Measuring Business Success: How to Set and Leverage SMART Goals

Explore each component of what makes goals SMART and how to develop effective goals for you and your business.

By Robert Bacci, PT, DPT

If you have a vision for where you want your physical therapy business to go, but you’re not sure what to do next, consider expanding your use of SMART goals beyond your patient care.

The SMART goal framework also brings structure, clarity, and accountability to your business goals, increasing the chances that you’ll accomplish them.

As a reminder, SMART is an acronym that clearly identifies five elements that can turn vague, elusive goals into achievable triumphs. It stands for:

• S—Specific
• M—Measurable
• A—Achievable
• R—Relevant
• T—Time-limited

Using this framework to design your business goals defines the vital components that helps you methodically work toward achieving the goals, monitoring progress and noting when goals may be too difficult to achieve and need to be restructured for success.

GET SPECIFIC: WHAT DO YOU WANT TO ACHIEVE FOR YOUR CLINIC AND YOUR PATIENTS?

The more clear, concise, and well-defined your goals are, the more likely you are to get the results you want. So, how do you do that?

Specific goals begin with data to discern what’s currently working or not working. While you may think, “I know what’s going on in my clinic,” simple data gathering will bring insights that help you zero in on specific goals.

Examples of data that can help you decide exactly what you want to achieve and when you want to achieve it include:

• Percentage of patients who fall off after initial consult
• Percentage of patients who fail to complete their full course of treatment
• Systems you can automate that will shave minutes off every day
• Number of patients seen per day
• Accounts receivable balance
• Percentage of direct access patients
• Google Analytics

Once you have data to work with, it’s time to identify your top Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). While it can be tempting to list every KPI under the sun, prioritizing them and selecting your top two or three will make your SMART goals more achievable.

MAKE IT MEASURABLE: HOW WILL YOU TRACK YOUR PROGRESS?

Once you identify your top KPIs, you need a well-defined way of measuring them.

Examples of something measurable to work into your SMART goals:

ENSURE IT’S ACHIEVABLE. WHAT OBSTACLES WILL YOU AND YOUR STAFF HAVE TO OVERCOME?

To succeed, stop thinking bigger. For decades, goal-setting experts told us, “You need to think bigger! Pick a dream that is so big it will motivate you every day.” In reality, the opposite is true. When you set unrealistic goals, it can demoralize your team and keep people from committing to the achievement process. In addition, setting too many goals at once can trigger what psychologists call “goal competition.” If you and your team are trying to accomplish too many unrealistic goals at once, they can turn into distractions.

This is also good news. It means that one of the fastest ways to make progress on your goals is to focus on one goal at a time. Instead of your team partially committing to goals that feel unrealistic, they can fully commit to the selected goals Suddenly progress comes much more quickly because they are now fully committed to fewer goals and able to give achieving those goals their full attention.

Examples of achievable elements to work into your SMART goals:

KEEP IT RELEVANT. HOW WILL ACHIEVING YOUR GOALS IMPROVE PATIENT LIVES?

The last step, making goals achievable, requires that you prioritize your goals. But how should you prioritize? How do you make sure the goals you’re working on are relevant? Answer: Align your SMART goals with your patients’ most pressing problems. Goals that are aligned with your patients’ problems increase the chances that your efforts will have the desired effect on your business.

Examples of the rationale a practice owner might consider when determining whether a goal is relevant:

SET A TIMELINE: ANYTHING LONGER THAN 90 DAYS ENCOURAGES PROCRASTINATION

A specific, realistic deadline is a must. And, to keep your brain motivated to work toward your goals, those goals need to have a timeline to completion of no more than 90 days. Todd Herman, who works with Olympic athletes on setting and achieving goals, explains that the 90-day marker functions like the horizon line for your brain’s ability to imagine. Your brain can’t “see” beyond 90 days, so it perceives your “future” self as somebody else, and motivation lags considerably. Keeping goals within a 90-day timeline keeps motivation high and greatly reduces procrastination.¹

Examples of goals with a timeline:

SET SUCCESSFUL GOALS

It takes a lot of energy for you and your staff to set goals. The SMART framework turns all that effort into results that matter. 

Reference:

¹Herman T. Why You’re Setting Goals Wrong (and How to Fix It). Storybrand. http://buildingastorybrand.com/episode-86/. Accessed September 3, 2021.

Robert Bacci, PT, DPT, is President of Bacci & Glinn Physical Therapy in California, where he oversees a staff of 35 employees providing out-patient physical therapy services with over 30,000 visits annually. He and his spouse, Jessica, are also Certified Business Made Simple coaches. He may be reached at 559-238-7282 or online at www.baccibusinesscoaching.com and on Facebook at https://bit.ly/3iUmZLr.