Great ways to set financial goals

Your financial goals

Be sure to consider if being a freelancer is the right fit for you and your circumstances. What are your business goals and what are your personal financial goals? Goal setting can be done at the start of the year and be worked on throughout the year. Tracking your progress and refining your strategy and goals is an on-going process.

Writing financial goals

The key to goal setting is being very specific and writing them down. Keep your goals in various places as a reminder. It's a practical way to help keep you motivated and focused on attaining them.

Specifically defining the goal and adding a time frame is important when writing a list of business goals. Carefully consider the costs and benefits involved when writing financial goals. Think about and be specific on time frames to help attain your written goals. A good rule of thumb is to define what your short, medium and long-term goals are. Short-term goals are typically within the next 12 months or so. Medium-term are about a year to five years and anything longer than five years would be considered a long-term goal. Many business owners choose to get outside advice or counsel from a financial professional on their business finances and goal setting.

Examples of financial goals

Here are a few examples of some business financial goals with specific time frames defined.

• Reduce business costs by year end. Examples might include reducing my debt, using technology differently and changing my operations model.
• Hire an employee this year. Examples of this short-term goal might be hiring a part time support person or a full time contractor to help with clients and jobs I can't complete myself.
• Increase traffic on my business website in 30 days. Examples of this short-term goal might include finding ways to attract more potential customers, increasing potential sales and improving my website to attract more traffic.
• Double my revenue within two years. Examples of this medium-term goal may include increasing sales by raising prices, gaining more clients and reducing overhead costs.
• Increase my retirement fund contributions within three years. This example of a medium-term goal may include setting up a new account, evaluating my existing retirement funds or looking at my fund allocations and making adjustments.
• Upgrade space and equipment in five years. Examples of this long-term goal include buying or leasing office space, upgrading equipment or buying a vehicle.