Key Strategic Goals – Making the commitment for the year ahead
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This is the seventh post in the series on Strategic Planning. Note that you can subscribe to the blog postings by completing the form in the “Subscribe Free” tab. Or, you can link with an RSS feed.
Now it is time to set Key Goals with your team. You want to be sure that your destination…..Point E….is very clear.
A picture of the landscape ahead of you on the road from A to E should be relatively clear. The Data, Assumptions and SWOT analysis have helped you define this landscape. Will you be able to go from A to E in an efficient straight line? Probably not. While you may have Strengths and Opportunities in your favor, you also have Weaknesses and Threats that are the mountains you will have to travel around or over. And, there may be a couple of rivers to cross without a bridge. The good news is that a road map is becoming clear.
Key Goals
Notice we precede the work “Goal” with the word “Key”. These goals should be the most important achievements of the year. If they are accomplished, you are confident that they year will be a success. You will have lots of other goals for your company. The difference between all those other goals and Key Goals is that the Key Goals are CRITICAL. Setting Key Goals sends a strong signal to your team as to what is most important. And, because they have participated in the strategic planning so far, they should “buy in” to these Key Goals.
Together, you and your team are putting a stake in the ground (making a commitment) and getting aligned for the year ahead! This is leadership. And, it will get results.
Your Key Goals should be as quantitative as possible with metrics to measure the results by. Revenue and profit goals are clearly quantitative. Others are not. Try to have some metric associated with each Key Goal.
You are probably thinking that this is a “no brainer” (to my international readers “obvious”). Increased revenues and profits are the first goals on everyone’s lists. The pre-goal planning you have done will help keep these revenue and profit goals realistic. If you are a multi-product company, you may want to target revenues related to a specific product that your SWOT analysis identified as strong and profitable. So go ahead and put these down as Key Goals:
1. Overall revenue increase of 15% to $XYZ
• 20% revenue increase for the PoxDetector to $ABC
2. Profit before taxes of 10% of revenues
Next, consider some goals that if achieved will set you up for success with your revenue and profit goals. During your team discussions on Data and SWOT analysis it may have become clear that your lead management system is terrible. A lot of good leads are not being followed up on. I use this example because many small to medium sized companies have this problem. Sending a lead out to a sales person is not “lead follow-up” unless it requires the sales person to regularly report the status of that lead. There has to be a closed loop. To improve lead follow-up is an inexpensive way to improve revenues. This is a good example of a goal that may seem more qualitative than quantitative. By including a due date and utilization rates we can make this quantitative. So, the goal would be:
3. Lead management software and/or system in place by April 1st . (Note – this could be part of a CRM program. I am trying to be very specific.)
• Document a 85% follow-up rate by June 1.
• Document a 95% follow-up rate by August 1.
Perhaps during the Data gathering and SWOT analysis it became evident that your web and social media presence were weak compared to your competitors. Your traffic isn’t as good and your site doesn’t provide the same value to customers and prospective customers. Improvements at the website will yield improvements in revenue. The goal here would be:
4. Increase website traffic by 20% and website qualified lead generation by 25%.
Finally, one of your more mature yet successful product’s revenues has flattened because the competition has more features. You and your team have been working on enhancements to this product. The prototypes received positive customer feedback. It is critical to get this product launched. Making this a Key Goal will make it clear to the team that this must get done on time. The goal here would be:
5. Launch the TennisElbowEliminator XL by May 1.
• 5% increase in TEE XL sales over prior year TEE sales for remainder of year.
Examples of other Key Goals could be:
• Create joint venture with Technology Company B to enhance product development
• License rights to a certain technology to apply to a key product to make it more competitive
• Implement total CRM system
• Increase international sales in targeted countries by 10%
• Qualify a back-up manufacturer of key product A
• Secure a second source for key component #34
In the next blog post, I will take the above examples of Key Goals and craft the Key Strategies that support them. You have come a long with in your strategic planning. With Key Strategies and the supporting Tactics, an operational plan starts to take shape.
