HOW TO IDENTIFY WEAKNESS & SET GOALS FOR YOUR BUSINESS

How to identify weaknesses and set realistic goals for your business

It’s the start of a new year and a time for setting goals for the future of your business. The first thing to do is to decide what is the most important thing for your business to achieve this year It could be “to increase sales by 10%” or “get a number one ranking on Google”. This is the starting point for your goals, but you will need to refine them to the point where they are clear and achievable.

The S.M.A.R.T. way of working out your goals.

The most commonly used tool when creating goals is the acronym, S.M.A.R.T., which means Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound. Your goals must be specific, as just to say something like “increase sales”, for example, is too vague.

Your goals must be realistic

Don’t set goals that are totally unrealistic. If there’s no possibility of achieving it, like becoming the world’s number one online auction company, it defeats the purpose of setting the goal. Set goals that are achievable, but at the moment just out of reach, such as a “monthly turnover of $20,000” if your current turnover is $10,000.

Goals must be time-specific

The goal must be relevant and including a time period can make the goal more motivational. For example, if we said “increase sales by 10% in 6 months”, this is a more specific time goal.

Now you have your goal, you need a plan to achieve it. Your goals should be divided into short, medium and long term and your plan should correspond to these time periods. So you should have a clear plan for the short term, for example, 3 months, medium-term maybe 6 months or a year and long term maybe 5 years or longer. If you are only setting goals for one year, you need to divide your plan into 12 months and set out your plan for each month.

Goals should be flexible

Something to remember when doing this is that your plans and goals are not set in concrete as flexibility is important. You only have to look at 2020 to see how much goals and plans were frequently changed. It’s a good idea to have a checklist for your goals so you can cross them off a list when you have achieved them and create some new ones.

What next?

When considering your plan you also need to think about the weaknesses in your business which could upset those plans and which need to be fixed. These could include any number of things such as the checkout on your website, how easy or difficult it is for your customers to make a purchase or maybe a poorly written sales page. Are the finances of your business being drained by poor copywriting or maybe an unsightly or uninteresting website? It’s important that your customers understand what you stand for, how you can help them and what you want to achieve on their behalf.

If your website and your social media are not achieving this, then you need to think about getting help. Your Digital Agency  can help you make your website and social media accounts persuasive and enticing for potential clients.