In any line of business, you need to be setting yourself targets in order to progress and achieve. In business and in life, setting goals is going to be what gets things done. But how can you make sure that you stay motivated to do so? How can you make sure that you’re setting yourself the right kinds of goals? But it pays to take the time to figure out what goals you need to be setting yourself. Your business will be defined by your goals, and without thinking about them in a smart way, then your business and productivity could really suffer. So be smart with your goals, or you will have nothing to be working towards.
Be Specific
When setting a goal, you need to be specific. Do you want to increase your client number or social media following? If so, being specific with an actual number, is really going to help you to achieve that. When goals are generalized, you have nothing to really check off if you have achieved it. Is getting ten more social followers enough? It is technically ‘getting more.’ But it isn’t something that is going to impact your business massively. So be specific. Then if you plan to get 10,000 more social media followers or likes, you have something measurable to check on.
As any sales training programme services will tell you, it can be a good idea to check the who, what, where, and whys, when it comes to setting your goals for you and your team. Especially when it comes to sales and business growth. Who can help you to do it? What will the end goal look like? Where can it be done and why does it need to be done?
Make them Measurable
Along the similar lines of being specific, numbers are imperative when setting goals (even more so in the business world). Business want numbers. What were the results of a certain campaign? What was the outreach like? Numbers are checked all along the way. So in setting your goals, numbers are needed too. In order to check that you’re on target to smash your goal, you need to make sure that you have something to measure. Tracking your progress can be done with numbers and stats. Back to the social media example; if you want to get 10,000 more followers in six months, then you need to be getting over 1500 a month. After your first month, if you’ve not reached 1000 extra, then you’re not on target. When you can measure where things are, you can make changes to your strategy to make sure that you can get to your goal in the end.
Are Your Goals Attainable?
It can be hard for any goal, whether in your personal life or at home if the goal seems quite far off. If you set yourself a large goal that seems nearly unattainable, then in many ways, it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy and it won’t be attained. So instead, think of the goals that are more achievable in the short term, that can help you to get to your goal in the long term.
Make Goals Relevant
You might have certain hopes and dreams for your business, but if they aren’t really going along with the mission of the business, then should you be investing so much time in them? If a goal is not relevant to what you want to be doing, then it isn’t going to work or add value. Check on your business goals and that they align with the objectives that you have for your business.
Give Yourself Time
Giving yourself a time limit is the best way to make sure goals get started and worked on. If you leave things open ended, then there is no pressure to achieve or get things done. If you give yourself a timeline, even if it is months or years away, then at least you have the timeline. Then when it comes making plans to help you achieve your goals, you have something to work towards. Even if you haven’t quite achieved your goal by the time you have set, you will be reevaluating against the timeline, so you will stick at it and keep going to get it done.
So as you can see, setting goals for your business is of paramount importance. When you set goals that are smart (specific, measurable, attainable, relevance, and timed), you will be able to achieve so much more. What goals are you going to be setting today?
