Now’s the time to make your business goals achievable for your long-term success

No matter what industry or service offering, every professional needs to set realistic goals to drive growth and success. But when envisioning their future, leaders often stumble in defining what goals are achievable within a given timeframe or set goals that are too vague.

 

 

How to set achievable goals 

With mid-year approaching, it’s a good time to review your business goals and determine if they’re realistic — not just hopeful expectations — and if they can be completed within a specific period, such as a quarter or year. The goals should also be specific, relevant, and inspiring. 

Take these five steps to create and track realistic goals:

  1. Ask yourself tough business questions: What’s your definition of success? Do you have a clear value proposition? Are you aware of what you want for your practice and what goals will get you there? 
  2. Create a SWOT analysis to identify your practice’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Use the information to evaluate your business and narrow in on the right goals. 
  3. Set SMART goals — specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-based — to stay on target with goal achievement. And motivate yourself by aiming for achievements that are challenging yet attainable.  
  4. Determine milestones to see your goals in smaller, manageable segments that follow sequential steps rather than completing everything at once. If you miss a milestone, you may need to modify your timeline. 
  5. Track your performance, metrics, and progress to make informed business decisions. 

Don't go it alone

James Warner of Warner Group set an aggressive goal of an additional 25% growth in net-new assets every year. Through planning and tracking with his CFO Solutions team, Warner is on pace to reach that goal in the first half of 2023 and double it by year-end. 

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"If I look back at the last few years, we've added about a half a million dollars of new revenue every year for the last three years. And we're on track to double that this year. It’s all down to tracking and goal setting, and with the help of CFO Solutions, we focus on what’s important."

 

– James Warner, Lead Wealth Advisor, Warner Group

 

CFO Solutions can be your strategic resource and accountability partner for setting, monitoring, and helping to achieve your business goals. Our CFOs are strategists who use a financial lens to dig deeper into your business and deliver personalized insights to help run your business more efficiently and profitably while never losing sight of your vision.

 

Sources:
1 "90 Percent of Organizations Fail to Execute Their Strategies Successfully: A White Paper to Help You Avoid Being a Statistic" IntelliBridge, August 2022
2. "Leadership Lesson: Top reasons why most business goals are not set or met" Phoenix Business Journal January 2020

The views and opinions expressed by the Financial Advisor(s) are as of the publishing date. These views may not be representative of the views of other Financial Advisor(s) and are not indicative of future performance or success. Neither LPL Financial nor the LPL Financial Advisor(s) can be held responsible for any direct or incidental loss incurred by applying any of the information offered. For Financial Professional Use Only. May not be distributed to the public. #1-05370400

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