What Business Goals Have you Set For Yourself? Why? Have you Met Them?

[landphieran]

A little background on the source of the question:

I have "ran my business" for about 1.5 years. Prior to that it was mostly a hobby to help pay for college. I was buying more than selling, using my salary to build up a nice stash. Last year I decided to get serious. Registered a business, switched everything to business accounts etc. I started "selling like crazy" and went from my normal sub 20K sales to my first six figure sales year. This year I'm on track to grow another 400-500%. Great....?! 

At this point I don't know if I'm doing well or as well as i could be... (I'm not searching for affirmation). I still have my 40 hour career. I try to find time to prepare some shipments and perpetually have stacks of inventory in my place. I target inventory that makes me 5-10$ per unit and can be sent to Amazon in boxes of 50+ units. I aggressively buy items with minimal research, as compared to my Lego research of the past.

I have lost touch with what I used to love about selling. Making a big sales on something that I heavily researched and profiting from those decisions. Selling has become more of a chore that I am emotionally detached from. I realized that the selling game for me was always about the challenge and not the money.

This brings me to my goals :
1. More accurately track my time and profits for things that I'm selling. Use this to be more discerning with purchases. Invest in what I'm doing.
2. Research tools and ways to save time and stress. (Better accounting methodologies, scanners, tablets for scanning and prep etc.)
3. Make a plan/research what it would take to do this full time. Prepare for the lifestyle change. Set revenue goals and average profit percentages, work towards them. 
4. Enjoy the cash money. Develop a better work/life balance. Travel.

 

I'm interested to hear in what other sellers set as goals. Do you do this as a primary way of living? Are you more invested in it emotionally? Did you hire people or share the experience with a partner? How did your experience and perception of "the game" change as your business grew? What keeps you going? What is your approach?

 

[waddamon]

Good questions.  For me it is investment and is compared to what else I can do with my money.  I buy much less now and way less of the big exclusives.  For the risk involved I have to do better than my other investments.  I want to spend as little time as possible, so 5 bucks on a set doesn't do it for me.  After expenses I am over 105% ror with stuff that has been held between 1-2 years.  I like that.  Converting those profits into other investments as big lego opportunity has reduced in my opinion.  So many good new sets too, its a shame really.

[oneknightr]

I think my post belongs more in the Getting Out of the Game thread but here it goes. I'm small time. Was buying and selling to self fund my Lego hobby/addiction. Now it's more about time. I'd rather be spending time with my two kids and my wife instead of packing and shipping Lego sets. I still have a decent stash left but I haven't bought anything to resell in about a year. The space it takes to store sets also wore me down. My inventory spilled out of my storage room and into my bonus room and my wife didn't take it too well. Happy wife, happy life. 

[Victorymike18]

I'll offer my thoughts as it comes at a (seemingly) interesting time:   I have been selling casually on Bricklink over the past few years as a way to make a little "fun" money and do something productive in the evenings.   In January 2017 I decided to push harder on Bricklink and move towards parting out new sets (more predictable and repeatable) vs. cleaning up Craigslist lots and selling used pieces.   I was building up steam, increasing my monthly sales & buying up more inventory and then we bought a new (to us) house that needed a lot of work...   I closed my store and packed it for the move around July, and have been too busy to build my work area and unpack / reopen.

Now as things settle down I'm here getting back into the mindset of finishing my work area and opening and I am seeing threads about people divesting from Lego for all sorts of reasons...

So to answer your question, my plan is to reopen my (small) Bricklink store and keep parting out the sets that I've purchased (for that purpose) in Q1-Q2 of this year.    If my BL sales pick up to what I experienced before I moved, then I'll continue investing cautiously and try to grow...   If not, then I'll have to re-evaluate.

It's an interesting time for me, because I was about 99% out of the loop for the past ~6 months and just getting back.

Edited October 30, 2017 by Victorymike18