Do you sometimes feel overwhelmed by all the things you have to do for your business, wondering if you’re spending the right amount of time working on the right thing? Or perhaps you wonder — in hindsight — if it really was such a good idea starting that white paper course when you still have not completed the AI course every copywriter should take.
Situations like this often leave us disappointed and wondering if, had we put more effort in another activity instead, we might be further along the path to success.
Because freelancers wear many hats, we can easily get sidetracked by tactical details.
We also often start a freelance business because we want freedom over our schedule.
But too much freedom comes at a price.
To optimize the use of our time, and move our business toward growth, we set goals. There are many ways to set goals, but in my experience, there is one goal-setting framework that is most effective for freelancers.
This series of three articles is about OKRs (Objective and Key Results), a strategy-based goal-setting framework that helps you optimize your time and effort for maximum business impact.
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OKRs is the goal-setting framework that famously “lead Google to 10x growth,” and helped them make their “crazily bold mission of organizing the world’s information” (see John Doerr’s Measure What Matters).
If you’ve attended Lisa Christoffel’s Goal-Setting Workshop on B2B Writers International last December, you have seen the example of OKRs for an advanced copywriter looking to increase their rates.
The purpose of this series of the articles is to introduce the OKR goal-setting framework to newer copywriters (1+ year in business) who may not yet have clients, and to help them to focus on what really matters.
1. Understanding OKRs
OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) comprise a goal-setting framework based on strategy. Its main advantage lies in always choosing objectives, key results, and related tasks that will have the largest business impact. OKRs’ strategic focus helps you avoid wasting time on tactical issues and focus on your most important activities.
- The Objective is qualitative and directly linked to your business strategy with ‘so that’ or ‘in order to.’
For example, ‘I will learn two new skills so that I can reach out to more prospects.’
- The Key Results are quantitative and include numbers and dates.
- The KRs for each Objective should tell the story of how you will reach your objective.
OKRs are about “stretching yourself” to give your business a boost (like a runner who sprints to the finish line). You must start from where you are now (considering your fears, your mindset, and your personal circumstances), rather than compare yourself with other more advanced copywriters, or some ideal vision of yourself.
First consider your overarching goal for your business (typically for the next 12 months). This goal should be about increasing business revenues or the number of clients. (If it’s not, you have a hobby, not a business.)
Then define three or four Objectives per quarter (three-month period), linking each to four to five Key Results (= outcomes), from which you derive your key activities or tasks.
Because OKRs are about giving your business a boost, it helps if you are at least one year in business, or:
- you have at least one copywriting skill to offer to potential prospects (blogging is a great skill to start with and back in high demand (see AWAI’s Copywriting Pricing Guide).
- you have a niche (even if temporary, a niche helps you focus your marketing efforts).
- you have some working knowledge of LinkedIn.
- you are fully committed to your business and ready to ‘stretch yourself.’
If you’re just starting as a copywriter (less than one year in business), you may want to start with my article entitled How to Best Design Your First Year as a B2B Writer.
2. Choosing Your OKRs
To get started with OKRs, it helps to simplify and look at your business in terms of the three ‘buckets’ you need to fill with tasks: working on client projects, doing marketing, and learning new skills. (If you’re new, your administrative tasks will be limited.)
The total time available for your business (whether full time, part time, or side gig) is split between these three buckets.
TOTAL time on your business = client time + skills time + marketing time
So… how much time should you spend on each?
If you don’t yet have clients, aim to spend 70%-80% of your time on marketing and 20%-30% on learning new skills. It’s important to create market traction as soon as possible.
It’s crucial, when defining all your business OKRs, to consider the above time constraints. Each helps define how much ‘stretching yourself’ makes sense for you and your business.
TIP: You only need one copywriting skill to start marketing. While having multiple skills is helpful, and you can keep learning while you’re marketing your business, you can start finding clients with one skill.
3. Scoring Your OKRs
Another key benefit of using OKRs (besides a focus on strategy) is self-accountability. At the end of each quarter, you score each OKR and use that score to renew or revise your OKR for the next quarter.
Scores and other metrics can be scary. However, they are only there to help you readjust your trajectory. A low OKR score is not a judgment about yourself or your achievements. It simply means that you need to revise your OKR for the following quarter, perhaps choosing Key Results that are a little easier to attain.
OKR scores keep you in the mindset of learning from your mistakes, without judgment.
But most of all, they keep you honest about how well you have done with your objectives.
The scoring depends on the type of OKRs.
A Skills OKR is a commitment OKR (you completed the course, or you haven’t) and leads to a score of 0 or 1.
A Marketing OKR is an aspirational OKR that leads to any score ranging between 0 and 1. A score of 0.7 is an excellent score. A score of 1 means that your objective was not ‘stretching’ enough for you (you made it to the finish line jogging rather than sprinting).
In the next two articles, we will look at how to set up Skills OKR and Marketing OKRs for your business.