Instead, I’ve been focusing on Outcomes.

An outcome is different from a goal. With a goal, you either succeed or you don’t. With an outcome, there is neither success or failure. There is just a result. No judgements.

After you’ve got an outcome, the next step is the action plan to get that outcome.

One of the neat things about working with an Outcome is that I don’t necessarily need to do EVERYTHING in that plan to achieve it. I might be able to skip some steps and still get my desired outcome. Hmmm, I like that idea.

Think about the 80/20 rule. If 80% of your sales, come from 20% of your customers… focus on those 20% of the customers.

Now for a real world example…

BuyTough.com. As you already know, I’m working on a re-design / re-development effort for BuyTough.com. And it’s had more than it’s fair share of setbacks. My to-do list to get this site live is @ 40 tasks. Ughhh.

When I start focusing on the outcome, things become a lot clearer: The outcome is to get the site live (as quickly as possible) with a new look and feel, improved content (easier for the layperson to understand), a handful of critical new features, and allow the visitor to purchase accessory items without the purchase of a laptop.

When I look at where we are in development, with this outcome in mind, my whole plan changes. Gone is the huge to-do list.

I still have a wish list of future features; but, as we all know a web site is NEVER done. So, let’s aim for launching the site quickly, and lots of mini-releases with constant improvement and cool new features. Besides every time I release a cool new feature, I have an excuse to reach out and touch my customer again.

So, my question to you is…. What’s your Outcome?