As the visionary in your business, you likely don’t struggle with goal setting. It’s probably fairly easy for you to come up with amazing dream scenarios that bring you, your team and your clients to outer space. You’re scheming your way to greatness. However, sometimes bringing these grand ideas back down to earth and seeing them through fruition is a whole other story, isn’t it?

By now you know that your goals need to be clear, measurable and have time constraints in order to be achievable. You may have used the SMART method before—Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time-bound.

In a nutshell, the SMART goal setting acronym guides you in turning a wild dream into action items to be made true. For example:

“I’ll run a marathon one day” is a wild dream. To turn it into a reality with the SMART method, you’d frame it as:

• Specific: I will run the NY marathon in 2021.

• Measurable: One marathon is 26.1 miles—what’s more measurable than finishing it?!

• Attainable: If you were to say that you’ll run a marathon this weekend with no proper training, this simply wouldn’t happen. However, knowing that you will run it in 2021 gives you one year to prep for it, so you can break down this goal into a year-long plan to make it real.

• Relevant: Does it matter to you to run a marathon? Otherwise, there’s no point in making it a goal in the first place. The Relevance in your SMART goals allows you to zoom out and have a broader picture view of your life and how this one goal fits in.

• Time-bound: By setting the goal to run the NY marathon in 2021 and not some day, you’re adding a sense of urgency to it. 

Now, the SMART method has worked great for a lot of people for a long time. But what if I tell you we can take goal setting for your business to the next level?

The OMEN Method: Goal Setting For Small Businesses With Fix This Next

If you’re familiar with Fix This Next, this framework approaches business as a living entity: You go step by step, addressing needs as they come up depending on where you and your business are, and we use the Business Hierarchy of Needs as a tool to assess businesses, regardless of their size.

Curious about the Business Hierarchy of Needs? Check this blog and learn how to set priorities before you start setting goals: Fix This Next: 5 ways to prioritize your business needs according to the Business Hierarchy of Needs (BHN) .

The OMEN method takes this priority setting to the next level and complements it with specific goal setting tactics that allow you to track your progress and easily spot the areas that are lacking as you move along.

Once you’ve done the groundwork and know exactly where your focus is in goal setting, it’s time to get down to your planning. OMEN stands for Objective, Measurement, Evaluation and Nurture. Let’s break it down:

1. Objective

This is the tangible result you’re working towards. Whether it is to reach a 150% ROI, to have X
number of clients by the end of the year, or to launch a new product every quarter, your Objective
is the end goal you’ve set.

Worth noting: An objective is not “to sell more.” Your objective is “to sell 6 figures in Q4 of 2020” or
“to 2x our 2020 revenue in 2021.” Setting a specific target makes it abundantly clear whether you’re
getting closer or not. After all, how do you define “to sell more?”

You’re going to plan around your Objective, and everything you and your team do is meant to
support this objective. Every action that gets you closer to this objective is “moving the needle
forward.”

2. Measurement

Tied directly to your Objective is its measurement: How will you know you “made it?” What is the
specific outcome that will be considered successful? For example, this could be the number of
clients, the average order value, your retention rate or any other number that’s directly tied to your
success.

These are the specific metrics that will point to your accomplishing the goal. These are cold, hard
numbers to determine whether or not you hit your target.

3. Evaluation

Or Evaluation Frequency according to some Fix This Next authors and coaches. Once you’ve set a
goal, you must break it down into time blocks—weeks, months, quarters… It’s up to you and relates
to the size of your goal.

The point of this step is to keep your finger on the pulse of your goal setting. You don’t want the full
year to go by without having once checked your metrics and realize too late that you’re far off from
your target.

Periodical evaluation allows you to pivot as you see fit when things aren’t working. And it also allows
you to see what’s working and you can ramp up as it makes sense to do so.

4. Nurture

The Nurture step refers to how you will pivot or what adjustments you will make once you realize things
aren’t going exactly as planned—which will absolutely happen!

Nurturing refers to opening up to face the real issues in your processes and business as a whole instead
of stubbornly working to fit a square peg in a round hole. 

If You Don’t Know What Your End Goal Is, How Will You Know That You Reached It?

As a business owner, sometimes it feels like there are only two extremes: Going day by day and flying by the seat of your pants, or obsessively planning everything, both of which are equally as scary.

I love this quote from the Fix This Next book: 

“The only way to get unstuck quickly, to unlock a new level of growth for your business, is to stop wasting precious time and resources trying to fix the wrong problems, and instead zoom in on the right problem and fix it.”

While it’s normal to second guess yourself and feel doubtful at times, once you’ve taken ownership of your priorities and feel confident setting a path forward, goal setting—and achieving—can actually feel invigorating and the good kind of scary! You just need to figure out how to best utilize your resources and be ok with pivoting and adjusting as needed.

Looking to take your business to the next level? Book your discovery call! Together we can strategize your growth goals and scale your business.