Matt Vaadi breaks down the SMART goal framework: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, timely. He walks through examples like increasing sales by 10% or adding three extra meetings per week, then shows how to turn goals into actionable steps. Written goals improve success rates, so write down three 90-day goals and three yearly ones.
Hey everybody, what's up? This is Matt Vaity with ERG Payroll and HR. Today I'm going to help you learn how to set SMARTER goals so you can be more successful personally and professionally and in your small business. Oftentimes when I sit down with people and ask them if they know what a SMART goal is, they say, "Yeah, absolutely, Matt, of course, that's day one stuff." And then when we create goals for the individual or for the company, then we see that maybe they're not 100% clear what a SMART goal is. Maybe the goal is not specific enough. Maybe it's not achievable. Maybe it's not timely. But either way, I'm going to help you to make sure you get it right on the first time so you can be focused on the right things that are going to define the success of you, your career, and your business. Thanks for joining me. Let's go ahead and get started. The first part of having a SMART goal is making sure that it's specific. Why is this so important? Well, it's like we always say, if you don't have a target, you will hit it every single time. Having specific goals helps you to visualize exactly where you're going and what you hope to achieve. And equally as important, make sure it's— you know that why it's important to you to achieve this goal. So a goal we might hear would be something like improve sales or get more sales. So to make this more specific, you may say improve sales on product A by 10%. And if you know, to take it a step further, that to improve sales by 10%, maybe you need to improve your first meetings by 50%, you might actually take a step back to the root goal that can help you to achieve your end goal. So the first step is to make sure that your goal is specific. So next up is to make sure that you can measure it. What gets measured gets done. So going back to our example of gaining more sales, once again, we want to have a specific measurable component to this. So increase sales by 10%. I may want to increase my first meetings by 50%. And how many does that equate to and how long do I give myself to do that? So increase by 50% might mean to have 3 additional meetings per week. Now I've got something specific, measurable. Have 3 additional sales meetings per week. So it's important that you have a number that you can manage and one that you can achieve. Once our goal is specific and measurable, Increase sales by 10% by setting 3 more meetings per week. We have to make sure that it's achievable. So how are you going to get there? Can you get 3 more sales meetings per week? If so, how does that mean? Blocking out 4 more hours of call time? Does that mean changing how you go about your approach to your day or your week? You have to make sure it's achievable, achievable, because nothing is more frustrating than setting a goal and missing it because it wasn't attainable in the first place. So make sure that your goal is specific, measurable, and achievable. Next up in our SMART goals are the letter R for relevant. So is this the most relevant goal I should be focused on right now? So using our example of increase sales by 10%, is this the thing that's most important to the business or to my career at the moment? Is this something that I need to be focused on? For example, if you're losing new customers after you bring them in, increasing your sales by 10% might not be the area that you need to be focused. So make sure that your goal is relevant to where you are today and for the period of time that you've set your goal for. Now finally, the last letter in the word SMART is T. So make sure your goal is timely or time-bound. So if you want to increase sales by 10%, when do you want to have that done by? Do you want it done by the end of the quarter, by the end of the year? Make sure that you have time constraints that are achievable for reaching your goal and you've got a plan to get there. Now that you've set your SMART goal, that's the next step, is to put it into action and break it down into many pieces so that you can achieve it in the time that you've allotted yourself. Achieve the success that you hope. Thanks so much for taking just a couple minutes to join me today. People with written goals are proven to be more successful than those without them. Take the time today to set 3 goals for the next 90 days and 3 goals for the next year that you can achieve and that will make the biggest impact on your life. And while you're at it, go ahead and visit our website, ergpayroll.com. Check out the rest of our free HR and small business resources out there and see what else we can do to help you on your journey to success. Thanks so much for joining me and have an awesome day.
