As a small-business owner, setting goals is a vital part of your job description. Good leaders understand the importance of having a vision that will keep their companies moving forward. Whether your goals focus on sales, hiring, or increasing income, they won’t work unless they each have five important attributes. Each goal must be yours, in writing, specific and measurable, and they must have a time limit.
Like most entrepreneurs, you probably want to increase sales this year. That’s a great idea, but that alone won’t get the job done. If you want to increase sales by 10 percent each quarter this year, that’s a goal that can work. You can break that goal down into small portions and time frames — all the way down to step-by-step daily activities necessary to accomplish the goal.
Cast a vision
Establishing goals for your business is vital, but it won’t get you anywhere unless you share them with your team. Not only does this improve unity and communication, the sharing process allows the members of your organization to create individual goals for themselves.
Remember, there’s a good chance many of your team members have never formally set professional or personal goals for themselves. This process can motivate them to succeed for the team and themselves.
Hit or miss?
When it comes down to it, all goals end up as one or the other. But if you increase your sales by eight percent, rather than the targeted 10 percent, does that make you a failure? Absolutely not! Even if you missed by two percentage points, the important thing is you had a vision that moved your business forward.
Goals are there to move you forward and push you and your team to achieve things you might not have thought possible. Even if you technically don’t achieve the goal, the process of moving forward was a success.
So make your goals, make sure they all have the five attributes we talked about earlier, and share them with your team. Encourage them to set their own goals too. By doing these things you will begin the process of creating powerful momentum that will propel your business into the future!
Dave Ramsey
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