What are my goals as a New Entrepreneur?

So you have decided to start a business. Now as a new entrepreneur what should your goals be for yourself and your business, how do you even go about writing them?

I have asked myself the exact same question, you’re not alone. Goals are important, they help you to aim high and stay on track. The answer I’m about to share with you is based on some research I did as well as what experience has taught me. Your goals should be focussed around 3 main areas; your personal aspirations, your business sustainability, and size and your risk tolerance. Basically, your personal aspirations are what you want to achieve in your life as an individual. Business sustainability and size speaks to how you plan to grow your business and keep it running. And lastly, risk tolerance is how high of a risk are you willing to take with your business. Let’s dig a little deeper into these main areas in the coming paragraphs.

Why goals are important.

A goal is simply an idea or desired result that is created by an individual or group and they commit to achieving it. Goals are great contributors to successful business and personal growth. Firstly, the process of creating goals forces you to think through what you want for the future of your business and yourself. This process helps you to pick a direction for your business or yourself to go in and this will improve your chances of attaining your goal. I encourage you to write SMART goals. (Specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound)

Personal Aspirations

Personal goals and aspirations are what you would like to achieve in your life. Stop reading this and take some time to write down the top 5 things you want to achieve in life. Some popular examples are to become financially free, to build wealth, to own a few sports cars, to start a charity, to become a great leader, and so on. Now that you have decided on your goals and aspirations you can take the necessary steps to achieve them. Now as an entrepreneur there are a few skills that would be a great asset to you that I think you should add to your list.

Becoming a great communicator, lifelong learning, and patience. Now that you have created your list don’t hide it, place it somewhere highly visible like on your office wall or in your room and start working towards it.

Business goals

It’s never too late to write business goals but they are more beneficial at the beginning of a business venture than in the middle. A tip for new business starters is to ensure your business fulfills your personal goal. If you love fashion and have a desire to help persons pick the right outfit for an occasion, opening a restaurant isn’t for you. Now when writing the goals of your business we will focus on what we want your business to achieve. I want you to create a list of two to three top things that your business aims to do. Keep in mind that these things need to be how your business plans to add value to society. For example, a telecommunications company might aim to help people communicate more efficiently. One more tip is to try to give more value than clients pay for. An example would be you go to a tire shop to repair your car tire and they offer to wash your car for free. I can guarantee that the customer would be pleasantly surprised and their friends would hear about this experience at your tire shop. The last thing that I recommend you add to your business goals is to be customer-centric. Don’t be so caught up in running the business that you forget to pay attention to the most important things, the needs and feedback from your customers. You are free to add more goals but remember sometimes less is more. People can easily remember 5 things but struggle to remember 10, this is directed to your employees who will be seeing this list.

Tolerance of risk

Risk tolerance is simply the amount of risk one is willing to take with an investment, in your case with your business. There is always some risk involved when starting a new business and proper planning helps to manage this. For example, as a trading firm, if you have a low-risk tolerance, you may sell your stocks the very first time they start to dip. Or, if you like to live on the risker side of things, you may ride through very volatile times just to see how much money you can make. Risk also speaks to the industry you enter, the area you set up your establishment as well as your target audience. Determine what level of risk you can manage with each of these and plan accordingly. For this, you will have to do some research and clearly state what level of risk you’re comfortable with then never surpass it.