At the end of the year, how can you get stakeholders and elected officials to see the value of increasing your budget — so you can get more staff on your team and more marketing dollars?
To justify a budget increase, you need to be able to show them your increased activities, results, and productivity through the year.
This means you need to be tracking your results! This is how you can show:
- How you and your team are allocating your time
- Your results compared to past years
- How taxpayer dollars or investor dollars are being appropriately allocated
It’s also through tracking your results that you and your team can know the effectiveness of all the work you did.
This process starts at the very beginning of your fiscal year with setting your goals! To properly track and take action on your goals, they should be measurable, manageable, and achievable.
For example, you could set outreach-driven goals, such as:
- The number of businesses you are contacting
- The number of individuals you are helping start a business
- The number of employees or new job opportunities that come into your community
- The number of businesses that are assisted
- The number of consultants you connect with
- The number events you host, and how many people attended
Then throughout the year, you can measure your results to see if you’re on track for reaching them and make changes to your marketing plan where it’s needed.
Remember, at the end of year you need to show your results. This means that you need put a system and process in place for tracking these goals.
Through setting goals and tracking results, you’re setting your organization up for success for the entire year ahead… And beyond!
Are you currently measuring your results? If so… what systems work for you? If not… what’s your challenge to doing so? Leave a comment and let me know!
‘Til next time,
Sandy
