A guide to goal setting

Every business manager or business needs to have a goal. There are many ways to set goals and many reasons why people set goals. Setting goals for your business gives you something to aim for in the future for your business. Goal setting will help other employees to know how the business wants to move forward and will then be easier for them to help attain those goals. A guide to goal setting can help you, your business and any of your employees for your business.

One of the first steps in goal setting is to be specific about what goals you want to achieve. If the goal is to make more money for your business during the year you need to make it more specific by stating how much you want to increase your financial results. This will give you and your employees something to try and achieve. Setting goals like this will help your employees feel like they have contributed something to the business and make them feel more valuable.

When setting specific goals for your business you will also want to make sure the goals are achievable so that you or your employees are not easily discouraged and stop trying to achieve the goals. If your goal is to increase the financial area of the business then you need to set a realistic goal. Setting a goal to quadruple your business earnings can be too hard to achieve and can have many employees give up before they even start trying.

Goal setting for any business should also be realistic. If we still use the example of wanting the company to make more money you will want to set a realistic goal of when to achieve this goal. Setting the goal of quadrupling sales will make the goal unrealistic as well as unachievable. Setting the goal lower to begin with may not be your true goal but is more realistic. Realistic goals will also help you stay positive about the goals and be more dedicated to achieving the goals you have set.

When setting goals for you business not only should they be specific, achievable and realistic but they should also be measureable. When you make a goal set the time frame in which you want to see the goals realized and achieved. For example if you are trying to make more money for your business you will want to set dates in which to look at the financial statements and then to compare to the last years financial statements. This will let you know if the goals are being achieved and in what time frame. Making dates to achieve the goals will give you a set time to work toward your goals and a set time to evaluate where you are in achieving those set goals.

Setting goals for you business should also be timely. This goes together with being measureable. You will need to give yourself enough time to achieve those goals or to measure the goals. If you need to you can break down the bigger goal into more short term increments. If you are looking at having your business make more money you may need to divide the goals per month or even weekly if needed. This can help you and employees see how close you are to attaining your goals. Setting timely goals may also help you think of different ways to achieve your goals if you are falling short.

When setting goals for your business you should record them and include any of your employees. Setting goals that are specific, achievable, realistic, measurable and timely will help you in setting those goals to help your business grow.