Business goals are precise and informed articulations of what your business can, and will achieve within a particular time frame. While reaching for the stars is never a bad thing, it’s important that your goals are realistic, achievable and grounded.

If your goals are too ambitious, you may need to adjust them so that your business has a clear sense of direction.

Set goals that are clearly defined and not overly complicated

It’s impossible to achieve a goal that hasn’t been clearly thought out or established. For example, if your company’s goal is to make a profit, make sure you outline a figure, a measurable outcome and a reasonable time frame.

The same goes for overly complicated goals, without being succinct and clear, the message holds little weight, meaning it will do nothing to boost morale, and results will be difficult to measure.

Establish both short-term and long-term strategies for your business

Your business can benefit from both short-term and long-term goals. Long-term goals should be more generalised and wide reaching, as once you’ve established them you can break them down into individual business objectives and progress points along the way.

Short-term goals are milestones that can help track progression towards overall business goals. For example, if one of the goals is to create a certain rate of positive feedback, a short-term objective would be the whole team completing a customer service training course.

Plan for any roadblocks

Make sure your business is prepared to face any hurdles or lulls by covering its most important foundations with insurance. Business insurance can help tackle any financial setbacks that make reaching your company’s goal seem further out of reach. Adding sufficient coverage, prevents unexpected events from slowing down your business’ progress.

Build a strong team

Building good habits around an established schedule is essential if you want to create a highly efficient team. Use a calendar for both you and your staff in order to keep on top of reminders. Use online to-do lists and spreadsheets to organise tasks, set deadlines and prompt for repeat actions. Display your key goals on the wall or in the staff meeting room to keep them visible.

It’s important to regularly review and analyse your progress and make sure your colleagues feel recognised and appreciated for pushing the team closer towards any goals.

It should be a team effort to achieve success, and your employees or colleagues are the people who can tell you what’s working and what’s not. So, once you’ve selected what you think should be your top goals for your business, sit down with your employees and get their feedback. They may agree or have some useful insights that you haven’t though of.

Set your KPIs

Once you’ve built your goals with your team and established a plan of action, you need to think about measuring your goals and setting timelines. The most common way to do so is by setting KPIs or ‘key performance indicators.’ These are numbers you can track that show whether your team is making progress with their goals or not. They also work as great motivators, and evoke a sense of healthy competitiveness.

You should also have separate KPIs for the business as a whole, such as overall monthly sales targets which every staff member can contribute to.

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