Year-end checklist: Set strategic goals instead of financial ones

The end of the calendar year is the perfect time to take a step back from day-to-day operations and reflect on the overall bigger picture of your business.

Start by reviewing the objectives you set for your business at the beginning of the year. Did you meet these business goals? If you didn’t, now is a good time to try to figure out the obstacles that prevented you from meeting those goals and what you can do differently in the coming year to ensure that you don’t miss your target yet again.

Next, answer this one question – what are your new business objectives for 2016? The most common answer amongst business owners, large and small, is a financial one. At the end of the day, everyone wants to make more money than they did the year before. Yet many business owners don’t strategically think through the steps they intend to take and the changes they need to implement to achieve this financial goal. This often leads to disappointment at year-end because the entire year is spent trying out different techniques to meet the objective rather than taking a strategic approach.

Instead of setting financial goals for 2016, set strategic ones. Everyone wants to make more money, but by setting strategic goals instead, you can prioritize what needs to be done to ensure you achieve your goal. Strategic goals are things such as:

attract new customers
retain existing customers
draw new employees
add new programs, products or services
improve customer service
facilitate cash flow

By setting strategic goals instead of simply financial ones, you’re creating enabling initiatives – initiatives that will not only make your business better, but will also, at the end of the day, make the business more money.

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