Goal setting for your floristry business
Photo by Green Parlour
With the start of each New Year we have been conditioned to use this as a time for reflection and for setting goals and aspirations for the year ahead. Now, more so than ever before, assessing how you set these goals is crucial for hitting and exceeding them this year!
Does your resolution list look a little like this?
Loose weight
Eat healthy
Make more money
Get a work/life balance
Run more
Get fit
Stop drinking
Be a better florist
Sell more on social media
We have all been there! Give or take a few examples, a lot of these items used to feature on my new years resolutions list. Whilst I was proud of the aspirations I held, most of these were just that … dreams. Year after year I would wearily pick up my previous years list and I may tick of one of the items cursing myself that I wasn’t a better person. Disappointed that I had missed another year of been the BEST version of myself that I could be. Does this sound familiar?
A few years ago I realised that there was no structure to my goals. I didn’t have any perimeters that defined success or failure. If I’d made £2.00 more for my business in the previous year would this classify as finishing the year on a high? I HAD achieved my goal … but it wasn’t really the goal I really had in mind. I hadn’t established exactly what that goal meant … I hadn’t been specific.
The first thing I changed was to get specific with my goal!
Realising I needed to be specific the first step that transformed the way I started setting my goals, but there were still times I wasn’t giving myself enough guidance. To keep me motivated I started including a little bit more information, like precise amounts or dates that would become my target.
I began to add in information to make my goal measurable.
Goals can sometimes feel a bit like dreams, which although incredible to aim for, can also be daunting to know how you get there. After taking a wonderful free goal course run by Julia Bickerstaff at The Business Bakery I knew that having a list of micro actions made it so easy to reach that goal, rather than having one daunting action. Now for most goals I set I come up with a long list of micro actions that have to happen before I get there. Some of these will be tiny, some will be large … but ultimately it gives me a goal to-do list that I can start ticking off.
I began to list some actions I needed to do to make my goal become a reality
Anyone else a BIG dreamer?!
I would absolutely own up to the fact that I am an overambitious goal setter. Believe me, this can lead to A LOT of heart ache, tears and frustration! I am still guilty of been overambitious, but with age, I’m slowly learning to reel this in a touch and set goals that are perhaps a little bit more realistic and achievable. It’s okay to dream big but realising (and accepting!) that you may not hit your goals because of this is important. The way I tame my over ambitious goals are to set a few ‘easy fruit’ goals - ones I know are achievable and realistic and then set 1 dream goal which is up in the clouds.
I now make sure I set goals that are realistic
Setting a time based deadline for your goal is a sure fire way to give focus to your resolutions.
I have actually recently changed the way I set my resolutions, instead of having a list of year goals, I’ve changed to a monthly approach to keep me accountable and focused. With this approach I’m also less likely to leave my goals to the first few and final few months of the year. It means I’m working on them all year round which is so much more productive.
A goal without a time frame will not get done!
Example
An example of a SMART goal may look something like this:
In January I am going to sign up 3 more customers to my monthly flower subscription by posting about my subscriptions on all of my social media channels twice a week and by contacting my existing customers to tell them about my new product.
How do you set your goals?
I am a pen and paper girl through and through, so for me there is no other way than grabbing my favourite pen and seeing the ink form my plans for the year or month ahead. My husband is more of an electronic man, so he stores his on his phone and I know a lot of people who still store theirs in their heads. There is no right or wrong answer, but for me, seeing those words in black and white on the page helps keep me focused. I have these in my filofax which accompanies me daily but I also have a copy on my office wall, so when I’m sat working it’s a reminder of what I need to do.
I recently asked a few friends how they set their goals, and most still use the time honoured yearly goal list. This was me until a few years ago and now I favour monthly goal or topic that I review at the end of each month. I think monthly goals work a lot better for florists - we have so many different seasons of selling, having a monthly goal will allow you to concentrate all your efforts.
I’d love to know how you set your goals and any other tips that work for you! Please put a comment in the box below