Let’s begin with some good news: I’d wager you already have some pretty effective business goals.
When you first set up your company, there was almost certainly a moment when you said to yourself “I’d like to establish a business that does X”.
And that, in itself, was you becoming an entrepreneur, and establishing your first business goal. Granted, it’s not the most precise goal, although it certainly is measurable (started the business? Great, you’ve achieved it!) But it was enough to get you started, an impressive feat in anyone’s book.
As your business has evolved however, and your to-do list has grown with it, it can be easy to lose track of how to make the best decisions. Not only for your company, but also for your life and personal wellbeing.
Goal setting in entrepreneurship is one of the best ways of establishing control over those things. And yet, so many business owners I work with simply don’t have a good system for creating and managing their goals.
Here’s why it’s so important – and so often the first thing I do with my clients.
Why Goals Are So Important in Business
#1 Keeping Track of Everything
Running your own business is a wide-reaching job, especially if you’re a sole trader or only have a small team supporting you.
Setting goals forces you to examine each key part of your company: from profit targets to risk prevention, marketing, operations, and customer relationship management. By doing so, they help you hold those things in balance, and make sure that none slip out of sight, unnoticed.
#2 Holding Yourself Accountable
Goals don’t just help to keep you accountable for your own workload and productivity, they also help you overcome obstacles.
Your goals can act as ‘north stars’ that remind you why you’re up late writing that funding pitch, or why you’ve decided to speak at that conference (even though you hate standing up in front of people.)
Keeping your purpose, or goal, in sight, helps you stay motivated and on the right course.
#3 Measuring Success
Time for a classic coaching question: “What does success look like?”
If you don’t have a clear and tangible – and achievable – answer, success is much harder to attain. Vagueness is one of the biggest threats to achievement out there, trust me.
As part of your wider business plan, goals help you focus in, measure, assess, and adapt.
#4 Turning Strategies into Tactics
As well as helping you hone in on the detail, goals make you smarter, by encouraging you to turn strategies into tactics.
Whilst a strategy is a way of describing your overall objective for something, tactics are the more specific plans you have for how to achieve it.
It’s the to do list to your monthly planner, if you like.
Take this example:
| Strategy | Tactics |
| Become the largest supplier of wakeboarding equipment in the South West of England | Acquire placement in the four major surf retail stores Expand your marketplace by championing the joys of wakeboarding in thought leadership and digital marketing Support the development of new cable wakeboarding centres …and so much more |
Not only are these goals far more achievable and measurable (remember SMART objectives), but they also help you draw the line from the future you want to the present you’re in. And give you the information you need to pave that path with tangible, actionable, realistic tasks.
Top Tips when Creating Goals
So, what should you be considering when setting goals for your business?
#1 Keep Things Clear
Your goals should be quick and easy to understand, so make sure you boil them down into short phrases that someone completely new to your business can understand.
That way, they’ll be much easier to follow – and track – when days get busy and things get blurry.
#2 Examples of Business Goals
There’s no need to reinvent the wheel. Speak to a contemporary, or look at others in the market for inspiration as you set your objectives.
To get you started, here are a few classic examples of business goals:
- Develop a business plan
- Improve your brand reputation (pair this with a suitable metric)
- Launch a new product or service
- Improve your customer satisfaction scores
- Attract more monthly leads
- Improve your conversion rate
- Optimise your pricing
- Increase your market share
- Boost your revenue
- Expand into a new market
- Cut your overheads and expenses
- Attract investment
#3 Consider the Different Types of Goals
When forming your goals, the right framing can make it easier to set the right target. Goals typically come in a few forms:
- Time-based goals, for which the deadline is the key achievable – whether that is soon or further in the future.
- Performance-based goals, which are typically shorter-term targets based around a key metric.
- Quantitative and qualitative goals, which rely on either factual data, or impressions and more nuanced reporting.
- Process-focused goals, which help you create an improved structure or a business system that helps you run your company better, not harder.
#4 Make a Suitable Plan
If your goal is a short-term aim, the best thing to do is probably to simply allocate time and crack on with doing it.
For longer-term goals, however, you might find there are several steps along the way (mini-goals or tasks). In those cases, it’s worth taking a little bit of time to break things down and work out exactly what you need to do, when.
Draw up a schedule for reaching your target and stick to it, so you can easily see how you’re progressing.
Measuring things as you go along – whether that’s tracking expenses, or ticking off each smaller task you achieve along the way – is an important part of fulfilling your plan.
And don’t be afraid to establish rewards at the end of those plans – we all need motivation from time to time and achieving a goal should be marked accordingly.
Finally, Repeat Repeat Repeat
Once you’ve created your business goals, it’s all too tempting to pat yourself on the back, put them away in a folder somewhere, and forget.
Instead – and I’m aware I risk teaching grandma to suck eggs here – it’s essential that you return to them, regularly. Create a schedule, be it daily, monthly or quarterly when you review your goals, track your progress, and adjust things where needed.
Crucially, when you achieve a goal, don’t forget to celebrate. And if you miss the mark, don’t self-flagellate for too long. Review, take any lessons you can, adjust and move on.
If you could do with a friendly chat to discuss your business goals and how to achieve them, please just drop me a line – or share your thoughts on this post in the comments below.
Kind Regards,
Chris