How to Meet Your Greenhouse Business Goals in the New Year


December 29, 2019

A picture of a pad of paper is to the left. It says, "2020 New Year's Resolutions." The blog title is to the right. It says, "How to Meet Your Greenhouse Business Goals in the New Year."

The new year is quickly approaching! And with it comes a fresh start and a countless number of possibilities. We know that you, like us, are planning your business goals (or resolutions).  We encourage you to dream big. After all, this isn’t just the beginning of a new year- it’s the beginning of a new decade! 

New Year’s resolutions are important for 2020, because they truly can set you up for success. But Forbes says that while about 60% of us set New Year’s resolutions, only about 8% of us stick to them. So we wanted to talk to you about how to see your vision through.

I’ll be referencing The 12 Week Year Method a bit in this post because here at North Carolina Farms we’ve been working through this method with our management staff. It’s helped us accomplish many business goals we have for the company. We’ve seen so much growth in the six months that we’ve been using this method, that we will be continuing it into next year. If you want to find out more about The 12 Week Year, check out the book on Amazon.

Set Clear Goals

The first step in sticking with your resolutions this year is to set clear goals. To use a common, non-business goal just for an example, let’s say that your New Year’s resolution is to work out. It’s a very popular resolution, and a great way to improve the quality of your life. But it’s not a goal. (Not a clear goal anyway.) Clear goals need to have structure. They need to be measurable. 

Instead of saying you want to work out this year, establish a specific plan of how you’re going to accomplish this and write it into your resolution. By doing this you’ll go from “I want to work out this year.” to  “I will work out every Monday, Thursday, and Saturday at 7AM for one hour.” Your resolution then becomes a clear goal that you can measure and work towards.

Be Accountable

The next step in sticking with your resolution is to be accountable. Share your resolution with a friend that you know is going to ask about your progress. As our company works through The 12 Week Year Method, each of us meets weekly with our Project Manager. Her main job is to keep us accountable for our business goals and to help get us the resources we need to accomplish them. You may not have a project manager, but if you examine your business goal, you’ll likely find someone related to that goal who is willing to keep you accountable. 

Let’s go back to your resolution of working out this year. Perhaps your “Project Manager” is a trainer at the gym, or a friend who is going to work out with you. If you cannot find anyone related to your goal to keep you accountable, share your goal on social media. Make it a point to post each time you accomplish something. 

Set Aside Time for Your Goals

The third step in sticking with your resolution is to purposefully set aside time to accomplish your goal. The plan to work out this year is a great plan, but if you don’t purposefully carve out time in your calendar to do what you’re trying to do, you will not accomplish your goal. You will hardly ever be handed extra time. Life gets busy very quickly. 

So determine if this goal is important enough to you to schedule in a dedicated time to work on it. Decide how long you can devote to working on this goal. Then take a look at your schedule to see where you can create a time block for consistently working on it.

Remember Why You’re Working Towards This Business Goal

Lastly, but just as importantly, remember why you’re working towards this goal. Having a New Year’s resolution is great, but if you don’t really have a reason to stick to that resolution, then you won’t. You want to work out this year, but why? Figure out the “why” to your resolution and you’ll be way more likely to keep it.

Here’s a Business Goal Example

Goal: Increase gross income by 2% by the end of the first quarter.

Tasks Needed to Meet This Goal: Schedule $100 worth of Facebook Ads the first week of each month. Schedule featured products on Facebook page to post every Wednesday. Evaluate profit margins on week 3. Make a marketing plan to increase sales of higher profit-margin items by week 5. Present plan to the marketing team for them to implement by week 6. Check in with marketing team weeks 7-12.

Time Block for Goal: Mondays from 1-3

Weekly Report To: Bob Hall- Financial Officer

What This Will Help Us Accomplish: Increasing income by 2% will allow our company to buy booth space and expand to the local downtown market, which will increase our connection with the community.

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