Thinking smarter: Setting business goals

Analysing your business strategies and mapping your goals for the next 12 months will help ensure your business continues to thrive and grow.

The new financial year is a good time to review your business’s performance over the previous year. What worked well for your business? What didn’t work and why? Did your business stay on track with your previous year’s goals? What threats and opportunities did you face?

Once you have analysed your business’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (also known as a SWOT analysis) you can create specific, measurable, goals.

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SMART goals

Make sure your business goals are SMART. Writing down your goals and seeking feedback from your employees will ensure your employees will work smarter by being committed to the business’s goals.

Specific

Clearly define your goals:

  • What do I want to achieve?
  • Why is this goal important and what are the benefits of accomplishing the goal?
  • Who will be doing what to ensure the goal is achieved?
  • Where will the goal be carried out?

Measurable

Define a benchmark so that you know when your goal has been accomplished.

  • What are the sales and conversion targets?
  • Are there other areas you can measure like enquiry levels, market share, or add-on sales?

Achievable

Consider the cost, especially if you are a small business.

  • Do I have the resources to achieve the goal?
  • Do I have staff with the capability to achieve the goal?
  • Do I need to hire more staff?

Relevant

  • Choose goals that are meaningful to you and your business and that are achievable in the current business climate.

Time-bound

  • Give yourself an appropriate timeline and budget to achieve your goal. Consider breaking each goal down into a more manageable time frame:
  • What can I do today?
  • What can I do in two weeks?
  • What can I do in a month’s, two months and six months?

Bentleys Mentoring can help you to set SMART goals

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