SMART Goal Framework

SMART is a goal-setting framework to assist you in creating goals. It is an acronym for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound.

Specific

Your goal should be easy to remember. It should be simple, sensible, and signicant to your micro-business strategy. Most important, it should reflect what you as the owner want for your business. Your goals, strategies, values, interests defines your unique business concept.

Remember… Every business is unique. Every owner is unique.

Measurable

Your goal must be measurable, meaningful and easy to calculate. What you measure should reflect your primary business activity. What you do on a daily basis to acheive your business goal.

If you are a startup, your financial goal could be salary replacement or earning as much as you did in your previous or current job.

Coupled with that financial goal, you may want to turn the goal into the number of units required to reach the financial target. Units could be number of products sold, billable hours, number of subscribers or customers, number of stores that carry your products, or number of events such as farmers markets.

Achievable

Your goal must be achievable or attainable within your stated timeline. This means your must have the resources, skills, and knowledge required to achieve your goal. It may be a stretch, but achievable.

Operating a micro business requires an owner to create and deliver a product AND to market and sell that product to customers. Understanding how to perform and the costs associated with these two core activities should be well-tested during the startup phase.

Too often, the customer discovery and customer validation steps are skipped during the startup phase and the business struggles to gain traction during the early business formation stage.

Relevant

Your goal must be relevant to you and your business. It is what matters to you that you should focus on. And not well-meanining family members, friends, or even business mentors.

If you design a business that you think you should create even though it’s not the business you want. You will most likely will end up with results and feelings toward the business that you never wanted.

Your goal should align with your skills, interests, values, and experience.

Time-bound

Your goal must have a targeted date or deadline. If you’ve quit your job and uses savings to support yourself or your family, then your savings burnrate will help define your targeted date.

Your targeted date becomes an important constrait that you will need to operate your business within. Like many aspects of starting or operating a micro-business, you’ll find the two-faces of Janus pulling you in different directions.

Is your goal achievable by your targeted date?

Can you stay true to your unique business concept and still meet your targeted date?

Flexability

You should review where you are in achieving your goal at least weekly or monthly. Make small adjustments to your SMART goal as you gain more experience and knowledge about your business and about yourself.