SMART Goals: an Acronym for Success

Short- and long-term goals are essential in business. By planning for the future, you can

work toward developing a business that’s successful and sustainable. Specific

strategies for creating goals can help you and your team to effectively meet your

business objectives. One such strategy is SMART goals, which ask you to clearly define

all of the variables related to your company’s aims for the sake of making it easier and

more likely for you to achieve them.

Quick Navigation

 What are SMART goals?

 Benefits of using SMART goals
 Examples of SMART goals in business

What are SMART goals?

The SMART method helps you effectively approach reaching your goals in the

workplace. Applying SMART as a grid for your company’s aims is usually helpful for

creating specifically measured, clearly defined targets that you’d like to reach. This

methodology also helps you avoid failures and measure your progress more precisely.

The SMART acronym stands for:

  Specific: Increase the chances that you’re able to accomplish
your business goals by making sure they’re well-defined.
Determine the who, what, where, when and why.
 Measurable: Develop criteria for measuring progress toward
your business goals. Detail the key indicators that help you
decide if and when you reach your goal by quantifying them.
 Achievable: Create goals for your business that are attainable
and achievable by ensuring that you and your team have the
skills and resources needed to reach the goal.
 Relevant: Align your company’s goals with the overall objectives
of your business and the realities of the market.
 Time-based: Give yourself and your staff a deadline for reaching
your goal to provide a sense of urgency and the opportunity to
schedule the steps needed to achieve the goal.

Related: Goals vs. Objectives in Business: A Guide for Managers

A breakdown of each SMART component

To give you a clearer idea of how SMART business goals can be applied, here’s a basic

description of each component:

 General goal: Start with some specific overall aim that you
have, such as starting your first business.
  Specific: Define exactly what kind of business it is and what it
sells.
 Measurable: Provide at least one example of a measurable
goal. Specify a timeframe in which you will have the business
registered and have your first sale. Then, define how many sales
you want per day, week or month and by what point in time.
 Attainable: Set your measurable goals to fit realistic time frames
and resources. In other words, don’t try to apply SMART by
setting a goal of 1 million units sold within two weeks of starting
business.
 Relevant: Provide a realistic description of how doing something
measurable and attainable will let you achieve something else,
such as having more investment capital or free time for hobbies
if you’re starting a business.
 Time-based: Similar to being measurable, the time-based
section lets you define the time frame by which you’d like to
achieve different parts of your overall goal.

Benefits of using SMART goals

Setting project and business goals is most effective when the process of reaching

them is segmented into bite-sized chunks that can be done one at a time. This makes

the goal as a whole seem much less overwhelming and lets you plan clearly towards

achieving it. Business SMART goals offer exactly this kind of segmented, clarified
planning capacity. Additionally, there are many benefits of using SMART goals in

business, including the following:

 Increase the likelihood of achieving your goals. Using the

SMART goals acronym when creating business objectives may
give you and your team more confidence, motivation and clarity.
It will also help you focus on individual, practical steps.
 Identify the steps needed to reach your goals. Thinking through
the details of your overall goal from different angles enables you
to create an action plan and identify the support, resources and
training that you need to accomplish your company’s long-term
aims.
 Effectively grow your business. Using the SMART goals acronym
helps you establish a target date for deliverables and enables
you to prioritize the goal and see real results. This is especially
beneficial because it helps you avoid getting sidelined by day-to-
day tasks or superfluous distractions that could cause you to
lose track of your long-term goals for business growth.

SMART goals examples for business

Here are three simple examples of SMART in action for hypothetical situations. They

can help you see how you can use this technique to create your own SMART business

goals.
Goal 1: completing a big project

Here’s an example of how to use the SMART acronym for a project:

 Specific: Most of customers view our company’s site on their

smartphones. Recent feedback shows that their experience is
poor, so we will optimize our website for mobile devices by Q3.
 Measurable: By May, we should have the new site fully
developed and ready for content. June 1 is the deadline for
writing all of the copy, approving images and creating any
additional graphics. Implementing and polishing the SEO is the
primary focus for June.
 Achievable: The departments that need to be involved in this
project agree that this is a realistic timeline.
 Relevant: Our online presence is a priority to attract new
customers by increasing traffic and improving click-through rates.
 Time-bound: The new site launches on July 1.
Goal 2: increasing sales

Here’s an example of how you could use SMART business goals to outline a plan to

increase sales:

 Specific: We need to increase our conversion rate by 5% by the

end of Q4. To do this, we need to implement more sales training,
 increase advertising, create incentives and conduct cold calls or
follow up with potential customers.
 Measurable: I’d like to increase our sales by 1.5% each month.
We should identify and implement new marketing and
advertising strategies by the end of October.
 Achievable: Both the marketing and sales teams feel that we
could easily accomplish this goal in the allotted time.
 Relevant: Growing our customer base is a top priority for my
company this year.
 Time-bound: We should reach this goal by January 1.
Goal 3: improving company morale

Here’s an example of creating a SMART goal to improve staff performance:

 Specific: We have good team members, but they’re getting

overwhelmed and feel undervalued. To improve morale and
performance, we need to establish better relationships among
coworkers. We can do this by creating incentives, increasing
positive reinforcement and establishing team-building activities.
 Measurable: We want to decrease the turnover rate by 10% by
the end of the year.
 Achievable: By prioritizing employee satisfaction, we can see an
improvement in company morale.
  Relevant: Staff satisfaction is key to our business becoming
more efficient and effective.
 Time-bound: Relationships should be strengthened by the
holiday party in December.

Benefits and drawbacks of SMART goals

While SMART is an incredibly effective tool for simplifying your achievements in

business or life, it’s not perfect for every context. On the one hand, SMART is superb in

that it’s a simple process for achieving results. It can be applied by pretty much anyone,

at any time and in almost any setting without having to use any specialized tools or

complex training methods. This is the most powerful aspect of SMART.

On the other hand, this very simplicity has caused SMART to sometimes be

misunderstood or misinterpreted in ways that make it less effective. SMART works best

for smaller overall goals aimed over shorter time spans. Because it has so few

categories, applying a single SMART plan to a complex multiyear set of aims can be

difficult.

FAQs about SMART goals

Are there other words for the letters in the SMART acronym?

Yes, there are. While specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-based are

often used, other variations for each of these are also commonly found. They might

include strategic, manageable, ambitious, reliable and tangible, for example. However,

the basic SMART protocol remains mostly unchanged.

Is SMART useful for multiple simultaneous major goals?

You can use SMART for as many goals as you like and for any scope of time, but it

works best when applied to goals without too many complex steps per section. For

larger projects and plans, creating multiple SMART grids for each segment is a practical

choice.

How can SMART be applied to goals with multiple time frames?

You can apply multiple SMART plans to different goals based on their time frames.

Businesses might have a single key long-term goal for several years in the future, a few

intermediate-term goals for the next year or numerous short-term goals with horizons of

weeks or months. You can create a SMART grid for goals in each of these categories.