The art of setting and celebrating goals

Just recently, RedBalloon celebrated the sale of one million RedBalloon experiences. At RedBalloon, one of our values is having fun, so you can imagine we took the opportunity to open some champagne.

Celebrating is important in business. Without goals, you don’t know how you’re going on your business journey. Celebrating the achievement of a milestone is important because it reminds you how far you’ve come and motivates you for the next stage.

It seems like yesterday that I launched RedBalloon (during the dotcom crash, no one can accuse me of not having an optimistic outlook) and waited (and waited) for two months and four days to sell our first experience.

Yet without the RedBalloon purpose – to change gifting in Australia forever – and our BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal) that 10% of the Australian population will have had a RedBalloon experience by 2015, I could so easily have lost hope and passion during those months.

When you start a business it is all about survival, sharing the story and engaging people in what you are up to. You do a lot of hoping (praying), and there is a lot of trial and error. You don’t know where you will end up, if anyone will ever visit your website, or even if you are going to make it as a business.

However, once you have your purpose defined, and know the numbers you need to meet each month to achieve your BHAG, it is much easier to stay focused. Your team know what they are there to do in the day and they are reminded of the bigger game they are playing.

It is amazing to see my dream today as a reality – especially creating such a vast and diverse community of suppliers, many of which are small businesses themselves who have achieved fabulous growth too. We’re on track to deliver on our BHAG by 2015, and we watch our monthly numbers, and innovate constantly to play a bigger game, so we can.

What are your experiences with celebrating and goal setting? I’d love to hear them.

Naomi Simson is considered one of Australia’s ‘Best Bosses’. She is an employee engagement advocate and practices what she preaches in her own business. RedBalloon has been named as one of only six Hewitt Best Employers in Australia and New Zealand for 2009 and awarded an engagement scorecard of over 90% two years in a row – the average in Australian businesses is 55%. RedBalloon has also been nominated by BRW as being in the top 10 Best Places to Work in Australia behind the likes of Google. One of Australia’s outstanding female entrepreneurs, Naomi regularly entertains as a passionate speaker inspiring people on employer branding, engagement and reward and recognition. Naomi writes a blog and is a published author – and has received many accolades and awards for the business she founded – RedBalloon.com.au.