After five years of sprinting, the team at Floricane is settling in for the long haul. In the coming year, our small team is focused on seven simple goals – our version of a short-term strategic plan.
In the past, I went into a cave for a few days at the end of the year – or my living room at three in the morning – and tried to write an essay on all of the loose ends and unresolved opportunities that Floricane needed to address in the year ahead. I’d emerge, wave it around at my team for a few days and life would get busy.
We warn our clients about people like me.
Floricane’s 2014 plan emerged earlier this year – in September – over lunch with Caroline, our events and marketing manager. An hour-long discussion about social media turned into a small list of ideas about what was important to the business. We came back to the office and used our trademark Sharpies® to capture the ideas on a large sheet of paper.
Our plan evolved over several team meetings until we all agreed that our four goals were the right goals for Floricane. In our year-end meetings, we’ve each mapped out our own individual game plan to help move each goal forward in 2014.
Here’s a look at our business goals for the year:
- Our marketing has the right energy: We’re proud of our brand, and its energy, and the way people tell us it is received, and perceived, in the community. In 2014, we’re rebuilding almost everything from the ground up – our website, our social media presence, our printed materials. It needs to be true to who Floricane is becoming.
- We’re partnering and connecting for impact: As we grow and get busier, it gets harder to whimsically throw together random, cool events with random, cool organizations that we love. But we don’t want to stop. Whether it’s the small business unconference, Tilted, or an amazing leadership conference, we want to do great things with great people.
- Our events are amazing: When people take time out of their busy schedules to learn with us, they should have remarkable experiences. The communications, the look and the feel, the content and the learning – it all has to resonate, and astound.
- We all do business development: Floricane is now a business of five talented people. Each of us have different communities, and different gifts. Letting the world see Floricane through all 10 of our eyes only helps our business.
- We work to make our best work better: We do good work. We can do better work. By strengthening our collaboration, our processes and our tool kits, we make it more likely that our clients will get great results.
- We maintain and strengthen relationships: The heart of our business? We care about the people and the organizations we touch, and who touch us. Staying connected, and connecting without expectation of return, matters deeply to us.
- We are experts: Sharpening our saws, and strengthening our ability to deliver quality results, can’t be left to chance. Each member of our team will be spending 10% of their time learning in 2014.
We’re excited about the year ahead. Having a plan to help us be better at what we do adds to that excitement.