Each day we set goals in life, the little lists that run through our heads at 4am, or the big aims we hope to achieve like buying a house, paying down a loan or taking the kids on a well-earned holiday. In business hopes and dreams are no less important, but often fade into the background of day to day management. It’s all about goal setting, and it’s something a coach can help you with. Here’s why it’s so important to your business.
Future direction
Even the simple task of sitting down and nutting out what you hope to do with your business in one, three and five years time, assists in the clarification of what you should be doing this week or the next, providing you with a solid navigation point for the future.
Take for example a print shop: They identify the goal that instead of printing local business cards, letterheads and flyers, in three years’ time they hope to be printing banners, business cards and wedding invitations, shipping them around Australia, courtesy of an internet store.
That single goal allows them to set immediate milestones;
- This financial year they need to consolidate their figures to attain a loan for the purchase of new printing machinery.
- Next year they need to have a financial plan for that period between cash going out on an investment and new business coming in.
- They after they need to hone their website.
- They need to establish a national marketing plan.
The business can then set deadlines and milestones, which are the further goals for reaching their success.
Measuring your success
Goals may allow you to progressively shoot for the stars, but they also allow you to chart your progress along the way. They enable you to measure whether something is working and to devise strategies when it’s not.
With clear goals it’s about breaking down the tasks that get you where you ultimately want to be. And when these goals are translated to staff through systems, procedures and KPIs, it allows you to take your team on the journey with you, celebrating the successes along the way.
Attaining your dreams
No ship sets sail without a destination and without knowing the ports of call it needs to stop at along the way. And it’s the same in business. Whether your destination is handing your business to your children, selling it, running it profitably under management, or expanding it, you need to know where you’re going to get there. Then you can stop at ports like an annual holiday, sufficient staff, and paying off business loans, running your business with clear direction instead of it running you.
A coach can help
Often in business it’s hard to gain a clear bearing on where you are and where you want to be. By sitting down and talking with a coach you can not only establish your end goals but they can assist in establishing and meeting the milestones along the way.
