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SETTING AIMS OBJECTIVES
Setting business goals, aims and objectives can help grow your business. Learn how to create a mission statement and use PESTEL and SWOT tools to create your business objectives.
Having a strong purpose is essential for any new business. A clear mission, supported by strategic business aims and objectives, will give your business a better chance of success.
Setting business aims and objectives should be a priority for any business, even ones that have been trading for a few years. While most business start ups focus on their goals when launching, it’s common for companies to let strategy, business aims and objectives drift over time. Setting business goals is a hard process, and involves looking hard at how your company operates and defining a clear vision of how you want your business to look in three to five years’ time.
There are lots of benefits for defining business aims and objectives. Commercially they can help your business outperform competitors and the market. A 15-year-study that underpinned the book Firms of Endearment found that purpose-focused businesses outperformed the market 14-to-1 compared to businesses that lacked purpose. Employees working towards a clear business vision are up to 30% more productive, according to research by Southampton University.
Setting a clear strategy with business aims and objectives allows you to look at external factors such as new legislation or new competitors entering the market. Business objectives are good for employees too, helping build a culture of collaboration and ensuring everyone buys into the aims of the business and where it is going.
Set business goals and objectives at least annually, and focus on three areas – aims, goals and objectives. All three are different and link together to form a cohesive plan for your company.
Business aims – The long-term strategy for the business. It can be expressed as a mission statement, company values and the purpose of your company. Having a clear vision lets you set strategic goals and supporting objectives to achieve this aim.
Business goals – These are more strategic goals, usually expressed in terms such as increasing market share, and are set over a three- to five-year timeframe.
Business objectives – Determine the actions you’ll take to achieve business goals, usually with success measures and targets.
Create the aims of your business
You’ll first need to define the point of your business – what is its purpose, why does it exist, and what does it want to achieve? For start ups this is usually the reason why you founded your company. It might be to deliver excellent customer service, to sell locally-sourced sustainable products or to offer 24/7 access to a safe taxi service for example.
This is often expressed as a mission statement or company vision – it details why your business is here, what it stands for and what it aims to achieve. It should bring the values of your company to the forefront, such as friendly, secure, caring and knowledgeable. These values also determine the types of actions and objectives you’ll need to do and how to do them so you remain caring, friendly and knowledgeable.
You can create your mission statement and vision as an elevator pitch. This is usually written as a paragraph that sums up your vision and should be able to be delivered in 30 seconds. It should be simple and clear.
Business aims example
A great business aims example is the mission statement created by Sweetgreen, a US-based restaurant:
“Sweetgreen is a destination for delicious food that’s both healthy for you and aligned with your values. We source local and organic ingredients from farmers we know and partners we trust, supporting our communities and creating meaningful relationships with those around us. We exist to create experiences where passion and purpose come together.”
It tells us what Sweetgreen is and stands for, what makes it different, its values and why it exists.
Set long-term business goals
Armed with your mission statement you’ll need to define your long-term business goals. These should span three to five years and be expressed as a series of goals you want the business to achieve, such as increase brand awareness, capture market share, increase the size of the business and improve customer service.
There are lots of business tools that can help set goals, including BHAG, ACES, SWOT and PESTEL (sometimes written as PESTLE) – including how they are used with business aims examples:
1. BHAG – Short for Big Hairy Audacious Goal, an idea found in the book Built To Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies. It’s a long-term goal that you’d be willing to bet the business on. Examples include Microsoft’s ‘a computer on every desk and in every home’ and Google’s ‘organise the world’s knowledge and make it universally accessible and useful.’ It can be used to focus your company’s actions onto this clearly defined goal.
2. ACES – Short for Achieve, Conserve, Eliminate and Steer Clear of. Achieve is a list of what you want to attain in the future such as open two restaurants in your county. Conserve is what you want to keep, such as locally sourced ingredients and farmer relationships. Eliminate is what you want to lose, such as reducing food waste. Steer Clear of is what you want to avoid, such as losing valuable staff.
3. SWOT – Short for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. List elements of your business, competitors and market changes under each category so you can assess where your business sits, the challenges it faces, and its strengths or weaknesses in capitalising on opportunities or responding to threats. Virtual Strategist’s Erica Olsen has created a guide to creating a SWOT analysis for your business:
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