A part of growing your business means you have to set SMART goals to ensure success. It doesn’t matter how much revenue you generate or the size of your establishment. The purpose of setting goals is to maintain a sense of direction, manage a team, set the foundation for the next phase — and grow it consistently over time.

You may have previously thought SMART goals were only part of the annual process. However, you can break it down into quarters to calculate and control your business growth.

Get your SMART goal planning done for the next quarter by utilizing some of the most important goals for your business.

Defining SMART Goal

SMART is a goal-setting technique that is highly effective due to the quantifiable output once performed. 

Most businesses adopt this method because it allows them to control their business growth steadily. SMART goals are beneficial for your B2C business because they provide a precise plan. As a result, you mitigate the risk of wasting your resources and grow effortlessly. 

The S.M.A.R.T. acronym can assist you in formulating your own SMART goals, so here’s a closer look at what it means:

• Specific: A transparent definition of what you need to achieve.
• Measurable: Objectives should be quantifiable to track progress.
• Attainable: Targets you can realistically accomplish.
• Relevant: The goal should fit your big picture and relate to your business model.
• Timely: When you need to reach your objective.

Setting Short-Term SMART Goals

When thinking about your SMART goals, you’ll want to ensure they’re short-term business goals. That way, you can accomplish them within the next quarter.

Despite your quarterly goals being short-term, they can help you achieve long-term business goals. Therefore, your quarterly SMART goals will require good hindsight and future planning. They should also line up with your long-term goals.

In addition, your short-term goals should have wiggle room. If they aren’t working out in your favor, you may need to evaluate and adjust.

Here’s a sample of how to set a SMART goal. Suppose you want to increase your profits for the next quarter. A breakdown of what your SMART objective looks like includes:

• Specific: I will achieve revenue growth by cutting expenditure. I will move to a more affordable premise, decreasing my rent by 7% and reducing operational costs.
• Measurable: I will increase my sales by signing on five more potential clients.
• Attainable: I will find more business referrals and improve customer relationships by networking through referrals and social media. This approach will help me find more leads, increasing revenue for my business.
• Relevant: Moving to an affordable establishment will provide room for business growth.
• Timely: I will increase my profits by the end of the next quarter.

5 SMART Goals to Set for Next Quarter

1. Reduce Costs

Part of the survival for many B2C businesses involves minimizing expenses. You could consider reducing your business costs by automating time-consuming tasks.

Adopting a digital-first model means you can actively engage with more customers efficiently at a lower cost. For example, a CRM (customer relationship management) tool can manage customer interactions and analyze data throughout the customer lifecycle.

By automating tasks with software, you reduce manual processes and no longer have to pay existing employees or hire new ones. Therefore, you can reduce labor costs significantly.

Consider making a list of workflows that you could automate. If you can reassign human effort into value-adding activities elsewhere, you can certainly reduce costs by the next quarter.

2. Improve Customer Experience

Chances are, your customers are interacting with your business through various channels. In this case, a goal for the next quarter would be to quickly improve workflow processes to meet customer needs.

For example, you could proactively support customers with a live chat offer. Proactive support is crucial to assisting customers when in need of help. 

In addition, messaging apps have grown in popularity due to the personalization that chatbots offer. If you can get a step ahead in customer support, you can ensure sales increase and customer loyalty.

3. Increase Productivity

Often, you’ll find businesses focus on goal-setting related to revenue growth. Yet, before establishing those goal types, ensure you have hardworking team members who can improve their performance. 

Maybe it’s time to increase productivity if your team members become inefficient. In that case, a great SMART goal would be to produce performance reviews that allow you to track productivity. 

Once you can track their performance, you can determine which team members to work with — improving their ability to meet company goals.

Ask managers to provide feedback about distractions in the workplace. You can have conversations about how to streamline work processes better.

4. Increase Collaboration

A great way to meet big picture goals is to set quarterly goals that improve team collaboration. One method to achieve this goal is to keep things centralized.

Visibility is essential to clear communication. Therefore, you should have one place where everybody can be on the same page and learn the most important priorities.

Utilizing new tools will keep employees connected. It allows them to share ideas and align their efforts to accomplish organizational goals. 

5. Develop Branding

Often small businesses overlook the importance of brand awareness and recognition. Branding is key to increasing the growth of your business. Once you can stand out from the crowd, your business can gain more customers.

If you haven’t already started, you could consider creating a plan for your brand as your SMART goal. Be sure to make it a goal for the next quarter.

Boosting your credibility and receiving recognition often provides greater benefits. So ensure you produce a solid strategy that aligns with your overall company goals.

Implementing an Effective Quarter

Adopting the SMART goals here may increase steady growth for your small business. Yet, when setting goals, ensure to utilize the S.M.A.R.T acronym for guidance. Doing so will help you build a thorough plan with attainable milestones. 

Actively planning on how to achieve your goals is the only way you’ll see progress. Why?

It helps you to focus on your quarterly outcomes. Plus, you can assess how your team is impacting those outcomes.