Many business owners get stuck in the day-to-day details of their business, particularly when they don’t have defined goals to provide to their team. This is frustrating, both for the team and for the business owner. Team members want to help you build a successful business, and you want to be able to step away from the company and take a big-picture view.
So, how do you accomplish business growth that also provides you with personal freedom?
The key to making the shift is setting clear goals and implementing the right systems to achieve them.
In a recent interview, Ken Trupke of Clarity Advisors and Adi Klevit of Business Success Consulting Group explored how business owners can step out of day-to-day operations and achieve sustainable growth by setting strategic goals, designing effective processes, leveraging automation, and empowering their teams.
Read on to find actionable steps you can take to grow your business while stepping away from the daily grind.
Goal Setting Supports Scalability
A significant challenge business owners face is an overwhelming number of to-dos and the lack of clear, strategic goals to guide growth. Without well-defined objectives, business owners can find themselves stuck in daily operations rather than steering the company forward. Effective goal setting provides clarity, direction, and a roadmap for sustainable scaling.
Your goal-setting framework should include:
Clear objectives: Define what success looks like in measurable terms.
Time-bound milestones: Establish deadlines to maintain accountability and progress.
Actionable steps: Break larger goals into smaller, achievable tasks.
Regular review and adaptation: Assess progress and adjust strategies as needed.
Step 1: Set defined goals for business growth
One of the most effective ways to ensure progress is to establish SMART goals. These are goals that are:
- Specific,
- Measurable,
- Achievable,
- Relevant, and
- Time-bound
How to Set SMART Goals:
- Identify key growth areas: Determine which aspects of the business need improvement, such as increasing revenue, expanding customer reach, or improving operational efficiency.
- Define success metrics: Quantify your goals with specific numbers. For example, “Increase monthly revenue by 20% within six months.”
- Ensure goals are realistic: Set challenging yet attainable objectives based on current resources and market conditions.
- Align goals with the company vision: Make sure each goal contributes to the long-term business strategy.
- Set deadlines and track progress: Use project management tools to monitor goal completion and adjust as needed.
By defining measurable goals, business owners create a foundation for structured growth rather than reactive decision-making.
Step 2: Get your team on board
Now that you’ve established your goals for the business, it’s time to get the team on board.
As Ken noted, it’s the leader’s job to define what the goal is and then the team’s job to figure out how to accomplish it. Talk to your team about the goal, share how you plan to measure goal completion, and then work with your team to determine how it can be accomplished.
This is where many leaders could get into the weeds and begin to micromanage. However, if you work with your team and everyone is on board with accomplishing the goal, you will spur creativity instead of creating a situation where the team blindly follows instructions.
Step 3: Document Processes to Support Your Goals
The next step is building business systems. One of the simplest ways to create a system is to establish documentation of existing systems to help create a process and to assist you in pinpointing any areas where automation can be implemented.
We have written many articles detailing how to build business systems. Please feel free to use this article and this one to help you build and implement business processes. Or get in touch with the team at Business Success Consulting Group to begin building and implementing processes and procedures.
Step 4: Implement Automation
Now that you have documented your business processes consider improving them and making them more efficient by using automation. Utilizing automated processes like drip campaigns, automated billing, and more can free up your time and that of your employees to accomplish high-level tasks.
Step 5: Utilize Systems to Delegate Tasks
If you, as a business owner, have consistently been enmeshed in the day-to-day functioning of your company, then you need to start delegating. Goal setting, process documentation, automation, and implementing business systems will all help you step away so that you can build your business as a visionary. However, if you only build systems and do not use them to delegate those daily grind tasks you’ve been focused on, you still will not be able to step back.
It’s time to empower your team and delegate activities that do not fall under your purview as leadership.
Delegation can be difficult, particularly if it’s something you enjoy doing. One effective method of determining what to delegate is to look at payscale. Would you pay an employee your salary to do the work you’re considering delegating? If not, then you need to hire and train someone to take on the task or assign it to an existing employee - perhaps someone whose time has been freed up due to the automation you implemented in step 4.
Step 6: Monitor Progress and Adapt
Setting goals and implementing processes is not a one-time effort. As your business grows, you must continue to evaluate and refine your goals and systems. One method for ensuring things are going as planned is to monitor your KPIs and metrics to ensure your team is on track.
Each business must consider different metrics. However, there are some that most companies must keep track of. These include:
- Total revenue
- Gross profit margin
- Net profit
- Operating profit margin
- Customer acquisition cost
- Customer lifetime value
These and many others are key indicators of your business performance. Determine what you will track and keep on top of those metrics and KPIs to ensure your business is running smoothly.
Step 7: Schedule Regular Reviews
Goals and processes must be reviewed regularly to ensure these systems continue to work for your dynamic business. Schedule a time every few months to review your business goals and systems, measure them against existing metrics, run through them, and modify them as needed.
The ultimate goal is to shift from working in the business to working on the business. When the right goals and systems are in place, business owners gain the freedom to scale, take on new opportunities, and enjoy a more balanced entrepreneurial journey.
Are you looking to build business systems that support scalability and help you achieve your goals? Get in touch with the experts at Business Success Consulting Group today!
