How Small Business Owners Should Set Goals | Entrepreneur

When I owned my businesses, I found that setting goals in a particular way made things a lot easier, and I found myself achieving higher levels of success faster than I thought possible. I’d like to share these simple steps with you so that you too can reach your most important business (and even personal) goals faster than expected.

Here are four simple ways small business owners should consider setting their goals:

Related: 3 Rules for Setting Goals for Your Business

1. ME Lenses

ME goals are perhaps the most crucial aspect of creating a goal you will ever set for yourself. For what? Because they are about YOU! ME goals are about what is most important to You. ME goals are about what excites Youwhat creates the passion for You and what does You get up and go to work every day (apart from paying bills, of course).

This is crucial for a business owner, as we can often get caught up in the minutiae of day-to-day operations and what employees are NOT doing! ME goals allow you to refocus on why you started the business in the first place. You were excited, weren’t you? ME Goals can help get you fired up once more in case you’ve lost some motivation along the way.

THE M stands for Motivating, which means you have to ask the question, “Does this turn me on?” It’s hard to work towards a goal when there’s no momentum or energy behind you. Motivation is key to reaching your dreams and aspirations, because you’ll need that excitement on days when nothing seems to be going your way – or when goal accomplishment seems too far away or too difficult to achieve.

THE E stands for Engage, which means you have to ask the question, “Does this goal speak to me on a deeper level?” Not only should a goal motivate you, but it should create passion, meaning, and purpose. Otherwise, you might be thrilled to complete the goal, but you’ll wonder “Why the hell did I even start in the first place?” Make sure you’re not just motivated, but finding deeper meaning in what you’re working towards in your life, because when you get to the end of the road, I guarantee you’ll look back and ask, “Why did I?” or “Why didn’t I do it?”

Here are some questions to ask yourself to create ME Lenses:

• Does this goal excite me?

• Does this goal create momentum for me?

• Can this goal motivate me on the days when I want to quit?

• Does this goal speak to me on a deep level?

• Does this goal help give meaning to my life?

• Does this goal give me purpose and direction?

• How am I going to feel at the end of the road if I don’t try to achieve this goal?

2. Q Lenses

Another good idea to have to make your goals more attainable for your business is to make them “Quantifiable”. Q lenses are great for small business owners because they allow you to either increase the number or break it down into smaller chunks.

Let’s say your goal is to onboard 1,000 new customers this year. Q goals allow you to easily break this number down (excluding weekends and holidays): This would represent approximately 83 new customers per month (1,000 ÷ 12). Or you can see it as around 19 new customers per week (1000 ÷ 52). Or you can say it could be around 3 new customers per day (1000 ÷ 365). Breaking it down can make larger goals much more manageable, easier to plan, and less overwhelming.

Now let’s use the Q objectives to determine how to plan an outbound strategy for the 1000 new customers. Let’s say you have a 10% close rate for every sale you make. So 3 is 10% of 30, so it looks like you’ll need to make at least 30 outbound calls per day. And according to the figures above, it would be 190 calls per week and 830 outgoing calls per month.

However, Q lenses allow you to do so much more. A simple example is to increase your outbound activity, perhaps 60 calls per day, which could very well lead to you gaining well over 1000 new customers! Now block out about 2 hours a day for this activity. Get quantified using your Q Goal method!

• Is there a number attached to the lens?

• If so, then it can be measured, tracked and quantified!

Related: 6 Tips For Setting Goals That Trust Me They Didn’t Teach You In College

3. SMART goals

You know this one, don’t you? They even teach this to children in school now. But the big question here is: do you? Since we are all very familiar with this type of goal, just take every goal you create for your business and apply it to the SMART method. Understand that 100% of your goals won’t fall into this, but about 80% should. Or bring them as close to a SMART goal as possible. If you can do this, you are well on your way to achieving your goals this year!

4. “I will” goals

Far too often, the goals that small business owners create are either too broad to focus on or too weak to be motivated. Here are some examples: I want to have more customers, I want to earn more money, I want to expand my territory, etc. These goals are seriously lacking in engagement, so another great idea you’ll want to implement into your goal for your business is to add the “I will” statement.

By beginning your goal with the statement “I will do it,” you place yourself in a position of obligation to achieve that goal no matter what. By having that “I will” statement written down, you are literally convincing yourself that you will be reach it, and then you’ll start to believe that the goal is something you will be TO DO. Writing the “I will” statement reminds you of what needs to be done – it makes you responsible and accountable for the results and ensures that you cannot blame the lack of effort or resolve on anyone else. other than yourself.

The statement “I will” makes you deeply committed to your goal, which is of great value because your business will have many, many difficult things to achieve and may even make you doubt your tenacity as you try to accomplish this. that you want. Some of these challenges will be big and some will be small, but I promise you will be tested – and knowing what you will be doing can often mean the difference between failure and success.

Here are some examples of “I will” goals that also provide meaning and excitement (ME)and meet most CLEVER And “Q” criteria (note there is a date or number attached):

• I will make 60 outgoing calls every day.

• I will onboard 1,000 new customers by December 31, 20XX.

• I will spend two hours a day training new employees.

• I will create a new marketing campaign every quarter.

• I will use the new technology to collect funds from clients by the end of July 20XX.

• I will become the first supplier of XX in my city/state by December 31, 20XX.

Related: The 10 things you need to do to reach your goals

PRO TIP: Be sure to write down your goals in a visible place. Listen, your business goals shouldn’t be hidden from others and shouldn’t be something only you should know about. These goals should be posted somewhere for everyone to see.

For what? Because it’s far too easy to allow yourself to fall behind in your daily or weekly activities because “you don’t feel like doing it today.” Display your SMART goals, Q goals, ME goals, and “I Will” goals prominently! That way, in case you have a day, someone can help you meet a higher standard!

And one more thing: you’ll be surprised how many people will want to help you achieve your goals once they can see them on your office whiteboard.