2014 Business Goals

Hello friends, customers and casual readers,

I have enjoyed a lovely few days off with my family  and am now ready to turn my attention to 2014 which looks like being an exciting year indeed!

I don’t know about you but I love spending the ‘gap’ between Christmas and New Year thinking about what I have done, what I can do better and what I plan to do in the year ahead. I have just finished doing that for my personal life – you may like to take a look or it may bore you to tears, I don’t mind – and now feel that it is time to give the business a good once-over.

My consulting business will be turning six in a couple of weeks which is something to celebrate!  As anyone in business will know, the early days of running your own are less ‘show me the money’ and more ‘pass the valium’. I don’t know how many nights I’ve woke up in a cold sweat because of something I should have, could have, wanted to do but didn’t/ couldn’t or decided I wouldn’t and then there are the money worries, it never ends………  But it looks like those early teething problems are behind me and while I am not silly enough to say that I can now sit back and relax I can at least think about investing in the future rather than defending my dream. That feels good.

So, what is coming next.

Well,  one of the highlights for 2013 was the touring that I did with my good friends at New Directions.  They are one of my long-term consulting clients and I have had the pleasure of manning their technical help desk for the last three years.  2013 was the year that the help desk came to you and I really look forward to doing that again.  So far it looks like we will be heading to Melbourne and Adelaide with the possibility of Brisbane, Perth and maybe even Malaysia thrown in – both myself and New Directions have a sizeable client base over there.

Another joint New Directions project that I am excited about is our ‘How To’ videos which will be an ongoing project for 2014.  We are currently working on the first batch of 10 and hope to have them live by mid January.  The videos will demonstrate how to use various pieces of equipment, how to handle different materials and even how to create simple blends and formulations.  If you have any good ideas along these lines please send them in!

Outside of that I am expanding my Stability Protocol service by investing in some new equipment later in the year to test for humidity. This was trialled in 2013 and proved to be invaluable for clients going into the Asian market and it will also help me to expand my own research into product stability and help me trouble shoot for private clients.  Stability testing is becoming more and more important for my Australian clients as they recognise the need to improve their standards and procedures to keep pace with what is happening in Europe.

Another personal goal of mine in 2014 is to follow the material trail from bush to balm by visiting some of our local and interstate farming communities that produce the extracts, honey and essential oils that we know and love.   I want to ensure that I keep in touch with the ingredients that I use on a grass-roots level and understand their growing conditions, history and current areas of research to ensure I can offer my clients the best solutions for their formulations.  If I can work out how to use my whizz bang new digital video camera I might even make a mini documentary out of that (AKA a you tube clip…..).  We will see.

Last but not least is our branding focus and the website launch. This has been dragging on a little bit now as I keep getting too busy with ‘hands-on’ work and can’t find the time to complete what I’ve started but I must. My plan is still to format some of the referenced research I have done and pop it onto the web site for downloading for a small fee. This research and starter formulations should compliment the you tube ‘how to’ videos and the articles on my blog and fill the gap that exists between that level of support and my one-on-one services which not everyone can afford (I am very expensive after all).

So that’s the plan!

I don’t know how much I will get done in 2014 but as I tell all of my clients, that isn’t the measure. The measure is in doing whatever you do well and in how much you enjoyed doing it.

So without further ado I’m going to have a cup of tea and enjoy counting down the two sleeps before it all kicks off again.

Happy New Year beautiful ones.

Amanda x