So why are you in a cut flower business?
Roz Chandler started her flower farming business ten years ago. She will be covering strategy, marketing tactics, pricing, social media and upscaling your flower farm. No matter what point you’re at in your journey, this podcast will give you the information you need to grow your business.
This episode explores the why and discusses language in messaging. The why being so much more valuable than the what and the how.
Roz Chandler talks about her two favourite business speakers of all time and why their lessons are relevant and important to cut flower farmers. Roz has been a fan of Simon Sinek for many years. He is an inspirational speaker and author and talks amongst other things about the why. For flower farmers, this is even more important. Of course, you grow flowers and you grow them sustainably but WHY? What fires up your belly and makes you get up and work in your fields? Your customers buy cut flowers from you because of the why.
You will learn:
- A technique that will help you determine your why
- David Hyner’s pyramid method and how it can help you set your goals
“We imagine a world in which the vast majority of people wake up every day inspired, feel safe wherever they are, and end the day fulfilled by the work they do.” Simon Sinek
Roz also introduces another of her favourites - David Hyner, MD of Stretch Development. David draws from many years of research on goal setting and why the traditional way of SMART goal setting produces average results. Do you want more than average for your cut flower business?
“Lions do not lose sleep over the opinions of sheep” - David Hyner
Resources and links mentioned in this episode:
David Hyner
Simon Sinek
Ted Talk
Connect with Roz Chandler:
Website
Join my Facebook group: Cut Flower Farming Growth and Profit In Your Business
Thank you for listening. I’d love it if you subscribed to the podcast and left a review or rating.
Welcome to the Cut Flower Farming, Growth and Profit In Your Business podcast. I'm your host, Roz Chandler, a flower farmer for over ten years and thirty years as a business owner marketing director. This podcast is for you if you're an ambitious flower farmer, and looking for hints and tips to grow your business, we'll be covering strategy, marketing tactics, pricing, social media, and upscaling your flower farm. So much more. I'm so excited to introduce you to my amazing guest speakers along the way. All of you will be at different points in your business. Our podcasts will take this into account. We look forward to joining you on your journey.
Hello. So today I want to talk to you about two people I've come across in business and for different reasons, I admire them both greatly.
So first of all, let's look at somebody who's talked about the why. Why are you in business? It's really important to know this one. Every organisation knows what they do. Many organisations know how they do it. But most don't know why they do it. Some would say, well, it makes me a lifestyle or it’s obviously to make a profit. But honestly, that's not the why. It's not the reason they get out of bed in the morning. So over the years, I’ve listened to many thousands of business speakers, read loads of books and listened to lots of TED Talks. And honestly, I love them all. One of my favourites is definitely Simon Sinek. He talks about the why. Why are you in business? He's very inspirational. And I do recommend you look him up. Most businesses talk about the what, the how, and then the why. Simon rightly states that some of the world's most successful businesses talk about the why. Their messaging is very different. It's all about why they're in business.
So I want you to draw one massive circle, perhaps even just with your fingers, draw one massive circle. Put another medium sized circle within it, and then a small one right in the middle. So in the little one right in the middle, put the word why. The next one out, put the word how and right on the outside, put the what. So would you say that Apple are one of the most successful businesses in the world? I definitely would. So if we talked like most companies do, we'd say, what do you do? And Apple would say something like, we make great computers. And if we'd said how Apple do you make computers that are great? They'd say, oh, they're beautifully designed, they’re very user friendly. And we want to say why do you do that? They'd say, do you want to buy one? Doesn't really work, does it? We wouldn't buy one. We wouldn't then go on buy all of their other products, we wouldn't have an iPhone, we wouldn't have a Mac.
So you know, if we messaged like that at Field Gate, we would say, well, what do you do? And we'd say we're British flower growers, and we grow flowers. And you'd say how? And we'd say, grow on the banks of the River Ruse. And you'd say why? And we'd say, oh, would you like to buy a bouquet? Again, you don't buy into the why I'm actually in business. So let's turn it on the head about what Apple actually do. They say, everything we do is because we believe in doing things differently. That's their why. Then they go on to say, our products are beautifully designed. And that's the how. And then they say we happen to make beautiful computers. And that's the what. They begin with the why. Okay, they reverse the whole cycle. Do this with your business. Simon goes on to explain this in detail about the biology of the brain and the way we make decisions. We do this on a gut feel and we become loyal on the same feeling of trust. Our goal is to do business with people who believe in what we believe in. We don't want to do business with everybody. Field Gate Flowers will never serve every customer. It will never do every wedding in the whole of Northamptonshire, Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire, Cambridgeshire. It just won't. So here at Field Gate, we believe deep down about sustainability and reducing the carbon footprint. We don't believe in imported blooms flying halfway around the world and being treated heavily with both pesticides and chemicals to make them grow so they can be transported. We are in business for this reason. This is our why. Okay, we want to reduce the carbon footprint now for our children and their children's children.
Remember, your messaging has to be about why. This is what people emotionally connect with. What is your why? Think very long and very hard about why you're in business. What actually fires you up. In the show notes, I will put the TED talk, the best one I think about how great leaders inspire action. Simon has also written, I believe, five books and I'll put them in the show notes too. He is a British American author, and I believe an inspirational speaker. I’ll put those in the show notes. So going on then, once we've worked out the why, let's look at the second amazing person that I've come across in my businesses.
This is a man called David Heiner. He's a businessman. A man of true integrity. I've never come across one like it. And someone I've known for over ten years and personally grown very fond of. He's a unique motivational speaker and a facilitator. He talks to businessmen, schools, colleges, university on his massive goal principle. I've seen him in action many, many times. I've seen him in front of businessmen. I've also taken him into my daughter's school. I think my eldest daughter was 17. And my youngest daughter was 15. And he did a session on goals and goal setting, and to try and make students really believe in something big. David is the MD of Stretch Development. And again, I'll put the link in the show notes. And I really, really, really highly recommend you take a look. Have a look at some of his talks. I believe there's one on the homepage of his website, which is definitely worth listening to. After years of research and interviewing high achievers, Olympians, authors, entrepreneurs, scientists, David found out that these people think differently. They are not extraordinary people, they just behave and think differently. What is your goal? We're all taught, both in business and probably at school, to write SMART goals. Specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely. Now whoever wanted a realistic and attainable goal? What David believes is that we should go much bigger than that. Hairy, big, massive goals. If we follow the smart way of goal setting, we will be average at best and we're not really achieving anything massive. If you look at David's book and listen to his talks, he takes you through the whole process. He believes that you should get a group of friends together and colleagues and people you trust and brainstorm a list, massive, massive list of all the things you could possibly do to achieve your goal. So if my goal at Field Gate Flowers was to make us a household brand, and make sure that by doing that we made it that more people buy British flowers and less important blooms. And if I could just change the dial a little bit, I'd be achievable. So my goal could be the number one UK provider of British flowers, then I would get a whole lot of people together and I'd say, okay, how can I do that. And all of us would sit around and we'd all come up with some really good ideas. And people are very different. Some will have the creative side, some will be a lot more measurable. Throw them all down, have a massive brainstorm. Then he suggests finding a mentor. Somebody you'd really like to be. So for me, I'd need to find and I know what in the US, who’s done a really good job, a really successful business of people growing locally and buying locally. So my job would be to contact her and ask her if she'd be my mentor. It's not a conflict, she has a market in the US. Once you've got that list of things that you need to do from all these friends and colleagues, write them all down.
Then his methods. David's method is building a pyramid. And I use this pyramid method every year when I set my goals for the following year. Actually, I use it for different things. So I might have a health pyramid. And I might have a business and wealth pyramid. I might have a personal pyramid. My goals will be different. But I've always used this pyramid method. Build a pyramid, just draw a piece of paper. And then in pyramid starts at the bottom and boxes all the way along the bottom and some boxes on the next row, some boxes on the next row and so on. All the way to the top. And at the top, write your goal. In massive letters, write your goal. Then with the list that you've had, of all the things, the tiny things you need to do to achieve that goal, start to fill the boxes. Now, David suggests that the first box down in the left-hand corner of your pyramid is the most important, and so on. But these are little, little steps to make you reach your goal. Because once you look at this massive, massive goal, you think, how am I ever going to achieve that? And unless you break it down into small measurable steps, it all seems so unattainable. So mine might be, my bottom left-hand corner might be right and marketing strategy without a marketing strategy I can't possibly get to where I want to be, then I might need a social media plan. I might need to obtain some more land and might not have enough, how do I do that? I might need to start a podcast, I might need to write a book. All of these ideas will get my brand out there. I might need to recruit a PR agency and so on and so on. And then as you do them, you cross them off and just keep adding more and more and more. So if you've got 100 things on your list, put 100, 200 bricks in your pyramid. If you’ve got 50, put 100. Double it. So you've always got room to add to your goal. So that is how David, and he's a lot more detailed than that. But the basic bones of it is that he thinks that you should definitely not have smart goals. These are far too average, and that you should go much bigger than that and you should say, absolutely, I am going to achieve that. And you go all out to achieve that goal.
So I would recommend David Heiner to you. And I will put, as I said in the show notes, details about how to find him. So they're my two pieces of wisdom, if you like from my thirty years, I suppose it is now, of being in sales and marketing and belonging to a number of different groups from Academy of Chief Executives from MD to MD. Lots of different groups and listen to lots of speakers. So I recommend you look those two up, and I'd love to hear your opinion.
This has been your host, Roz Chandler. If you'd like to know more about growing your cut flower farm, do join our Facebook group. It's called Cut Flower Farming, Growth and Profit In Your Business. Many thanks.