Most OKR examples you will find come from Google, Netflix or a company with a dedicated strategy team. They are interesting to read and hard to use when your business is 6 people and a van.
The framework itself suits small businesses well. An objective says what you want to achieve. 2 to 4 key results say how you will know you got there. That is it. What small businesses do not need is the machinery that usually comes with it: cascading OKRs, scoring spreadsheets and quarterly workshops.
This post gives you OKR examples written for businesses of 3 to 20 people, grouped by area, plus a short guide to writing your own without the overhead.
OKRs in one paragraph
An objective is a short, qualitative statement of what you want: "Become the shop regulars come back to". Key results are 2 to 4 measurable outcomes that would prove it: "Repeat customers make up 40% of monthly sales". A key result measures an outcome, not an activity. "Launch a loyalty card" is a task. "300 loyalty cards in use" is a key result.
Most businesses run OKRs by the quarter, with 1 to 3 objectives at a time.
OKR examples by area
Sales and revenue
Objective: Make the business less dependent on our 2 biggest clients
- No single client is more than 25% of monthly revenue by the end of the quarter
- 5 new clients paying at least $1,000 a month
- Average new client sales cycle under 30 days
Objective: Get paid faster
- Average days to payment down from 45 to 25
- No invoice more than 60 days overdue
- 80% of new clients on direct debit or card on file
Customers
Objective: Become the shop regulars come back to
- Repeat customers make up 40% of monthly sales, up from 28%
- 300 loyalty cards in active use
- Average rating of 4.7 or higher across new reviews
Objective: Make onboarding a new client feel effortless
- Every new client has a kickoff call within 3 working days of signing
- First deliverable sent within 14 days for 90% of new clients
- No client asks "what happens next?" in their first month
Operations
Objective: Stop running out of stock
- Zero stock-outs on the top 20 products
- Stock checked and reordered every Monday, 12 weeks out of 12
- Stock holding cost no more than 15% of monthly sales
Objective: Make the business run without the owner for 2 weeks
- Written procedures for the 10 most common tasks
- Each procedure run by someone other than the owner at least once
- Owner takes 2 consecutive weeks off with no more than 2 calls
Team
Objective: Make this a place people want to stay
- Every team member has a monthly one-on-one, 3 months out of 3
- Everyone can name one thing they are learning this quarter
- No unplanned departures this quarter
Objective: Get a new hire productive in their first month
- Onboarding plan written before their start date
- New hire completes their first solo customer job within 3 weeks
- New hire rates their first month 8 out of 10 or higher
Marketing
Objective: Be found by people looking for what we do
- Website visits from search up 50% on last quarter
- 10 new reviews on our main listing
- 30% of new customers say they found us online
Business goals examples, without the OKR format
Not every goal needs key results. Some are simply outcomes with a date, and forcing them into OKR shape adds nothing. These business goals examples work fine as they are:
- Open the second location by April
- Hire a part-time bookkeeper by the end of the quarter
- Move to the new booking system before the busy season
- Reach $20,000 in monthly revenue by December
- Take every Friday afternoon off from January
A goal like these works when it has 3 things: a clear finish line, a date, and the projects that will get you there.
Team goals examples
For a small team inside a business, or a team that is the business, goals work best when they are shared rather than handed down. Some team goals examples:
- Every customer email answered within 1 working day
- Hold the weekly team meeting 12 weeks out of 12, in 30 minutes
- Everyone on the team can cover every other role for a day
- Cut the time from order to dispatch from 3 days to 1
- Write down how we do our 5 most common jobs
How to write your own OKRs
Start with 1 objective, not 5. A small business has limited hands. If you set 5 objectives, you have set none. 1 to 3 is the range, and 1 is fine for your first quarter.
Make key results outcomes, not tasks. Test each one: could you do all the work and still miss it? If not, it is a task. "Post 3 times a week" is a task. "100 new followers who live within 10 miles" is a key result.
Put a number in every key result. And a starting point, if you know it. "Repeat customers up to 40%" is better with "from 28%" beside it.
Stretch, but not into fiction. A good key result is one you would be pleased to hit 70% of. If you are certain to hit it, it is not a stretch. If you are certain to miss it, the team stops taking it seriously.
Hang the work underneath. An OKR with no projects under it is a wish. For each objective, list the 2 to 4 projects that will move its key results, then the tasks under each.
Check in weekly, score at the end. A 2-minute check in the weekly team meeting, "on track, at risk or off track", is enough. At the end of the quarter, score each key result honestly and carry forward what matters.
Running OKRs in EvyOS
EvyOS has no OKR module, and a small business rarely needs one. The structure is already there: a goal is the objective, milestones on the goal are the key results, and the projects and tasks beneath it are the work. Progress on the goal is calculated from what is underneath, so it moves as the team finishes things.
Recurring key results, like "stock checked every Monday, 12 weeks out of 12", fit best as a habit, which keeps a record you can read off at the end of the quarter.
In a shared workspace the goals belong to the whole team, so everyone can see what the quarter is for. The quarterly OKRs template installs the structure with 3 objectives, measurable results under each, and a check-in scheduled before the last week. For the planning session that produces them, see our quarterly planning guide.
The short version
An OKR is an objective plus 2 to 4 measurable outcomes that prove it. Small businesses should set 1 to 3 a quarter, make every key result a number and an outcome rather than a task, hang the real projects underneath, and check in weekly. Use the OKR examples above as starting points, and replace every number with your own.
Set up your goals in EvyOS, free for one person, or see how it works for teams.