The Importance of Setting Goals
Setting clear and measurable goals is of crucial importance to your business success. There isn’t a profitable corporation in business today that doesn’t understand this. They all set goals regularly and most communicate them to their employees who are rewarded on any actions that advance these goals.
Goals Defined
Your “vision” for your business is what you hope to accomplish overall. It’s the big picture; where you hope to be once you’ve achieved success. For example, your vision could include a thriving business with hundreds of happy employees and a personal lifestyle of riches and contentment.
A goal is a specific step to be taken in order to realize your vision. You could call goals milestones along the path to your vision. Take your vision and break it down into steps. These are your goals. Once you successfully complete all your goals, your vision for your business will turn into reality.
No Goals; No Success!
Although larger companies have goal-setting down to a process, that same mind set doesn’t appear to be as common in smaller companies, especially new entrepreneurships. These entities often skip over this important step, thinking it’s obvious what the goal of the company is: to make money. That’s not enough!
This simple goal is not measurable and has no time limit. You could make 10 cents three years from now, and, technically, you’ve achieved your goal. But is that what you really wanted? I’m sure not!
Attributes of Good Goals
Goals should be specific and measurable. Put numbers in your goals. How much money do you want to gross? How much net? How much of that will you invest back into the business? How many widgets will you sell? How many list members will you have?
Goals should be attainable. Saying you want to make a million dollars sounds great, but it’s a huge and demoralizing task if you’re starting at zero. Instead, think in increments. Since most new businesses don’t show a profit for some time, you need to work toward a smaller goal at first. Once you achieve that, bump it up.
Goals should have definite timeframes in which they will be accomplished. For example, perhaps you want to set your revenue goal at $1000 per month by the end of your first year.
Goals should be a challenge. Making your goals too easy to reach is just as bad as setting them too high. If your goal is too low, you won’t work as hard. You need to stretch yourself, but not demoralize yourself! It’s a fine line, and you’ll stand a much greater chance of success if you find it.
Goals should be written down and in plain sight of your work area. When I first started, one of my goals was to gross $50 per day by the end of my first six months. I wrote “$50” on a post-it note and attached it to the side of my monitor screen. Every day I saw that note and re-energized my efforts to get there.
Goals should be regularly reviewed and adjusted. When you reach a goal you’ve set for yourself, celebrate! You deserve it. Reaching your goal means your vision is closer to being a reality. But don’t stop; you’re not there yet. Set your next goal higher. In the example above, once I reached an average revenue of $50 per day, I set a new goal of $200 per day. I replaced my post-it note and continued on. Occasionally you may even need to lower goals when you discover they are too ambitious for reality.
Set Your Goals Right Now
A study of Harvard MBA graduates revealed that those with written goals ended up making ten times the income of all the others combined! If this doesn’t have you running for paper and pencil, nothing will. Find your vision, set your goals, and realize your dreams!
