What to do when you’ve achieved your BHAG

I was ecstatic! We did it. The whole Clean Club Calgary team came together and, a mere four years after opening our doors, we reached our BIG HAIRY AUDACIOUS GOAL (BHAG)!

At first, it took a while to sink in. Then, I celebrated, knowing the hard work that went into achieving the numbers set back in 2019 deserved to be acknowledged. Then…I froze. I now had a new question that stopped me in my tracks.

“So…now what? How do I figure out what’s next for us?”

A question I wasn’t prepared for. As a business owner, I know what my long-term business goal is, and that’s a few years away. However, I wasn’t prepared for what to do after we hit our first GIANT milestone.

Back to the drawing table, I now had to set a new BHAG.

Below are some tools I’ll continue to use to set this new BHAG as we move towards our ultimate business goal - to build a turnkey business, making it attractive in the long game of succession. These new tools involve five key steps.

1)??Change the conversation.

There’s the adage “what got you here, won’t get you there.” Meaning, we cannot set goals the way we previously set them because we are now simply at a different level of business. The conversations I’m having both internally and externally have changed because of this.

Today, I’m asking questions along the lines of:

• Who is the right hire for the company’s vision? What traits and values must they have?
• Can our company supervisor handle a growing team, or do they require more support or training?
• What duties can be shifted between roles to account for the growth in business and redirection of my focus?
• When do we need to hire full-time internal individuals for HR, Marketing, Sales, etc.?

These questions help me understand where my focus needs to be as we continue to build the business rather than pulling me back into the day-to-day duties of the business.

2)??Review your role as the owner.

I am not the owner I was when Clean Club Calgary opened our doors. I have intentionally invested in my growth as a leader, business owner, and even consultant/mentor to other cleaning business owners .

It should then come as no surprise then that when you reach a new level in business, your role as the owner must change if you are going to continue to grow. I had to pause and review what responsibilities I should keep, and which ones I can let go of, delegating to other trusted members of my team. For this, I:

• had to give more trust to my people.
• am hiring people who are experts in their field (e.g., HR, marketing, operations, etc.).
• ensure I have the right people in the right roles, a concept that became abundantly clear while reading Traction by Gino Wickman.
• continually review each of my tasks related to being “in” the business so I can focus on the business trajectory.
• understand what type of owner I want to be and review my actions to ensure they’re aligned with this mindset.

Understanding who you are now in relation to the business builds confidence in setting the next BHAG we’re bound to achieve.

3)??Include your team.

People care about what they create. They become more invested in the outcome. It makes sense to include your team to have input (not final decision) on what goals the company should strive to achieve. Look to your people and ask them where they want to see the company grow and what role they may want to play in it.

This works best when you are confident that you have the right people in the right seats on the bus. There have been a few transitions to get the right people on the Clean Club Calgary bus. With this team, I rely on and believe in, their individual strengths.

As we set the foundation for our next BHAG, we also set up their personal goals. There are three goals that every individual must achieve. The more personal ones they set for themselves. The two goals each team member must achieve are:

• Completing the scheduled cleaning on or under time, 90% of the time. This means we must quote accordingly, while also recognizing that when we achieve these times, we’ll reach our next business level and increase our profit margins.
• The first cleaning of the day MUST start on time. For an 8:30 am start, they must be there between 8:20 and 8:25 to begin cleaning right at 8:30. This helps to keep cleaning times on schedule for the remainder of the day.
• Individuals are to receive a 4.5 or higher on their customer reviews. If they consistently score lower, then we focus on specific training items.

Involving my team with these goals allows them to tie their actions directly to the overall growth of the business. They play an important part in our success. All employees do and we owners would be wise to remember this.

4)??Work with a coach

While including my team is important for the future direction of Clean Club Calgary, there are things that I cannot look to them for, particularly if they’re not experienced in running a business. This is why I continue to work with my business coach, Vince Fowler . Working with him has been one of the best investments I have made for my business. He’s become a trusted advisor to whom I can talk, particularly about the minutiae of the company goals, and the ups and downs of being responsible for the entire organization. These are things that, unless you’ve been there, it’s hard to relate to. Carrying the responsibility for the success of a company is a lot. Having a coach helps to lift this weight off my shoulders, remind me what’s important, and ensure I stay focused on where we’re going.

5)??Review your goals each quarter.

One reason we were able to achieve our very first BHAG is simple: every single quarter I reviewed where we were in relation to our goal. I saw the gains we made while accounting for the gap between where we were to where we were going. Having my thumb on the pulse of the organization, I was able to adjust mini-goals and targets along the way. This ongoing review is a crucial factor for setting our next BHAG.

The first thing I needed to do to set our new BHAG was to start with a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats). This gave me insight into what the very next step should be, which allowed me to identify:

• what our new budget based on our current revenue should be.
• how much we want to grow - both in team members, new clients, and revenue/profits.
• how we can better account for and distribute our growing revenue numbers.
• where to invest in our business to support our next level of growth.

Knowing these, I gained deeper clarity of what our KPIs should look like . While many of our previous KPIs will transition into this new growth level, there are others that I need to add, remove, and adjust. To support this new level of review, I invested in industry-specific business training through Debbie Sardone - the business guru in the cleaning industry. Through my learnings, I’ve adjusted my quarterly reviews to focus on:

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●?????average bill/cleaning/type of clean.

●?????close rates from the initial quote to the first clean.

●?????average bill/first cleaning.

●?????how many quotes we need to convert into regular clients.

●?????how many cancelled jobs happened.

●?????how much marketing spend/month compared to sales/month.

●?????what the average daily revenue/cleaner is.

Plus, a slew of other industry focused KPIs. Knowing what items I need to properly track in relation to our goals will keep us focused on achieving our next BHAG.

What I’ve learned as Clean Club Calgary sets its new goals is that it’s okay to struggle to set them. There are a lot of shifts required. Shifts in mindsets, conversations, and commitments as change happens. It’s important to take the time needed to think about where you really want the business to go over where you think it “should” go. The main thing to remember is there is power in asking for help. Look to your community for support, guidance, and insights. I’ve been surprised many times by how giving my community is with their support and cheerleading. This makes all the difference in whether we can reach our BHAGs.

I’m excited to see the next level of Clean Club Calgary and who we’ll all become along the way.

If you’re having struggles setting your own BHGAs and how to get over the goal-setting hump of it all, reach out for a conversation by sending me a DM. There’s nothing quite like a conversation with another business owner to provide clarity.

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