Small Business Saturday Blog

Small Business Champion Series From Rich Brady ... Setting Business Goals

Monday, June 18, 2018 at 09:10

Inspire Series | Small Business Saturday Uk Champion

When you’re your own boss, inmany ways you are never not at work, and it can be all too easy to slip intoworking on your business every possible hour; yet for many of us, a morepositive life-work balance and being able to spend more time with family andfriends was one of our main reasons for starting our own small business in thefirst place. How do you get back on track? Rich Brady, SmallBiz100 alumni and MDof Brady Global Ltd, is a passionate advocate for putting family time back intofamily business. As a Champion for Small Business, he’ll be sharing a series ofblogs and videos with hints and tips on how you can find a more positivebalance in your life. In this blog, the second in the series, he discusses theimportance of creating priorities and setting business goals.

Setting business goals

It'sreally important to have a direction, something to aim for or a goal that youwant to achieve: if we don't have a target, a plan, a place where we want tobe, then we end up turning up every day and not really knowing what toprioritise. If you don't know what to let go of and what to drill down on, youare wasting lots of time.

I'dlike to talk to you about how I set goals and how I try to get my team to setgoals too. Going through this process is hugely beneficial and it will, I hope,radicalise how you start operating within your company.

Thefirst thing I suggest you do is to go away and have a think about your personalgoals or your life's ambition. Ask yourself this question: Where do I want tobe in five years’ time? Think purely personal and forget about business fornow. Where do you live? What are your family and friends doing? What do you doin your free time? Picture yourself in five years' time!

Thiscould take some time, but once you've identified your personal goals you then needto work backwards. Say to yourself "Right, if that's where I want to be inmy personal life in five years, what does my business look like to achievethat?" What does it need to be producing? What systems need to be inplace? How does my company fit in with my personal goals? That's the way to doit.

In the beginning …

Westart these companies because we've got an idea and a passion. We want to havethe flexibility to run things the way we want to run things. That's a personalchoice.

However,you're likely to see a mismatch, a disparity. Your current trajectory may becompletely at odds with what your personal ambition is. If so, then there needsto be some quite significant changes. It's okay: you've got time.

Youcan do a lot in five years, but unless you go through this process, you're notgoing to realise what things you should be doing within your business and whatthings you shouldn't. Imagine waking up in 5 years’ time with a business that'sdoing well, but you're unhappy. That wasn't the plan!

Itwon't be because you haven't worked hard, it's tough running a company. Withoutgoals we react to decisions coming in: Yes,I'm going to focus on that. That looks interesting, I want to work with thosepeople. With no real idea of where your focus should be, you run the riskof ending up miles from where you hoped.

A better place

Onceyou've got those personal goals bottomed out, you're then in a much betterposition to say "Well, actually, I shouldn't even be looking atthat." or "We need to stop doing that." or "That's aninteresting opportunity. Yeah, it fits in with where the business needs to be forme to facilitate that personal goal. Let's spend a bit more time on that."

Settinggoals now is a great way to plan. It's a great way of filtering out noise anddistraction, which is hugely important for us as business owners. Distraction eatsaway our time and that's one thing we cannot buy more of, especially if it'sjust you. If you're on your own, there's even more pressure on you to besuper-efficient. Distractions are really going to slow you down.

Go on, get cracking

I wantyou to take some time to think about your future.

Youmight find that you can sit down solidly for a couple of hours and really,really work things out. More likely, you'll need to go away and process this.Let the idea drip-feed into you over the next week or so. I highly recommendgoing away and talk to your family too, and make sure that your personal goalsfit in with their vision of the future. Family comes first and that isfundamental.

Ensurethat you are on the same path, and you'll be invincible.

Rich Brady willbe posting regularly with his hints and tips - do keep an eye on social mediaand here on the blog for more Rich-ness. To hear directly from Rich, pop overto our Facebook page now for his first video.

About the Author:Rich Brady is Managing Director of Brady Global Ltd, and a Champion for SmallBusinesses both in his home of North Wales and across the UK. Rich is aSmallBiz100 Alumni and a passionate advocate for putting the family into familybusiness.