Sharon: Hello everyone, this is Sharon, and I’m here with Steven Kohnke from Denver Business Coach. Hey, Steven.
Steven: Hey Sharon, How are you doing?
Sharon: I’m good. I’m good. Looking forward to our conversation this morning, as always. So, what is our topic today?
Steven: Yes. So as a business owner, it’s sometimes helpful to think of your business not just as the service or as a product. And the things around it just sort of happening. But really to understand that it’s several different technical areas that need to be focused on and maintained regularly. So what we’ve done here is broken these down into the big components, seven different pillars of a successful business being foundations, leadership, sales, marketing, operations, financials, and H.R. And we’ve put together this series of tips and insights that you can apply to have a better business. So with all that, the pillar that we’re looking at today is operations and more specifically, goal setting, goal planning, and goal achieving as an operational strategy for the business.
Sharon: All right. Well, we know goals are important for the business. So what are you specifically talking about on this one?
Steven: Yeah, so specifically a business that has clearly established systems for goal setting and goal achieving. They ensure that each individual has their targets, their own targets that align with the business’s target. So, it’s not just this is what we need to do. They understand the bigger picture and what they play into it.
The planning side is having an actual system or a process that goes along with those goals and working backward to coming up with that roadmap or that plan where everyone can follow and understand what the milestones are. So, it’s really just putting a systematic approach to not just saying, here’s our target, this is what we’re doing and our jobs are just going to get us there, but really understanding how and what are the milestones and making sure, that’s a continuous process within the business to help the individual employees and business owners understand where they’re going and how they’re getting there.
Sharon: Well, I think the importance of goal setting is something we can all agree upon. So, can you talk a little bit more about why it’s so important for businesses to have a plan for that?
Steven: Yeah, well, I think a part of it goes to culture, having a culture of achievement where each individual is striving to better themselves, in turn, betters the business. And this is a fantastic by-product of really making sure that it’s ingrained into the DNA of the business to achieve goals, to set goals, good goals, and achieve those. And really what it comes down to is making sure people know what the results are that they’re shooting for and the role that they’re playing as an individual to achieve those results. It’s about alignment and it’s about building momentum, making sure the destination is clear. What needs to happen in order to get there? You know, building momentum, especially in small businesses, is so important.
Steven: And by having the system, you basically guarantee that you will continue to build the momentum, make sure that everyone knows their role to play within that, and you’ll get to your future state faster.
Sharon: Love that word momentum. So how can a business really put in a good goal-achieving process?
Steven: Yeah, the greatest way there, the easiest way would be to begin with the end in mind. That’s always a fun one to look at. But make sure you have a solid vision of where you want the business to be by the end of the year, put some measurable goals in place there, some of the KPIs, you know. Twenty-five percent profit margin or 38 percent close rate or one million dollars in revenue.
You know, those are measurable, achievable things that you can very closely track and work backward by understanding what are… What are the contributing factors to reaching that target? You know, for instance, for efficiency metrics like profit margin, you want to create a good system like regular budgetary reviews, cutting costs where the fat is and where you can trim. And also looking at pricing models and doing that continuously.
Those are contributing factors that will help increase your profit margin. If you’re looking to do that, you know, what are the milestones? Can you create an add-on service that can help increase revenue without necessarily increasing the overhead? That’s another way to be looking at a contributing factor that increases profit margin. But the actual process in itself is having the leaders help the teams understand what those department goals are and how they can contribute to the overall goal. And the individual of those teams understands what their individual role is to the department achieving their goals. And then it kind of works that way.
Sharon: Super helpful, Steven. All right. So final question.
Steven: Yeah.
Sharon: How does the business then take control of actually achieving what they set out to do? Easier said than done, right?
Steven: Absolutely. You know, we do regular reviews. These help with achieving goals. You know, we work in 90-day increments with clients and ourselves as well. And we make adjustments weekly on what we need to, in order to get closer towards that goal. We’ll do an evaluation and say what’s working, what’s not working, what do we need to do to improve?
And we act on those pieces there. So, it’s really understanding more real-time, rather than looking backward and saying, oh, this is what we could have done better, it’s what can we do better now to achieve that goal? So, it’s doing it as in real-time as you possibly can, to get to that point.
Sharon: All right, well, you’ve given me a lot to think about today. Any closing words from you as we wrap up?
Steven: Yeah. Goal setting is obviously very important and it can be difficult to do. What we try not to do is just throw things against the wall and hope that we achieve it is we actually put a process together to making it happen. So if you’re looking to do that, denverbusinesscoach.com is the easiest way to reach out to us. And we’re happy to have a conversation.
Sharon: All right, thank you for our talk today and until next time.
Steven: Thank you, Sharon. Bye.
Sharon: Bye-bye.