Whether you’ve recently launched your company or have been in business for many years, goal setting is crucial. Using goals strategically can keep your operations focused and promote additional growth, increasing your odds of long-term success.
However, you also need to use the right approach when goal setting. If you want to make sure you’re able to outline your goals in the best possible way, here’s a look at how you can set SMART goals for your company this year.
What Are SMART Goals?
SMART goals are well-defined objectives that contain specific kinds of information. Essentially, it’s a goalsetting method, giving you a framework for outlining targets in a way that makes them actionable and achievable.
SMART is actually an acronym. It stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound. Essentially, each letter represents a critical best practice you need to follow when choosing and defining your objectives.
How to Set SMART Goals for Your Company
Be Specific
If you want to set SMART goals for your company this year, you need to use the acronym as a guide. Begin by making sure your goal is specific. For example, “increase sales” is far too ambiguous to fit the criteria. Instead, you’d want to use something like “increase B2B sales of our core product line by 10 percent.”
Make Them Measurable
Next, you need your objective to be measurable. Essentially, there needs to be a metric that lets you know that you’ve reached your target, such as the “10 percent” portion of the example above.
Make Sure They’re Attainable
After that, your goals need to be attainable. In the simplest sense, that means choosing realistically achievable targets. While they can be challenging, you don’t want to push the boundary too far. Otherwise, the objective can actually be discouraging once it starts feeling impossible to accomplish.
Have Relevant Goals
Then, the goal has to be relevant. With that, you want a sense of alignment between the objective and your broader mission, market position, product or service offerings, business model, and other key aspects of your operation.
Set a Timeframe
Finally, you need the goal to be time-bound. This means defining a timeframe for its completion. Going back to the example above, if you further refined the goal as “increase B2B sales of our core product line by 10 percent within six months,” the target is now time-bound.
Once you have your SMART goals defined, it’s time for an action plan. Consider where your company is today and where you want to get. Then, break down each step between the two points, allowing you to create a roadmap that steers the company toward greater success.
As you begin working toward your goals, monitor your progress. Use any metrics you identified to help you gauge the effectiveness of various efforts, and if you aren’t moving forward at the right pace, reevaluate your approach until you find one that works.
By continuously refining, you give yourself opportunities for course corrections. As a result, you’re far more likely to achieve your goals in the end.
Contact Our Team to Learn More
If you’d like to learn more about SMART goals, the team at Selectek wants to hear from you. Contact us today.
