Goal setting is crucial in the pursuit of achieving manufacturing and business success. Without a clear plan and goal(s) to aim towards, how will you identify your milestones? How will you track metrics? And, more importantly, how will you grow your business? You can't.
Manufacturers that want to succeed, become thought leaders in their respective industries and be one step ahead of their competitors - set goals. They don't just set manufacturing objectives either. They aspire to achieve success across technology, marketing and business.
If you need to understand the path forward this year and onwards, we’ve got you covered. In this post, we’ll go over everything you need to know about goal setting.
We’ll take a look at:
- Be realistic
- Data-driven
- Track and measure success
- Goal-orientated culture
- Understand the path
- Expert assistance
Be realistic
The first tip on this list might sound obvious, but it's important. Setting realistic targets is fundamental, no matter if you're new to the market or you're an established manufacturer in the industry. Wherever you are, realistic targets set a secure foundation for success.
It's great to be ambitious, but ultimately, setting realistic targets ensures you maximise your time and resources, make progress that is tangible, and feed the long-term vision you wish to achieve.
A great to identify a structure for setting realistic goals is to use the SMART goal acronym:
This stands for:
- S (Specific) or Significant
- M (Measurable) or Meaningful
- A (Attainable) or Action-Oriented
- R (Relevant) or Rewarding
- T (Time-Bound) or Trackable
Realistic goals meet all the criteria above. Once you've ticked each one accordingly, you'll be able to meet your goal faster, and you'll feel well prepared with a roadmap for success.
Data-driven
Setting goals without research or data can be a challenge and a waste of valuable time and resources. To set effective targets, it's important to do your research first and identify your current starting point and your idealised mid-way point. Without this, you'll be setting targets blindfolded.
Data offers many competitive advantages. It can offer time savings, customer insights, increased efficiencies and greater clarity for the future. In the long run, it will help you target your customers correctly, personalise your efforts from marketing to web design and create products customers want.
Lots of data isn't always a good thing though. You need to keep it concise and accurate to ensure you're gathering the correct information to align with your goals. A few good ways to collect some initial data are feedback questionnaires, reviews, customer sentiment surveys, A/B testing, social listening, chatbot data and more.
Track and measure success
Tracking and measuring success is just as important as the initial goal setting. If you don't track your success along the way or measure your progress with clear KPIs (key performance indicators), how will you know if you've made any progress or if you've set the correct goals?
Business growth, cost savings and ROI are likely a priority for you, amongst other things. Setting goals will position you one step forward, but not tracking the success will put you two steps behind.
At Red-Fern, we do monthly reports for our digital partners. These are concise, easy to digest and cover all of the fundamental topics businesses need to know. The reports outline current work completed, stats and milestones achieved, areas for improvement, recommendations, and much more.
Keeping on track of the KPIs and checking in on the targets set, ensures our digital partners are also on the right path for success and it also enables us to change our action plan accordingly. We're honest and transparent with all of our digital partners. After all, their success is a priority for us so we must be agile and efficient.
Goal-orientated culture
At Red-Fern, we have a goal-orientated culture that ensures we're driving forwards for a bigger purpose and achieving some of the greatest work possible. A goal-orientated culture aligns with our expertise, passion, innovation and specialist abilities.
Do you have a goal-orientated culture? If not, you're missing out, and it might be time for a change. Having a team that's focused on key KPIs ensures you're all working on the same page whilst also being a strong force to drive collective change - an amazing feeling for sure!
Once you have your goals and targets, relay them back to your team. Ensure everyone knows how their contributions affect the overall journey. Remember, teamwork is essential.
Understand the path
Goal setting isn't easy, and it isn't a straightforward process either. It's important to know that things will change, your approach to hitting targets will alter, and it's normal if you have to detour in a different direction.
Goal setting isn't linear, and as you develop as a business, your approach to things will have to adapt. It will take time and it's a journey. As cliché as it sounds, it's worth it.
At Red-Fern, we align our world-class technology, marketing and management skills to continually strategise, innovate and grow with the digital assets we have developed with you. We align business, technology and marketing goals with realistic expectations, budgets and project timelines. With Red-Fern, things are for the long-term.
Expert assistance
Goal setting can be seen as a laborious task, but it's essential for any business wanting to progress in the manufacturing sector. With an expert team on hand to help, it can be made that bit easier with the help of our strategists.
We know what works, and we know what doesn't. At Red-Fern, we go through an initial in-depth discovery stage with new digital partners - this allows us to identify challenges, opportunities, obstacles, goals and more.
Then, we take everything that's been discussed, learnt and understood and get to work. This happens throughout all of our digital partnerships, not just at the beginning of the initial discovery.
We ensure everyone is on the same page before any partnership begins, all of the stakeholders agree on the plans and goals in place, making sure all the partnerships we create have a solid foundation for success.
We create clear lines of communication between your dedicated team and our technology, marketing, and project specialists. This enables the partnership to be transparent and on the right track to success.
Reminder: the path isn’t linear - things will change, and you’ll have to adapt along the way, but with an expert team, you’ll be able to identify opportunities available to you and your business.
Do you need a clear and strategic technology and marketing roadmap? Book a free discovery call today!
If you need help identifying the path forward or you're feeling ready to upscale your business, it's time to act now. Changes are happening in the manufacturing industry and the competition is fiercer than ever.
Be one step ahead and get in touch with us to book your FREE discovery call! We look forward to hearing from you.