Setting Dealership Goals for Success in 2019

Setting goals, especially for a business, can be daunting. You know what changes you want to see in the New Year, and you know that goals will help you focus on those changes, but setting successful goals is hard. These guidelines will help ensure your goal-setting efforts aren’t wasted and will maximize their chances of success.

Make your Goals Specific and Measurable

Goals that aren’t clear and well defined are often forgotten. Successful goals illustrate precisely what their intended outcomes are as well as including amounts, dates or other forms of measurements. Setting deadlines helps keep you accountable and helps prevent everyday tasks from taking priority over your longer-term goals. “Increasing visits to our website” is admirable, but “Increasing website visits to our site by 3% this quarter” is measurable, and that is far more important.

Be Realistic, but Aim High

A little ambition never hurt anyone, but you don’t want to set yourself up for failure. Make sure your goals are challenging, but still attainable. While too-difficult goals are discouraging, making goals that are too easy can cause loss of motivation. Consider if your dealership currently has the tools and skills needed to achieve your goals. Dividing larger long-term goals into smaller short-term goals will help you put them into perspective.

Include a Plan of Action

Simply setting goals isn’t enough. Don’t get so focused on your outcomes that your forget all about your “how”. How do you plan on increasing social media followers? How do you plan on improving the number of visits to your site? Write your plan down somewhere where all people involved can review regularly. Include what you plan on doing in the first few months, and what will change if you aren’t getting the results you need to stay on track.

We hope 2018 was successful and profitable for your dealership, but there is always room for improvement. Take these tips into 2019 and build upon the success you've already earned.