I wanted to take a moment to set some goals for 2017 for what I want Eric Miller Animation to accomplish. I feel it’s important to write down my goals at the beginning of each year and constantly review them as priorities change. You can see how I did with my 2016 goals in my previous post “Report Card for 2016 Resolutions.” Here are my goals for 2017.
New Bink short:
It would be an understatement to say that progress at Bink is slow. It’s always been in the background while we work on other projects. I also need to make sure I have enough money coming from client projects to pay for work on Bink. This situation has caused our progress to be much slower than I expected. We are currently working on a 3-4 minute Bink short and my goal for this year is to finish it. The main issues right now are getting the skin to work properly for lighting and ensuring a great story.
Growth Team:
This year is about new relationships for me. I will spend a lot of my time meeting talented people in the industry and finding ways to work together. I would love to build a great team of very talented people who are ready to take on any new challenge that comes our way. My goal is to attract more people to help grow the company. They could be producers who help attract more clients, directors or creative directors to take creative leadership of our projects, or advisors who can guide me with their wisdom and experience.
New Clients:
We have had 5 clients that we have worked with since I started the business in July 2014. I would love to continue working with these clients on new projects and would also like to attract additional clients. The first few years have focused on getting things ready, but this year I’m really looking forward to taking off. I will set a very ambitious goal of 5 new clients in 2017. I believe that with the momentum we ended last year with, this is an achievable goal.
Be profitable in 2017:
In fact, I’m surprised that I was able to keep the company profitable considering that most companies can expect to lose money in the first few years. So far, the only year I wasn’t profitable was 2015, and that was because we were working on Bink Teaser.
In my business 1 project could be the difference between a profitable year or a loss. I am not selling widgets to consumers where it is about promoting the product. My business is more about building relationships with my clients and I hope that when they have animation work they think of Eric Miller Animation Studios.
While the business has been profitable, I have yet to receive a paycheck. I have kept money in the business to help it grow. My goal for 2017 is for us to make enough profit so that I can receive a reasonable annual salary while still having money left over to grow the business.
Increase followers on social networks:
Growing our social networks is important to me for several reasons. I want to be able to share all the wonderful things we are working on and I would also love to increase our chances of finding those new clients. I believe that social media is a very profitable way to market our services to grow the business. While the quality of our followers is more important, it is somewhat difficult to track. I will set a goal to grow all of our social media accounts by 50%.
Increasing each network by 50% will be as follows:
Facebook: 4829 -> 7,243
Twitter: 1033 -> 1,550
LinkedIn: 233 -> 350
Google+: 23 -> 35
Instagram: 697 -> 1,046
Youtube: 282 -> 423
Well, these are some of the general goals I have for this year. I hope to not only achieve these goals, but go beyond them. I hope everyone has a great and successful 2017!
If you haven’t already, join me on my journey by subscribing to my blog. Also, if you have any ideas or tips, I’d love to hear what you have to say, so feel free to leave me any comments below. Otherwise, be sure to stay connected with me on Twitter (@MillerAnimation). Only time will tell.