Instead of thinking outside the box, get rid of the box.
-Deepak Chopra
There are a little less than 2 weeks left in January, so I thought it would be a good idea to review my goals for this month and see if I'm on target and what I need to work on for the next week. January is really about setting up the foundation for success in my business this year. Developing good work habits and scheduling consistent marketing/sales tasks were the main focuses for me this month. While I was working full-time along with running my jewelry business, I didn't set strict measurable goals for myself because it was always easy to fall back on the 'real' job. I made goals in my head, but didn't write them down - if they went by the wayside, no one knew (except me and I wasn't telling anyone!).
The goals I set for January were:
- Sales goal of 50% more than last January.
- Right now I'm on target with my sales goals. I'm seeing a definite increase from last year!
- Design and list 15 new products.
- I've listed 10 new products this month so far. I'm well on track to meeting this goal.
- Start an Instagram account by mid-month and start posting pictures.
- My account is created and a few pictures have been posted. I'm not posting every day, but with Instagram, less is better than too often. I'm going to go easy on myself with this social media venue.
- Post 4-5 pins on Pinterest each day (only 1 per day for jewelry).
- Except for the weekends, I've been fairly consistent with this one. I enjoy Pinterest and I'm definitely starting to see an increase in followers and re-pins. I'm also seeing traffic from Pinterest to my Etsy site.
- Create YouTube channel and have 2 videos up by end of month.
- My channel is created. I expect to create my first video this week.
- Update my website with new pictures and new font. Update list of stores carrying my products.
- Still on the list. :-)
- Meet with someone new every week. The idea is to facilitate new business contacts and generate business either in the short term or long term.
- In the first 2 weeks, I met with two people. One resulted in a great wholesale order. The other was a meeting with a fellow Wink member about showcasing my jewelry at some of her events.
- I still need to mark my calendar this month with 2 more meetings.
- Post to my Facebook page every day and run 2 ads by the end of the month.
- I haven't been posting on weekends, so I need to step it up on this goal.
- I've decided not to run 2 ads this month. The first ad did well for the first week and then dropped down to almost nothing the last 3 days.
- I ended up with 58 new likes (53 in the first 7 days).
- I had a budget of $20.00 and spent $14.80.
- Since the number of likes dwindled down in the last week, that tells me that there is no need to run ads frequently at this point. In February I plan on trying the 'Boost Post' feature to see how that goes.
- To see my post about the facebook ad I ran: Day 7 - Facebook Ads
All in all, I feel good about my progress. Most of my goals for this month are the type that won't show results in the short term but are designed to create a stronger brand presence for me in the long term.
