Some of you may be coming off a great sales-kick-off and are one month into your 2021 business journey. You may have just closed out your fiscal year in January like our partners at Salesforce. Wherever you are, we are all one month into 2021 and there is a lot of work to do.

Laying the groundwork for 2021 success starts with setting goals to accomplish over the next 12 months. Planning out an entire year can be overwhelming, so we’ve put together a few tips to help jump start your journey to success in 2021.

Look Back Before Moving Forward

Lessons learned from previous years can tell you a lot. Start reviewing the goals you made last year and do the following:

• Honestly discuss if you met goals in every department.
• For the goals you did meet, how did you meet them?
• Evaluate the reasons why you did not meet certain goals.
  • Are you measuring the right things that impact your business?
  • Do your goals matter or do you need to overhaul your business plan/success metrics to truly measure success and close gaps?

Set SMART Goals In 2021

Look at KPIs and metrics from 2020 as your baseline for 2021. The new year is an opportunity to set new SMART goals. Break your plan down into goals and milestones to determine where you should be annually, quarterly, monthly, and weekly, and segment that by each department.

SMART goals are:

• Specific: Who, what, when, where, and why. A specific goal will typically include a number, geography, or impacted business unit.
• Measurable: You must be able to measure your progress. Establish a baseline and measure at least once per quarter.
• Attainable: Is this goal attainable? Setting ambitious goals is a great motivator– your goals should strive to challenge team performance, but do not set your team up to fail.
• Realistic: You must be cognizant of existing, new, and unforeseen obstacles – hello COVID-19. Are these goals realistic in our new normal?
• Timely: Deadlines are a must. Goals must be time-bound with a start and finish date. If the goal is not time-constrained, there will be no sense of urgency and, therefore, less motivation to achieve the goal..

For example, A SMART goal could be “We will increase revenue in North America or EMEA by 25% from last year’s ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue) by the end of second quarter.”

Focus on Employees

As you are developing your plan for 2021, bring your key people in – don’t make decisions in silos or attempt to transform a business without everyone on board. Engage executives, mid-management, and front-line staff before starting new projects, launching a new product or refining processes.

If you need help getting started reach out to Neocol’s Advisory and Change Management practice.  Our Salesforce certified experts will develop a strategic roadmap to align your IT infrastructure, drive adoption, and increase operational efficiency. Neocol’s advisory team has exceptional knowledge of Salesforce solutions; decades of industry experience and we provide strategic advisory services to plan your solution, drive end-user adoption, and smoothly manage change to achieve ROI.  We will customize a plan to guide you, become your trusted advisor and assist you.