How to set and achieve goals – the SMART way

Goals are vital for business and personal success. But, for such a simple concept, why do so many managers fail to achieve them? Of course, one common reason is the goal-setter’s lack of commitment and determination toward achieving the goal. Another is not knowing how to transform their goals from a vision into a reality.

Unfortunately, we can’t help you in the areas of commitment and determination. These personal attributes are wholly and solely in your hands. We can, however, explain how to set realistic goals. More importantly, we can show you a proven way by which you can achieve them. You’ll be surprised how easy the process can be.

Goals are not objectives

First, let’s clear-up one common misconception: Goals and objectives are not the same. Although the two terms are closely related, they are in fact different concepts. Understanding the difference between goals and objectives is the first thing we need to clear up.

The difference between goals and objectives

As mentioned, there is a distinct difference between goals and objectives. Let’s now take a closer look at both terms.

Defining goals

Goals are typically short-term targets, which businesses set to achieve a specific outcome or desired end result.

Goals tend to be broad statements that lack specifics. In other words, they do not outline how the target (the goal) will be successfully reached. In addition, goals tend to exclude performance measurements. These performance measurements are often referred to as, metrics or key performance indicators (KPIs).

It can be helpful for small business managers to think of goals as a worthwhile target, prize or reward that you’re aiming for.

What do goals look like?

Let’s take a look at several goal examples, as applied to a small business’s website. In this scenario, we’ll assume the site’s webmaster is dissatisfied with her site’s performance. To improve the website’s performance, she might set the following goals:

Increase the site’s number of unique monthly visitors;
Improve search engine results page (SERP) ranking;
Secure a page one ranking on Google for important keyword search terms;
Increase the click-through rate (CTR) on the site’s various webpages; and
Improve the site’s click to sale conversion rate.

As shown above, we can see the webmaster has set some very good goals. However, her goals do not explain the action she will need to take to achieve them.

Also, how would she measure the success of these goals? Because she has not assigned metrics or KPIs, it will be impossible to know if her goals have been satisfactorily reached. For example, is the webmaster hoping for 10 more visitors or 1000 extra visitors? And, does she hope to improve her site’s click-through rate within one week or within the next 10 weeks? Because she has not included provided the number of extra visitors or a timeframe (measurements), unfortunately we have no idea. Note: This is where objectives come into play, as we’ll now explain.

Defining objectives

As opposed to goals, objectives are longer-term targets, which generally address a period of 12-months to two years. More importantly, objectives possess far greater clarity in comparison to goals.

Objectives describe the action that we’ll need to take in order to achieve the goal. That’s right, we’ll need to do a number of things if we are to hit our target (the goal). So we’ll need to devise strategies. And these strategies will clearly specify the action that needs to be taken.

SMART objectives

Business mangers frequently use a concept known as, the SMART objectives principle when setting high-quality objectives. The SMART acronym represents:

Specific;
Measurable;
Action-oriented;
Realistic; and
Timely.

This objective-setting approach simply means that objectives must satisfy the dimensions of being: specific, measurable, action-oriented, realistic and timely. By way of example, let’s consider the following goal, which the webmaster listed earlier in this article:

Using an affordable SEO strategy, increase the site’s number of unique monthly visitors.

We can see that the webmaster wants to increase the number of visitors who visit her site each month. But how is she going to do this? Very simply, she will need to implement strategies (specific actions) that are capable of making this happen.

First, she will need to document how many extra visitors she hopes to attract. This task needs to be specific, measurable and realistic. For instance, after careful thought, she might realistically aim to:

Attract 400 extra site visitors each month.

Next, she will need to thoroughly plan the action, which she will need to take, in order to attract these 400 additional visitors. In response to this task, the webmaster might decide to:

Conduct a site-wide audit;
Identify underperforming webpages; then
Restructure keyword placement within each page;
Revise URL strings to include keywords that are relevant to page content;
Add image ALT tags to images;
Undertake a relevant content marketing campaign; and
Commence an ethical link building strategy.

Following this, the webmaster will need to specify a timeframe for which the goal should be achieved. Once again, this needs to be specific, measurable and realistic. By specifying a timeline, we also motivate ourselves to take action, because there is a degree of urgency.

A SMART objectives template. Now that’s clever!

We’ve created an easy way by which SMART objectives can be planned. Click onto the button at the bottom of this page to download our free SMART objectives template. As you will see, our SMART objectives template makes it incredibly easy to transform broad goals into quality objectives.

The proposed strategies cells contain action-oriented information that explains how the goal will be achieved.

So that objectives can be measured, in terms of their contribution to the business, they are best defined in quantitative terms. The measurements we assign will need to be placed in the template’s Target / KPI cell. To assist you, quantitative terms may include: