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KB MARKET INTELLIGENCE www.images-magazine.com 116 images JANUARY 2019 of purpose and direction should go a bit deeper than the books. The ultimate end to this evaluation should be a concrete vision of what you would like your business to become, to be known for, to achieve beyond simply surviving. In the short term, simple goals can be worthwhile, but having and expressing an overarching purpose can help you maintain focus and motivate your team to push for progress. If you are having trouble with purpose, take some time to think about a customer and community perspective: what place does my shop have in the lives of those who patronise it? What roles does it fulfil in my community and where does it fit in the larger community of embroiderers and decorators? What role would I like it to take? Who would I like it to serve? What would this version of my shop look like, what would it be doing in a year, how would that play out and where would it be in five years? Take time to form a picture of this version of your shop; though we all know that plans change and you will likely refine your vision, simply having a target and a purpose in mind can help us break free of running our shops in the moment-to-moment, wholly reactive mode that robs us of perspective. With a long-term vision defined, we can engage in a little mental time- travel to define immediate goals. Imagine looking back from this same seasonal dip next year: what would you like to record as your company‘s accomplishments for the year? How will your embroidery shop have grown? What will you be doing at that time that you aren‘t doing now? Once you have a picture of that progress in your mind, rewrite these imagined observations as goals, listing the first steps you believe will get you closer to each. At this stage, you will finally get closer to simple direct actions; if your goal is to be the local shop that can take on large jobs that your production capacity made you turn away in the last year, it may be time to evaluate how and if additional equipment or partnerships might allow you to profitably produce those larger orders. If your goal is to have the most efficient and satisfied workers and you find your operators constantly frustrated and searching for supplies or always pacing from place to place, it may be time to re- evaluate the production floor layout and examine the flow of goods and supplies through your shop. Even large and seemingly ‘fuzzy‘ goals like becoming a beloved local fixture or giving back to your community start with connecting with people, planning for a fundraiser or participating in a Erich Campbell is an award-winning digitiser, embroidery columnist and educator, with 18 years’ experience both in production and the management of e-commerce properties. He is the partner relationship manager for DecoNetwork in the USA. www.erichcampbell.com All image courtesy of the author single event. If you find that, even with your goals in place, you can‘t conceive of the first actionable steps, stop and make a list of people who might help you in your particular aim and make your first step to contact them and do additional research. Set reasonable dates for the completion of your first steps and stick with them; try to execute at least one step before business usually starts to ramp up to give you a quick victory and momentum on which you can build. Recharge and recommit Whether you choose to revise or revolutionise your business plans, take this moment to recharge and recommit to your business. Make regular appointments to check in on yourself and your goals; don‘t let another year pass by before you take stock. Like one stitch follows another to become the beautiful decorations you provide to your customer, each concept, each step, each simple task builds to become the future of your business. With some forethought now, and many daily choices to move forward in the near future, you can make something equally impressive to look back on at this time next year. I‘ve always advocated taking notes on the production floor so that you don‘t miss the birth of a new technique or forget that possible improvement you imagined or potential product revelation. The same tactic goes for capturing concepts for marketing and for working on the direction and purpose of your business. On those times you are evaluating and working in the business, never be far from somewhere to take notes. My old low-tech way was to cart around these composition books, and I still think that writing makes ideas stick better than typing, but I‘ve graduated to using voice assistants to take notes into cloud-based apps so that they are searchable and can be ‘recalled‘ anywhere. Sometimes just a topic idea is enough to make it easier to create content for your business later in the year Content management systems like WordPress, shown here, allow you to create and pre-schedule posts for release at a specific time and date. During downtime, you can write and schedule posts to fill out your content calendar. Address the festivals and seasonal sports openings and weather related-wardrobe changes for a topical trail of content