Back of the Envelope & GOALS by Keri Cusson

On June 26 we met Jay Lanagan and Dolores Hirschmann.

Jay led us through the back of the envelope exercise. I loved it. The back of the envelope exercise helps you dream big! By working out most situations, you can choose which one will satisfy you and your needs. I’ve done this for my own business ideas and to get an idea of how others are doing business. When I was younger, neighborhood kids and I created a “landscape and house cleaning” (air quotes because we knew little about either but we sure tried!). We would figure how many houses we’d need to service in order to buy the thing we wanted, usually candy or coolatas.

Overhead, COGS, Gross Profit, Net Profit, Expenses and Market Rates were all defined while Jay helped us differentiate what these mean for service businesses and those selling products.

Dolores was awesome! She was captivating, positive, and real. She led us through her proprietary goal writing process and SMART goal writing. She broke this process down step by step. First starting with bigger goals/visions, then quarterly, monthly, weekly and finally smaller daily tasks. For visual learners and do-ers, writing goals down can pull them out of the swirling vortex of your entrepreneurial brain and see them in real life, leading to real results.

Dolores asked us to write 3 goals for the next day. I felt so motivated after this class I went home and completed 2 that night!

Great class overall and we took away useful strategies to work smarter, not harder

;)