Do you want to become a successful small business owner?
There are around 31.7 million small businesses in the country today. Without proper management, your business won’t be able to compete against the many similar businesses in your area. Having a hands-on management style will help speed up your business’s growth and secure its future.
Among the basics of hands-on management is setting your goals. The first year of your business should focus on meeting your targets so you can end up hitting goals next year. The only problem with this is that most people don’t know that your goals differ from your targets.
Knowing the differences is crucial when managing the business. It allows you to have a better understanding of what your business needs as it heads in a certain direction. Read what’s below to know the difference and become a smart business owner today.
What Are Goals?
Goals are your business’s aim as it continues to serve consumers. If your product is a drink, for example, your realistic goal would be to help customers quench their thirst. It’s an idea that should show whether your business fulfilled its purpose.
This also shows whether your business is successful. Reaching your goal is always a big deal because it proves all the hard work you and your team did was fruitful.
Goals are often set far into the future, too. Achieving them boosts morale as you and your team won’t feel as though you’ve wasted the year only to fail in the end. This makes hitting goals important not only for profit but for productivity, too.
Making Goals for Your Business
The first thing to do when making goals to hit for your business is determining whether they’re short or long-term goals. Short and long term goals fulfill different purposes and can benefit your business in different ways.
Once you determine what goal to set, use your company’s mission to craft a statement. This statement should relate to your goal and customers so you can connect to them on a personal level. It should contain a compelling reason to convince customers to opt for your business instead of others.
This statement is important because it also fuels your business’s production. A good goal statement motivates workers and helps them connect with the business’s purpose.
Having trouble coming up with a goal to work towards? You can always conduct informal research to help choose a goal. This is another great way to make customers and workers feel included in goal-setting.
Your goal is to get different perspectives from both groups. Customer-driven goals allow for improved public relations and increased sales. Employee-driven goals generate employee engagement, helping your business thrive.
What Are Targets?
As mentioned above, goals are our abstract objectives. There’s no proper way to track the progress of your goals until you’ve accomplished them. Targets are different since you have a tangible way of measuring them.
You can also hit your targets and fulfill their conditions much more often than goals. This is so because your targets should help you achieve your goals. Your goal is the final achievement of your business, and your targets drive you and your workers towards it.
You can picture targets as steps that help move your business forward. While your goal can be singular, you can have as many steps as necessary to reach it. Targets will define your business’s actions and make it easier for you to achieve your goal.
Setting a target also helps motivate your employees to reach your goal. Measured progress helps them realize if the business is lagging or far ahead. By knowing this, everyone will always be on the same page.
This helps them come together to further increase the business’s productivity when needed. Seeing that they’ve hit their quota well before the deadline also boosts morale in the workplace.
Drawing and Meeting Targets
There are different ways for you to meet your target. It all starts with target projection and meeting an outcome that fulfills it. A projection is a prediction you make to help align your target with your goals.
To make a projection, you need only to chart a course for any aspect of your business. Remember that your projection must be logical or your targets will be impossible to hit.
For example, let’s say your goal is to have your business generate as much income as it can. The targets you set should help you track how much money your business generates in this case. You can set a weekly, monthly, or quarterly quota so you can see how progress is coming along.
Business ownership means it’s your responsibility to get everyone on the same page. Now that your business has new commitments to fulfill, make sure everyone performs well. This way, you’ll meet your targets with ease well before the deadline you’ve set.
Reacting to Issues Regarding Targets and Goals
Often, unforeseen circumstances prevent you from accomplishing the target or goals you’ve set. A smart business will know how to meet these delays and react accordingly.
If the company misses a target, look into the problem yourself. It’s easy to chalk it up as a loss and carry on. By doing this, you risk missing the target again since you didn’t deal with the problem in the first place.
Sometimes, the root cause can be one individual underperforming compared to the rest. You can either have everyone compensate for their loss or make a hard choice and have them replaced.
When your goals seem unattainable, consider aiming for a smaller goal. Instead of doubling your profits, aim for increased sales compared to the last quarter or so. This way, you meet your goals while improving your business along the way.
Know the Key to Hitting Goals
Hitting goals need not be difficult if you know what your business needs. Targets will help you and your employees so you can reach your goals by the end of each quarter. Set your targets to align with your goals and watch your business thrive today!
Do you want to learn the finer points of business ownership? Check out more of our guides and see what you stand to learn today!