Setting Business Goals
What are your business goals?
Increase sales? Increase profitability?
Small business owners understand that they are working with limited resources, and this creates pressure to choose goals wisely. What small business owners need to do is to find tactics that have the biggest impact for the smallest cost. They need their goals to have high leverage.
Effective goals have strong leverage. If you try to remove the nail pictured at right with your hand, you will fail. But use a crowbar for leverage, and you will succeed.
But how do you find goals with good leverage?
Start by brainstorming potential goals for your business. Allow yourself to be creative in the brainstorming process. Then rank your potential goals from the most cost (or work) to the least cost. Then rank them all from the most impact to the least impact. Your goals with the most leverage will be the lowest cost with the highest impact.
Website and social goals have good leverage.The reason why many businesses have web and social strategies is because they find them to have good leverage. If a customer does a Google search for your business, you want that customer to find your business in the search results. Too often, I see businesses that have a poorly constructed and out of date websites. In some cases, I see businesses that do not have a website at all. Without a website, the top of the Google Search results could be a Yelp review by a disgruntled customer.
Effective goals are achievable, specific, and within your control. “Increase sales by 20% through my online presence” may be a specific goal, but it isn’t within your control. Here are some examples of goals that are achievable, specific and within your control:
- Update my website so that it works well on my customer’s smartphones.
- Create a Facebook page for my business and post an update twice a month.
- Test out Google or Facebook Advertising for my business.
- Invest in a WordPress website so that I can update content myself.
This year, find goals with great leverage. Here’s to a great 2017!
White Buffalo can help you achieve your business goals. We specialize in making websites that work well on smartphones, tablets, laptops, and desktops. We will help make the best website in your market!