E214: 2018 Goals Review

 It’s goals time. Before I go into this year’s list, revisiting the 18 goals I’ve set up for myself and my company is definitely a must. These were meant to be BHAGS (Big Hairy Audacious Goals) for myself personally and for the company. And in this podcast, we’re going through each of them of them - the ones we achieved, the ones we didn’t, and the ones where we got halfway. Before reading through this latest and final goals update, here are the links to all the previous ones to get you up to speed. E109: My 2018 Goals E134: 2018 Goals Quarterly Review E162: 2018 Goals – The Half-Way Mark E193: 2018 Goals – The Home Stretch 2018 was a mix of ups and downs. While there were many challenges, there were plenty of wins as well. We may not have reached our target revenue due to a number of factors but we were still able to grow by 40% and start the year with a healthy cash balance. So, here goes. 1. Develop 50 new products We were on our way to hit this but current market conditions made it necessary to change course and put a halt on more product development. We ended up with over 25 new products instead of 50. 2. Launch on Amazon Canada, UK, Germany, France, Italy, and eventually, Australia We did this but it did not go nearly as well as we thought. We will continue doing this as everything’s already set up. If we sent that time doing something else, we probably could have yielded more from our business. 3. Optimize our Amazon listings to increase sales by 50% We did this for all of our tops listings. We’ve put in the effort to bring our listings to the next level by having better photography. We’ve yet to find out if we did achieve a 50% sales increase. 4. Improve PPC This is a huge win. We lowered our ACOS down to 7% and saving 5-figures a month. It has really helped our net margins. We’ll definitely be doing more with this to take full advantage of Amazon PPC’s new features. 5. Implement the concepts in the book Traction in our business Another win. We got the company better organized and have everybody be on the same page.  6. Reach $10 million in revenue with a 10% net profit We threw out the $10 million goal because the growth we projected that would help us reach this number was tied to launching new products and sales coming in Amazon Canada. In the end, we made 6 million dollars, a 40% increase from the year before. 7. Lose 12 lbs I achieved this at one point but the holidays happened so by the end of the year, I was down 10 lbs. 8. Record 100 episodes of the podcast Another goal achieved. For 2019, I’m thinking along the lines of 75 because I want to do some more journalistic type pieces, which will generally take more time to do. 9. Launch a new version of ecomcrew.com We did this early in the year with major help from David Couillard. Dave’s also been improving the content on the website. 10. Launch 4 new courses Ended the year with 5 courses. 11. Hike 80 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail I was not able to do this in March. However, I did some other hiking though. The most significant one being a hike to Mammoth Lakes. 12. Take an epic 2-week vacation We accumulatively accomplished this by taking a few days off at different times during the year. 13. Visit the Philippines office at least once We did this and we’ll be doing it again this year in April. This time for a full two weeks. 14. Read a book a quarter This is done too. I read Traction, Ready Player One, Not Dead Yet (Phil Collins’s autobiography), and The One Thing. 15. Handoff my Facebook ads to other people within the company I had already done this. Unfortunately, the person I handed the job to left the company. 16. Come up with at least one new tactic that no one else is doing We came up with a free downloadable calendar for Colorit but it feels more like a cop-out because we are using the same process and strategies to create a new product. 17. Never lose sight of the bigger picture: create 5-star products that people will truly love and continue to enjoy what I’m doing I think we’re on track with this. We have certainly done the products part and I also believe that our employees enjoy coming to work. However, I’m a little bit worried about myself because we’re past the exciting stage of starting a business. In 2019, I will certainly be focusing on coming up with ways to remain inspired. Want to ask us anything in real time? Do not miss our live Q&A; webinar on the last Tuesday of the month, January 29 at 10 AM PST. Register here. Registration to EcomCrew Premium is closed indefinitely. But, you can still learn from us through our suite of free courses. You’ll find a total of 20 videos covering ecommerce topics like Importing from China and Building a 7-Figure Business. Finally, if you enjoyed listening and think this episode has been useful to you, please take a moment to leave us a review on iTunes. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them below. Happy selling!