How to set SMART goals you’ll actually stick to

Most of us have things we’d like to achieve in our businesses – get more customers, increase sales, improve our website, post more regularly on social media, get better organised…

Those aren’t really goals though, they’re intentions – which are difficult to measure or plan around.

I originally wrote this article about SMART goals years ago, but it’s one of those business ideas that hasn’t really dated. I still think it’s a useful way of taking something you want to achieve and turning it into something much more practical.

SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound.

Here’s how it works.

1. Specific – what exactly do you want to achieve?

“I want more customers” sounds like a goal, but it doesn’t give you much to work with.

What does “more” mean? What type of customers do you want? Are you trying to increase the number of customers, the value of each customer or maybe attract more of a particular type of work?

A more specific goal (that I could use in my business) might be:

“I want to win two new website design projects from medium-sized Suffolk businesses.”

Once you’re specific about the result you want, you can start thinking properly about how you’re going to achieve it.

2. Measurable – how will you know if you’ve achieved it?

If you can’t measure a goal in some way, it’s very easy to convince yourself you’re making progress without really knowing.

Depending on the goal, you might measure:

• sales or revenue
• number of enquiries
• new customers
• website enquiries or conversions
• email subscribers
• reviews
• new LinkedIn connections or conversations
• projects completed

Not everything worth achieving has to come down to money or a percentage, but you need some way of knowing whether you’ve done what you set out to do.

3. Achievable – is it realistic?

There’s nothing wrong with being ambitious, but setting a goal that’s impossible can have the opposite effect and leave you wondering why you’re bothering.

If your business currently gets 4 enquiries a month, setting a goal of 100 enquiries next month probably isn’t useful unless something significant is about to change!

That doesn’t mean making your goals so easy that they don’t challenge you either. Look at where you are now, what resources you’ve got and what you could realistically change within the time available.

4. Relevant – does it actually matter to your business?

This is one I think businesses can easily forget about, especially with marketing.

It’s easy to set goals around things that are visible and easy to count – more website visitors, more Instagram followers, more LinkedIn connections or more likes, but will achieving them actually help the business?

For example, I’d much rather have 300 relevant LinkedIn connections who could become clients or referral partners than 3,000 random connections who are never likely to have anything to do with my business.

Before setting a goal, ask yourself what achieving it will actually change.

5. Time-bound – when are you going to achieve it?

A goal without a date is very easy to keep putting off.

“I’m going to update my website” can sit on a to-do list for a couple of years. “I’m going to update the five main service pages on my website by 30th November” gives you something you can plan.

The deadline also helps you work backwards and decide what needs to happen each week or month to get there.

Turn the goal into actions

This is the bit I think matters most. Writing down a SMART goal doesn’t magically make it happen.

Once you’ve decided what you want to achieve, work out what you actually need to do.

If your goal is to generate 10 new enquiries from your website over the next three months, your actions might include:

• reviewing your main service pages
• improving the calls to action
• adding recent customer reviews
• publishing useful articles based on customer questions
• improving your Google Business Profile
• checking Google Search Console to see what you’re already being found for

The goal tells you where you’re going, the actions are what get you there.

Keep track of your progress

I like being able to see exactly where I am with things rather than relying on memory. I use Toodledo every working day to keep track of my tasks, projects, client requests and follow-ups, and I give tasks dates so I know what needs doing and when.

You don’t need to use the same system as me. It could be a spreadsheet, project management software, your calendar or just a notebook. What matters is that the actions don’t disappear once you’ve written the goal.

It’s also worth reviewing your progress before the deadline rather than waiting until the end to then realise you’ve done nothing towards it!

It’s OK to change a goal

Businesses don’t stand still, so there will be times when a goal you set three months ago no longer makes sense.

A new opportunity might come along, a project might be delayed, your priorities might change or you might realise that the original target wasn’t realistic.

An example of turning a vague goal into a SMART goal

Something I hear quite often:

“I want to get more business from LinkedIn.”

That’s a reasonable aim, but it’s difficult to know whether your LinkedIn activity is working.

You could turn it into something like:

“Over the next three months, I want to connect with 150 relevant potential referral partners on LinkedIn and start conversations with at least 20 of them.”

Now you’ve got something specific to aim for, numbers you can measure and a deadline.

You can then decide what needs to happen each week to achieve it and review the results at the end. You might even find that the conversations are a much more useful measure than the number of connections.

(I can help you to get some conversations going on LinkedIn, with relevant referral partners – see my LinkedIn Lead-Building Service).

Don’t set too many goals at once

It’s tempting to sit down at the beginning of a year or quarter and create a huge list of everything you’d like to improve, but if you’ve got 20 priorities, you haven’t really got any priorities.

Concentrate on a small number of goals that could make a genuine difference to the business, then decide what actions need to happen and make time for them.

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If you need some help putting your goals into practice, I’ve created a free SMART Goals Template that you can use to work through your goals, make them Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound and decide on the actions you need to take.

It’s designed to give you somewhere practical to record what you’re trying to achieve rather than letting another good intention disappear onto the bottom of your to-do list!