Copyright 2005 Donna Gunter
The notion of doing a business retreat for myself is very new,
although not novel, as we used to conduct a retreat each year as
a part of both the Student Affairs staff and the Residence Life
staff at the college where I once worked. When I heard about
this same concept for self-employed business owners from Chris
Barrow of The Business Coaching Company,
http://www.thebusinesscoachingco.com, I thought, "Why am I not
doing that for myself?" Thus, my Annual Business Retreat was
born.
Here's how you can create this annual retreat experience for
yourself:
1. Book 3 days for your retreat on your calendar. Ideally,
you'll want to be in a location where you're not readily
accessible at a time of the year when you can devote serious
time to business planning and development. If you can't find 3
days together, at a minimum book 3 half-day slots that you can
devote to this activity.
2. Isolate yourself from the distractions of life. My initial
retreat experience involved staying with a friend in her guest
home about 10 miles out of town. She lives in the mountains, so
my cell phone didn't work, and the house wasn't wired for phone
service, so that meant no phone calls and no Internet surfing.
My friend and her husband worked all week and drove their cars
to work, so I had no way to escape, as my friend's house is very
rural and there's nothing to escape to within walking distance.
Forcing myself into isolation left me with little choice than to
work on my retreat materials.
3. Do your work in a serene environment. I have fond memories of
last year's retreat experience -- sitting out on the back deck
with a moderate temperature and low humidity, and the breeze was
gently blowing the trees of the woodsy area I faced. There were
no people passing by, no cars on the road -- just me and nature
and my computer. It was perfect. I took breaks as I needed them
during the day.
4. Be willing to go in an unexpected direction. At the beginning
of the process, ask yourself some hard questions during your
retreat. My favorite is, "What kind of business do you truly
want?" Answer this question as though money is no object, using
your best assets and skills with none of your perceived
weaknesses or liabilities, incorporating the best of what you
also want in your personal life. The answer you receive may
surprise you, and will serve as a great jumping off point to
begin writing your business vision.
5. Write your three-year vision. This statement shouldn't be a
vision in which you expect to accomplish everything in the next
36 months. Instead, think of it as a rolling vision, or
something you'll continue to work on and revise at a minimum
each year at your retreat. Expect it to evolve and change, as
most visions do, but at least you'll have some idea of what
direction you're headed.
6. Be willing to acknowledge all that was good, bad, and ugly
about your business and your life in the past year. Hiding from
the truth, even if you're only hiding it from yourself, won't do
you or your business any good. It was my experience in writing
about what I didn't like during the past year and what didn't
work so well for me that led me to the place of creating my
ideal day/week/year and gave me the information about how to
structure that new vision for myself.
7. Create your 90-Day Goals List. After you've mapped out a
3-year vision for yourself, you now need to translate the
upcoming year's vision into a set of measurable goals. The
easiest and most manageable way of doing this is to create a 90
Day Goals List. On this list, you take 7 categories: Business,
Financial, Family, Social, Physical, Intellectual, and
Spiritual, and create 3 goals for each category. Do this every
quarter, and put the task on your calendar on the first day of
every quarter (Jan. 1, April 1, July 1, and October 1) so that
it becomes a habit.
8. Plan your finances for the upcoming year. On your retreat
take your financial records -- your Excel spreadsheets or
Quickbooks or Quicken files -- so that you know your financial
standing. Note your expected personal and business expenditures
for the upcoming year, along with things you'd like to do and
items you'd like to purchase, and then plan your income, or how
you're planning on paying for your expenses.
9. Map out your entire year on your calendar. Based on your
vision and financial goals, you'll craft your upcoming year's
calendar in terms of vacation time, travel, other kinds of rest
days, profit-generating days with clients, and business
development days. I did this for the first time for 2004, and
it's made all the difference in keeping me focused!
10. Be patient. As I began this process last year, my thoughts
and my direction and my work on this vision were just not
"wowing" me--I was having a hard time dredging up any enthusiasm
about where I had been in my business and where I was going. I
continued to plod along regardless, doing my writing and
completing my tasks, hoping that at some point I'd have a
breakthrough that I could get really excited about. Everything
finally jelled with me late in the third day, when I resurrected
an idea I'd had several years ago but wasn't quite sure what to
do with it, yet it seemed to match perfectly and pull together
all of these disjointed ideas I had. Had I not remained patient
and vowed to continue to move forward with the process, I
wouldn't have found the direction and motivation that I needed.
An annual business retreat is the most powerful thing I've ever
done for my business and it gave me clarity of intention for my
life and business like nothing else I've ever done. Knowing
where I'm going and how I'm going to get there and developing
the financial picture of that plan was extraordinarily
empowering. Don't delay in creating this this process for your
business!
About the author:
Online Business Coach Donna Gunter helps self-employed
professionals make more profit in less time online. To sign up
for more FREE tips like these and claim your FREE ebook,
TurboCharge Your Productivity: 50 + Tools To Help You Automate
Your Business and Make More Profit in Less Time Online!, visit
her site at
http://www.OnlineBizCoachingCompany.com .
