It’s hard to believe it’s been 13 years since we launched 2BigFeet.com. More than 13 years since we were brainstorming in a back office of Shorewood Packaging about building a website for guys who couldn’t find shoes in their size. I’ve spent more than 40% of my life, and virtually all of my adult life, working on and building this business.

It’s been an immensely gratifying experience for me, filled with both accomplishments and failures. In a lot of ways I’ve grown and become so much more experienced as a business owner and leader. And at the same time, I look back at the last 13 years and wonder why we haven’t grown more, why we haven’t been more successful. I look at all the mistakes I’ve made and wonder “what if.”

A lot of people reflect back at certain times of the year, often around New Years. I also tend to reevaluate myself and my goals for 2BigFeet at our anniversary. This year I’m taking a different approach. Rather than simply reflecting on all the good and the bad from the past year (or 13), I’m going to look at my goals for the past year for our business and see what we accomplished, what we failed to accomplish, and why.

I’m taking a moment to set some pretty lofty goals for the next year, and will hold myself accountable to those. To help me with accountability, I’m posting those goals here for everyone to see.

Goals From Last Year

Website Redesign

This didn’t happen, largely because it’s a big project and we just never took steps to move forward in time to have it completed well before Q4. This is a high-priority project for this year, because our current e-commerce system is aging and lacks important features we need to compete in the marketplace.

Implement Barcode System

Our warehouse design is somewhat archaic. We load each brand on shelves together, so when we add new products from a vendor, we have to shift products around to make them fit. Using a barcode system with row and shelf numbers would allow us to use any available space, and the system would tell warehouse employees where the product was located.

Setup Backup Server and Offsite Backup

There is no reason this hasn’t gotten done, and it’s both a high-priority and very important issue. It needs to be completed soon.

Goals for This Year

Delegate More Tasks

I truly believe the reason I didn’t accomplish a lot of my lofty goals from last year is that I get caught up in the mundane day-to-day tasks like taking product photography, dealing with customer issues, or updating software. To remedy that, I am going to document and delegate as many tasks as possible this year, freeing me up to work on the projects only I can do.

Optimize Online Marketing Campaigns

Our pay per click and remarketing campaigns are largely on autopilot, but with some work they could bring in more customers for less money. I am going to dedicate a little time every week to reviewing and optimizing our campaigns, with the goal to reduce our per-customer aquisition cost.

Plan & Execute Marketing Campaigns

We tend to get busy, then say “oh, it’s Spring, we need to send a newsletter!” We typically have sales around the same holidays, and send seasonal emails when new styles come in Spring and Fall. So why are we always throwing promotions together at the last minute? With a little planning, we can have promotions ready to go weeks ahead of time and even schedule them to be automated.

Holding Myself Accountable

My goals are out there for all to see now, so hopefully having them out here, in writing, will help keep me motivated to achieve them. It’s going to be a lot of work, but I know I can do it.

What are your goals? How do you go about planning and tracking them so you can accomplish them? Let me know in the comments.