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Hello!

You’re reading the last edition of Always Be Convenient for 2024. It’s the 22nd since I started in August of this year, with a goal to bring you insights about how to be convenient in an increasingly digitized world.

If you’re new around here, the archives have all past issues. 🗞️

I’m still finding my way with this newsletter week to week, balancing thoughts of my own along with sharing great resources I’ve discovered. Though it can be difficult at times, I do enjoy the challenge of writing on a regular basis.

What I love most about this experience – and the real reason I write – is for the benefit of you. It’s great to get the feedback and the comments from folks who find value in my work.

As someone who must call himself a former retailer these days, this newsletter is like my little corner store on the internet. And if I take care of my customers (that’s you!), you’ll take care of me.

This week we’re talking goals, where I’m headed first in the new year, and a glimpse at a concept I’ve been working on the last several months.

Let’s get to it!

Conveniently,
Mike

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Making goals smarter

The new year is nearly upon us, and that means it’s time for new habits, new routines, and a new you. Or at least making plans to do so.

In the retail world this is when certain vice categories take a small dip in sales to start the year, before then generally returning to normal as the hype of resolutions wears off for many.

I’m not here as your life or wellness coach – though I’ll personally be trying to do more walking in 2025 – but I can tell you about the impact of setting smart business goals inside your organization.

Setting the right goals is smart for business, but the goals must be S.M.A.R.T. too.

If you’re not familiar with this term, or you’ve forgotten the corporate training, it’s an acronym that stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound.

• Specific - Be clear about what exactly you want to do.

• Measurable - Attach a metric so you can monitor progress.

• Achievable - Choose a goal that’s possible to attain, yet still challenging.

• Relevant - Ensure your work contributes to larger priorities and plans.

• Time-bound - Set a timeframe to drive urgency and maintain focus.

The reason most resolutions don’t stick is because they’re not S.M.A.R.T.

Many resolutions are based on hope. In the business world, hope is not a plan.

Though many dread this time of year for fear of setting goals, planning out S.M.A.R.T. goals was one of my favorite team activities. Why? It got everyone on the same page, created alignment with our larger company strategy, and gave each person something to work towards that they could call their own.

In my last retail job, we had identified loyalty members and digital orders as key measures in our flywheel. If we added more members, that would drive more orders. And we if drove more orders, that would produce more loyalty members. They had a symbiotic relationship.

When it came time to set goals for the upcoming year, we would always build plans around each of these. I’ll walk you through the last loyalty goal I set as an example of defining a S.M.A.R.T. goal.

EXAMPLE:
Grow loyalty membership by 20% versus prior year by the end of the fiscal year.

This goal is S.M.A.R.T. for the following reasons:

• Specific - The loyalty membership will grow by 20% over the prior year.

• Measurable - We knew last year’s number and could measure our membership growth at year-end.

• Achievable - With a few year’s of historical figures, we can determine how reasonable this growth rate might be (it was achievable, but certainly still challenging in the fifth year of the program).

• Relevant - Like I said earlier, growing membership in the program created lots of opportunities across the business.

• Time-bound - This one was a year-long goal, but it also easily gives way to breaking that target down into quarterly and monthly goals as well

I’ll admit I’ve picked an easier example, as the data was widely accessible and we managed the business based on those numbers.

If your area of focus feels more ambiguous or lacks readily available information, you can still apply these same sorts of guidelines – you may just have to stretch your thinking.

Even without an inherent business metric, you can make something measurable by counting your progress (ie. Conduct a meet and greet with 3 people per quarter. Watch 1 webinar each month to sharpen my skills in an area relevant to my professional development.)

When you can determine these for yourself, you’ve instantly set milestones and checkpoints throughout the year to mark progress. And when your whole team is engaged in the process you can thread them all together for even tighter collaboration.

So while resolutions may be popular this time of year, I’d encourage you to work smarter. It’s actually a lot easier than hoping for a good result.

Have you set S.M.A.R.T. goals for 2025? Need some inspiration for how to apply them in your business? I’d be happy to chat. Email [email protected] and we can talk. 👨🏻‍💻