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Top 10 Steps to Creating a Successful Business Retreat for

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Copyright 2005 Donna Gunter

The notion of doing a business retreat for myself is very new,

although not novel, as we used to conduct a retreat each year as

a part of both the Student Affairs staff and the Residence Life

staff at the college where I once worked. When I heard about

this same concept for self-employed business owners from Chris

Barrow of The Business Coaching Company,

http://www.thebusinesscoachingco.com, I thought, "Why am I not

doing that for myself?" Thus, my Annual Business Retreat was

born.

Here's how you can create this annual retreat experience for

yourself:

1. Book 3 days for your retreat on your calendar. Ideally,

you'll want to be in a location where you're not readily

accessible at a time of the year when you can devote serious

time to business planning and development. If you can't find 3

days together, at a minimum book 3 half-day slots that you can

devote to this activity.

2. Isolate yourself from the distractions of life. My initial

retreat experience involved staying with a friend in her guest

home about 10 miles out of town. She lives in the mountains, so

my cell phone didn't work, and the house wasn't wired for phone

service, so that meant no phone calls and no Internet surfing.

My friend and her husband worked all week and drove their cars

to work, so I had no way to escape, as my friend's house is very

rural and there's nothing to escape to within walking distance.

Forcing myself into isolation left me with little choice than to

work on my retreat materials.

3. Do your work in a serene environment. I have fond memories of

last year's retreat experience -- sitting out on the back deck

with a moderate temperature and low humidity, and the breeze was

gently blowing the trees of the woodsy area I faced. There were

no people passing by, no cars on the road -- just me and nature

and my computer. It was perfect. I took breaks as I needed them

during the day.

4. Be willing to go in an unexpected direction. At the beginning

of the process, ask yourself some hard questions during your

retreat. My favorite is, "What kind of business do you truly

want?" Answer this question as though money is no object, using

your best assets and skills with none of your perceived

weaknesses or liabilities, incorporating the best of what you

also want in your personal life. The answer you receive may

surprise you, and will serve as a great jumping off point to

begin writing your business vision.

5. Write your three-year vision. This statement shouldn't be a

vision in which you expect to accomplish everything in the next

36 months. Instead, think of it as a rolling vision, or

something you'll continue to work on and revise at a minimum

each year at your retreat. Expect it to evolve and change, as

most visions do, but at least you'll have some idea of what

direction you're headed.

6. Be willing to acknowledge all that was good, bad, and ugly

about your business and your life in the past year. Hiding from

the truth, even if you're only hiding it from yourself, won't do

you or your business any good. It was my experience in writing

about what I didn't like during the past year and what didn't

work so well for me that led me to the place of creating my

ideal day/week/year and gave me the information about how to

structure that new vision for myself.

7. Create your 90-Day Goals List. After you've mapped out a

3-year vision for yourself, you now need to translate the

upcoming year's vision into a set of measurable goals. The

easiest and most manageable way of doing this is to create a 90

Day Goals List. On this list, you take 7 categories: Business,

Financial, Family, Social, Physical, Intellectual, and

Spiritual, and create 3 goals for each category. Do this every

quarter, and put the task on your calendar on the first day of

every quarter (Jan. 1, April 1, July 1, and October 1) so that

it becomes a habit.

8. Plan your finances for the upcoming year. On your retreat

take your financial records -- your Excel spreadsheets or

Quickbooks or Quicken files -- so that you know your financial

standing. Note your expected personal and business expenditures

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for the upcoming year, along with things you'd like to do and

items you'd like to purchase, and then plan your income, or how

you're planning on paying for your expenses.

9. Map out your entire year on your calendar. Based on your

vision and financial goals, you'll craft your upcoming year's

calendar in terms of vacation time, travel, other kinds of rest

days, profit-generating days with clients, and business

development days. I did this for the first time for 2004, and

it's made all the difference in keeping me focused!

10. Be patient. As I began this process last year, my thoughts

and my direction and my work on this vision were just not

"wowing" me--I was having a hard time dredging up any enthusiasm

about where I had been in my business and where I was going. I

continued to plod along regardless, doing my writing and

completing my tasks, hoping that at some point I'd have a

breakthrough that I could get really excited about. Everything

finally jelled with me late in the third day, when I resurrected

an idea I'd had several years ago but wasn't quite sure what to

do with it, yet it seemed to match perfectly and pull together

all of these disjointed ideas I had. Had I not remained patient

and vowed to continue to move forward with the process, I

wouldn't have found the direction and motivation that I needed.

An annual business retreat is the most powerful thing I've ever

done for my business and it gave me clarity of intention for my

life and business like nothing else I've ever done. Knowing

where I'm going and how I'm going to get there and developing

the financial picture of that plan was extraordinarily

empowering. Don't delay in creating this this process for your

business!

About the author:

Online Business Coach Donna Gunter helps self-employed

professionals make more profit in less time online. To sign up

for more FREE tips like these and claim your FREE ebook,

TurboCharge Your Productivity: 50 + Tools To Help You Automate

Your Business and Make More Profit in Less Time Online!, visit

her site at http://www.OnlineBizCoachingCompany.com .