By now you're already knee-deep in 2007's budgets, plans, and marketing initiatives.  Part of planning for any business is setting realistic, obtainable goals.  Goals are great because they give every employee in the company something to shoot for.  They're also an excellent way for the company to gauge its progress at any point during the year.  Depending on your business, goals could come in the form of daily, monthly, quarterly, or yearly targets… or maybe all of the above.

Need a goal to shoot for?  How about 4 million units of your product sold in one day?  Amazon.com, Internet Retailer's No.1 site in its list of the Top 500 Retail Websites, did just that on December 11, 2006.

Ok.  So maybe you're not as big as Amazon.com.  Maybe your company doesn't even place on Internet Retailer's Top 500 list.  So what!  You can still learn a lot of one of the largest, most successful internet companies of all time.  Amazon.com didn't just start at the top of the list.  I remember a time when there was no such thing as Amazon.com.  I remember when Amazon.com just sold books.  And now they sell everything, including the kitchen sink.

How did they get to the point where they are able to sell 4 million items in one day?  What did Amazon.com do to grow to the point where they were shipping over 3 million items a day?

They built a great initial product and they offered something unique.  Back in the book-only Amazon.com days, it was not only the largest online book store, but it was usually the cheapest.  They offered affordable, reliable shipping and little things… like wish lists, customer reviews, and regular promotions.  All of the things I've been telling you were important for any online business.  And what happened to Amazon.com because of this?  They grew and grew into the behemoth of a company that they are today.

So what can you learn from Amazon.com?  How can you take their 4 million item day and turn it into a realistic goal for your own company?

Why not start small and work your way up.  Your company won't turn into a mega-site overnight.  And you can't go from selling 10,000 units a day to 4 million in the space of a month.  But you can go from 10,000 to 12,000 in a month.  You can can go from 100,000 a year to 120,000 a year.  Imagine how great the company will feel as a whole when you sell those 2,000 extra units next month.

And that's the value of setting a realistic goal.  When the company hits a target or reaches a goal, everyone feels great about it.  It's a motivation for further successes and harder work to reach the next goal.  It also gets the creative juices flowing as people in every department try to think of new ways to do things, new services or additions, and new directions for the company.

A motivated workforce is a productive workforce.  And it takes more than a cute poster of a kitty in the bathroom to motivate employees…