If you are full of ideas and ambition but feel misdirected and unaccomplished you might just need help structuring your small business goals. Especially when you are starting a new business, the number of milestones to hit can seem overwhelming.
It’s time to take those dreams and turn them into long term goals with achievable short term goals to get you there.
If you aspire to be more productive at work, improve customer service plans or increase online traffic for your business, you need to set up a structured goal plan (it’s easier than it sounds!) to carry you forward in your growth.
For example, if your long term goal is to increase your social media engagement, you could break it down into smaller goals like doing an analysis on your current target audience, or creating a content calendar to manage your upcoming posts.
Once you identify the steps needed to get to your long term goal you can begin to take those achievable steps forward.
Vision based goals.
When setting your goals, make sure to always keep your business values and vision in your mind. Your goals should help your business grow financially and in success, but can easily derail from the vision and heart of the company. If your business is based on environmental values, setting a goal to reduce shipping costs by using cheap plastic or styrofoam packages, your customers will think you are a phoney.
Be specific and realistic.
We’ve all set resolutions that we don’t stick to, and it’s often because we just make vague gestures toward the improvement we want to see instead of setting specific achievements. The more particular we are about what we want to see, the easier it is to create a plan to get there.
Basic goal: I want to have more followers on social media
Better goal: I want to post more and engage better
Best goal: I want to set aside 20 minutes twice a week*, and in that time I'll make one post and spend the rest of the time engaging with my audience.
*what works for your schedule? Find the discipline to stick to the plan you make, so don't over commit either and stay realistic.
Make action list for milestones.
Once you have an idea of what you want to achieve, it's important to set out the steps involved in reaching your goals. Do not skip this step, because this is how des resale the feeling o being overwhelmed. Break it down into a manageable list of actionable items and start delegating or tackling the tasks yourself.
If you want a more traffic on your website, start with smaller stepping stones like adding your website to all your social and inviting your audience, or creating a blog to increase your visibility online.
Business goals can be set to be completed by a task or a deadline. When you hit your deadline, take the time to assess how you did. This is not an opportunity to give up when you didn’t achieve what you thought you would, it’s a time to grow. Learn from that period and assess what you need to do different to accomplish the goals to have.
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