Setting business goals at the start of the new year is the perfect way to help drive success.
New year, new business goals! There’s no better way to set your entrepreneurial venture up for success than to create a solid goal management plan for 2022 and beyond.
So, it’s essential to decide upon the achievable yet aspirational short-term and long-term goals for your company.
Here are a few examples:
- Short-term goal #1: Hire a new assistant over the next three months
- Short-term goal #2: Increase your prices/rates by 2% over the next five months
- Short-term goal #3: Increase website traffic by 5% within six months
- Long-term goal #1: Increase company income by 25% over the next three years
- Long-term goal #2: Open a second business location by 2025
- Long-term goal #3: Launch four new products by the end of 2022
Why are company goals so important? Objectives provide a clear focus and motivate you toward achieving your goals.
While you may be excited to start listing out your hopes for the upcoming year, there are several tasks to complete first.
Start with evaluating your 2021 goals. Did you meet all of them? Are there any outstanding goals you need to take into 2022? Have your goals evolved? Identify areas of success, improvement and obstacles in the past year.
Next, conduct a SWOT analysis, which involves determining your small business’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. This gives you a well-rounded outlook on your business.
Finally, research other companies in your industry and geographic location to identify average income and expenses as well as marketing approach, product/service offering and more. Comparing your business’s progress to that of similar companies can further help you set realistic business objectives.
How to Set Business Goals
1. Brainstorm
After you’ve done preliminary research and analysis, it’s time to put on your thinking cap and brainstorm! This is your time to be creative and thoughtful. Write down your ambitions for the new year. This can even be in the form of a brain dump as well as list making and mind mapping, which entails creating a diagram of related ideas.
2. Choose Your Goal-Planning Method
A planning method ensures you outline the goals, get specific and stick to them. The most popular goal-setting method is the SMART goal framework. SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Relevant and Timely. This framework can help you determine which are realistic, which need to be pushed to next year and which are a bit out of reach at the moment.
There are additional goal-setting frameworks available, including:
- Objectives & Key Results (OKRs)
- Backward Goals
- One-Word Goal Setting
- Locke and Lathan’s 5 Principles
- Tiered Goals Framework
- Goal Pyramid
3. Devise a Measurement Process
What’s the point of a goal if you can’t determine whether you’ve reached it? Or if you can’t determine if you’re making progress toward it? There isn’t!
That’s why it’s so important you devise a measurement process. Identify the metrics you need to track to reach your goals. For instance, metrics can be the number of sales, revenue generated, etc. Set aside time each month or quarter to find out if you’re inching closer to success.
4. Set Deadlines
All goals should be time-focused. If there’s no deadline, you won’t be motivated to get it done. Setting deadlines helps ensure you reach your goals within the timeframes that drive the business forward.
Try These Business Goal Setting Worksheets
If you’re unsure where to start, download a goals worksheet. Pre-created worksheets can guide you through the process.
Check out these free goal-setting worksheets:
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