Studies show that almost half of all startups are destined to fail, that’s a scary statistic. For every ten businesses that launch, four of those will fail. Of course, just because a lot of startups fail, that doesn’t mean that yours has to be one of them. The crucial thing is to know how to make your business a success.
If you were to ask any established business owner what their secret to success is, they would most probably say that it’s goal setting. The reason for this is simple: if you’re going to succeed, you need to have something to aim for. You can’t just aimlessly move through each week with no goal to meet.
To give you an idea of how important and how simple goal setting can be, below is a guide to the ins and outs of this process. Have a read, take note, and implement the advice below, and you can give your venture every chance of success.
Aim to have short-term and long-term goals
It’s all well and good setting weekly goals or even monthly goals, but there’s no point having them if they don’t lead to longer term goals. Ideally, what you want to do is write a list of your five-year goals, then break those down into annual goals, then break the year one goals down into monthly goals, followed by weekly goals. To help you succeed, each goal should link to another and help to drive your business forward. So let’s say your aim for five year’s time is to have five different products on the market. That means you can focus on one product each year, with each month being used for different parts of creating, launching, and marketing the new products. Split into weekly and monthly goals this is an achievable target; it’s just a case of knowing the steps you need to take, that’s all. For a goal setting template that can help with this, visit http://technori.com.
Know what software to use to meet them
Now, what it’s important to understand about goal setting is that you need to be able to keep track of your goals and monitor yours’ and your team’s’ progress. To do this, the right software is key. Take organizational charts for instance, like those available from https://pingboard.com/; these can be used to build the structure of your company in a way that makes meeting targets simpler. Or, take to-do list apps like Todoist, which allow you to keep track of what needs to be done and when via simple list making. Cloud software can also be useful for allowing you to share goals with your team via goal setting documents. The key to achieving targets is having the right software, because believe it or not, this can make all the difference to your success.
Find a business mentor
If you’re not someone who’s experienced in running a business, you may find it helpful to have a business mentor. This should be someone who’s been where you are now, built their business up, and are now successfully running their venture. When it comes to goal setting a business mentor can be highly beneficial, as they can share their own knowledge and insight into the steps that you need to take to achieve your long-term goals. So if you don’t already have a business mentor, it could be worth getting one.
There you have it, a guide to the ins and outs of goal setting for startups.