The Half-Sheet Business Plan: A goal setting strategy that changed everything

Year-end business planning can be daunting (the best goals always are), but I’ll tell you this: at treetree, planning starts with purpose.

I’m on a mission to make sure treetree is the favorite agency our team has ever worked and clients have ever hired. Our annual planning outlines the action steps we take to get us there.

As a business owner, it's hard to stop running long enough to put pen to paper to say, in no uncertain terms, what the business stands for and how the goals will be achieved.

Just as important as clarifying what your business is trying to build quantitatively over the next three or five years is what is looks like qualitatively.

Another way to put it: How do you measure success? In profits or people? In hard numbers or heart?

Can it be both?

At treetree, we’ve taken a different approach to the year-end plan. It’s short. It’s simple. And it’s utterly freeing.

Call it the half-sheet business plan. Call it goalsetting. Call it a business strategy. At treetree, we call it heartwork. And it sets the tone and the vision for our whole year.

And you know what? We’ve had solid evidence five years running that it truly works, all the way from theme to rollout.

Here’s how we do it.

Keep it clear. Think: big ideas, stated simply.

The aim is to keep each goal so concise that they can all fit on a half sheet of paper. This means no giant, unattainable ideas that get tossed into a binder and quickly forgotten.

For our annual plan, we organize in three overarching categories that segment our action items into those that help us achieve our values, upgrade our service or improve our work product.

Keep it tangible. I often say that the trees are an extended family. Who else would I want in the fold when it comes to the agency’s future?

Maybe you’ve worked for an organization in which the C-suite’s lofty financial goals seemed not only out of reach, but out of touch.

But in your own business, do you want your team to be motivated by dollar signs or by strong company values?

Let me encourage you to be transparent with your employees. Your objectives should feel tangible, actionable and goal-worthy. They should be less numeric in nature and more edifying in stature.

When trees hold our heartwork plan in their hands, they know that they can make a difference.

Keep it front and center. To really lean into our goals, they should challenge us in some way and stay in the forefront of our minds.

We designed our heartwork sheet so that each tree could tuck it in a Moleskine, tack it up at their desk or keep it anywhere else in plain sight. Because when you see your goals, you’re more likely to chase after them.

My heartwork plan lives in my notebook, adjacent to whichever page I’m notetaking on. No matter which meeting I’m in or idea I’m jotting, I have my goals—and, by extension, the heart of treetree—right in front of me.

One last thought: keeping goals simple never means they are easy. Harvard Business Review puts it like this: “In fact, if you are entirely comfortable with your strategy, there’s a strong chance it isn’t very good…You need to be uncomfortable and apprehensive: True strategy is about placing bets and making hard choices. The objective is not to eliminate risk but to increase the odds of success.”

Let your goals stretch you and your team. Let them be a celebration of what your business stands for. And let them cast a vision for the year to come.