Last week we talked about setting S.M.A.R.T. goals for your business. We focused on  creating Specific goals.

We outlined some specific goals you might consider to give you the “Big Picture” in your business.

• Financial
• Products and Services
• Marketing and Sales
• Customer Service
• Staffing

Today, we look at Measurable goals and how it applies to some of these same categories. There is an old adage that “What you measure you manage,” and I believe that is true. What metric you choose to use to measure any of your goals is up to you. It might be a dollar amount or new customers or followers on your social media.  That metric can be different from one category to the next based on how you choose to quantify it.

• Financial- Perhaps one of the more common areas you set goals. Ironically, this is not always the category that is closely measured and that has been the downfall of more than a few businesses. What should or could you measure here?
• Revenue is the obvious. Is it growing year-over-year? Is the growth what you had  planned for? Can you explain the change up or down?
• Expenses often get a closer look and sometimes are the first area to get trimmed when things aren’t going according to plan. There is a point where you can’t cut expenses any further and some tough decisions have to be made. Both Revenue and Expenses need to be measured so you can adjust your course of action if needed.
• Products and Services- Knowing how well your product mix is doing or which services are providing the the best margin is the goal here. Having a good POS is one way, and that can certainly make measuring performance of products and services easier. Knowing your hard costs to produce or provide a product or service is the first step and should not be skipped over in the process. 
• Marketing and Sales- Another common goal that is measured, especially if you have a sales team with assigned sales goals. Even if you don’t, measuring the sales goals you set should be done no less than on a monthly basis. Measuring your marketing efforts will help ensure you are marketing in the right place and with the right message.
• Customer Service- Measuring in this category could involve customer complaints or reviews. When you understand the importance and correlation between customer service and profit it is easy to see why you would want to measure the things that matter here.
• Staffing- Measuring staff could be as simple as seeing if they are performing to the level that you need them to in order to get the job done efficiently. Who are stellar performers and who are underperforming? This will tell you where reward and retraining might be needed.

So, now we have looked at these goals from two perspectives: are they Specific and how will they be Measured?

 

Next time: Ensuring that they are Attainable goals