> A VO BOSS.
>> A VO BOSS.
Anne: Welcome, everybody, to the VO BOSS podcast. I’m your host, Anne Ganguzza, along with my amazing, goal-setting bostie, Gabby Nistico. Hey, Gabby.
Gabby: Hel~lo!
Anne: [laughs] Gabby, it is 2019. Woo-hoo!
Gabby: How did this happen?
Anne: I know, right?
Gabby: How did this, how did we get here? I blinked and it’s 2019. My God.
Anne: It’s crazy.
Gabby: Holy Moses.
Anne: Gabby, I got a question for you. So you know along with the new year —
Gabby: Yes, ma’am.
Anne: — along with the new year usually comes the dreaded New Year’s resolutions or —
Gabby: Mmmm.
Anne: — shall I say goals?
Gabby: Yeah.
Anne: Do you set goals, Gabby, for every year, for your business?
Gabby: I think I’m a little uhh unconventional in my goalsetting.
[both laugh]
Anne: To say the least.
Gabby: But it comes —
Anne: [laughs]
Gabby: Well, it comes from a place of knowledge, I guess. I’m not sure how to, how to define it, but yeah. You know, goals are important. But I think that most people set themselves up for failure.
Anne: Yeah. And I think that’s why people get so discouraged. You know, the biggest I guess visual, or the biggest thing that I usually hear about is the gyms, right, are always packed the month of January, right? Everybody with their New Year’s resolutions. “I’m going to go work out every day and lose, you know, 20 pounds.”
Gabby: Gyms, diets —
Anne: All those.
Gabby: Oh, classes of any kind. Like anyone who teaches anything. The early part of the year is when people are like, “that’s it, this is the year I’m going to do it. I’m going to learn how to do X.”
Anne: Yep.
Gabby: Even voice over coaches, we see like an uptick in business in January.
Anne: Oh yeah. And then by February…
Gabby: They’re gone.
[both laugh]
Anne: What happened to that “I’m going to work out at the gym every three days a week or — oh goodness. So Gabby, I guess let’s talk about your goals and how you use them to be successful and not necessarily have them be a measure of, I don’t know, not being able to reach or attain a goal, or failing, or…how do you do it?
Gabby: Well you know, I’ll show you my goals if you show me yours.
Anne: You got it. [laughs]
Gabby: OK. My goals, OK, first of all, I am very forgiving with myself about monetary goals, because I sometimes think monetary goals put my head in the wrong place, and they stress me out, instead of motivating me. So I simply try for a 20% increase.
Anne: OK.
Gabby: From whatever my numbers were the year before month-to-month.
Anne: Oh. I like that.
Gabby: That’s what I do. Percentages, not dollar signs. Takes a little pressure off.
Anne: I like that a lot. Yeah, I like that a lot. But when you convert that percent though, I mean it’s still a dollar.
Gabby: It is.
Anne: Are you thinking then maybe just in your head goals, sort of, when you’re thinking about it? Is that where it makes it easier for you?
Gabby: Yes.
Anne: Because if I had to calculate 20%, then I would actually calculate it and write that number down. That would be me.
Gabby: Right.
Anne: And then I would still know what that number is, and then if I couldn’t achieve that number… but how do you do — do you write it down?
Gabby: Well —
Anne: That’s my question.
Gabby: I do in the sense that, OK, so I look at the difference as opposed to the total.
Anne: Mmm OK.
Gabby: That’s where the focus becomes. The focus is not the big number because if you look at it from the stan — OK, so if the goal becomes um — you know, if the grand total is, is $10,000, that’s like, wow. That’s, you know, that’s a lot.
Anne: Right. Right.
Gabby: And it can be scary.
Anne: So each month I want to make $10,000, and that’s a scary figure.
Gabby: Exactly.
Anne: Got it.
Gabby: So instead, I go, what’s 20% more than what I made the year prior? It might be $800.
Anne: Got it. Mm-hmm.
Gabby: It might be $1200. It might — you know what I mean?
Anne: Mm-hmm.
Gabby: But that number is not so scary to work with.
Anne: Mm-hmm, and then divide that into a monthly sort of an assessment.
Gabby: Bingo. Yeah, yeah. Makes it a little easier.
Anne: Gosh, Gabby, I like that a lot. Wow. That’s so — and what’s nice about that is it’s not, it’s not scary at all. The big number is scary.
Gabby: Yeah, that’s why I try not to do it because I, I’ve — in years past, when I, I did do that, man, it would just like eat at you. And I feel like it was always there, and it would create so much pressure, and I would get so nervous about it, whereas now, I’m like, nope. It’s not that big.
Anne: Wow. I think that’s really great. And I think that it’s good to start with the monetary goals because sometimes people won’t even think money in terms of goals, because they are so afraid of that. And I know for a fact, I mean the majority of people that I speak with, my students, when I talk to them about goals, money doesn’t even enter in the picture. And I think that there’s good things and bad things about that. I, I understand that if you don’t want to set yourself up for failure, and so you just don’t go there, but I do believe that it’s, that it’s important to set some figure. You know, some sort of an improvement, some sort of an enhancement. And I love the way that you break it down into a difference rather than a total number, because that makes it much more attainable.
Gabby: To me, I need to start there because I need that money to be able to fund my other goals.
Anne: Right. And it’s a measurement.
Gabby: They’re intrinsically tied.
Anne: Right? It’s a hard, it’s a hard-core measurement of —
Gabby: Mm-hmm.
Anne: — are things improving, are things growing? I know a lot of people who, like I said, they stay away from the money, but then they’ll say something like, “well, you know, I want, you know, 20% more — they may not even say 20%. I don’t know many people that work in percentages. They’re going to say, “I want to achieve three new clients every month,” right? Or “10 new jobs a month,” whatever it is.
Gabby: Mm-hmm.
Anne: And they’ll put a number on that, and I, I think also that, that that becomes, that becomes difficult. That is almost a set-up because when you’re talking about a volatile industry, like ours, if you put like the number of new clients you’re going to gain every month, that’s tough because it is such a high and low. There are periods of — there are months that are low months. There are months that are high months, and I think if you maybe take a look at it for that, in a yearly or a quarterly kind of a basis, that’s also going to be a little more helpful than trying to say, I’m going to acquire three new clients this month, or I’m going to acquire 10 new jobs every month.
Gabby: Yeah, so another thing that’s important there is we have to be reasonable with the expectation in relation to whatever we are doing currently or whatever we did the year prior. So I see this a lot, right? People will go, “I want to book uh a na — two national campaigns,” right? That’s, that’s their big goal. OK. Two national commercial campaigns. That’s a tall order.
Anne: Mm-hmm.
Gabby: Those are big goals. Good for you for, you know, shooting high, but have you done any regional work?
Anne: Right?
Gabby: Have you, you know [laughs]
Anne: Local work? [laughs]
Gabby: Yeah. You’re not gonna leap from doing maybe local spots that are paying you under $200 to a national campaign that’s going to pay you upwards of $50,000.
Anne: Right.
Gabby: There’s a, there’s a trajectory. There’s a middle.
Anne: Sure, sure. Yeah, I agree. And it’s similar to “well, I want to make six figures next year.” Well, if you’ve just started, you know, jumping that trajectory could be difficult. And Gabby, how about this? Let’s think about this. Instead of saying “I want to acquire, you know, five new clients this month or even in this quarter” or putting a number on that, what about having goals that start not necessarily with the number of things that you want to get that are higher but maybe a feeling or an emotion? Right? “I want to achieve this. I want to [laughs] I want to achieve a sense of joy from my job, and to do that, what do I need to do?”
Gabby: Mmm.
Anne: So you come at it in terms of more of an emotion and a satisfaction sort of a level. “In order to be joyful at what I do on a daily basis, what do I need to do? What type of work do I need to do?” Instead of saying “I’m going to do an animation demo and then do animation work,” it might be like, “well you know what? Animation, character brings me joy. So perhaps my goal for this year will be to study with a coach,” right, and further explore that, and that sense of, “I know this is something I want to do, and if I’m going to hire a coach to help me get there,” then that is achieving a goal, right? And then ultimately it evolves into maybe another goal, which would be, “oh, well, maybe I’ll produce an animation demo.” You know?
Gabby: Yeah.
Anne: And so you reach your goals that way. You kind of work backwards. So you kind of say, “here’s my goal. I really am interested in this particular genre. In order to get to this particular genre, what are the steps you have to take?”
Gabby: Yeah, for a while, I didn’t even put it in terms of dollar signs. There was a period of time where my goal was just stability.
Anne: Mm, yeah.
Gabby: Predictability.
Anne: Yeah, yeah.
Gabby: It was concepts.
Anne: I’m right there with you. Yeah, and as a matter of fact —
Gabby: Yeah, I think that’s great.
Anne: Yeah, and as a matter of fact, that’s how I divvied up the growth of my business in terms of what I wanted to do in the past few years. I’d say, “OK, what is it that brings me — Gabby, I’m all about the joy, right? — what is it that brings me the joy?” So I love to teach. So therefore a certain percentage of my job or my day is going to be teaching. I love to do voiceover in e-learning. I love to do corporate. Whatever it is, therefore I want to put a percentage of my time that is dedicated to that which brings me that joy. Ultimately I wanted to, I wanted to learn how to produce a podcast, Gabby, and guess what happened? [laughs]
Gabby: [gasps]
Anne: Right? That was, that was three years ago. [laughs]
Gabby: Right?
Anne: And here we are.
Gabby: Yeah.
Anne: So I like being able to break it apart with, here’s my kind of a bigger goal, which is based on, what’s going to bring me, I guess, satisfaction, joy? Because I certainly don’t want to have a goal of misery. [laughs] Right?
Gabby: [laughs]
Anne: Right? So I think if we go that way —
Gabby: People don’t realize that. They don’t realize how, if the expectation is too high and the goal is too lofty, it will create misery.
Anne: Right?
Gabby: And my thing is, just again, don’t skip the middle. People go, “all right, well, I want to have X number of new clients in the new year, or — well, but here’s the thing. You’re skipping. You’re skipping this big, important step.
Anne: Right.
Gabby: Maybe the goal isn’t 10 new clients. How about —
Anne: What are you going to do to get those clients?
Gabby: Right. Every month, I need to introduce myself to five new companies.
Anne: There you go, mm-hmm.
Gabby: That becomes a much more realistic process.
Anne: Right. So you still have the goal, but you have broken it down into the steps of what it takes for you to get there, and that’s the way I like to do goals.
Gabby: Mm-hmm.
Anne: Like you showed me yours. I’m showing you mine. Mine is working backwards. Mine is saying, this is what I would like to achieve, and you know, there is — I really love your money one, because I’m gonna, I’m gonna take that one. I like the percentage a whole lot. I have always had like a firm number in my mind, and it has been difficult because I have been adjusting it, you know, every year, but I really like that, and I’m going to take that same concept with areas of my job that I want to grow because I don’t ever want to necessarily be investing — I mean, I’m not going to say that — there are some things that I don’t love to do in my job, but most of it I love. I mean, I’ve – I’m pretty proud of how I’ve been able to craft my day, doing things that I love and the things that I don’t love — and we have even had a podcast on this. We’ve delegated, delegate it to something else because that way it allows me to pursue all those things that make me happy, and ultimately not just making me happy, but I also have to make sure that this is a career, so I also have to make money at it.
Gabby: Right, right. A lot of what you’re talking about is attainability.
Anne: Mm-hmm.
Gabby: Is it an attainable process? Is it something that I can be accountable for as well?
Anne: Yeah.
Gabby: Because I think sometimes you set the bar too high, and then, well, you can, you can always come up with external factors.
Anne: Oh sure, always, right? We always can.
Gabby: We can always blame the fact that we didn’t get to the gym because well, it was really cold that day, and you know, there’s always — I ate that cheesecake because, you know [laughs]
Anne: I hear that.
Gabby: There’s always something. There’s always something, and we can blame external. We have to hold ourselves accountable for our goals, but in order to do that, it’s realistic, a little bit of tempering, and really breaking down that process of what’s it going to take?
What are my actions in this?
Anne: Accountability is, is the other huge factor in terms of, how are you going to measure if you are successful? Right? You have to be accountable to someone, which is why I think a lot of, lot of people who are in business, and they talk about goal setting is, you know, write that down. I am also a fan of writing down your accomplishments. And I used to do it actually on a monthly basis so that if I had goals, you know, I could write down and see what happened, how was I progressing. And if I achieved something that wasn’t on my goal list, well, gosh, that just made me say, “wow, that’s awesome,” so that helped me to either set another goal, or it allowed me the, the relief of not blaming myself for not achieving what I had wanted to reach in that goal and say, “well no, I didn’t make this goal, but I certainly made this goal.” And then as a result, another good thing happened. And so therefore I could kind of manipulate and craft my goals as I went along on a monthly basis.
Gabby: Yeah.
Anne: For me a month works.
Gabby: I love it.
Anne: I will do a daily kind of a to-do goal list, but usually that, and then I will reassess at the end of the month. And I do think if you write down a list of achievements at the end of the month, it really helps you to see where your time has been spent and what good things came out of it versus always beating yourself up because you didn’t make the goal.
Gabby: Yeah, truthfully there, there’s a little bit of self compassion in that that needs to be practiced, and self-care. Look, some days, hey, a win was putting on pants. Other days, you, you conquered something magnificent, and you really, you know, had your whole being into it. And that’s great, but sometimes, mm, you know?
Anne: Yeah, I hear it.
Gabby: We need to forgive ourselves. We can’t beat ourselves up because today wasn’t a great day. Well, guess what? Tomorrow will be.
Anne: And I think that’s why a month works for me, because I’m not assessing it every second of every day, but I am assessing it.
Gabby: Yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm.
Anne: And that’s important. You do need — because if you set a goal, it’s kind of like what I tell my students when I’m directing, when they set the scene, and they leave it there. And you never like enter back into the scene when you’re doing the read. Right? You need to be able to set your goals, go back, and take a look at what you set and see how that went, right?
Gabby: That’s really great.
Anne: Right? [laughs] You have to be able to, you know, give yourself some, some cred —
Gabby: Yeah.
Anne: — you know, for making it through the month, and still being in business, absolutely. There’s always that, and I, and I do believe there’s a little bit of healthy stimulation and challenge from yourself, helps. And if not, I would say join an accountability group too.
Gabby: Mmm. Those are good. A little intimidating, but they work. They are really great
Anne: They do because you have to assess. Like I said, “I would like to do this within the next month. I want to start, I want to, I want to create a website, or I want to improve my website, or I’m going to write a bio,” like things like that, I think those are good goals to have. “Let’s just write a better bio, or let’s learn about character development, or let’s learn about a particular genre of the industry that you’re interested in and investigate.” Those I think are attainable goals and will not set you up for failure.
Gabby: All right there, goal-diggers. So you got your marching orders. Right? It’s 2019. Get out there, go forth, and conquer, and hopefully take the BOSSes with you.
Anne: Absolutely. Guys, you have an amazing start to your 2019, and we will see you next week.
Gabby: We want to give a big shout-out to our sponsor, ipDTL, who helps Anne and I reach our goals. Because without them, I don’t, I’m not sure where we’d be. That would – we’d kind of suck. [laughs]
Anne: Yeah, we would. We love, we love our ipDTL. And guys, for all things BOSS, make sure you check out our website, voboss.com. And don’t forget to subscribe, and like, and love, and follow in all of the social medias. Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, you name it, Stitcher, uh Google Play, Alexa, we are there.
Gabby: You can’t escape us. Resistance is futile.
Anne: We’ll see you next week.
Gabby: Bye!
Anne: Bye!
Announcer: Join us next week for another edition of VO BOSS with your hosts Anne Ganguzza and Gabby Nistico. All rights reserved, Anne Ganguzza Voice Talent in association with Three Moon Media. Redistribution with permission. Coast-to-coast connectivity via ipDTL.
[Outtakes]
1
Gabby: All right, beautiful. I’m here.
Anne: Okie dokie.
Gabby: I’m all yours.
Anne: Umm…
2
Gabby: Oh my God, mouse. Why do you hate me?
Anne: [fake snoring]
Gabby: [fake crying] My wireless mouse is dead.
Anne: [fake snoring]
Gabby: My mousey died.
3
Anne: Welcome to the VO BOSS podcast. I’m your host — I don’t like that. I don’t like that, no.
Gabby: Ok.
Anne: I don’t like that pitch. Hey!
Gabby: Alrighty.
4
Gabby: The kitchen, oh my God, that place.
Anne: Where’s that?
Gabby: OK, sorry.
Anne: Where is the kitchen, Gabby?
Gabby: Um [laughs nervously]
Anne: Gabby! Gabby!
Gabby: I know. I’m all —
Anne: Where’s the kitchen? I’m practicing my off-mic technique. Gabby!
[both laugh]
Gabby: You’re so funny.
5
Anne: If I sit anywhere, like for a period of time where I’m not moving —
Gabby: You’re going to fall asleep.
Anne: Oh God, yeah. It happens every night on the couch.
Gabby: This is your cat making up for sleepless nights you would have had if you were, you know, a parent to a small human.
Anne: Oh, it’s so true, it’s so true.
Gabby: So yeah, he’s —
Anne: So true.
Gabby: He’s fulfilling that.
6
Gabby: We have 20 minutes. We need to roll. We go’ do dis.
Anne: Alright, let’s roll. What are we talking about again? [laughs]
7
Gabby: I have clients that are driving me insane. Everybody’s doing that whole, “I need this ASAP,” and I’m like, “mmm yeah, OK. Go [beep] yourselves.”
Anne: It’s like 6:00.
Gabby: Yep, mm-hmm.
Anne: They don’t get ASAP from you at 6:00.
8
Gabby: Check.
Anne: Check.
Gabby: Check.
Anne: Check, sibilance.
Gabby: Sibilance-ssss.
Anne: Sibilance.
Gerald: Check, sibilance.
Anne: Check.
Gerald: Check, one, two.
Anne: Check.
Gabby: Should be better.
Anne: Sibilance.
Gerald: Do you know where your sibilance is?
Anne: Sibilance. Check.
Gerald: Don’t act so un-sibilance.
Gabby: “Do you know where your sibilance is?” [laughs]
Anne: I got my sibilance right here.
9
Anne: Yeah, and we edit, so it’s all good. We can just run free with our [laughs] with ourselves, and [laughs]
Gabby: OK. Running free with myself. I think that’s how Danny got arrested, the running free.
Anne: That’s right, he ran free.
10
Anne: OK, so I just drank like a whole bunch, so I’m going to —
Gerald: You have some sibilance?
Anne: — try not to belch into the microphone.
Gabby: Oh, fun.
Anne: Yeah.
Gabby: Were you drinking beer? What, what —
Anne: No, I was drinking that shake. That shake, when I, when I shake [laughs] I was drinking that shake. When you whir it up, when you whir it up, when you whir up the shake in the blender, it gets like bubbles in it.
Gabby: Uh-huh.
Anne: And so sometimes it gives me like —
Gerald: Why do I get the feeling that that was a TMI moment or something?
Anne: When I put it into the — when I put it into the food processor, like it, it gets really airy.
Gerald: I thought it was in the blender.
Anne: It gets really airy, and that’s just, yeah.
Gabby: Look, since we started, OK, I’m about halfway through eight shots of espresso.
Anne: Woo, look at you.
Gabby: So we got to start this party because I’ma be bouncing off these walls pretty soon. [laughs]
Anne: Let’s do it, OK. All right, here we go.
11
Anne: Gerald, it has been a pleasure.
[all laughing]
Anne: It has been a pleasure talking with you.
Gerald: Oh now, she an — You see, this is how you end a podcast. Like, you ask a question like that, it’s like “hey, it was nice talking to you, man.”
[Anne and Gerald laugh]
Anne: Gerald, that’s it. We’re — it was great.
Gabby: [laughs]
Anne: Gabby will edit that out.