“Will 2026 be the year?”
That’s the question on many people’s minds, and small business owners are no exception. Last year may or may not have been a good one, depending on how hard inflation or tariffs (among other things) have hit them. Naturally, they want to change things up this year.
To that end, setting realistic business goals should be the first step. Think of these as the destination in your journey to maximizing business growth. Consider the following steps in creating goals that really matter:
Get Reliable Tracking
Business goal setting, whether for small businesses or Fortune 500 companies, is a numbers game. It’s easy to lose track of how far you’ve come toward a specific goal. To do this, it helps to use technology to monitor your progress.
An example is a human resources information system (HRIS), a platform for managing employee data. In recent years, HRIS for small businesses and corporations has included smart goal-setting among its features. In addition to establishing clear financial or marketing goals, it accurately tracks each goal’s progress.
You can still track your goal progress even if an HRIS isn’t an option at the moment. A good way is to set milestones within your small business goals. If your business’s goal is to launch two new products in a year, a milestone could be to launch one within six months.
Setting milestones goes beyond achieving success. One study published in the Journal of Applied Psychology found that workers were more motivated to meet their targets when a goal was broken into smaller, more manageable milestones. (1)
Be Specific With Targets
It’s easy to say that your goal is “to get more customers” or “to boost revenue,” but these goals don’t say much. How many customers count as “more”? How much of a “boost” is satisfactory? Without a clear target, it’s hard to know where your business is heading.
You’ve probably heard of SMART goals, which consist of five elements for setting realistic goals. The first of these is about being specific, and the best way is to answer the 6Ws:
- Who: the parties involved in achieving the goal
- What: the business goal, being as detailed as possible
- When: the time frame for achieving the goal
- Where: the location, such as a relevant event
- Which: any hurdles that can make things hard
- Why: the reason for setting a particular goal
The guide also suggests using more active words to describe the goal. Instead of “increase revenue,” it’s better to say “upgrade revenue collection measures” to specify a direction. It doesn’t have to be detailed; that will come later.
Aspire, But Be Realistic
It’s good to be optimistic about the future, but too much of it does more harm than good. The realm of business can be cutthroat, and a business owner who refuses to accept the reality, for good or worse, sets themselves up for failure.
Robert Simons, professor of business administration at Harvard Business School, advises a so-called “balanced scorecard.” This tool combines all four perspectives, namely: (2)
- Financial: Does your goal involve cutting business expenses, boosting profit margins, resolving cash flow issues, or all three? This is where a profit plan comes into play.
- Customer: Consider customer satisfaction when achieving a specific business goal. Will the results lead to improved customer retention and customer loyalty?
- Internal business process: Improving operations management affects the feasibility of your goals. This balanced scorecard aspect tends to be more important than financial performance.
- Learning and growth: Does the goal provide learning and growth opportunities for the team? Doing so lets them take more risks and innovate.
While setting goals may involve visualizing success, Simons notes that it also involves considering how your approach can fail. The latter may be a hard pill to swallow, but no business has ever succeeded without experiencing at least one failure.
Align With the Mission and Vision
A business’s mission states what it does and who it serves, whereas its vision states what it wants to do in the future. If you run a coffee shop, your mission is to deliver high-quality coffee-based (and tea-based) drinks to customers, and your vision is to become well known in the years to come. Of course, the statements vary by coffee shop. (3)
Mission and vision statements are core components, not only for giving a small business identity but also for defining its goals. These statements aren’t goals by themselves, but they form the basis.
One viable method for aligning your business goals is to keep questioning yourself about everything relevant. It reduces the risk of losing your business’s direction by examining it in far greater detail. It also helps you limit goals to a handful of the most crucial ones.
Make 2026 Your Year
This year’s just starting (if you’re reading this in February), which means plenty of time to plan on improving your business performance. Begin by creating smart, small-business goals that aim for success while remaining realistic.
References:
- “The Secret to Accomplishing Big Goals Lies in Breaking Them into Flexible, Bite-Size Chunks,” Source: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-secret-to-accomplishing-big-goals-lies-in-breaking-them-into-flexible-bite-size-chunks/
- “What Is a Balanced Scorecard?” Source:
https://online.hbs.edu/blog/post/business-goals-and-objectives - “Mission vs. Vision — Here’s How Your Success Depends on This Distinction,” Source:
https://www.entrepreneur.com/leadership/mission-vs-vision-whats-the-difference-and-why-does-it/498275Photo by Markus Winkler; Unsplash
