Setting Long and Short-Term Business Goals

Jul 24, 2024

In this article:

What Are Business Goals?
Long and Short-term Goals for a Business: What’s the Difference?
Why Are Both Types of Business Goals Important?
Tips for Setting Long and Short-term Goals for a Business

Business goals are critical to the long-term success of your enterprise. They provide direction and focus, while laying out a pathway that you and your employees can easily follow. As such, they should always be a part of your business plan.

Not only does having clear aims increase motivation and productivity, but it’ll also help you keep track of your successes. In fact, a study by Edwin Locke and Gary Latham ¹ found that setting specific and challenging goals increased performance 90% of the time.

If you want to start setting long and short-term goals for a business but need some guidance on maintaining a balance, this handy explainer will tell you everything you need to know to help you on your way.

What Are Business Goals?

Business goals are broad outcomes that a business expects to achieve within a set period of time. They’re applicable to all areas of the company such as employees, customers and even departments. Business goals represent the larger purpose of the company and provide a target for employees to work toward. They can help you to:

Provide a way to measure success
Keep all employees on the same page as to what the goals of the company are
Give employees a clear understanding of how decision-making helps to reach company’s goals
Ensure the company is headed in the right direction.

Long and Short-term Goals for a Business: What’s the Difference?

Long-term business goals refer to the overarching vision you have for the future of your business. They require looking far into the future and imagining what success should feel like, rather than acting in the here and now to get something done immediately.

Short-term goals for a business are the things you can do now and in the near future to get you ever closer to your long-term vision.

According to Heidi Hillis, an MBA consulting coach, ² your long-term goals should be about what you want your business to look like in 10 years plus. Ultimately, she says, a long-term business goals list is the “motivation behind your short-term goals.”

In contrast, short-term goals are things you can accomplish within the next 1-3 years. Hillis calls them the “stepping stones to your long-term vision.”

Long-term goals are:

Vision-based
Concern impact, not necessarily specific action
Align with the values of you and your brand
Describe an overall situation that incorporates measurable results whenever possible.

For example, your goal may be to grow your business, but what does that mean? A more measurable long-term goal would be to reach $1 million in annual sales.

Short-term goals are:

Actionable
Realistic but challenging
Measurable
Able to be broken up into specific smaller actions and milestones.

Why Are Both Types of Business Goals Important?

A long-term vision is critical for any brand, whether you’re bootstrapping a business from your basement or diving in with venture capital and a corporate office. But, without short-term goals, your big-picture planning resembles a bridge without any supporting pillars.

Businesses often fail because they aren’t linking what they do with where they want to go. Knowing where you want to go in the long-term can align all your business activities in the right direction, while short-term goals can:

Help you to create an effective strategy
Provide faster feedback about your business
Keep motivation high and procrastination low
Make your long-term goals more achievable and less out-of-reach.

In essence, both types of business goals are essential as one may not work without the other. Without short term objectives and measurables it will be much harder to achieve your long-term business goals list. However, if you don’t have a long-term goal, you can’t make the right mission-critical decisions about your budget, business practices, marketing or growth.

Tips for Setting Long and Short-term Goals for a Business

Setting business goals for your company is a great way of providing direction and focus, laying out a pathway that you and your employees can easily follow. Now you know why business goals are so important, here are our ten top tips on business goals and objectives, to help you achieve success this year – and in the future.

Set SMART goals

When in doubt, follow the ‘SMART system’. This is one of the most helpful templates for business goals out there, helping you transform every single one from a barely-defined dream into a functional plan.

When writing down your list, always try to create aims that are:

Specific – what are you going to do to reach this goal?
Measurable – how will you keep track of your goals and measure your success?
Achievable – is this goal attainable and realistic?
Relevant – how is this goal relevant to the wider interests of the business?
Timely – when do you hope to achieve this goal by?

These steps will lead to objectives that are highly motivating, but realistic at the same time.

Map out small company goals first

While it’s tempting to jump straight for the most ambitious ideas, don’t forget that setting smaller, short-term goals for a business is equally as important too. Examples might include:

Increasing traffic on your website
Attending more networking events
Improving social media engagement
Creating an employee incentive program
Increasing brand awareness and gaining new clients
Improving customer service.

Setting modest aims as well as more challenging ones will make you feel more accomplished and productive.

Think big

That said, once you’ve set your smaller targets, it’s time to be more ambitious – and consider some long-term business goals.

Think about where you want your business to be by the end of the year and beyond, as well as the level of revenue and profits you want to see. These bigger goals might include:

Opening another business location
Reaching a previously unmatched financial goal for the year
Decreasing debt, changing up your budget and increasing profits
Gaining investments, or investing in a new venture for your business
Increasing efficiency with your supply chain management
Cutting back on unnecessary costs and transforming how your business works.

These will depend largely on the type of company your run, and the stage it is at. Dream big, but try and make sure these are still achievable, especially if you want to complete them within the year.

Break down your goals

Tackling your objectives head-on can be daunting – so breaking them into easily approachable ‘chunks’ is important.

Not only will this prevent you from feeling overwhelmed, but it will also ensure you know the exact pathway you need to take. Think about each step you’ll need to make during the year, if and when you’ll require investment, and how you can spread out these tasks among the wider team.

Have back-up plans

You should also have a ’Plan B’ in place, just in case some of your company goals don’t go completely as hoped.

This isn’t a sign of weakness – it’s a strength. Preparing for all circumstances increases efficiency, and you won’t be as stressed or concerned should your plans go off track.

Track them from the start

It’s all well and good setting different types of business goals, but how do you ensure they are actually being met?

Tracking and analyzing progress is vital, so that you can easily see if things are going well or if they may need some adjustment. A spreadsheet is the easiest way of tracking your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Decide how you are measuring these and update your sheet weekly or monthly as necessary. Smaller, short-term goals might just need a simple checklist, breaking down each step and ticking them off as you go.

Set a deadline

It’s important to stay organized and committed to your aims. One easy way to achieve this is to create a timeline and assign each objective a date it should be achieved by – as well as any crucial ‘milestones’ or tasks you need to complete along the way.

This will help keep you focused and on track. Be realistic with deadlines, carefully considering how long each step will take. At the same time, you don’t want to be too easy on yourself, as it can be tempting to push things to one side.

Be transparent and open

One of the best and most simple tips is to be as transparent as possible with your team – and get them involved.

Asking your employees to help meet your goals, or even take ownership of some, gives them targets to work towards and strengthens relationships within your company, as well as potentially increasing productivity.

It also ensures you have a support system around you that will keep you accountable and help make your goals a ‘team effort’. Run through your company goals with the team at the start of the year – and explain how people will be involved.

Understand ‘why’

No matter how much passion you already have for your business, you can boost commitment to goals by reminding yourself just why they are so important to you.

Write out a small paragraph for each, explaining why you want to achieve it – and how this will help your company. You could even pin these to a notice board or poster in your office.

Create and celebrate milestones

Milestones are a great way of helping you and your team stay motivated, as well as helping you recognize how close you are to reaching the overall target.

Has your restaurant got half-way to the weekly customer increase you were aiming for? Has your gym gained even more social media followers than you were hoping for this month?

Set phased targets and celebrate them with your team to boost morale, show your appreciation and keep everyone working hard towards your shared business and company goals.Whether your long and short-term goals for a business are to increase profits, gain quality customers or boost your online presence, Groupon Merchant can provide business resources and advice for achieving your mission. Sign-up today to grow your audiences at peak times of the year.

Sources: