How To Achieve SMART Goals For Your Senior Living Community

We all have goals and aspirations, but how will you achieve them? SMART goals are both effective and easy to understand. They are grounded in reality and broken into bite-sized pieces, so you can easily digest them to complete the overall objective. Have you ever been told to “work smarter and not harder”? This is exactly how you can do that.

First, let’s break down the acronym, SMART: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound. These outline the specifics that you will outline in order to meet your goals/objectives.

To better understand, let’s walk through the process of setting a SMART goal that could be useful for your organization.

Common Goal: Resident Capacity at 100% in our Senior Living Facility with a wait-list.

To most, this looks like a wonderful goal, however, it’s missing some vital ingredients to be attainable. How will we measure/track when we are at capacity? When are you looking to complete this by? 

Let’s break this goal down to see if we can come up with a SMART iteration of this goal.

Related Reading: 3 Paid Search Tips for Your Assisted Living Community Read On »

Specific

The “S” of your SMART goal is where we can break it down into the who, what, when, where, and why. These are the core specifics that we need to define to determine our goal.

• Who: New Haven Senior Living Community
• What: To be at 100% capacity with a wait-list
• When: By the end of Q4
• Where: Primary location in The Woodlands, Texas
• Why: We will receive funding for our next location

Measurable

After defining your goal, how do you measure it? Metrics are key here, allowing you to accurately reflect success and compare stats as metrics change.

When do you know that you have achieved the desired outcome of your goal? Measure in milestones. This may be a number of residents in counted in a quarterly report, the desired earnings total, or some other variable. Ultimately, the “M” piece of your SMART goal should be able to be represented by a tangible number.

• Our resident capacity is maxed out at 350 residents. Each resident is equivalent to $48K annually. Therefore, our goal is to make $16.8M monthly or be at 350/350 resident capacity.

Attainable

How will your goal be achieved? Ensure that the “A” piece of your SMART goal is attainable. This is an actionable step that really asks if we have the resources to achieve success. You must have clarity in action to break down your goals into sub-tasks so that you can achieve small actionable steps that lead to overall success.

• If you are currently at 10 residents by the end of Q1 – it may not be an attainable goal to be maxed out by Q4. This goal should be attainable and within reach. 

Relevant

The “R” in your SMART goal stands for relevancy, the point at which effort meets high-value goals. This means that your SMART goal is set-up to meet your overall business objectives. If you are looking to receive funding for your next facility (and you must be at 100% resident capacity to receive the money), then a goal of filling your resident capacity is perfectly relevant and aligned with your objective. If they don’t align with your high-value goals, you may want to consider adjusting the specifics of your SMART goal.

Time-Bound

The “T” stands for Time. This critical piece helps you keep your action plan in line with your deadlines. If you are looking to have this completed by Q4 of this year, then there’s going to be definitive sub-tasks that will need to be completed along the way.

Putting Our “SMART” Goal Together

Now, let’s restate our original goal so that it can follow the SMART methodology.

• Original Goal: Resident Capacity at 100% in our Senior Living Facility with a wait-list.
• SMART Goal: We will complete Q4 with billed revenue at $16.8M and/or 350 residents contracted.

Consider the difference between the two. Here’s the goal above outlined even more:

Company Goal: We will complete Q4 with annual billed revenue totaling $16.8M and/or have 350 residents contracted for our facility. We will do this by acquiring 56 residents per quarter. To acquire these 56 residents, we will generate 560 leads. We will do this through published content, social posts, email marketing, Google Ads, a direct-mail campaign, and through our participation in 4 local community events.

This is just one of the many SMART goals that you can set for your organization. It’s important to sit down with your key decision-makers and determine your goals and objectives collaboratively. If you need help with your online strategy, our team is happy to help. Some of us were on the scene before AOL dialed up our internet.

Need a SMART Goal Template?

Maybe you have a good idea of your definable goals, but need a little help? We’ve got your back as certified Hubspot partners, we pride ourselves in being experts at SMART goals. Here’s a SMART goal template that you can use. Download it, share it, and let us know how it helped your team cross the finish line.

Let Blue Sky Marketing Help

If you need help with your marketing strategy or want to talk about what the Blue Sky Marketing can do for your Senior Living community,