SMART Targets
Anyone who has done at least GCSE-level business will have come across the term, and that’s because it’s so vital to a business's success, and it’s relatively easy to learn and use. So let me introduce what SMART targets are, using the example of running a Burger Shop:
Specific
Your target must be pinpointed and focused on a specific area of your business. Otherwise, the goal will seem too broad and unachievable, or instead, it would essentially be meaningless as it’s too vague. To put it into an example, if you were running a Burger Shop and you said: “I want to grow sales by 25% by the end of 2024,” then that’s great, but you’ve offered yourself no route to make it there. Instead, you might want to break that down into: “I want to grow the sales of my new Gourmet Burger range by 15%” as one of the steps you’d take to reach that. Pairing this with a multitude of other specific targets will give you a clearer idea of what to do, so you can break down how you’ll increase your specific targets in your promotional strategy, so you can improve the likelihood of hitting your overall goal.
Measurable
I used it a bit in the Specific Point, and it really is quite simple. Essentially, it’s putting a statistic or value on your goals so that you can measure and track your progress. This can help you identify areas that need work or conversely, ones that are working well so that you can adapt your strategy accordingly. If you simply said, "I want to sell more burgers," technically all you have to do is sell 1 burger and you’ve achieved your goal, but is that really what you wanted to achieve?
Achievable
This is probably the most obvious, but you can’t simply say, “I want to be the biggest burger chain in the country in 1 year” if you only have 2 stores. Just make sure everything you do, you truly can achieve if you stretch yourself. This point is so often misinterpreted as a reason to not be optimistic, but you should always be setting goals that are difficult to achieve, they just can’t be impossible.
Relevant
Relevancy is the principle that each SMART Target has to contribute towards your overall goal. Once again, bringing it back to the Burger Shop, if your objective is to increase sales, setting one of your targets within that to be, “Recycle 100% of our food waste,” then this won’t increase your sales dramatically (unless your customers really care about your impact on the environment). Maybe a better target could be to increase marketing spend by 5%, as this could have more of a linear relationship with sales revenue when compared to food waste recycling.
Time-Based
There is no point in setting a goal unless you have a definitive time by when you want to hit that, and there’s an even better way of doing this: to set progressive targets. Let’s say, if your homework had no deadline, you’d probably never complete it. And when your coursework has a deadline, you usually spend the night before it’s due cramming. A progressive target, in reference to the burger example, would be having a burger sales target at the end of each month that needs hitting to reach the main goal. This is great at breaking down large and overwhelming projects into ones that seem easier to achieve.
So if you’re thinking about starting your own business, or you already do run your own, or maybe you’re looking to work in management in the future, setting SMART targets is one of the best ways to get the results that you’re looking for.