Happy Monday! Happy New Year!
No more excuses now. The decorations (with the exception of the outdoor lights) are down. The kids are back to school. I'm OFFICIALLY back to work now. Friday I cleaned my studio space and sat down to make a list of everything I wanted to accomplish--develop new designs, sew, photograph, blog, write press releases, work on my website, do bookkeeping... I was immediately overwhelmed. Deep breath. One step at time. I had to take all the thoughts and ideas in my head and turn them into business goals with a plan of action!
Knowing that the help I sought was out in the bloggosphere, I searched, and voila found a great outline and simple guide to writing down my business goals for 2013. Marketing expert Laura McCulloch-Carter has created a simple and straightforward worksheet that can help you write down those goals and then identify the steps required to achieve them with quarterly milestones.
My top three business goals are to develop my website into a viable sales and marketing tool, establish five new wholesale customers and be featured in five blogs and two magazines this year. Are these goals too lofty? Not enough? I don't know. Its what I feel is part of a successful year for my small hand-made business.
As someone who has been a successful business owner at times, and a not so successful business owner at other times, I do know that establishing goals and identifying the steps to achieve those goals are critical to my vision. Knowing I have a plan calms me. I don't feel so overwhelmed now. Breathe in, breathe out. All is good!
From my blog post for the Beehive.
