How To Measure Your Progress Against Your Business Goals

As an entrepreneur, when you create S.M.A.R.T business goals you have a much clearer picture of what you want to achieve and by when.

To find out how to create S.M.A.R.T business goals read: The Importance of Setting Meaningful Goals For Your Business.

Setting SMART goals is extremely important, but that is not all you need to do, in order to be successful.

Example: SMART Goal “I want to grow my email list by 10 people per week from 1st October 20xx – December 20xx.”

Once your goals have been defined, you need to track your progress against them. You need data, so you know if what you are doing is working and if you are on track.

Data is the key to understanding anything. From science to sales, data drives decisions. One of the best ways to gather data is to track and measure your progress.

Reviewing the data allows you to make tweaks and better decisions as you move forward.

Anything can be tracked – time, preferences, usages – anything. The key is to know what to track, for how long, and what to do with the data when it is collected.

"Progress is made where progress is measured."
— Jack LaLanne

Using the SMART goals example above, “I want to grow my email list by 10 people per week from 1st October 20xx – December 20xx,” let’s discuss how to measure your progress against your goal:

Tracking time

This is an excellent way to determine if you are making progress towards your goals and help you make changes if they are warranted.

In this instance, tracking weekly, as stated in your SMART goal can reveal if the activities you are doing to attract 10 people weekly is working. If not, then you need to change the activities to get a different result.

Review the data showing your progress consistently; look for patterns that might warrant changes.

number of people in your email list

This is another straightforward goal with easy to track data that will give you insight into your progress.

Begin with your current email list number and consistently measure the change weekly. Track the number of emails, as well as taking note of any supporting data such as opt in to your free gifts, referrals, social media engagement, opt outs etc.

These can correlate together to give you data that you can review and change activities if you need to improve your performance.

email sign up trends

If your goal is to increase your email list for a specific offering, it is important to track how, when, and why.

When reviewing your data, look for patterns. Did they increase after a webinar or guest appearance? Are increases coming from a specific opt ins from a blog post, sales page, or social media post? Tracking this information makes it simple to replicate the activity again for consistent results.

Tracking your progress is an essential way to gather data which will help you prove where your time is well spent and determine the best pathway to success.

"If you can not measure it, you can not improve it."
— Lord Kelvin

Live Your Passion!

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