30 minutes to better goals. Set yourself up for success in 2020 and beyond!

Wow, we made it through the holidays! With less than a week until we ring in 2020, it’s time to look toward the future, and decide what 2020 and beyond mean for your business.

Did you know? Setting, sharing, and regularly reporting on your goals makes you 33% more likely to achieve them.

Lucky for us, we have a whole network of friends and fellow business owners to help set and hold us accountable for our goals, right here in the QuickBooks Community!

Step 1: Consider your long-term goals. 

For most small to medium businesses, long-term goals will reflect what you hope to achieve in the next 3-5 years and should reflect your company’s mission statement. 

According to Bill Baren, a business coach, "When you think about why the company is there in the first place, goals take on a whole different meaning. There's more energy behind them. They don't feel forced."

Most long-term goals will fall into the following 4 categories:

Service: Goals related to improving customer service satisfaction or customer retention.

Social: Goals that focus on giving back to the community, through philanthropy or volunteer organizations, for example.

Profit: Goals set to increase profits by a certain percentage.

Growth: Goals related to the expansion of the company, through new employees, for instance.

Have you already set long-term goals for your business? Now is a great time to review them if you have, or set new ones if you haven’t. Goals are living, breathing things and do not need to be set in stone. Think of them as waypoints on a longer journey, something to work toward, though your final destination may change. 

Step 2: Set your short-term goals. 

If our long-term goals are our waypoints, our short-term goals are the guideposts to lead us there. 

What can you accomplish in the next 3 months? 6 months? No need to plan out your year all at once, but when the frenzy of the first of the year comes around it’s great to have some concrete goals to keep your head on straight. Write down three 3-month goals and three 6-month goals and put them in a place where you’ll see them regularly. 

A great rule of thumb is to go by the SMART acronym, setting goals that are:

Specific

Measurable

Attainable

Relevant

Time-Based

That last one is already done for you, since we’re just focusing on our next 3 and 6 months. So, just focus on those first four letters as you start crafting your goals. 

An example of a great SMART goal would be: 

Increase website traffic by 10% in the next 3 months. 

Or…

Gain 6 new clients in the next 6 months. 

Step 3: Make an Action List

Now that your short-term goals are set, time to plan the steps to make them real. For each goal, write 3-5 concrete actions you can take to get you there. For example, if your goal is: Gain 6 new clients in the next 6 months, we can:

• Reach out to cold contacts from the last year. 
• Attend an industry or networking event. 
• Review and update social media strategy. 

Now, time to share! What are your SMART short-term goals for kicking off 2020? Share one of your favorite, or all of them, as a reply to this post. Remember, sharing your goals is the second piece to ensuring success! Let the QuickBooks community be your cheering section this year.