As an entrepreneur, setting goals can help you navigate the business in the desired direction as they help to identify the priorities for the business. Goals also help you stay focused on the bigger picture and keep you motivated to achieve something. Without clear goals, your business is unlikely to achieve much.  It is equally important to make realistic goals so that you actually achieve something. Unreasonable goals can foster a culture of failure and adversely impact your self-confidence. 

While building a wildly successful business overnight looks great on paper, unrealistic goals like these can put you under an immense amount of pressure leading to stress and burnout.

Here are five reasonable goals you must target as an entrepreneur and the approaches you can follow for deciding yours:

Creating a business plan

If you haven’t chalked out a business plan yet, it is time to put pen to paper. Business plans help you to stay accountable by crystallizing your vision and values. Writing a business plan also allows you to think through the strategies and identify the potential pitfalls. 

Moreover, if you want to raise funds for your bootstrapped business, having a detailed business can be extremely useful while communicating with your potential investors and other stakeholders. 

Hiring the right team

A successful entrepreneur cannot continue as a one-person army forever. Having a team of skilled professionals can be hugely rewarding, especially if you want to scale. If you wish to achieve long-term growth, hiring experienced professionals should feature high up on your list of goals. Working with a group of like-minded people aligned with your vision can do wonders for your business. 

However, make sure to take this slow. Hiring the wrong team is one of the leading reasons why most startups fail. Screen the potential candidates and ask yourself how they can bring more value to your business. If you are facing difficulties or are unable to decide, procuring help from a HR Consultant or mentor will be very beneficial.

Boosting your online presence

As a new business, a strong online presence can help you build the credibility you need. It can also help connect with more customers, track interactions, and increase your conversions. If you have an existing website, check if it needs an overhaul to rank better on search engine pages. If you don’t have a website, set a timeframe for your website to go live.

If your website does not require a makeover, focus on creating and building your business profile on other social media channels such as Twitter, Instagram, or LinkedIn.

Creating an efficient process

If you are a first time entrepreneur, this is an important one to streamline your operations.

To make a solid mark in an ever-evolving and competitive industry, you need to have the right processes in place. Whether it is ensuring a quicker delivery of services, or simplifying the way to communicate with your team members, aim towards achieving greater efficiency.

Making time for learning 

A successful entrepreneur is one who learns continuously. Continuous learning can help you to improve your knowledge and sharpen your skills to achieve your business goals. 

So make sure that you are keeping a tab on the changing behavior patterns of your target audience, the techniques your competitors are using, and the latest innovations in your industry. These learnings will help you tweak your strategy and deliver more value. 

Choose the right approach for goal setting 

Vague goals cannot propel your growth journey. If you want to maximize your chances of succeeding in business, you must adopt the correct approach to chalk out your goals. 

The SMART method is a well-known method of setting objectives for personal and professional growth. The acronym stands for:

• Specific: You should focus on the specificity of your goal to have a clear objective in place. 
• Measurable: You should be able to use metrics to track your progress. 
• Attainable: Your goals should be capable of being accomplished.
• Realistic: You should have control over the goals you wish to achieve.
• Time-bound: You should have a time frame for achieving the goal. 

Using this strategy can create a sense of direction and encourage you to work towards those goals. This approach is best for beginners who are targeting realistic goals.  If you have goals that need to be achieved over a longer period of time, you can use the HARD approach. The acronym stands for:

• Heartfelt: Goals with emotional attachments can motivate you to work harder to achieve them.
• Animated: Visualizing how you would feel once you achieve the goal can be encouraging. 
• Required: Understanding the necessity of setting a particular goal can help you find the right reasons to complete it.
• Difficult: Setting a difficult goal can motivate you to take challenges head-on and make you feel stronger. 

Regardless of the approach you choose, make sure that your goals are reasonable. Otherwise, you will be setting yourself up for failure even before you begin. 

Need help with your goal setting journey?

Just like training for a marathon requires meticulous goal-setting, defining your business goals is an integral part of running a successful business. Goals provide you a framework to make meaningful progress. It is essential to carefully examine and choose the right goals based on the needs of your business. But it can be overwhelming to do it on your own. That’s why teaming up with the experts at Jupiter Business Mentors is a great idea as we can help you identify and evaluate your business needs. 

Jupiter Business Mentors is a platform that connects business mentors to the start-up community and small & medium business owners to help them succeed in their entrepreneurial journey. The platform has over 35 expert mentors across industry verticals who are just a video chat or call away. Subscribe now to avail of 90 minutes of free sessions with any six mentors on the platform.