I’m sure you’ve heard of the term SMART?

Well if you haven’t, here’s a brief summary of what this means.

S – Specific

M – Measurable

A – Achievable

R – Relevant

T – Time Based

SMART goal setting brings structure and trackability into your goals and objectives.

Questions you may ask yourself when setting goals and objectives are:

When?

What exactly do I want to achieve?

Where?

How?

With whom?

Why do I want to reach this goal?

SPECIFIC - Specifically define what you plan to deliver using action verbs

MESURABLE - Identify how you will measure success and stay on track

ACHEVABLE - Make sure your goal is realistic and possible for you and your team to reach

RELEVANT - Goals should be relevant to the company and reflect one or more core values

TIME BASED - Establish a realistic time frame for achieving your goal.

Here, I have listed 5 simple examples of what you could use for your SMART goals. They may not be relevant to you or your type of business, but you will get the idea of what you could use.

Example 1

Improve Customer Service

Talk to your customers more. This year why not make it a goal to talk more to your customers. It could be through surveys, one to one conversation or focus groups. This is just to get a better understanding of where the customer mindset will be in the net year. Once you have consumed all the data, re-evaluate your service or products. Staying ahead of your consumer is always a plus.

Example 2

Increase Profit Margins

Whether it could be increasing prices, cut waste, minimize overtime or combining your orders, these are all factors to think about when trying to increase profit. It’s important that to remember that your profit margin isn’t just something you should measure, it’s something that you should continuously improve.

Example 3

Growth – Expanding Your Customer Base

This is a common goal and as an objective.  You can get to know your prospects and customers as well as making the most of your networks. Ask a business owner where their customers came from and most will tell you that word of mouth is their main source. Social media is also here to stay so if you want to expand your reach, get online and tweet like mad.

Example 4

Employee Retention

You could provide more feedback as this will improve motivation. Earning the trust of your employees is another goal. Employees perform better when they trust management and are more likely to achieve the goals that they are set. Rewarding effort, not just talent and brains.

Example 5

Branding

Building awareness leads to dominance in the marketplace. It also makes selling easier. If your brand fails to appear credible or trustworthy, it will fail altogether. Make it a goal to ensure that your brand stands out there from other competitors.

Remember, these are just some of the goals that you could set yourself for your business. This may have also triggered some new ones that you can think of.

Goals are not hard to put in place, as long as you follow structure and trackability.

To achieve goals, remember to stay SMART.