If you go to work on your goals, your goals will go to work on you. If you go to work on your plan, your plan will go to work on you. Whatever good things we build end up building us.: Jim Rohn
Friends, do you feel that you have not achieved the success in life that you wanted to achieve? Do you feel unfulfilled in your life? Do you make a new beginning again and again and then leave it?
It may be because you are not clear about what you want to achieve in life? That means, you have not set your long term and short term goals of your life. Without goals you only live a mediocre life. The Harward research says that 4% people of society, who have achieved great success in life have been those who set goals and worked consistently until they achieved their goals.
It must be borne in mind that the tragedy of life doesn’t lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goals to reach. Benjamin E. Mays
New financial year biggening is very important occasion in the corporate world. Previous years accounts are closed, and new year’s budgets are set. The new year begins with lots of hopes and expectations.
While working with lots of clients I have seen frequently that the small and medium enterprises generally do not set their goals. There are different reasons to it. These reasons like:
• They don’t know how to set the goals.
• They don’t know the importance of goal setting.
• They are disappointed, as they do not achieve their goals.
• They think that they do not have enough time to set goals.
• They do not know how to build Action Plan for achieve the goals.
When I work with clients, I work with a clear objective of scaling up their sales revenue. Therefore, setting the revenue goal becomes the first imperative. So one of the question lots of sales people and business owners ask is; how to set the business goals?
Yes, setting business goals is a systematic process. Lots of business owners just look at the previous year and decide on some comfortable figure for next year and think that it is their goal for next year. In case of SME businesses, most of the time deep, logical, and analytical thinking does not go into goal setting.
Surely, this is not the right way of setting goal. Setting up of business goal is broadly a five-step process. Let me explain you all these five steps one by one.
1. Reflection: The first step is called the reflection. Business leaders must reflect upon the past 3 years and look at the average growth per year. And accordingly decide the goal for the next year. This type of goal setting is also known as the Trend goal setting. Because you have considered the earlier years trend, growth, and experience. For example, if your business has logged 15 percent average growth, year on year during last three years, you can simply add 15% to the previous year’s revenue and setup the next year goal. Based on this formula if last year’s achievement was 100Cr the next year’s target can safely be 115Cr.
This step is important because it gives you the opportunity to think about where you stand today. It tells you how you have been doing in past. It helps you in analysing the past success and failures. By reflecting on past conditions and trends you can learn from the past experiences. This step tells you about where you stand today. It helps you for becoming realistic about future.
But this has a problem. The problem is that if you are too much past focused then it limits your thinking. With this approach you tend to ignore the market conditions, technical innovation or any other opportunities which may be knocking at your door.
Therefore, the second step is recommended to set your business goals.
2. Opportunity Exploration: After you have reflected upon the previous years and decided on trend goals, the leadership team need to explore the opportunities available in the market. You need to explore the market conditions in your country as well as internationally. You must analyse the industry in general, economic conditions, political and social conditions which may affect your business. You can also look at your competitors. Try and find out the competitors’ strategy and learn something which can be implemented in your business. Also explore the new streams of revenue which you can add to your business. Locate the new technology which may be available in the market and analyse how you can take its advantage for generating new business. Add the opportunity component to your Trend goal. For example, you can add 5% revenue growth due to the new technology you have added in your business during the recent past. Which means now after adding the opportunity component your target for next year shall become 115Cr plus 5Cr more which means 120Cr.
“If you go to work on your goals, your goals will go to work on you. If you go to work on your plan, your plan will go to work on you. Whatever good things we build end up building us” : Michael Phelps
3. Vision Alignment: The third step in goal setting is about looking at your business long term vision. You need to ask yourself, ‘is your goal set above aligned with your future is vision’? So this is the time to look at your 5 years vision. Is your growth going in the direction of your vision? Is the goal set by you, in line with your long-term ambition? If not, you can add few more points to your goal set by step number 1 and 2. For example now after adding the vision and ambition component, your goal may increase by 5% more and shall become 125Cr.
If you include the ambition component in your goal it must become a stretched goal. Brian Tracy suggests that a goal is a stretched goal if you see around 50% possibility to achieve it. Let’s follow the Michelangelo’s advice.
“The great danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low and achieving our mark.” –Michelangelo
While setting your goal it is important to see where you stand today, this should not appear to be unachievable. For example if your revenue this during last three years has been around 15Cr annually and for next year you set a goal of 100Cr, your heart and mind may not believe it. If you don’t have faith in achieving your goal then you will not even try to achieve it. Having full faith in achieving the goal is very important aspect of achieving the goal. Therefore, it is recommended that you must have which is stretched but at the same achievable.
4. Resources required: Goals achievement is closely associated with the availability of resources. These resources can be financial or any other type. Before proceeding towards finalization of goal setting one should ask question like what all resources shall be needed for achieving the set goals. To establish the resources needed ask following questions.
• How much investment shall be required for goal achievement?
• How many more employees shall be need required?
• Are there any machines needed to build up production capacity?
Besides asking these questions the business leaders must also consider.
• What kind of support may be required from different people in the society?
• What skills and competencies shall be needed to achieve the new goals?
After you have considered all the above question, you need to find out the answers to these question. The all answers may not be available at the time of setting the goals. But some ideas must be around so that you are confident to achieve and also you are well prepared when you need the above resources on the journey of goal achievement.
Asking above questions are also important for developing the action plan for goal achievement. After this you move to the next steps which is very important step in the process of goal setting.
5. Identify the Obstacles: Consider what obstacles may be faced during the goal achievement. Identifying the obstacles which you may come across to, in the journey of goal achievement is very important step. This helps in getting fully prepared for unforeseen circumstance. No big goals can be achieved without facing obstacles and problems. Achieving big goals is like going up the hill. When you go up the hill the journey becomes difficult.
So, thinking through what obstacles may be faced and what needs to be done overcome those, is a must step in the process of goal setting. Because it is said;
“Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.” –Henry Ford
As you can see the goal setting is a science it requires lots of data analysis and research. This also needs to analyse your vision and your ambitions. You also need to be aware of resources required and other related things. Goals setting cannot be taken casually.
Setting gold does not remain limited to a revenue number. It is very important to work out the relevant strategy and action plan for achieving your goal.
Sometimes later I will discuss how to decide the strategy and action plan for achieving the goals. But immediately take actions to achieve your goals.
“Never quit. It is the easiest cop-out in the world. Set a goal and don’t quit until you attain it. When you do attain it, set another goal, and don’t quit until you reach it. Never quit.” –Bear Bryant
