Essential Steps to Creating Powerful Business Goals
In their study, Staples National Small Business Survey found that more than 80 percent of 300 businesses surveyed did not track their business goals. Setting business goals is certainly much easier said than done; after all, who wants to deal with the stress that comes with glaring at unachieved goals?
Even then, goals are a cornerstone of business growth and success. The process of setting goals allows you to gain clarity about what you want for your business in the short and long term. Goals also provide you with a roadmap for improving certain aspects of your business in a more systematic and organized way that will improve your chances of achieving better results.
At a more personal level, setting goals for business allows you to evaluate whether the effort you are required to put in for the success of your business is worthwhile enough to make you get out of bed each morning. If it’s not worthwhile, you will lose the motivation to make your business work.
Goals also help you to refocus your time, energy and resources to what really matters. The process of goal setting is one that calls for introspection where you are required to rule out the distractions and to keep sight of the important things that will help you grow your business.
Here’s a surefire strategy for setting goals that will take your business to the next level.
Identify concrete long and short term goals
Although it sounds like a no-brainer, identifying solid, clear goals is the most important step to getting anything accomplished. The mistake many entrepreneurs make is setting vague goals such as ‘grow the business’ or ‘get more customers’ for fear of failing to attain more tangible goals. The SMART system is a great one to use in setting both long term and short term goals. SMART stands for specific, measurable, action-oriented, realistic and time specific. Long term goals should embody your company’s mission statement while short terms goals should lay down the connecting bridges to attaining your long-term goals.
Set up systems to implement your goals
One of the greatest difficulties most people face is translating goals into reality. Without a system in place, it’s very easy to lose motivation midway or to keep track of your progress. So, for example, if you are looking to improve ROI for your social media marketing campaigns, you need a proven system of activities and milestones that will enable you to set up a content strategy, post regular updates, engage with your audience and track specific metrics for progress.
Get your team on board
For goals to be achieved, you need the right team in your corner. Whether you have one or a hundred employees, you need to motivate them to work toward attaining near-term goals while keeping an eye on the bigger picture. Working together toward a specific destination while tracking progress can be a strong motivator that can encourage your team to do whatever it takes to accomplish your business goals.
Devote the right resources to achieve goals
Finally, to achieve your business goals, the right resources must be matched to specific activities that will deliver the desired results. For example, if your goal is to increase brand awareness, resources, including employees, time and money should not be solely focused on customer retention. This might mean eliminating certain activities so that you can refocus your resources to really actualizing the goal at hand.
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What is most important when it comes to goal setting is being clear about what you want and having the courage to identify and let go of distractions. This open-eyed approach will let you make the big decisions that will move your business to greater heights.
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