Happy New Year! Here we are at the beginning of a brand new year. This is my favorite time of year, the time when we an actually start all over again. We can start with a whole new slate and create a brand new plan. Before you can do that you need to think about over the results of this past year. Are you happy with the bottom line result that your embroidery business brought you during this past year? Are you where you thought you would end up at the end of the year? Did your business see growth this year or did it end up about the same as last year? Many embroiderers that I have talked to ended up about the same as last year and are really not happy with their end result. Some of my students that their best year yet! This is what I would like for all embroiderers. I want to talk a little bit about how you can make 2018 a much better year!
Do you make any New Year‚’s resolutions at the first of the year? How do they usually work out for you? I have not made any in many years. I found that I made all of these promises to myself of things that I was going to do, but I did not have a plan to make any of them happen.
Every year at this time I sit back and reflect on what I accomplished during the past year, what I could‚’ve done better and what I will do moving forward into this year! It is always such a feeling of relief and joy when I know that I can start all over again for another year and be able to make new plans to move my business forward in a more positive manner.
This past year was a great year for me but like every other year, I could have done more to make a difference in more embroiderers businesses.
I feel that my purpose in this world is to be able to help more embroiderers succeed in their embroidery businesses and make it easier for them to run their business and not have to go through so many struggles.
There are a few things that you need to do at this time of year to prepare for making this the best year of your embroidery business!
- Find out where you are financially at this time. Without knowing exactly where you are you cannot make plans to move forward based on your current situation.
- Go through your accounting software and make sure that all of your accounts are correct in your computer. Make sure that all of your accounts are totally correct before you do your end of year accounting. This is very important. Sometimes the computer does not always pick up everything or your information may have been saved to the wrong accounts.
- Next, you need to figure out where you want to be at the end of 2015! How much of an increase do you want to see in your business this year? Let's talk about a 25% increase.
- Take that 25% increase over your 2014 year sales and divide it up into 12 months. How much of an increase do you need for each month? Divide that into how much for each week to reach that goal. Your weekly figure is truly the only figure that you need to focus on. It is a much smaller figure than the 25% increase over the entire year and seems more realistic to work towards than a larger figure.
- Create a list of all of the events that you want to be involved in this year that can help grow your business. Lay them out month by month and put a plan together for each of these events.
- If you are having a hard time thinking up ideas to grow your business this year, sit down with your accountant or a coach that can help you put a plan together.
How about this year instead of resolutions, you write out your goals and create a plan to accomplish those goals? Doesn't that sound much better and more doable? It's doable because you can create your own Action Plan and can plan to accomplish small pieces of that goal each week until you have reached your big goal. It is not hard, but it does take consistency and dedication. You can reach that goal if you really want it! You MUST really want it!
For more information on how to set up your accounting system to work great for your decorating apparel business, click here!