Driving Your Business Forward: Why We Need Goals and Objectives

Why Should You Set Goals & Objectives?

You hear it all the time, most likely from someone like myself who says, “You should really have some goals and objectives for your business and marketing”.  I’ll also be the first to admit that setting goals and objectives are not easy but they are a necessary part of running a successful business.

In this post, I want you to be able to understand why you need goals and objectives, and to get you thinking about your goals and objectives for your business.

Importance of Goals and Objectives

So why are goals and objectives so important to your business?  Ultimately, that comes down to two main reasons:

1. Future directions – Goals and objectives provide your business with a path forward.  They help to tell the story of where you want your business to head.  Without it, you’d be wandering around like a college graduate without a plan for their future.

2. Benchmarks – By having goals and objectives, you can measure whether the activities you engage in are having a positive effect.  Are you successful or just keeping your business afloat?  Without knowing what the target is, you don’t know whether you’re close to your target, below, or overachieved your target.  Benchmarks allow a business to understand what needs to be tweaked so that their money and time are invested wisely.  It’s easy to get lost in the minutiae of day-to-day activities so that you may not realize the positive or negative impact your day-to-day activities could be having.  By having goals and objectives, you can push your business to the next level.

It’s important to keep in mind that goals and objectives are not set in stone.  They can change every year or possibly even every quarter.  But you need to give your business the time to achieve your goals and objectives before you consider changing them.

Definitions of Goals and Objectives

Before you sit down and begin to define your goals and objectives, a definition of the two terms is helpful, as well as an example.

Goals: Definition and Examples

• Goal [definition]: A goal is a long-term end result that a business hopes to achieve.  Goals can be created for the overall business, for sales, for marketing, or even for human resources.
  • Example of business goal: Increase profit margins
  • Example of marketing goal: Increase brand awareness

Objectives: Definition and Examples

• Objective [definition]: An objective is a strategy or steps required for the business to reach its goals.  Again, objectives can be created for each type of goal.  Multiple objectives can be created to help reach one goal.  Here are some examples of objectives related to the goals above.
  • Example of business objective: Decrease manufacturing expenses by 10% by June 2019.
  • Example of marketing objective:  Create 10 YouTube videos by June 2019 that show the history of the brand and its products.

As you can see in the example, my business objective of decreasing manufacturing expenses will help the business to increase profit margins.  By creating YouTube videos focused on company branding, I can positively impact my marketing goal of increasing brand awareness.

Differences between Goals and Objectives

What separates a goal from an objective?

GOALS are WHAT you want to achieve.

OBJECTIVES are HOW you will reach your goals.

An objective is clearly defined and active.  Objectives are short-term and are small steps that help you reach a goal.  Many smaller objectives can help a business reach their goal.

Summary

Hopefully, this post has convinced you that creating goals and objectives is a necessary part of any business or even life in general.  I would encourage you to write your goals and objectives down.

Not sure how to craft your goals and objectives?  Or maybe you don’t know how to vocalize your goals and objectives?   Shoot me an e-mail and I can help you with creating goals and objectives for your business.  More of a DIYer?  In a future post, I will post tips on how to craft goals and objectives.

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