How to Plan Monthly, Quarterly, and Yearly Business Goals
When it comes to running a business it can be important to look beyond just your financial aspirations when it comes to goal setting.
As an entrepreneur, there are some different types of goals that we should be setting for ourselves and our business. If you’re struggling to plan your monthly, quarterly, and yearly business goals, this post will help.
Why Goal Planning is Important
Now, I’ll be honest, I’m not naturally much of a “goal setter” but I do think it’s important to have - even a vague - idea of where you’re aiming for as you move through your days and weeks.
In a more practical sense, we can’t know what we are working towards and being strategic if we don’t have goals set. Goals give us something to work towards and achieve.
Many entrepreneurs just set monetary goals and call it a day, but there is so much more to goal setting than just money.
Types of Business Goals to Set
1) Accomplishment Goals
The most important type of goal to set as an entrepreneur is accomplishment goals. What are you hoping to do or accomplish each month, each quarter, and each year?
Mapping out these goals allows you to create a strategic business plan and better plan your time.
Here’s an example:
Let’s say your goal is to enroll 5 new students into your signature course. Knowing this allows you to work backward and figure out what you’ll need to do to make that happen.
Maybe you need to run a flash sale?
Or improve your marketing and create more strategic content?
Or reach out to past leads who didn’t purchase?
Another monthly accomplishment goal might be around creation. For example, you want to create a new digital product next month. What do you practically need to do this month to make that happen?
Maybe I need to do market research, competitor research and brainstorm the digital product content.
Or pick a checkout cart?
Or set up your email marketing system ready to deliver your content?
2) Personal Goals
As entrepreneurs, we should always be focused on growing and learning as people as well as business owners.
What do you want to accomplish personally next month or next quarter?
Maybe you want to learn more about sales funnels, or perhaps you want to find 5 new podcasts to binge-listen to.
These goals aren’t business movers right away, but they’ll likely help you move forward and will almost definitely help you improve your overall skills. Not everything is about the bottom line, and often losing sight of these personal goals can actually impact that all-important income.
3) Monetary Goals
Finally, we have the most common goal type for entrepreneurs, the monetary goal.
We should have monetary goals around launches, products, or monthly income, to measure our results.
Even better, you might want to set some non-monetary but growth-related goals, such as:
New email subscribers
New podcast listeners
New members in our free Facebook group
Not just focusing on the dollars but the audience, impact, and growth will help you make better decisions when it comes to what to focus on, what’s working, and what’s not working.
Looking for a flexible way to work towards all of these wonderful goals? Check out my Elastic Planning Workshop where I show you how to implement this adaptable method for working through your to-do list even if your schedule is crazy!
