How To Create SMART Goals
In our last article, I shared information about creating a Vision for corporate and personal use, and now I want to share how you can work to obtain these through SMART goals.
SMART is an acronym, and when you break it down, you’ll get:
Specific: Specificity in your goals helps you know and qualify what success will look like because it is hard to say you achieved your goal if you don’t know how to define it.
Measurable: My first college degree was in science. Understanding data gives you an objective way to evaluate your progress. If you can define your goal with a metric, you can see how close you are to achieving it.
Achievable: Make sure that these goals are action-oriented, which means having the ability to control the outcome. In life, there are only two things you can control–your attitude and effort. If your goal will require too much effort, it may become unachievable.
Relevant: Keep the big, hairy, audacious goals (BHAGs) as something to work towards in the longer term. Break it down as weekly, quarterly, 1-year plan, and even a 3-year picture to help create more realism. As one client said the other day, “Meeting a goal makes you feel great. Failing to meet a goal makes you feel like sh…” uh, well, not the best.
Timebound: Working with companies, we have a specific time frame that we set goals for, namely 10-year target, 3-year picture, 1-year plan, and quarterly rocks. Breaking down the days, weeks, and months into actionable steps allows us to accomplish our goals while measuring the progress towards completion and celebrating once we finish.
SMART Goal Example
Let’s say you’re a business owner and want to increase your monthly sales. Rather than just saying, “I want to triple my revenue,” break it down into the SMART goal steps.
Specific: Triple my monthly revenue by selling my business services.
Measurable: I will go from bringing in $5,000 a month in sales to $15,000.
Achievable: I know the metrics of my digital marketing efforts result in 30 new leads per month, and of those 30, 10 become customers. If I can ramp up my digital marketing efforts, I can triple my new leads through new connections, networking, targeted advertising, or training courses.
Relevant: I want to increase my revenue from $5,000 to $15,000, so I will set aside 30 minutes a day to focus on sending out 20 connection requests based on the geographic, demographic, and psychographic characteristics of my ideal customer.
Timebound: It will take me three months to ramp up to 120 new leads a month, so I think a realistic timeframe is by August 31st, 2022.
Now, when we put everything together, your new goal will be: Increase my monthly revenue through business services from $5,000 to $15,000 by August 31st, 2022. To achieve this goal, I will send 20 LinkedIn connections per day to my ideal customer, double my budget for digital marketing, and attend one trade show and one training session.
Get Professional Help
Tackship Consulting can help you activate your passion and optimize your performance by helping you create SMART goals and implement them into your business and even your personal goals. Check out our website, or schedule a free consultation to learn more!