The Staples stickK to it! Business Challenge is an interesting program. It is a free service for businesses, or anyone really. What it does is this:

First, you pick a category for your goal. The categories are: Get Organized and Increase Productivity, Green the Office, Improve Working Environment, Maximize the Bottom Line, and Professional Development and Marketing. Within in each of these categories is a series of goals that you can choose from. I chose to work on the Business Plan goal in Maximize the Bottom Line.

When you choose your goal, you are asked to agree to a commitment contract. The idea is to buy into the fact that you really need to achieve your goal. The deadline for all goals with this program is April 12th of this year.

Once you pick your goal, you can select a referee. Since this is a free service, you need to come up with your own referee. This should be someone who you are close to who can report on the status of your goal. You can also invite friends to support your goal. Referees and supporters will be asked to set up their own account and will be able to monitor and comment on your progress.

The experts at stickK have developed this program with your psychology in mind. They know that if you have a goal, if you have accountability for that goal, and also if there are incentives tied to meeting the goal, you are far more likely to reach said goal.

For this program, the goal must be chosen from the list provided by Staples and stickK. While this is a little limiting, there are a wide variety of choices, and you can better define each goal yourself.

The accountability is provided by your own friends and colleagues. To that end, it is important that you find people that will check the site weekly and who will stick with it. I imagine the best scenario is to team up with a friend who will have his or her own goal and then referee each other.

As for the incentives, Staples has stepped in to reward EasyPoints for hitting different aspects of your goal. For instance, sending in your weekly report on time may get you 5 EasyPoints. These points are redeemable at Staples for office products and services.

If you are looking for something a little different to help you achieve a goal, I really think you should check this program out. It takes advantage of a great system of contract, accountability, and rewards. It is a system you may want to apply to more aspects of your business. If you have employees, why not get everyone involved? You can referee and support each other. It will be a good community building experience and will help you achieve important business goals.

You can sign up for this free program at staples.com/goals. Want to monitor my goals progress? Leave a comment or email me and I will invite you to support my goal.

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Bradford Shimp helps small businesses succeed at BroadRiverCreative.com