What’s Your Objective?

Part of any good business or marketing plan is laying out your business’ objective. By writing it down, you are effectively dedicating your company to meeting that goal.

Before you start your plan, brainstorm. Imagine your business in five years. Ask yourself these questions:

• What will my business look like?
• What will my revenues and profits be?
• How many employees will I have?
• What will my product/service offering look like?
• How many locations will my business operate in?
• How involved will I be as owner?

Quantify Your Goals
It’s important to avoid vague ideas like “my business will be successful.” You need hard numbers that you can measure against your actions. And make the goals realistic. If this year your profit is $50,000, it will be impossible to reach $1 million in profit in just a year.

Set your standards high, but attainable. If you want to reach a certain number in sales, lay out how you will reach your metric. Will you add sales staff? Will you increase promotional campaigns? Lower prices of products?

Your plan should give clear-cut, step by step actions to achieve your goals. If you don’t come close to your goal by the end of the period (year, five year mark), reassess your plan and make changes that are more realistic.