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15 Best 2021 Business Goals to Set Now
- Increase Market Share
This bullet is customer driven. The concept is to increase the sales of your product to target consumers, thus, increasing overall market share for your product. (Investors will welcome this anytime they can).
For example, if you operate a Business-To-Business company, your overall goal should be to contact more company heads or HR departments. If you operate a smaller business that focuses on building computers, you’ll want more of the local population to come to your for your services. - Increase Community Outreach
No year in recent history has impacted smaller & locally owned businesses quite like 2020.
In September of 2020, Yelp released a projection that 60% of US businesses that closed due to COVID-19 won’t re-open.
Becoming a member of local chamber-of-commerce’s is a fantastic way to connect with other businesses in your area and ties directly into Goal #1.
Community outreach is an excellent goal for new or established organizations as new contacts are created and “word-of-mouth” marketing begins to spread. - Maintain Profits:
Stable finances are, by far, one of the most useful objectives you can have. By nature, a business cannot afford to stay in operation without steady income, or margins.
Maintaining profits (as opposed to increasing revenue) calls for a equilibrium between investments and profitability. Most business owners will agree that investments are necessary to test out changes in the market while expanding business. By establishing a balanced goal, you can figure how much money can go into growth strategies and new projects/equipment/marketing campaigns while still reaching a desired profit goal. - Reduce Energy/Decrease Tools Necessary for Operation
This bullet is a “dual-edged sword”. If you’re providing a product or service that requires being physically, cutting back on that energy to save money means you could potentially put that money to better use on things that are more useful and/or productive.
This step can be as minimal as cutting down on electricity or unplugging unused equipment on evenings and weekends. - Grow Shareholder Value
Positive changes in shareholder value is an extension of increasing profits for consumers of your publicly traded entity. Increasing the overall value of your company or organization can increase reputation, profits, or any other classification of “value”. The key aspect of this goal is to define what that value is and structure your key results, projects, and other prospects around this goal. - Increase Percentage of Sales Made With New Products/Product Features:
When any company introduces a new products, more times than not, research and development went into the “birth” or creation of that specific product or feature.
When brainstorming these new ideas, promoting them by means of marketing should be at the top of your priorities.
Allocating a little more money for marketing of a new item may be the difference between a successful launch or a product flop.
Remember, your overall goal for this bullet is to INCREASE the percentage of sales made and may require different approaches depending on your business structure and offered services. - Invest in a Quality Control Program
TQM, or Total Quality Management is a program that any company can adopt and is all about continuing to reduce errors made in manufacturing and streamlining a supply chain where physical products are sold.
It equally applies to both when handling with improving customer experiences and training staff. Generally speaking, improving quality across a wide array of areas is a great company level goal that’s easily align able since each team or department can be held accountable for their own work (and mistakes). - Focus on Leadership Skills for Key Team Members:
Training employees is one thing, Re-Training employees is a whole process of its own.
Making them comfortable so they can speak for themselves, or those under them and engaging creative, out-of-the-box style behavior is imperative.
If your business wants more feedback from lower levels, this is an important focus point to consider. - Balance Budget for X Period:
If you business if a non-profit organization, balancing a budget is a great top-level attribute to keep up with.
Likewise, this goal is great for teams or departments who may get a set amount to invest in campaigns or projects on a quarterly or annual basis. - Maintain, or if possible decrease debt.
Understandably across businesses as a whole, debt falls under finances. Maintaining a certain amount of financial debt is actually important…especially for businesses that are just getting started and may not have the profits to cover all debt costs. - Calculate and Create the Best Value of Product for Cost:
This is a better team goal for sales and marketing. The idea is to focus on selling customers that they are getting the best deal. Whether you’re selling something that is top of the line for higher cost or a cheap, low-cost alternative that doesn’t have the polish of a different brand. - Make Your Product More Reliable
Unless you have some dubious morality and ethics issues in your business and want to scam them, then making your product more reliable is an ideal way to gain new customers and repeat purchasers. - Cross-Sell to Long Term Customers
If you already have a loyal customer base, a good goal for 2021 is to sell them on more products. This also builds brand loyalty and ties into bullet 6. - Providing the Absolute Best Customer Service:
Let’s combine what we’ve learned from bullets 2,6,7,11,12 and 13. Offering the best customer service means that consumers are happier with the overall experience of buying or using your products & services. - Team Building/Diversity Training Goals:
This is a classic in HR teams. Team building and diversity training brings employee satisfaction to the spotlight to prevent turnover and allow positive environments where everyone is comfortable enough to share their ideas, whether they’re constructive or critical.