It’s easy to compare your progress to others.  To watch another crush their business goals over and over again.  While all the while you feel like it’s a struggle just to survive.  Making it through the day alive feels like a win.

You’re not alone.  All business owners have days, weeks, or even months in survival mode.

But there are steps you can take to move from survival mode to crushing your business goals, one after another.

To start you need to understand why setting goals matters.  And how to pick the right goals.

Why Setting Business Goals Is Important For Every Small Business

When you set goals, you’re essentially providing yourself with a path to success. A course of action so to speak. 

Once you set those goals, you now have a tangible, real thing to work towards. Imagine hopping in your car for a cross-country road trip without ever turning on a GPS. Without that roadmap, you could end up anywhere but where you want to be! 

Why is the GPS so important? Because it tells you what course to take, it gives you your course of action to get from point A to point B. (Go 5 miles, take a right. merge onto this highway, take this exit, etc). It’s giving you the action steps you need to take to achieve your goal of getting to the other side of the country. 

The same goes for business goals. With clear goals you’re no longer blindly making decisions in business…everything you do will move you towards your goals if you’re staying on track. 

How I Used Business Goals To Propel Business Growth

Let me tell you a personal story and give you an example of how this played out for my business. I touched on this in the article about achieving financial success. I shared several ways you can achieve financial success in your business. 

When I started my business 10 years ago, I didn’t really have any goals set other than to replace the salary I had been receiving at my corporate job. If I could do it all over again, I wouldn’t take that approach, but it’s the way it happened. 

I hit the ground running and got enough bookkeeping clients in the first couple of months that my salary was replaced, I was now a full-time business owner and I felt like I was in a good place. 

Well, over time, I grew more and more passionate about supporting small businesses with their bookkeeping.  My business kept growing and growing, so much so that I had to hire staff to help me manage all of the client’s books. 

At some point, it hit me that I was just “surviving”. My business was doing well, I was busy, and I was able to employ someone part-time, great! But, what was my ultimate goal? What were the next few months or years going to look like? 

That’s when I knew I needed to set some goals. Once I did, my business started to take off even more than I could have ever imagined. 

Why? Because now when I made business decisions, they were based on my goals. Every purchase, every investment, every new client was a part of the goals I had set. 

And, not all of those goals were financial goals. Some of them were things like

• Being able to spend more time at the beach
• Providing jobs to Moms who needed a part-time schedule
• Flexibility to work from home
• Being able to give more to charity

There were also business goals to support the growth of the business.  For example having a certain # of clients, adding on new services, or reach a revenue goal.

But combining the financial goals with the more personal goals is why I think I continued to succeed.  And did so at such a fast rate. 

Now, I set new goals at least once a year.  I use them as my course of action as I move forward and continue to grow my business.  I urge you to do the same. 

Creating a Roadmap With Your Business Goals

Beyond having a course of action, when you set goals, you now have something tangible to work towards and it helps you become laser-focused on those goals. 

Most business owners are visionaries and have a ton of dreams and ideas to accomplish. They have a never-ending list of ideas.  

The thing is, if you didn’t have goals set, you could get in a rat race of trying to start and accomplish every little thing on that list. 

One day you’re working on one thing, and the very next day you’re focused on another item on the list.  Ultimately, you’re not going to accomplish any of the goals or very few.  And what you do accomplish may not be done very well because you were all over the place in your actions.

Another problem is having so many ideas and dreams that you become paralyzed.  And don’t do anything, ever.

With a clear set of goals, it’s easier to set that roadmap and just stay focused on that – one goal at a time. The goals allow you to see the vision, create a plan, and TAKE ACTION that makes sense.

Charting The Course to Your Future

When you set goals, you should always have the future in mind. 

• When do you want to retire? 
• How much money do you want in the bank? 
• Where do you want to vacation? Etc etc etc. 

These goals will probably change over time too. As your business grows and life changes, your goals will change with them.  That’s why you need a process to always reevaluate your goals

Just 3 years ago, my goals looked different than they do now. I’m still charting the course to my future but my goals have evolved based on where I’ve been and where I’m going. 

Keep that in mind as you set goals.  Remember that goal setting can truly change the path of not only your business but your life.

Take Control and Achieve Financial Success

Goal setting is only one part of your financial success.  As you’re charting your course, you need to take the entire picture into consideration.  Including both your business goals and your personal financial goals.

This is why I have created a 6-week program that covers more than business success.  It walks you through how to Chart Your Course to Creating and Managing Financial Success.

This program, titled “Chart Your Course” will go over everything including in-depth goal setting, mindset, personal financial planning, financial awareness, budgeting, accounting, bookkeeping setup, and even KPI tracking. 

If you’re looking for financial success and want to set some goals for you and your business, this is the program for you. 

We will walk through it together and at the end, you’ll have a very clear understanding and a picture of your financial future. Click Here for more information.