The Ultimate Guide: Setting and Accomplishing Business Goals in 2017

In the spirit of the new year, let’s talk about goals. I didn’t believe in the power of goals this time last year. I didn’t set business goals. I didn’t set monthly goals. I just thought if I did the best I can, my business will just keep getting better and everything will be good (ha). As of lately, as in 3 months ago, I started setting goals and my business has drastically changed since then. I have a solid direction that my business is headed toward, I know what I want and need to complete each month in order to achieve what I set out to achieve. I feel more accomplished at the end of the month. It’s just great. The power of goal setting is very, very real.

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Since I started setting goals, I have created a completely new brand, Market Beautifully. I have created a podcast, a community, and an academy with my business partner Becca Cannon. In 3 months while working a full-time job I have accomplished so much for Mara Burkes + Market Beautifully and I know without a doubt I wouldn’t have accomplished half of this without setting out each month knowing what I wanted to get done.

So if you aren’t currently setting goals in your business on a yearly or monthly basis, then now is the perfect time to get started. Accomplish big things (like I know you already are) because you deserve big things for your business.

This post covers:

• The anatomy of a great business goal
• The types of goals you need to make for your business and life
• Have a why for your goals
• How to organize the tasks for your goals
• The sprint method to use when accomplishing your goals
• Rewarding yourself when checking off a goal

The anatomy of a great business goal

I’m not sure if you have heard of the SMART acronym for goals, I have been surprised at those around me who haven’t heard of this acronym so I thought I would share how you can use this easy way to create an achievable goal in no time at all by using the letters in the word SMART. Let’s break down each letter and how it relates to the goal you are going to create.

• S stands for specific. Be specific with what you want to accomplish. Exactly how many days or months do you have to complete this goal? What specifically do you want to do? Don’t write down a goal such as “I want more website traffic,” instead write down “I want to increase my website traffic by 1,000 more monthly views.” Being specific makes your goals a whole lot cooler.
• M stands for measurable. If you are unable to measure your goal then you won’t be able to check off that goal with confidence after all the hard work you put in. Those monthly views that we want to increase by 1,000 is measurable. You can go check out Google analytics and consistently track the views by the end of each month.
• A stands for actionable. Action-oriented goals are the best. You can typically break these down easier into tasks with different deadlines.
• R stands for realistic. Can you realistically accomplish this goal?
• T stands for time-based. if you don’t set a time limit on your goal it will either take a lot longer to accomplish

What types of goals do you need for your business

There are so many different types of goals you can have, but specifically for your business I thought these four categories were pretty important:

• Overall business goals

• Revenue goals

• Project goals

• Personal goals

With your overall business, what do you want to achieve? Would you like to grow your email list or increase your brand awareness? There are so many great business goals that are worth achieving. Pick a few! Revenue goals are great to make that way you have something to track and reach for. Of course running a business is not all about making money, it’s about helping people and getting to give back in a way that some people are unable to. But at the end of the day, you are running a business and your business needs to have some sort of revenue goal! Project goals are my favorite types of goals. The podcast I created was a “project goal” because it was a project I have been wanting to complete for months now but have kept pushing off to the side. Having personal goals is crucial to the success of your business. Your personal life greatly affects your business and it is always great to work on ways to improve regardless, if that means improvement is needed with your family, friends, or even just within yourself.

Have a why

Know WHY you want to achieve this goal. And then write your “why” in the description part of your organization software or simply write it down underneath your goal! Let’s say you want to increase your website traffic by 30% in the span of 3 months. Well, why? So you can get more money from affiliate marketing? So you can grow your email list? Brand awareness? Make sure that your “why” for each goal is clear.

A why is especially important to have for yearly goals because this will help keep your eye on what you want to accomplish. It’s so easy to drop a goal and say “oh well, I’ll just focus on this instead” but if you have your why set in stone beforehand, you’ll remember why this goal was so important to you at the time when you set it and you’ll have a reason to keep going even when it gets a little tough or inconvenient.

How to organize your tasks within your goals

Do you use Asana? If you don’t know what Asana is it’s basically a platform that helps you organize your business into different projects. I use Asana for planning out all my business goals and breaking each of those goals down into different tasks. Once I break down my goals into different tasks I assign a due date to each task and sub-task that way I know what needs to get done and by what time in order to meet each of my goals. I see all these tasks on one calendar that I keep track of throughout the day each week.

For example, one of my goals was to start a podcast for Market Beautifully. So at the beginning of November when I came up with the name I broke down this goal into multiple tasks, some were: creating the artwork for the cover, outlining my first 3 podcasts, recording, editing, creating the intro to each podcast, creating the outro, finding music, those were just a few! And I had to keep adding tasks as I started out creating this podcast because some things I had no idea you had to do in order to get a podcast going.

Submitting my RSS feed took way too long, creating market beautifully.com, the website for my podcast, had a lot of technical issues. But I had my due dates set for each task in Asana and I was determined to meet my goal. I allotted my time wisely and had my podcast website, SoundCloud, and iTunes completed the day before Thanksgiving which beat my goal by 10 days. Asana helped me keep track of all the tasks leading up to the final goal: starting a podcast. Being able to check off this goal before I was even supposed to was the greatest feeling ever. I loved having an idea in my head and making it come to life.

How to use the sprint method of achieving your goal.

What is the sprint method? The sprint method is something that helps you know when to spend time on just accomplishing this goal and the tasks involved. So you set your monthly goal, right? You’ll have 2 sprints a week that are 60 minutes each. So if there is 4 weeks in a month, that gives you 8 hours to complete one goal. During these 60 minute sprints you are ONLY focused on completing this goal and making it come to fruition. That’s it. No netflix or multi-tasking.

Possibly set aside some time and a month to test out the sprint method. And then let me know how this works out for you! I just started doing sprints this month and I have loved it. I feel so much more productive!

Reward Yourself

Be kind to yourself because you deserve a pat on the back every once in awhile, even if that “pat on the back” takes the form of a new pair of shoes. YOU deserve some type of gift for completing that goal. So go spoil yourself. Figure out what you’re going to get if you complete your goal before you even start on your first task. This gives you that extra push and makes it a little more fun as well!

Goal setting is somewhat of an art and I believe it truly changes lives and businesses when incorporated into your lifestyle. It’s worth the little bit of extra effort that is required. It’s nice to check off each task one by one and know you’re truly working toward changing your business for the better or your life for the better.