SETTING OBJECTIVES / GOALS OF THE ENTREPRENEUR

Accelerate your business with these expert tips on "Goal Setting / Entrepreneurial Goals". Analyse and discover this TIP!

Why is it important for an entrepreneur to set objectives or goals?

It is important for an entrepreneur to set objectives and goals for several reasons:

1. Clarity and focus: Setting clear objectives and goals allows entrepreneurs to focus on what is important for the growth and success of their business. This helps them avoid distractions and stay focused on the key actions that will drive their business forward.
2. Planning and organisation: By having well-defined objectives and goals, entrepreneurs can develop concrete action plans and set priorities. This makes it easier to allocate resources, time and effort efficiently and effectively.
3. Measuring progress: Objectives and targets provide a framework for assessing performance and monitoring progress over time. This allows entrepreneurs to identify areas for improvement and adjust their strategies where necessary.
4. Motivation and inspiration: Objectives and goals act as a driving force to maintain motivation and commitment throughout the entrepreneurial process. They help entrepreneurs visualise future success and provide them with the energy and perseverance to overcome obstacles and challenges.
5. Alignment with personal values: Setting objectives and goals aligned with the entrepreneur's personal values ensures that the business is built on a solid and meaningful foundation. This leads to greater satisfaction and long-term success, as the entrepreneur is working on something he or she is passionate about and believes in.
6. Communication and teamwork: Setting clear objectives and goals makes it easier to communicate expectations to team members, partners and investors. This allows for better coordination and collaboration, which can improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the team as a whole.
7. Attracting investors and financing: Investors and financial institutions look for entrepreneurs with clear and well-structured objectives and goals. Setting solid objectives and goals can increase the chances of obtaining financing and backing for the business.

In a nutshellSetting objectives and goals is critical to an entrepreneur's success, as it provides focus, direction and a framework for decision-making and evaluation of progress. In addition, helps to maintain motivation and align the business with the entrepreneur's personal values, which can lead to greater long-term success.

How should an entrepreneur mentor set the goals of his mentee entrepreneur?

An entrepreneur mentor should follow a structured process to help his or her mentee entrepreneur set effective goals.

HERE ARE SOME KEY STEPS TO ACHIEVE THIS:

1. Knowing the entrepreneur: Understand the entrepreneur's specific needs, aspirations and challenges. Ask open-ended questions to get a clear picture of their current situation and long-term goals.
2. Set SMART objectives (see+): Help the entrepreneur set goals that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound (SMART). Ensure that each goal is clear, realistic and aligned with the entrepreneur's needs and aspirations.
3. Identify obstacles and constraints (see+): Work with the entrepreneur to identify challenges and obstacles that might hinder the achievement of his or her goals. Differentiate between obstacles and constraints to avoid frustration and ensure that they are adequately addressed.
4. Highlight strengths and resources (see+): Help the entrepreneur to identify their existing skills, talents and resources that can contribute to the achievement of their goals. This can boost their confidence and motivation.
5. Generate options and alternatives: Stimulate the entrepreneur's creativity by suggesting different approaches and strategies to address obstacles and achieve their goals. Use powerful, hypothetical questions to expand their perspectives and consider new possibilities.
6. Create an action plan (see+): Work with the entrepreneur to develop a detailed action plan that outlines the specific steps they need to take to achieve their goals. Include realistic deadlines and monitoring mechanisms to measure progress.
7. Establish accountability and follow-up: Agree on a regular follow-up process to review the entrepreneur's progress towards his or her goals, provide feedback and adjust the action plan as necessary. This will help keep the entrepreneur focused and committed to his or her goals.
8. Provide support and guidance: Provide emotional and practical support to the entrepreneur throughout the process. Share your own experiences and knowledge, and connect the entrepreneur with relevant resources and contacts that can be useful along the way.

By following these steps, an entrepreneur mentor can effectively guide their mentee in defining and achieving goals that lead to success and personal and professional growth.

An entrepreneur mentor can help their mentee to select and set effective targets using three filtering techniques: SMART, PURE and CLEAR. Each technique is based on different criteria to ensure that targets are appropriate and effective.

1. SMART target filtering technique: This technique focuses on setting objectives that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-bound. These criteria ensure that the objective is clear and well-defined, that it can be measured and evaluated, and that it is achievable within a specific time frame.
2. PURE target filtering technique: Objectives should be Positively stated, Well understood, Relevant and Ethical. This technique seeks to ensure that the objective is positively and clearly stated, relevant to the entrepreneur and aligned with ethical practices.
3. CLEAR target filtering technique: Targets should be Challenging, Legal, Environmentally Friendly, Appropriate and Recorded in writing. This technique promotes the selection of objectives that are challenging, legally compliant, environmentally friendly and aligned with the entrepreneur's goals.

The text also provides advice on how to approach goal setting within a mentoring programme. At the beginning of a session, the mentor should ask the entrepreneur what his or her objectives for the session are and how they relate to his or her ultimate goal.

It is important to explore the entrepreneur's values and objectives, and ensure that they are aligned before starting to define and filter objectives.

Two types of goals or objectives:

• Final goal/objective: It is the long-term goal of the mentoring process, providing direction and inspiration.
• Performance targets/objectives linked to performance: These are short-term objectives that depend entirely on the entrepreneur and bring him/her closer to the final goal.

The mentor should help the entrepreneur to identify his or her potential and internal strengths to reach the goal and overcome the gap that separates the entrepreneur from his or her goals. The entrepreneur's decisions and results should contribute to the achievement of the set goal.

The mentor agrees on the objectives of the mentoring process/session with the entrepreneur. Once the contract is signed, the execution of the mentoring relationship itself begins.

To identify the purpose of each session, and try to solve the most important problem that the entrepreneur has... we recommend using the excellent TRELLO tool of the entrepreneur. (In this TIP (see+) there are tips).

The entrepreneur puts in his TRELLO all the things that concern him and that he has to do and that take more than one hour of dedication and that, therefore, need to be planned before they are undertaken: 

1. Column the things that worry the entrepreneur, that he/she has in his/her head, pending issues to carry out (that take more than 1 hour to carry out), ordered by importance.
2. Column with the most urgent and important.
3. Column with what is important, urgent and also what is blocking the entrepreneur from moving forward and needs to be discussed with his mentor = SESSION OBJECTIVES.
4. Recurrent, repetitive activities.
5. What is underway.
6. What has already been done, closed and fulfilled.

When reviewing their TRELLO, the entrepreneur shares it with their mentor in order to be clear about what they should resolve in the mentoring session.

SELECT THE TARGET: FILTER!!!

To filter the identified targets and select the one to be addressed in the session we use 3 techniques:

• Smart.
• Pure.
• Clear.  

SMART TARGET FILTERING TECHNIQUE:

1. Specific. 
2. Measurable. 
3. Achievable (achievable, attainable). 
4. Realistic. 
5. Timing. 

PURE TARGET FILTERING TECHNIQUE:

1. Positively stated: "don't tell me what you don't want to do, but what you do want to achieve".  
2. Well understood. 
3. Relevant, is it important to you?
4. Ethical. 

CLEAR TARGET FILTERING TECHNIQUE: 

1. Challenging. 
2. Legal (legal). 
3. Harmless to the environment, or ecological (environment, people, values...) (environmentally sound). 
4. Appropriate: aligned with what the entrepreneur wants. 
5. Recorded in writing (recorded): write down the objective. 

TIPS FOR GOAL SETTING WITHIN THE MENTORING PROGRAMME:

At the beginning of a mentoring session, and after you have created trustI recommend you to check the TRELLO together.

START WITH A STANDARD QUESTION:

• What is your goal for this session?
• What do you want to achieve after this session or with this process?
• Why do you want to go through this process?
• How does this objective relate to the final goal?

We must explore the values and objectives of the entrepreneur. Actually, the order will be set by the entrepreneur. However, it is advisable to start by investigating and raising awareness of the values that currently guide their lives. Because the values cannot be changed, i.e. we have the values we have, we don't choose them! Whereas the objectives can be modified or changed at any time.

Values and objectives must be aligned, so if one of them changes... it will be the objective. So why waste time defining and filtering the objectives without being clear whether or not they are aligned with the values? It is in the values that the entrepreneur will find the MOTIVATION that will drive him/her towards the objective. Once the values are investigated, mainly with the famous question "what for", you will be ready to continue with the filtering and definition of objectives. 

THERE ARE TWO TYPES OF GOALS OR OBJECTIVES, WHICH, DEPENDING ON THE CASE, MAY OR MAY NOT COINCIDE, ALTHOUGH THEY ARE USUALLY DIFFERENT:

FINAL GOAL / FINAL OBJECTIVE:

It is the ultimate goal of the mentoring process, usually covering a longer period of time (long term) and usually not solely dependent on the entrepreneur. It is the objective that sets the direction of the mentoring process, it provides inspiration. In entrepreneurs who already have a project, this final goal will be to create my company successfully or to overcome the valley of death as soon as possible.

PERFORMANCE TARGETS/OBJECTIVES LINKED TO PERFORMANCE:

These are the intermediate goals (or intermediate stages) that do depend entirely on the entrepreneur and bring him/her closer to the final goal, and are usually located in the short term. They are the ones that will define what needs to be done in each mentoring session. The performance goals do depend on the entrepreneur, they are the ones to which he/she must commit him/herself. The entrepreneur is invited to record in writing his/her goal as formulated and to verbalise it in a SYNTHETIC AND SUMMARY way starting with an infinitive verb. 

The objective that the entrepreneur sets is the focus of the whole session. With practice we will be able to solve several objectives in the same session. The mentor helps to identify the potential, internal strengths of the entrepreneur to reach the goal, and helps to overcome the GAP that separates the entrepreneur from his/her goals.

• The decisions to be taken by the entrepreneur should contribute to the achievement of the objective.
• The results and achievements attained by the entrepreneur have to contribute to the achievement of the objective.

EXPECTED RESULTS OF MENTORING ON THE ENTREPRENEUR ARE:

• The entrepreneur achieves the goal he or she has set, aspirations, dreams.
• Development of the entrepreneur's potential, discovering new skills and turning them into new competences.
• Development of effective habits such as strategic thinking, formulation of objectives

GOAL SETTING - 6TH ENTREPRENEURIAL COMPETENCE THAT AN ENTREPRENEUR MUST WORK ON

The first step towards the success of an entrepreneurial project is a correct definition of business objectives, as they are the best and fastest way to obtain results with our actions. The entrepreneur has to learn to set objectives and goals for himself.

Initially you will do this with the help of a mentor, but in the future you need to develop this capacity in order to be able to set goals and establish action plans to achieve them. There are entrepreneurs who work very hard every day and go to bed exhausted, but get nowhere, because they fail to set goals.

When you set a goal it seems that everything conspires against you... don't worry, it's always Murphy's fault. Practice the mindfulness (+) helps to focus on the here and now in order to achieve the goal.

Many entrepreneurs suffer from dispersion, they are not concentrated on the same activity for long enough, they jump too quickly from one place to another without going in depth. Things done half-heartedly are no good and haunt us when we are starting out. We have to close things. Entrepreneurs work today but visualise their future to guide their actions. (see+ TIP vision).

Generally speaking, we set quantifiable goals and objectives, but we must seek or set objectives that strike a balance between not planning and over-planning. Targets do not guarantee the success of our businesses but they do help to make management more cost-effective and efficient!!!

TO IMPROVE GOAL-SETTING COMPETENCE AS AN ENTREPRENEUR, IT IS IMPORTANT TO TAKE THE FOLLOWING STEPS:

1. Know your vision: Before setting goals, it is important to have a clear vision of what you want to achieve in the long term. Having a clear vision will help you set goals that are aligned with your vision.
2. Be specific: Objectives should be specific and detailed so that they can be accurately measured and evaluated. The more specific your objectives are, the easier it will be for you and your team to work towards achieving them.
3. Be realistic: Goals should be achievable and realistic. Setting goals that are too ambitious or unattainable can be demotivating and can lead to frustration and failure.
4. Set deadlines: Objectives should be time-bound and realistic so that they can be measured and evaluated. Deadlines will help you to stay focused and take action to achieve your goals.
5. Keep track of your goals: Once you have set your goals, you should keep track of them and regularly evaluate your progress. If you find that you are not making progress towards your goals, you may need to adjust them.
6. Learn from your mistakes: Mistakes are a natural part of the goal-setting process. It is important to learn from your mistakes and use that information to adjust your goals and improve your approach.
7. Seek feedback: Ask for feedback from your team or from people from confidence about your goals and progress. Feedback will help you identify areas for improvement and give you a broader perspective on your performance.

By following these steps, you can improve your goal-setting competence as an entrepreneur and increase your chances of success in your business.

THE ENTREPRENEURIAL BEHAVIOURS ASSOCIATED WITH THIS COMPETENCE ARE AS FOLLOWS:

• Plan actions to achieve the desired goals.
• Persuasion to involve the whole team and all those who can help us achieve the objective.
• Persistence in working towards the goal.
• Fulfilment of commitments to follow up the work.

To set objectives it is essential to define the what, the when and the who, as well as analysing the environment and the resources we have. Review your objectives every day before starting to work in order to be clear about your priorities and where to start, what to finish...

Strive to practice the typical behaviours of this competition for 21 days in a row so that they become a habit and you always perform them effortlessly.

CREATE CHALLENGING GOALS FOR THE ENTREPRENEUR:

"If you want to build a ship, don't start by looking for wood, cutting planks or distributing the work, but you must first evoke in men the longing for the free and wide sea...". - Antoine de Saint-Exupery.

An exciting goal is required to mobilise the necessary energy to counteract the strong pull of our ingrained habits and make the sustained effort to change.

Creating challenging goals and a vision of where we want to go and what we want to achieve allows us to mobilise our energies and direct our actions to achieve them. The role of the mentor is to inspire the entrepreneur to set high goals and strive to achieve them.

"There is no fair wind for him who does not know where he is going" - Seneca

THESE POWERFUL QUESTIONS CAN HELP YOU SEE YOUR GOALS AND VISION:

• What do you expect from this process?
• What would you like to achieve?
• How can I help you?
• What do you want to start working on in our sessions?
• How will it benefit you?
• What would you like to achieve six months from now?
• What about five years from now?
• Project your mind to the moment when you have achieved it. 
• What do you feel / see / do / hear / that lets you know you have succeeded?
• How will you recognise that you have reached the goal?
• How could others know?
• What would they see?
• How does it feel to reach it?
• How do you feel now?
• What is success for you?
• How would you describe the situation, the state you would be grateful to reach?
• What were your dreams when you were a child? 
• Describe to me a morning when you wake up and you have achieved your dreams. Describe that day to me:
• • How do you feel?
  • What do you see?
  • What do you hear?
  • What are you doing?
• Place yourself at the end of your life/career. 
• What have been your most important achievements?
• Who have you become?
• How did you get the best out of yourself?

PRACTICAL EXAMPLES OF ENTREPRENEURIAL GOAL SETTING

EXAMPLE 1. HEALTH AND WELLNESS MOBILE APP STARTUP

SHORT-TERM OBJECTIVE (SMART):

• Specific: Develop and launch the first version of a mobile meditation and mindfulness application within three months.
• Measurable: Achieve 10,000 downloads in the first month after launch.
• Achievable: The development team has the necessary experience and resources to carry out the project.
• Realistic: The market shows a growing interest in health and wellness applications.
• Timing: Launch the application in three months.

LONG-TERM OBJECTIVE:

• To become the market leader in health and wellness applications in the region in the next three years.

EXAMPLE 2. E-COMMERCE COMPANY FOR SUSTAINABLE PRODUCTS

SHORT-TERM OBJECTIVE (SMART):

• Specific: Increase sales of sustainable products by 25% in the next quarter.
• Measurable: Measure sales growth through data analysis of the e-commerce platform.
• Achievable: Implement an effective digital marketing strategy to promote sustainable products.
• Realistic: The demand for sustainable and environmentally friendly products is on the rise.
• Timing: Achieve the increase in sales in the next quarter.

LONG-TERM OBJECTIVE:

• Establish the company as a benchmark in the market for sustainable and environmentally friendly products on a national level within the next five years.

EXAMPLE 3. CONSULTING FIRM FOR SMES

SHORT-TERM OBJECTIVE (SMART):

• Specific: Get five new customers in the next two months.
• Measurable: Measure the number of new contracts signed in the set period.
• Achievable: The sales team has the experience and skills to attract new customers.
• Realistic: The company has identified a potential niche market for its consultancy services.
• Timing: Achieve the five new customers in the next two months.

LONG-TERM OBJECTIVE:

• Expand the consulting firm regionally, opening offices in three more cities over the next three years.