Ep. 67 - Holiday Hustle: Business Goals for the New Year

Yes , really , goal setting , yes , you know . And then I actually have one of my team members . I've been with me for a long time . She she told somebody else on the team it hasn't been around me for very long . She's like now you do know everything's going to change . You're right , you didn't even know . But that's exactly what she said .

Yeah , she's like the whole business changes at the first of the year because I've had some time to think about some stuff , right ?

And you know , I've always been pretty critical of a lot of companies as far as their business plans and how unsubstantive they really are . You know , I know that's something that we were going to talk about today is how to set some actual goals that make sense in your planning process for the new year .

spreadsheet , right . You make yourself a spreadsheet or whatever and you're actually lining out top level goals for the company yeah you know , for the front half of the next year . You know , because I really think that you got to look at things at like a , you know , a half a year . I don't disagree with you , that's the best .

You know , like kind of refresh , where are you at from this end of this year , you know , with your goals ?

And then how do you set and realign goals at the next half , because some things , you know , some of the targets might be off , you know , and you do have to pressure a little bit on the team on certain things and there are certain things that you sandbagged this year that you're going to have to push a little bit harder on .

You know , set some loftier goals , yes , you know , know , so the team can get aligned on it yeah , absolutely .

We got named the best chicken place in NWA by the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal and then somebody else says well , I think we didn't do it . We got 3,812 complaints this year for our customers , and that was up over the 3,014 complaints we got last year . So actually , I think we deteriorated . It's like how do you know whether you're the best chicken place ?

That's right , that's right . I mean , it's got to be something that you can look at and go yay or nay on . That's right . I think that's where a lot of companies fall down , right there .

And actually our company , we look at them every week , right , we report on them every week , but we have six month goals and we're watching what's going on and so you can actually tell about like month two , three , if something's like really unrealistic .

You know , and I think it's also really important that that you're sharing these plans and these goals with the team and you're having them . You know you can't . You can't do a top down strategy , right , or a goal setting . You have to .

You know you can start them out , but then you meet with each team member and you have them , agree , well , before you publish them out the first of the year .

You know , I , I , I mean that's another problem I have is a lot of people , you know , it's really hard to get across sometimes to the team that if we can accomplish something far greater than what we are right now , you will be doing much better than we are right now .

Absolutely , instead of let's set really modest goals and then everybody can have modest , if any , improvement in how well they're doing as an individual from this company , right , you know what I ?

And if you can align , like you know , bonuses , you can align financial rewards , those types of things , to the top line revenue numbers , yeah , like you're already on a good track , exactly Because , I mean , you know , a divisive thing is it's just to have a department or a person within the organization that's responsible and looking at the revenue , it's just , I

mean , like you'll never get everybody on board to make sure that we're driving better sales .

Because I mean , even if you're in customer service or something like that , you have to understand how your particular objective and your goal that you have is lining up to having higher revenue , because if you don't have higher revenue , you cannot give bonuses , you cannot give raises , you cannot hire more people .

I valued my stock internally the first time we had Zweig Group the company that Zweig Group that was Zweig White at that time based on revenue . Okay , therefore , all owners were trying to push to increase the overall company revenue . I figured it's our job as managers to make sure we're going to make a profit .

Not everybody's in control of whether we make a profit or not . True , you know , because a big part of that is the costs .

Right , right , but yeah , pushing revenue Now a lot of companies don't do that yeah , so that way , if the company grew , then your value grew , because in reality that's what the external value was largely driven by was the revenue growth rate Absolutely Counter to what all these bean counters want to tell us about . Four times EBIT , six times EBIT , whatever .

Okay , I want high revenue growth rate . Yeah , so I'm with you on that . That's the number one thing everybody needs to participate in .

You need to start doing a waterfall of okay , how do you get to that $100,000 ? Right , and then you can start calculating , like how many calls , how many emails you're doing . Oh , then you're really getting sophisticated , man that's like real sales management there ? yeah , and then , how many meetings do you have ? Yes , you know .

How many products are you releasing , right , you know , so that your , your team , can go out and sell new things , and how can you innovate new stuff , you know , but it can all align to that top line revenue and you just got to waterfall

that . So you might have one goal , that's a top line revenue you're tracking for the next year , but then you have really eight different objectives that are trying to reach to that revenue target and if you just start there , you're going to be doing a lot better than most of the small business entrepreneurs that are out there .

All right , what's the goal for the service department ? What's the goal for the people who sell the widgets ? Yeah , widget a's . I mean , this has got to be quantified and a lot of people don't have it and that's why , therefore , they just well , they just well , they just do the best they can , you know , and the market's good , so we'll do good .

The market's not good , you know . I had somebody say that to me the other day and I thought it was great . He's a small business owner and he's got an outdoor store and he goes . Well , you know , the overall outdoor market is down , but he goes . What difference does that make to us ?

Right , we have like 0.00001 of the total , percent of the total outdoor market . Right , we can grow and other people don't . Um can decline . That's fine . Yeah , you know , I it's . I think that's a really great attitude to have as an owner too . It's like , well , you know . It's like , well , you know what's .

Everybody wants to know what's happening in the market , but that's not going to dictate , unless you're in a business where you have like 70 of the market . Yeah , you know , then it's hard to ignore , sure , sure , no , that's exactly right . But you got these little tiny micro percentages . You can't get too hung up about that .

we're going to be coming in to the close of the end of the year . But even if you're listening to this and it's January 1 of 25 , you still need to exercise the time , like you have to .

Like , even if you release your goals by February , which is honestly a little bit too late , like next year , you can improve and start this in October , but it's better than not doing it , better than not doing it . I get it and you need to understand . Like I'm sitting here thinking as we're talking , like I'm , like you know , thinking about myself .

I'm like , oh shit , man , I got a lot of meetings that I gotta have in the next few weeks , but it's just the reality to it . We have got to sit down and spend my time . And I'm talking like , if I'm thinking about this right now , I've got about probably 10 hours of work by myself to do .

Yeah , looking at my past goals and thinking about the future and where I'm trying to get to . Then I got about another 10 hours worth of time that I'm spending with a team , individuals across the entire organization . You know , of course , we only have like less than 10 people , but , right , you know , that's easy to accommodate .

And if you'd have more than that , you need to be spending with your top leaders , right , whoever their executives and top senior leaders are , yeah , but I got to spend an hour with each one of them .

I should , you know It'd be awesome .

And then I probably have another four hours worth of all that feedback making sure that there's not any freaking typos in my goals , that there's absolute clarity , there's no mistakes in the numbers , because that always screws us up . And then it's everything clear and I've reviewed it .

And then it's published out to the team with a nice email and everybody's aligned , that the goals are in a location that everybody can access at any time .

Right , and see how well we're doing , see how well we're doing and then make sure everybody understands that they have a responsibility to their own goals and to certain you know company objectives that we've lined out . Yeah , that's what we just calculate about 20 hours worth of work , like serious work that I have to do .

They can go have their holidays right when they come back on January , like we all know exactly what we're going , what we're doing , yeah , there's and and I can , and what I love about it , too , is in the middle of the like , all you have to do is reference back to the goals that you started set . They can answer their own questions .

Well , it takes you .

Yeah , that's what you're trying to avoid . You're trying to scale this thing , that's right . Okay , so we've got to get everybody aligned . I mean , the biggest problem when you come right down to this whole goals thing , though , and setting high goals , is the individuals involved cap off their efforts .

All right , and not always , but I'm saying a lot of people do . It's like that's okay , as long as I leave at five o'clock every day , I'll do what I can do until five , and then it's that's it , it's out of my hands , then it's that's it . It's out of my hands , then Okay .

And what we all need is people who will go above and beyond , pushing harder , and that , as owners of businesses , we have to recognize that those people are doing that and reward them accordingly , instead of casting the same net over everybody and say , well , you know I can't pay , whatever you are , more than $62,000 a year , no matter how good you are at it .

That's right . That's where people fall , I think , down . Yeah , it's the people who are really exceptional and are breaking their butts to make it happen . We've got to really recognize that , yep . And if other people don't like it , then there's your role model . Yeah , do what they do , yeah .

I mean , it's hard to get there if you don't have these goals laid out , if you don't have metrics for these folks .

Where you can , they can self-analyze , that , they can get behind the company , that they can work together with the team to drive this thing , these goals and objectives meet those , exceed them and and be rewarded , and everybody gets rewarded for it .

If they think you're not selfish , if they think you don't elevate yourself above them , if they believe that you'll get down in the trenches and do whatever the dirty work is too , then you get a completely different response out of people . That's right .

Then if you're like the trying to be the absentee owner and you're the guy with the special parking place or whatever you know , what I mean totally that creates the us versus them culture . That's right , you know and if they can't ?

That is a lot more difficult than I think we give it credit for . And if and I , it took me . I remember there was a period of years actually where I was just living in this frustrating circumstance because I was like man , nobody can understand what I'm talking about .

You know , I'm sitting here carrying a lot of weight for the future and driving every day , just driving , and I'm frustrated because people just aren't excited and can see it like I can as an entrepreneur .

But when I realized that quote , I was like , okay , that helped me relax , cause I'm like , okay , I'm not living alone in this atmosphere of where nobody can understand what I'm talking about .

But then I started realizing like being able to express that , and then , if you can tie that vision into these goals and these objective targets , like your vision is coming into the targets , and then people , and then you're spending the time with them , you're coaching them . With that , they are aligning with your goals .

They're bringing up their own goals to align with the bigger vision . I mean then you start to have some magic happening .

That's true , okay , that ought to give you a lot of credibility in my mind . Yeah , okay , I've done this before . I know what can happen . That's true , all right . So , yeah , I mean , you got an advantage . I'm not saying you got that easily , right , you got that by performing , that's right , and that happened . But you should have more credibility .

Not everybody has that credibility . They've got to rely on their charisma and their communication skills and their relationships with the individuals . That's right .

But because I did not spend the time on with the individual to articulate the vision and to lay this out on paper in a in a very easily understood way , got the alignment from the individuals in the team , um , without that I was left to . I just basically postponed the frustration that I'd have in the first of the year because I was only verbalizing .

And then I'm cheerleading every day and that's exhausting for anybody , right , and it's frustrating and exhausting .

But if you I think that's the thing about this , this whole goal setting thing if you can get it on paper , you get the buy-in and you articulated that at the end of the year , then you have a clarity from everybody when they step back in on the new year .

And there's not this all correct . I mean because , let's face it , really there's only a few select people on the planet that actually embrace and accelerate change . Yes , like they want , they like change . Change to them like they know it's a necessary thing .

You've got to evolve and adapt and change and pivot all that type of stuff and the entrepreneur gets that . But that's part of their personality . They actually are the change makers , they are the trailblazers , yeah , but an entrepreneur needs to understand that no one else really on the entire planet wants that Like they really want it . I know they're fighting it .

They are , they put their hands out , they stiff arm it .

No , embrace it and figure out how you're going to work with . Work with it . Yeah , instead of lamenting it . That's it . Okay , it's because it's just not positive . No , you can't do anything about the macro environment , okay . No , I think entrepreneurs true entrepreneurs understand that . Yeah , they focus on what they can control .

I think the point is , if you get that intuition , you spend the time with yourself and with others and you get that down into some objectives and goals . Yeah , what you're in essence doing is you're guiding your team through objective goal settings that they know where they're at and they feel comfortable .

They feel like that there is guidance , security , that the change that they're doing . So a lot of times , like what I think that happens is a lot of times the teams don't even understand that they're adapting and changing , but they're following the goals that have been set and they feel secure in this change .

But when they turn around , they turn around two or three years , 10 years later and they don't even know what happened to them . But they're happy , they're satisfied , they felt secure the whole way . It's exciting to them , you know .

They feel like if they have changed , they can look back and say I did change , my career's changed , my income's changed , my lifestyle's changed , my house has changed , everything's gotten better . But that's because the entrepreneur had the I guess , the intelligence to understand that they're guiding To lay that path . To lay that path ?

Yeah , because I really don't need a freaking spreadsheet , dude , yeah , I mean , I'll be honest with you , I don't think you do either . Right , we , as entrepreneurs , we don't need a guide . That's why we get so angry and , I think , frustrated when everybody wants a spreadsheet and a theory , it's , it's so true .

How did you come up with how much money you want , um , to borrow , to have in credit ? I said , as much as we can get . I mean , honestly , that's what it is All right . So I'm totally with you . It's as much as I thought we could reasonably ask for and actually get . How much will you lend me ? Okay , that's how much I need . That's how much I need .

It's like , how much growth do you want ? I don't want just 40 percent or no , I want , I'd love to grow by 100 percent . Yeah , if I could do , I'd rather grow by 120 percent . Okay , I want as much as I can get . So it's like you make total sense , yeah , and and uh .

But I do think you know everybody is sitting around right now trying to predict the future . Thank God , the election's finally over , okay , and it's decided . We don't have this period of uncertainty which direction we're going to go . I mean , in that sense it's a blessing . Regardless , doesn't matter how you feel about the results .

I have everything I could possibly want and do not go buy me any clothes . Oh my , I don't buy me clothes . Socks , I don't , I , just the socks . It's so funny . I thought about that specifically . I don't know , just the socks . It's funny . I thought about that specifically . I bet I've got 200 pairs of socks in my dock drawers .

Okay , that you don't even mind Multiple sock drawers . Yeah , I just go to my Walmart white socks every day . That's what I wear . Hell , yeah , I mean . But yet we feel the pressure to buy stuff for people , I think , as far as corporate gifts go .

So they know about you .

I don't have any great insight on holiday gifts either , but if I give anything away , it's probably gonna have my company name on it that's all I know yeah , for sure for sure all right , all right , man , hey , it's been fun talking with you .

you . Yeah , that's a good time to sit down and get some things planned out .

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