Most financial advice starts with the numbers. We start somewhere else: with you. It's your business and a large part of your life – and a plan that ignores how you want to live rarely survives more than a season.
The dream three years out
Take a walk, ideally with the person you run the business with, and talk about how it looks in three years if everything has gone well. Not what's realistic – what you wish for. Four things to talk about:
- The place. Where are you? What does it look like?
- The business. What do you do all day? Which products, which customers?
- The context. What collaborations and networks are around you?
- The achievements. What are you proud of?
Write it down straight afterwards, without editing. It's your measuring stick: everything else in this module is measured against this picture.
Your economic ambition
Here comes the question that decides everything else – and there are two ways to answer. Some have a figure: this is what I need to take out each month, this is the turnover I want. Others have a feeling, and that works just as well:
- Full-time – the business should support me and my family.
- Part-time – a complement to other work.
- Project – a defined push over a period.
- Exploration – I'm testing, without pressure for it to carry yet.
There's no right answer. But there is a wrong one: never choosing. Without an ambition you can't tell whether the business is succeeding – you only know that you're tired.
Build around the life, not the other way round
The producers who last longest have usually done the same thing: built the business around the life they want, not around what one "ought" to do. That can mean fixed menus and a set number of guests instead of always being open. It can mean fewer products, but well considered, and season as a deliberate strategy instead of a year of steady exhaustion. And it can mean growing slowly, with the right people, instead of fast.
Choosing not to do something isn't failure. It's deciding.
Do this next
Book a walk this week. Talk through the dream and put words to your ambition – a figure or a feeling. Write it down while you still remember it, anywhere – a notepad, a note on your phone. Next step: the three numbers you need.