Entrepreneurs are big dreamers. As an entrepreneur, you have so many goals and aspirations you want to achieve with your new company. You want to turn a small business into a booming enterprise. With the right determination and set of tools, you can do anything you set your mind to. The first step is finding the tools and programs that can help you achieve your ultimate goals. Of course, you can’t achieve a goal until you set one and work to keep track of those key results and metrics. This is where the methodology behind Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) can make such a big difference for your company.
OKRs are a framework to be learned and implemented, but with the help of OKR software and programming, you can connect your team and set meaningful, ambitious goals to accomplish. By identifying your key results and setting plans to meet them, you are guaranteeing all your systems and staff are working in alignment to create great products. Beginners and advanced analysts alike can use the same technology to stay connected and work to build a better business strategy. If you are looking for a way to take your company to the next level, take advantage of OKRs as one of the best practices around. Here are just three ways you can start incorporating this technology into your business.
1. Unify and connect your team members in new ways with full transparency.
No matter the size of your business, you probably have several team members working toward common goals. From your business leaders to project managers or data entry workers, you need to maintain a sense of unity on your staff. OKRs can help you do just that. One of the biggest benefits of naming your stretch goals and KPIs is the transparency offered to everyone. You can see exactly how ahead or behind you are on certain projects and see how everyone has interconnected tasks to accomplish. Having a transparent form of communication and check-ins helps everyone feel fully informed and motivated to do their job.
Respect is a hugely important piece of running any business. You want everyone on the team to feel respected and valued—from business leaders like Canadian asset manager Caitlin Gossage to the hourly staff that answers the phones. You need a setup that shows everyone they are necessary to your operation. You can learn from the experience of people just like Caitlin who have worked in legal services, asset management, and much more. Role models like these have valuable insights and information for you to benefit from. These individuals are on the floor every day helping buyers make purchase decisions. The best way to benefit from this is to build an OKR framework that involves everyone and plays to their strengths. Bring clarity into the workplace and remind your team how integral they are to your entire operation.
2. Create new ways to market and scale your business.
Your company revolves around your customers. You make all your decisions to benefit shoppers and get them to commit to your store. Much of your OKR framework should revolve around taking the next step to get more customers. Make stretch goals for a new target market or add bonuses for loyal customers who reach certain achievements.
Bringing in new customers means a change to your marketing strategies. You need to analyze past performance numbers and see if there are ways to actively engage new people. This goes back to the fundamentals of appealing to customers on an individual level. To reach ambitious goals such as these, it’s a good idea to improve your photo and video content. Take advantage of product photography to make your online store look fabulous. Something as simple as high-quality images and photos of your products, photos that highlight every type of product will help you reach those new KPIs (key performance indicators). Set specific goals for your social media content and improvements to your product page. This will help your marketing strategies really take flight.
As you work to scale your business numbers with marketing, you also can use OKRs to balance your finances. You need a strategy to grow your income and scale your business. Maybe learning the basics of trading can be the best practice for you. Each trading strategy helps the active trader get more money and find lower-risk options for investments. This can help you improve your overall options and grow your capital. One little change can go a long way in helping you improve. Set these stretch goals for your finances and your budget and see how a few adjustments can help you find financial stability and growth.
3. Focus on individual tasks and outcomes to build a better company.
Reaching goals as a company or on an individual level can sometimes be very difficult. It’s hard to stay focused and follow a strict methodology to get to where you want to be. It can also seem intimidating to try to reach a goal when it is a huge one. Rather than saying something like “I want our company to have a million dollars in revenue” or “we need to open a hundred new locations by the end of the year,” focus on incremental progress.
OKRs are about the big picture, but they help you start in a great place. By setting smaller goals that have more measurable results, you are helping to keep motivation high. Rather than berating your employees for not getting enough done, you are constantly celebrating their little victories that will add up to ultimate success. Rather than trying to change everything all at once, you can focus on one objective key result at a time. As they say, “Rome wasn’t built in a day.” You need time and patience to build up a great enterprise with strategic motivations.
Overall, having OKRs helps you make better strategic decisions. Rather than constantly trying something new and seeing if it sticks, you get to make personal goals that fit your forecasting. Use algorithms to understand specific analytics and metrics that will give you additional information about your company. Reach for specific goals at the end of the quarter that will help you make more strategic decisions for the quarter after that. Laying out all the information you need helps you make better decisions to grow a strong enterprise.
