Set Your Business's SMART Objectives
Learn about setting your brand’s smart objectives! We cover setting specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time based goals that lead to success!
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Table of contents:
What are SMART objectives?
SMART objectives are those that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-based. In other words, they are goals that you set for your business that are realistic and can be attainable within a certain timeframe.
Adding SMART Goals to your business strategy
When creating goals for your business, it is important to make sure that they are SMART objectives. This will help to ensure that your goals are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-based. Doing so will help to increase the likelihood of achieving your desired results.
Setting and sticking to your SMART objectives leads to successful business growth!
There are five key aspects to setting SMART objective:
Specific Goals: These goals should be specific and clearly defined.
Measurable Goals: These goals should be able to be measured so that you can track your progress.
Achievable Goals: These goals should be achievable and realistic.
Relevant Goals: These goals should be relevant to your business.
Time-based Goals: These goals should have a timeframe attached to it.
By keeping these points in mind, you can ensure that your objectives are SMART and will help you to achieve your business goals!
Setting specific objectives for your business
When setting objectives, it is important to be specific. This means that the goal should be clearly defined and easy to understand. A specific goal is one that can be readily achieved.
What to do:
Specific goals should highlight individual aspects of your business strategy that you want to improve. If you want to boost your social reach, you need to set objectives around developing a social media marketing strategy, social media templates, a content calendar and more!
What not to do:
Do not set vague goals and objectives that are hard to communicate to your team. You need to make sure the objectives being set are specific and clear to everyone. Make sure to break a larger goal into smaller, more bite size bits, so that your objectives are hit with no internal confusion!
Setting measurable objectives for your business
In order to track your progress, it is important to set measurable objectives. This means that the goal should be able to be quantified. A measurable goal is one that can be tracked and monitored.
What to do:
Figure out what your business goals are. What are your ideal conversions? What is your brand’s vision? Who is your target market? Now you need to decide on the best way of monitoring your objectives to see if you are hitting them or not!
What not to do:
Do not set measurable objectives without understanding the difference between your micro & macro environment! You will need a clear understanding of the internal and external forces affecting your small business.
Here are the 5 parts of a SMART objective again. Learn this off by heart to be able to scale and grow your small business!
Setting achievable objectives for your business
When setting objectives, it is important to make sure that they are achievable. This means that the goal should be realistic and attainable. An achievable goal is one that can be realistically accomplished.
What to do:
There is no point in stressing yourself and your business by chasing unrealistic goals. Set achievable goals so that you can hit them!
What not to do:
Don’t forget about your SWOT Analysis. Set achievable goals that are inline with your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats!
Setting relevant objectives for your business
When setting objectives, it is important to make sure that they are relevant. This means that the goal should be relevant to your business. A relevant goal is one that is aligned with your business goals.
What to do:
If your shop sells cell phones, make it one of your business objectives to always get the latest products/technology on your shelves to stay in demand.
What not to do:
Do now set goals trying to compete with stores around you if they do not sell your products. If you are next to a fish and chips store in the mall, don’t worry! They are not going to steal your customers!
Here is a summary of the Situational Analysis Framework. As you can see, your SMART objectives are the third step!
Setting time based objectives for your business
When setting objectives, it is important to make sure that they are time-based. This means that the goal should have a specific time frame attached to it. A time-based goal is one that has a deadline.
What to do:
Look at your business’s calendar and forecast and set goals in line with other important dates in your business year. Stick to your goals and achieve your brand objectives ahead of time!
What not to do:
Don’t self sabotage your business (and life) - It’s so easy to set time based goals that are too soon in the future! Give your business enough time to hit its objectives. There is nothing worse than rushing to meet a deadline and doing subpar work in the process!
Summary of setting your SMART objectives!
Now let’s summarise what we have covered! SMART objectives fall into part of your brand/business’s situational analysis. This is a branding framework used to determine the climate your brand is operating in.
SMART objectives can be broken up into five major categories. These being: smart objectives, measurable objectives, attainable objectives, relevant objectives, and time bound objectives.
When setting objectives for your business, it is important to keep these points in mind in order to increase your chances of achieving your desired results.
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