A Fresh Take on Business Planning for the New Year
(Listen on Apple or Spotify. Full transcript below.)
In the season finale of The Good Food CFO podcast, I challenge the typical "new year, new goals" mindset with a powerful alternative approach to business planning for the new year:
Before racing ahead to plan 2025, take time to truly understand where you've been.
The Inspiration Behind the Episode
What makes this episode particularly special is its unexpected origin story. During our November Office Hours session, I watched one of our members take such a thoughtful approach to evaluating their business progress that I completely changed my plans for our season finale. As I share in the episode, watching this founder carefully analyze their year-to-year progress sparked an important realization: effective business planning for the new year requires us to first understand our past.
Breaking the "Bigger is Better" Myth
One of the most fascinating parts of our conversation comes when I challenge conventional business wisdom. "Not everything is supposed to be bigger," I explain, sharing real examples from my consulting work of when declining revenue in certain channels can actually signal success. The discussion about a brand pivoting away from distribution to focus on their retail store offers an eye-opening perspective on what "success" really means when planning for the new year.
The Personal Side of Progress
Throughout the episode, I open up about my own relationship with goal-setting and achievement. In a particularly relatable moment, my producer Chelsea and I discuss my "never satisfied" Virgo tendencies - always pushing for “better”. This personal insight leads to a deeper conversation about what it means to truly evaluate progress and why context matters more than raw numbers in your business planning.
Beyond the Numbers
While the episode offers practical guidance on reviewing your business performance, it's the insights about the emotional aspects of this process that really stand out:
Why it's okay (and valuable) to abandon goals that no longer serve you
How to avoid beating yourself up over unmet objectives
The importance of understanding why things changed, not just that they changed
Why being "boring" in business can sometimes be your best strategy
Listen to the Full Episode
While this post captures some key points, the full episode offers so much more:
Detailed examples of how to analyze your business performance in context
A step-by-step guide to conducting your own year-end review
Personal stories and real-world examples that bring the concepts to life
Practical tips for business planning for the new year
The episode ends with a powerful reminder that will resonate with any business owner: don't be afraid of being boring. As I explain, sometimes the most impactful business growth comes not from chasing shiny objects, but from staying steadfast and consistent on your chosen path.
Whether you're closing out your best year yet or facing challenges, this episode offers valuable insights for conducting your own year-end review and using those insights to chart a meaningful path forward. It's the perfect blend of practical advice and strategic thinking to help you close out 2024 and prepare for 2025.
Ready to dive deeper into your own year-end review and business planning for the new year? Listen to the full episode for my complete guidance on looking back to move forward effectively.
For additional support with your vision and goal-setting process, visit thegoodfoodcfo.com to access our comprehensive course designed to walk you through this process step by step.
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Episode Timeline
00:00 Season Finale Reflections
02:53 The Importance of Looking Back
06:13 Analyzing Progress and Goals
11:50 Contextualizing Financial Metrics
17:59 Creating a Reflective Practice
24:12 Learning from Unmet Goals
29:48 Setting Goals for the Future
35:59 Navigating Change and Adaptation
41:53 Closing Thoughts and Future Plans
Full Episode Transcript
Welcome to the Good Food CFO podcast. I'm your host, Sara Delavan, joined as always by our producer, Steer. Chelsea, this is our last episode of season 12. Yeah, not just season 12, but it's our last episode of 2024. Wow. Fast year. It has flown by. And we're ending the season a little earlier than we normally would, but to keep everyone excited, we do have a bonus episode that's going to come out over the holidays. And then when we come back in January, we're coming back Monday, January 6th, things will maybe look a little different around here, but you'll have to wait to see.
And then just so that everyone doesn't miss us, I will remind you that you can keep up with Sarah and I on YouTube at the Good Food CFO, where we will be continuing to post news events and then clips from the season and anything that you may have missed, you can check out there.
Yeah. Excited about that. We have some fun news stories coming up on YouTube. Yeah. The one in particular that you had me cracking up. There are bloopers that I'm going to have to pull at some point and make a blooper reel because I was really giggling.
Sarah, being that this is the last episode, we actually had a particular episode that we were planning to do today. But then last night, you called me and you were like, hey, by the way, I'm making a change. We're doing something different.
Yeah. We were planning on doing something that was a lot more finance heavy, and I decided to push that to season 13. So we're still going to do that episode. But I got inspired as I share in the main episode by an office hours member, someone who attended our November session. And when I get inspired, feel called to talk about something on the podcast, I cannot think of anything else other than that topic. I knew you would support me whenever I'm excited about something. You were like, it's fine. We will totally change our plan.
We're talking about looking back and why I think it's so important to not get to the end of the year and just think about looking ahead. We're talking about why it's helpful to look back, what we can learn from looking back.
The practice of doing so, sort of how to approach it and how to put, for example, our numbers and our progress - or lack of progress - in context so that we can utilize that in the process of looking forward. And then I share a couple of tips on my process and approach and what I recommend for founders as they do both, look back and look forward at the end of the year in particular. But also anytime you do it, I love a quarterly check-in, you'll hear us talk about that during the episode as well.
I just think it's so valuable to get quiet and to think about your business for a little while before you kind of jump back in, in the new year. And I think that what you share around that context, right? Specifically, like how to put these things in context as you're reflecting back is so valuable because I think that that is the part of the process that can be really overwhelming for founders is even like, where do I start? Where do I look? And what does all of this mean in context to my goals?
Yeah. And I think in particular, something that I hope comes through in the episode is that as you're moving forward in your business, revenue in every channel is not always going to be going upward, right? The metrics that you pay attention to are going to be unique to your business and what you are striving for. And having the context of your goals when you are looking at your numbers is extremely important because then you know, what should my numbers be doing? Maybe some of them should be going down and others should be going up, right? In this world we live in where like bigger is better, more is better, higher is better, you know, we want to like break through that and really talk about what is a founder trying to do within their business and what should the metrics be showing to let them know if they're on the right track. And so I hope that that's what people walk away from this episode with also.
Yeah. Well, I think that you had a lot to say in this hour of the podcast. And so without further ado, I think we should jump right into it. I think that's a great idea. Let's do it.
Sarah, it is the end of the year. We are creeping our way towards December 31st. And this is a time typically where a lot of people like to really start looking ahead, looking towards the new year and what they want to accomplish, achieve, right? That's why we have New Year's resolutions, for example. But today, you want to do something a little different.
Yeah, I want to look back. I want to look backwards. I was inspired, as I often am, by an office hours member. She was a part of our November session. And I know she's listening. She's in the process of planning or was in the process of planning some changes that were going to be rolled out in January. And during one of the sessions, one of the office hours, she said, before I get to my homework, before I talk through what I did over the week, I want to take a minute to really just look to see if this is worth it, if it's worth moving forward. In other words, she wanted to identify if she was making progress toward her goals this year before continuing to look ahead. Or at least that's how I interpreted it. I'm not trying to speak for her on her behalf, but what she pulled up was essentially the prior month's financials just for that one month compared to the same month in 2023.
And I thought, I literally wrote down really big on my notepad, “look back”. And I thought for many reasons, this is such a good exercise. It's a good exercise to do at the end of the year before you move forward. And I also thought, or maybe for myself, I know that where I am now can feel like not enough or not where I want to be.
You comment sometimes to me, Chelsea, that as a Virgo, I'm sort of like never really happy. You know I mean? Never satisfied. Yeah, never satisfied. Always happy, never satisfied, I guess maybe we could say. And part of that is because in this moment, we're not where we ultimately want to be. And looking back and comparing where we were to where we are now can have so many benefits, including and possibly most importantly, being able to say, wow, look how far we've come, or things are moving in the right direction, or we aren't on track for what we wanted to achieve this year. And sitting in that and talking about why. And so I, you know, as you mentioned in the intro, this wasn't the planned episode for the last episode of the season, but that inspiration struck, I was just so taken by what she was doing in that moment. And I was like, this is what we need to talk about and talk about how people can look back. And then maybe a little bit too toward the end of the episode about how people can look forward.
Yeah, I think that's great. You mentioned that one of the things that she did was look at a month from this year and compare it to the same month from that from last year. I'm curious, like in this particular situation, what did she find?
Well, I don't know if talking about what she found is the most important thing, but rather what did she look at? Because as you mentioned in a previous episode, Chelsea, it can be overwhelming to pull your financials and then try to look at every single line from that first line of revenue all the way down to the net income line. If you're looking at every little detail, that's overwhelming. And what do do with all of that information?
So instead, and what she did was she walked us through what was the goal that she had set or the goals, she had a couple of them, that she had set and was she achieving them?
So I think it's okay to share that one of the goals was to increase her revenue by 25%. And she had hit just under 20% of revenue increase year over year for that particular month. And I said, you may not have hit your goal, but you are making progress toward it and you got pretty darn close. Right? And so we did look at that total revenue number and compared them, you know, year over year, or you know what mean, for that particular month. And she also looked at the specific channels that she was trying to grow. Right? So where was B2B e-commerce channel this year compared to last? Where is the Shopify sales this year compared to last? What does distribution look like? In these channels where she was wanting to see change, was trying to drive change, was she actually seeing them? Then down in cost, there were some specific things that she was working on in terms of labor. Analyzing those numbers, both how did they compare to last year, but because we're selling more than last year, it's unrealistic to say, no, my costs are higher for labor this year than they were last year. Well, they should be, you're producing more, right? So instead, you look at what is my percentage, what is my labor percentage of revenue, right? Exactly. And so you put it in that context. And so that's what she was looking at. And I think that's like a big takeaway here is don't try to take in like your full financials, but revisit what were the goals that you had, what were you trying to achieve, and then look at those things specifically to see how you've done.
Yeah, and do you think that specifically looking at that month view is the best way to do this? For example, we're in November, so November of 2024 over November of 2023, or are there different ways that you could approach looking. You can look at it any way you want to. In this case, she wanted to look at a specific month compared to the year prior, but you might have a quarterly goal that you want to compare, right? And so you might do this current quarter compared to last quarter. You might do this quarter compared to the same quarter in the prior year. You might, now that you're at the end of the year, once your December numbers are done, you might look at the whole year, 2024 compared to 2023. I don't think there's a right or a wrong way to look at it. I think it's, as I often say, it's important that you're looking at it.
I think it's important that you're analyzing, you how did we do, how far did we come, did we hit our goals or not, and how do we move forward? And so I know you said, right, that going into this process, it's really important to have what your goals were in mind or top of mind, right, as you look back. And that helps to give your review some context. But could you maybe give some examples of that? Like, so what some example goals might be and then how we would really put that into context based on our financial reports.
Yeah, I think that's a great question because the goals that we have for our businesses are not always going to result in higher revenue or even higher net income necessarily, right? It depends on what is going on in our business. I think a lot of times when people look at their finances, they think everything is supposed to be bigger. Everything's supposed to be more, right? Month over month or year over year or quarter over quarter. And depending on what your actual goals and intentions were, that won't necessarily be the case, right? So if we think of a brand that maybe previously was focused on selling wholesale products and through distribution, and they have pulled out of retail as many of our listeners and clients have, and now they're focusing on, let's say, a retail store, what would be happening literally in their business would be that wholesale and distributor sales would either reduce significantly or disappear altogether. And retail sales, meaning the sales in their retail store, would be climbing and growing probably pretty significantly if it's going to become the primary channel. So when you look at your P &L, let's just say we're going to look at it year over year for this particular business, you might see that total revenue is down. For sure you're going to see that wholesale revenue and distributor revenue is down. You should see that retail revenue is up. But yeah, you might see that total revenue is down from last year. That's a total possibility. Is that a good or a bad thing depends on what the ultimate goal of making this change was. So in the case of most businesses that pull out of distribution and wholesale, they're trying to achieve greater gross profit and greater net income margins, right? They're making a lot of money typically on the top line, but they don't have a lot of cash in their business. They're not achieving positive net income. And so if these changes in sales channels were to increase cashflow and increase net income, we're going to recognize, okay, did we implement the changes and is our revenue coming from where we wanted to come?
Yes. Awesome. Put a star or a check mark next to that. Then we're to go to the gross margin line and we're going to say, okay, year over year comparatively, is our gross margin percentage higher this year than it was last year? Yes or no. And what we want to see in this scenario is that it is higher. And so if it is great, check that off. And then we're going to go down to the net income line. And once again, we're going to examine is this net income as a percentage of revenue higher than it was last year. Now, it might be larger in terms of dollars, but it might not be. And in the case of changing channels and increasing net income, I'm more focused on the percentage here and that percentage change. Because if we see that net income as a percentage of top line revenue is higher this year over last, what that tells us is that we can continue this strategy, continue to grow our retail store sales, and more money is going to land on that profit line.
So it's an example of where you're going to see increases and decreases, and they can all be pointing to things are going exactly as we planned. You don't have to have everything growing and everything being positive in terms of the dollars and cents to have had a successful year.
And Sarah, I know that you mentioned, right, that it can be really easy to continuously want to look ahead, what's coming, where are we at, where are we going? And it can be a lot harder to slow down and reflect or look back. And I'm really curious. I mean, I know we're at the end of the year. This is a great time to do it, as you mentioned, but what are some other things we can incorporate or think about that can help us to take that time to slow down, to look back and not get so caught up in the moving forward.
Well, I think the end of the year is just a natural time to do this work. think especially if you're a CPG brand that has a peak season of busyness over the holidays, if you're a caterer and you're listening, the holidays are wild and very busy. so hopefully there is some rest that comes at some point, whether it's the end of the year or the start of the new year. So, carving out time, just literally, you know, there are a lot of business books that talk about thinking time. They call it, you know, various, you know, things, but carving out a little bit of time where you are, maybe you've printed out your financials perhaps and you've got what you need, but you take it away from your computer. You sit down with it. You tuck your phone away and you just think about what was I trying to achieve this year? And how did I do? And that's something that I recommend doing on a quarterly basis, this very much like detaching from your day to day, carving out a little bit of time and sitting to think about your business, how far you've come, what has worked, what hasn't. There's a lot of value in that. I think there's an older episode, I'm going to have to go into the archives to find out exactly what season it was in, but we talked about the book Traction. That was one of our earliest book club selections, I believe. And they have a system called EOS. We follow that loosely at the Good Food CFO. And it's just a great practice to say, okay, it's the end of a quarter or the beginning of a new quarter. Let's check in as a team. I check in on the financials and report that to you guys. We talk about what are we trying to do this quarter? How did we do last quarter, what's working, what's not. And so I think just as a leader, as a founder, even if you are a team of one, perhaps especially if you're a team of one, carving out the time to do that is so, so valuable. So find your favorite writing instrument. Mine is a certain kind of pencil. Get your favorite mug. Do anything that makes you feel cozy and inspired and bring your kind of data to that space.
And I even think, I mean, just listening to what you were talking about there is like, yeah, not only is that a great opportunity to reflect back and kind of understand in context how far you've maybe come or not come, right? I think it is also such a good opportunity to, I'm trying to think of what it's called, but it's an exercise of like start, stop and hold or change or I can't think of what the third thing is called, but where you basically are like, as you said, this is working, I'm going to keep doing this. This is not working. I'm going to stop doing this. maybe this is something I could start doing. So I think that's what it is. It's start, stop and maybe it is hold. Anyways, I think that's like to do those things in tandem is an opportunity that shouldn't be missed.
Yeah, I agree. You bring up, again, this idea of what if you didn't achieve what you set out to achieve. I want to pause there for a second because there's a ton of value in identifying that you didn't achieve what you set out to and exploring the why behind that.
I think in food, could be, you thought there was a tactic or something that when you implemented it was going to have a certain effect. We only have control over what we have control over. We have no control over whether people resonate with it or whether it works in the timeframe we thought it would. Analyzing, okay, have I done everything that I can do? Was I as committed as I needed to be to rule this out? Do I want to continue putting effort into this thing to see how it goes. Maybe you only did it for a quarter. Maybe you weren't as, I said committed, I meant consistent, right? Maybe you weren't as consistent as you probably needed to be for this to work, right? So analyzing, is this something where if I, I hesitate to say work harder, but if I stay committed to it, the effects may come, right? Or maybe you're seeing some positive effects, but they're just not as big as what you thought they would be. All the way, yeah. How can you continue to invest in that and take it to where you want it to go. Sometimes it's because you got off track. Sometimes it's because you set a goal and you got distracted or you decided that that wasn't a priority for you. And looking at that, I think is helpful too. I was just part of an EOS day. So going back to traction again, I got to go with a client and their leadership team to an all day EOS, like they call them leadership L10 meetings, and one of the things that the guide talked about there was if you set a goal for the quarter and then you abandoned it, you don't delete it from your review list because you abandoned it. You keep it there. Because when you set a goal and then you realize that that was not the right goal for you, it's good to recognize that because then you can work.
You become better at setting the right goals. And this is a really interesting thing because if you set goals and then you abandon them or you just get pulled away from them, whatever the situation is, don't just go, I set those goals, but they didn't happen and so I'm not going to review them. Instead, sit down and say, why did they become not the goals I worked toward over the quarter?
Yeah. And I think not only being able to reflect and understand why those weren't the right goals, but I think also anytime we don't achieve a goal, we can feel bad about ourselves, right? I failed or there was something wrong with me. And for example, I know that I've had goals within the context of this business that I was not achieving. And then in the not achieving was feeling really bad about myself and my, you know, I wasn't working hard enough or I wasn't working whatever, but that when I really sat back and thought about it, I was like, that goal is actually unrealistic for this reason. Or that was not the right goal to actually move the business forward. So when we set goals, it's usually or it should be intended to move the business in a certain direction. Move it forward in a certain direction typically. And especially when you're just starting out with this or in your case, you're relatively new to a role or an organization, you're gonna think to yourself, I think that these objectives, these goals are the ones that are going to help move my department or my entire company forward. In the process, you might learn that, I was wrong, and I'm going to replace that goal with a more appropriate goal. Then in the moment, you do the realization and you move on. Then at the end of the quarter, taking the time to say, where did I start this quarter at in terms of what goals I had and which ones did I actually follow through on the commitment to and why. Examining why did I think that that was the right goal and understanding that and then why wasn't it the right goal? Was it because it was just the wrong time? Was it because I just didn't really understand what actually needed to be done? There's all sorts of reasons that it could not be the right goal.
Normalizing the fact that you might set a goal and learn that it's the wrong goal, I think that's a really good thing to do and then to learn from it and go, yeah, I didn't understand this industry. I didn't understand this customer. I didn't understand whatever. And now I know better and so I can set better goals, I think is really a great practice.
I agree. And I think that idea of getting, I want to say sharper, like I'm imagining sharpening, is the sharper you get on what those goals are or should be or that you're working towards, then when anything comes up, any opportunity or obstacle or really anything that comes up, you're going to be able to navigate so much quicker because you have that sharper idea of what is the goal. It's like financial forecasting. When we're setting an intention for the future, when we're trying to predict the future, right? It's impossible. You're never going to be right 100 % of the time. But I also love what you're saying in terms of what are the goals and so that you can sort of think through any obstacle or opportunity that comes to you. I think that there is a certain amount of flexibility and rigidity that you have to have around these things, right? If the goal of your company is to increase revenue while maintaining a specific profit margin. Because I don't think it should just be increasing revenue ever because that alone is not a financial strategy. But if it's to increase revenue while maintaining a 55% profit margin and that is a goal, then how you choose to achieve that goal becomes very clear. If distribution is a 45% margin, and adding a certain customer at a certain volume is going to bring down that gross profit margin, you've just identified that that's not the right move for your business right now. Maybe you need to increase the revenue generation in other channels that would then make that distribution partnership make sense for you. I think having, they called them smart goals and stuff, so it's measurable, all of those things. I think having them be almost like not one dimensional is also really important.
So we're sort of talking about setting goals right now, but in the context of sort of looking back, really think about, again, why did you maybe not follow through on a particular goal? We were using the word abandon. Why did you not achieve a goal? Or did you see some progress, but maybe not just hit the official percentage of growth that you wanted to and ask yourself if these are the same goals you want to continue achieving in the business. Because here's another thing, you don't have to change your goals quarter to quarter or even year to year, right? Like you might have very specific goals that you want to achieve and just the way that you go about doing them might change a little bit. Yeah. And so I think now you're really marrying this idea of looking back and looking forward.
Yeah, I think those two things come together. Yeah. So I know that you said that, you know, when you're in this process of looking back, you really want to I loved what you said about like, if you need to print out your reports or whatever, that's fine. But like, get away from the computer. I think that is such good advice. Sit down with your favorite beverage with your favorite writing utensil, all those things that you recommended. Is there any other, I want to say like process that you can use when you're doing this that will just make it easier or make things more clear or really help you focus in on how you think through this looking back? That's a good question. I think if I was going to lay something out, which I never formally have, so this is of like kind of responding on the fly here, I think if you have never before documented what your quarterly or annual goals are, maybe you have them in your head, write those down first. What was I setting out to achieve over the last year? Maybe you didn't have anything really specific. Maybe your goal was to, you know, grow revenue, but you didn't have any details in terms of why, right? Or like how you would do it. Maybe it was you wanted to open X number of retail stores or whatever it was that you had in your mind that you wanted to achieve, write them down. And then from there, start to think through, did I achieve that goal? How did I work to achieve that goal? And that might sound a little bit confusing, but I'm imagining in my head right now someone who gets to the end of the year and they're like, how did I do? And they might pull their financial reports and they don't really know what to look at because maybe they didn't have clear goals, right? Getting clear on whether or not you had goals and intentions for the year, I feel like is step number one.
Yeah. Yeah, I think that's so smart. So I think I would, and I like the idea of I'm a very, what would you call it, tactile person. I want to have the writing utensil in my hand. I want to write it down and really have it sink in. I think there's power in putting it down on paper. So writing that out and then thinking to yourself what I would say, especially if you're practicing this for the first time, what would my financials show me or what would my sales numbers show me if I achieved this goal?
I'm thinking about it as an exercise that someone has not worked through before. When you're me in my head, I'm like, okay, if those were your goals, these are the things we would want to see. If you're sitting down alone and you're like, okay, these are the things I was hoping to achieve this year, whether they were formally written out as goals or not, I'm writing them down now. And what would I need to see on my financials and things in order for that to have been achieved? I think that's the best next step.
Then when you have that, then you can go, okay, how do I want to look at my financials? I want to look at them year over year. What are the important elements that I want to be looking at, for example, in the P &L or in the unit sales or in the customer reports? You kind of know where to look in terms of what reports you would want to pull and then what to look at.
Yeah. I think, gosh, just opening up my mind. Because again, when we talk about that, looking back, I think that's so critical to understand what you're looking at and what are you tracking? What are you measuring? What were your goals even? But I think all of that work also informs how you move forward. Yeah. And I want to take a moment to say the example we talked about earlier where if you're transitioning from wholesale and distribution into a different business model, some of your goals may be that sales channels disappear or that revenue goes down. We've had founders who are exhausted and they're like, love farmers markets and I understand the value of them and I want to be a part of my community, but I need to do less of them. And so they're reducing the number of farmers markets they go to. And so they may see a reduction in overall revenue. They may for sure see a reduction in farmers market revenue. But what that shows is a commitment to what they set out to do. And that's just as important as what the numbers say in your reports.
100%. And so we've talked about this a little bit, but I think that we should talk about what that next step looks like, right?
We've been talking pretty much the whole episode about looking back and reflecting. And I think the natural next step, right, as we've already mentioned, is to then look, start looking ahead. And what does that look like in terms of a process, right? I think you laid out some really strong thoughts around the looking back, but what then changes when you are starting to do business planning for the year ahead?
Yeah. I think what changes is just a shift in, based on where you are now, right? Kind of like what you were starting to lay out, do you want to continue to work toward some of the same things you had been working toward over the last quarter or year? Are you going to set new goals? And this is not like a super like specific action item, I don't think, but thinking about that vision for your business again at the end or the beginning of the year is huge, right? And asking the personal questions I think are really important at the start of looking forward. Going back to what am I trying to build? What do I want this business or brand to be? And am I still on track to do that? Have I gotten off of track maybe whether I did or didn't achieve the goals that I just reviewed, right?
You can achieve goals and then realize that was great, but I'm not on track for what I was planning to build. Or I achieved those goals and I'm really exhausted and I have no time with my family. So I think when we're looking forward going inward and asking, am I happy? Am I headed in the right direction? Am I still building the business that I envisioned, am I doing it on my own terms and am I happy? Because you can drive yourself into the ground achieving your goals and is that what you want to do?
So I think getting clear personally is what I would recommend as that first step in looking forward. And then, thinking about what you want your year to look like and what you want to achieve and what you think is possible. I always like to stretch a little bit, you know I mean? But something we say a lot around here too is be realistic. What do you have the resources to do? What are you comfortable doing if debt is going to be required to achieve some of these goals? Just start to jot them down. And I think taking time to do this is another thing. I actually don't like the idea of thinking you can lay this all out in a day or like a one work session. When we go on company retreat, it's usually a two to three day situation and we work through it. Revisit. Yeah. Yeah. How many times have we sat down and gone, okay, think that this is what we're focusing on this year? And then we go, okay, are these in line? We whittle down, we change, we realize. You know I mean?
I think it's tricky to go, I'm going to spend an hour doing my business planning and goal setting for next year. That's not enough time. I think especially when you're talking about setting those goals is not just about, I want to increase my revenue by 20%. It's, I want to increase my revenue by 20 % and I'm going to do that by X, Y, Z, right? And so really taking the time to think through what are those actions that are gonna to make that happen, or that I think are going to move me towards my goal.
And I just wanna plug here, like if you're listening and this process sounds daunting or like you're not even really sure how to approach it. We do have the vision and goal setting course that I think is a really good way or has a very good way of walking you through step by step, developing what your goals are and what are all of the things that you need in place to achieve those goals. Yeah, I think something that we do in that course is, we're not looking at the business just one year at a time, right? Whenever someone launches something, they have a bigger vision of what you want this to be in say five to 10 years, right? Does that vision change? Absolutely. So, having that big vision in place, revisiting that vision, again, that's kind of that personal part where you're like, is this still the vision I want? And then if the answer is no, well, what is it now?
What has it changed into being? And then asking yourself, okay, how do I align my actions, align my strategies and my goals to achieve this vision? We're trying to move forward constantly toward this ultimate thing that we are trying to create. And so, you know, every quarter, because I think it is smart to make annual goals and then to break them down into quarterly goals, but every quarter, we review and I recommend people review, do I still want the thing I said I wanted in five years, three years, one year from now? Right? Yeah. And then the answer is yes, then you have that next sort of milestone point on the map that you're working toward. And the beginning of the year, end of the year is such a fun time to do it because for many of us, it feels like that new beginning.
I know last year, 2023 into 2024, I was ready for a calendar change. There was lots of stuff kind of on the horizon for us that we were changing at the Good Food CFO, and I was excited for it. This year transitioning into 2025, I'm like, let's keep working towards the things we're working toward. There's no massive change happening. We know what we're working toward. Setting quarterly goals regularly and we're being steadfast, I think, and continuing. And so that brings me to this idea of the big shiny things or the shiny objects. Your goals might just be remain steadfast and consistent on the path that I am on. The tactics of how you get there might change a little bit, especially if something's not working, maybe you invested in TikTok and it is not producing sales like you thought it might, right? On the TikTok shop or whatever. And maybe you decide, you know what, I'm not going to invest my time here anymore. I'm going to pivot that, you know, tactic, you know, in and do something different. But running a business can sometimes be boring in that you're just staying committed and consistent, right? It's like eating healthy and taking care of yourself. It might involve broccoli every single week and broccoli could be boring, but if broccoli helps you out, have the broccoli every week. You know what I mean? And so it's kind of, I just sort of think about it the same way. Don't be afraid of being boring in this process.
I love that. That should be the hashtag for 2025. Don't be afraid of being boring.
Okay, so I'm also curious through all this whole conversation, right, of looking back, what were our goals? How did we measure up to them and doing that reflection?
What if everything changed in your business. How can you use that? Because I know number one, I'm going to say, if everything changed, don't judge yourself, number one. But number two, then how do you use that information in a way that is impactful?
Right. Well, if everything changed, I'm going into my consulting mode now - I would say, in what ways did everything change? I would want to know. And then I would say, why did everything change? Did everything change and you were in control of it? Did everything change and you were not in control of it? Did everything change in a way that you are happy with? You know what I mean? I want to know more about why the change, what the change, and what that means for you.
And if it changed in all sorts of ways and that's the path you want to continue to be on, maybe that longer term vision has changed, right? So root yourself in that and then go, okay, well, where I was at the beginning of last year or the beginning of this quarter is everything has changed. Go, okay, then from where I am now, where do I want to go and how will I get there?
So I really don't think that the process changes at all, but I think for me, that question is more in the looking back and getting rooted in why did it change, what happened. Answering those questions. Yeah, getting really clear on that. Okay. Well, I feel ready to go and look back in my own work and life and I'm just ready to reflect on 2024.
Yeah. I am too, and also excited to look ahead. I kind of want to throw out there to people, if you set goals, whether it's quarterly or annual goals, and you want to sit down and do this process and you don't know how to look at your finances or how to look at your reports to determine if it was a success or not or kind of what the results were, message us. Send us an email.
Ask us the question because we're in charge here and we have the ability to collect your questions and turn them into a podcast. And if we can do that early in season 13 to help you through this process, we would be delighted to do that. So yeah, if you're sitting down to this process, if you get stuck at any point, if you have questions about how to look back or what to think about as you look forward, email us.
Chelsea, you have that email address… Yeah, that's going to be hello@thegoodfoodcfo.com. And then also take advantage of the vision and goal setting course that we have on the website. We're here to support you. I think it's important to have goals. I think it's important to check in with them. I think it's important to check in with yourself and look back and see how far you've come, see what has changed, celebrate anything that you possibly can. And we're super excited to continue to do this work in 2025 and to continue to support all of you. And I just want to say a big, big thank you from Chelsea and myself to all of you who have listened, liked, commented, subscribed, become BABOYOT members, and in any other way, you know, supported this podcast throughout the year. Thank you so, so much. Yeah, we have really, really, really felt the love this year. Yeah.
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