Tim Gilbert told me it would be tough, but I never realized how tough tree planting was until I stood in the bush in the middle of nowhere, bugs swarming around my head, as I was being exposed to the raw elements of a northern springtime.
With my bag of trees strapped across my hips, shovel in hand, I bent down picked up a dime, took two steps forward, cleared the ground with my boot, dug in my shovel and picked up another dime. On and on I went, 50 dimes, 100, dimes 500 dimes, 780 dimes finally I hit my goal of day of 1000 dimes.
As the horn went signalling the end of the day, I forced my fatigued body back to the truck and squeezed in with the other planters for the long drive back to the camp.
So what business wisdom can you learn from planting trees?
The truth is that these tree planters are entrepreneurial. They are working for themselves and have to figure out how they are going to make enough money in a short window of time to allow them the lifestyles to which they aspire. There are several key success factors that great tree planters know.
1. Have a goal - not only do good tree planters know how many trees they want to have planted by the end of the day, but they also know how much money they need to earn in a planting season to ensure that they can go back to school or travelling for the rest of the year. Most business owners I know, have very few concrete goals, they have some ideas about what they would like to see from their business, but not understood as concrete numbers, nor are they tracking their progress to that goal.
2. Tracking your progress - every night on the way back to the camp after a hard day of planting, Tim would call out names and each person in the crowded van would shout out how many trees they planted that day. Not only did each planter have clarity on how much they made but they also had a benchmark about what their peers were planting in similar terrain. When was the last time you checked to see how your business was doing compared to similar-sized businesses in your industry?
3. Persistence - the bugs might be eating you alive, the sun, snow, or rain beating down on you. Your back hurts from bending over, your arms ache from hitting the ground with your shovel, your toes are bruised and your toenails failing off from kicking the end of your boots, but unless you continue to push yourself like a machine to put the seedlings in, you are not going to get paid. Sure, you can quit and go home like many others before you, but how are you going to replace that income? Often in business at the least bit of resistance, we want to quit. A prospect says no, a lead turns out to go nowhere, we have a bad day with our employees or a bad month. These are the realities of business. Yes, you can quit, like many before you, however only with persistence will you succeed in hitting your targets and achieving your goals and dreams.
4. Celebrate and recover- one thing that migratory workers, tree planters, and many other trades do after a hard day's work is relax and celebrate their accomplishments. They know there is another hard day ahead tomorrow, but they are grateful for what they have accomplished today. Leaving the work in the field, they often relax and have an evening of music and celebration. How often have you been able to leave your work at work and really relax and celebrate what you have accomplished during the day? Too often we forget to turn off our minds and relax so we too can be prepared for the next day.
Business is like tree planting.
It takes a psychology of dedication, persistence and the mindset to want to be successful. Perhaps it is time that you set some goals, tracked your progress and celebrated your success.
-- Dave Fuller, MBA, is an award-winning professional business coach and the author of the book Profit Yourself Healthy. Did this article plant a seed? Email dave@profityourselfhealthy.com
