6 Goals Every Small Business Should Consider

We’ve mapped out six goals that will help you create a productive, thriving company

(one where your staff is excited to get to work and your customers remain loyal). Tailor these to your small business, and you’ll find yourself in a whole new league.

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Goal No. 1 Retain Your Top Talent Consider enacting a retention program for your most valued employees to encourage them to stay loyal to the company, allowing you to nurture and grow your best team members. Doing so saves you from devoting precious resources toward interviewing and training new employees. Plus, having tenured employees can foster a sense of morale, inspiring others to want to stay with you for the long haul.

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Goal No. 2 Grow Your Social Media Presence Using social media is a great way to not only increase awareness and brand recognition for your company but it can also help engage customers and generate sales. (According to Hubspot, 80 percent of marketers reported that their social media efforts increased traffic to their websites.) But knowing and acting on that knowledge are two different things. There’s no time like the present to start using platforms, such as Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat and Twitter, to engage with current and potential customers on your own terms.

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Goal No. 3 Walk the Talk When It Comes to Work-Life Balance It’s one thing to say that your company promotes a healthy balance between your employees’ work and personal lives but it’s another to put policies in place to make it a reality. For example, allowing for a more flexible schedule and work-from-home opportunities can not only increase morale, they can also boost productivity: Data from the Georgetown University Law Center shows that 90 percent of workers believe flextime could help them better balance work and family and nearly half say that they work more effectively from home.

Goal No. 4 Better Understand Customer Needs Users or clients are often the best resources to help you improve your business practices or products. When you engage the people who have already interacted with your brand, you’ll have a better understanding of what’s working well and what can be improved. This will help guide change that will retain existing customers and more effectively garner new ones. When you intimately know what your customers need, want and care about, you can more effectively provide them with the products and services that fulfill these desires.

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Goal No. 5 Develop New Products or Services As your company evolves and you discover your niche in the marketplace, you may be able to offer new services to your clients or create new products that your customers can use. Take the time to analyze what’s missing within your market so you can position your company as one that’s on the forefront of its field. This will help you garner not only more customers but also a sense of clout among clients and competitors alike.

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Goal No. 6 Work Smarter, Not Harder As a small business owner, you’re essentially always on the clock. Rarely, if ever, will you work the traditional 9-to-5 schedule, and your hours probably well exceed 40 per week. But managing your time more efficiently so you can get more done in fewer hours will keep you from getting burnt-out, stressed out or seriously overworked. Maintaining your health, and sanity, should be a top priority so you can do what you do best—run the business at the highest level.

Setting business goals, and meeting them, can create a more productive, effective and innovative company.

No matter how many of these benchmarks you meet, there’s always room for more improvement.

For more smart and creative ways tohelp your business succeed, visit the

QuickWins small business hub.