Celebrating Milestones – Business Growth

In June of 2018, Global Exclusive Movers’ Network (GEM) sold its first membership. We felt overjoyed and excited that our first member trusted us enough to take a leap of faith, before we had any other members! It was confirmation that we were selling a valuable product. Of course the product had value to us, but to have a stranger agree was thrilling! The
enthusiasm and energy in the office was electric. Now, a year later and each sale is still celebrated and exciting, but doesn’t capture the same feeling as the first.
The most important milestones are in the first years of your business. It’s okay if you don’t know your first sale, look through your records and find it. At GEM, we celebrated the company launch, the first membership sold, the first issue of the network magazine, and the day we started a waiting list for cities already taken by other members. Celebrating these small victories quiets the negative voice in your head that is constantly trying to drag you down, the voice that focuses on rejections and failures (which every business has). This can cause de-motivation, not only for you, but your employees as well. This has a direct affect on productivity and eventually customers. Why would you want to work with a company that seems unhappy and beat down?
Everyone starts at the bottom and works their way to the top. Your customers will respect and appreciate seeing your company milestones. It shows that even the most successful, still started from nothing and celebrate their first, small,
seemingly insignificant (but actually giant) accomplishments. Celebrating milestones builds morale within the company. Business owners are ambitious, so we move on to new goals quickly and forget to acknowledge our accomplishments. Celebrating helps you, as the owner, remember why you do your job every day. It rejuvenates you to accomplish the next milestone and avoid burnout. If you simply keep plowing through your goals, but don’t look back at all of the wonderful things you have achieved, then you will eventually feel burnout. If you remember how much effort, stress, and worry went into that first goal, then it makes other objectives seem so much easier. Feeling the elation you had in that first goal will get you addicted to accomplishing more!
How do you celebrate milestones effectively? It is important to keep the momentum alive, but how do you recapture a feeling? This is so important for the success of your company.
• Facebook is an excellent tool for remembering anniversaries and milestones. It will remind you of the feeling each year and it will show your clients these important accomplishments for your business.
• Use the milestone in your advertisements, notices, and even newsletters (or monthly member magazine ☺ ).
• Have something physical that will remind you of your
celebration. Buy something that whenever you use it or wear it, it will remind you of achieving your goal and it will motivate you to accomplish more targets within your business.
• Celebrate with your staff. Do something special to get them as fired up as you were to achieve this goal. Get them to look forward to this day of remembrance. Don’t only celebrate things in the first year of your company, keep adding milestones: the first 100 likes on your Facebook page, your 100th move, your new fleet of vehicles, the first time you make five figures, six figures, and hopefully seven figures. Now, let’s all pop a bottle of champagne and celebrate
one year of GEM!
Written by: Matthew O’Hagan