Imagine starting the business of your dreams, but you can’t seem to get it to grow. Before you give up, consider a few examples of SMART objectives.

The SMART system can help you ensure your objectives are easy for employees to understand and achieve. When that’s the case, you may see more growth than you could ever expect.

Read on to learn more.

What Are SMART Objectives?

SMART objectives or SMART goals are goals that you set using a list of criteria. It can be easy to set a goal or objective that sounds good, but that doesn’t mean it will be easy to meet.

Consider the following aspects when setting objectives for yourself and your team.

S stands for specific, and that means your objectives shouldn’t be too vague or easy to misinterpret. For example, you may set a goal for a particular department rather than your entire company.

M stands for measurable, which makes tracking your progress easier. You might set an objective of contacting five new leads per day, and you can easily track that.

A means attainable, so you shouldn’t choose just any goal. Using the goal of sales leads, five is reasonable for most people, but a new sales rep may want to start with a goal of contacting three customers.

Relevant goals (the R in SMART) can help you keep yourself and your employees on track. You wouldn’t give a sales lead contact objective to your accountant, for example.

Finally, T stands for time-based. Instead of setting the objective to contact three leads, give that goal a deadline, such as the end of the workday.

5 Examples of SMART Objectives

If you want to use SMART goals in your business, it helps to consider a few examples. That way, you can figure out how to use the SMART strategy when setting goals for your team.

Once you go through a few examples of SMART objectives, you can set your own goals. You can use the system and change out the different elements for each new task.

Here are a few excellent examples of objectives that use the SMART system.

1. Revenue Objective

Most companies will probably set a revenue goal at some point to help with strategic planning. Perhaps your goal is to earn more, but you can get specific by setting the objective of $100,000.

That goal is already measurable, but you have to determine if it’s attainable. It might be for a business that already earns $80,000, but it will be less realistic for a business that brings in $50,000.

A revenue goal is already relevant to your business, but you need to set a deadline. So you set the objective to earn $100,000 by the end of this calendar year.

2. Productivity Goal

You might want to work to increase productivity in the office, and this is a great work goal for anyone. First, make it specific and state that you want the social media team to post five times per week.

That goal is already measurable, so you can move to attainable and consider if your team can do it. Assuming they can, you can make sure to assign that goal to the social media manager to make it relevant.

Maybe your accountant can create social media posts, but that’s not part of their job.

And you’ve already given the employee a deadline by stating you want them to post that much in a week. But you can make it even more time-based and state you want five posts a week ready to go the week before posting so that you don’t get behind.

3. Hiring Goal

If you ever need to hire someone, you can use SMART goals to help. First, consider the specifics, such as what role you need to fill and what type of person you’re looking for.

Next, you need to find a way to measure it, such as receiving an acceptance from a candidate. This goal can be hard to make attainable, but maybe you set a smaller objective of interviewing five people.

If you’re hiring for a specialized role, though, it may be more realistic to interview three candidates.

Of course, to make this goal relevant, you assign it to the hiring manager or another HR employee. You decide that you want to hire someone within a month to make the goal time-based.

4. Sales Goal

Most businesses will probably have a goal to increase sales at some point. Instead of making a general increase your goal, perhaps you set the goal to increase sales by 50%.

That makes the objective specific and measurable, but you have to determine if it’s realistic. It might be better to start with the objective to increase sales by 10%.

To ensure this objective is relevant, you’ll assign it to your sales manager and representatives. And you can set a deadline of the end of the month or the end of the quarter.

5. Teamwork Goal

Maybe you notice that one of your departments isn’t working well together. That’s a good chance to set a teamwork goal to help people work together better.

Make it specific, such as by setting the goal to get your marketing team to work together. You can then make it measurable by asking for two marketing employees to work together one day.

This is already pretty attainable, but you may need to adjust it depending on the team. Of course, teamwork is relevant to almost any member of your organization.

If you want to add a deadline, you may ask employees to work together for a full day by the end of the week.

Get SMART With Your Objectives

When working to grow your business, you should look at a few examples of SMART objectives. That way, you can figure out what types of goals to set and what parameters to include.

Some goals will be easier to conform to the SMART system than others. However, using at least a few parts of SMART for your goals can help you and your team get more done.

Do you want to learn more about running a company? Check out our business section.