Business Plans & SMART Goals

Is a formal Business Plan and SMART Goals absolutely critical for every company? The quick answer is … No!

SMART Goals are ones with the following characteristics:

  • Specific … Measurable … Action-oriented … Realistic … Time-bound

Many successful businesses have been built without a formal Business Plan or any written goals. In many cases, a formal Business Plan can slow down the creative juices while capturing the “heat of the moment” and the opportunity that prevails in the marketplace. Additionally, in the early stages of developing a business, it is sometimes unclear as to what the real opportunity is, how big it is and what exactly the product or service needs to be to ride the wave.

At some point; however, every business needs to clearly define who they are to what core target market. This is usually done through the Mission, Vision and Positioning Statements which are all part of the Business Plan.

Once completed, you can begin to build and launch the business. The business owner can then set course and sails achieving the established mission and vision using the positioning statement as the guide to all marketing communication directed toward the core target market. As the famous quote states:

“A man without a purpose is like a ship without a rudder.” Thomas Carlyle

And likewise, the following can also be said:

“A business without a Business Plan and SMART Goals is like a ship without charts, a compass and a rudder… it is like a cross-country road trip without an itinerary, a MAP / GPS and a steering wheel.” TJB

Every business will someday encounter a time when their ship (or business), which had been previously under full sail and headed toward a planned destination, is suddenly severely off course, stalled and “in irons.” This is where the Business Plan can help to refocus and adjust the “sails and rudder” to catch the wind once again and get the ship back on track towards the intended destination.

Most larger businesses follow a formal planning process which includes setting SMART Goals which are tied to the Business Plan or Strategic Plan. This is done initially as part of the initial Business Plan as well as again each year as part of the annual strategic planning process. However, this is not necessarily the case with smaller entrepreneurial businesses. Only a small fraction of smaller companies establish and follow SMART Goals as part of a Business Plan or annual strategic plan.

Why then do most small business owners not have SMART Goals?

Coming up next

Myth One: “I already have general goals; I don’t need to set anything real concrete.”

Act and Grow Rich

It takes more than just wanting something…you have to actually do things to get what you want.

  • “The starting point of all achievement is DESIRE. Keep this constantly in mind. Weak desire brings weak results, just as a small fire makes a small amount of heat.”
  • “When defeat comes, accept it as a signal that your plans are not sound, rebuild those plans, and set sail once more toward your coveted goal.”
  • “Before success comes in any man’s life, he is sure to meet with much temporary defeat, and, perhaps, some failure. When defeat overtakes a man, the easiest and most logical thing to do is to quit. That is exactly what the majority of men do. More than five hundred of the most successful men this country has ever known told the author their greatest success came just one step beyond the point at which defeat had overtaken them.”
  • “Set your mind on a definite goal and observe how quickly the world stands aside to let you pass.”
  • “The way of success is the way of continuous pursuit of knowledge.”
  • “A quitter never wins-and-a winner never quits.”
  • “Every adversity, every failure, every heartbreak, carries with it the seed of an equal or greater benefit.”
  • “More gold had been mined from the mind of men than the earth it self”