Setting early education center goals is a cornerstone for success. Your childcare center will experience its full potential with clear and actionable goals. However, how you define those goals is even more critical. Using the SMART goals method helps ensure you stay on the path of your company’s purpose.
What are SMART Goals?
SMART is a memorable acronym that lists elements for creating a practical goal:
S: Specific – Goals need specificity to ensure clarity.
M: Measurable – Goals need to be measurable to determine success.
A: Achievable – Goals need to be reasonably achievable to maintain morale.
R: Relevant – Goals need to be relevant to your company’s purpose.
T: Time-bound – Goals need to be time-bound to stay on track within a specific timeframe.
SMART goals help achieve results, especially in planning for childcare centers. They bring together all the key elements needed. This creates a clear vision and roadmap for your whole team.
Why SMART Goals Matter for Childcare Businesses
Just like a mission statement shows a business’s purpose, SMART goals outline a path to reach a goal. What follows and supports those SMART goals for childcare are objectives that lead to results. SMART goals are an essential part of the recipe for sustainability, growth, efficiency, and success.
When childcare business goals are created using the SMART goals criteria, you’ll find:
- Improved efficiency—productivity increases because decision-making becomes more effortless. When you know what you want to accomplish, you know where you’re going, making it easier to figure out how to get there.
- Stronger foundations—actionable goals make today’s achievements the foundation for loftier, grander goals for tomorrow.
- Exponential growth—clear goals can grow and evolve, such as boosting preschool enrollment, hiring more staff, expanding extracurricular activities, and creating scalable processes for franchising or relocating to a larger space.
SMART goals provide clarity and direction for success. Defining success helps everyone understand the desired outcomes and steps to achieve them. Alignment among team members is crucial; without it, priorities can get confused, leading to stunted growth and low morale. SMART goals ensure everyone is on the same page.
How to Define SMART Goals for Your Center
Knowing the general elements of a practical goal is helpful, but properly defining them for your specific childcare business is where the magic happens.
We’ll improve this vague goal by using the SMART criteria: “We want to reach a wider audience of potential parents.”
Specific – The specifics of your goal create your outline. This fill-in-the-blank exercise will help get you started: ___[Who]___ will do___[what]___ by ___[when]___by___[how]___.
- Before: “We want to reach a wider audience of potential parents.”
- After: “Our marketing team will improve our daycare’s visibility by generating relevant content on our website and optimizing it for search engines by the end of Q1, ensuring we rank high when parents search for schools for their kids.”
Measurable – Ensure your goal has key performance indicators (KPIs) to track success.
- Before: “Our marketing team will improve enrollment by optimizing our website’s search engine and generating relevant content so potential parents can find our services.”
- After: “Our marketing team will increase enrollment numbers by 10% by investing in our website’s search engine optimization and generating relevant content so potential parents can find our services.”
Achievable – Set fair, achievable goals to avoid failure. For example, prioritize search engine optimization over unnecessary efforts to improve enrollment and adjust KPIs accordingly.
- Before: “Our marketing team will increase enrollment numbers by 10% by investing in our website’s search engine optimization and generating relevant content so potential parents can find our services.”
- After: “Our marketing team will increase enrollment numbers by 8% by focusing solely on optimizing our website’s search engine and generating high-quality content to ensure potential parents can find our services.” Remember to assess how changing achievability may affect metrics.
Relevant – Align your goal with your childcare center’s mission. For example, if your mission includes diversity, ensure enrollment strategies support it.
- Before: “Our marketing team will increase enrollment numbers by 10% by investing in our website’s search engine optimization so potential parents can find our services.”
- After: “Our marketing team will increase enrollment numbers by 8% by investing in our website’s search engine optimization, incorporating diverse and inclusive keywords so potential parents can find our services.”
Time-bound – Setting a deadline for your goal is crucial for achieving it by a specific date, so be sure to add the date or quarter by which you want to see results.
- Before: “Our marketing team will increase enrollment numbers by 10% by investing in our website’s search engine optimization, including diverse keywords, so potential parents can find our services.”
- After: “Our marketing team will increase enrollment numbers by 8% over two quarters by investing in our website’s search engine optimization, including diverse keywords so potential parents can find our services.”
After implementing all the SMART criteria, our goal is:
“Our marketing team will increase enrollment numbers by 10% over two quarters by investing in our website’s search engine optimization, including diverse keywords so potential parents can find our services.”
Now that’s an effective goal statement!
A final test for your goal statement is to compare how it aligns with your childcare center’s mission statement.
Here are some tips for aligning your goals with your mission:
- First things first – make sure you have a mission statement! This will guide decision-making during changes, attract desired parents and children, help recruit suitable teachers and care providers, establish your company culture, and create a clear vision for you and your team.
- Try to break down your mission statement into several categories for what you’re trying to achieve. Your mission statement defines your business’s purpose and primary goal, encompassing multiple objectives. Identify these goals and apply the SMART method to make them actionable.
- Write your mission statement at the top of the document you’re using to write your goal statements. Re-reading your mission statement after writing your goals will help immediately identify any misalignment.
Getting Started with SMART Goals
Now that you know what SMART goals are, it’s time to implement them. Follow these steps to set practical goals for your childcare business:
- Assess Your Center’s Current State: Identify key issues, opportunities for improvement, and urgent needs. Review finances, gather staff feedback, and evaluate strengths and weaknesses.
- Prioritize Needs: List your findings in order of importance. Focus on foundational needs first to create a strong base for long-term success.
- Document Your Insights: Create a reference document outlining where your center is now and where you want to go. Use this as a guide for setting SMART goals and tracking progress.
- Adjust as Needed: Expect challenges when defining goals. Use these roadblocks as learning opportunities to refine and clarify your objectives, ensuring they remain achievable and aligned with your mission.
For more daycare business growth tips or help with marketing, accounting, and performance tracking services to help your childcare center achieve its SMART goals, turn to Radius Childcare Solutions. From sales funnel coaching to dashboard insights and strategic financial oversight through our outsourced CFO services, we can help you align your mission with your goals.
