How to Set Goals and Stay on Track in Your Business
Do you set goals in your business? More importantly, do you stay on track with them? Setting goals is often the easy part. Staying on track is where most teams fall off.
We learned this lesson firsthand as our business started to grow.
When I first joined Kwedar & Co., our team was small but mighty. With just three full-time team members, we had to move quickly and think on our feet. We set goals, but things were shifting day by day, and we were not always measuring or revisiting them. We did not have KPIs or quarterly targets. Truly, we were running on ambition and hoping for the best.
That approach worked for a while. But as the team started to grow, it became clear that good intentions were not enough to scale or set new team members up for success.
We learned quickly (and adapted just as fast) that we needed to set clear goals and follow through on them. Not to keep score, but to stay on track and make sure everyone understood what was expected.
Here’s a behind-the-scenes look at the systems we put in place and how we adapted our goal-setting to stay on track as we scale.
The System We Use (And Why We Love It)
At Kwedar & Co., we run on EOS, the Entrepreneurial Operating System, based on the book Traction. We read the book as a team and built our processes around it.
Every quarter, we come together to set Rocks, our top priorities, and goals for the months ahead. Every week, we check in on those Rocks using our Scorecard. It is one of the most practical tools EOS offers, and it has completely changed how we operate day to day.
Within the Scorecard, each person on the team owns a number, a leading indicator tied to those goals. That ownership creates accountability in a way no meeting or reminder ever could. And when you see red showing up week after week, it is a clear signal that something needs attention.
These numbers are not about competition or calling anyone out. They are about taking big goals and breaking them down into weekly checkpoints, so you always know where things stand. And if something starts to go off track, you catch it early enough to do something about it.
How to Build Your Scorecard
You don’t need fancy software to get started. A simple spreadsheet will do.
Here's how to set it up:
Identify 5 to 10 measurables your team will track each week that are tied to moving your company forward
Create columns for the owner, the measurable, and the weekly goal
Break the sheet out by each week of the quarter
Assign each measurable to one specific person
Set conditional formatting so cells turn green when a goal is met and red when it is missed
Add scorecard review as a standing item in your weekly team meeting. No skipping it
If you're seeing red on the same metric week after week, you'll know exactly where to focus your attention.
Ready to Set Your Own Goals?
The EOS scorecard is a simple place to start, but it makes a real difference. It gives your team a clear picture of where the business is going and what each person owns along the way. For us, it has become a reliable way to stay aligned and work together to hit our goals. And when we do, we make sure to celebrate the win.
If there’s one takeaway from our experience, it’s this: it’s never too late to get aligned. A few small changes can make a big difference in how your team shows up and moves forward, together.
About The Author
Jessica Pickard is the Operations & Project Manager for Kwedar & Co. Jessica oversees operational and project excellence at KCo, ensuring seamless support for both client and business needs. Jessica has a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Management from Murray State University. She is based in Kentucky.
