How to Set Small Business Goals

Copyright (c) 2008 Virginia Ginsburg

Many small business owners find themselves exhausted at the end of each day, and sometimes even lament the fact that they ever went into business in the first place. These owners have trouble making time to do everything it takes to run a successful business, and they definitely don't have time to grow their business beyond where it is today.

These owners are allowing their business to run them, rather than learning how to run their business. By failing to take control and drive their business - also defined as setting and accomplishing specific goals - they lose focus and burn out.

Owning a business usually starts out with a great idea; an entrepreneur gets "the bug" and stays up all night planning his launch. However, running a business is often unexpectedly complicated, involving skills in accounting and finance, strategic planning, marketing, and employee management.

These are not exciting, fun details, but they do keep small business owners up at night. The key to managing these details is to set goals and completely reorganize your to-do list, and to create a not-to-do list. Sound impossible? It's easier than you think.

Here's what you need to do:

1. Determine what you are trying to accomplish with your business (AKA: your goal): Your business should enrich your bank account and your personal life; otherwise it's easier to just work for someone else. In order to do this, you need to define exactly what it is that you want out of life ...and out of your business.

Major things to think about include:
How many hours per week are you willing to work? Now rethink that into how many hours per week you want to work. There is a big difference.

How much money do you need to get by? Now think about how much money you need to do all of the things that would make you happy in life.

When you start to flip your expectations from those that just barely get you by (which will eventually make you tired and miserable), to those that will make you happy and fulfilled, you are on the path to redesigning your business into something that works hard for you, rather than the other way around.

2. Establish milestones that will let you know whether you're achieving your goal: A goal simply cannot be achieved unless you know what "success" means. Define the metrics that will tell you that you have achieved your goal.

Break your milestones down into at least three categories: this quarter, this year and three years from now. This will allow you to plan both short and long term goals, which is important for both keeping you focused and motivated.

3. Determine what you need in order to accomplish your goal: Within your milestone timeline, you can now start to layer in how your business will grow and what it will need to thrive through each stage. For example, if you intend to increase revenue, you will also need to increase production and possibly increase the number of employees that you have.

Defining exactly what this will mean - how many employees? What will you need those employees to do? Avoid making overly-broad generalizations here, and think through exactly what each of your people will do and how they will enhance your business. Employees can be a real drag unless you take this critical step.

4. Put programs in place that support your goal: Be ruthless here - do not launch programs that do not directly support your goal, otherwise they will distract you from its achievement. For example, if you have decided that you need to increase traffic to your website, then you may need to do a site redesign and launch some online promotional campaigns. Now is the time to get detailed - answer these questions for each of your programs:

What do we need?
How much will it cost?
Who will do it?
When will we get started?
When will we be finished?

Once you have defined each of your programs in this manner, you can put together a budget and a timeline, and get started on accomplishing multiple projects that will get you closer to your goal.