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A measurable goal has a measure, a baseline from the records, a target and a date; the monthly step it implies, followed back through the funnel, shows whether it is ambitious or impossible.
Paper packet. Every task here also exists on screen, where it is checked automatically; answers written on paper are not assessed by Nydus. When you are back at a device, enter your answers there.
You will write goals with a measure, a baseline, a target and a date, pick out the goals that could be checked, turn a goal into its monthly step, work out what the step asks of the funnel, and set monthly targets on the way to it.
The first unit chose where to compete. This unit is about where the business intends to get to, and how it will know — starting with a goal worth the name. It uses the funnel from the customers course and the monthly review from the money course.
| Term | What it means |
|---|---|
| Measure | What the goal counts: cleans a month, accounts, percent on time. |
| Baseline | Where the measure stands now, taken from the records. |
| Target | Where the measure should be. |
| Date | When the target should be reached. |
| Monthly step | The rise needed each month to reach the target on a straight path. |
'Grow the business' feels like a goal and cannot be checked. By June, did it grow? By how much counts? Nobody can say, so nobody can tell whether the plan is working until it is too late to change it.
Bright Home Cleaning's version: move-out cleans from 20 a month now to 32 a month by the end of June. It has a measure (move-out cleans a month), a baseline (20), a target (32) and a date (end of June). On 30 June anyone can check it.
The baseline is the part owners leave out, and it matters: 32 a month is a modest goal from 28 and a heroic one from 12. Write it from the records, not from memory. And choose one measure the goal is really about — a goal with five measures is five goals, and none of them gets attention.
A goal then has to be tested against what it demands:
$$\text{monthly step} = \frac{\text{target} - \text{baseline}}{\text{months}}$$
From 20 to 32 in six months is 2 more cleans each month, and if one inquiry in three becomes a booked clean, that is 6 more inquiries every month than the month before.
Another way: table
Wishes and goals.
| Wish | Goal |
|---|---|
| Grow the business | Move-out cleans from 20 to 32 a month by June |
| Be more reliable | Bikes ready on time from 75% to 90% by December |
| Get café customers | Café accounts from 4 to 12 by December |
Another way: steps
Name one measure. Pick the figure that would show the strategy is working — move-out cleans for a business whose position is move-out cleans, café accounts for a potter aiming at cafés. Revenue is tempting but mixes everything together; a measure tied to the position shows whether the position is working.
Write the baseline from the records. Last month, or the average of the last three, taken from the bookings or the register, not from memory.
Set the target and the date together. A target without a date can always be reached later; a date without a target can never be missed.
Work the step and what it demands. Divide the gap by the months, then follow the step back through the funnel: how many inquiries, visits or conversations does one more customer take?
Check the goal two ways. On paper: the baseline plus the steps must reach the target on the date. In the business: each monthly step must have a source — a channel, a partner, a promotion — that can plausibly produce it. A step with no source is a hope, and the goal should be rewritten before it starts, not explained away when it fails.
A goal six months away is easy to agree with and hard to act on. Break it into steps. From 20 to 32 in six months is 2 more move-out cleans each month: 22, 24, 26, 28, 30, 32. Each month now has its own target, checkable at the monthly review, and a first month that comes in at 21 is a signal worth acting on in February rather than a surprise in June.
Straight steps are the simplest path, not the only one. A business whose trade is seasonal should shape the steps to the seasons: a garden designer's goal for the year will rise steeply in spring and flatten in winter. What matters is that each month has a figure written down before the month starts.
Every extra customer comes through a funnel, and the funnel sets the real cost of a goal. If one inquiry in three becomes a booked clean, 2 more cleans a month needs 6 more inquiries a month than the month before; by the sixth month the business needs 36 more inquiries a month than it gets today. Written that way, the goal becomes a question about channels: can the property managers, the website and the reviews produce that many?
Sometimes they can. Sometimes the answer is to work on the funnel itself — a better quote, a faster reply — so that one inquiry in two becomes a booking, and the same goal needs only 4 more inquiries a month. And sometimes the honest answer is a later date. Any of the three is better than a goal that silently depends on a channel doubling overnight.
A small business can pursue two or three goals at once, rarely more. Each goal needs someone's attention every month, and in a business of one or two people that attention is the scarcest resource there is. Five goals set in January usually become one goal pursued and four forgotten by March.
Choose the goals that follow from the position: for Bright Home Cleaning, move-out cleans and the pass rate, because together they are the position. A goal that pulls away from the position — 'start window cleaning' — is a strategy change in disguise, and should be decided as one.
A goal is only as good as the review that reads it. At each monthly review, put the month's figure beside the month's target and ask the review's usual question: if it moved, why? A month that beats the step tells the owner which channel is working; a month that falls short points at one to fix. Two short months in a row are the moment to decide, deliberately, whether to change the plan or the date — never the moment to quietly stop looking at the goal.
A goal pulls on whatever it measures, and the pull can go wrong. A cleaner told to raise move-out cleans from 20 to 32 a month can hit the number by rushing each job, and the pass rate — the reason customers choose the business — falls. A repair shop told to raise the share of bikes ready on time can hit it by promising later days, which customers like less. Neither owner meant that to happen; the goal simply rewarded the number and nothing else.
Two habits guard against it. The first is a companion measure that must not get worse while the goal is pursued: move-out cleans rise to 32 while the pass rate stays at or above 95 percent; bikes on time rise to 90 percent while the promised turnaround stays at two days. The companion is written into the goal itself, so that meeting the number by damaging the position does not count as meeting the goal.
The second is to look at how the target was reached, not only whether it was. A month that beats its step through one enormous order from a new customer is different from a month that beats it through steady growth from the usual channels, and the next month's plan should treat them differently. The monthly review's question — why did the figure move? — does this work, as long as it is asked of good months as well as bad ones.
Goals also need a stopping rule. If the business changes course — a new position, a lost partner, a move — the old goal should be retired openly and a new one written, rather than left on the wall to be quietly ignored. An owner who keeps a record of the goals set each year, and what happened to each, learns faster than one who only remembers the ones that were met.
The owner of a two-person dog-walking business wrote 'double the business this year' at the top of her plan. In February a friend who ran a small accounting practice asked her four questions: double what, from what, to what, by when?
She settled on dogs walked each week, because walks were the whole business. The baseline, from her booking app, was 64 walks a week; doubling meant 128 by December, ten months away, a step of about 6.4 more walks each week every month. Her records showed that about one inquiry in four became a regular client walked three times a week, so each client added 3 walks and took 4 inquiries. Six more walks a month meant 2 new clients, 8 more inquiries a month, compounding to about 80 more a month by December — against the 12 she was getting.
That settled it. She kept the measure and the date, cut the target to 96 walks a week, which needed a step of about 3 walks and 4 more inquiries each month, and put a sign-up flyer in the two vets' offices that already sent her clients. By December she was walking 101 dogs a week and had hired a third walker in October, three months earlier than she had planned, because the monthly figures showed the growth arriving on schedule.
A business plan that asks for money is read for its targets as much as its forecasts: a lender wants to see what the owner expects to count, and by when, so that progress can be checked. Goals written with a measure, a baseline, a target and a date are the kind a lender can follow.
A goal just needs to be ambitious. It needs to be checkable: measure, baseline, target, date.
The starting point is obvious. Write the baseline from the records.
More measures make a better goal. Five measures are five goals.
Set it and check at the end. Monthly steps show early whether it is on track.
A goal that needs twice the inquiries will find them. Work out where they will come from first.
Start from the wish.
$\text{more café customers}$
No measure, baseline, target or date.
Take the baseline from her records.
$4 \text{ café accounts}$
Not from memory.
Set the target and date.
$12 \text{ by December, nine months away}$
All four parts now.
Work the monthly step.
$(12 - 4) \div 9 \approx 0.9$
About one new café a month.
Check it against the channel.
$\text{shop-fitter referrals bring about one a month}$
Ambitious but possible.
Write the goal.
$20 \to 32 \text{ move-outs a month by June}$
Six months away.
Find the gap.
$32 - 20 = 12$
Target less baseline.
Find the monthly step.
$12 \div 6 = 2$
Two more each month.
Find the extra inquiries a month.
$2 \times 3 = 6$
One inquiry in three becomes a clean.
Find the extra by June.
$12 \times 3 = 36 \text{ more a month than now}$
What the channels must produce.
Test the channels.
$\text{two new property managers, 20 a month each}$
Enough, if both sign up by March.
Name the measure.
$\text{bikes ready on the promised day}$
The heart of the position.
Take the baseline.
$75 \text{ percent last quarter}$
From the job cards.
Set the target and date.
$90 \text{ percent by December}$
Nine months away.
Find the gap in points.
$90 - 75 = 15$
Percentage points.
Spread it over quarters.
$15 \div 3 = 5 \text{ points a quarter}$
80, 85, 90.
Name the source of each step.
$\text{parts stocked for the ten commonest jobs}$
Late parts cause most misses.
Put it in the review.
$\text{on-time share beside its quarterly target}$
Read every month.
Write a goal from the baseline.
$30 \to 50 \text{ bags a week by the end of summer}$
Ten weeks away.
Find the weekly step.
$(50 - 30) \div 10 = 2$
Two more bags each week.
Name the source.
Bright Home Cleaning's owner writes four goals for the half-year. Which one is measurable?
Complete the worked solution: Bright Home Cleaning aims to go from $21$ move-out cleans a month to $45$ in $6$ months. About one inquiry in $2$ becomes a booked clean. Check what the goal asks.
Take the baseline from the target.
$45 - 21 =$ g
The gap to close.
Divide the gap by the months.
$(\text{gap}) \div 6 =$ m
More cleans each month.
Multiply the step by the inquiries a clean takes.
$(\text{step}) \times 2 =$ q
Extra inquiries needed each month.
Set that against the channels.
$\text{can the property managers send that many more?}$
The honesty test of the goal.
Adjust the date if they cannot.
$\text{a later date, not a vaguer goal}$
Keep it checkable.
Northside Repairs' goal: 'Bikes ready on the promised day, from $69$ percent this quarter to $94$ percent by the end of the year.' Match each phrase to the part of the goal it is.
| Measure | Baseline | Target | Date | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bikes ready on the promised day | ||||
| $69$ percent this quarter | ||||
| $94$ percent | ||||
| By the end of the year |
Maya's list of goals for next year. Mark every goal someone could check on its date.
This task has no paper form; do it on a device.
Neighborhood Kitchen's goal: catering orders from $22$ a month now to $37$ a month in $5$ months. By how many orders a month must catering grow each month to get there on a straight path?
Answer:
Maya's goal needs $6$ more café accounts each month. About one café inquiry in $2$ becomes an account, and she gets $25$ café inquiries a month now, which already bring her current accounts. Fill in what the goal asks of her funnel.
| Amount | |
|---|---|
| Extra inquiries needed each month | |
| Inquiries needed each month in all |
A yoga teacher's goal was 'get more students'. Her classes average $70$ students a week, and she rewrites the goal as $84$ a week in $7$ weeks. Fill in what the goal means.
| Amount | |
|---|---|
| Gap to close, students a week | |
| Weekly step | |
| Rise as a percentage of now |
Lesson test: one question per skill, one attempt each, no hints. Your answers are checked when you submit.
Bright Home Cleaning does $22$ move-out cleans a month and aims to add $3$ more each month for three months. Fill in the target for each month.
| Target, move-out cleans | |
|---|---|
| Month 1 | |
| Month 2 | |
| Month 3 |
You can turn 'grow the business' into a goal anyone could check, and test whether it can be met. Tell someone why the baseline matters as much as the target. Next: a measure that moves before the result does.
17. Your turn: Monica's weekly bag, step 3
$\text{a sign-up sheet at the booth}$
Each step needs one.