Set your Goals & Metrics
Take action now to grow your business. Define & measure annual, quarter, & monthly goals and metrics with a mini-course and templates.
Small businesses need to know how to set business goals in order to be successful and grow. If you are winging it, eventually you will get burned out and your business will end up lost with no clear direction.
The importance of goal setting in entrepreneurship is to stay on track with your vision & mission, , identify growth opportunities, stay profitable, and stay as lean and efficient as possible. Goals will help you stay focused and save you time and money. Below is a list of business goals that you can set this year.
Types of business goals
There are different types of goals to measure. Make sure you are covering all areas of your business.
Business Process Goals
These are your actions. The systems and processes you have in place and how well they are working. What areas can you make improvements to help create efficiencies and provide solutions for gaps or potential risks?
An example of a business process goal is to dedicate 2 hours a day to develop a new course for your ideal client that will help solve a specific problem.
Business Performance Goals
These are your achievements. This could include anything from productivity, customer service, product management, efficiencies, to budget/expense management. How is your business performing?
An example of a business performance goal is launch new course in 30 days with 10 people enrolled to beta-test it for the next 14 days.
Small Business Outcome Goals
These are the ultimate results. What are the ultimate results you are looking for? This should align with your vision and mission and how you are tracking towards them.
An example of an outcome goal would be 100 people enrolled in new course generating $10,000 in new revenue.
How to Write Small Business Goals
There are 3 ways to set up business goals for small businesses. You can use the PAR, SMART, or SWOT Analysis or a combination of all three to identify and write your small business goals. Determine a process for goal setting that works best for you that you can maintain and follow-through with.
PAR – problem, action, result
Define the problem within your business that you want to solve. Create the action plan on how you plan to solve it. Define the result you want to achieve.
An example of a PAR business goal: Problem: Your signature online course is not getting as much traffic as you would like to meet your overall performance goal. Action: Create fresh new marketing utilizing organic traffic with SEO and new content via blog posts and paid ads on Pinterest with a specific ideal client in mind. Desired Result: Increase sales for the signature online course by 10% within 6 months (add specific date).
SMART – specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, time-based
SMART goals are exactly what the acronym stands for. Your goals need to be clearly written down as specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-based.
An example of a SMART goal is: Identify 10 ideal clients to beta-test, receive feedback, and testimonials for the new online signature course, and complete testing by end of the quarter (date).
Because you specifically state the goal and expected outcome, you can measure your success based on how well this was accomplished in the end. Is it attainable to get 10 people to beta-test the course? Is it possible for them to complete it by the end of the quarter? How relevant is this goal to your vision and mission? How long will this goal take to accomplish?
SWOT Analysis – strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats
A SWOT Analysis isn’t actually goal setting as much as it is part of the process to determine what your goals should be. Every business should do a SWOT Analysis and identify the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
What are your strengths that you can focus on to strengthen your business? Identify the weaknesses that you should be aware of. What goals can you set to help offset your weaknesses? Do you need to hire someone to help fill this gap?
What opportunities do you see for your business? How can you take advantage of these opportunities by setting goals to move forward? What are the threats? Who is your competition and what are they doing? It’s not necessarily just the competition either. Think about the economy, industry trends, environment, business demographics, etc.
Take the results from your SWOT Analysis and establish goals to move forward.
What Are Some Small Business Goals Examples?
Long-term Goals for Entrepreneurs
Long-term goals for small businesses means anything that will take 12 months or longer to achieve. There are future-looking and broader goals that match the business vision and mission. Long-term business goals examples:
- Business Plan: When you start a business, you need a business plan with a vision, mission, and strategy of where you want your business to go and look like in the future. Break down this business plan into long-term goals and projects.
- Profitability: What are your goals to make your business profitable. How will you grow and scale?
- Employees: What employees will you need, what is the hiring process, how will you train them?
- Customer Service: How will you maintain your customer service and brand identity?
Short-term Goals for Entrepreneurs
Short-term goals for small businesses are anything from daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly tasks to accomplish your long-term goals. The best process for determining your short-term business goals is to work backwards. Start with your vision and mission, set your long-term goals, then break those down to quarterly, then monthly, then weekly and daily tasks.
Short-term small business goals examples:
- Automate tasks, efficiency, and productivity: What processes can you automate to free up more time for other work? What tasks can you eliminate or create a process in order to do faster? How can you be more productive?
- Increase traffic/conversions: What marketing efforts can you establish to help spread your brand awareness and get more traffic to your website? What can you do with your sales funnel to increase conversions? Do you need better copy (wording) on the landing page or a better opt-in?
- Growth: What new products/services can you develop to serve your ideal client/customer? How can you increase reach and sales with your current product/services?
- Expenses – how can you cut costs – lower or improve finances? What is your process to maintain a balanced budget? What are your goals for expenses?
- Social media & networking: What platforms do you want to use or should be using? How are your interactions, number of followers, and the number of link click-throughs performing?
- Create a new product: Are there gaps in serving your ideal client/customer? What products/services can you develop to help them?
- Audit Your Processes: Keep track of what is working and not working. Eliminate what’s not working and focus on doing more of what is working.
Looking for help setting up your goals. Get the guide to walk you through setting them up as well as a business goals template to track them.
Set your Goals & Metrics
Take action now to grow your business. Define & measure annual, quarter, & monthly goals and metrics with a mini-course and templates.
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