Earlier I discussed how I am making some changes in how I set goals for 2010.  I’m trying to make my goals with very compelling outcomes, I’m creating specific action plans and I am going public with them.  In that spirit I am sharing my goals in three categories (Personal, Business and Health) over the next few days.  These are my Business Goals for 2010.

1. Put my Ideas “out there” more in 2010
April 1, 2010 will mark the start my 10th year at Anchor Advisors; ten years of serving growing small businesses.  During that time there are some ideas that have proven to be true with client after client.  I want to write those down and get them out into the marketplace.  In part I want to do this because it will attract clients with problems that I know how to solve.  But I also feel like these issues are largely solved for me.  If I can write these things down and send them out to the market, there will be more of an opportunity to learn new things, and deal with new problems.

How I’ll do that:

1. Book in the Market by 3/31: I spent significant time last year creating a draft of a book.  My goal last year was to have it out by 12/1/09.  When I got the book all together in November it was clear that it needed at least one more re-write before it could go to production.  That re-write was completed last week.  There may be more tweaking required, but I’m planning to have it in production later this month and be out in the market well before the 3/31 due date.
2. 12 Speaking Opportunities: In 2009 I had a blast speaking to a variety of audiences, from trade shows to Vistage groups.  It’s great to interact with business owners who know their business and care about making it better.  They are the best audience you could ask for.  I want to do more of that in 2010.  I have booked two speaking engagements already for 2010 and want to keep a pace of about one a month.
3. 125 Blog Posts (2.5 per week): In order to get better at expressing these ideas, I need practice expressing them.  This blog is one way that I can write, and write and write, until I get really good at it.  Sorry that you have to be my guinea pigs, but in return you get to see my new ideas first!

2. Explore different ways of offering our services.
I have used primarily a model of providing services under a fixed monthly fee to my clients.  This works great for smaller companies (think $1M – $10M) who value having a resource that they can count on and a bill that is predicable and manageable.  However, larger companies ($10M – $100M) are more comfortable buying projects with defined end-points and deliverables.  I believe that our services can be effective in these larger companies, but I don’t have as much experience with this delivery model.  In 2009 I  added a new team member who does.  My goal is to do 2 projects in this fashion by 6/1/10 and evaluate at that point what is working/not working.

3. Demonstrate sales growth over our high of 2008.
2009 was a down year for Anchor Advisors, Ltd. We had a strong start, and finish to the year, but the middle of the year was quite soft.  This afforded me some downtime to work on the book, but I am looking forward to being really busy again.  I love seeing companies grow and create great jobs for people to make a difference.  I don’t care if the economy stinks, we need those kind of jobs in good healthy businesses.  I am looking to bounce back from that and reach sales levels and profits that exceed the year we had in 2008.

I welcome any ideas or resources that you know of that can further help me achieve these goals in 2010.

You can see my Personal and Health goals as well.

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Brad Farris is a small business advisor with Anchor Advisors, Ltd. in Chicago, Il. Since 2001 Anchor Advisors has been helping creative professional firms to grow, by helping them clarify their purpose, get the most from their people, keep their eye on key performance measures, and implement consistent processes.