How to Grow Your Small Business:
Planning for the New Year

Many entrepreneurs have asked our owner, John Wright, how he was able to grow such a successful small business in such a short period of time (from zero to profit in six years). He would be the first to tell you that it really takes more think time and planning than it does activity.

So,  we decided that we’d tell you how the core team approaches the New Year. This is the first small business tip we’ll be sharing this year.

Year End Review

We start our year end review with the concept that no process or product is so sacred to our organization that we won’t question its value to our customers and to our mission of sharing seasonal, local, natural/organic, sustainable products and information. So, we question everything with this lens. Here are some of the questions we ask each other:

• Did the customers like our products? How can we contribute more to their health?
• Can we sustain this practice? How can it be more sustainable?
• Does this information help our customers? What would it take to improve the quality of the information we offer?
• Did we model our concept of “sustainability” this year? What would it take to be more sustainable? to be better role models?
• Did we enjoy what we are doing? How can we be more joyful in everything we do?
• What did we contribute to the local agricultural and slow food movements? How can we contribute more?

So, you can see it’s not just running the numbers. Our review also takes a good long look at everything we do and measures to see if it is consistent with who we say we are. Then, we look for more ways to expand what we offer and how we demonstrate what we stand for.

Remember, the empowering questions of “How do…?” and “What would it take to…?” create more possibilities than disempowering questions like “Why did…?”

Treasure Mapping

Once we review 2018, we’ll take what we learned to the drawing board and start envisioning what 2019 could bring. One of the most enjoyable ways to start the planning process is to treasure map. (QueenBee kindly allowed us to use one of her treasure maps for the featured image for this post.)

We gather:

• poster boards
• glue
• scissors
• magazines we love
• art work
• decorations (like glitters, colored string, fancy buttons, sequins, etc.)

Then, we clip pictures and words that “jump out” at us from the magazines and build a collage on poster board. We use the collages as a visual reference/contemplation tool and partner them with the information we gathered from the review. This is how we build our vision for the next year. When we are clear about where we are going, then we write one or two paragraphs about where we want to go with the business. This is the framework we build from.

Results

By spending the extra time engaging and partnering our linear and creative minds, we have been able to create success for Bee Wild in an easy and elegant way. The process is fun and interesting, as each core team member has a very different viewpoint. We highly recommend you put a holistic process like this in place for your small business and see what 2019 brings.