When you look back over this year, how happy are you with your business performance? Did you hit every goal or are you thinking about the things you could have done differently?

Did you know many business owners have trouble hitting their business target goals? They know exactly what they want—a bigger business, more sales, higher profits—but struggle to meet those goals.

Without setting goals in your business, it will go nowhere. No directions mean no results. You need to set goals and work at them to succeed. How do you know what goals to set? I’ve included a free workbook to help. The purpose of goal setting and year reviews is to reflect upon the past year, to learn whatever lessons we can, and move forward successfully to your long-term goals.

In this article, you’ll learn how to set clear goals for your business. Let’s make this the year you hit every business target you set.

SMART goals

There’s a popular business concept called “SMART goals”. It’s an acronym for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Timely. This approach is a tested technique for developing goals that many companies have found works.

• Specific: What exactly are you going to do? What specific actions are you going to do to move toward your goal?
• Measurable: How will you know if you are succeeding? Will you be able to track how close you are to achieving you goal?
• Achievable: Is your goal attainable or achievable?
• Relevant: Does the goal connect to your overall objectives? Why is this your goal?
• Timely: Have you set a timeline for your goal? Will you be able to attain your goal in a reasonable amount of time?

Prioritize your goals

One of the biggest challenges in any business is that everything needs to be done at the same time. You need to manage your finances, make more profit, create new products, list more items, find new clients, keep your existing clients happy, streamline your processes, keep your websites updated, stay motivated, plus hundreds of other tasks- all at the same time. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed running a business or side hustle. That’s why it is so important to know what your top goals are and to prioritize them.

Build good business habits to help reach your goals

For a business owner, the same in your life, if you want to make something happen, you need to create a schedule and build good habits around it.

I love planners. When I feel overwhelmed with so much going on, I go to my planner and write everything down. My sister and I have been working hard to create the perfect business and life planner. Check out our planners here!

By acknowledging and reviewing your key focus, setting SMART goals, organizing your business, and putting systems in place to make sure you are sticking to the schedule, you’ll put yourself in the best position to make the next year where your sales really start to boom.

What helps you in your business? Share your SMART goals below!