The Impossible Dream

You have got to love Jane Maudsley – she sang us out at the Entrepreneurs Convention singing the Impossible Dream – as her tribute to all us entrepreneurs. Watch the video here. We were all welling up – a very special moment – and what a voice!

It got me to thinking. What is an impossible dream? I mean, where’s the break between ambitious and impossible.

Everyone who knows my business plan, knows of the £40m turnover by 2017. Not a lot of people know I set that in 2012 when my business only had 2 sites and less than a £1m turnover. So from £1m to £40m in 5 years. Impossible right?

Well no actually – and its 2014 it is still in progress and, to be frank, there’s been a bit of a time lag this year in our franchise rollouts and their progress. But we will close our financial year in May on £5m. So that’s 500% growth in 3 years. That means I am betting on 800% over the following two years. Impossible right?

I know of some other ‘impossible’ targets knocking about at present. The Entrepreneurs Circle is looking increase their member turnover by £1bn. Impossible? Actually their goal – that looks as seemingly impossible as mine – is backed by one very simple thing. Planning AND simple maths.

For me I wanted to build a network of 40 sites, to turnover individually £1m from scratch to liberate UK business from crappy couriers. The minimum sales per month was to be an achievable £2k per month – so it would take them approximately 3 years. 40 sites. £2k a month accruing turnover. 36 months. That equals £40m. All of a sudden £40m look s achievable.

So I guess what I am saying is what would have looked like an impossible goal to me 5 years ago, looks straight forward now. Get 40 people to do what I was doing and its done. For the EC its 10000 businesses with 100000k growth – and their £1bn is done. Not so impossible after all.

If you had to have an impossible dream for your business what would it be. Taking your £100k to £1m maybe? Or your income from 6 to 7 figures. Start with where you want to be – and chunk it down into manageable bites and all of a sudden it looks so much easier, doesn’t it. There’s loads more of this in my new planning book JFDI which is out now.

And what is really amazing is that when you start on your journey, you start to see how straight forward it is, then you can let your ambition run wild. You see we have had to review our targets. Upwards. So not so impossible after all! Have an amazing week.

Watch Jane Maudsley’s video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POWD2gyjGeI

Author: Kate Lester