Articles

The road to success in business is paved with well-set business goals. As business owners, we often find ourselves navigating through various tasks and challenges. To keep our vision and efforts focused, it’s essential to establish and work towards achieving S.M.A.R.T. goals for your business. (We’ll explain that mnemonic shortly, if you’re not already familiar with it.) 

The SMART goal setting process enables you to measure your progress and ultimately guides you towards the success you desire.

So, let’s delve into the process of setting effective SMART business goals…

Celebrate the Wins from the Last 12 Months

As you begin the goal-setting process, it’s important to first take a moment to celebrate your triumphs over the last year.

It’s energising to acknowledge these victories, no matter how big or small. This reflection serves as a powerful reminder of your capabilities and strengths. It reaffirms that you have what it takes to overcome obstacles and make your business flourish.

Reflecting on and celebrating your wins instills a sense of achievement and confidence, which is a great starting point for setting new business goals.

Acknowledge the Challenges and Lessons Learned

However, it’s not just the wins that you should focus on.

The past 12 months may have been dotted with challenges and obstacles too. Perhaps you made some missteps, encountered unforeseen roadblocks, or even faced failures.

But it’s crucial to remember that every setback is a setup for a comeback.

The lessons learned from these challenges are invaluable. They offer the insight needed to make informed decisions, avoid repeating mistakes, and create stronger strategies.

Decide How You Want Things to be Different

Having taken stock of the past, it’s now time to envision the future.

Ask yourself, “How do I want the next 12 months to be different?” Visualise your business a year from now. This could involve anything from improved financial performance, expanded market presence, better customer engagement, or even enhanced work-life balance.

Being clear about how you want things to change sets the foundation for your business goals for the next year.

Create Your ‘Big Bang’ List for the Next 12 Months

Next, it’s time to dream big and create your ‘Big Bang’ list. This list should encompass everything you’d like to achieve in the upcoming year. Don’t limit yourself; it’s okay to think big. Whether it’s launching a new product, expanding into new locations, reaching a specific revenue target, or scaling your team, jot it all down.

This exercise helps channel your ambitions and aspirations into concrete business goals.

If Stuck for Specific Goals, Start with Goal Categories

Specific goals might not come to you straight away. That’s okay. To get the flow going, a great technique developed by Charles Kovess is to first write a list of all the business goal categories you can think of. 

Here are a few business goal categories to get you rolling:

• Staff and recruitment
• Revenue generation
• Business growth
• Increasing market share
• Increasing customers
• Retaining customers
• Improving service
• Increasing profit
• Improving skills
• Product enhancement
• Creating or improving your website
• Systems and processes
• Productivity
• Technology
• Improving efficiencies
• Pricing
• Networking
• Strategic alliances
• Branding
• Opportunities
• Distribution
• Industry awards
• Mission
• Increasing sales
• Changing or adding locations

Prioritise Your ‘Big Bang’ List to Decide on Your Top 3 Goals

Once you’ve jotted down all the goal categories you can think of, rank them in order of importance so you’re clear on the Top 3 goal categories you currently have for your business.

Then write a specific goal for each of those Top 3 goal categories.

This Top 3 prioritisation is crucial because clearly not all goals can be pursued simultaneously. 

You need to focus on the few goals that will have the most significant impact on your business.

Narrowing down your list to the Top 3 goals that best align with your business vision and will contribute most significantly to its success will mean you’re not spreading your focus and energy across too many goals. Focus is essential for success.

Build SMART Action Plans for each of your Top 3 Goals

Once you have identified your Top 3 goals, to dramatically increase the likelihood of achieving them it’s time to make them SMART goals:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Achievable
• Relevant, and 
• Time-Bound.

Specific: Vague goals are wishes, not goals. What specifically will achievement of this goal look like? Our brains are goal-seeking mechanisms and without specificity they have nothing to strive towards. Specificity is crucial.

Measurable: If you cannot measure it, how will you know when it’s completed? What is the measurement? A revenue figure? A profit target? A customer rating average? A number of days worked (or not worked)? What’s the number?

Achievable: Pipe dreams excite for a moment, but ultimately deflate and destroy motivation when they are not achieved. Stretch goals are useful, but if they’re unrealistic they’re more like snap goals — like a rubber band stretched too far. You need to believe 100% that each goal is achievable with the abilities and resources you currently have at hand.

Relevant: The goal has to matter to you and to your team. If a goal is not relevant to your overall vision, your values, and the mission you’re working towards achieving it will lack meaning and relevance and there will not be enough energy and passion behind it. You will fail to achieve it.

Time bound: By when do you want to achieve each goal? Set a date. Not a year. Not even a month. Write down a specific date. Deadlines can be useful motivators if used well. Without a date, a goal can roll from one month to the next, from one year to the next. And you won’t make progress. Get committed. Specify a date for each goal.

Why SMART goals are crucial for your business success

SMART goals for business allow you to create clear, attainable, and meaningful goals with defined timelines. For each of your Top 3 goals you will:

• define what it specifically entails
• know how you will measure its success
• be realistic about whether it’s achievable with the resources at hand
• be clear on why it’s relevant to your business, and 
• have an unambiguous timeframe for which to achieve it.

If any one of these aspects is missing from a goal, the chances of achieving it plummet.

Visualise Your Goals in Detail

Visualisation is a powerful tool in goal setting. Having defined your SMART goals, take time each day to visualise them in detail. Picture in your mind how achieving these goals will impact your business, your life and your family. Use a guided meditation app on your phone if this helps the process for you as part of your early morning or end of day ritual.

This daily practice will keep you motivated, focused, and aligned with your business vision.

Decide If You’re Willing to Pay the Price for Your Top 3 Goals

Finally, it’s crucial to realise that every goal comes with a price – be it time, effort, resources, or sacrifice.

As billionaire Nelson Bunker Hunt once said, “To be successful, you must decide exactly what you want to accomplish; then resolve to pay the price to get it.”

Like most of life’s wisdoms, this is not a complex statement: 

Resolve means to decide firmly on a course of action.

Decide what you want, work out the price, then commit to paying the price.

Then go and pay the price. Take action. Consistently. Persistently.

Don’t do yourself the profound disservice of continuing to “pursue a dream” unless you’re prepared to do whatever’s necessary to make it happen. Why set yourself up for failure? Just adjust your goal to something more realistic and keep moving.

Set yourself up for success, not failure.

It’s essential that you listen to your gut here. You need to truly believe you can achieve each goal. 

The secret ingredient: Self-belief

Before you start working towards your Top 3 goals for the next 12 months, grab a mirror and take an honest look at yourself and decide whether you are willing to pay the price that each of these goals demands.

This commitment ensures you stay committed and focused, driving you towards successful achievement of your business goals

The scary alternative to goal setting

You may have heard the saying, “Most people aim at nothing in life, and hit it with amazing accuracy.”

As a business owner you have stepped up to the plate. You have already decided you are not going to die wondering; wondering if you could have achieved your dreams and aspirations. You are giving it a good hard go.

But unless your business goals are SMART, they are—and sorry to sound harsh here—DUMB.

Following the business goal setting process we have outlined here will greatly increase your chances of achieving your goals.

Want help staying on track with your goals?

While setting SMART goals for business is a dynamic, introspective, and inspiring process, it helps to have a coach who understands the process you’re going through and who can help you execute to the best of your ability.

Building a successful business and abundant financial life doesn’t happen by accident. You already know that. We know that, having built a successful business ourselves over the last 5 decades. If you’d like to have a chat about how we can help you with your goal setting and your goal getting, just get in touch.

We’d love to hear from you and what you want to achieve. Then help you achieve it.