If you want to relaunch your business or simply make it grow and evolve, taking advantage of weapons and possibilities that you may not even be aware of, an excellent solution to optimise the resources invested in the process is certainly to turn to a professional business consultant who can, with your help, recognise the weaknesses and strengths of your business, and help you redesign the structure to reach new customers and improve profits.
If a business consultant can help you to break into new markets, open new sales channels, redesign sales and purchasing departments, optimise internal and external resources and the professional figures to be involved, as well as in many other processes, all the work you are going to do together passes, first of all, from the definition of appropriate objectives. The entrepreneur’s objectives in relation to his business will be the key to optimising the choices that will have to be made and to adequately measuring the results.
But how do you set goals once you have decided to embark on this process of evolving your business? The business consultant will help you find objectives that are consistent with four fundamental characteristics: they must be quantifiable, i.e. expressed in numbers; they must be continuous over time, i.e. they must be monitored periodically to ascertain the evolution of results; they must be relevant, i.e. with a clear link to the decisions and strategies to be undertaken; and they must be significant for the particular business you are involved in. If the targets you set follow these simple rules, you will already have done most of the work towards improving your business.
With the help of quantifiable, ongoing, relevant and meaningful objectives you will be able to identify some key aspects of the renewal process that will characterise the future of your business. First, you will be able to have a clearer vision for your business. The vision is the overarching goal of your business, to which every choice should be directed. One of the most interesting and noble examples of a vision, to give you a concrete example, is that of Patagonia, whose aim is to make an important contribution to safeguarding the planet, through the sale of technical clothing made in a sustainable manner, and with ongoing initiatives to raise awareness of ecological problems and the preservation of the natural environment. You don’t have to approach a giant like Patagonia, but your business, no matter how small, has the potential to have a respectable vision that is consistent with your values and those of your customers.
Once you have a clear vision, together with your business consultant, you can establish the mission of your business. The mission includes the main characteristics of your business, which can help you to achieve the vision one day. What is the value you offer with your product or service, how do you reach your customers, how do you distinguish yourself from competitors entering the same market as you. Misison is the lifeblood of your business plan, and it is evident how important it is that you know how to design it in detail, and possibly with the help of someone with professional experience in the field.
Once you have defined where you want to go, vision, and how you want to do it, mission, it is time to define short and long term objectives, which can help you measure the validity of the choices you have made so far, and to correct the course with the new choices you will make, making as few mistakes as possible, and optimising the time and resources at your disposal. Long-term objectives indicate what you need to achieve within 5 years. The business advisor will help you to define them, after having analysed your business in depth. At the moment, a general but common long-term goal might be to overcome the difficulties arising from the economic crisis caused by the events of 2020, or to enter new markets, perhaps by strengthening the online presence of your business, in order to have the means to reach potential customers outside your neighbourhood, city or country. More specific objectives could be clear margins or sales volumes to be achieved, or a reduction in costs.
Short-term objectives, which are in some ways similar in substance to those mentioned above, relate to all the choices and actions you will take in the near future, and should therefore be designed so that they do not conflict with each other, and above all that they are measurable in a relatively short time, so that you can change your strategy, with the help of your consultant, as you go along, if the choices made do not prove to be optimal for the nature of your business or the market you are targeting.
You now have an overview of what it means to define the vision, mission and short and long term goals for your business. While you are certainly the person who knows the business best, the help of a professional business consultant, who can look at the current state of the business objectively, is crucial in a process such as defining these aspects, a key activity in launching the new strategy that will propel your business to success.