Top 10 Steps to Creating a Successful Business Retreat for Self-Employed
Entrepreneurs
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,
I thought, "Why am I not doing that for myself?" Thus, my Annual Business
Retreat was born.
Here's what I'm doing to prepare (again) for my annual retreat:
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!
(c) 2009 Donna Gunter
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