Originally published on Forbes in Apr 2025. This article has been republished here.
20 Methods To Move Your Quarterly Goals Across The Finish Line
Staying on track to meet your quarterly business goals may seem like an uphill challenge, especially if you and your team members already have multiple priorities on your plate. However, paring down your list of objectives to complete a few line items at a time can set your team up to reach realistic achievements successfully.
This strategy can help prevent burnout and keep your team’s efforts concentrated on the most impactful outcomes. Here are some of the best practices leaders from Forbes Business Development Council have implemented for planning effectively to meet their company quarterly goals. Below, they’ll also discuss why these strategies are beneficial to your overall business growth.
1. Make The Approval And Update Process Easier
Quarterly goals require hustle and focus. Make sure you have work organized in smaller chunks with high-performing multidisciplinary teams focusing on outcomes. Reduce the cycles of approvals and updates, and increase collaboration with the quarterly goals and outcomes at the forefront. Effective means of addressing team roadblocks and breaking decision times will allow teams to foster pace. – Aarthi Murali, Holman
2. Set A Time Frame To Complete Measurable Tasks
The best practice is to set an action plan that includes specific and measurable tasks that can be achieved within the given time frame, ultimately leading to the quarterly goal. Additionally, it is important to consider contingencies and potential blockers, and then proactively address them. – Andrew Ruef, Janitza North America
3. Be Consistent And Flexible
The key elements from a structural perspective in planning are consistency and flexibility. While seeming contradictory, they speak to different elements. Consistency is action and flexibility is the act. Consistency in having a plan to ensure buy-in from all personnel and offering flexibility around the actions themselves ensures your planning evolves and reflects the current business cycle. – Mark Cerminaro, Rapid Finance
4. Identify The Finish Line
Winning a race is all about knowing where the finish line is located. I ran a 5K and hadn’t planned on spraining my ankle mid-race. When it happened, I looked up and saw the 4K mile marker. I was able to grind it out, knowing the finish line was in sight. Break the big goal (finish line) into mini-goals (mile markers). Make the mini-goals easier to attain, and the larger goal will be within reach. – Ryan Dohrn, Sales Training World
5. Make Sure Stakeholders Are Aligned
Ensure stakeholder alignment across all relevant areas of your business before solidifying quarterly goals. It’s crucial to earn their buy-in from the beginning and avoid hitting roadblocks later on in the quarter. – Toby Carrington, Seismic
6. Prioritize Urgent Tasks
Effective quarterly planning requires time management, disciplined execution, and structured checklists. Prioritizing important versus urgent tasks prevents reactive work and ensures strategic progress. A game-changer for me was immediate execution—acting on high-priority tasks without delay. Planning isn’t just about setting goals; it’s about executing with focus and intention. – Anna Jankowska, RTB House
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7. Assess Your Peak Energy Hours To Get Work Done
Schedule your most impactful work during peak energy hours, and break down goals into weekly targets. I once worked with a sales manager who kept wondering why her team’s strategies fell flat—until she realized they were planning everything at 3 p.m. when everyone was running on fumes. Moving these sessions to crisp morning hours transformed their output with energy to spare for innovation. – Mohamed Madkour, Mastercard
8. Find Out What’s Trending And What’s A Challenge
To achieve quarterly goals, it’s important to understand the current trends and competitive challenges. This will allow you to remain nimble by making the changes needed to achieve your goals as well as determine if you need to course correct for future quarterly projections. – Scott Minger, Vitamin Angels
9. Engage Your Team In The Planning And Execution Of Goals
Goals are typically defined in a top-down manner, but success hinges on individual buy-in, so engaging team members throughout both planning and execution can allow goals to be met. This means breaking goals into distributed tasks and collaboratively setting stretch goals for each team member. Determining the stretch goals for individuals is a crucial step to account for variability in performance and external factors. – Dami Adebayo, The Routing Company
10. Focus On Realistic, Data-Driven Goals
Set realistic, data-driven goals to achieve your quarterly objectives. Analyze purchasing habits and discuss yearly plans, understanding the customer buying cycle. In the medical device field, consider the various personas and red tape involved before closing deals. Hospital purchasing decisions depend on budget cycles and funding availability, which should be factored into your goal setting. – Eyal Shamir, IceCure Medical
11. Schedule Regular Reviews
One best practice is ensuring strategic alignment by linking quarterly goals to long-term objectives. When I ran a global training business with centers in seven countries, aligning local targets with global strategy kept teams focused and accountable. Regular progress reviews allowed for adjustments, ensuring everyone worked toward high-impact outcomes, driving consistent results across regions. – Michael Fritsch, Smarter Operations
12. Study The Correct Forecast
An important part of the planning is to forecast accurately. Having the right forecast at the beginning of the quarter allows you to execute alternate plans. Equally, a last-minute surprise near the quarter’s end throws a wrench in the works. Analyzing leading indicators helps teams arrive at the right forecasts. For instance, completed evaluations and concluded formal negotiations are both leading indicators in a purchase process. – Bindesh Pandey, Comviva Technologies Limited
13. Put Your SMART Goals Into Action
Establish SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, time-bound) goals and utilize tactics to carry out the goals. Get the goals and strategies off the paper and into action! – Kimberlee Herndon, PROTECS
14. Encourage People To Pitch In On Critical Tasks
We break down our goals into smaller tasks, map out dependent and independent actions, and identify tasks we can do in parallel. Regular team check-ins help us problem-solve and provide support to accelerate critical tasks that are falling behind. This approach keeps us on track and ensures we meet our quarterly targets—sometimes even exceeding them. – Jayant Walia, Gainbridge
15. Explain The Big Picture For The Team Overall
While metrics and milestones are essential, they always start by keeping your team’s eye on the big picture. The quarterly goals simply reflect the company’s overarching goals for the year. When we review our goals, we always look to see if the sales and other goals align with our annual goals for the year. –Wayne Elsey, The Funds2Orgs Group
16. Establish A Routine To Stay Ahead And Seize Opportunities
I am a big believer in having regular checkpoints—aligning and tweaking your strategy and tactics accordingly. The old adage “the early bird gets the worm” was used not just to establish a routine but also the visibility at the time when the opportunities are at the highest. Therefore, until and unless you position yourself for that discernability, you will not be able to benefit from market changes and advantages. – Mustansir Paliwala, Zomara Group
17. Ensure That Your Goals Are In Sync With Your Immediate Supervisor
It is very important to align your goals with your immediate supervisor. As a financial advisor in the insurance industry, you must meet your quarterly goals, and so putting a plan together and periodically reevaluating is the secret to success. It’s important to remember that planning is a function of preparedness and good planning is the outcome of experience. – Sanket Das, Ernst & Young (EY)
18. Determine The Highest Potential ROI Actions To Take
Plan like an investor—bet on the highest ROI actions first. Not all tasks drive quarterly success equally, so stack-rank priorities by impact. Double down early on what works, and cut losses fast on what doesn’t. I’ve seen teams hit revenue goals faster just by shifting time from “business as usual” to high-value initiatives. Money follows momentum, and smart planning fuels it. – Alexander Masters, MBA, BIDA, Siemens
19. Let Your Shareholders Be A Sounding Board
A great way is to include shareholder feedback. It keeps goals aligned, realistic and impact-driven. I once saw a growth initiative that looked perfect on paper—until stakeholders flagged a scalability issue we hadn’t considered. A small tweak up front saved a major pivot later. The right insights at the right time make all the difference in hitting targets. – Angelica Kopec, She Knows Business
20. Avoid Being Caught Off Guard By Report Results
To plan effectively to meet quarterly goals, monitor results regularly. Quarterly reporting shouldn’t sneak up on you and reveal surprising trends. Depending on the metrics you’re tracking, stakeholders should review performance on a daily, weekly or monthly basis and proactively flag any significant changes. Quarterly reports can synthesize what happened and why over the previous three months. – Raviraj Hegde, Donorbox
