GUERRILLA TIP No.1: SET A DAILY GOAL

You can't hit what you can't see. This is why it is absolutely necessary for the small business guerrilla to set a target first before anything else.
From an income perspective, you need to determine the minimum gross monthly sales you have to make just to stay afloat. This is your break-even point. Take into account all expense items such as rent, utilities, salaries, credit card bills, and other recurring monthly expenses. The reason you want to compute for the minimum amount is you want to keep your expectations low. Not pessimistic low. Just realistic low. Some of you may argue and say "If you aim high, at least you'll hit something high." And yes I believed in that wisdom. But I also believe that nothing can be more frustrating than to shoot for something high and  never even come close to hitting it.  At this critical time when small businesses are hurting from this global economic crisis , frustration and depression can defeat your resolve to survive. On the other hand, hitting your minimum goals everytime feels positively good and can motivate you to raise the bar every month. It's just like a champion marathon runner who started off just trying out for 2K sprints and gradually ends up doing cross-country runs.
Besides, as a guerrilla entrepreneur, you are expected to be unconventional; to run against the flow. So if you raise some eyebrows following this tip, that's expected. You're a guerrilla!
It would be a good idea to input a modest profit of around 20 percent on top of your minimum gross monthly sale. Again, go low. The phrase "undersell but overdeliver" keeps popping in my head as I was writing this post. Anyway, adding the minimum gross sale plus the 20 percent profit gives you your minimum MONTHLY GOAL. Dividing MONTHLY GOAL by the number of work days for that particular month (usually 20 to 24 days) gives you your minimum DAILY GOAL.
Listen up! DAILY GOALS ARE IMPORTANT! If there is just but one lesson you can take home from this entire site, it is this: DAILY GOALS ARE IMPORTANT. Daily goals enable you to see right away at the end of the day whether you are "on track". Daily goals show you immediately if you are ahead or lagging behind. Daily goals enable you to react swiftly to compensate for today's deficit.
Enough said for now. If you have read this up to this point, then perhaps I can invite you just a bit more to go get pen and paper and do the math as I have explained here. Take ten minutes and compute for your DAILY GOAL. Don't do it because I said so. Do it because you know this helps a lot. I would love to hear your comments or violent objections. We'll talk again next post. Carry on...

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