You’ve probably heard a lot about the importance of setting goals in your business. But do you understand how to set goals in your business?
As a small business owner, you may have found it hard to actually sit down and think about which goals you want to set. That's totally normal.
I've totally got you! Today I’m going to show you how to set goals in your business using a simple 3-step strategy.
So, no more procrastinating… just a clear plan for setting and crushing your goals going forward!
Step 1: Make Sure You’re Clear on Your Business Mission
Before you even start setting goals, it’s important to be crystal clear on the main mission of your business.
Because whatever your mission is, you’re going to want to make sure each goal you set is in alignment with this mission!
Some example mission statements could include:
Help busy professionals achieve optimal fitness through providing easy, healthy exercise plans.
Provide high-quality clothing that is ethically sourced and sustainable.
To help business owners achieve success through improving their public speaking and leadership abilities.
Step 2: Do a Review of Your Business
Next, you’ll need to do a little digging to figure out how your business is performing in several key areas.
These areas may vary depending on your business, but could include:
- Sales
- Marketing (social media, content marketing, etc.)
- Lead generation
- Budgeting
- Overall income or profit
- Client retention
- Market share
- Hiring or growing a team
- Customer satisfaction
This is by no means an exhaustive list. Some of these areas may not apply to your type of business. Or there could be additional ones.
Spend a bit of time thinking about this.
To see how you’re doing in each of these areas, you’ll need to do some investigative work.
This could involve digging into your website or social media analytics, doing some competitive analysis, talking with your employees, and looking at how you’ve performed in different areas year over year.
Which areas are you doing well in? Which areas are you struggling in? Where are your competitors doing well? What changes are coming in your industry that could impact your business success in the coming year(s)?
These are all important questions to ask as you do your review!
Step 3: Set Specific Goals
At this point, you should have nailed down your mission statement, as well as identified some general areas where you’d like to improve.
To illustrate this, let’s imagine you’re a parenting coach and see what you’ve come up with so far:
Mission: To inspire parents to spend time with their kids by providing private parent coaching and easy-to-use activity guides and plans.
General areas where I’d like to see improvement: Marketing strategies, increased revenue, client retention, and increasing qualified leads through my website.
Now it’s time to actually set specific goals in each of these areas, ensuring they’re each in alignment with your mission.
Set SMARTER Goals
Vague goals get vague results. It's also nearly impossible to take the right action (let alone any action for that matter) on your goals if they are not explicit.
The best way to ensure your goals are specific enough is to create SMARTER goals, a concept commonly attributed to Michael Hyatt. SMARTER stands for:
Specific – Be as specific as possible identifying as many of the “who’s, what’s and when’s” as possible
Measurable – How will you know you’ve achieved your goal? Use specific units of measurement whenever possible (dollars, percentages, views, etc.)
Actionable – Can you take measured action steps towards achieving your goal?
Relevant – Would be achieving this goal help you meet your mission? (see step 1)
Time-keyed – How many ways can you attach time to your goal? A due date? Day of the week? Time of day? A number of times something occurs?
Exciting – Does your goal inspire you? Are you enthusiastic about it?
Risky – Does your goal feel just a bit scary? Does it challenge you?
Keep in mind it’s important to set both short-term and long-term goals.
It’s important to set both short-term and long-term goals.Click To TweetUsing the principles above, here are some SMARTER goals I might set related to revenue.
Long-term goal: Generate $1M in revenue for my business through private coaching, group coaching programs, and digital products by the end of 2027.
Short-term goal: Generate an extra $5K in additional revenue in the next 30-days by offering VIP day packages to past coaching clients.
And that’s it!
Work your way through the different areas you’ve identified in step 2, and come up with both short-term and long-term goals you hope to accomplish in the coming months and years.
Don't Just Set Your Goals…Achieve Them!
Now I know this may all seem like a lot of “busy work”, but I promise, setting goals – especially SMARTER goals – is key to actually growing your business and seeing RESULTS.
Now I know this may all seem like a lot of “busy work”, but I promise, setting goals – especially SMART goals – is key to actually growing your business and seeing RESULTS.Click To TweetAs you get used to using this process, you’ll start to find your confidence increases and your business actually moves forward in a really intentional way.
Give it a try, and let me know how it goes!
What’s one SMARTER goal you’re going to set for your business? Let me know in the comments below!
UPDATED on November 8, 2021
