6 Tips That Will Help You Achieve Goals As A Small Business Owner
The adage "time is money" is especially true for small businesses. Whether you are meeting with a potential client, planning your next marketing campaign, or discussing new product ideas, it's important to make every second as efficient as possible.
In the following article, we'll share some actionable tips that you can start implementing in your small business to help you make the most out of all your efforts.
1. Set Quarterly Strategic Goals
As a small business owner, setting quarterly goals is a great way to track your progress and make sure you're staying laser-focused on meeting expectations. By the time you hit the end of the year, you will have accomplished four times more than if you had tried to set one big annual goal. Think of it as breaking down your big goals into smaller, more manageable chunks.
Why Set Quarterly Goals?
Goals help keep your business focused, on track, and moving forward. When you set clear goals at the beginning of each quarter and throughout the year, you're much more likely to achieve them. Setting quarterly goals is a great way to break down your yearly goals so they can be easily approached and measured throughout the year.
By establishing quarterly goals instead of focusing on annual or monthly objectives, you're less likely to lose sight of the big picture. You'll be able to look back on what you've achieved, rather than dwelling on what's still left to do. It's also important to note that not all businesses have a traditional fiscal year that coincides with the calendar year. If this is the case for your business too, then quarterly goals might be even better suited for tracking your progress throughout your fiscal year.
Where do I start?
The first step is to identify the objective you're trying to meet. This is the most important aspect of goal setting. Start by making sure that your goals are attainable. It’s great to dream big but if your goal is too lofty that you can’t make any progress towards it, then what’s the point? You might as well not even set one!
Make it as clear and specific as possible. A common mistake we see new business owners make is setting unclear goals. Ensuring that your goal is measurable and specific will give you and your team a metric to aim for.
Next, settle on a budget for the project at hand. What’s your magic number? How much are you willing and able to afford to spend on this project? This will help inform your expectations, and also keep you from biting off more than you can chew.
Once you decide how much money you can invest into your goal, it’s time to put together all of the pieces. Research vendors, resources, and anything else needed to achieve your goal. Write down every step it will take to get there, and make sure everyone is aware of their responsibilities. Putting together a flow chart that outlines each step of the process and who is responsible for what is an immensely helpful way to keep track of everything.
Finally, make sure to meet with your team every quarter to revisit what’s working and what isn’t—and be open about it. This is not the time for blame or finger-pointing. Stay focused on reworking and reframing the areas that need improvement, and implement those new systems moving forward.
2. Define each project's scope
Each quarterly goal will likely consist of multiple projects. Projects are essential to the success of a business. They improve employee retention, enhance customer satisfaction, and increase revenue. They can also be a recipe for disaster if not properly planned out. Before you begin any project, you need to understand exactly what it takes to complete the task. The scope of work defines what the project will achieve when it will be completed, who will do the work and how much it will cost. It's a critical part of project management that helps drive teams forward with clarity.
Not only does a well-defined scope help teams finish projects on time and within budget, but it also helps communicate the value that a project will bring to the organization. According to the Project Management Institute's Pulse of Profession report, organizations waste more than $122 million for every $1 billion invested due to poor scope definition. This means that businesses are not only losing money by taking on projects they can't afford or aren't equipped to handle, but they're wasting time and resources as well.
If the scope of the project isn't clearly defined, meeting deadlines and staying within budget can become difficult. Here are three things that can happen when your project scope isn't managed properly.
Deadlines Aren't Met
Tasks may not get completed in time. When there's no clear delineation of responsibilities within the project team, tasks may fall through the cracks or get done with less attention than they deserve. When that happens, the quality of the work suffers and you end up with lower-quality deliverables that do not meet expectations.
Cost Will Be Higher
You'll spend more than planned on projects. The more you go over budget on one project, the less money you have for other expenses or future projects. If your company has a lot of clients with similar needs but different budgets, then one client might take priority over another because their competitors have bigger budgets to outcompete them with.
Team Morale May Crumble
Most of us have been on a team where the team members don't feel very connected to one another or the project they are working on. When this happens, it's often because the team doesn't know what they're supposed to be doing. In order to keep teams engaged and productive, it's necessary to create a clear project scope. It helps keep all team members on task, defines individual roles and responsibilities, and keeps your team happy because they know what is expected of them.
3. Standardize repetitive tasks and processes
Good time management skills are crucial to running a business effectively, and this starts with standardizing the smaller processes within your company.
Think about it: If you’re constantly reinventing the wheel, you’ll spend a lot of time and energy on something that you’ve already done before—and probably done better, too. Standardization allows you to take what you’ve learned and apply it to similar situations in the future, making your business more efficient and effective while freeing up resources (like time and money) to work on other things.
By standardizing smaller, repetitive processes within your organization, you'll increase productivity, create more efficient workflows, promote consistency in customer service, reduce wasted resources and make it easier to train new employees.
Here is how you can start standardizing processes:
Evaluate existing systems
What are you currently doing as a team? What is working well? What can be improved? Consider all the steps your teams takes to get from point A to point B, and restructure where necessary.
Define those systems
Once you have a list of everything you're currently doing, start to define them. What is it you want to standardize? What are the exact steps involved? Write these down and keep them in Google Doc or in a secure location of your choice. Keep them handy for onboarding new employees and you begin to grow or to remind you of the systems you've put in place when you start to get frazzled!
Determine why you need to do it
Some projects and tasks require more flexibility, and that's ok. Standardization should be purposeful and mission-driven. You're not a robot, and your business plan should and will fluctuate! This is why it's important to identify why you're standardizing a certain task or project. Ask yourself -- Is this something that really needs to be standardized? Will it improve efficiency or save time? Remember -- saving time is the entire point of this process. Don't waste hours trying to build systems for every little thing. Address what makes sense, and then move on to other more important parts of your business.
4. Keep meetings productive with agendas
Meetings are the bane of most people’s existence. Whether it’s a weekly check-in with your boss or a team meeting to discuss your next project, meetings can be valuable opportunities to exchange ideas and get everyone on the same page. But poorly-run meetings can waste time, reducing productivity and demotivating employees.
When you have an agenda for your business meeting, you stay on track and get more done. This guide will explain why agendas are important, and how to create one for your small business.
At Red 11, we stick by these 3 golden rules for every meeting we have to make sure only the most pertinent information is being discussed:
Create an agenda of what needs to be discussed in advance:
The first tip is something you should do ahead of time before your meeting even starts.Your meeting agenda should include what topics need to be covered and how much time you want to spend on each topic. Make sure that any invitees can access your agenda beforehand, so they can come prepared with questions and comments. This will help keep everyone on track throughout the meeting. You might even want to send out the agenda in a follow-up email after the meeting is over to remind people of what was discussed and agreed upon.
Stick to the agenda:
If someone starts to veer off-topic, politely ask them whether their point is relevant to the issue at hand and then steer the conversation back to the task at hand once they've made their point. If you feel it's important enough, you may want to add it as a new item (and adjust your timing accordingly). But stay focused on what's most important!
Start and end on time:
We're all guilty of pushing meetings, canceling them altogether, or going over the designated time. This isn't always a bad thing -- depending on the meeting's purpose. For example, brainstorming sessions usually benefit from a lack of structure and balance. However, meeting with your team to discuss project progress on a tight turnaround may require you to run a tighter ship. In cases like this, sticking to a start and end time will help you and your team communicate more effectively and push forward with clarity. If a team member has a specific question that isn't relevant to your meeting agenda, offer to reach out to them after the call to address their question. Staying focused will also help meeting members learn how much you value their time and give them confidence in your leadership abilities.
5. Make sure team members have a clear understanding of their role and responsibilities
Communication is an essential component of running a small business. Without proper communication, your team members may not know what is expected of them or when to complete tasks. Clear communication and expectations can keep your employees productive and focused — so you can run your small business efficiently.
Make sure roles are Understood
The first step to improving communication in your small business is ensuring that each team member understands what his or her role entails. If you don't have job descriptions already, create them — if only on a basic level — because they help clarify what the company expects from each employee. Once you have job descriptions, share them with your team members, and ask for their feedback to ensure that all aspects of the jobs are included.
Set Clear Expectations and Deadlines
All tasks should have clear expectations and deadlines. If you distribute an email with action items, make sure employees know what's required of them and by when it should be completed. When communicating projects verbally, follow up with an email outlining the same information so it's documented for everyone's reference.
Keep everyone in the loop
When communicating project updates and information to one person, share it with everyone involved in the project so there is no confusion about who knows what information at any given time.
6. Celebrate Milestones
As a small business owner, it's easy to get lost in the day-to-day grind and lose sight of the bigger picture. Celebrating milestones helps you remind your team and yourself why you do what you do. While it's important to stay focused on achieving your next goal, it's also important to take time out to celebrate what you've accomplished so far.
If you don't celebrate your milestones, you may end up losing sight of why you started your business in the first place. By taking time out to recognize and appreciate your accomplishments, you can give yourself a much-needed boost that will help you keep moving forward with renewed energy — even if there are more bumps along the way.
Final Thoughts
Having a plan of action, even if it’s rather simple, will work wonders for keeping you focused and allowing you to better manage your workload. You might not stick to your plan 100% of the time or implement every piece of advice we’ve given, but by having some kind of structure in place, you can take the worry out of running your own business and focus on what really matters: delivering great service to your clients or customers!
