We have heard so many times that when we start a task or project that we need to have the end goal in mind. From world-renowned authors like Stephen Covey in the “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” to motivational speakers, the end goal is always at the forefront of what people should be thinking about.
The End Goal
So, what does it mean to have an end goal in mind?
For instance, if I’m starting up a business and I know that I want to be successful (obviously) is that my end goal? If I am starting a new project, is the end goal to simply complete project? Unfortunately, that would be too simple. This highl-level train of thinking is not going to be very helpful and really isn’t getting to a deep enough level to be useful.
An Example
My wife and I run an Information Technology (IT) business and we did an exercise to think about what we want to get out of the business in the long-term. This discussion included talking about if, five or ten years from now, we wanted to sell or keep the business.
We agreed that, down the road, we may want to keep the business but we would like to be in a position where we had the option to decide on selling. Once we settled on that end goal, we started thinking about all the details around a possible buyout – who may be interested in buying the business, how we would sell it and what would attract these buyers. The immediate answer for the third question was that the attraction of our customer base – but is that valuable enough for the price we may ask?
You can see how this continued to progress…
Dig Deeper
We took the conversation further and dug deeper into various outcomes. We started talking about who would likely be interested in the purchase, what would make them more interested and what systems we may need to have for a possible buyout.
After all this discussion, where we ended up was with an understanding of what we needed to do if we wanted to keep the end goal in mind. The result? A fine-tuning of our processes based on what would be attractive to a buyer.
In our IT business, we used to use custom-built systems for various functions such as IT monitoring, project management, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and general marketing. Thinking with our end goal in mind, we moved to a standard application that is used in IT services industry. We researched various industry frameworks, selected one and customized our new systems to the accepted standard.
Benefits to the Business
This all began with understanding what is important to the buyer if we decide to sell later down the road. You know, we may not sell but with that end goal in mind, we started working backwards to change our processes so that we can sell when the time is right. We acted right now so that we would be in a position for the future.
This doesn’t just help us sell the business – it helps improves processes, add additional functions to systems and is helping us to grow. We’ve seen positive results regardless if we sell the business or not. By thinking of the end goal of selling the business, we have improved our operations and our position against our competition.
