Did you ever imagine yourself lying on a beach enjoying the sun or spending the holidays relaxing with relatives? We all daydream and picture ourselves in places we'd like to go to, or doing things we enjoy or have always wanted to try.

What do you do next if you want to make your daydream real? If you want to take a vacation you make plans, buy your plane tickets and reserve a hotel room. When the date arrives you head off to enjoy the rewards of your daydreaming and planning.

Olympic athletes do a similar thing before a competition. They imagine themselves skiing a course or moving through their sequence of gymnastic moves. As they prepare, they see themselves doing each move to perfection and then standing on the podium with a medal around their necks.

Visualization may apply to planning a great vacation and to winning athletic competitions, but can it help you succeed in business?

You may remember the Harvard Business School study where recent graduates were surveyed about their goals and then ten years later. The result of visualizing their success? Graduates who had had clear goals in mind were making two to ten times as much money as their classmates.

Put this strategy to work; do some directed daydreaming.

Visualize Your Goals -

Create a vivid image in your mind of what success means to you. Write down the answers to the following questions about your image of success:

• What would you be doing with your time?
  

• Who would your clients and customers be?
  

• How many clients and customers would you have?
  

• How much money would you be making?
  

• How much could you afford to give away to your favorite causes?
  

• What would your lifestyle be?
  

Visualize Your Objectives -

To reach your lofty goals, you'll need to identify specific marketing goals:

How many clients or customers do you want or will you need to be working with each month?

How many new clients do you want to add per month? In order to bring in new clients, you'll need to

Visualize Your Marketing Strategy -

You need a plan. Most small businesses owners struggle with this part. Begin by asking yourself:

• What can I do to attract attention and prompt interest by prospects?
  

• What can I do to increase the number of qualified leads I generate each month?
  

• How can I build the credibility of my firm so prospects trust that we deliver?
  

• How can I ensure that prospects remember my firm when they have a need and are ready to buy?
  

• What is the sequence of decisions prospects need to make to become clients?
  

Visualize Your Marketing Tasks -

Just having a marketing message, or an advertising campaign or a web site doesn't ensure you of anything. Each of these needs to achieve the specific goals and objectives you have set. The best way to evaluate these efforts is from your prospects' perspective. Ask yourself:

What are my prospects' primary concerns?

Are my marketing messages interesting to prospects? What would my response be to my own marketing calls? Without mentioning the name of the company, its credentials or products, is the value of what I provide clear to prospects? What do I want prospects to do when they visit my web site?

Just visualizing success won't get you there, but it is an effective way to begin planning. Develop your marketing goals, strategy, objectives, and tasks from this big picture, and you'll create a plan that will lead you to become wildly successful.

2004 © In Mind Communications, LLC. All rights reserved.

The author, Charlie Cook, helps service professionals and small business owners attract more clients and be more successful. Sign up for the Free Marketing Plan eBook, '7 Steps to get more clients and grow your business' at http://www.marketingforsuccess.com

ccook@marketingforsuccess.com