What is the point of running your shop?

No seriously. Most of us got into this business because we enjoy creating. Making something that solves someone’s needs while generating a profit. I personally loved building software at Printavo and helping shop owners grow with Fabric.

But over time, I got entrenched in the day-to-day minutia of getting jobs done. Getting orders out the door, solving people’s problems, and handling customer service.

I repeated and re-rinsed that cycle until the year is over. I knew I wanted to grow Printavo, but I didn’t know what exactly that meant. More people? More customers? More revenue? Sounds great, but what does it really mean to me, my time, and my take-home pay.

I started asking myself and others in the same spot, what’s the higher-level goal of dedicating so much time and energy to your shop? What’s the longer-term goal?

I believe it’s about two things:

1. Personal Financial Stability

The first north star is to generate enough profits to take care of you as the owner and your family, comfortably. The keywords here is, comfortably. Take what you personally spend annually and add at least 50-100% to it.

You want to be able to eat out when you’d like, take vacations when you want, and live without having to think about expenses so much.

This will allow you to feel financially free and remove a lot of weight off your shoulders.

2. Control of Time

The second north star is not having to be in the shop every day.

Can I leave early on a Wednesday? Skip out Friday afternoon? Take a week vacation?

This is physically hard because we’re addicted to being in the center of everything. We “just” do tasks constantly.

But like any talent, running marathons, being a great spouse, or playing guitar, it takes time to develop a new skill.

You got from 0 to 1 by being THE person that does everything. That phase is over. Phase 2 is beginning and we have to unlearn being in the weeds. It’s about being more intentional about time.

If you love being the shop, more power to you! This north star is about your ability to choose how you want to spend your time, not letting the business choose for you.

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I hope this helps start to proactively think about where you’re going.

The most important part is thinking backwards into these goals. What does your shop have to look like to hit these two goals? What’s the exact revenue, order mix, margins, and team size to fulfill these goals.

Next is to break this down into micro-steps to achieve. Fabric is here to help you crush those steps with our executive peer group coaching or you can go at it yourself.

Write it down, put it on the wall and let’s achieve it together!