A few weeks back, I saw an interview with new Super Bowl champion Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson. He was being asked for his thoughts on going to the Super Bowl in his sophomore season, and in response Wilson said, “…I trust the God-given ability that I have….I trust in what I can do, and in my preparation.”

I thought this was a pretty thoughtful response from the 25-year-old who has just become the first quarterback ever to lead the Seattle Seahawks to a Super Bowl win (and only the second-ever Seahawks quarterback to get to the Super Bowl), but what I noticed most was the importance he placed on preparation. It brought to mind the essential need for practice, and its undeniable role in success.

I relate to the importance of preparation in my everyday work as well. In fact, my team’s experience and our emphasis on preparation is the reason we achieve success for our own clients. A lot of people can put together a website, but the real value in our process is in the preparation. In other words, when our clients choose to work with my team, they’re hiring us to prepare, not just to play the game. I love what I do, and after all the preparation is done, building the website is the easy part. The caliber of work and the real, tangible results our websites produce is all thanks to a committed and very unique preparation process.

I don’t know what Wilson did to prepare for Sunday’s blowout, but I’m confident it was intense. And while it seems Wilson was better prepared than Manning for last Sunday’s matchup, Manning (arguably one of the best quarterbacks of all time) is well known for his focused preparation. Consider his regular practice of the “wet-ball drill,” in which he dedicates full days to working with his starting center, filling a bucket full of water, and having the center dip the ball into a bucket of water as he practices catching snap after snap. This exercise is frequently credited as the reason the Indianapolis Colts, against all predictions, beat the Chicago Bears in the relentlessly rainy 2007 Super Bowl. Who knows what the outcome would have been without such concentrated preparation?

In an interview a few weeks ago, Peyton Manning repeated what many NFL players know: “We play the game for free; we get paid to practice.” To my mind, this couldn’t be more true in any facet of business or life.

To your success!

Happy New Year! I hope you are excited as I am about the wealth of opportunities that 2014 brings. For many people, this is a time to set goals for the coming year. Yet how do you ensure that you can actually achieve your goals? Here are a couple of tips.

1) Make your goals meaningful

Change is hard, and it’s easy to get distracted from our goals. For your goal to keep your attention and motivate you to follow through, it should be something that inspires you. It’s much easier for a business a goal if it’s something that excites the staff.

2) Make your goals concrete and specific

A goal like “lose weight” or “make more money” or “get up earlier” is not nearly as powerful as “lose 7 pounds by May 1” or “increase net profits by $125,000 in the next twelve months.” Having concrete and specific goals makes it easier to measure how you’re doing and celebrate your wins. It also helps with this next tip:

3) Develop a plan of action to achieve your goals

As important as it is to visualize our goals, I’ve never heard of anyone achieving an important goal by just thinking about it. What makes your goal attainable is an action plan. And, the more you can break your goal down into small, “bite-sized” steps, the easier it becomes to achieve it. The most important question is, “What is the first step that I can take today?”

I hope that with the official start of this new year, you have given serious consideration to the goals you want to achieve for your business. Without having a clear goal for your business, every action you take is without aim, and ultimately without much result.

If your goals involve growing your business in 2014, let me know how I can support you in that endeavor. I love working with businesses that have clear and specific goals!

To your success!

It’s no secret that for your business to be successful, you must have a clearly defined goal. In fact, your goal should be the reason for everything you do as a business. Yet too many business owners find themselves challenged to clarify their goals. They get into the habit of running the business in a “ready, fire, aim” fashion, which is a recipe for disaster.

One prime example is when a business hires a web developer to build (or re-build) a website. In many of these situations, the business knows it needs a website, but the web developer fails to identify exactly what the business’s goal is, and the way in which the website will help achieve that goal. The result? The business often invests a significant amount of time and money in a website that doesn’t actually do anything for the business—it doesn’t drive traffic, convert audiences, or make money for the business.

With just a few days left until the start of the new year, I challenge you to put some focused energy into clarifying what your business’s goals are, and to be very specific. What kind of sales increase do you want to see three months into next year? How many more customers do you want to have six months into the year? What kind of lift in referrals do you need to realize by the end of next year?

The time is now to define your business’s goals, and then to determine how to build a website (which is arguably the most essential marketing tool a business has) that leads you toward achieving that goal…a website that becomes your #1 employee.

To your success!