People often ask how most successful people achieve their business goals; most of the time, we set personal goals and business goals, all of which are very important. This idea is rational; as far as we see, there is a series of easy to follow and successful template of objectives that may be a solution to some of our problems.

When starting your business, you may suffer from not meeting your goals, which is not a problem; we’ve all been there at some point in our lives where we feel the world is against us.

Personally, at some point in my life, I was incapable of achieving any one of my personal, business, and career goals; I wasn’t taking the right steps to get there. After years of struggle and trying various approaches, I eventually discovered what really worked for me, and I will like to share. I had a lot of success, but some of it was also due to experimentation. I used all the knowledge I could find online and by reading books.

I read one of Peter Drucker’s books. He defined a term called “SMART” objectives. This is something we will identify later. I will show you how to implement SMART goals as we proceed.

So let’s start:

5 Ways To Achieve Your Business Goals

As I mentioned earlier, I have had my fair share of many trials and errors on the path to achieving my business goals. But I will share some strategies that have proven successful over the years.

I have broken down my process into five steps that you can follow to achieve your goals. Goals are important for startups, small companies, big corporations, and all in between. Creating a business plan that works is more than just writing some targets. Please do the following:

1. Classify your Goals and Objectives 

It’s a common mistake that I see on a daily basis. The first thing you need to do is describe your priorities and objectives and remove any misunderstanding. The targets are the results you want. Objectives are the actions you need to take to reach these outcomes.

You must be able to define a good goal or good objectives. This may sound simple, but believe me, not all goals are good ones. Goals must have your full attention and concentration so that you can really think about what the right target is for your business. It’s easy to spot bad goals because they sound more along the lines of “make more money” or “build the next Facebook” or “be on the cover of Forbes.” These goals are extremely prevalent, everyone wants it, and that is what makes it unrealistic.

But none of these is really what you set out to do with your business.

An ideal and more realistic target will be something like, “become the number one choice for customers in my market sector”. Then you can split it down into several pieces to develop and sustain your business plan.

To put it plainly, if you’re not sure where your business is headed, watch Simon Sinek’s TED Talk about how strong leaders inspire action.

2.  Implement The SMART Objectives

SMART objectives were outlined in a book by Peter Drucker. SMART stands for:

• Specific: Outline a clear statement that defines what is required.

• Measurable: A clear unit of measurement (preferably through numerical terms) to identify progress and complete the objective.

• Achievable: Objectives should be challenging yet achievable. It would be best to be happy with the outcome, but your team must be willing to commit. 

• Realistic: Managers should focus on outcomes and on the initiatives to achieve those outcomes. 

• Timely: Set a specific date of achievement that must be agreed upon and met. 

The explanation that goals must be specific is that you’ll have no other means of telling whether you’ve truly accomplished them or not.

They must still be measurable because it’s not entirely infinite. For instance, “keep customers happy” isn’t measurable. What does happy mean? “Make product better” doesn’t help either. What is better? How much is better? It can’t be calculated.

It’s essential that you encourage your team to work with their initiatives. Otherwise, the strategies we impose as executives may not be practical, which means they can’t be efficiently carried out. This takes me to our last step—timely. Often set targets on all so the team knows what goals must be achieved and when.

Implementing SMART objectives to accomplish your target is the only way to keep on track without losing sight of the results.

3. Identify The KPIs (Key Performance Indicators)

Let us recap? We will concentrate on the targets that we have, and our team will focus on the initiatives that will guide us in achieving those objectives. To make this happen correctly, we need to set up pre-defined metrics for this: ideally as numerical data, but can be in any format.

By doing this, we’ll assess success and improve accountability, because we’ll know whether we achieve our target or do not. Ideally, we’ll know if we’re on track to meet the targets we came up with.

Here is what I mean. Let’s remind ourselves that a goal we used earlier in this unit—as an example—was to reduce our bug log by half. Let’s go ahead and assume that we have about 100 glitches. There are 50 glitches in all, which is 50% of that. This is a goal we need to accomplish in one month. Let’s take a look at those relevant statistics regarding the association between smoking and wellbeing.

When the project is approaching one-third of the month, and overall, bugs are yet to be resolved, you will know that the project is in difficulty and that it will not be completed as scheduled.

By monitoring your progress and without fixing issues, you will play the odds on your ability to meet realistic targets. Often think about ways to change your plan or priorities to fit with your timetable when appropriate.

LITTLE CHALLENGE FOR YOU: What aim were you working towards previously? What does your new target look like? What motivates you financially about your business? With all the task research we’ve done as a team so far, how did you go from trying to make a lot of money to starting up your own business and empowering others by innovation?

I would really like to hear what you did or what we should do to help us benefit from what you have done or how you have improved. So let me know in the comments section, and we can have a conversation about it.

4. Give Your Team Freedom & Autonomy

If we encourage our team members to take up initiatives, they need to decide whether they want to implement their own initiatives. Managing people should not be overly controlling—[Excessively micromanaging your team would mean you the manager will get in their way].

By sending a strong message that you trust and value your employees, you will empower them and make them feel more independent. To remain motivated and on the right track towards achieving your goals, you have to let the team members drive and do their work.

Basically, let everybody do their job the best way they know how to, and you supervise. It would help if you trusted what your team could do to have the potential to scale your company and experience business growth rapidly.

The underlying reason I stopped micromanaging and barking orders at work is that it creates minimal efficiency. If things do not go as expected, the blame for your mismanagement is always put on those who merely followed your orders.

This team should be independent and feel they own their initiatives or ideas. People can own several stocks and options, so it is okay. Therefore, businesses have to get people to become engaged with them, and that commitment is directly tied to the degree of ownership they have. Go along with your team to deliver.

Getting the product developed is just the tip of the iceberg. Offer them the chance, to learn and to succeed.

5. Keeping Your Team Member Accountable

For this to work effectively, your team must be held accountable and responsible for their role in achieving objectives. 

Let’s rewind for a minute quickly. We’ve already identified a true goal and the objectives required to achieve that goal. Now we’ve assigned our team the clear KPIs for SMART objectives that they must use to focus on their own initiatives. So the final step is holding them accountable. 

Holding your team accountable starts with something as simple as circling a date on a calendar. Invite all of your stakeholders to a meeting at the end of the pre-assigned date. Here are some helpful tips for fostering a culture of accountability:

To achieve this, have regular meetings with all of the stakeholders to report on their success, and each of them can check in with their goals. This is the time when you’ll test it and see if everything in your operation has been implemented correctly.

Everyone on the team needs to attend this meeting and relay messages and report to an additional person after the meeting. Instead of a friendly rivalry between your superiors to see who can get the most done, this also creates a competition between the administrators to see who achieves their goals without giving up and who doesn’t.

PRO TIP: Ask for a B if you want an A, an A if you want a B. Even if the team does not outperform its rivals, it still gets an overall passing score. But if you ask for a C on a project, your team members are likely to come back with failure.

If you have written down your goals, then begin carrying out your next goals for that month, quarter, year, etc. Set out to assess the takeaways from the previous encounters by re-examining and revisiting any mistakes you made. This will make it easier for you to continue on the right path.

Related: Android Vs iOS Users: 5 Behavioral Comparison

MY FINAL TAKE ON ACHIEVING BUSINESS GOALS?

No one wants to fall short of all their targets. To achieve success in any business setting, one must study the principles of success established by those who have already accomplished it.

I wish that I had known more about this resource when I first began. It could have saved me so many aggravating hours, money, and headaches. Given my challenging period, I’m still very thankful that I found it when I did, as I’ve been able to achieve countless goals since then.

Let me summarize?

You need to identify your business goals and separate them from any current objectives. Then, break down your goals into smaller steps and set KPIs to track your progress. Give the team freedom of action and adhere to enforce responsibility by holding them accountable.

I hope that this guide will help you achieve your personal goals. Keep it nearby so you will still be able to refer back to it in the future quickly. Let us build wonderful stuff together!