3 quality goals to consider for growing your business

They say that you should always begin with the end in mind and that’s especially true in business. In fact, research suggests that those who set themselves clear written goals can be as much as 33 per cent more successful on tasks such as increasing productivity, learning new skills and completing projects than those who don’t set targets for themselves.

Of course, there’s an art to goal setting. It’s not as simple as saying ‘my goal is to turn my company into a FTSE 100 company by the end of next week’. In this article, we’ll take a brief look at the best practice for goal setting before considering three new goals that could help you grow your business in the coming year.

Goal setting best practice - making it all achievable

When setting goals, it’s essential to make sure they’re actually achievable. Aiming for a multi-million pound turnover is admirable, but also near impossible. Instead, you should focus your efforts on more reachable accomplishments.

The SMART formula offers a framework for setting realistic and manageable business goals. In particular, the SMART school of thought suggests that all goals should be:

• Specific: State, in detail, the exact goal you want to achieve.
• Measurable: Consider how you’re going to track your process.
• Achievable: Ensure the goal you set is actually doable.
• Relevant: Make sure your goals relate to your business in some way.
• Time-based: Set a reasonable time limit.

Considering these factors enables you to break down each of your targets into a defined set of tasks and activities. Remember, planning your goals out means you’re already halfway to making them happen.

Goal setting best practice - constantly review

Even well-thought-out goals can be subject to change. As such, it’s important to have a framework in place that allows you to review and adapt if necessary.

This is where the OODA Loop comes into play. Developed by military strategist John Boyd, the OODA Loop is a tool that can help organisations succeed despite facing uncertain situations.

The acronym stands for Observe, Orient, Decide and Act. The theory suggests that, in business, every day should include Observation. You should be looking at everything you do in terms of how it relates to the broader environment as well as physical, mental and moral dimensions.

Once you’ve observed you can Orient - find anything that doesn’t stack up or look for errors of judgement in what you’ve observed.

Next, you Decide on a plan of action to address these issues and finally, you Act on your decision.

3 goals to consider for business growth

Lacking inspiration for your next new goal? Here are a few options...

1. Work with another business with mutual interests

In a crowded marketplace, collaboration is a great alternative method of promotion. This is when two companies work together in pursuit of a common benefit. Collaboration is becoming increasingly popular, with more large brands joining forces every year.

Take athletics brand Nike and technology giant Apple. They’ve been working together since the early 2000s to create activity-tracking technology, and are a great example of a co-branding collaboration between two very different products with similar goals. Using another business to help promote your content instantly grants you a secondary audience, who could then go on to become your customers. Sharing resources can also mean you get more value for money.

Getting your first collaboration underway is often a lengthy process, though looking for brands that are a similar size to yours is a good start. You can do this by using social media, or even attending networking events – they are a great resource for locating potential partnerships.

You may also consider collaborating with a social media influencer. While these are most common in the fashion and beauty world, there’s an influencer for every industry. Tools such as influence.co make it easy to source them, though you can also search relevant hashtags on social media and dig through any profiles that fit the bill.

2. Reduce your ‘bounce rate’

Your bounce rate is the number of people who visited your site and didn’t interact with it before leaving. A high metric here could mean that a change is necessary – for example, fixing slow page load speeds or tweaking your website’s design.

You can discover your current bounce rate by using Google Analytics. This free service will give you an insight into the actions your visitors take and will also highlight any potential issues. Taking the time to assess these factors could lead to a boost in site traffic and conversions.

Page load speeds are one of the biggest contributors towards a visitor’s decision to ‘bounce’ – especially as most users expect a website to load in two seconds or less. While there are many ways to optimise your site load speed, implementing a caching plugin such as WP Super Cache is perhaps the most effective.

3. Review your processes

You’ll likely have an extensive set of processes and workflows in place within your company. While these are essential, they also require frequent maintenance to ensure they stay relevant. Failing to do this means you’re carrying out less-than-optimal procedures, with the potential for damage.

A review is also a great opportunity to listen to employee feedback, if you have a team. They will know your business better than anyone else – and their opinions are not only valuable but asking them about their ideas will help them feel valued too. Plus, even the smallest tweak based on unique insight can make a big difference in the way your business operates.

Set a goal to hold regular process reviews, in which you ask employees to complete relevant procedures and note down any possible areas for improvement. The frequency at which you should hold these reviews depends on your business, though doing so every few months is definitely advisable.

Conclusion

Setting goals is an essential part of any business, and failing to do so could lead to problems further down the line. A clear idea of what you want to achieve will help you identify the steps you need to take to make your business succeed.

Your targets can focus on any area of your business. In this post, we discussed three possible options:

1. Start your first collaboration with another business or influencer.
2. Focus on reducing your bounce rate.
3. Regularly review your workflow processes to keep things running smoothly.