When it comes to setting business goals towards the end of Q2 – planning and strategy are needed in order to follow through with what you want out of the year (or beyond).
One of the most exciting things to act upon within your business is the goals you’re looking to achieve – which will not only keep you on track in the long run but will give you daily motivation.
In this blog, we will walk through exactly how to set effective business goals using strategic planning and step-by-step analysis. Read along to find out more!
Why is Setting Business Goals Important?
Before we break down how you set business goals for businesses, whether it be an entrepreneurship start-up or a currently growing business – let’s break down the importance of setting goals in the first place.
If you want a sustainable business for the long term, you will have to be willing to organise, break down and track your goals effectively. Most start-up companies will know what they want in the long run but will never write down on a piece of paper or software how they’re going to get there.
Without business goals, you will have no way of tracking whether you are successful or not in what you want to achieve in certain timeframes. Goals help create a clear path – examples being factors such as deadlines, short, mid and long-term priorities and get you headed in the right direction in general.
Every single goal, no matter if it is a tiny goal that you can achieve in a day or your main long-term goal is important towards the kaizen and improvement of your business. They can be the deciding ingredient to whether you succeed or don’t – as it is easy to procrastinate and completely go off track. Having laser focus with no distractions for your specific goals is one of the essentials for creating a productive leadership environment.
Setting Strategic Business Goals
Looking within your business, management team and other employees you have around you – it is easy to settle for what you have and let everything happen naturally. Instead, we believe every business should have their DNA on what they believe is the best way of going about achieving their goals. Here is exactly what you need to set strategic goals within your business:
Decide What You Want Your Goals to be
As a business owner, you may be just going with the flow and going with what’s happening on a day-to-day basis with no strategic planning process. However, this is not something to stress about as there are always struggles within a business environment (whether you are a newbie or an established business).
Thinking of your goals as something you want to accomplish rather than ‘what goals do I want to set for my company?’ is a key way of reading into setting effective goals. When setting your strategic business goals, you need to ensure that they’re worth your time and effort towards the cause.
Thinking of the goals that can push your business forward as a unit and bring eyes and success to your company’s name should be at the forefront of the goals you’re wanting to achieve. This doesn’t mean to say that you should just focus on the bigger picture and all the main desires. It also means you need to create a strategic plan for all the smaller goals that contribute towards the bigger picture – as they’re equally dominant.
Out of your top preferences, consider taking advantage of a SWOT analysis structure. This analysis that you will complete will display exactly what areas inside your business is flat and needs work on. On the flip side, it will also show you your main strengths too – which you can use to increase business sales and engagement as a whole.
Commit to Goals and Regularly Measuring Progress
One of the simplest forms of communication, when you try to encourage someone to achieve their goals, is telling them to commit to their goals and stay on top of them! However, many people will procrastinate and let their goals slowly fade out of their life. Most of the time people do this subconsciously – but it is always in the back of their minds that they’ve not followed through with what they set out to do.
However, the top percentage of businesses and high-performing individuals – will always follow through with what they’ve set out to achieve and put their total commitment to the cause. With careful thought, you should not be second-guessing your goals and give up on them straight away. Therefore, you should enjoy the ride and not get too disheartened if they don’t happen as quickly as you wanted them to.
Without a system to measure your progress, it can become easy to procrastinate and not realise how well you’re performing. Finding a way to track the metrics of your success – whether online or written will contribute to you achieving your goals in the end. For example, you could use a spreadsheet on your computer or laptop.
Having consistent meetings with your team to discuss the goals of the company and their own goals will help develop an understanding between the group of what needs to be achieved. Keeping everyone in the loop will certainly help you and your team appreciate the goals.
Use a Business Coach
If you’re struggling with putting down on paper what exactly you want to achieve and how you get there – it may be worth having another set of eyes breakdown your business goals. Business coaches help you develop a clear vision for your business – helping you to achieve the clear goals you’ve set out, enabling the company to finally flourish.
A business coach will help develop a business plan of action, providing you with knowledge and insights on how to attain certain wants and needs. For example, they can help you with the meetings you want to have with your team, obtaining outside finance and funding, meeting new people, etc.
You may want to work on some skills such as confidence, organisational skills or time management skills to maximise the productivity of your workplace. Keeping control of your business and its performance (whether there is an issue or not) will be something that a business coach can address and help improve.
Mark is a multi-award winner in business networking and relationship building. He is passionate about coaching and mentoring business owners and professionals through 1-1 & group coaching, team performance workshops and group mastermind sessions.