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Every year we have a chance for new beginnings and fresh starts. For business people, this often means thinking about how to run their business better in the coming year. As you look forward to a new year, ask yourself some questions about your goals.
Have you ever wondered why New Year’s resolutions hardly ever work out? Often it’s because people do not know what they want and have not thought about it. Maybe it’s also because they do not write down their goals. To make sure your goals work this year, you need to do the following things:
Set realistic goals
Your goals should be ambitious, but they should also be achievable. Do not overwhelm yourself with unrealistic expectations that are impossible to meet. You do not want to set yourself up for failure before you have even started.
Think about what goals you can realistically achieve this year, and then break them into monthly and weekly goals. Once you have completed one goal, set a new one. You should never become complacent or stop trying to improve, otherwise, your competition will pass you by.
To help you set your goal, you can use the SMART method as a guide.
- Specific
– Your goal should be specific and clear, so you know exactly what you are aiming for. - Measurable
– How will you measure your success? You can measure most goals by time or results (or both) For example, if your goal is to increase your social media followers by 500 within six months, that’s measurable in both time (six months) and outcome (500 followers). - Attainable
– A goal should be challenging but attainable and doable so that you can achieve it with hard work. - Relevant
– Goals should relate to other aspects of your life so that they make sense in the context of your whole life. - Time-bound
– Your goal should have a specific time frame for achieving it.
Ways to achieve your goals
Many people have goals, but no action plan. This often leads to a lack of motivation and a feeling that the goal will never be reached. It is essential to know exactly what you need to do to achieve your goal. This can increase motivation and make you feel like you are making progress.
For example, if your goal is to increase traffic to your website and get more visitors within the first quarter of the year, but you know you cannot do so, consider hiring a website developer to help you reach your goal.
Eliminate underutilized resources
Monitor what you spend. Unnecessary expenses pile up quickly and can cripple your business.
Ensure you have accurately counted everything you own (especially your expenses). Ask yourself: What is gobbling up your money? Could you be spending it on something more practical like advertising or web design? Are you paying for advertising with a poor copy? Are you spending more on advertising and not getting the return on your investment?
Maybe you do not need an office and could work from home instead. Maybe your staff is burning too many hours on projects that are not helping you achieve your goals. Anywhere you can cut excess spending will improve your business and allow you to spend it more on things that improve your business.
Have a clear brand mission
A strong brand mission is central to your business. Your brand mission statement is the foundation of your business. It defines what you do, why you do it, and how you do it. Once you have a solid brand mission, you can use it to guide every decision your company makes.
By directly expressing your intentions and values through your brand mission, you build trust in yourself and your brand. This mission statement can also serve as the basis for important decisions that might otherwise feel arbitrary.
Identify the weak points in your customers’ journey
You can start by creating a customer journey map, a visual representation of customers’ interactions with your company. It includes various touchpoints like emails and blog posts and direct interactions with your website or app.
A customer journey map highlights the weak points in the customer journey and helps you visualize how to improve the customer experience. For example, if you run an online store and many customers abandon the process after adding items to their cart, it may be because your checkout process is cumbersome and customers are frustrated at the end of their purchase.
To understand where you can improve, you first need to identify the weak points in the customer journey. You can use heat maps and other tracking tools to see how your customers are interacting with your website.
Checklist for your goals
Checklists have a great impact and benefits for achieving your goals.
It’s better to create a small checklist of annual business goals. This can include goals related to the service you provide. For example, if you offer a software-as-a-service, your annual goal might be to increase the number of customers who sign up for your service each month.
Don’t forget to keep a record of milestones and achievements. These can range from small tasks like packaging the first order you ship to significant business events like receiving your first large customer order. Add them under each goal or categorize them in their section.
Conclusion
In the end, we can’t argue the fact that goals are important. They push us to be great. Goals force self-reflection and they help us construct a more coherent life. So when you set goals, it might be a good idea to keep these things in mind and focus. Just remember that good, thoughtful planning goes a long way toward ensuring that your goals are actually achievable. Hopefully, this guide will give you the guidance you need to plan your strategy, push yourself toward success this year and connect with us to learn more!
