2015 is off and running, and what better time to spend a moment setting your goals for the year? Setting goals gives you something clear to work towards and highlights what you need to change/improve in the year ahead. No matter what you are hoping to achieve, whether it be bigger profits, more customers or a better marketing campaign; setting goals will really help.
Analyzing your performance in 2014
Before you start making goals for 2015, it is important to look back at 2014 and see how your company performed. Was there anything you did wrong? No business is perfect and there’s always something that you can improve upon. Maybe you made unrealistic goals the year before? Or it could be that unexpected problems cropped up along the way? Analyzing what went wrong and understanding what you could have done differently will help you to set better goals for the year ahead.
Focus on small, realistic goals
One of the biggest mistakes you can make when setting business goals is to be a little too over-ambitious. While you may want to double the amount of profits you earn, you need to ask whether this is actually realistic. It is also a problem if you set year-long goals. In order to follow through with your goals, it helps if you see progress being made. Smaller goals help you to stay motivated as you continually reach different milestones.
Consider weekly tasks
One of the best tips to follow is to break down your goals into weekly tasks. This can be done in several stages. First break the goals down into quarterly steps. Then from there break them down into monthly objectives. Once you have your monthly objectives you can break them down further into weekly ones. It might seem like a lot of effort but it will be worthwhile in the long run.
Invest in useful tools
There are numerous tools you can invest in that can help you with your business. Setting goals is one thing, but following them up is the hard part. HR tools for example, can really help to free up the time of your HR staff and make things such as payroll and timekeeping a lot easier to manage. Ensuring your business runs more efficiently will enable you to spend more time on more important tasks.
Reduce your ‘To Do’ list
It is likely you have a lot of things on your ‘To Do’ list for 2015. Before setting your goals, create a list of things you do not want to do in the year ahead. This means going over your goals and marking them down in terms of importance. It is likely you won’t be able to complete all of your goals in just one year. So mark down the ones that can wait if you don’t get around to them.
Setting business goals is important, but there is a right way and a wrong way to go about it. If you follow the tips above you will be able to not only set goals for 2015, but also follow them through to success.
