Leap Day Revelations

Four years. It’s really kind of amazing what four years forward and four years backward looks like when you’re standing in your current crossroads. 2020 was a year of change for everyone, in every industry. But just prior to the world shutting down, as we often call it, was February 29, 2020 — the last leap year.?

Today, we celebrate another leap year four years in the making. And my, what a four years it has been. From cataclysmic foreboding, crazy market impacts — especially in the ag space — and learning new small talk across a video chat (“good to see you virtually; how long have you been working from home? it’s all so crazy, isn’t it?”) to now, honestly, feels like leaps and bounds.?

So today, I decided to ask myself a question: Where did I see myself in four years from that last leap day, and where do I see myself on the next??

Quite honestly, 2020 was set up to be a great year for BLNKPG. Last leap year, we had already started slotting events, client meetings, and product launches. We’d been meeting with teams to kick off exciting new-year projects. I’d announced our company goals and opened positions for new hires to meet our expected editorial calendar workload. And, from my position on February 29, 2020, the future looked promising. Little did I know what was about to come.?

As an intentionally small business owner, I was truthfully one of the lucky ones during the pandemic, only navigating a small staff and social distancing. However, client meetings canceled, events canceled, market shifts and downturns — it all hit home. At the time it was a “just get through it” mentality that goes alongside what I consider a “head down, grit and determination” agriculture-common approach.?

Four years later, I look back and am incredibly grateful to the team and clients I got to work alongside to get to this place during a very turbulent time. We made the most of it, learned new ways of doing things, pushed to deliver messages in new ways, and supported our industry partners in new ways. We did more mailers and webinars in the last four years than in the prior 10!?

So as I look forward to the next leap year, I want to set intentional goals and aspirations, but this time with a little bit of realization that there’s a lot out of our control. I feel like this leap day is a day of stepping back to understand that setting goals and targets is critically important in order to push ourselves forward. But, it must be balanced with the knowledge that the agility of rolling with the punches is what will actually make us successful.

In our line of work, too structured a plan sets us up for an inability to pivot when things change — and they often do. Not having a plan at all equals busted timelines and budgets and a miss on the objective. The balance of a plan with the ability and agility to pivot is what we’ve seen as a determination of success.?

So, our BLNKPG leap year goals are as follows:?

• Maintain our small agency focus of people before process and support our team so they support us
• Find new partners that are looking for the right mix of “get it done” and “push the boundary” thinking — without sacrificing our approach and ethos
• Never let ourselves forget to play the “what if?” game. Because the “what ifs” are what make creativity happen and allow us to pivot when needed?
• Focus on smart, strategic expansion that doesn’t always equal the kind of growth others care about?

As you look forward four years to February 29, 2028, where do you see yourself? What goals are you laying out to push toward? What will be the deciding factor of your success??

If you’re looking for a team to help you map that plan out — consider this blank page as a good place to start.?