If you want to grow your business setting goals is the starting point. Once you know where you’re heading you can then develop a plan to succeed.

Here are 5 top tips to set the right goals and to make it more likely that you will achieve them.

1. What lies beneath? If you’re setting goals for your own business think about your underlying motives for the goals: is it to make enough money for a specific purpose such as a holiday or to spend more time with your family? Having a motivation behind your goals will make it more personal and help keep you focused.
2. Are your goals clear? Are they clearly defined in measurable terms so that you know when you have achieved your goals and also whether you are on track to meet them? For example a vague goal to increase the number of customers you have will be harder to measure than a focused target of obtaining 12 new customers in next 12 months.
3. Do you have a plan to achieve your goals? Have you broken your business goals into smaller targets? Do you know what you need to do each quarter, month or even week to make sure you are making progress towards your goals? For example, if you want to have 12 new customers will you focus on a small number of specific business sectors? Do you have a list of potential new customers, background information on them and a contact plan for each of them?
4. Are your goals realistic and achievable? Often goals will relate to working on building your business, rather than the day to day activity required to run your business effectively so are you able to commit your time to achieve this? Do you have a member of staff who can be focused on this activity for you or do you need to consider outsourcing some of your work to free up time for you to concentrate on building your business? Will you need to recruit staff once you reach a certain size or do you need specialist advice to implement your plan?
5. Make time to review and adapt. Once you have set your goals and developed a plan make sure you put time aside to review your plan. The focus of this should be to understand what’s working and what isn’t so that you can make any necessary changes. For example, if you found that companies in one of the business sectors you plan to target have a need for a different service would you amend the service you offer or focus on a different sector?

Tracey Shrimpton has over 20 year’s marketing experience working for companies including Hewlett Packard, Royal Mail, Hitachi and AQA. Tracey lives in Fleet and is the owner of thebestof Fleet helping small and medium companies to grow by using marketing to stand out from their competitors, build their reputation and generate enquiries for their business. To request a free marketing review of your business click here.