Beverlee Rasmussen CEC PCC Do all your best ideas live in your head?
Perhaps you know exactly how you want your business to look, and the type of lifestyle you want to have as a business owner… yet these goals never seem to come to fruition.
“I wish my business could be…” can turn into “I can’t believe my business is…!” depending on the qualities of your goals.
An effective goal has the following characteristics:
1. Have a purpose
I’ve worked with over 400 small business owners, and their goals all have one thing in common. Each goal has a purpose. It’s the one thing that makes the difference between setting a goal and actually reaching it.
Although you are setting goals for your business, the purpose has to be personal. What will it mean to you when you reach that goal?
A purpose is key to achieving your goals.
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2. Write your goal down
Write down exactly what it is that you are working so hard to achieve and why.
It is well researched that business leaders who set clearly defined written goals achieve greater results than when goals are not documented.
Write down your goal so you can easily refer to it when you start to lose sight or motivation. You can also use a written goal as a guiding point when you need to decide what tasks to prioritize.
Which tasks are supporting your goal?
3. Create an activity plan
Your goals can be broken down into small, manageable actions. These actions create your activity plan.
By analyzing these actions you can see what systems you need to reach your goals.
Often times small business owners have lofty goals. We are visionaries after all. I believe any goal can be reached with the right strategies and systems.
To help make your big goals more accessible, you can break it down into the areas of leadership, operations, finances, team, and sales/marketing. This creates a road map for you and your team to make your goals happen.
4. Be measurable
A goal is an aim or target. How do you know if you are on track to that target?
A client of mine wanted to open a second bakery location. She knew she was on track towards this goal by measuring the amount of money she was able to set aside each month. To her, a monetary value was the key.
Another client measured their goal of “increased brand authority” by the engagement and quantity of their social media followers.
What will the the indicator that you are on track to reaching your goals?
5. Be tracked
Once you know how to measure your goal, you’ll want to check in to make sure everything is going as planned.
Schedule time on a monthly, quarterly and annual basis to see if your actions are bringing you closer to your goals.
6. Be shared with your team
As entrepreneurs, we tend to keep our goals in our head where they are powerful and vivid yet, not very useful if we want to achieve them. Business owners moving towards prosperity and freedom must write down and share their goals with everyone connected with the organization.
Share your goals with your team. That includes your employees and your circle that supports you outside of your business— your husband, partner, family and friends.
Instead of working alone towards something, everyone is making the load lighter and the probability of reaching that goal so much greater.
What do your goals look like?
This is a perfect time to set effective goals for a brand new year. Do your goals have all the characteristics listed above?
What will it be like for your business once that goal is achieved?
What will it be like for your life once that goal is achieved?
Until next year, enjoy your Entrepreneurial Journey!
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