I was reading an article in today’s Globe & Mail about Microsoft’s plans to become the #2 online advertiser (currently, Microsoft is #3).

This is truly fascinating.

In sales, we want to be #1, but here’s a company - a really big and profitable company - who’s aiming to be #2. Microsoft’s 5 year goal is to edge out Yahoo (who’s currently #2) and trail Google (who dominates #1) using its 10, 20, 30, 40 Plan.

In summary, Microsoft wants:

• 10% of all page views to be spent on MSN.com, Windows live email and other Microsoft branded websites. Right now, this stands at 6%.
• 20% of the time that a person spends online on its company websites. In other words, if you spend 10 hours on the Internet each day, Microsoft wants you to spend 2 hours on its family of websites. Currently, it’s about an hour and a half.
• 30% of searches online. In other words, when you do research using a search engine, for every 10 visits you make to a search engine, 3 of them should be to Microsoft. Currently, it’s only 1 visit out of every 10.
• 40% of all money spend on digital advertising to come through its network. So, for every $100 that’s spent on digital advertising (text ads, banner ads, etc), Microsoft wants you to spend $40 buying ads through its network. Currently, only $6 are spent with Microsoft.

This got me thinking about my own 10, 20, 30, 40 Plan. How can I shape my business so that I become the top choice for people looking for podcasting solutions? What could I use 10% more of or what would I like to see a 20% increase in?

Mull over these questions for your own business or career:

• If I could increase something in my business or career by 10%, what would that be?
• If I could take 20% of something away from my competitors, how would I do it?
• If I wanted 30% of something for my business, what can I do to achieve this?
• If I envisioned 40% more of something, why would I want this and how could I get it?

Quite vague, I know, but only you know your business or career better than I. So, how can you use the 10, 20, 30, 40 Plan to give your 2008 goal setting a twist?