Rethinking Goals

This is actually a tag-on to the earlier post about thinking like the cake guy...so let's talk goals.

When I started this company I laid out a set of financial goals and an overreaching goal of becoming "the" luxury brand within my very specific niche. And I laid our financial goals for the first and second year which I did alter based on quarterly results.

But what I haven't done - and need to do - is come up with other short term goals. And I think those goals need to be two-fold. On the one hand they do need to encompass the short-term financial goals, the steps I want to take to grow the business (and help meet those financial goals), and other business strategy goals. But at the same time I think that I need to have "personal" goals when it comes to the business. Things that my not be as tangible as end financial goals but will help me remember, even when things get really tough, that progress is still being made.

I also think I want to make out a five-year plan so I can lay out - to the best of my ability - how I get from where we are to where I want us to ultimately be and what my role in that is going to be.

I'm leaving tomorrow night for a ten-day trip that starts on the west coast, takes me to three cities on the east coast, and finally lands me in the last trade show of the year in Chicago before coming home again. My hope is that sometime in all of that - since I won't be able to be using my production space - I can sit down and better articulate these thoughts onto paper. That and get a new rough draft of my business plan (version 2.0) completed. Those are my first two new short-term goals.