Planning for 2015

12 January 2015, 11:19 am
Speciality Bites by Paul Hargreaves

I am currently in San Francisco at the Winter Fancy Food Fair, which is not only giving me an opportunity to see what is new in the American and International food world, but also some time to catch up, reflect on 2014 and plan for 2015, after a rather hectic few weeks before Christmas

Even more manic than normal as I also got married at Christmas!  So now the honeymoon is over and 2015 begins.

In fact, I made a strategic decision before Christmas, that will have a huge impact on my 2015 and allow me to concentrate on the areas of the business that I enjoy and am good at, rather than areas which I can do, but could do better.  So I appointed a Managing Director for Cotswold Fayre, who will be the boss of every department within the business, except product selection, marketing and selling, which I will be involved in more.  This will allow the business to keep on growing whereas if I had remained spending too much time within the day-to-day running of the business, this would not have happened.

A huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders, and I am more excited about this year than any before, as we now have a strong management team at Cotswold Fayre with the right people doing the right jobs.  How often do you end up doing someone else’s job I wonder, which prevents you doing the tasks and activities you are better at than anyone else within your business?  If I know SMEs as I think I do, the answer is, “quite often”.

This quieter time of year, January and February, is a good time to make decisions about our food businesses.  Don’t just carry on with what you were doing last year, even if last year was great.  If your business is growing then you will need to change something, and assuming you want your business to grow, if it is not growing you need to change something.  Get out there, talk to other people with more experience and ask advise.  What can you lose, you don’t need to take it.  But make some decisions, don’t stand still in 2015.

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