2017 Business Resolutions by the Numbers

Time seems to be going faster and faster these days with little ones and definitive markers as they grow, become more independent and achieve new milestones.  It seems like just a few months ago that we moved into our house and I was writing my business resolutions post for 2016.  But here we are and it's actually a year later.

Let's see how we did in 2016.  My goals for the year were to launch two new lines of hardware, focus on marketing and PR, up my social media presence, and increase my sales by 50%.  Well, I think I actually came close to hitting all of those goals.  I launched one new line - the Reveal Series this year. I came close to launching two. The new stepped series took a little longer to develop and will be coming out in about a month!  I did focus a lot on marketing and PR as well. I hired a publicist and really got out there - meeting folks at trade shows, getting to know designers and even winning an industry award. I learned a lot about my product and myself in the process and have a much clearer vision of my company as a result.  I still have a ways to go on social media (doesn't everyone), but I created a Nest Studio Instagram account in March and to-date (not even a year later) have over 1800 followers.  As far as growth, I actually grew the company 59% this year and exceeded my 50% growth goal. Yeehaw!  I also achieved some other milestones that I didn't event set as goals. I hired my third employee making us a team of four moms, and I joined the Accelerator group at EO (Entrepreneur's Organization) which I have already learned so much from

My business resolutions for 2017 are much more numbers oriented and defined (perhaps due to my EO group).  Here they are:

Increase my revenue by 59%.  This may appear to be random number, but a 59% growth rate puts us at 10x our revenue in just 5 years. That is huge. And I hit that number last year so I don't see why it can't happen this year.  Increasing revenue means increasing sales - duh. And I have to do that by adding showrooms, making my existing showroom orders larger and more frequent, increasing my product offering, and growing awareness of my brand and products among our target market.  Hence the rest of the resolutions below.

Get to 10K Instagram followers by the end of the year.  This means 200 followers per week.  I realize that for some people 10K is not a huge number when it comes to Instagram followers but with the ability of Instagram to really target who I am reaching I feel like that it is both a significant number of people who will then know my product and also a doable number by the end of the year.

Sign on 12 new showrooms.  This means one new showroom per month. We have realized that interior designers are really our bread and butter and while more designers are sourcing and buying online, it's still hard to replace the showroom experience where you can see a lot of products in one place and in person.  Showrooms make up a large percentage of our sales (albeit the margins are lower) and there are certainly gaps in the markets that we have covered. We would like to fill in those gaps and see our product shown more widely around the country and internationally.

Launch 5 new lines.  As I mentioned the deco-inspired Step Series is coming out in a month.  Next up is our super-versatile Mod Series (which I can't wait to use in my own kitchen).  I'm also super excited to launch a ceramic hardware series in collaboration with Jonathan Castro Designs. After that our Angled Series (which will pair nicely with our Facets and Classic), and our Organic Series.  We also have a couple of other items we are working on which may or may not happen this year: another one-off piece similar to our Ram's Head pull but this time a peacock, and collaborations with a wood artist and jewelry designer.  Lots of things going - which is good given how long prototyping and production takes.

Get into published in 3 shelter magazines.  This is the PR side of our business. Sadly, 2016 didn't see much in the way of publications (despite the publicist), but I'm hopeful that with new editorial contacts, and lots of new launches we will get some great press coverage in 2017.

That's about it.  I have some other projects I'm working on (like applying for and hopefully winning the Tory Burch Foundation Grant).  What do you have in the works business wise for 2017?  It's going to be an exciting year!