How to Strategize and Set Goals for Your Business

Setting goals is the only sure-fire way to make it to the top in the business world and beyond. The question is, how do you create meaningful goals that will bring you success? There are some simple yet significant tips and tricks for strategizing and setting short-term and long-term business goals.

Get SMART

When it comes to setting goals, you can do a few key things to ensure that they will help you achieve your goals. Use the acronym, SMART, to help you remember the important aspects of goal setting. Goals should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and timely. This is an all-encompassing acronym you can utilize to set significant goals.

• • Specific: To set specific goals, word them clearly. Ambiguous goals will be harder to achieve because there won’t be a clear path you can follow to accomplish them. An example of a specific goal would be, “Make $8,000 in three months.” This is better and more defined than something like, “Make a lot of money.”
  • Measurable: Measuring your progress is essential when it comes to creating a successful business. Measurable goals require stating specific amounts and dates. State your goals in a way that shows exactly what you need to do to achieve them. For example, if you want to grow your blog following, your goal could be, “I will pitch five new story ideas by March 1st.”
  • Achievable: It is important to make sure your goals are realistic. Unachievable goals won’t get you or your business anywhere. Instead, you will feel unaccomplished and unsuccessful. You know what you are capable of, so challenge yourself without making a goal that is entirely impossible to achieve.
  • Realistic: Realistic goals will help you achieve what you are working towards. They are relevant to your business’ overall success.
  • Timely: Include a start date and an end date for your goals. This will help keep you on track and will prevent you from getting overwhelmed.

If you are interested in learning more about the process of creating SMART goals, you can check out Bplans.

Generate Objectives

Creating objectives for your business will help you and your team stay on task and focus on things that will help you reach your end goal. Without objectives, you won’t have anything to guide your goal setting. Generating an objective should be one of the first things you do when strategizing a business plan. Once you have an objective in place, you can create relevant goals that will directly help you achieve your end product.

Conduct a SWOT Analysis

A SWOT analysis helps assess a business’ strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Integrating SWOT analyses into your company meetings can allow your team to realize where they can improve.

• Strengths: Capitalize on your business’ strengths. For example, maybe you have a large social media following. You can use this to your advantage and increase advertising on your social media accounts. When going over strengths, focus on what your company does better than other companies or the things available to your business that other businesses don’t have. Pointing out your strengths will also increase motivation, which is another essential component of small business success.

• Weaknesses: This part of the analysis allows you to see where there is room for improvement. Maybe your branding is outdated. Take this opportunity to consider a rebrand that will give your business a fresh look, drawing in a new audience. It is important to compare yourself to other businesses to see where your brand is lacking. Assessing your weaknesses will also allow you to grow from your mistakes.

• Opportunities: What opportunities can you capitalize on to help your business grow? Think about opportunities that are unique to your business or your product. Investopedia says you should, “Refer to favorable external factors that could give an organization a competitive advantage.”

• Threats: Consider the external factors that could pose a threat to your business or product. Anticipating threats will allow you to take action against them before it is too late.

You can download a free SWOT analysis template here.

Implement an Accountability Plan

If you own a business, holding yourself accountable is fundamental to your success. Implementing an accountability plan can help you stay on task and meet your deadlines. Simple things like strict schedules, planning out your days, and breaking down each project into smaller tasks will help you hold yourself accountable. Henry Evans, author of Winning with Accountability, The Secret Language of High-Performing Organizations, suggests getting an accountability partner. When developing an accountability partnership, consider someone you can trust and someone who will be honest with you.

Set Deadlines

Setting strict deadlines for yourself is essential when it comes to business goal setting. Create a timeline for your goals so you can map out each step you must take to see them accomplished. Hard deadlines are crucial, so make sure your entire team is on the same page regarding goals and what needs to be completed when it needs to be. Your work ethic will likely improve as soon as specific deadlines are put in place.

Act Small, Think Big

Setting smaller goals will prevent you and your team from becoming overwhelmed. You can also break sizable goals into smaller tasks. One way to do this is by listing three different action items under each goal you set. These smaller actions will help you achieve your goals one step at a time.

When it comes to strategizing for your business, hold yourself accountable by implementing strict deadlines and analyzing your strengths and weaknesses. Combine this with setting SMART goals, and your business is likely to flourish.