Setting profit targets that actually drive behavior
A profit target nobody talks about is a wish, not a target.
Back into the number
Start with what you want to pay yourself plus what the business needs to reinvest. That's your net profit target. From there, gross margin, revenue, and pricing fall out, not the other way around.
Make it weekly, not annual
Annual targets are abstract. Weekly revenue and weekly gross margin are concrete enough to change behavior on Monday morning.
Tell the team
Most teams have no idea what 'a good week' looks like financially. A simple weekly number, posted somewhere everyone sees, changes how they think about overtime, callbacks, and quoting.
Take your version of this question further
This is one operator-tested angle on the question. Your shop, your size, your trade, and your team change the answer. Ask your specific version inside Ask a Shop Owner to get a response grounded in how owners like you actually handled it.