According to a recent survey, only about 5% of small businesses meet all of the goals that they set at the beginning of each year. This might lead you to believe that you don’t need to set company goals anymore.
But just because many small businesses have trouble meeting company goals doesn’t mean that your company shouldn’t still set them. Measuring the performance of your company will be so much easier when you’re able to see which goals you meet on an annual basis.
You should learn about some different company goals examples so that you can start setting goals for your small business. Take a look at seven of them below and then see how your business can meet them.
1. Increase Profits
If you were to ask almost any small business owner to give you one goal that they have for the coming year, there is a good chance that they would allude to making their company more profitable. Small business owners are just about always chasing bigger profits. It’s why we decided to lead off this list of company goals examples with this one.
You can’t just say that you want to increase profits, though. You have to find ways to do it.
You might be able to increase profits by:
- Raising the prices on your products and/or services
- Looking for more efficient ways to produce your products and/or services
- Marketing your products and/or services better
By doing these types of things, you should see your profits surge year after year. But you will have to put some real effort into making your business more profitable than it already is.
2. Revamp Reputation
Does your company have a great reputation within your community? If it doesn’t, that might be something that you’ll want to work towards changing this year.
There are a variety of ways in which you can improve your company’s reputation a little bit at a time. You can:
- Encourage your customers to leave positive online reviews for your business
- Take part in community outreach programs within your city
- Rethink your company’s approach to customer service
You aren’t going to be able to improve your small business’ reputation overnight. But you should be able to do it a little bit at a time over the course of just a few months.
3. Build Audience
If you want to start bringing in new customers on a regular basis, there are steps you can take to accomplish this goal. You can:
- Begin advertising in new places
- Extend special deals to first-time customers
- Offer a referral program for your current customers
You shouldn’t have too much trouble attracting new customers when you put your mind to it. It’ll get your small business moving in the right direction in terms of growing and expanding into new markets.
4. Improve Organizational Skills
As your small business grows, it’s going to become increasingly difficult for you to stay organized. And if you’re not organized, it won’t be too long before your small business begins to trend in the wrong direction.
With this in mind, you’ll need to work on your company’s organizational skills over time. Doing this will involve investing in all the office supplies you’ll need to organize important documents better. It’ll also involve making the most of the technology that has been created to help businesses get more organized.
You don’t want to make your customers or other businesses feel like you’re disorganized in the slightest. It could cause them to lose trust in you and take their business elsewhere.
5. Show Leadership
You don’t ever want to make it appear as though your small business is simply following trends within your industry. Instead, you want to give people the impression that your company is an industry leader within your space.
Each year, you should make it your mission to do something that other companies in your industry aren’t doing. Whether that means releasing an ambitious new product or coming up with a new rewards program, you can show leadership in your specific space.
6. Embrace Technology
Did you know that your small business might be stagnant as far as growth is concerned right now simply because you aren’t embracing the latest forms of technology?
If you aren’t using these enterprise performance management solutions to your advantage, you might be missing out. A performance management system can help your company to raise the bar by keeping a close eye on your productivity.
7. Exhibit Growth
At the end of the day, just about all small businesses are focused on trying to grow as much as they can. Even if they aren’t able to meet any of these other company goals examples, they’ll be happy just to show signs of growth.
You’ll know your company is growing when:
- Your profits are going up
- Your product line is expanding
- Your customer count is increasing
- Your brand awareness is building
It’s not always going to be easy to get your small business to grow year after year. But that should be the No. 1 goal for any company that means business.
These Are Just a Few Great Company Goals Examples
If your small business isn’t able to hit all its goals each year, so be it. As we mentioned earlier, most small businesses aren’t able to accomplish everything that they set out to do each year.
But you should use these company goals examples to, at the very least, create goals for your small business. These goals will make both you and your employees more motivated. They’ll also make measuring performance at the end of every year so much easier.
Search for other tips on setting company goals by reading through our other informative blog articles.