Crafting Your Future: Setting Clear Business Goals and Objectives for Success
Close your eyes and imagine it’s five years from now. Where do you want to be? What will your business look like? Will you be running a company that hasn’t significantly grown in size, or will you be commanding a rapidly expanding empire? Perhaps you will have already cashed out and are relaxing on a beach somewhere, enjoying your hard-won gains.
Now is the perfect time to let your mind roam freely, exploring every avenue you want your business to take. Try writing a personal essay about your business goals. It could take the form of a letter written to yourself from five years in the future, describing all you have accomplished and how it came about.
As you read over your words, you may make a few surprising discoveries. Perhaps you don’t want to own a large, fast-growing enterprise but would be content with a stable small business. Even if you don’t learn anything new, gaining a firm grasp of your goals and objectives is immensely helpful in planning your business.
Business goals may differ from personal ones, such as more vacation time or weight loss objectives. Business goals are typically long-term calculated plans that you work toward. They may encompass one or several shorter objectives and can be measured along the way, often by setting up milestones. Goals should be realistic and include a time frame.
The same goes for your business objectives. In business, objectives are specific results you seek to achieve within a particular time frame. They are usually short-term and easily measurable. Minimizing expenses, increasing revenue, and rolling out a new product are examples of objectives. They can also help you meet long-term goals.
If you’re having trouble deciding your goals and objectives, here are some questions to ask yourself:
- How determined am I to see this venture succeed?
- Am I willing to invest my own money and work long hours for no pay, sacrificing personal time and lifestyle for years?
- What will happen to me if this venture doesn’t work?
- If it does succeed, how many employees will this company eventually have?
- What will be its annual sales in a year? Five years?
- What will be its market share in that time frame?
- Will it be a niche market or sell a broad spectrum of goods and services?
- What are the plans for geographic expansion? Local? National? Global?
- Will I be a hands-on manager, or will I delegate a large proportion of tasks to others?
- If I delegate, what sorts of tasks will I share? Sales? Technical? Others?
- How comfortable am I taking direction from others? Could I work with partners or investors who demand company management input?
- Will this venture remain independent and privately owned, or will it eventually be acquired or go public?
Your plan may look beautiful, but without a solid understanding of your intentions, it is likely to lack coherence and, ultimately, prove ineffective. For instance, if one section describes a mushrooming enterprise on a fast-growth track while another endorses a slow and steady expansion strategy, any astute business plan reader will be bothered by such inconsistencies. They suggest you haven’t thoroughly thought through your intentions. Avoid inconsistency by deciding in advance what your goals and objectives will be and sticking with them.
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