A SMART goal is specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound.
Specific - Everyone wants more traffic to their website. Everyone wants more leads. Everyone wants more clients or customers and more revenue. But “more” just isn't going to cut it.
We have to have a specific number to work toward. How many more visitors? How many more leads? How many more customers?
Measurable - We have to have systems, a software technology platform, that allows us to measure where we're starting from and how we're making progress toward our goal. If your company goes cheap on software, if it's using tools that should have been retired five or ten years ago, realize that you have to be able to measure your progress.
Attainable - We have to be able to look at your previous history or what you’ve done in the past and recognize and understand the numbers you’ve been able to hit. Maybe in the past, you were able to generate 50 leads per month. Is it attainable to bring that 50 up to 500 in a 90-day period? A lot of that depends on the resources you’re putting into it. However, to increase 10x in 90 days may be unattainable. We need to understand the baseline -- where you’re starting from -- to see if we can actually get there.
Relevant - This is what makes sure we don't chase vanity metrics. Because all too often, companies that don't have a deep bench of marketing talent can get distracted by shiny object syndrome very easily. They end up chasing branding exercises and vanity metrics. We want to make sure that the goal is tied to something that is relevant to the big-picture mission of your company and something that’s going to flow all the way down to the bottom line.
Time Bound - This is all about timing. We’ve got to be able to give ourselves a deadline. You may want to grow your leads from 50 leads to 500 leads, but you must give yourself a deadline. Are you trying to get there in 90 days, 1 year, or 2 years? And even better, the timing shouldn’t just be about how long you’re giving yourself, it should actually have a date. In other words, I want to grow from 50 leads to 500 leads by December 31st of this year.
Again, a SMART goal is specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound.
Have you set SMART goals for your business? Share your thoughts in the section for comments below.
To learn more about SMART goals, enroll now in our free 7-day eCourse: Go-to-Market Strategy 101 for B2B SaaS Startups and Scaleups.
Submit a comment