How to Write SMART Goals: Explained with Examples

Whether you’re chasing a 7 figure job or a $2 million revenue in business —we are all chasing certain goals in life.

While fetching a fancy goal isn’t a problem, the problem is our inability to make our goals actionable. Remember, a goal without a plan is nothing but a wishful thought.

So how do you fix that? How do you build an actionable goal out of wishful thinking?

Well, meet the SMART goal framework.

It gives you clarity, dedication, and most importantly a feasible action plan to turn your dreams into reality. It’s a proven method of goal setting in a professional world and quite recently even for personal goal setting.

So without further adieu let’s help you understand how to write SMART goals with practical examples and tips.

But before that…

Implementing a SMART framework to your goal-setting process ensures you chase clear and realistic goals. Let’s now help you write a SMART goal.

How to write SMART goals?

Whether you plan to increase production, enhance customer satisfaction, generate more sales, or hit a revenue figure—setting a SMART goal instills clarity and focus in your vision.

Now, before we understand the process of writing a SMART goal, let’s take a general goal and make it SMART through this process.

“Upmetrics wants to increase its website traffic.”

1. Make it SPECIFIC

Be very specific and clear with your goal. Ambiguous goals are difficult to convey and often need more context.

By narrowing down your focus, you get a concise visualization of what you want to achieve. This will give the entire team clarity to channelize their efforts in a rightful direction.

To bring specificity to your goals, try to answer these 5 W’s questions:

• What do I want to achieve?
• Why is this goal important?
• Where will I achieve this goal?
• Who is involved in this goal?
• Which resources do I have?

Let’s make the goal we discussed earlier as specific as possible.

“Upmetrics wants to increase its website traffic to raise brand awareness, generate leads, and boost sales. The marketing team will implement SEO strategies, push existing content, and publish new blog posts to achieve this goal.”

As one can observe, this goal addresses major W’s we discussed earlier. However, there are missing gaps in this goal even now, which we will fill with the SMART framework.

2. Make it MEASURABLE

The M of the SMART acronym stands for measurable. Here you quantify the goals or add key metrics to make the goals measurable.

Such goals make it easier to track progress and stay focused. The excitement of being closer to the goals will keep the team motivated.

To help build measurable goals, ask questions starting with how much or how many.

For instance:

• How much web traffic do you want to increase?
• How many blogs will you publish every month?
• How many people will work on this goal?

At this point, you must consider previously set benchmarks and essential business milestones to set ambitious but relevant goals.

Continuing the previous example, let’s add measurable metrics to it.

“Upmetrics wants to increase its website traffic by 50% by pushing existing content and publishing 70 new blog posts every month. The dedicated efforts by the marketing team will raise brand awareness, generate leads, and boost sales.”

3. Make it ACHIEVABLE

A in the SMART goal framework stands for achievable. 

As you set your goals, you may want to push your limits. However, you don’t want to set an unrealistic goal that’s outside the realm of possibility. 

To simplify, a 30% growth in a month can be an achievable goal. But 300% growth in a month? Well, that’s unrealistic. 

When setting attainable goals, ask these two questions: 

• Is it reasonably possible to accomplish the goal?
• Do I have the necessary skills and resources to reach that target? If not, do I have the capacity to acquire new resources?

Continuing our example, Upmetrics planned to publish 70 blog posts a month. However, after assessing their team capacity and previous parameters, they consider 70 posts to be a bit of a stretch.

Hence they should modify the goal to be attainable yet challenging.

“Upmetrics wants to increase its website traffic by 50% by pushing existing content and publishing 50 new blog posts every month. The dedicated efforts by the marketing team will raise brand awareness, generate leads, and boost sales.”

4. Make it RELEVANT

In this part of the SMART framework, you establish the relevancy of your goals with the mission statement. Here, you ensure that every action you take brings you closer to your ultimate goal.

To check the relevancy of your SMART goals, try answering some of these questions. If the answer to most of them is a yes, your SMART goal is relevant.

• Does this goal fit with your main business goals?
• Will this goal help you grow in the long run?
• Is this goal in line with what’s happening in the market right now?
• Are you using your strengths and resources for this goal?
• Given your current situation, is this goal a top priority?
• Do your key team members support and commit to this goal?

Now, continuing the Upmetrics example, here’s an improvised version of the goal to maintain relevancy.

“Upmetrics wants to increase its website traffic by 50% by pushing existing content and publishing 50 new blog posts every month. This dedicated effort by the marketing team will raise brand awareness, generate leads, and boost sales, ultimately contributing to the company’s long-term growth and market position.”

5. Make it TIME-BOUND

The last part of the SMART criteria makes your goals time-bound.

Without a deadline, your goals would stretch endlessly making them irrelevant. So while setting goals, focus on setting a realistic target date. This will create a timeline that will keep the team motivated and focused, and your goals relevant.

Continuing our previous example, here’s how the goal gets time-bound.

“Upmetrics wants to increase its website traffic by 50% in the next 6 months by pushing existing content and publishing 50 new blog posts every month. This dedicated effort by the marketing team will raise brand awareness, generate leads, and boost sales, ultimately contributing to the company’s long-term growth and market position.”

That’s the 5 criteria that will help you write your own SMART goals. However, is this SMART goals framework useful or does it have a flip side as well? Let’s uncover that.

The pros and cons of SMART goals

Although time-consuming, the benefits of setting SMART goals are far too many to ignore. While we will be discussing the drawbacks of SMART goals as well, let’s first focus on the pros.

Pros of setting SMART goals

Enhanced clarity

Writing a SMART goal instills clarity that would bring everyone together on the same page. There’s no guesswork, vagueness, or ambiguity about what you plan to achieve.

Everyone knows what they’re working towards, has a measurable goal in hindsight, and has key metrics to measure success. Setting a SMART goal offers a clear roadmap to reach your target in a given time frame.

Measurable outcomes

SMART goal gives you qualitative and quantitative metrics to evaluate the success of any goal. It motivates people and helps them to achieve their individual assigned goals.

Setting a SMART goal doesn’t mean that you will indefinitely hit the goal. Even fulfilling 70-80% of your goal is an achievement and it’s only because of a SMART goal that you can evaluate this achievement.

Streamlined communication

With a SMART goal, you can clearly communicate the objectives to each team member. When individuals can see how their efforts contribute to the bigger picture, they stay motivated and aligned with the entire team.

Efficient resource allocation

A SMART objective makes it easier to allocate the physical, capital, human, and time resources to achieve your ultimate goal. It gives you a very focused vision ensuring all the resources are adequately dedicated towards the given goal.

Instills accountability

When an individual knows what’s expected of them in a given time frame and has metrics to track their performance, accountability solidifies.

For instance, John is assigned the task of finishing 8 blog posts in a month. This metric will keep him accountable and push him to achieve his goals.

Those were all the peachy sides of setting a SMART goal. However, let’s now explore the flip side.

Cons of setting SMART goals

Short visioned

SMART goals are extremely time-focused. They tend to ignore the long-term objectives especially centered around the vision planning of your business.

Oversimplifying the goals to meet the time-frame criteria would blur the vision for the long term.

Rigid and inflexible

SMART goals are time and metrics-bound. They’re simplified to the extent that it narrows down the vision. Now, this can be rigid and inflexible for businesses that operate in a dynamic world.

Besides, the structured approach of SMART goals hinders creativity leaving little to no room for a new approach. For a SMART goal to succeed, remember to adopt a flexible approach.

For instance, a marketing team with a goal to post daily on social media might miss out on creative campaigns due to the rigid posting schedule.

Resource intensive

Setting up a system to track and measure SMART goals is extremely time and resource-intensive. Small businesses may struggle initially in terms of budget as well as set-up. However, it’s manageable given that every business relies on some sort of project management tool these days.

As one can see, the cons are pretty manageable for the ease and effectiveness SMART goal offers. Let’s now look at a few SMART goal examples of real companies.

Examples of SMART goals

We asked a couple of entrepreneurs and business leaders to give us a SMART goal they set for their business. We got some interesting responses covering managerial to operations, and customer services goals.

Let’s check them.

1. Customer retention SMART goal

Breakdown: 

• Specific: Increase client retention by implementing a personalized customer feedback system and enhancing our onboarding process.

• Measurable: Increase retention by 15%
• Achievable and relevant: Assuming a 15% customer retention increase over 6 months with appropriate systems in place— sounds quite achievable.
• Time-bound: 6 months

2. SMART goal for sales

Breakdown: 

• Specific: Increase monthly sales through targeted marketing campaigns and customer retention strategies.

• Measurable: 15% increase in monthly sales.

• Achievable and relevant: Assuming the team’s capacity is considered while setting this goal.
• Time-bound: End of the quarter.

3. SMART goal for business growth

Breakdown: 

• Specific: Increase the number of vendors on our platform.
• Measurable: Add 30 new vendors.
• Achievable: Create a marketing campaign and networking opportunities in these areas to engage with venues and promote the benefits of listing on our platform.
• Relevant: Adding more out-of-state venues increases variety and accessibility, making the platform more attractive and engaging.
• Time-bound: End of 2025

4. SMART goal for website traffic

Breakdown: 

• Specific: Focus on increasing traffic website traffic
• Measurable: 25-30% increase in website traffic
• Achievable: Reallocate team resources from lower-value tasks to core activities that drive traffic
• Relevant: Align our campaign goals with the company’s overall objective of increasing revenue through sign-ups
• Time-bound: 3 months

5. SMART goal for market share

Breakdown: 

• Specific: Increase market share in the US hearing aid industry

• Measurable: 15% increase

• Achievable: A dedicated marketing approach will make this goal achievable.

• Relevant: The efforts will enhance brand visibility, eventually leading to more sales.
• Time-bound: End of 2025 quarter 4

6. SMART goal for enrollments and subscriptions

Breakdown:

• Specific: Increase student enrollment in our Data Science program by optimizing our marketing strategies and enhancing our online course content.
• Measurable: 20% increase in student enrollments
• Achievable: A 20% increase over 6 months sounds feasible.
• Relevant: An increase in student enrollment will generate more revenue, thereby meeting the ultimate goal.
• Time-bound: 6 months

7. SMART goals for production

Breakdown:

• Specific: To increase our production capabilities by achieving an annual output of 250 million high-barrier food containers.

• Measurable: 25% increase

• Achievable: Streamlined production processes

• Relevant: Significant increase in annual production leading to more sales and revenue
• Time-bound: 6 months

The bottom line is, you can build your own goals by refining them to SMART concepts.

Tips to write and implement SMART goals

Before you start working on your SMART goals, you may want to check these quick tips to help you write and implement such goals.

• Involve team members in the process of setting your SMART goals. Don’t make it a one-person job.
• Allow flexibility to adjust the goals as and when the time demands.
• Utilize previous data to set your key metrics and measurable goals.
• Review your SMART goals regularly, possibly every month to identify gaps.
• Communicate the success and failure of goals with key metrics.
• Invest in a project management tool to collaborate and communicate the SMART goals with your team.

And that’s about it. All there’s left for you to do is…

Set your own SMART goals

Success requires more than just desire. It requires disciplined action and clear goals with a deadline. By setting a SMART goal, you move ahead from wishful thinking and set yourself up for success.

So why wait? Build your goal using the components of the SMART framework, align them with your long-term vision, and don’t forget to check the examples for inspiration.

Lastly, to solidify your path to success, write a business plan and integrate these goals with your long-term vision.

Don’t worry. You don’t need to spend days drafting a perfect business plan. With the Upmetrics business planning software, you can whip up a perfect plan with AI in less than 10 minutes.

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