Before
you go into any new business, the first thing about any business is the
business idea. In the business idea, is found the goal of the business. Your
business idea is not complete if you cannot state clearly, what the overall
purpose and goals of your business are. Read this post about How
to get a working Feasibility Study / Business Plan.
Many
business persons does not know that one major cause of business failures is
lack of clear business goals which lead to the achievement of the overall
business purpose. Your business goals are the driving forces of your business
and without them, you are not far from being lost. Where you are, where you
intend to be in the next 2, 3, 4, 5 to 10 years in business, and how you plan
to get there are all aspects revealed by your business goals.
In
this post, I shared nine powerful benefits of having a business goal. Read on…
1. Provide Needed Direction
So
many people in business are lost. They are directionless. Ask them what plan of
action they have to move the business from where it is to where they dream to
have it in a few years, and you will find out that there is no such plan. They
lack direction. Nothing gives direction as having well formulated goals that
point to where the business hopes to be in the next few years. When goals are
so clear, everyone on the business knows where the business is heading and how
it will get there.
In
setting goals, you decide on where you are going and the road that leads you
there and unless you are blind, you will become more directed in the pursuit of
your goal. There could even be many directions but you know just which one you
must take. You cannot be directed if you don’t know where you are going. So,
goals are like the compass that guides you from getting lost.
2. Provide Needed Focus
One
reason why people fail in business is lack of focus. They are unable to direct
their energies to one or few things which are most important to the success of
their business. Rather they try to follow everything that looks promising and
at the end of the day, they achieve nothing.
When
you have a well-formulated goal, you know what constitutes a distraction, even
when it looks so appealing and promising. There will be business deals which
you will need to turn down, new products which you will need to reject, new
markets calling, which you will need not to answer, and other distractions
which have nothing to do with business, which you will have to be able to
identify and say NO to.
3. Enables Optimal Utilization of Resources
Resources
are never enough. They have never been and will never be. And so one thing that
can really be a deciding factor in your business success is the ability to
allocate and utilize your limited resources, optimally.
Your
resources include men, money, materials, machines and space. When you set
goals, you plan on how to allocate these resources in such a way that you can
make the best use of them. You are interested in achieving the highest priority
goals first and the lesser, last. Without setting goals, you are will be very
likely to waste your resources by allocating them wrongly.
4. Facilitates Decision Making
In
business, and on a daily basis, you will be making decisions. Decision to hire
a new staff and what kind of person to hire; decision to set up a new office
and where to set it up; decision to purchase a new machine and what kind of
machine to purchase; decision to expand the business and when to expand;
decision to get into partnership and with who to get in with; and so on.
What
kind of decision you make will strongly depend on what goals you have set and
how that decision will enhance the achievement of that goal. Your goals are
always going to give you a lead in making decisions.
5. Provokes Actions
What
you carry out on a daily basis on your business, are actions and activities.
Daily you make phone calls, organize and attend meetings, go out to survey
markets, make purchases, meet with new clients and customers, carry out
productions, work on your brand, study the competition, get feed-back on your
services, and so on.
Having
goals spurs you up to take action instead of sitting back to relax. When you
have goals, at every point in time, you have a clear picture of how much work
you have to do and how much grounds still need to be covered, if you must
achieve your overall business purpose. This spurs up action. You can’t know
that you have so much in your hands to achieve in a day, and still be able to
go to sleep and wake at 10 am.
6. Simplifies & Clarifies Work
Having
goals makes work clearer and simpler, thus requiring less energy to achieve
success. When you set clear goals, you set specific goals and when your goals
are specific, they make work easy and clear for everyone. Your workers can
easily take initiative because they have a clear understanding of where you
intend to get to and know exactly how to get there. In that case you can sit
back securely and trust that your staff will be able to do the right thing in
your absence.
Proper
goals-setting goes into breaking down big and abstract theories, ideologies and
philosophies into little easy-to-accomplish daily tasks and activities which
can easily be carried out by your workers. I have come across businesses where
the workers personify the vision and goals to the extent that you hardly know
who owns the business.
7. Organizes Work
When
you set goals you can be clear on what you want to achieve at each point in
time, know what will be needed to achieve each thing, know what actions that
will be taken to achieve each and know who will be responsible for taking each
necessary action. This is organization.
When
there are goals, it is easy for each worker to determine the work that is
needed to be done each day, week and month on the business. With goals, you can
compartmentalize your business and be able to handle each different aspect
separately while thinking of them as a collective group of aspects that all
together enhance the achievement of your goals.
Well
set goals will tell you what has to be done on Monday and Saturday. They tell
you who are working well and who is not and what has to be done to improve.
Staffs and Employers should Read
8. Ensures Ownership
Setting
goals with your team will create a sense of belonging and ownership of the
business, amongst your team members. When your workers can bring their desires
for the business, to the goals-setting table and be able to share them and see
them considered, they go on with this strong feeling that whatever the business
is, it is because of their contribution. Such a feeling is capable of making
any worker put in 100% into the business.
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9. Helps Measure Success
When
you have business goals, you can always stop to look back and see how far you
have come and be able to determine how much still lies ahead to cover. The
reason why this is possible is that well formulated goals are measurable. Which
means you should be able to say exactly how much has been achieved for a given
time period.
Without
well formulated goals, you will never be very sure of how much you have
achieved on your business and how much you still have left.
These
are 9 powerful benefits of having well formulated goals for your business. I am
sure you now want to know how to set your business goals. See my post titled “How
To Set SMART Goals For Your Business for Poultry Farm". Leave your
comments below.
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