- Helping Our Music Industry Evolve - The HOMIE Newsletter
- Posts
- From Goals to Greatness
From Goals to Greatness
A handy cheatsheet and proven technique to make your dreams a reality.

You dream of that BIG MOMENT, that HUGE SUCCESS…
Sometimes it feels like you are making progress, but sometimes it feels like you are stuck. So how do you know that you are getting closer to your goals?
Well, first you have to have goals.
Most people have either not taken the time to figure out what their goals are, or they just have some fuzzy idea about what they want to accomplish.
If this sounds like you, then pay close attention to this post!
One of my personal favorite sayings is:
The more specific you are about what you want, the closer you are to getting it.
If you take away nothing else from this post, remember that ☝️
Just by the simple act of getting more specific about exactly what you want, you get closer and closer to getting it.
Don’t just say, “I want to get a sync placement.” That is not specific at all.
Instead, you might say something like, “I want to get this specific song in the next Marvel movie." With a specific goal like that, you will be able to figure out precise next steps to making it happen.
You could figure out who the music supervisor is, what companies have placed songs in Marvel movies before, and you can probably articulate why your music is perfect for those films.
That’s the number one rule for goal setting - BE SPECIFIC!
I will also share with you the world’s most popular goal setting technique called ‘SMART Goals’, and a spin on that technique called ‘SMARTER Goals’.
Then we will take a deep dive into how you can set milestones to measure your progress along the way!
SMART Goals
The term was first proposed by George T. Doran in the November 1981 issue of 'Management Review', where he advocated for setting objectives that are Specific, Measurable, Assignable, Realistic, and Time-bound—hence the acronym S.M.A.R.T.
Since its inception, the SMART framework has evolved, leading to the emergence of different variations of the acronym. Commonly used versions incorporate alternative words, including 'attainable,' 'relevant,' and 'timely.'
Here is a cheat sheet to help you master the world’s most popular goal setting technique:

SMARTER Goals
Maybe you are already familiar with SMART Goals, and you want to take it to the next level?
I recommend checking out ‘SMARTER Goals’.
The SMARTER Goals framework was first taught to me by our Homie and brilliant music entrepreneur, Simon Tam.
The SMARTER acronym adds two more criteria to the SMART Goals technique to make it even more effective:
S - Specific
M - Measurable
A - Achievable
R - Relevant
T - Time-Bound
E - Everyone (in your network)
R - Revisit (often)
There are two big takeaways that really do make this framework SMARTER:
Once you have created your SMART goal, you have to take another step to leverage everyone in your network.
The last step is to make sure you are revisiting your goals often (at least once a week).
Now that we understand goal setting, let’s dive into setting milestones and explore the ‘Time-Bound’ part of your goals. What are the time frames that you should be looking at to create milestones?
Set Milestones to Measure Your Progress
Start by zooming all the way out.
In other words, what is the longest term vision that you have for your life and career?
If you are unclear on how to ‘zoom in and out’ between your biggest vision and your most immediate next action, review my post Levels of Attention and Commitment.
You need to think on a timeline of at least 10 years for the first part of this exercise.
Write that vision down, using the SMARTER Goals framework. Remember to articulate how are you going to leverage everyone in your network, and set a weekly reminder to revisit that long term vision frequently.

For the sake of simplicity, let’s use an example that someone’s long term goal is to have at least a million fans actively listening to their music…
To make it even more specific, the goal could be ‘one million Spotify followers in 10 years’. That’s a clear goal that is SMART.
To make that goal even SMARTER, you could list out all of the potential collaborators, content creators, and social media marketers in your network who might be able to help you achieve the goal. Then set a reminder to reach out to them on a regular basis and see how you might be able to team up.
To learn more about how to build and manage your team, be sure to review my posts From DIY to Dream Team and Managing the Mastermind.
The next step is to break down that long term vision into milestones. For this exercise, the milestones could represent 10x growth and be:
1,000 followers
10,000 followers
100,000 followers
1,000,000 followers
Now, think through the difficulty of achieving each of the milestones above.
The first thousand might be really tough for some, but the step from 100,000 to 1M means that you have to reach 900,000 new fans!
After you have broken down your vision into big milestones, figure out where you are right now in relation to your next one.
Keep breaking it down until you have a clear goal for the next 12 - 18 months.
Sticking with our example, if you currently have 1,000 followers and you want to get to 10,000 followers within 2 years, you could break it down like this:
Triple your current audience size in one year (taking it from 1K to 3K), then triple that again (3K to 9K). That gets you pretty close to 10x growth in 2 years.
Keeping those numbers in mind, let’s say you currently have 1,000 followers and your new short-term SMART goal is to grow to over 3,000 in one year.
Therefore, you need to gain 2,000 new fans in 12 months.
To keep the math simple, that means you should be achieving this monthly milestone:
Get an average of 150-200 new fans each month for the next year.
WOW, doesn’t that sound much more approachable and actionable than just hoping to get to a million fans one day?
Because we started with SMART goals, our milestones are easily measurable so that we can know whether or not we are on track to achieve them.
Prioritize the Best Initiatives to Hit Your Milestones
Now comes the fun part… developing your strategy!
Once you have a smaller, more approachable goal, you have to decide on your strategy to achieve it. A strategy is driven by initiatives, which are basically ideas, experiments, and actions that you perform to attain your goal.
For more guidance on crushing your goals, review Strategic Thinking 101 and Time Management for Creatives.
If your goal is to get 200 new fans per month, how will you do that?
Here are a few initiatives that you might consider:
Play shows and ask the crowd to pull out their phones and follow
Release more music (this can even be stripped down or alt versions, re-releases, etc.)
Collaborate as a featured artist on other people’s releases
Post more content on social media that drives traffic to your Spotify account
Use digital marketing and social media ads
Use playlisting services (but be careful because a lot of them are bots)
Find influencers that will share your music and talk about you.
Use organic/guerrilla marketing tactics like searching hashtags to identify superfans. For more info on this strategy see Gary Vee’s Instagram Strategy to grow your brand.
Once you have all of your potential initiatives listed out, be sure to rank them according to these parameters:
The difficulty or amount of time that each one takes
The monetary cost involved in each initiative
The potential impact that each one might have in getting you to your goal

For instance, if you are considering using playlisting services, maybe you know an easy connection that is fairly inexpensive, but it mostly brings passive listeners, NOT followers and fans. So even though it seems appealing, it may not be a good strategy for this particular goal.
That is why you have to revisit often and measure what is working!
In reality, you will probably use most, if not all of the initiatives above. But you must revisit them and measure them often to see what is actually working the best. Change your strategy and mix of initiatives to prioritize the ones that are most effective and efficient for you.
If you want to learn more about how to grow your audience, check out The Fanbase Flywheel and CLASSIC Formula for Music Marketing.
And don’t forget… LEVERAGE EVERYONE IN YOUR NETWORK!!!
The importance of your network cannot be overstated… especially in the music industry.
This is such a crucial step in goal setting that so many overlook.
Once you have your initiatives figured out, go through each one of them and brainstorm on how you can leverage everyone you know to strengthen your strategy and results.
You must be constantly growing your network with others that are on similar or complementary paths.
That’s one of the main reasons we created HOME, to surround you with people who are high achievers that you can learn from and lean on during difficult times.

Milestones won’t always be easy to achieve, but if you learn to be goal oriented, break down bigger goals into smaller ones, measure your milestones, and constantly adjust your strategy to leverage your strengths, you will be well on your way to accomplishing your life’s vision.
When you reach those milestones, make sure that you take a moment to celebrate your achievements!
For some inspiration, check out my post on the original HOME blog called Celebrate Your Wins.