What is your idea of the perfect day off from work?  Create a picture in your mind of what you wish your day to look like.  Would you like to relax in a cabin home in the mountains or at a vacation home at the beach?  Do you want to play golf, travel, or spend time with the grandkids?  Now, keep dreaming and describe your perfect business day.  What tasks do you do now that you enjoy and of what would you like to do more?   What might your business achieve if it could grow 10% each year and how would it personally affect you?  How many years will it take before you can come and go as you please and take more time away from the office?

Consider your core values, priorities, and ultimate dreams for your enterprise.  Now consider how you take your dreams and work them into realistic goals that will help see those dreams fulfilled.  In his book Seven Habits of Highly Successful People, Steven Covey suggests that you “begin with the end in mind.”  In other words, know your destination and work back from there.  Think of your ultimate target.    If it should take 20 years to get there, where should you be in 15 years, 10 years, and 5 years from now? 

The Ideal Business

• Most business owners describe their ideal business as:
• Three or four weeks off every year to travel.
• A company run by a trusted management team empowered to make decisions and get things done.
• A unique and excellent product or service that allows them to charge more than their competitors.
• Business systems in place that produce consistent results for their customers and improves their net profits year after year.
• 90% of their business coming from loyal repeat customers who only buy from them.
• 25% annual net return on their equity.
• A business that will allow them to expand, find additional business opportunities, and grow their net worth.
• Control of their future and time to enjoy the benefits of ownership.

Generate Goals

The question becomes, “How can your business goals be realized?”  As a business owner, you must utilize your dreams as the launching point to define both your financial and non-financial goals.  Ask yourself hard questions of how to you will fulfill these dreams with true actions steps that will create the business you wish to run.  While this may seem painfully obvious, defining goals is actually a challenge for many business owners.  Since you may be one such person, here are a few tips for considering your goals.

• First, be specific.If you do not define your goals, you will not accomplish them.
• Put your goals in writing.
• Do a little brainstorming, list 20 or 30 goals, and then rank them in order of priority.
• Next, classify your list into short, medium, and long-term goals.
  • Determine which goals are short-term that you would like to achieve within the next year.
  • Medium-term goals are those you would like to accomplish between two and ten years.
  • Finally, long-term goals are those that take more than ten years to fulfill.

As a business owner, you automatically fall under the category of a person who is pursuing a dream.  Utilize those dreams to help yourself create vision and goals of what you wisht to achieve.  Once you have determined your goals, create a plan for success with measured, intentional steps.  Your proactivity, with a focus on what most matters to you, will produce the results that will ultimately create your dream fulfillment.  (To learn more about business plans, read our Blog Learn the Key Components of a Good Business Plan.)

If you need help defining and ranking your goals, please let us know.  We are here to help!

Michael Allen, CPA

Allen & Company, PC

(770) 428-6229 (T)

(770) 425-5481 (F)

mallen@allenandcompanypc.com

www.allenandcompanypc.com

michael.robert.allen (Skype)

Allen & Company, PC  - a CPA firm serving Kennesaw, Marietta, Acworth, Woodstock and north Atlanta.  Providing accounting, financial statement audit, taxation, and advisory services for individuals and businesses.  Extensive experience working with franchised quick service restaurants and other franchised businesses.