Discover #myBTEC
COACHING
with the GEMS Cambridge International School Nairobi BTEC programme
Have You Started? Just
Start!
Travel &
Tourism is
#myBTEC
Sport is
#myBTEC
By Thrity Engineer-Mbuthia
T
he New Year brings promise of a
fresh start, new beginnings and a
chance to change things. Of course
in reality, it is a date that changes, but the
perception of a new start is quite powerful
for human beings to set in motion a change.
A common practice is for human beings to
set resolutions for the new year. This year, I
will start a business. This year, I will launch
my brand. This year I will go back to school
and understand digital marketing. It is so
easy to come up with these resolutions.
Why is it that within weeks, the resolutions
seem to fall off, and we postpone working
on them?
The first question to ask yourself is - Is this
resolution a SMART goal? As marketers,
the acronym SMART is known to us, right
from the very first time we out together
a marketing plan. For those who are not
familiar with the acronym, SMART stands
for Specific, Measurable, Achievable,
Realistic and Time Bound.
Mary sets a goal for 2019. She wants to
be a more savvy marketer and has realized
Business is
she needs knowledge and skills in digital
marketing. She goes ahead to set her goal:
To learn digital marketing in the first
three months of 2019.
Let us break it down. Is it specific? Well,
she wants to learn digital marketing and
it sounds like there is a lot to learn. Is
it an introduction? Is it Search Engine
Optimization? Is it specific to social
media? Perhaps she doesn’t even know
that all this and more can form a part of
digital marketing. How will she learn any
or all of this? The goal doesn’t specify.
Is it measurable? Broadly speaking, the
goal seems measurable. At the end of the
learning, she can assess what she knows
against what she didn’t know before she
started.
Is it achievable? I am not sure anyone can
learn everything there is to know about
this subject. For starters, it keeps changing
so fast and some of it is complex and needs
practice. So I wouldn’t call it achievable.
Is it realistic? The time frame put there and
Most of us are familiar with the term self-mo-
tivation. Some call it will power. Self-motiva-
tion is the ability to get things done without
having external forces pushing you to com-
plete a task or activity. Self-motivation is re-
garded as a key skill needed to succeed in var-
ious tasks.
32 MAL28/19 ISSUE
#myBTEC
the amount of content that Mary would
have to cover, makes this particular goal
a bit unrealistic to achieve.
Is it time-bound? It certainly has a
time frame, though perhaps not a very
realistic one.
Performing
Arts is
This goal is setting Mary up for failure.
She needs to adjust her goal and make
it a lot more SMART. To identify and
begin a course on social media and get a
certification within six months.
#myBTEC
This is much more along the lines of
an objective that can be achieved and
Mary can look back satisfied that she
did something about building her skills
in this area. It would not be the end, it
would be one among the many steps to
make her into a digital marketing expert.
Once Mary has set the objective,
she now needs to come up with an
action plan. What does Mary need to
execute the objective? Well, she needs
information about courses or options for
learning. At this point it is a good thing
to brainstorm and come up with as many
ideas as possible. It could be a course at
a university, a digital marketing college,
an online program like Udemy or even
self-learning from text books or You
Tube. Mary needs to understand which
method fits her needs, and her given
circumstances. She may consider other
resources like time available, or financial
support to pay for some of these courses.
Hospitality is
#myBTEC
GEMSEducation
@gemscin
Tel: 0732 173 000, 0708 989 569
Email: [email protected]
Web: www.gemseducation.co.ke