How To Set Goals for Your Business or Department

[sdrummond]

As a leader in the trades, you are always busy; there are deals to close, emails to reply to, and fires to put out. However, there are enormous benefits to ensuring you put energy into proactive planning rather than being reactive. That’s difficult to do when you have so much going on, which is likely why it doesn’t happen.  We suggest blocking time in your calendar to evaluate how far you have come and set targets on where you want to be. 

December is already a time for personal reflection, looking forward to the coming year, and goal setting, making it the perfect time to do the same with your business. Setting goals can be incredibly successful and financially rewarding when taken seriously and planned adequately.  Here are three steps to set your company or department up for success next year. 

1. Create Specific and Reasonable Goals

While ‘make more money’ is probably at the top of your list, it isn’t specific enough to generate change.  Increased profits are generally attributed to either increases in sales or decreases in costs.  But even those goals aren’t specific enough. 

To determine specific areas your company can improve, you need actual data.  Luckily, you use ServiceTitan, and that data is readily available. Navigate to the ‘Reports’ module in your ServiceTitan account and browse the reports available to you. A good starting place would be to run:

• Revenue by Job Type
• Revenue by Business Unit
• Lead Generation
• Sales Metrics
• Productivity

Once you have some actual numbers for the last year in front of you, look for clues on areas for improvement. Significant impact can be achieved when you reduce your highest expenditures, even by a small percentage.  While decreasing hard costs is difficult, there are likely ample opportunities to make existing systems and processes more efficient. Similarly, look for job types and business units where you excelled in sales and then decide to focus on improving the lagging areas or make a hard push in your areas of success.

Before writing your goal in stone, ensure it is achievable with a reasonable amount of effort from your team. Keeping goals manageable will increase your chances of success unless you are willing to throw additional labor and resources toward a larger goal. For example, challenging your team to increase service agreements by five percent is a different target than launching a new maintenance program.   A collection of smaller, easier-to-action goals may be more financially beneficial than one significant goal.

Finally, before you put those reports away, pull benchmarks of data.  For example, if your goal is to decrease the number of warranty calls and rework, document the number of calls attended last year. Ensure you include that information to clarify expectations for your team. 

2. Outline Actionable Tasks

Outline tasks that your team can action to help you achieve your goals. While the goal is a high-level outcome, the task should answer the question ‘How?’ For example, suppose one of your goals is to reduce the expense of employee turnover. That will likely require multiple tasks, some of which may be:

• Survey and collect feedback from existing employees
• Set up a bonus program
• Hold exit interviews
• Set up an internal training program 

Consider this stage a brainstorming session, and jot down everything you think of that may contribute to your success.  This activity is also an excellent opportunity to gather other team members' input.

3. Assign Tasks and Timelines 

Now that you have exhausted your list of tasks, it is time to review them, select your top priorities, and assign them. While a team may be responsible for a goal as a group, tasks should be given to individuals.  

Spread the tasks across the individuals on the team to ensure everyone contributes and the heavy lifting isn’t left to just one person. Assigning individuals will also ensure everyone understands their direct responsibility and can be held accountable. 

Set a timeline for when each task should be completed to keep the project moving forward. Clear timelines are critical when follow-up tasks rely on the completion of an initial task.  Work should be ongoing, with an overall goal to have everything wrapped up by the end of the year. 

How ServiceTitan Can Help

ServiceTitan provides multiple features to help you maximize efficiency and generate revenue.   Once you have outlined your goals for next year, contact your Customer Success Manager for suggestions on how we can help you achieve them.

Remember to revisit your goals regularly and incorporate updates on specific tasks into your communication or meetings with your team.  When you combine clear and reasonable objectives backed by accurate data with employees who are held accountable, your success is imminent. 

What are your goals for next year? Share with us in the comments.

[LBabayan]

@sdrummond, thanks for sharing your invaluable business goals tips with us.

Your insights are incredibly valuable! 💡

[sdrummond]

Thank you!  Happy to hear it is helpful 🙂