Goals are the backbone of any successful startup. They are the spine that keeps everything in place by providing clear objectives, motivation, and direction for the whole project. Likewise, startups without clear-cut goals struggle to achieve their full potential and are often plagued by chaos and inefficiency. With the year 2018 already upon us, there are certain goals each startup should strive to accomplish by the end of the year, which will help them find their own path to success. Hence, here’s a list of such five goals and tips how to achieve them:
1. Create a detailed plan for next year
Though it’s never too early to start planning, you can’t create a plan that will account for absolutely everything that will transpire this year. Therefore, you need to deconstruct your masterplan into much smaller pieces that are a lot more feasible and measurable. To do this, create small short-term goals for each month in the following year and focus exclusively on them. This will allow you to stay constantly motivated by giving a sense of achievement every time you tick one off your bucket list. They could be anything ranging from increasing the number of your total social media followers, to getting your hands on a brand new client. Though these might appear somewhat small at first, they quickly add up and by the end of the year you’ll see the full results of your mini campaigns.
2. Increase your productivity levels
Due to their more laid-back nature, startups often struggle with productivity levels more than your average business. In order to combat this problem, you need to minimize the number of distractions you and your team might be having during working hours. This includes general office banter, loud noises such as music, meetings, and so on. As such, insist that your co-workers take frequent breaks every hour or so, where they can do these things, for no more than 10-15 minutes, and then return to their work stations with their batteries charged. In addition, set up a leisure zone around the kitchen for example and make the rest of the office a no-talk zone.
3. Business growth
Every startup founder out there wants to see their business flourish and grow. This of course won’t happen overnight and needs to be worked on throughout the whole year. Start by hiring some additional staff members and expand your initial team. Cover the roles you previously lacked, such as a marketing specialist for example, so each member of the team can focus on their own expertise instead of being all over the place. If, however, your business is getting too large for you to handle, seeking out an experienced business consultant to help manage your startup is an excellent way of assuring that you’re staying on the right path.
4. Better Social Media Strategies
Finally, as the impact of technology increases with each passing year, startups need to focus more on some technical aspects, one of them being social media. Naturally, being seen on social media platforms is important for every business out there, yet for startups it’s even more so as they still have to make a name for themselves. What’s more, crowd-funded startups require a huge audience and a much wider reach to achieve their fund-raising goals. Therefore, start implementing these strategies into your campaign, and hire a social media monitoring company in order to achieve this.
5. Reach estimated revenue
Another thing startups struggle with is having clear revenue goals. Just going along the lines ‘I want to make as much as possible’ won’t amount to much. You need to have specific projections of your monthly revenue to keep an eye on your incoming cash flow. Re-design your infrastructure so that you can measure the ROI of your marketing campaigns and overall strategies so you know exactly what’s working for you and what’s not. Once you’ve collected the data you can start working on areas that could use some improvement. Reverse engineer what worked so well for you so far and see yourself reach that projected income each month.
In conclusion, use your goals wisely to successfully steer your startup in the right direction.
By Peter Minkoff Courtesy TheTopTier Digital Media
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