I have been
having a bit of a reflective break over the festive period and studying some
great books including Tony Robbins, Denise Duffield Thomas and Janet Murray to
think about how I am going to take my business and those of my clients forward
in 2019.
I have
already declared that I am moving from surviving to thriving and taking my
clients with me. So, in the planning
days before everything goes crazy again, why don’t you take an hour out of your
day to think about how to get ready for success in your business.
1. Move on from the past
Has your
business been as successful as you would like it to be in 2018? Maybe it has and you are sitting there with
the glass of champagne as you have sold out for mega millions. But if like most of my clients you are
sitting there wondering why you didn’t hit the sales and profit goals you were
striving for. What are the excuses?
Did you not
find the manufacturer you needed?
Did it take
longer to bring the new products to market (they always take longer!)
Did the
retailer presentation not quite meet the market and the retailer said no?
Did the
retailer presentation go brilliantly but they never replied?
Are you not
hitting the sales on a weekly basis?
Was the
weather too hot, too cold, too wet or something else?
Did you not
get the investment raise you wanted?
Did you get
the raise and you don’t like the investors you have got on board?
Or is the
business still a figment of your imagination because you just haven’t got
started yet!!
The list is
endless but you have to put all that behind you and start with a clean slate –
2019 will be different and so we need to be different in our approach. So I am not going to go all woowoo on you but
make a list of what went well and what didn’t hit the mark and look for any
common themes – what might you do differently in 2019? And then throw the mistakes away and start
with a shiny new enthusiastic you – I was exhausted by the end of 2018 – had
given more than my all and there was nothing left. So learning for me – set boundaries, take on
less, work less, be more productive – you will have your own list!
2. Be clear on what you want for 2019
Yup that
does mean setting goals but make them SMART – specific, measurable, achievable,
realistic, timely……. and not going to kill you!!!
I had smart
goals for last year and some I achieved and some I missed but also managed to
have high blood pressure, mega migraines and not as much fun as I seem to be
having in my Facebook life (as with most people!). Why? Because
I set the wrong goals – I set financial goals, business targets but totally
missed the ones about taking care of my well being, growing as a person and
making time for relationships with friends and family. But
also I didn’t work out the way to reach my goals ie just working harder and
harder as opposed to smarter.
So if you
want to get that Sainsburys listing – it could be worth £0.5m to you – so think
about how you could achieve that effectively – buy the compelling Kantar data,
work with a category specialist to build the story, develop the products that
are perfect for them
3. Woo Woo ways of creating success
Remember
why you first wanted to have this food business or to be the sales director or
MD of an amazing food brand? Were you
excited at the prospect of seeing your product on the shelf – it IS truly an
amazing feeling and my favourite!
Someone
wrote on a post I put on Linked in this week that you need to have relentless
passion and love for what you do to carry you through the bad times. Well he is partly right – we do need to have
passion for our why but that can be too broad and we can fall out of love with
out business but still need to keep going.
So if you have a passion for each goal it makes it easier as does
creating of what NLP people call anchors to keep us going. Creating an anchor is relatively straightforward. So for each of your key goals this year,
create an anchor of positivity – want to win a retailer account? Think of how amazing that would be – write down
all the reasons why you want to achieve this goal and do an anchoring exercise –
try this quick one minute video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBp0ADPAXZY
Then next
time you cannot get hold of the buyer, get rejected, get delisted – go back to
your anchor for renewed energy. Bit
woowoo? Try it!
Also don’t
sabotage your bigger goal. One of my
goals is to reach an income level as a business mentor – yet I do so much for
free. This is effectively sabotaging my income goal by using my only resource –
time. Now the marketeers would say, you are giving for free because it will pay
back in additional work – it is part of the promotional plan. But actually a lot of the free stuff I did
last year, did not pay back in new business and cost me a lot of money in
travelling, time and effort.
So think about
your key goals and how you could be sabotaging them by the small stuff. Over the
next week, challenge every action you take – is this taking me to my next
goal? IF not then don’t do it! Whether it is For every action over the next. Don’t give free samples unless you can see
the benefit. Don’t
4. Make it happen!
So this
sounds like the familiar, easy bit, right?
Anyone in business has taken a
goal and broken it down into actions.
But what are the actions that push
your boundaries? What have you thought
about that will create a bigger better food business but you daren’t do it? For example take on a full time sales or
marketing person? That scares you
financially – you are going to have to find £3-4k per month to pay for
them. But what if they get you that
£500k retailer account – which is going to deliver £10k profit a month. REALITY CHECK – in my experience, the minimum
leadtime for getting a retailer listing is 6 months – but allow 18!
So then
dream a bit bigger – look to raise some capital to pay for the sales person and
you can add in a marketeer and your business is on its way to great things. Make your bigger goals happen with bigger
actions
5. Reinforce success
When I
typed this last point – I started by writing “celebrate success” but actually
that is not really how this manifesting goes.
You need to REINFORCE success – use every little achievement and feel
good moment to reinforce your anchors from point 3. Capture them in a
spreadsheet, on your white board in the office – somewhere you will see them to
reinforce how you are heading for your goal.
And don’t
beat yourself up about the bad decisions, the wasted actions and the non goal achieving
stuff that got in the way. Write that
down too – and see if there is a pattern – why do you get distracted. And then forgive yourself and forge on ahead!
So I am off
for my first goal achieving meeting of 2019.
If you like the sound of this approach for making a success of the new
year, give me a shout and we can see how I can work with you to ensure that in
2019 you thrive not just survive
Happy New
Year!
Karen
karen@foodmentor.co.uk
07811
942054
.
