Setting Business Goals & Objectives for 2019

When it comes to running a business, ensuring you allocate time to assess your current goals and create new ones is pivotal to your ongoing business success.

Why? Reviewing your business as a whole allows you to gain a more expansive view or your business, your progress and how well your goals are being achieved.

More specifically, reviewing your business objectives and goals allows you to:

• Scale in a more efficient way and timely way
• Track and achieve your goals and the time each goal takes to accomplish
• Optimise collaboration & assist with better teamwork efforts
• Improve the overall understanding of your business direction
• Help to determine the effectiveness of previous strategic efforts
• Guide future strategies
• find any bottle-necks in finances, operations and processes

Mid-year is a great chance to re-evaluate and reset your goals for the next six months. It will ensure you make the most of the remaining months 2019 / 2012 financial years has to offer. Your goals when done correctly can propel your business to new heights in a far shorter period of time. Your goals should also be reflected in your business plan as your objective.

Review your current situation first

Before you write down your goals, a good practice is to determine how your business is currently doing. You should determine areas your business could improve on and determine the priority of each area in relation to the direct effect each problem area has on your bottom line and your scalability.

Here are a few quick activities to help you get a better handle of your business’s current situation:

S.W.O.T Analysis: 

Identify your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Another handy one is the shortened S.W.T to identify strengths, weaknesses and trends.

Competitive Analysis:

Researching similar businesses in your industry to compare industry averages on expenses, revenue, staff turnover, profits etc. which your business advisor can assist you with.

Now that you’ve got a better understanding of where you are in relation to the industry, your competitors and your goals, you can now get to work on the fun part – goal setting!

How to Set Goals

Not all goals are made equal, in fact, believe it or not, there’s a formula to create effective goals. It’s an industry standard and many business advisors will offer you this acronym to help you determine your goals. It’s called ‘S.M.A.R.T Goal’s. What’s a smart goal? It’s:

• Specific. Meaning you’re clear on what you’re trying to accomplish.
• Measurable. Meaning it has a value attached to allow you to recognise that you’ve achieved it.
• Achievable. Meaning it’s not unrealistic or outside of your current financial, time and skill abilities.
• Relevant. Meaning it ties in with the direction of your business and where you want it to go.
• Timely. Meaning it’s bound with a due date in order to achieve the goal.

How to Achieve your Goals

Now that you’ve learnt how to set goals and made a list of your own business goals, you’ll need to create a clear action plan to achieve them. Why? Action plans break each goal down into smaller, more manageable steps. Here is what you should consider when you’re breaking down your goals into these action steps.

– Responsibilities
– Actions
– Timeframe

We call it the ‘Who, what, when’ chart, and it’s really that simple. Simply determine who’s responsible for that step, what actions they’re required to complete, and when they need to complete it by.

How to determine whether you’ve met your goals?

Implement a simple system to help you track and monitor your goals progress – like the who, what, when charting or a Project Management system for more complex tasks. Implement more catch-up meetings within small businesses or between departments for bigger businesses to realign with the mission and the goals at hand. Lastly, reward employees for taking initiative, achieving goals and contributing to the overall mission.

Finally, if you’re looking to completely revise your strategy and require a more intensive approach to the next six months. Lawrence Group Business Advisors are experts in their field with more than 30 years of experience helping small to medium size businesses experience year on year growth. Please get in touch with our team today on 9433 3288 to see how we can help you grow.

This article is general information only. It does not give business, accounting, taxation, financial planning or other professional advice or service. It does not consider your specific situation, objectives or needs and if personal advice is required, a detailed analysis of your particular circumstances would need to be sought. Please see our Privacy and Disclaimers page for further information.