Want To Create SMART Objectives? Here's How

No matter what type of business you have, you’ll need to set clear objectives quarterly or annually. A way of identifying future goals, along with the timeline, they will help you to achieve growth.

Whether your objectives involve increasing business revenue, maximizing your profits, providing better customer service or improving the productivity within your workplace, if you use the right tools you’ll be able to accomplish it.

For these to be successful, you should make them SMART. But what does this mean?

Specific:

You need to ensure that you’re setting very specific objectives. The more specific they are, the more likely it is that you’ll achieve them. An example of an objective which is specific is – increasing sales by 25% by the end of the next quarter through an online marketing campaign. Giving your employees clear guidance, they know what they should be working towards.

Measurable:

When creating your objectives, you should also make them measurable. Identifying exactly what you want to see when you reach your goal, you’ll be able to use the results to showcase their measurability. Breaking it into various elements, it’s a way of refining the steps you will have to take.

Attainable:

Are they attainable? During the process, you need to make sure that you’re not setting goals that are out of reach. To make these achievable and attainable, you need to prepare your staff in advance and have the resources in place.

Realistic:

Can you realistically accomplish these? Are they relevant to your exact needs? These thoughts should be consistent throughout the process to ensure that you’re following the right path.

Timely:

You need to set a deadline – otherwise, you’ll find that there is no hurry to focus on the objectives. This deadline doesn’t have to be rigid, it can be flexible – as long as you or your employees don’t lose sight of what you want to achieve.

So, how do you create them?

Identify The Objective’s Priorities

At the start of the process, you should sit down with your employees and map out what your objectives should be. By setting a concrete vision and conducting a SWOT analysis, you’ll be able to analyze your business’ opportunities, strengths, weaknesses and any potential threats.

Through an open discussion, you should pay attention to key areas within your business, looking at how the objectives can be shaped around them. For example:

In the Finance Department, an objective could be to cut spending and improve profit margins.
In Operations, you could introduce new technology or update your current software.
In Quality – introduce new processes so that all of your products/services are to the highest possible quality.

While identifying priorities and performing a SWOT analysis, you can also review your business’ past performance. Using KPIs as a benchmark, you can create a comparison between your past and future performance.

Evaluate the Market

After identifying priorities, set about evaluating the current market situation. By looking at the market and industry as a whole, you’ll start to notice trends for the upcoming year. Helping you to compete successfully alongside other players within the industry, it will give you a clearer picture of how your company will fit into the landscape.

Keep Your Employees in The Loop

Throughout the course of achieving your business objectives, you should keep your employees up to date with the success of them. By asking for feedback and uncovering the impact that different changes have on your business, you’ll be able to plan your next steps.

A good way of getting your employees involved is through an OKR (Objectives and Key Results spreadsheet). Shared across the company, it will list the steps that each employee will take to achieve the objectives.

Use Sales Playbooks

By utilizing the power of AI Generated Sales Playbooks, you’ll be able to characterize the responsibilities for both you and your sales team. Identifying metrics for measurement and the right approach for successfully closing sales, you’ll be able to establish more concrete objectives.