SMART Goal Setting for 2013

Business Card Magnets

As another year comes to an end, it's time to dust off your goals for 2012 and determine whether you reached the goals that were set. If you accomplished most of your goals, hat's off! That's a major accomplishment. If you didn't reach your goals, please look at why they weren't accomplished. And if they are still relevant for this year, put another plan in place to ensure that you will reach them this year. Another question to answer is what are you planning to do in 2013 that will make it better than 2012?

Goal setting has been described as the process of deciding what you want to accomplish and devising a plan to achieve the results you desire.

Many business owners would rather not participate in this part of planning. It requires taking a look at previous year's results and coming up with ways to improve. Most are good at coming up with ideas in their head but not putting pen to paper and going deeper. It also takes a lot of effort to keep track of your goals as the year progresses... unless of course you have a system that allows them to stay in front of you on a daily basis. 

It's easy to say for example, that you want your business to grow next year. Maybe you want to make more money, or gain new customers. Those are great aspirations, but how will you go about achieving them? How much is "more", or what kinds" of new customers would you like to gain? Do you have a plan? What about data from last year's sales? How will you know if you've done better from the previous year/quarter/month?

The hardest part of establishing meaningful goals in making them SMART.  If you haven't heard of smart goals, using this method is a great way to ensure that you will accomplish the goals you set. The other part of making sure you reach your goals is in making sure you review them on a regular basis.

The acronym stands for:

• Specific - instead of making general goals, be as specific as possible.
• Measurable - in the example of more customers, quantify the number of new customers you want to reach next year. 
• Attainable - make sure the goals are reasonable, something that is possible.
• Relevant - make sure the goals are relevant to what is happening now or at least within the time frame set.
• Time-Bound - set a deadline or time frame for reaching your goals. 

For example if you're a local mechanic, for the goal above, you might say I want to gain new customers in 2013.  To make it a SMART goal, you would say I want to service 50 new car owners that are between the ages of 30 - 50 that live within 10 miles of my business by first quarter, 3/31/13. 

Think of ways that you can improve your business during the coming year. Then get busy writing down your goals and incorporating them into a plan or process that will ensure that they will be met.  

What will make your company stand out among the rest? Will it be improvements to customer service, new products or services, new marketing methods, more interaction in the community?  

An idea for keeping your goals front and center throughout the year could be to place them on business card sized magnets like the one shown in the picture above. Placing the magnets on metal surfaces like desks, refrigerators, filing cabinets etc. will make sure that the message never leaves your mind.  You can also plan meetings to discuss goals with key staff throughout the year, at least once per quarter to make sure you stay on track. 

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