A more positive start to the year
When I blogged yesterday I think I was feeling a bit disparaged by what I’d discovered in our finances. It’s certainly not all bad but let’s say there’s definitely room for improvement. I often get frustrated by the feeling that we’re not moving forward – I work incredibly hard but the business can feel like it’s just standing still.
However, later on after a bit more thought (and a small glass of whisky which may have helped) my fighting spirit kicked in and I decided that 2009 is going to be the year that we turn things around. So there! I know what I want to achieve and have the beginnings of how I’m going to achieve it, so it’s now just a case of knuckling down and doing it.
I think my motto for the next few months will have to be “don’t be afraid of a bit of hard work”. Is it possible for me to work harder than I was already doing? Let’s see, shall we?
New year, new me?
I suspect not. Still the same Emily, still dreaming of running a successful business and having a comfortable lifestyle. After a month of no blogging I’m back determined to post regularly – I’m not going to promise every day but at least a couple of times a week.
We’ve actually been having quite a long break over the Christmas period. We stopped work on the 19th December and are opening for business again on the 5th January. And, miraculously, I’ve mostly managed to keep away from work. Hopefully this will mean that I’ll have lots of energy for the coming weeks.
Over the last couple of days I’ve been easing myself back into a work frame of mind by updating our accounts and reviewing our incomings and outgoings for this financial year. I’ve found some good things and some not so good things. We’re getting to the point where we really need to start taking more money out of the business, but unfortunately things aren’t looking too brilliant on that front. So, the next few months are going to be all about turning things around and seriously improving our turnover. Could be interesting…
A motivated weekend
I’ve got a good dose of motivation this weekend – feeling full of energy and enthusiasm. Maybe not the best thing if I was hoping for a chilled-out relaxed weekend, but great for tackling some business planning. In fact I got up nice and early this morning to have a head-start on it.
What am I planning? What we can do to start bringing in more money. I honestly didn’t go into business to make huge amounts of dosh, I’d be more than happy with a comfortable income that allows us to keep on top of the mortgage, buy the occasional book/dvd/computer game and have an occasional meal out. Not much to ask is it? Well, the truth is we haven’t quite achieved that yet. Don’t get me wrong, I’m really happy with the progress the business has made over the last couple of years – I thought at this point we’d still be relying on part-time jobs but instead both of us are working full time on the business, which is great. However, our financial situation is a bit pathetic. I’d say we’re just about ‘getting by’.
So, the ultimate aim of my business planning is to make more money. We’ve had a few ideas of things we can try out but with the day-to-day running of the business it’s difficult to find the time to focus on them. Well, I guess that’s what evenings and weekends are for… Using the framework set out in Steve Parks’ Start Your Business Week by Week I’m going to set aside one evening a week and one day a weekend to do some ‘business planning’. Although our business is up and running it will be an interesting exercise to treat our plans for business improvement as if it was a new business. Will see how it goes!
