SMART Goals for your Business Plan

Does your business have the right kind of goals?

One of the most essential parts of any good plan is to have goals. What do you want to achieve? What do you want to accomplish? Do you want an 8-figure yearly revenue with a 7-figure salary? Do you want to be the go-to company in your industry for your region? Having goals helps your plan stay on track, but having the wrong goals can set you on the wrong track. So how do you be SMART with your goals?

Watch the video below, and read on to find more detailed information about these types of goals.

Creating SMART Goals

SMART goals don’t just make you feel intelligent, they help your business run more efficiently too. A good goal should be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-Bound… SMART.

Let’s start with a simple goal, “I want to get more website traffic” and then make it SMART.

Specific – Getting more website traffic is something most people want. But it’s not a very specific goal. More traffic than when? Yesterday? Last year? From where on your website? Your homepage? Resources page? A more specific goal is to “Get more people to read the monthly blog.”

Measurable – “More” readers is a very general number. By making it a measurable numeric amount, you can easily find if you’ve met or didn’t quite reach your goal. “I want 500% more people to read the monthly blog.”

Attainable – It’s great to push your team to their limits. But you want to make sure that the goal is something that they can accomplish. “500% more” readers might be a bit much, especially if the blog has been around for a couple of years. “I want to have 20% more regular readers for the monthly blog.”

Relevant – Accomplishing your goal won’t mean too much if it isn’t relevant to your business. Getting more readers is helpful, but why do you want readers in the first place? In this case, it’s probably because you want those readers to become leads. So that should be part of your goal. “I want to have 20% more regular readers for the monthly blog because blog readers are 3x more likely to become qualified leads.”

Time-Bound – Putting an end date on your goal lets you know if you achieved it or not. Without an end date, the goal can be pushed out forever. And it if wasn’t met (or if it was exceeded by a lot), when the end date comes you can evaluate and adjust it to be a better fit. “I want to have 20% more regular readers for the monthly blog in 6 months because blog readers are 3x more likely to become qualified leads.”

By making your goal SMART, you can go from something very simple, “I want more website traffic”, to something that is specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound for your business, “I want to have 20% more regular readers for the monthly blog because blog readers are 3x more likely to become qualified leads.”

I’m having trouble making my goals SMART

Making sure your goals meet each of the areas might be a challenge, but we have a template that can help. If you visit our SMART Goals template page, you can download a template from Google Sheets or Excel that will guide you through the process. Simply fill in the prompts with information about your business and you’re on your way to making SMART Goals and running a smarter business. We’ll also able to work with you to help you develop these goals if you’d like, get in touch now to learn more or to get started.