The Case Study: Meet Jane
Meet Jane, the owner of a small bakery called Sweet Treats.
Jane loves baking and started her business with the dream of sharing her delicious treats with the world. But she soon realized that running a business is not quite as simple as baking a cake.
Jane had a general idea of what she wanted to achieve with her business. She had visions of her bakery being a favorite hangout for people, regulars coming from far and wide to buy her breads and other baked goods and kids enjoying her sweet treats. She wanted to create a place where friends can meet friends and where she can see the joy her bakery and her baked goods bring to people.
But, apart from this general vision, her business had no real, practical focus or direction to help her get started and get to her vision. Jane never took the time to map out clear and precise short term business goals to help her move from idea to reality. Jane struggled to make strategic decisions for her business, she didn’t know what products to focus on, which marketing channels to invest in, or how to prioritize her time and resources.
Over time, Sweet Treats began to suffer. Jane struggled to keep up with and outshine her competition in a competitive and crowded market. She couldn’t keep up with the latest trends or offer unique products, and her customer base began to dwindle.
Eventually, Jane just could not keep it up anymore and Sweet Treats had to close its doors. Jane was forced to move on from her dream of owning a bakery. The consequences of not having clear, precise, and achievable goals were clear – a lack of direction and focus can have a significant impact on the success of your business.
Do I have Clear Short Term Business Goals?
If you’re not sure whether your business is working towards clear, precise, and achievable short term goals, ask yourself the following questions:
- Do you have a specific vision for your business?
- Have you defined clear, measurable objectives that will help you achieve that vision?
- Do you have specific outcomes you are striving to achieve in the next quarter or year?
- Do you have a main focus right now that aligns with your strategy?
- Do you have key metrics you are focusing on now to indicate performance to target?
- Do you have any of this written down?
- Can you explain any of this, to someone not familiar with your business, so that they’d know exactly what your goals are and what you aim to achieve over the next 3, 6 and 12 months?
If you answered “no” to one or more of these questions it’s likely that your business lacks direction and focus and that may the primary reason for any frustration you may be feeling on lack of progress. You won’t achieve the success you’re after if you have not defined it. After all, to paraphrase Lewis Carroll: “If you don’t know where you are heading then anywhere will do.”
How do I fix this?
If you’ve identified that your business lacks clear and precise short term business goals, it’s time to act. Here’s a practical, step-by-step strategy to help you define goals and set your business on the path to success:
Define Your Vision:
Start by defining a clear and compelling vision for your business. What do you want to achieve, and why is it important to you?
A business’ vision is a statement of the company’s aspirations for the future and ultimate destination. It describes where the company is heading and what it aims to achieve in the long term.
A vision is more than just a set of goals or objectives; it’s an overarching, big-picture idea that guides and inspires the company and its employees.
A well-defined and compelling vision can help align the company’s efforts and motivate its employees towards a common goal. For example, Google’s vision is “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” This statement embodies the company’s long-term aspirations and the impact it aims to make in the world.
Set Goals & Outcomes:
Once you’ve defined your vision, set clear, measurable goals and outcomes that will help you achieve that vision. They should be specific and measurable and aimed for a defined timeframe. At this stage, do not worry about whether the goal is achievable or not. With the right application and resources most goals are achievable. For now, focus on what you want to achieve.
Here are 4 techniques you can use to help you define the goals:
- SMART Goals: Create goals that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. For example, “Increase website traffic by 20% within six months by implementing a content marketing strategy.”
- OKRs: Objectives and Key Results is a goal-setting framework used by many successful businesses. It involves setting specific, challenging goals (Objectives) and defining the Key Results that will indicate progress towards achieving those goals.
- Backward Planning: Begin with the end in mind and work backward to determine the steps required to reach the goal. This technique ensures that every step along the way is aligned with the end goal.
- Gap Analysis: Identify the gap between your current performance and where you want to be, and set goals to close that gap. For example, “Increase monthly sales by 10% to close the gap between our current sales and our desired sales.”
Communicate and Collaborate with Your Team:
Make sure that you communicate your vision and goals to your team. Ensure that everyone understands what you’re working towards and what the achievement of the goals look like and mean for both the business and themselves.
Listen to and consider any feedback on the vision and goals. If your team has input into the vision and goals you need them to accomplish they often feel more ownership and take more responsibility for how they are contributing to the overall goals. After all – these are now their goals too.
At this stage of the process it is important to keep these discussions and collaborations on the overall business level. Do not yet be tempted to start defining individual goals for each person. The exact detail of what will be worked on and how each person contributes will still be defined, but that comes after confirming and getting alignment on the main strategic direction. For now it is important to get everyone facing the same direction.
Regular review
At this point it is important to remember that goals are not set once and then they live in stone. Goals are alive and things happen that will require from you to continuously ensure the goals remain relevant.
Stubbornly and unyieldingly holding on to a goal that is no longer appropriate or sensible is almost as bad as having no goal at all. it’s important to stay flexible and adapt to changing market conditions, business priorities or business capabilities.
Next steps to Achieve Short Term Business Goals:
The example of Sweet Treats is a powerful reminder of the importance of having clear and precise goals for your business. Without this foundation in place, your business may lack direction and focus, and you may find yourself struggling to make strategic decisions.
Now you need to determine the “How” of achieving those goals. (Next article)
