The importance of setting goals and tracking progress for better decision making

Setting goals is a fundamental aspect of achieving success in the business world. However, it's not just about setting goals, but also tracking progress towards them. Monitoring progress is necessary to determine whether a goal is attainable and if adjustments need to be made. In this article, we will discuss the value of setting goals and tracking progress, using an example from our company to illustrate how a platform like Tability can help teams achieve their objectives.

The Challenge of Goal Setting

Setting goals can be challenging. Teams may need help with identifying what they want to achieve or determining the necessary steps. There are definitely best practices on how to write better goals, but the chances of you creating a so-called "perfect plan" at the start of the quarter is highly unlikely. Things change, and a good plan should give you the ability to maneuver and pivot the plan when needed. The real challenge lies in using those goals to make better decisions on a weekly basis. It's not just about having a target; it's about the process of reaching that target.

The Value Creating a Plan and Tracking Progress

Tracking progress is crucial because it's the ultimate check on how good your planning was. This data can then be used to make informed decisions about whether the goal is achievable or whether adjustments need to be made. By tracking progress, you can keep your team moving in the right direction and also be more proactive in achieving their objectives. While you've set a good target at the start of the quarter, once you've started to work on it, you may have better insight on whether it was the right target or not.

If you're using the right tools and have good weekly goal-tracking habits around your goal tracking, then it should be easy to make those pivots and make sure you're not blindly following a plan gone bad.

How Tability helped us achieve 3,500% of our goal

We'll give you a real life example of what happened to us, at Tability. We had a very classic goal of wanting to boost our revenue growth. At the start of the quarter, we identified that reaching out to 1200 companies in a particular region could help us increase leads from 60 to 80 per week. We tracked our weekly progress and, over just a few weeks, realized that this tactic wasn't effective. The cold outreach metric wasn't affecting our leads at all in a positive way. After several attempts, we decided to stop investing in this approach and instead focus our efforts elsewhere.

By doing so, we put more efforts into a marketing campaign that had a much farther reach than what our team could have done with just cold outreach. In just a few weeks, we achieved our main goal of boosting leads. We started at 60 leads, and our goal was to get to 80 per week, and in the past couple of weeks, we had more than 500 leads.

By tracking and keeping a close eye on our progress, we were able to pivot and make data-driven decisions quickly. This fast prioritization helped us put the efforts where it made sense, and we surpassed our goal by 3,500% of our target goal.

How Tability Can Help You Prioritize the Right Things

Tability is a platform that can help teams set better goals and track progress easier. By using Tability, teams can monitor their progress toward their objectives and make informed decisions based on that data. Tability creates better weekly rituals, that keep teams focused on the goals on a week-to-week basis, so things don't fall through the cracks.

This improved knowledge of what's happening in your team, helps you make better decisions faster. Christopher Wong, Director of Product at Escrow.com, found that Tability gives him the knowledge and data to make better decisions.

"Tability gives us the ability to make wiser decisions on our priorities."

Conclusion

Setting goals and tracking progress is vital to achieving business success, but common beginner mistake is to set a plan and to blindly follow it. Monitoring progress is necessary to determine whether a goal is attainable and if not, adjustments need to be made quickly and effectively. Using a platform like Tability, teams can set SMART goals, track progress, and make informed decisions based on that data. By doing so, teams can be more proactive in achieving their objectives and, ultimately, succeed in their endeavors.