Each year many people go through the process of establishing New Year’s resolutions. Similarly each year your business needs to be intentional about setting goals for the year. These goals can encompass many different areas of your thrift operation including marketing, customer service, human resources, volunteer engagement, etc. Inevitably in a business the highest priority goal tends to be profitability.
As you embark on the process of setting goals, it is crucial to have the ability to gauge the success of your goals. Being able to track your goals provides the opportunity to adapt when your goals aren’t being met. Similarly it allows you to capitalize on aspects of your thrift operation that are succeeding.
Types of Goals
In your thrift operation, there are lag and lead measure goals.
- Lag goals tell us where we have been. It shows what has already happened.
A common lag goal in thrift is sales. We are only able to definitively measure sales once an item has been purchased.
- Lead goals show us where we have the potential to go. Lead goals help us see the feasibility of hitting our lag goals.
A common lead goal in thrift is production value. In the thrift industry, we commonly see you sell about half of what you produce. Therefore if your production value is $100,000 per month, this lead measure indicates your sales will be about $50,000 per month.
Production value = Number of Pieces Produced X Average Price Per Piece
Goal Rhythms
While it is important to set yearly goals, goals should be broken down to shorter time periods. If goals aren’t broken down from an annual goal, you lose the ability to adapt during the year to hit your annual target.
Monthly and daily goals provide tangible short-term objectives to help accomplish the overarching goal. Daily goals encourage and challenge your team members to be productive on a daily basis. Monthly goals can help you identify and thus prepare for the seasonalities of the thrift industry.
Overall, remember when setting goals, you can only measure what you track. And you can only manage what you measure. Take the time to intentionally set yearly, monthly, and daily goals in order to have a thriving thrift business.
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