Setting Priorities by Trade: 50.9% of Real Estate Firms That Answered Set No Business Targets. In Education, 32.6%

A priority needs something to be measured against. Census asked U.S. employers whether they set business targets, and over what horizon. Your trade says a lot about the likely answer.

The priority problem is deciding what gets your hours when everything on the list looks urgent. A target is one of the few tools that settles it, since a written number tells you what today’s work is for. Without one, whichever problem is loudest this morning wins.

We have already looked at this question by firm size, where the no-targets share is highest at the smallest firms. Census also publishes it by trade. About 48% of employer firms in scope answered, and every share below is of those firms.

Which trades run without a target

Real estate and repair and personal services are the only two of the 13 trades shown where more than half of firms that answered set no targets, and they stand clear of retail at 45.4%. Transportation reads 49.7%, but with a wider margin, so it does not separate from the top two. At the other end, education at 32.6% clears every trade shown except wholesale at 35.4%.

Manufacturing reads 28.3% but with a margin of about ten points either way, so it is left off the chart. Even so, its range sits below retail and repair. Firms in these trades differ in size and in many other ways the file does not measure.

Few firms aim mainly past one year

The survey splits firms that set targets by main focus: short-term (under a year), long-term (over a year), or a combination. Across all employers that answered, 18.8% said mainly short-term, 6.4% mainly long-term and 31.5% a combination. The combination is the most common answer among firms with targets in every trade shown, and in 12 of those 13 trades short-term sits clear of long-term.

Construction is the far end, the highest short-term share of any trade at 23.1% and the lowest long-term share at 4.0%. Finance and insurance is the one trade where the two are level, with the highest long-term share at 11.9% and the lowest short-term at 11.6%. Education has the largest combination share at 38.6%, level with finance at 36.7% and clear of repair at 26.5%.

Mainly long-term targets: 6.4% of employer firms that answered. Fewer than one firm in fifteen.

Targets and tracking are not the same gap

The same survey asked how many key performance indicators the business monitored. 64.5% of all firms that answered said none. Real estate at 72.5%, construction at 70.8% and repair at 70.7% are at the top, level with each other, and education has the lowest share at 57.3%, level with finance at 59.5%. In every one of the 13 trades, the no-KPI share is above the no-targets share.

The distance between the two varies. Construction has the widest, 70.8% with no indicators against 44.6% with no targets. Health care has the narrowest, 60.0% and 45.1%. Census publishes these as two separate answers with no cross-tabulation, so this does not show that any particular firm has a target and no number to check it against. It shows only that, trade by trade, more firms say they set targets than say they monitor indicators.

What to take from this if you run one

If you are in a trade where half your peers set no targets, you will not feel behind for skipping it. That makes it easy to let your week get set by whoever calls first. Write one target for the next 90 days, with a number on it, and decide which item on your list stops getting your time as a result.

If you have a target and no number you look at every week, that is the cheaper fix. Pick one number, put it somewhere you will see it, and have someone outside the business ask you about it.

Three limits worth holding. The shares are of firms that answered, about half of those in scope. Trade is not separated from firm size, and the no-targets share also differs by size. And this is what firms report doing: the survey does not say whether setting targets helps, or why trades differ.

Published by The Lonely Entrepreneur — the community and coaching platform for entrepreneurs who are building alone. lonelyentrepreneur.com

This article is for educational purposes and is not a substitute for professional financial or legal advice.