It’s a new year, which means a new set of goals and opportunities for private practices everywhere. Sure, every day, week, and month gives us a chance to improve, but there’s something about a new year that makes everything feel new. In this blog, we’re excited to share some helpful tips on setting goals for your practice in the new year and keeping track of your progress.
How to Set Great Goals for 2024
Here are a few thoughts on how to set great goals for 2024:
- Keep Annual Goals Short and Simple. If you want to achieve everything, chances are you’ll achieve nothing. Set only three to five major goals for your practice. You could organize these goals into buckets like finances (revenue and/or profit), people (culture or skills), and infrastructure (equipment or technology).
- Be Concrete, Not Abstract. Every year, it seems like at least one person asks me, “Should my annual growth goal be 6%, 8%, or 10%?” For some practices, it should be 30% or more. After all, 6% growth on $500,000 in revenue is only $30,000. Then get more specific and map the path to achieve your goals. For instance, “to grow collected revenue by $150,000” could be broken down into doing 300 more comprehensive eye exams at $500.
- Chunk Annual Goals Into 90-day Sprints With Monthly and Weekly Deliverables. Part of achieving long-term goals (and yes, a year is a long time) is breaking them into smaller parts. It helps focus the team and allows you to re-tool if you get off track.
- Be Willing to Spend To Grow. Many practice owners confuse business budgeting with household budgeting. A household budget is built around the idea that there’s only so much income to be spent on wants and needs. A business budget is more of a forecast. It starts with a revenue goal, then asks “What do we need to spend to reach this goal?”
Track Your Progress, Regularly
One obvious reason to have Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) is to know if you’re succeeding. Regularly reviewing KPIs has the added benefit of focusing your team on the most important result areas. And, if you’re looking at your numbers daily or weekly, you’ll catch issues far sooner than if you only look at numbers once a month or once a quarter (or, gasp, once a year!).
Setting goals is an important part of challenging yourself and your practice to improve, to be better. So set some goals that may seem difficult. Measure your results. And remember that the point of goals is not to hit them every time. It’s to spur improvement. Even if you don’t hit a goal, remember to celebrate your progress and improvement. Because that’s the real point of goal setting at the end of the day.
Start the new year off right by setting great goals for your practice in 2024. Contact our experts at Books & Benchmarks and let us guide you in setting meaningful goals for your practice in 2024. Comparing your data with our benchmark data from other practices can provide valuable insights, helping you make informed decisions for your optometry practice. Let us help you achieve success and reach your goals!
