Have you ever felt that, despite working hard, you did not see the results you wanted?

We make the assumption that if we only push enough actions through the system, eventually we’ll get the results we want. And sometimes it even works. But more often than not, when looking at our results, the feeling of “That’s it??” starts to creep in. The result was not proportional to the effort it took, let alone the stress it involved.

We have operated in the following sequence:

(1) Actions → (2) Outputs → (3) Outcomes (based on a Logic Model)

(1) Actions are the tasks we complete, e.g. designing a page, getting testimonials, writing the copy on the page, setting up the payment processing

(2) Outputs are the results of our actions, e.g. a landing page

(3) Outcomes are what our customers do with your output, e.g. 5 customers have bought the product

Our actions are virtually infinite, meaning we can continuously work and still not achieve the outcome we are after.

The solution is in making sure that all of your actions pay into the outcome that you want. This means starting with the end in mind and working backwards from there.

We need to turn our actions, outputs and outcomes sequence around:

(1) Outcomes → (2) Outputs → (3) Actions

Starting with defining clear outcomes results a clear and focused path for our day-to-day actions.