In my last column, I wrote about strategizing throughout the year and regularly assessing the health of your business. This time, I’d like to talk a little more specifically about setting goals, because I don’t think you can overemphasize that aspect of your business if you want to stay successful.

A New Year means a new beginning, and it’s a naturally reflective time. During the first days of this new start, we often think, “Where will my business be, and what will change by this time next year?”

Clearly, there are a lot of things that are tough to predict, but one thing you can do to guarantee success is to plan your goals. Here are seven steps for continued and future success:

1. Write Down Your Goals for The Future of Your Business: Committing your ideas to paper helps your mind focus and clarifies the outcomes you have for your business. Thinking about expanding your store or opening another location? Put that as your primary goal. Then really consider how that will impact your current business, your current finances and your staff.

Goals need intention and concentration. You have to make a time and place for them. Set aside 15 minutes to think about your goals for the future of your store and consider the progress you’ve already made. Try to see your business in exactly the place you want it to be in one year, two years, and five years ahead or more. Give these goals real consideration and visualize them as much as possible. The more real you make it now, the greater impact it will have for becoming your reality later. When you’re ready and you want to proceed, bring your team on board—tell them what your vision for the business is, and find out if the roles they already play can be expanded or developed to take your store to the next level.

2. Post Your Goals Where You Will See Them: Once you’re ready to share your vision with your team, print up the list of your business goals and post them where you and your staff will see them. This is no gimmick— the more we remind ourselves of our goals, the more likely we are going to make them happen. And it helps to get your team on board with this. Ask for their input. After all, they are experts in their own specialties and they spend time with customers every day, and they are your best resource.

3. Keep Track of the Health Trends, But Only Choose the Ones That Have Value: I mentioned this in my last column, but in order to keep your business successful and build for the future, you need to keep your store relevant. And this can admittedly be tricky. I think that many retailers are still shocked by the sudden flood of CBD products in the marketplace. While there was awareness of hemp supplements and products in the industry, it’s safe to say that few people saw this blizzard coming. And even fewer know how it will turn out. So definitely focus on evergreen categories, such as pain, anxiety, energy and cognitive health, but keep your ear to the ground for emerging ingredients and science.

This is probably something you do anyway, but you may want to request the assistance of someone on your staff to keep a lookout for new research. Every day, clinical trials and scientific studies are published that validate many of the supplements, botanicals and natural foods that you sell. This is valuable information to promote in your store, especially if the supplements you carry call out specific, clinically studied ingredients. Promoting the science behind the products can make a critical difference—print out those studies and have them available to your customers. And build on validated results of these clinically studied products to have a well-grounded reputation that will make it that much easier to meet all of your sales goals this year and in the year ahead.

4. Visit the Competition to See What Is Most Appealing About Their Store: Checking out other stores can be a very helpful strategy. First, it allows you to see other approaches toward displays, signage, aisle arrangements, or even staffing that you could adapt to improve your own store. Secondly, it may help you narrow your focus on the goals for your own store. Maybe a competitor has a creative way of promoting their guest speakers or featured products. Who knows—maybe another retailer out there has some of the same ideas you’ve been kicking around regarding endcap displays, shelf categories and up-and-coming natural foods. That doesn’t mean you have do something lockstep with the store across town, but there’s nothing wrong with adapting a concept, improving it and making it your own when it comes to fulfilling the strategy for your business. Don’t let pride get in the way of your goals—there are a lot of good ideas out there.

5. Consider Expenses Thoughtfully: Aside from the cost of purchasing more items to stock, you’ll need to set aside more in your budget to cover other matters of overhead. For instance, you may already have refrigeration for your probiotic selection, but if you start adding perishable foods, you’re going to need more. This will add to your expenses, as will the increased energy usage. You’ll also need to schedule more training time for the products and possibly even hire someone to handle the additional stocking and inventory. So, I’d recommend budgeting all of those considerations in beforehand so that you’re ready to handle any unforeseen circumstances like rewiring, building different display shelves, changing the checkout lane registers and scanners, or any of the hundreds of other challenges that pop up during the process.

However, don’t let this stop you from making the decision to take your business to a new level. As long as you are bringing in new products that will help people live to their highest quality of life and have the best intentions, a lot of the bottom line will ultimately take care of itself. Since you’ve been hiring the best people, paying them accordingly, and seeing the positive results, consider this simply the next logical step.

6. Listen to Your Team: Sometimes we can get hooked into an idea or a goal so much that we might miss opportunities that are close at hand when it comes to expanding the reach of our business. Each one of your staff has areas that they excel in. Once they are aware of your goals for the future of the business, let them weigh in, too. Asking questions is a good thing—it shows that they feel engaged and trusted. I think our goals personally and professionally should be to have an open mind to concepts that we might not have originally considered.

7. Continue to Listen to Your Customers: Your store is a physical realization of your vision for helping others, but your customers are ultimately the ones who decide the future of your business. The best way to meet your goals with sincerity and purpose is to practice the golden rule in business as you would in any other situation in life—treat others the way you would like to be treated.

That doesn’t mean that I think you should chase discounts—there are plenty of online sources for that. But it does mean that your store provides the experience and goodwill that your customers can’t get anywhere else.

You’ve spent a lot of time bringing your vision of good health to others, so it makes sense to strategize, set goals and always keep moving forward. I believe that when we do that, healthy profits and genuine happiness for others are the inevitable result. VR

A highly regarded leader in the natural products industry, Terry Lemerond is founder and president of EuroPharma, Inc. He also founded Enzymatic Therapy, Inc. and PhytoPharmica, Inc. and is currently co-owner of the Terry Naturally Health Food Store in Green Bay, WI, which recently won its sixth consecutive consumer choice award as “Best of the Bay.”With more than 40 years in the natural products industry, Lemerond has researched and developed more than 400 nutritional and botanical formulations that continue to be top-selling products in the market. Lemerond shares his wealth of experience and knowledge in health and nutrition through his educational programs, including the Terry Talks Nutrition website, newsletters, podcasts, webinars and personal speaking engagements. He is the author of two books: Seven Keys to Vibrant Health and the recently updated Seven Keys to Unlimited Personal Achievement.