SMART Goals

SMART goals are one of the premium ways to write your personal, professional, and business goals. To continue with our conversation of starting the new year off on the right foot, every business owner should write SMART goals for themselves as a leader and also for the business.

“If you do not know where you are going, you will end up someplace else.”

If you have not heard of SMART goals quite yet or maybe just haven’t gotten the hang of it, let us walk you through it. SMART goals are really an acronym for the types of goals you should set. SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time Bound. Writing your goals out with such specificity is helpful so you know what it is you are trying to accomplish, how you plan to get there, and how you know when you have achieved your goal.

Specific Your goal should be direct and detailed. Avoid being too general, broad, or vague. You should know the 5Ws+H or the who, what, when, where, why, and how.

Measurable Your goal can be measured by relevant business metrics. This is important in that you should be able to measure your progress to achieving the goal as well as review the overall objective with pure data and without emotion. The data will tell you clearly whether you have achieved it or not.

Attainable Your goal is realistic and you have the resources to achieve it. If you want to increase sales by 3000% and you only increased it by 14% the year prior, you are likely shooting too high. Review existing data that is available to you prior to setting your SMART goal so you know what’s reasonable versus what is likely unachievable.

Realistic Your goal aligns with your company mission. The “R” in SMART has various meanings in that you may see it as “realistic” at times and potentially “relevant” other times. The terms themselves are synonymous in this sense. Overall, you need to ensure that whatever goal you set, it makes sense for your business and will allow your company to grow. If you are setting a SMART goal that won’t progress your business, then you may need to reconsider it.

Time Bound Your goal needs a deadline so in essence you have a starting and ending point.

Now that you know the five components of a SMART goal, review some examples as you prepare to write your own. Below are two examples of SMART goals for a business.

Example 1: By the end of this Q2, my business will sell 25% more of product X online and 10% more products in all retail stores as compared to last year.

Example 2: At calendar year end, we will increase the market share of our company from 4% to 10% by opening 2 new retail locations in Philadelphia, taking advantage of our increase in consumption from last year.

Regardless of the goals you set for you and your business, make sure that you include each component of a SMART goal. Remember to remain flexible. Have an overall vision and a strategy that allows you to adjust to real-time factors.