Where do you hope to be in 1 year/ 5 years?

[Andrew]

As far as your business is concerned, where do you hope it will be in 1 year / 5 years time? If you are a hobby printer do you have any plans to progress beyond the current level?

Just wondering how people see the industry and what opportunities are seen out there? Do many have set goals or business plans?

[bassqee]

Being able to provide my clients with to notch products to go along with my top notch photography

[mrs maggot]

Andrew, would it not be worth you starting the post off yourself with where you are now and where you want to be ???

[Andrew]

Now you've got me there Laura as I rarely put information on forums about exactly what we do. It's hard to explain why but I never have done. It was just a general question to try and stimulate a bit of conversation and see what peoples aspirations are in the print world.

As a very vague answer (a full answer would take a very long post), double turnover/ output in the next 12 months is the plan. More or less achieved 50% increase this past 12 months and have a large workload stacking up currently to move forward. The last 12 months has seen a lot of changes in the structure to the business which is why it should be better primed for higher growth this coming 12 months. Haven't thought about 5 years down the road at this stage as to realistically where we will be.

[Justin]

Pretty impressive year there Andrew and great aspirations for the future! Even more impressive in the current climate :-)Will be interesting to see what folks intentions are as I've been looking at this myself recently.

[Renniwano]

I have been in business for the last five years as a hobby (although done through the correct channels lol and still done self assessments etc).. gone from manufacturing polymer craft stamps, to vinyl work and now sublimation..

I completely stopped the stamps once Taiwan etc got involved as they can produce stamps a hell of a lot cheaper and people don't seem to care that their quality sucked.. so now stick with my vinyl and subbing..

This year have decided to take this on as my part time business.. and hope to now stop it being a hobby.. so my aim for this year is to simple.. and I would be happy for my business to start funding itself..

[mrs maggot]

Andrew ever thought of running for a politicians job with that answer

work full time (this is my job) get very frustrated with the number of people who do it as a second income without telling HMRC and view every £4 mug sold as £4 profit. we struggle at the moment with the high cost of fuel as we travel a fair bit to shows, along with a business unit, business insurance, van etc it all adds up, but we are still standing, and enjoying beans on toast (occasionally buttered) things will get tighter before they get easier, which means for us, more people using it as a second income - so its a vicious circle. re-investment is never ending, even buying quality equipment repairs are still needed, and this year website needs major overhaul but will hopefully see increase in sales.

[Andrew]

Andrew ever thought of running for a politicians job with that answer QUOTE]

lol I know. It goes against the grain to give out specifics on forums for me. It is quite complicated to give a full run down though.

The fuel costs did stop me going on the road so much as well and where I used to jump in the car and drive 200 miles for a meeting without thinking before I don't like driving 20 miles these days. What does annoy me on this is that whilst the cost of motoring has gone up a huge amount the mileage allowance is only now increasing after years of staying still and nowhere near at the same rate as the true costs.

Renniwanno - it's always a hard step trying to take it that step further and create a business. The first couple of years trying to establish yourself are usually the hardest and if you get through that and do things right then it starts to become worthwhile after the initial slog.

Hats off to anyone who does have a proper crack at it though.

[bigj2552]

Where do you hope to be in 1 year/ 5 years?

hopefully still breathing and active enough to be making money from either business - thats a good start for anyone :biggrin:

[Renniwano]

get very frustrated with the number of people who do it as a second income without telling HMRC and view every £4 mug sold as £4 profit.

I agree.. I see many of these though end up selling up within six months because they haven't factored in any true running costs.. but the new rules with the HMRC looks like even those selling on the likes of Ebay will be scrutinised this year.. and rightly so..