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Business Goal Setting
Business goal setting will help your business be more successful. Setting goals and measuring actual performance can dramatically improve the performance of large corporations, small businesses, and one-person website businesses. I use it effectively for this south of Flagstaff Arizona web site. Business goal setting is an effective management tool. It's used widely in "big business" and in other organizations of every size and discipline.
The reason successful people use business goal setting is so widespread is simple... it works.
Even if you should fall short of some business goals, you'll have come closer to success than those people without specific targets. Business goal setting is a very helpful tool that you should use in managing your company, even if yours is a one-person company. For several years I operated the performance monitoring program for a nine billion dollar enterprise with thousands of professional and technical employees. Now I set goals and track performance for my websites and rental homes. Business goal setting is the front half of the tool. Tracking performance is the part that helps you achieve those objectives... and gives you early warning when you're not achieving them.. We'll talk in detail about performance monitoring on a following page. Business goal setting is not a big mystery, nor is it difficult. It isn't even time consuming, but there are a couple of things you should do first. You should define the reasons why your business exists... yes, write a simple mission statement. And then you should do some basic planning. Follow this link to the Mission Statement page. After you've defined your business's reason for being and have then done some planning, you can set a few goals. These should be expressed in numbers. A larger company might have a goal such as: Reduce OSHA Recordable Injuries by 10 percent for 2004. Business goal setting will cover every critical aspect of an enterprise's operation... but not much more. I try to limit my goals to six per enterprise. Even large corporations should limit the number of goals they adopt. You want the tool to work for you, too many goals will have you working for the tool.
When setting goals, keep this thought in
mind... In a for-profit enterprise we keep score in money. A primary set of goals will focus on financial performance, and that means budgets. Budgets are a product of the planning process. For instance, I plan and budget for routine maintenance on our rental homes. I also plan and budget for big ticket items like a new roof or carpet in a particular property. Every enterprise of every size needs budgets, and if you have a budget... you have a goal! A revenue budget and an operating expense budget are musts. A larger enterprise may also need a payroll budget, overtime budget, capital budget, and possibly other special purpose budgets. A budget-related goal for a one-person company might read: "Keep 2004 operating expenses within the established $16,300 limit as detailed in the Operating Expense Budget." It may be a feel-your-way process in your first few months of operations, but it is helpful to have targets set when you start up your enterprise. Your goals must share these features:
A goal like "Make more money" doesn't meet the criteria above. The goal should include a time frame and be measurable. "Achieve a net profit of $70,000 in 2006." is specific enough to build budgets around. Now you can do some detailed planning and build budgets. During this phase you may find that you must adjust your goals to make them achievable. After you've established goals, you need to decide what to measure as indicators of how well you're succeeding. Establish specific targets and track monthly performance against them. If you track performance as you go along, you'll know which parts of your operation are weak and need more attention. Follow this link for more on business goal setting. A Google search using the keyword phrase business goals will lead you to a variety of resources. Be sure to notice the relevant ads down the right side... those are resources also.
Business Mission
Statement Page
Business Performance Page Business Performance Program
Page Website Performance
Measurement Page About This Site Have you read this page lately?
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