It’s no secret that you will NEVER hit the targets you don’t aim for. To put it another way, unless you have a clear destination in mind, you simply won’t arrive and if you do you’ll arrive confused.

Picasso once wrote, “Our goals can only be reached through a vehicle of a plan, in which we must fervently believe, and upon which we must vigorously act. There is no other route to success.”

1. If you haven’t already written your goals down, close your office door and start writing all of the goals that come to your mind. For this exercise I want you to think in terms of your health department. What improvements do you want to see? What amount of specific growth do you want? What programs do you want to bring out of obscurity? Please pick three goals.
2. Now that you have taken the time to write down some goals, answer the following questions. Once you achieve these three goals, what will that success look like? How will your health department improve? How will your personal life improve? What will happen if you don’t achieve these goals?
3. Now we are going to back track from the successful end result. What immediate steps can you take to begin achieving your three goals? What help do you need? Where can you get that help?
4. When it comes right down to it, some goals can look pretty daunting at the start. For example, imagine you want to increase clinic visits by 100 new clients per month over the next 12 months. On the surface that looks like a lot of work but when you break it down, it’s only adding 8.3 new clients per month. You could probably do that without spending a penny!
5. It’s been said that easiest person to sell to is someone who already does business with you, an existing client. Why not plan on contacting each of your clients from the past year and look for opportunities to offer them (or their family/friends) additional services.
6. Referrals are a huge way to immediately grow your health department. Be sure to ask everyone who does business with your health department for a referral. It doesn’t matter if they are there for a septic permit, food class or a flu vaccine, EVERYONE knows others that you and your staff can help.

2020 can be a year of quantum growth for you and your health department. There is nothing stopping you. You have a clean slate and a blank sheet of paper. Just take the first step.

“It’s hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed” – Theodore Roosevelt