Long term planning is always a skill pushed by those who have succeeded in business. Everyone wants to know where you want to be in five to ten years. Even though such ways of thinking can be helpful, it’s equally true that business thrives on the here and now. If you want to take a somewhat more energetic path to success, you can begin using short term goals to enhance your long-term business strategy. Whether these goals are used to keep you agile or to help you build towards a brighter future, working in the near term allows you to keep an eye on what’s going on today.


The Ladder Technique
One great way to use short-term goals in order to build up your business over the long term is to look at each goal as one of the rungs on a ladder. It’s impossible to start at the bottom and reach the top without accomplishing every goal along the way, so it’s best to concentrate on one rung at a time. Start with small, short-term steps – gaining the financial capital you need from Business Credit and Capital, for example. Accomplishing these goals helps move you one step closer towards your final goal and thus accomplishes goals both in the short and long terms.
A Constant Motivator
Nothing motivates quite like success. Unfortunately, pursuing only long term goals puts you in a position to see success infrequently. One great way to keep yourself and your staff motivated is to have a series of short-term goals that can provide quick payoffs. While these goals might not always lead to major victories, they lead to victories nonetheless. Simple things like meeting a daily sales goal can help your staff treasure the smaller victories while still helping you move towards your longer term goals. Sometimes, a little success is what you need to gain a bigger success.
The Snowball Effect
Accomplishing one goal gives you the ability to accomplish another. Take a look at the small things your business needs to accomplish and prioritize them today. These short-term successes don’t just feel great – they free up more manpower and more resources for your overarching goals. You can use short term planning as a method to accomplish your goals if you’re willing to continually roll more resources into your larger goals whenever your smaller goals are met. These short-term solutions can be the key to getting your business out of a rut.
Dividing Tasks
What’s your long-term goal for your business? Once you’ve decided that, you can take that goal and divide into a series of smaller, short-term goals. By dividing up the tasks of success into a series of smaller tasks, you give your team manageable goals that have easily tracked metrics. While you’re still working on long-term planning, you’re creating the same sense of urgency that you would feel for any short term goal. This, in turn, allows your team to put a great deal of energy into a task that will immediately pay off.
Goals as Evolution
One of the great things about short term planning is that it allows you to deal with what’s going on today. Rather than pitching a goal that won’t come to fruition for years in advance, you can position your business so that it deals with the here and now. This will further allow your business to make changes in the long term by not tying you to a plan that may not be as profitable as you had initially hoped. If you plan for short term goals, you won’t overextend yourself in an uncertain future.
Planning for the short term is always a helpful way to make sure your business stays responsive. Whether you use these goals as an end unto themselves or part of a long-term strategy, you’ll be rewarded with more immediate success and a great buy-in from your team. While there’s no way to ensure that short-term success will translate into a better future for your company, this kind of success can give you the kind of momentum you need to push forward.


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