I have written on a number of occasions about a new type of networking that imbraces the great outdoors whilst building relationships with a great group of people – Metwalking.
So far the walks have generally concentrated around the Bristol area – such as the one below around Porteshead harbour – and Metwalking has confined itself to just the walks.
However, world domination is afoot! There is now a Metwalking website membership scheme, which means members can take part in sounding boards, to promote their businesses and take advantage of special offers.
Members can also run walks themselves under the Metwalking banner so they are publicised by the Metwalking team. Louise Mcmilan and I are exited to announce a new Somerset based group. The first walk is on 25th September at Cheddar.
So if you want to see what it is all about why not join us?
I have written about goal setting on a number of occasions because it definitely makes my life easier, when I am doing business planning with a client, if they are very clear what their personal goals are.
As a business owner any funds needed to achieve personal goals will often need to be generated from the business. So understanding how much is needed, and when, can make it much easier to set the business goals that will deliver against these personal goals.
Someone who has certainly helped me to dig deep and properly think through my personal goals is Andrew Stinchcomb – my partner of the month.
Andrew has a great tool – the financial road map – for helping clients to understand what is important to them in life. This leads to a greater understanding of their goals and subsequently to what funds are needed to meet those goals.
For my husband and I, once we have helped finance our two sons through university, a key goal is to be able to take a year out and go camper vanning around Europe for a year.
The roadmap process highlighted quite quickly that Jeff’s idea of the camper van we were talking about, and my idea were quite different, which was quite amusing. But naturally we settled on what we needed to budget for as somewhere between the two.
Once we had a clear idea of what money we needed to have to make all our plans a reality, it was much easier for me to focus my business so I contributed my part.
We meet up with Andrew on an annual basis to check that everything is on track and he has some wonderful graphs that show how we are progressing.
I must say it is very reasurring to see that our retirement is sorted and we will have enough for our camper van, and other, goals.
The more I work with businesses of all sizes the more convinced I am that good planning is the key to success – and goals are a key driver of good planning.
And the more I work with owner managed businesses the more convinced I am that having clear personal goals is vital to drawing up meaningful business goals.
So, if you are not sure what your personal goals are I recommend that you spend some time with a goal based financial planner.
