Small business goal setting

The ability to clearly define, and articulate goals across your small business is critical to the survival of your small business. If you want to achieve the success you desire, you have to have everyone involved in the process (you, your managers, your employees, etc.) on board, aware of, and clear on the objectives, as well as the path you plan to take to meet those objectives.

Write it down. The single most important things you can do as a small business when it comes to goal setting is to write it down. A goal that is written out is far clearer, and better defined. If anyone has any question about where they should be heading, or what you want to accomplish as a company, they only have to reference the written down goal. Writing down a goal makes it more concrete, and gives it credence as not just a flight of fancy, but something you really intend to follow through on.

Make it measurable. A goal has to be measureable if you want to succeed at it with your small business.When you give someone a responsibility there has to be a way to measure whether or not they meet that responsibility. Set your goals, and create measurable steps that need to be reached. For example, if you want to increase your consumer base, you have to know where you start to measure if you have increased it or not. Set up metrics to measure the success of your various implementations, and to determine if everyone in the company is pulling their weight and helping you reach your goals.

Make it time-targeted. Goals need to be time specific and time targeted. If you say my goal is to grow my company, there is no hurry to get it done, if it does not grow now, it can later. However, if you say, I want to grow by 5% in the next six months, then it is not only clear, but gives everyone in the company a time specific target to aim for. This will help light a fire, and get things moving because they know what the goal is, they know how it will be measured, and they know when they need to meet it by. This makes it easier to set up the steps to reach the goal, and helps your staff commit to a goal because it is specific.

Without a clearly set destination, how can your staff know what to do, and where to go? You have to be clear about what you want to achieve, and how you want it achieved, in order to enable them to be able to do it. You have to have commitment, responsibility, and hard work to make it happen, but if everyone is on board, and works hard, the rewards are great. Share the reward with everyone involved.