Goal setting is important for a successful and growing business. Goals are a conscious decision you and your company make to help you clearly define and understand where you are and where you want to be. Setting goals gives you and your staff a defined purpose and a road-map to get there. Let’s talk about some of the key things to consider when setting goals.

Figure Out Where You are First

Before you can set any goals, you need to know where you’re starting. So take some time to evaluate where you and your business are currently. It’s important to do this evaluation first so that you have a solid framework on which to build your new goals. So sit down with your business plan, take a look at what you’re doing currently, write it all down, and evaluate the parts that are measurable.

Then Create a Plan

Once you have figured out where you are now is the time to decide where you would like to be and to put together a plan for achieving your goals.

Goals should be S.M.A.R.T.

Goals should be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-sensitive

Let’s talk about each of those pieces:

• Specific: You want to make sure you are very specific in your goal setting, because that will make it much easier to create a plan for achieving your goal.
• Measurable: You want to make sure that you have built in some measurability, in order to be able to evaluate your progress. Take some time to consider how you will evaluate that progress.
• Attainable: You want the goal to be challenging, but also achievable within the time frame you set.
• Realistic: Make sure you are being realistic in your goal setting. A goal of 35 new sales per month is far more realistic than one of 3500 new sales per month. These are goals, not wishes.
• Time-Sensitive: Goals have a time-frame put around them. A start date and an end date. Making a goal time-sensitive helps provide focus and drive. It also makes it much easier to measure your progress.

Focus on One Key Goal at A Time

Focusing on one key goal at a time can help you from spreading yourself too thin or getting distracted by other goals or activities. So pick one long-term goal at a time, supported by smaller short-term goals along the way. This will help sharpen your focus and make it easier to allocate your resources.

Schedule Time in Your Plan for Regular Evaluation

Take some time periodically to re-evaluate both your goals and how successful you’ve been at achieving them. Do they need to shift due to changes in the marketplace or your business model? If so, these evaluations are the perfect time to make any minor changes to redirect your efforts.

Goals should be part of your overall business plan and they should be something you are focusing on, evaluating, and refining on a regular basis. By taking the time to properly evaluate where you currently are and putting together a plan to get you to where you want to be down the road, you’re providing the focus and drive needed for stable, scalable business growth.

Want to have a healthy, flourishing business? Then you need to have a solid marketing plan in place. A solid plan brings clarity to your business practices, allows you to define your marketing strategy and goals for the year, and details how you plan to implement those strategies. Here are a few key benefits of having a healthy marketing plan in place.

A Marketing Plan gets everyone on the same page.

Having a detailed marketing plan that can be referred to means that everyone is on the same page and knows what the ultimate goals and daily practices are. It means that you can focus your resources and that everyone is working towards a common goal rather than off doing their own things. Having everyone on the same page helps to streamline your business practices and operate more efficiently. It also means that even when people come and go in your business, you’re not losing knowledge or focus.

It allows your business to be proactive and aligned with your vision & goals.

Having a detailed plan in place with strategies for how and where you will focus your energies allows your business to be calm and proactive when unexpected things come your way. Rather than being reactive, the plan makes it easy to determine what steps to take to keep your business on track. So you’ll spend less time worrying about how to react to new things and be able to focus your time and energy on reaching your goals.

A plan makes it easy to evaluate new opportunities.

Do those new opportunities support the overall marketing goals and plan you already have in place? If so, then maybe they’re worth considering. If not, then it’s easy to walk away knowing you’ve made the right decision for your overall needs and goals. The plan makes it easy to take a look at these new opportunities and decide quickly what to do.

Having a plan means that your goals are measurable.

A marketing plan means that you have a framework within which to measure your progress. You can take what you have accomplished by a specific milestone and see if it matches up with what you laid out in your plan. This also provides you with the opportunity to re-evaluate and potentially refine or rewrite part of your plan.
By taking the time to evaluate your business strategies, and lay out a healthy marketing plan, you’re setting your business up for success.